CHAPTER XXII.

TEN RED GRAINS.

"Yes! in an hour like this, 'twere vain to hide
The heart so long and so severely tried:
Still to thy name that heart hath fondly thrilled,
But sterner duties called and were fulfilled."
                                                                                        MRS. HEMANS.

Prior to his departure for Balmerino, and immediately on his leaving the palace, the learned apothegar visited the king's advocate.

The town house of Sir Adam Otterburn, the Redhall Lodging, as it was named and as we have before stated, stood upon the south side of the Canongate, and near to the eastern end thereof.

At the present day the south side of this venerable street, the memories of which go back to the days of St. David I., and the glories of Earl Randolph and Ramsay of Dalhousie, is still somewhat straggling, irregular, and open; in 1537 it was much more so. The houses were then detached, surrounded by gardens, and even parks; for there were several barnyards in the Canongate, some of which were destroyed by cannonading during the siege of 1573.

The severe plagues of 1514 and 1520, which followed the slaughter of Flodden, swept away many of the citizens, whose houses were demolished to remove all chance of lingering infection; thus the mansion of Redhall was remarkably solitary. A ruined and desolate barn-yard lay to the westward; and a grass park, shaded by many beautiful sycamores, extended on the east nearly to the foot of the alley known as the Horsewynd.

It was a strong square five-storied house, with walls of enormous thickness; its crow-stepped gable and one vast chimney studded with oyster-shells faced the street; at each corner was a square corbelled turret, from the tops of which, in wet weather, two stone spouts disgorged the rain-water without mercy on the passengers. To the street, the windows were few, small, and, according to the Scottish custom, secured with rusty iron gratings. The first and second stories were vaulted with solid stone, and stone slabs covered the roof. Externally the edifice was destitute of ornament; but, strong as rock, it would have withstood a salvo of cannon-balls; and was one of the most perfect specimens of the old Scottish house existing, before the introduction of the more florid French style. Studded with iron, the small door was deeply recessed in the wall, and protected by four loopholes, splayed without and within, to admit of a wide range for arrows or arquebuses; while it was further secured by a tranverse beam of oak, which superseded all necessity for locks or bolts.

A fortnight had now elapsed since the night on which the earl and his sister had been carried off; yet in all that time Redhall had been totally incapable of prosecuting his schemes either of love or vengeance; for that fortunate sword-thrust which he had received from the hand of Vipont, together with the fever produced by his own furious and boiling passions, had bound him down to a sick bed, from which, however, by the care or quackery of the learned John of Silvermills, he was now fast recovering.

Pale, careworn, and feverish in aspect, a day in the beginning of June saw him again seated at his writing-table, immersed in his masses of correspondence, his mysterious portfolios, which were full of strange memorandums in ciphers and Latin contractions, which none could read, save himself and the cardinal. His trusty rascal, Birrel, who was always at hand, and ready for everything, from cleaning his master's boots to cleaving his enemies' heads with a Jethart staff, was in attendance as usual, when our acquaintance of the preceding chapter was announced, and Birrel, starting from Sir Adam's chair, where he had been in close confab, drew back the arras.

"God save you, Sir Adam Otterburn," said the learned John, stroking his long beard according to his invariable custom; "how—again at thy pen, despite mine earnest injunction?"

"Business of the State—fiend take it! I must attend now, for a mountain of matter hath accumulated here."

"Ah," said the physician, setting down his sand-glass and fixing his keen eyes thereon, while his bony fingers were applied to the pulse of Redhall's left hand—"Ah! thy pulse is very irregular—thy nerves are burning. Now, nothing affects the nerves so much as intense thought, and by thine eyes I see thou hast been thinking intensely. By this, the vital motions are hurt, the functions disordered, the whole frame unhinged. Thou must continue to take my potion night and morning."

"What! more of thy diabolical drench?"

"How, Sir Adam! Dost thou so defame my prescription, which I have compounded from the identical recipe left by that worshipful clerk, John of Gaddesden, the worthy author of the 'Rosa Anglica,' the possessor of that valuable necklace which when drawn tight cured all manner of fits."

"Ah, my friend, Sanders Screw hath another which doth the very same."

"Indeed! thou amazest me," said the physician, resting his bearded chin on his staff. "John of Gaddesden's collar was an anodyne necklace, and had the word abracadabra written thereon."

"But the collar of Carle Sanders is only a stout cord," said the advocate, with a sardonic grin.

"I blush, Sir Adam, that thou shouldst name this vile worm in the same breath with John of Gaddesden," said the physician, indignantly, as he arose and grasped his sand-glass; "a man whose virtues shone bright as the rays of Acarnan—the star of Eridanus. Ah! he was a fortunate man, that John of Gaddesden; he was born when Astroarch, queen of the planets, was shining in all her glory in Abdevinam—the head of the twelfth mansion; while I, unhappy! was born, as I have discovered by the aid of my new astrolabe, on a night of storms."

"Thou hast brought back my poniard, I hope?"

"It is here," replied the visitor, taking a dagger from his belt; "the contents of this cause death within two hours after they are taken."

"Two hours?"

"He who imbibes them," he continued, in a low voice, "falleth down senseless, lifeless, and dies without a groan—suddenly as if shot with a hand-gun. Sir Michael Scott had this secret of a learned clerk at Salamanca, whither he rode in one night, and ere daybreak was again at his castle of Balwearie."

"There is a powder, too—zounds! I had well nigh forgot it: 'the sleeping powder.'"

"'Tis here," replied the physician, taking a packet from the pocket that hung at his girdle; "this was first prepared for a caliph of the East, by Geber, the learned Arabian astrologer, who flourished in the eighth century, and whose three works on chemistry were published at Strasbourg seventeen years ago, that is, in 1520."

"Hand it hither: thou weariest me; for, by St. Grisel! all thy messes seem to be compounded by devils and philosophers."

"Thou still appliest my Unguentum Armarium?"

"Regularly," replied the advocate, resuming impatiently the writing at which he had been interrupted.

"And thy wound?"

"Is almost closed, thank God!"

"Good—good," muttered the physician to himself; "I knew well that my ointment, compounded of the ashes of that written charm, brayed with those of the dried Zusalzef of the Arabians, would cure the deadliest wound; 'tis a potent fruit, for it ripens in the sun, and the sun acts upon the heart, the source of life."

"I would fain see some of this wonderful fruit."

"I have one in my pouch—behold!"

"'S life! 'tis but a common prune!"

"The prune of the unlettered is the Zusalzef of Geber and Paracelsus; but farewell, Sir Adam, I go; and omit not to continue the potion and the Unguentum Armarium."

"Devil go with thee for a plague," muttered the advocate, as he seemingly bowed with courtesy, and became again immersed in his writing.

Nichol Birrel again approached.

"And this was all thou hadst to tell me?" said Redhall; "that no tidings had arrived from Douglasdale; and that, in short, neither Vipont nor young Balquhan had come to blows with any of the Douglas faction."

"Exactly sae, my lord."

"And that they spent their time in hunting and hawking, with free inquartering for horse and man, wherever it pleased them to halt."

"Just sae," replied Birrel, with an obsequious nod.

"Thou knowest the lands of my kinsman, Fleming of the Cairntable, whose bounds they are approaching?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Then take a good horse, and ride for your life and death; and take with thee these three-hundred groats of the fleur-de-lys to pay thy way. Tell my kinsman Fleming, that I wish this viper, this Vipont I mean, should take up his last abode in Douglasdale."

"In the kirkyard thereof?"

"Yes, yes; set them by the ears if thou canst; I will see Fleming skaithless, even though he resists the royal banner; but either by fair means or foul, keep Vipont from returning here. Dost thou see this poniard which the apothegar hath just left? observe me, and observe narrowly."

He unscrewed the pommel, and showed Birrel that the steel knob, which was hollow, contained several large red grains.

"Each of these grains," said he, carefully rescrewing it, "is a human life; there are ten, and Sir Roland Vipont hath but one life; take it in thy belt to Douglasdale, for they may prove useful if the blade fails. One word ere thou goest: how is the Lady Seton this morning?"

"Composed and quiet, as weel she may be, after the girning and graning of a fortnight."

"Tib, thy niece, Tib Trotter, from Redhall, still attends her with care, and Dobbie keeps watch?"

"Like a deerhound, my lord; and I forewarned Tib that the lady she was to attend was a puir demented and brain-braised creature, that would tell her a' kind o' queer stories about you, Sir Adam—stories o' whilk, on peril of her life, she was to tak nae heed; and I said that death would be as nothing to her doom, if the daft lady (whom I call a kins-woman of your ain, frae the north countrie) fled; and as puir Tib is mair frightened for you than for the devil himself, she scarcely sleeps for fear that her charge escapes."

"And Dobbie?"

"Considers her a State prisoner awaiting a private precognition."

"Good—I will ere long requit this trust, and amply too; meantime, away thou for Douglasdale: remember all my instructions; and now give me thy thumb on them, that thou wilt be for ever my firm man and true."

"Sir Adam! Sir Adam!" said the pricker, presenting his thumb reproachfully, "surely this was na' needed frae me."

But the cautious baron ratified their despicable compact by that mysterious pressure of thumbs, without which no bargain in Scotland, either for good or for evil, was ever held binding.*

* See Note.

During this conversation, Redhall had never ceased writing with the utmost rapidity, that he might lose no time; but the moment Birrel retired to prepare for his embassy, he closed his portfolio, and stepped into the little dressing closet which opened off the study or library.

He examined his face with scrupulous accuracy, and a foppishness at which he smiled, as if in contempt of himself. With some concern he observed, that confinement and his wound had rendered his features paler and more haggard than ever. That wound! Every time he thought of it, and of the blood, the pain, and anxiety it had cost him, he ground his teeth vengefully; but after arranging his long dark hair, and carefully pointing and perfuming his handsome beard and moustaches, he concluded there were many worse looking men in the city. Although his nether man was cased in sad-coloured hosen, he put on a full-skirted doublet of blue velvet, with loose hanging sleeves and a broad rolling collar of ermine; he wore diamond-studded ruffs at his wrists, a vest with sleeves of cloth-of-gold, and the collar of his shirt, which was pinched and embroidered with red silk and gold thread, was spread over the ermine. His sword was sheathed in crimson velvet, his poniard sparkled with jewels, and he was perfumed to excess, for it was the fashion of age.

Tall and stately, pale and dark, his aspect was alike magnificent and impressive; as thus deliberately prepared with a foppery of which he could not have believed himself capable, he took his way for the first time toward the chamber of his fair prisoner.

He felt that his step was feeble as he walked; the room swam around him; and ever and anon an admonitory twinge shot through his wounded shoulder.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE FIRST VISIT.

"Ah! false and cruel fortune! foul despite!
    While others triumph, I am drowned in woe.
And can it be that I such treasure slight?
    And can I then my weary life forego?
No! let me die; 'twere happiness above
A longer life, if I must cease to love."—Orlando Furioso.

Sunk in an abyss of deep and gloomy thoughts, Jane Seton sat at a window of the apartment which had been allotted to her, until Sir Adam Otterburn could have her removed to his house of Redhall, a strong square tower, situated on an eminence near the village of Hailes, a few miles south-west of Edinburgh.

This he intended to have done the moment he was able to ride; and nothing but his wound—"that accursed wound," as he called it—prevented the removal of the lady and her brother, on the very day succeeding their capture, to this lonely fortlet, which stood among thick woodlands above the Leith, and just where a modern mansion occupies the site of that more ancient Redhall which the soldiers of General Monk besieged and destroyed.

A stupid but good-natured country girl from his barony—one who stood in dread of Sir Adam, regarding him as a demi-god and superior being, rather than a mere man and master—attended Jane; and, considering her a poor deranged lady, had been most provokingly sympathetic, and inaccessible to bribes, to threats, and entreaties; while Dobbie, like a watchful bull-dog, sat always in a niche near the door, with a small barrel of ale to solace him, and a pack of cards, with which he practised tricks and sleight-of-hand against himself.

The walls were of enormous thickness, and the small windows were massively barred; the apartment was hung with rich cream-coloured arras, studded with gorgeous red flowers; the cornices, the chairs, the panelling of the doors and shutters were all profusely gilded; a gittern, an embroidery frame, a few black-letter books of poetry and romance, and a few vellum illuminations of Scripture, with various other things which might serve to wile away a lady's time, were scattered on the buffets and window-seats; while several boxes of the most splendid jewels which the art of Master Mossman could produce, stood most alluringly on the table, with their lids open, but all unnoticed.

The window at which Jane sat faced the south, but the line of venerable chesnut-trees obstructed the view of the Craigs and of St. Leonard's Hill. A grass park, some hundred yards in length, extended to the wall, which these trees overhung, together with a mass of ivy and wild roses. Ruined and deserted houses lay on the right and left; and thus, for fourteen days, had the poor girl sat at that window, without an hour's cessation, watching for a passenger to whom she might cry for succour; but though the chamber was lofty, the height of the surrounding wall, the thickness of the trees, and the loneliness of the path which passed under them, had prevented her from seeing a single person (though several passed that way daily), save the girl who attended her, and occasional glimpses of the indefatigable Dobbie, on guard outside; neither of whom could afford, even to her most piteous entreaties, a single word concerning the fate of her brother; why she was thus confined; or what had become of Sir Roland Vipont, for whose silence and inertness she could in no way account, unless that he was in a State prison for the wound which she understood he had given Redhall, whose consequent illness had agreeably accounted to her for his absence.

On the table lay fourteen notes, being those he had sent every morning, containing compliments, condolences, and entreaties to be forgiven for that rash act, to which the excess of his love, and the feverish dread of losing her, his hopes that she might yet learn to esteem him, and so forth, had driven him; but of these laborious epistles not one had been read, and the fourteen lay on the table unopened.

These fourteen days had soothed the first burst of her grief and anger; intense weariness and bitter impatience had succeeded: yet she could not but acknowledge that in all, save the loss of liberty, she was treated with the utmost delicacy, attention, and respect.

It was evening now—the evening of the fourteenth weary day, as she was reckoning, for the thousandth time, on her fingers; the sun was setting on the flinty brows of Salisbury; and the leaves of the trees, as they fluttered in the wind, seemed formed alternately of green and gold. A mass of verdure overhung the walls which surrounded the tall old mansion, the cold dewy shadow of which fell far to the south and eastward. Haggard in aspect, wearied with weeping, and though the month was June, benumbed and cold by want of rest, Jane, who for these fourteen days and nights had never dared to undress, or to avail herself of the luxurious couch provided for her, and who had never dared to sleep, save by snatches in an arm-chair, now turned with a wild, startled, and almost fierce expression of inquiry to Sir Adam Otterburn, as he entered; for never was there a face more admirably calculated to express the two very opposite aspects of mildness and disdain than hers.

"Proud, relentless, and pitiless woman!" thought this bold abductor, as he approached, "at last I have thee completely in my power—at my mercy, utterly!"

Lady Jane had risen full of anger and defiance, but there was an expression in the eyes of her admirer that terrified her; and feeling completely (as he had thought) at his mercy, she could only cling to her chair, and falter out—

"Oh, my God! Sir Adam Otterburn, what is the meaning of all this?—why am I imprisoned here?—and what seek you from me?"

"Pardon," said he, in his gentlest voice, and with clasped hand, bending his eyes on the ground—"pardon for this wrong, which the excess of love alone has committed."

"And why hast thou dared to do me this wrong?"

"I dare do anything, fair Jane, but excite your displeasure. For heaven's sake be composed. Oh, spare me your hatred, and look not so wildly. Think of the depth and of the ardour of my sentiments—the sincerity of my intentions towards you. Long, long have I borne this fatal love in my heart, as a secret—a secret to brood over, since those days when you so thoughtlessly permitted me to nourish it." Jane would have spoken, but he continued, sadly and energetically: "Amid the splendid pageants, the costly banquets, the stately mummeries of a court, and the dull tedium of public business, it has ever been in my heart, in my soul, and on my lips—this secret, which I would have given the world to muse over in some noiseless solitude, where nothing would dispel the bright illusions love raised within me. Ever among the crowds of the city, and the debates of the parliament, it came to me—a soft, low whisper of your name. I heard it only; and the voices of those around me became as a drowsy hum, and sounded as if afar off, for my whole soul was with thee. Oh, Lady Jane, this secret has been a part of my very being. Night after night I have prayed for you, and have laid my head on its pillow without consolation; day after day I have blessed you, on awaking to a world that was without hope for me, and yet I have lived, and loved, and lingered on. But pardon me—I am grieving you."

He paused on seeing that Jane, overcome either by her feelings or by exhaustion, had again punk into a chair. Her alarm subsided at the sound of his sad, solemn, and harmonious voice; and something of pity rose in her bosom, for she saw that he was indeed frightfully pale and careworn.

"My brother," said she; "and what hast thou dared to do with him?"

"Nothing, dear madam: he is safe."

"But where?"

"Below us."

"Below? Gracious me!" said Jane, breathlessly, as her horror and hatred revived; for she saw the cruel game about to be played by Redhall. "Wretch! and to coerce the miserable sister, thou holdest in thy guilty hands the life and death of the brother!"

"Nay, do not think me so base; warrants are out for the apprehension of the earl as a traitor, and nowhere is he safe save in the secresy of this abode, which, however, both you and he will soon change for the sunnier atmosphere of my country tower at Redhall."

Lady Jane's anger at the coolness with which this was intimated, prevented her making an immediate reply; but she looked all she felt, yet only for a time; there was again in the black eyes of Sir Adam that magnetic—that almost superhuman glance, which terrified her. She thought of her mother's legends of the "Evil Eye;" and unable to sustain the powerful gaze of this remarkable man, she paused, and her eyelids drooped, to be raised again with hesitation; for the basilisk expression of his eyes was no less singular than the melodious tone of his soft and modulated voice was pleasing and subduing.

"Lady Jane Seton, you cannot have forgotten our last meeting, and the interview to which I referred at Holyrood; that interview which occurred now nearly a long year ago, in the garden of the abbot. Do you still remember that soft moonlight night, and the tenor of our conversation—a conversation, to me, so full of hope, of joy, of tumult, and of giddy expectation. Ah, you did not then repel me with eyes of proud disdain, or words of studied scorn. That night, whenever I spoke, you were all earnestness, all smiles, and all attention."

"Because, Sir Adam—and I call Heaven to be my witness,—I knew not that your words meant more than the mere gallantry of a well-bred man when conversing with a pretty woman."

"This is mere coquetry," said he, emphatically; "but since that night I have been a dotard—a fool—the moon-gazing slave of an illusion. My God! on that night I could not believe in the excess of my joy, when I thought you were permitting me to love you: nor have I since been able to realize the full extent of my misery and suspense. Oh, I have been as one in a dream—a long and fearful dream; for in a dream we feel so much more acutely than when awake!" He paused; and, clasping his hands, continued again:

"Listen! I have a high office in the kingdom; my power is nearly equal to that of his eminense the cardinal. I am the grand inquisitor of the state, and the interrogator, the questioner, the torturer of all alleged criminals. I may throw the highest in the land into a dungeon, with or without a charge, if it suits my purpose or my fancy so to do; and I have at all times the ear of the king and his chancellor. Ponder over this, dear lady, for thou art the daughter of a fallen race. I have a noble estate, which ere long will be erected into an earldom——"

"On the ruin of my gallant brother's—hah!"

"On the ruin of none: but won honourably."

"I despise all earldoms that are not won as my forefathers' were, by the sword."

"There spoke thy mother's haughty spirit, lady, and I love it well; but if thou didst know, fully and sorrowfully as I do, the irreparable destruction which hovers over thee and thine—a destruction which I alone can avert—thou wouldst listen to my sad, my earnest, my honourable proposal, with more of patience, and less, perhaps, of petulance and pride."

"And I say unto thee, Adam Otterburn of Redhall, that if thou knewest the horror and repugnance with which a virtuous woman—one whose heart, in all its first freshness and the first flush of its feeling, is wholly with another—listens to the accents of love from any but the chosen of that heart, thou wouldst know what I endure in hearing these laboured addresses of thine."

Stung to the very soul by this studied reply, which was alike calculated to kindle his jealousy and extinguish his hopes, the face of that dark and stern man assumed a white and ghastly expression; his basilisk eye again terrified her, and she shrunk within herself.

"Impossible!" said he, as he grasped her arm, and a deadly smile curled his thin but finely-formed lips; "it is impossible that you, so pure in mind, so high in spirit, so accomplished and refined, can love this fop, this fool—this mere soldier, of whom you know so little. Your love for him is a mere childish fantasy, of which you are the victim. Ever brawling and fighting, this hair-brained cut-throat will probably never return from Douglasdale, whither he has marched on the king's service; but doubtless you think that this gay cavalier, this Vipont, with his tall plume and gilt armour, would make a much more romantic spouse than your most humble and more matter-of-fact serviteur."

Jane heard only one part of this rude sneer—that which informed her Roland was gone to Douglasdale. She felt consoled; his absence was thus accounted for.

"Ah, my gallant Vipont!" said she, unable to resist the ardour his name kindled within her, and the temptation to sting his enemy; "hadst thou been in Edinburgh, I had long since been free, avenged, and at my mother's side."

"'Tis time to put an end to this folly," said Redhall, gnashing his teeth. "Listen! Thy mother's side? Thy mother is a prisoner in the castle of Inchkeith; there in ward, under Hamilton of Barncleugh, charged with treason, and resetting the traitor her son."

"My mother! oh, my poor mother!" faltered Jane, clasping her hands.

"The same warrant included the arrest of you, lady, and of the unfortunate earl, your brother; but the people deem that thou and he are fled. But better were thou and he in the grave, than living to encounter all that fate has in store for you on falling into the hands of that government to which I can surrender you both in an hour!"

"My brother—who will dare to touch my brave brother?"

"Who?" replied Redhall, with one of those cutting smiles which sometimes exasperated even his best friends; "the worthy gentlemen who handled him so roughly a few nights ago."

"And what awaits him?"

"Can you ask me? The dungeon of the castle—the high court of parliament—the solemn sentence—the ignominious scaffold—the spiked head—the blighted name, and the torn banner; yet each and all of these I can avert, if—if——"

"What?"

"Thou wilt only try to love me!"

"Horrible! love thee? Oh, this is mere insanity!"

"I, who have done, can undo. I will restore him to his power at court, his coronet, his castles, and his baronies, to his seat in parliament, his offices of great cupbearer to the king and governor of Blackness; I will restore him to the world, to rank, to honour, yea, to life itself, I may say, for it is doubly forfeited, if thou wilt but love me. Thy mother, old, infirm, and broken in spirit by grief, by shame, and wounded pride, I will take from that lonely island prison, where she is exposed to so many severe degradations and privations, from the damp mists of the German Sea, and many other miseries that old age cannot long endure, and will restore her to her wonted place, as mistress of the household and first lady of the court, if thou wilt but love me. A hundred gallant knights of her father's house, with the great Angus himself, shall be restored to place, to power, to home, to happiness, and to honour, and the Hamiltons of Arran shall be subverted and exiled to Cadyow and Kinniel, even though I should unroll my own banner against them, if thou wilt only permit me to love thee in return. Still no reply! Think, lady, think of all I say, for these things are well worth pondering over. All these may be done by a word, but withhold that word, and they shall remain undone. Dost thou hear me, lady?"

"Yes; I have heard that thou who hast done can undo!"

"And thine answer?"

"Is—that I despise and abhor thee, from whom my kinsmen of Seton and Douglas have endured so much;" and she turned haughtily away.

"Be it so," said he, calmly but sternly. "Then, let banishment and proscription, the headsman's axe and the doomster's hand, hang over the lords and barons, the knights and adherents of Ashkirk and of Angus; let infamy and vengeance, destruction and death, dog them close, since thou hast abandoned them—thou who by a word could have saved them all. They are each but as puppets in my hands—puppets whose destiny I may lengthen or shorten as I choose, for the strings of their fate are in my power, and I will be merciless to them, as thou, Jane Seton, hast been this day to me!"

Jane trembled, and her heart swelled as if it would have burst; for she knew too bitterly the truth of all Sir Adam said, and she felt that, hated and bloodstained, cool, calculating, and detestable, as this man was, she could have sacrificed herself to his insane passion to save her mother, her brother, her family and kinsmen—for kindred blood was then a sacred tie in Scotland—but for Roland.

"Oh, Vipont! Vipont!" she sobbed, and buried her face in her hands; "my heart is sorely tempted to abandon thee—but in vain!"

Then Redhall, lest he might say more to widen the gulf between them, and with lover-like indecision repenting even what he had said, retired abruptly, and left her bathed in tears, and with a bosom full of the most clamorous anxiety and alarm, not for herself, but for her mother and the earl. To know that the former was a captive in the castle of the Inch, and that she, her only daughter, was not beside her to soothe and console her grief and pride; that her brother, too, was separated from her only by a stone wall; and that they were both prisoners in the midst of a dense population—but a few feet from a busy street, where so many strong hands and stout hearts might easily be summoned to their rescue—prisoners in the hands of one so deep and stern in purpose, so relentless in his vengeance, as Redhall,—caused her the most complicated emotions of agony and dread.

For the thousandth time she examined the bolted door, the tapestried walls, and the grated windows, for a means of escape, but found them all as before; and then, after once more failing by the offer of all her rings and brooches to overcome the inflexible integrity of Tib Trotter, hopeless and despairing, she knelt down to pray and to weep.

"Come hither, Tib," said Redhall to this niece of his trusty henchman, as he retired; "the young lady, my kinswoman, is I fear, seriously indisposed; put this powder in her milk posset to-night; but on peril of thy life neither allow her to see or know aught of it."

With a low curtsey, and a downcast glance of the deepest respect, Tib received the little packet, and Redhall hurried back to his writing chamber and his portfolios.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE KNIFE.

"Cunning is a crooked weapon; and nothing is more hurtful than when cunning men pass for wise."—BACON.

The Earl of Ashkirk occupied an apartment immediately below that of his sister; but one which was certainly of a very different aspect and description.

After their capture, it was not until daylight broke that he discovered he was only in the strong house of Redhall, scarcely a hundred yards from his own gate, and not (as he had first supposed) either in the towers of the castle or the Tolbooth of the city. In the scuffle preceding his capture he had been so severely handled, as to become insensible; thus, on sense returning, he found that, though the infamous gag (the thought of which made his fierce blood boil with wrath and shame) had been removed, as well as the cords which had secured his hands, his mouth had been severely cut by the iron tongue of the former, and his wrists wore swollen and livid by the merciless application of the latter.

The capture of his sister by Redhall, and the certainty that she too was confined in the same mansion among the trained minions and obsequious vassals of this arch conspirator, sufficiently informed him that his ancient enemy had some ulterior motive, which he could not at that time fathom. Daring as he was, and courageous to a fault, the first thoughts of the young earl were those of terror for his sister, and some little concern for himself. He now saw and regretted, unavailingly regretted, his rashness and folly, in venturing within the walls of Edinburgh at such a time, when the tidings of his recent raid on the borders were fresh in the minds of the people; and still more did he deplore his second folly, in continuing to abide there, as if in defiance of suspicion and of fate: thus selfishly compromising the safety of his dearest friends as well as his own.

"I must have been mad, and Vipont was worse than mad to permit me! Let me sleep if I can," thought he, "fresh energies will come with slumber; and I, who have escaped from English Norham, and from the castle of Stirling, too, where once old Barncleugh had me fast in the Douglas chamber, will surely find a passage from this house—or the devil's in it!—and adieu my plans of vengeance for a time."

And thus, acting upon principle, the light-hearted young noble, whose bold heart had never known either fear or despair, lay down on the stone floor of his prison, closed his eyes, and courted sleep as if nothing had happened; and sleep came; but his slumbers were a mere nightmare, so full were they of hideous dreams, buffets, and combats; and, more than once, he started with the certainty that he had heard his sister's cry.

"Bah!" said he, "let me sleep. She is her mother's daughter, and hath too much of Black Douglas and the devil in her, to endure insult from such a poor hang-dog as Redhall! Besides, if he dared to——" and he felt a gleam pass over his eyes in the dark, at the idea that occurred to him.

At an early hour Lord Ashkirk awoke, and proceeded at once to the examination of his prison. The walls and arched roof were of massive and unplastered stone; the floor was paved; the window and the chimney were grated; while the door, which he sounded with his hand, seemed a mass as solid as could be formed of oak planks and iron bolts.

"Ten devils!" thought he; "at Norham I had the tongue of a waist buckle, and at Stirling a spur of steel; but here are neither buckle nor spur, knife nor nail, to loosen a stone or saw a stanchel."

Between the trees he could see the rising sun gilding the top of Arthur's Seat. The solitary window, which was little more than ten inches square, was crossed by three bars built into the stone; he saw with satisfaction that it was only about fifteen feet from the ground, for his chamber was on the second vaulted story.

"Good!" said he; "this wall is not like the rock of Stirling; but there I stole the cord of the flagstaff."

He heard all the bells of the city ringing for morning prayer: and these sounds of life without made him feel, for the first time, some anger and impatience at the vigorous restraint imposed upon him. An hour after this, although he had not heard the approach of footsteps (so thick and so closely-jointed were the walls that encompassed him), the door of his vault was unlocked, and a sturdy fellow with a Jethart axe, secured to his wrist by a thong, in case of accidents, entered, bearing a pewter basin of water, a towel, &c., for the performance of the morning ablutions. The moment he entered, a door at the further end of the passage was closed and locked; thus securing him, as well as the prisoner, of whose name and rank he appeared ignorant; for with these the politic Redhall had acquainted only his favourite, Birrel, and one or two more on whom he could implicitly rely.

Prolonging his toilet to the utmost extent, the earl scrutinized the visage of his attendant, who was a strongly-built fellow, about five-and-twenty years of age, with a rough red beard, and whiskers that grew up to his high cheek bones, on each of which a bright red spot was visible. He wore his bonnet drawn over his shaggy brows, and his eyes, though of a pale grey, betokened a native sharpness over which the earl saw at once he would be able to achieve very little.

"Well, fellow," said he, "art thou appointed to attend me?"

"Ay, sir."

"Then what is thy name, for I must know it?"

"What would ye be the better of knowing?" he asked, cautiously.

"Very much; as we may see each other often; but, doubtless, thou art ashamed of it."

"Ashamed o' my name? Deil choke sic impudence. No, faith! It is as gude as your ain, and better, maybe. My name is Tam Trotter, and I am forester up bye at Kinleith, where my father (God rest him!) was forester before me, though folk did ca' him uncanny."

"Well, friend Tam, couldst get me a razor, in addition to this splendid toilet apparatus? I have a fancy for shaving off my beard this morning."

"Aha!" laughed Tam, with a knowing Scots wink, as he seated himself on the table, with his Jedwood axe under his arm; "I can see as far into a millstone as you, my quick gentleman; so keep on your beard, it will be a warm ruff for you in the winter nights."

"Winter nights! What the devil dost thou tell me? Thy master cannot think of keeping me here till the winter nights come on."

"No here, maybe, but out at Redhall. This morning I rode in with ten braw fellows, with axe and spear, to take ye out there to the auld tower; but lo! his lordship, our master, came home not an hour syne, wi' his doublet drookit in bluid, and his body run through by——"

"By whom?—by whom?" cried the earl.

"The master of the king's ordnance, who (everybody says) is a fast friend of the Lord Ashkirk; but, God's death! if ever the one or the other come under my hands—if I can just get one canny cloure at them—neither will ever need another!" and, setting his teeth, the fellow assumed an aspect of ferocity, and hewed a large piece off the table with his sharp-bladed axe.

"Friend Tam, thou seemest very savage and blood-thirsty," said the earl, in his bantering tone; "but I must request thee to restrain thy troublesome vivacity, and not so damage my furniture, the stock of which is somewhat limited. Ha! ha! and so Vipont hath pinked thy master?—and where?"

"Here—just in the shoulder; but it seems braw news for you," replied Trotter, sulkily.

"The thrust is not near the heart, I hope?" said the earl, almost leaping with joy; "not near his amiable heart—oh, do not say so—I shall quite expire if thou tellest me that!"

"Devil take me, if I ken what to make o' you," said Tam, with a face half comical and half angry; "for, by my faith, you are a queer chield!"

"And thou art a good-hearted fellow?"

"My mother aye says sae, though she bangs me wi' the beetle, for being fonder o' porridge than plowing in the morning."

"So his mother beats him?" muttered the earl; "good!—the fellow is a mere simpleton."

"Is he?" rejoined Trotter, closing one eye, with his tongue in his cheek, and kicking his iron heels together; "try me, and you will see if I am sic a simpleton?"

"Excuse me, friend Trotter; by simpleton, I merely mean one who is neither subtle nor abstruse—nor steeped in guilt, like the rascal, thy master."

"The rascal, my master, hath you nicely under his thumb, however," grinned Trotter; "and a civil tongue, sir, would be baith advisable and becoming—a' things considered."

"Well, let us not quarrel. Thou seest this ring—'tis worth three hundred gold crowns of James III.; and it will be thine, if thou tellest me all thou knowest about the lady who was brought here last night."

"Weel—give me the ring, sir."

"'Tis a carbuncle, my friend, that once gleamed on the hand of a gallant earl."

"And it is mine, for all I ken—eh?" said Thomas, contemplating the jewel on the top of one of his great fingers with a leer of satisfaction; "the carbumple wad be a bonny die for Else' Gair; and 'tis mine, for a' I ken?"

"Yes—yes."

"Then a' I ken just amounts to nothing," said Tam, with a laugh; "so I might cheat you if I chose; but, though a puir chield (and a simpleton too), I would despise mysel' if I took your ring—so tak' it back, sir——"

"Nay, nay, fellow, I cannot accept it again."

"Weel, it may lie there on the table, for I winna touch it. Men would say, if I took it, that I had betrayed my master."

"True," said the earl, as he replaced the jewel; "but I will be in thy debt three hundred Scottish crowns. And now let me have breakfast; for no vexation was ever so great that it deprived me of my appetite."

Cold beef, bread, cheese, eggs, fish, and spiced ale formed a repast which greatly comforted the earl, who saw with regret, however, how scrupulously the single knife that was allowed him was watched and removed by the careful Trotter. But the moment this meal was over, and his attendant had withdrawn, he recommenced a most minute examination of his prison, and was gradually forced to acknowledge, with a sigh of bitterness, that though neither so strong as Norham, nor so loftily situated as Stirling, its capabilities for escape were very limited indeed.

Several days passed monotonously away.

The earl became horribly impatient; he had shaken every window-bar for the hundredth time; and for the hundredth time also, with the heel of his boot, had sounded every slab of the pavement, and every stone of the walls, but all were solid as a mass of rock.

"Friend Thomas," said he, half banteringly and half savagely, on the thirteenth day of his confinement, "how long does that prince of villains, thy master, mean to keep me here?"

"As long as he pleases, I suppose."

"A vague term, that—most unpleasantly so. I should like much to have been a little consulted in the matter; but as he omitted this politeness, I mean to escape on the first opportunity, and without formality."

"Escape?" reiterated Trotter, with a grin.

"The walls——"

"Are six feet thick, and the window hath three bars, ilk ane like the shaft of my Jethart staff."

"Yes; but some day I may pull out the stones of the wall, or saw through the bars of the window. Have you never heard of such things?"

"Ay have I, when a man had saws or files, or hammers, but never when he had only his bare hands and nails."

"I will steal a knife from you."

"Will you?" said Trotter, with his knowing wink.

"Thou shalt see; and once through the window, I will drop——"

"Into the draw-well! Ha! ha! my bauld buckie, the draw-well, forty feet deep, is just below it."

"What? Just under my window?"

"Eight doon, as a plummet would sink."

"Ah, the devil! What a judicious villain thy master is!"

"You see, sir, that unless you could change yoursel' into a spider or a bumbee, here you maun just bide," replied Tam, with a loud laugh, which galled the earl to the soul; but seeing the futility of anger or hauteur, he controlled his rising temper, and said, in his usual manner—

"Well, let me have dinner; for assuredly I am weary of having nothing to look forward to, but from breakfast to dinner, at mid-day; from dinner to supper, at even; and from supper to bed—and so on. I assure you, friend Trotter, it would tire even a Carthusian."

"And tiresome I find it, too! Cocksnails! I would gie my very lugs to be again kicking my heels owre Currie Brig, or Kinleith Craig, for I am wearied o' holding watch and ward here, like the javellour of a tolbooth or the warder of a tower."

As Trotter returned with the dinner upon a broad wooden tray, which usually held the platters, covers, and one small knife, the earl contrived to place his chair in such a manner, that the attendant was tripped by it, and stumbled forward, by which the manchet, or small loaf (in those days the invariable substitute for potatoes), slipped from the tray, and fell upon the floor. While Trotter, after depositing the tray, stooped to pick up the manchet, the earl, like lightning, possessed himself of the knife, and thrust it up his sleeve.

"Look again, friend Trotter," said he, removing the first cover, "thou hast dropped the knife, I think?"

"Have I?" said Trotter, searching all round the table. "Surely no!"

"You must have done so, for I vow 'tis not here."

"I could have sworn it was on the trencherboard when I brought it in," said the fellow, gaping with alarm.

"If you think so, look again."

"By St. Giles! there is nae knife here!"

"Then quick, call for another, or these dainty pullets will be cold as pebble stones."

Trotter turned to call for another knife; and the moment he did so, the earl stepped back, and concealed that which he had secured in a nook of the chimney, which had been discovered during a previous inspection.

A second knife was brought by Dobbie, who had heard Trotter call for it.

The earl made an unusually good repast, and as he picked the pullet's bones, and drank his pint of Bordeaux, he jested merrily with his attendant, who leant against the door, from whence he cast ever and anon furtive and uneasy glances below the table, in search of the missing article, for he had his own suspicions.

"Take care, my trusty Tam, take care; for now I have got that knife, and I mean to make a good use of it on the first opportunity. Truly thou art a simple fellow, and will be beetled by Redhall, in such wise as thy mother never beetled thee! ha! ha! Zounds! dost thou think this paltry house would hold me, who escaped from the Douglas room at Stirling, where the cardinal confined me after the battle of Linlithgow? I trow not! Be easy; compose thyself, friend Thomas, for I assure thee I have got the knife, and will begone to-morrow."

"In your pockets?" said Tam, advancing.

"Pockets! Nay, dost thou think a gentleman has pockets in his breeches and doublet to hold bread and cheese, like a rascally clown; but come hither, thou mayst feel my garments."

Trotter passed his hands over the breeches and doublet of the prisoner.

"The devil a knife is here," said he, perfectly reassured.

"Nevertheless, I have it."

"Where?"

"In my stomach. Bring me a sword, or lend me thy poniard, and I will swallow them both also. It runs in the family. I had an uncle who could digest cannon balls."