CHAPTER XXV.

DOUGLASDALE.

"But you, dear scenes! that far away
    Expand beneath these mountains blue,
Where fancy sheds a purer ray,
    And robes the fields in richer hue,—
A softer voice in every gale,
    I 'mid your woodlands wild should hear;
And Death's unbreathing shades would fail
    To sigh their murmurs in mine ear." LEYDEN.

The sun of a morning in June shone brightly upon Douglasdale, as a valley of the middle ward of Lanarkshire is named—the country of the puissant Douglases. The pure air, the bright sunshine, the fresh meadows, the fragrant wind that stole along the uplands, were all indicative of that delightful season when the trees are heavy with their richest foliage, and the voices of the mavis, the merle, and the wood-pigeon are heard within their deep recesses. Under golden masses of the dark green broom, the white hawthorn, and the wild rose, the Douglas water stole, over its pebbled bed, towards the west.

Hot and cloudless, the rays of the glorious summer sun poured over the giant summit of the Cairntable, and played along the pastoral glens below, to be reflected by the gleam of arms and the glitter of armour descending from those heights which overlook the towers of the Douglases—the "Castle Dangerous" of chivalry and romance.

The lairds and warders of the various towers which overhung the valley, were all on the alert, and had barred their gates, drawn up their bridges, and prepared their armour, with not the less care, because they could perceive the royal standard with the red lion waving above the copsewood below.

With their swords sheathed and visors up, Roland Vipont and Louis Leslie rode together at the head of their little column, which had passed a peaceful campaign of nearly three weeks in Lanarkshire, without being molested by any one; and, of course without hearing tidings of the Earl of Ashkirk, for whom, as in duty bound, they made the most minute inquiries—Roland being the more rigid in his search, because he believed him to be in safe concealment at Edinburgh. The horses of the artillery looked sleek and well fed; and the cannoniers, with Leslie's hundred men of the guard, had all their harness and arquebuses as bright as on that day when they marched from Holyrood.

"'S life! but we spend our time wearily! Will nobody fight with us?" said Roland, with a yawn, as they wound down the valley, by the banks of the Douglas. "St. Mary! I feel a violent inclination to maul some of those towers, that from every rock and hill-top look down so saucily on our line of march."

"What?—the houses of thy Douglas friends?"

"Assuredly."

"And why?"

"Just to keep us in practice and because they are held by Hamiltons."

"Lucky it is, for us, that they are so. Long before this, had the Douglases possessed the same power in Lanarkshire that they did ten years ago, we had been eaten up."

"True, in 1527, a hundred men, with two pieces of cannon, if they had once ventured into the middle ward on such an errand as ours, had never come out of it again."

"Yet 'tis very hard that no one will just fire one little shot at us, just to afford an excuse——"

"For blowing the house about their ears. A most amiable wish!"

"Thy nag looks weary, Leslie."

"Ah, 'tis a bay I picked up during our raid against the Annandale thieves last year. My blockhead of a groom lost me a beautiful roan horse at Leith, last Lammastide, where I sent it to be bathed, at sunset, in the sea."*

* A superstitious custom, suppressed, by order of St. Cuthbert's kirk session, in 1647.

"Where dost think we will dine, for my stomach crieth cupboard already?"

"At the Barmkyn of Cairntable. I have heard that the gudeman there keepeth open house and free; besides, he is a kinsman of Redhall, and if we empty his girnels and broach his casks, what matter? Is it not for the king's service? and all Scotland knows," added Roland, with a smile, "how zealous the advocate is for the public weal."

"Let us halt here for one moment," said Leslie, reining up his horse beside a little rustic well, which flowed near a cottage wall; "this water looks fresh and pure; 'tis south-running, too, and I am thirsty as a sack of flour."

"Lintstock, bring hither the flask of French brandy."

From a gun-carriage, Lintstock unslung a large leathern bottle, and brought it to his master, ogling it by the way with all the ardour of which his solitary eye was capable; and thereafter, from his havresack, he produced a beechwood luggie.

"Gudewife," said Leslie, to a woman, who was grinding corn in a wooden quern at the cottage door, and who wore one of those pointed Flemish caps which had been introduced into Scotland by Mary of Gueldres, "how name you this well?"

"Sanct Bryde's of Dowglass," replied the woman, briefly and sulkily, for she was one of that hostile race.

"A consecrated well! I thought so—'tis fortunate you asked," said Roland; and, after first dipping their fingers in the fountain, they crossed themselves, and then mixing the blessed water with the brandy, took each a draught, and gave a third to Lintstock.

"Hallo!" cried Roland, to a horseman who came up at a rough trot, and whose grey plaid, blue bonnet, and white Galloway doublet, as well as his gambadoes, or riding boots of rough calf-skin, declared him a plain countryman; "a good day, friend. Wilt thou have a tass of brandy?"

"God keep you, my captain—wi' mony gude thanks," replied the horseman, pulling up his nag, which was a strong Flanders mare. "Health to ye baith, sirs," said he, pulling his bonnet well forward, instead of raising it, as he nodded to each knight, and drained the vessel. "By my faith, but that's braw stuff!"

"Ay, I daresay. 'Tis not often the burnt wine of Languedoc runs over thy Lanarkshire throat," said Roland, laughing; "dost thou travel our way?"

"Sir knicht, that just depends upon which way yours may be," replied the fellow, dryly, drawing his plaid well over his face.

"We are going to the Barmkyn Cairntable," said Roland, looking keenly at him under his helmet.

"And so am I, sir."

"Well, thy nag seems fresh, and thou art not, as we are, cased in armour; so ride fast, I pray you, and inform the gudeman of the Barmkyn that a party of the king's soldiers will halt there about dinner-time—say a hundred men or so—and that we will thank the gudewife to look well to her larder and kitchen——"

"To kill the fatted calf, and set her best casks a-broach," said Leslie, laughing.

"To select the hens that roost next the cock—the most delicate pullets——"

"To examine her eel-arks—ha! ha!"

"To prepare the most dainty pasties, and highly-seasoned patties—ha! ha! ha!" continued Roland, in the same merry tone; "for as both gudewife and gudeman are friends of the good and amiable lord advocate, they cannot but rejoice to make welcome those who come among them on the king's service."

"And in whose name shall I give the message?"

"In the name of Sir Roland Vipont, master of the ordnance."

"Without fail," replied the horseman, putting spurs to his nag and galloping off; "but may the devil ryve the saul out of thee (and me too), if thou gettest not a reception as warm as auld Bauldy Fleming can give thee!" added Nichol the brodder, for the stranger was no other than he.

"That fellow's laugh bespeaks him a rascal," said Leslie, who had been narrowly observing all that could be seen of Birrel's face; "how different it was from the broad grin of an honest yeoman."

"Dost think so?" said Roland, looking after him as he galloped over an adjacent brae, and disappeared; "dost thou think he will play us false after our kindness?"

"No, perhaps—but the committal of thy message to a stranger in these times, and in this place, is, to say the least of it, rather unwary. We might be entrapped and cut off."

"A hundred chosen soldiers, with two pieces of cannon—bah! I should like to see any one attempt it, Leslie. We should sell our lives dearly; and yet my mind misgives me sorely, that it was for no other purpose that subtle villain Redhall sent so small a force into this wild and hostile district."

"Eh, gentle sirs! Gude guide us, your horses are eating a' my corn!" cried the cottager, running to her quern, which she had left for a moment; "shoo! shoo! awa' wi' ye!"

"Well, thou old devil," said Leslie, "may not soldiers' horses eat what they like?"

Roland threw a few pence into the quern; and then, both putting spurs to their horses, hurried after their soldiers, who were now some distance in advance.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE BARMKYN OF CAIRNTABLE.

"Dark grew the sky, the wind was still,
    The sun in blood arose;
But oh! how many a gallant man
    Ne'er saw that evening close!"—HOGG.

A few hours' march among the knolls and hollows, which exhibited here and there a solitary square tower, or an old thatched sheep farm, shaded by ash trees, and nestling on the holm land of the strath through which the Douglas winds, brought the soldiers of Vipont to the base of the Cairntable, a beautiful green mountain, sixteen hundred feet in height. One half was darkly rounded into shadow, on the other shone the bright splendour of the meridian sun, which lit up all the windings of the various little pastoral glens, through which the Peniel, the Glespin, the Kinnox, and other mountain tributaries, flowed to feed the Douglas at its base.

On a small spot of table-land, a shoulder of the hill, and sheltered by its giant ridge from the south-west wind, which usually prevails there, stood the fortified grange, or barmkyn, of Baldwin Fleming.

Boasting of his lineal descent from Theobald le Fleming, who is said to have possessed all that country before the rise of the Douglases, and their gradual acquisition of the whole district, this sturdy retainer of the encroaching Lords of Angus, though neither laird nor lesser baron, but merely a goodman, who held his feu of a feudal chief, and followed his banner in battle, had procured (through the good offices of his kinsman Redhall) a crown charter, empowering him to fortify his farm, which he had done with a strength that made it second only to Castle Douglas, and the envy of all the fierce barons in that warlike district.

This vast building formed an exact square, and had four square towers on each of its four faces. These were all strongly vaulted for holding grain, while the great yard within served for securing cattle. The twelve towers, and the curtain walls between them, were battlemented on the top, studded with loopholes below, and all strongly, though roughly, built with stone quarried from the adjacent rocks.

The most perfect example of a similar edifice now in Scotland, is the fortified grange of Sir John Seton of Barns, which crowns a height southward of Haddington, where its ruined towers resemble the remains of an ancient city, from their strength and extent.

Within the barmkyn, on one side, stood the strong and substantial, but thatched, dwelling of the farmer; along the other three sides were barns, stables, and houses for his men. At a certain distance round the whole, a deep ditch was drawn; the margin was used as a kitchen garden, and was stocked with common potherbs, and a few small fruit trees, sheltered by boor-tree hedges and stockades.

The bridge was up; and opposite the gate stood a clump of large oak trees; and on a branch of one, which was conspicuous for its size and foliage, the dead body of a man was hanging by the neck, with the gleds flying about it.

"Oho!" said Roland, as a turn of the glen brought him suddenly in view of this goodly farm; "so the goodman of this grange hath a power of pit and gallows! His oaks bear other fruit than acorns."

"A peasant rascal!" replied Leslie; "and yet he tieth a tassel to his tree, like the best feudal lord in the land."

While approaching this formidable edifice, they had heard the distant blowing of bugle-horns, the springing of wooden rattles, and the incessant jangle of a large bell. These notes of alarm, together with the appearance of armed horsemen, galloping in various directions over the green hill sides, lessened the surprise of Vipont and his soldiers, when, on coming in view of the grange of Cairntable, they saw the whole line of its walls glistening with pike-heads and glittering with steel caps; while a scarlet banner, bearing the chevron of the Flemings within its flowering and counterflowering fleurs-de-lys, was unfurled in defiance; for (thanks to the cunning and amiable intentions of Nichol Birrel) such was the dinner prepared by the sturdy proprietor for his unwelcome visitors.

What the tenor of Birrel's falsehoods and misinformation may have been, we have now no means of ascertaining; but they were such, that the gudeman had all his horses secured in stall; his vast herds of cattle in their pens, his stacks of grain stowed away in vault and barn; while all the men over whom he had authority, to the number of three hundred, with their families, were in garrison, and stood to their arms, with the intention of resolutely obeying his orders, whatever they might be.

A brownie, in the shape of a little rough man, with a broad bonnet and long beard, attended the family of Fleming. He rocked the cradles of the infants, and performed various other kind and domestic services; especially foddering the horses and cattle, sweeping the kitchen floor, and filling the water-stoups for the servant girls; all of which self-imposed duties were performed by this goodnatured imp in the night, for the brownie was a being unseen by day; and to propitiate him, a libation of milk and wort were nightly poured into a rude font in the yard, called the broonie's stane—for in those days every thrifty housewife set apart a portion of food for the brownie, that his favour and protection, as well as his future services, might be thereby ensured. If a piece of money were left, an eldritch yell announced that the insulted brownie had found it, and fled in resentment—for from that moment he invariably abandoned the family and for ever. This familiar and usually amiable spirit, with which Scottish superstition furnished the household of every old race, was pacific, generous, and unvarying in his services; but if once offended, implacable in his revenge.

On the night preceding this eventful day, the brownie of Cairntable had been heard to utter the most doleful lamentations, and "the wee manikin with his lang beard and braid bannet," had been seen (as several of the servitors averred) to pass round the towers of the barmkyn, wringing his hands and weeping piteously, which had caused the gudeman to look well to his defences, and to his horses and armour. Thus in two hours after the arrival of his kinsman's follower, Nichol Birrel, everything was in fighting order within the grange when the king's troops approached it.

"Halt!" cried Roland Vipont.

"By my faith!" said Leslie, "we shall have no dinner here to-day, which I regret exceedingly, as this hath all the aspect and reputation of being an exceedingly well-stocked grange."

"There is some mistake here. They surely have not seen the royal standard," said Vipont, angrily, as he shaded his eyes with his hand, which was cased in a glove of steel.

"Ah! you wished for some fighting!"

"Just now I wish most for dinner; and so, Balquhan, ride thou forward with a white flag, and make open door for us."

"Dost think I am another St. Colm, to make bolts unbar and doors open by simply signing the cross?"

"No; but by threatening them with cannon shot."

Leslie tied a white handkerchief to the point of his long sword, and galloped fearlessly forward to the edge of the ditch, from whence he could distinctly see the grim faces that, from under battered morions, peered at him between the embrasures of the wall above; while from the deep-mouthed loopholes below peeped forth the keen pike-heads and the iron muzzle of many an arquebuse and pistol.

"Art thou the gudeman of the Cairntable?" asked Leslie of a stout man of great stature, whose polished coat of mail betokened a superiority over the others around him.

"At your service, my braw gallant," he replied, bending over the tower; "but what may your errand be here?"

"To learn wherefore ye receive the king's soldiers in this fashion, with closed gates, and your helmets on?"

"Gif gaff makes gude friends," replied the other, surlily; "but I trow, gif gaff shall make you none here; so, in God's name, pass on in peace. Here ilka man must just ride the ford as he finds it."

"Dost think we will burn thy house after it hath lodged us, poor devil!" said Leslie, with a lofty and patronizing air.

The buirdly farmer laughed hoarsely, as he looked to the right and left along the strong walls, which were lined by so many tall fellows in helmets and breast-plates.

"Away, away!" said he, waving his gauntleted hand; "what brings ye frae Holyrood to this puir sheep country? It's a gay place, that Holyrood! Ah, there are plenty of vacant priories, lay abbacies, captainries of castles, and other braw perquisites to be picked up there; so I marvel mickle that you left so pleasant a climate, to come here among the spirit-broken and impoverished Douglases, and the fogs o' the Cairntable, where there's nothing but rocks, whinstones, and cold iron to be had."

"Then you will not lower your bridge, and afford free entrance to the king's soldiers."

"If a' the fiends of hell came, I carena a brass bodle; so away wi' ye, or ye may fare the worse. Tell thy captain my name is Baldwin the Fleming—as good a man as he."

"Peasant hound, thou shalt rue this dearly!" replied Leslie, who was about to turn away, when he perceived the rascal whom they had met at St. Bryde's Well levelling an arquebuse full at him, from a loophole; and he had just time to make his horse rear, so that the ball, which would have pierced his own breast, entered that of the poor animal, which snorted and plunged wildly. Escaping, however, several other balls which whistled past him, Leslie forced it back at full speed to the side of Roland, where it fell down, and was dead almost ere the rider could disengage himself from the stirrups.

"To your arquebuses, Leslie," exclaimed Roland, "while I shall unbend my cannon. Ah, white-livered cowards!" he added, shaking his clenched hand towards the hostile grange, "I will maul you sorely for this defiance! Soldiers! they are all traitors to the king, for they have fired on his royal standard. To your guns my brave cannoniers—to your linstocks, and unlimber! Quick! and make me good service against this contumacious villain and his foolish knaves."

While the cannon were wheeled round, the tumbrils cast off, the magazines opened, and powder and shot taken therefrom; and while the cannoniers commenced pointing and charging them home, Leslie formed his hundred arquebusiers behind a knoll, where they fixed their rests into the turf, and opened a fire as close and rapid as it was possible for soldiers to maintain with these cumbrous fire-arms, which carried balls of two, and even three ounces; which were loaded by means of a powder-horn; were levelled over forks, and were fired by means of a matchlock. The reports were loud and deep, and the rocks of the Cairntable repeated them with a thousand reverberations. White as snow, the smoke of arquebuse and pistolette broke (but at long intervals) from the strong dark walls of the grange, and their balls tore up the soft turf, as they fell among the little band of besiegers, or whistled over their heads; for so well were they posted, that during two hours of incessant firing not one was ever touched.

"Batter me down the entrance-gate!" cried Roland to his gunners; "'Tis easier to punch holes in an oak plank than a stone rampart; so down with it, my brave cannoniers—for this night we will carry the place by assault or die in its ditches!"

"Art thou quite prepared for that?" asked Leslie.

"A true soldier is prepared for everything," replied the elated Vipont; "let us only have yonder gate beaten down by daylight, and, with my sword for a wand, I will act your gentleman usher when night falls."

The cannon were carefully levelled and pointed; fire flashed from their muzzles; smoke curled up in the sunshine; and their reports rang like thunder among the windings of the Douglas. One shot crashed through the massive gate, beating a large hole in it; the other struck the battlements, and threw down a heap of masonry, which fell, amid a cloud of dust, into the ditch below. Hereupon high words ensued between old Lintstock and the lance-spesade, whose thumb was placed upon the vent of the culverin, which he was reloading. "It ill becomes a gle'ed gunner like you," Roland heard him say, "to heed me less than an auld pair o' boots; but lang enough before you saw the blessed light o' day I had levelled everything like a cannon, frae a quarter Moyenne up to auld Monce Meg herself; and here now, I will wager you a stoup o' Bourdeaux, that my next shot will go straight to the keyhole."

"Done!" replied the lance-spesade; "twa stoups if you like—and here is my thumb on't."

The lance-spesade levelled the culverin; applied his right eye to three sides of the breech, carefully adjusted the quoins, and fired. The ball struck a coat of arms above the gate, and threw a cloud of splinters around it in every direction.

"She throws high," said the soldier, throwing down his match, discomfited.

Lintstock grinned as he reloaded, and thereafter applied his single orb to the breach and quoins, looking carefully along the polished brass gun. At that moment the ball of a falconet came whizz from the barmkyn, and was splintered on its muzzle; but the cool old soldier, whose brains had so narrowly escaped being dashed out by it, neither winced nor appeared the least disturbed in his aim; but took one pace to the left, stretched out his right hand with the match, and in his turn fired. Then, where the dark keyhole of the ponderous gate had been but a moment before, a large round breach was visible, with the sunshine streaming through it. Upon this, a shout arose within the barmkyn, and the shrill cries of women and children were distinctly heard.

"Well done, my true cannonier!" said Roland. "A few more of these bitter almonds, and the gudeman of the Cairntable will be forced to afford us open house, whether he will or not. To thy cannon again, my old Lintstock: for thou hast but one eye—Saint Mary! 'tis the eye of a gazehound. Aim well with your cannon and arquebuses, my gallant comrades—aim well, and level low! There are many good things in yonder walls, all of which are yours by the law of war. How now, my bold Balquhan—art thou shot?" he asked, on seeing Leslie reel.

"As surely as if with an elf-arrow," replied the lieutenant, whose left arm had been wounded by the ball of a hand-gun, which had beaten his armour into the orifice, and caused him excessive pain; "but it matters not—four of my best men are lying stiff enough, among the broom, now."

"Zounds! this night's lodgings is likely to cost us dear!—but, 'fore God, I will make it dearer to the rascal who holds yonder barmkyn against us."

With his scarf, Roland bound up Leslie's arm; and having decided on his tactics, commanded the arquebusiers to cease firing; to lie down close under the brow of a knoll, and to reserve their arms and matches for service at night. Meanwhile, the culverins incessantly battered the barmkyn, the gate of which, by the time that the setting sun reddened the wild summit of Cairntable, was beaten down, with a great part of the wall, thus affording an open passage into the heart of the place.

"Thank Heaven, the night will be cloudy and dark!" said Roland, looking at the sky; "so, by day-dawn, I will show thee, Balquhan, the Red Lion waving where the chevron of Fleming floats upon yonder barmkyn. A thousand thanks, my brave cannoniers—and chiefly thou, old Lintstock, for a troop of knights might ride abreast through yonder breach."

"True; but thou forgettest the ditch," said Leslie.

"Nay; I have bethought me of that, too."

Black and gloomy the night came on; a high wind growled along the valley; and with the deepening obscurity, it seemed as if the brawl of the Douglas over its stony bed became louder, for its rush was heard distinctly amid the dark and dewy hills, from which it descended into that lonely and pastoral strath through which it winds.

Pale and sharp as a spear-head, a horn of the new moon appeared at times above the black outline of the Craintable; and when old Lintstock saw it, he carefully took out his purse (which, however, contained only four of James the Third's black farthings), and having turned it over thrice, wished himself good luck, according to a Scottish superstition existing unto the present day.

When the gloom had deepened, so that nothing could be discerned of the barmkyn but its bold outline and sable towers, standing on a shoulder of the mountain, Roland ordered the arquebusiers to pile their arms, and to tear down the roof and planking of an old barn that stood near; and thereafter to bind some ten or fifteen of the rafters together with ropes of straw, so that, being laid close together, they should (with the assistance of a few planks) form a temporary bridge, or passage, across the fosse of the barmkyn, the breadth of which, with military exactness, he had measured with his eye.

Two hours sufficed for this, and, about midnight, he prepared to assault the place, resolving to chastise the gudeman severely for his resistance. Notwithstanding his wound, the gallant Leslie insisted on accompanying him, and, armed with a Jethart staff, Lintstock left the cannoniers to follow his master.

As the arquebusiers approached in close order, the glow of their lighted matches must have announced their approach, for although all was still in the barmkyn (save the incessant lowing of the cattle in their pens), the moment they were within range, a storm of missiles was poured upon them. Arquebuse and pistolette, hacque, dague, and iron-drake, flashed redly upon the darkness of the night, and many an arrow, and many a bullet, whistled among the close ranks of the Guard. Several fell, killed or wounded; but the rest pressed forward bravely, and Roland, with his helmet closed, and sword in hand, led them on.

Thick and fast fell bolt and bullet, and the hearty shouts of the little band of stormers were soon lost in the roar of tumultuous sounds that arose within the barmkyn; for the cries of Fleming's followers and kinsmen, as they animated each other at loophole and battlement, the shrieks of their wives and daughters, the lowing of the cattle, the barking of dogs, and the ceaseless ringing of a large alarum bell, added to the incessant explosion of fire-arms, made a united din, that gave a strange horror to a scene which had no other lamps to light its dangers than the flashes of those deadly weapons, which shot forth their contents from every nook and angle of the strong dark walls.

"Down with the posts and planks! Quick—Quick!" cried Roland, through his helmet. "Close your ranks, and now again to your arquebuses! Fire, and club them! Club them, and on—on, for Vipont and the King!"

This rude substitute for a bridge was laid, and the ditch crossed, in less time than we have taken to relate it. Shoulder to shoulder, in the gap of the gate and drawbridge, stood a close array of pikemen; but, being somewhat less accustomed to arms than the soldiers of the Guard, they were thrown into immediate confusion by a volley from the arquebuses, which were instantly clubbed against them for close combat.

"Forward! forward!" cried Roland, hewing a passage with his sword, and shredding down the pike heads like ears of wheat; his strength, stature, weight of arm, and admirable coat of mail, rendering him invulnerable, like a knight of romance.

In the court of the barmkyn, and just within the gate, a close and terrible conflict ensued in the dark; for there the sturdy farmer met the assailants in person, at the head of his hynds and followers, all cased in iron, cuirassed and barbed to the teeth.

A powerful man, of vast bulk and height, Fleming was sufficiently formidable, without his other accessories of a coat of mail of the fifteenth century, jagged with twelve iron beaks, and one of those enormous iron-studded mauls, which were used in Scotland until the battle of Pinkey, where they proved perfectly futile against the Spanish and German hackbuttiers, who were the main means of winning that battle for the English. The giant was giving all around him to death and destruction; three soldiers, the best men of the Guard, had fallen before him; for, by three separate blows, their brains and casques had been crushed like ripe pumpkins, before Roland could reach him through the press; and, with no other sentiments in his heart than those of rage, the blind and clamorous longing to avenge and to destroy that is sure to arise in one's heart at such a time, he fell furiously upon him.

At this crisis, Roland could perceive a man in a close helmet, who, armed with an arquebuse, kept close behind Fleming, and more than once fired in the most cowardly manner over his shoulder. One ball tore the cone of Roland's helmet, and another grazed his shoulder.

"Notch me the head of that rascal with thine axe, Lintstock," cried he; "and leave me to deal alone with this rough tilter."

Swaying his enormous maul like a giant warrior of the dark ages, Fleming made many a feint, before pouring forth all his strength and fury, by swinging his club from the back of his head in one sheer downward blow, that in a moment would have annihilated Vipont, had he not sprung nimbly back, and escaped it as well as another shot from the fellow with the arquebuse, who killed the lance-spesade, and so deprived Lintstock of his stoup of Bordeaux. But ere Fleming could recover his guard, Roland darted forward, and by one tremendous lunge drove his long keen rapier through his body, just one inch below the corselet. Fleming fell instantly to the ground, and the soldiers pressed forward over him; but as Roland passed, the tremendous grasp of the dying man was fastened on his foot, and he was dragged to the earth, where a furious struggle ensued between them.

In the dark, Roland's fall was unseen by his soldiers, who advanced fighting hand to hand into the heart of the barmkyn, driving before them the retainers of Baldwin Fleming. Groaning with rage and pain, and wallowing in his blood, the latter rolled over Roland, and retained him in a grasp which gathered fresh energy from the pangs of death, till it seemed to possess the power of an iron vice. One hand encircled his throat; the other grasped a poniard, with which he made many a fruitless effort to stab him to the heart. Five times he struck, and, glancing from the tempered corselet, five times the dagger sunk harmlessly into the ground.

During this struggle there suddenly burst upon the darkness a broad and lurid gleam of light, that illuminated the whole arena of the barmkyn, its battered gate and ruined wall, its corpse-strewn court and striking architecture; and then Roland could perceive the ghastly visage of that powerful foe who grasped him—powerful even in death, for sight had all but left his glazed and sunken eyes; yet the vengeance of a demon seemed to burn in his despairing heart, and to add strength to his muscular gripe. In confusion and agony he had dropped his poniard, and now with both hands he clutched Roland's throat, and frantically endeavoured, by compressing his steel gorget, to strangle, since he had failed to stab him; and with every futile effort, the hot fierce blood welled forth from his gaping wound and clammy mouth.

Tighter and tighter grew that deadly clutch; the yielding steel compressed at last, and Roland felt his eyes starting and his brain whirling, while a thousand lights began to dance before him. An icy terror, such as never had been there before, now thrilled through his heart; he thought of Jane; and made one superhuman effort to free himself and to shout for succour; but both failed, and he thought that all was now over and for ever, when the gleam of light which shot through the barmkyn saved him. For a moment, attracted by this strange glow that flashed upon his sightless orbs, strong Fleming relaxed his iron grasp, and, fatally for himself, permitted Roland to respire.

Bearing in mind his master's injunctions, Nichol Birrel had thrice taken a deadly aim at Roland, and thrice had failed, for his bullets slew other men, when his arquebuse was dashed aside by Lintstock's Jethart axe. Then, finding that he was not likely to achieve much by dint of arms, on observing the strange combat between Roland and Fleming in the gateway—a struggle which he alone had observed, a new idea occurred to him; and, rushing to the summit of the walls, he cried:

"The kye! the kye! save your kye! or they will all become the prize and spulzie of the soldiers!" From the parapets he threw down several enormous bundles of blazing straw among the close-packed herds: already excited and terrified by the din of the combat and the report of the firearms, they were at once driven mad and furious by the descent of this burning shower.

Like a living torrent they poured into the court and rushed through the gateway, in their flight and terror plunging and galloping, jostling, crushing, and goring each other with their horns, as they irresistibly swept all before them, trampling the dead and the wounded in the mire of their track.

"St. Mary's knot!" cried Lintstock, hewing at their heels with his Jethart axe; "hough and hamstring! tie their legs with St. Mary's knot!"

Five hundred head of infuriated cattle poured from the barmkyn into the dark glen below, where they spread over the mountains in all directions.

Practised to such tactics in the Border war, the blaze of the straw and the wild lowing of the cattle instantly acquainted Roland with what was to ensue; but unable to free himself from the Herculean grasp of Fleming, he suddenly clasped him in his arms. Then by one tremendous effort he dragged his body over himself, and there retained it as a shield from the forest of legs and hoofs that, rushing from the pen, like a living whirlwind swept over them in hundreds for the space of five minutes; but long before the fifth of these minutes had passed, the nervous grasp of Fleming had relaxed, and his fierce spirit had fled. Breathless, panting, and infuriated by the whole encounter, Roland Vipont rose from the gory mud and mire, regained his sword, and with a tottering gait and swimming head looked around him for his followers.

By this time the conflict was over, and his little band of brave soldiers had gained complete possession of the barmkyn, the whole surviving defenders of which had effected their escape by one of those subterranean sally-ports with which every fortified house in Scotland was furnished, as a means of secret egress in the last extremity.

The lance-spesade of the cannoniers and fifteen soldiers of the Guard are said to have been slain in the assault.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE POMMEL OF THE PONIARD.

"He gained—he gained (why stops my story?) then,
A deadly opiate from the convent men,
And bore it to his cave."—Marcian Colonna.

"Now, blessed be Heaven and our own stout hands, we have made our quarters good here at last!" said Leslie, at that moment approaching Vipont. "How is this? Zounds! thou cuttest a rare figure, all smeared in mud and mire. Art thou wounded? No reply? Vipont, Vipont, dost hear me? Why, thou art mute as a fish. But come with me to the hall, for I have discovered my way there, and, what is better, a gallant demi-john of Rochelle, that would gladden the hearts of ten friars; one cup of it will set thee all right; so, come along, my friend."

Confused and stunned by his protracted struggle with Fleming, and the whirlwind that had swept over them, Roland could scarcely articulate a word, and when he did speak, his voice was lost in the hollow of his helmet.

Assisted by Leslie's arm, he ascended a stair to the hall of the barmkyn, where their entrance stilled, for a moment, the uproar and rejoicing of their plundering and half-famished soldiers.

Built in an age when the sole idea on which a Scottish house was constructed was the resistance of armed assault, the walls of the barmkyn were of enormous thickness, and, in the recesses of the deeply-embayed windows were little square cupboards for holding household utensils. The vast fireplace contained two tall andirons, which, together with the great dinner-table, and a number of clumsy chairs and buffet-stools, formed the sole furniture of the farmer's hall. The strong and bare stone walls were as destitute of ornament as the roof, which rested on twenty-four round stone corbels, and was composed of twelve beams of oak, plainly boarded over, to form the flooring of a vast hay-loft above.

A fox's face and horse-shoe were nailed above the door, to exclude witches; while a cross of elder-tree twigs was fastened above the lintel as a charm against fascination, for the age was full of the wildest superstition.

Torches had been lighted in the tin sconces which hung on the walls; bread, beef, cheese, and every edible on which the soldiers could lay their hands, had been piled on the long table; and, with their helmets off, some were crowding round the demi-john of Rochelle which Leslie had mounted on a binn in the centre of the floor, while others hewed down doors and window-shutters with their swords, and lighting a fire, began to cook with all the eagerness of hungry men. Meantime, a guard and sentinels had been posted on the walls without, in case of a rally or surprise.

On removing his helmet, and imbibing a draught of wine, Sir Roland was completely restored; but he was too much exasperated by the resistance of Fleming and the loss of life he had occasioned, to care a jot for the manner in which his goods and gear were going to rack and ruin.

"Drink, my soldiers!" he exclaimed, as he seated himself on the table, that he might the more easily overlook the frolics and revelry, "to your hearts' content; drink deep, for this is the wine of a false traitor; but let drunkards beware of the truncheon that awaits them on the morrow. Lintstock! hallo, Lintstock! where are you, old ironhead?"

"Here, Sir Roland," replied the veteran, who at that moment entered the hall, dragging in a man whose head he was menacing at every step with his Jethart axe, and at whom he darted such scowls of wrath as he could concentrate into his solitary eye.

"A prisoner!"

"Whom I found skulking there without, and whom I am ready to vow on the blessed Gospels, is the loon that thrice levelled his arquebuse at you; and by shooting puir Laurie, our lance-spesade, hath cheated me of a stoup of wine whilk I won lawfully," he added, savagely shaking Nichol Birrel, who gave him a deep glance of hatred from his sullen eyes.

"It would seem to me, fellow," said Roland, who still occupied his elevated seat on the edge of the table, and before whom the soldiers dragged Birrel, "that I have seen thy face before. In the streets of Edinburgh, perhaps?" he added, sternly scrutinizing that worthy, who, having been deprived of arms offensive and defensive, save a small-sword, appeared before them in the attire of a peasant.

"Nay, I am but a puir sheep-farmer of Galloway, and you never set eyes on me before, Sir Roland."

"A lying varlet!" said Lintstock: "we wasted a gude tass o' brandy on ye at St. Bryde's Well."

"Oho! I remember thee, now," said Roland, with a terrible frown.

"And so thou art the villain who shot my poor horse," said Leslie.

"This is not the case," replied the dogged ruffian, in some perturbation; "but even if it were so, should a brave soldier commit such acts to memory, Laird of Balquhan?"

"Now, by the devil, my Galloway Scot, how camest thou to know my name?"

Birrel saw his mistake, and remained silent.

"Harkye!" said Lintstock again, "are ye not the runion who drove all the cattle mad, and hounded them out upon the hills? where all the collies and dogs in Lanarkshire will never collect them again; for mony a gude score hae tummelled owre the craigs of the Cairntable, and are drowned in the Douglas burn."

"Oho, my friend," said Roland, setting down his wine-cup, and gazing sternly on the brutal and bilious visage of his prisoner, every twitch of whose square mouth, and every glance of whose twinkling eyes indicated the mass of bad thoughts that festered in his heart, "the charges are coming thick and fast against thee; so 'tis to thee we owe the loss of our lawful prize—those prime herds and fattened hirsels?"

"Say rather to witchcraft; for ken ye, sir, that when I arrived here, three were found to be elfshot, and the rest were under spell; for the gudeman Fleming was dropping upon their horns the blessed wax of a paschal candle, the half whereof is yet remaining——"

"In the pen; he speaks the truth," said Lintstock, "for I saw it there mysel; but sure as I am a living man, it was you who threw the blazing straw-wisps owre the parapets of the bartizan."

"Well, rascal, and didst thou give my message to the bull-headed proprietor of this dwelling?"

"Yea, Sir Roland Vipont, by Heaven I did, word for word."

"So thou knowest my name too, eh? (hold him fast, Lintstock)—well?"

"And he made me prisoner."

"I verily believe, peasant, thou liest; for the Laird of Balquhan avers that he saw thee on the walls in armour."

"True, for I armed me in my own defence."

"But thou didst thrice try to shoot me with an arquebuse, as Lintstock here is ready to swear."

"Lintstock hath but one eye."

"'Tis gude as a dozen, d—n ye," growled the old soldier.

"How the devil is it this fellow wears a sword like a French barber?" said Leslie.

"Ay, how is this, thou, who art not a gentleman?"

"I am travelling, and wear it for mine own security."

"A cudgel would better become such a clown as thee; but take it away, Lintstock, and keep it for thy pains. Now, fellow, my mind misgiveth me sorely that thou art playing us a false trick; but as for thy attempts upon my own life, I say let them pass; being done under armour, and in close fray, it would ill become Roland Vipont to bear malice for such trifles—for trifles they are, to a man who feels himself as I do—with the blade of his sword. Though, as thou knowest, man, I might hang thee from one of those beams, for resisting the king's troops, who are empowered" (he added, with a covert smile at Leslie), "to search every stronghold in Douglasdale for the traitor, Ashkirk; I forgive thee, instead; and, as lord and master of this barmkyn, for one night at least, by the laws of conquest, and appropriation, I say thou art welcome to a cup of wine, a slice from yon savoury roast, and a seat by the fire till dawn, when may God speed thee to thy native Galloway, and keep us from again meeting under harness. I never bore malice to living man, for blow struck, or bullet shot, after the fray was over, and so bear none to thee. Now, fellow, what is thy name?"

"John—John Dargavel," replied Birrel, cautiously.

"Then give me thy hand, John Dargavel, and here is mine," replied Roland.

Each kissed his right hand, and presented it to the other.

"This is the generous frankness of a gallant soldier," said Leslie, as Birrel slunk away; "but, I doubt me, 'tis sorely misplaced, for that fellow hath the eye of a very ruffian. St. Mary! I could not have believed my haughty Vipont would have condescended thus—even though a friar had sworn it."

"The faggots of hell encompass thee!" muttered Birrel (uttering the favourite curse of those days), as he overheard Leslie; "but I may, ere the morning, serve my lord and myself by avenging all this! Praise God, I have still my poniard, with ten lives in its pommel!"

He drew near the great fire, and mingled with the soldiers, who were busy spitting strings of pullets, broiling eggs, basting a lordly roast, toasting cheese, and mulling wine, amid such jesting and revelling as none but soldiers can indulge in after danger dared and slaughter past. There were several among them who no doubt would have recognised him as the witch-pricker of Edinburgh, had they been less occupied with the pleasant task of satisfying their appetite, or had they more closely examined his face, the vile expression of which was considerably increased by the manner in which he had smeared it with dust and mud for concealment; but Lintstock, who had some undefinable suspicions concerning him, kept a strict watch over all his movements, and never once lost sight of him, even for a moment, during the whole night.

The feasting was over, the demi-john had been drained, fresh guards had been posted, and the soldiers lay down to sleep, for Roland had announced they were to march by sunrise, and desired Lintstock to prepare a spiced posset of wine for his friend Leslie and himself, against the time when the morning trumpet should sound.

Two box beds opened off the hall, and each officer, without removing his armour, occupied one of them; while their soldiers slept on the floor, lying close together, with their swords and arquebuses beside them; and as the pavement was somewhat cold (even though the month was June), the staves of the demi-john, a few sturdy oak chairs, and several other articles of furniture, had been heaped in the chimney, where they were all blazing in a sheet of flame, like a yule-nicht fire.

Rolled up in his grey maud, Nichol Birrel reclined in a corner of the ingle, with his bonnet drawn over his eyes; but instead of being asleep, as he pretended, he was intently watching the groups that slept around him. In a more remote corner lay Lintstock, partly under the hall table, with his axe and sword under his head as a pillow, and his keen bright eye fixed on the shaggy-headed brodder, who had not the least idea that he was either watched or suspected.

And thus the two men lay, for nearly two hours. The brodder watching the sleeping soldiers, and Lintstock watching him. The one-eyed veteran had conceived an invincible mistrust and repugnance of their new acquaintance, and lay awake like a lynx.

The fire began to sink and smoulder; and the objects in the hall, its great and sturdily-legged table, the sleeping groups in their conical corslets and red doublets, the yawning fire-place and the rough arch of the mantelpiece, the ponderous beams of the ceiling and the deep embrasures of the windows, assumed various shapes to the half-closed eye of Lintstock. The shadows became black, while a fainter red began to flicker on the walls as the embers died, and everything became grotesquely indistinct.

Sleep was fast overpowering the drowsy veteran; but before yielding to it, he gave one last glance at the witch-brodder, and, starting, grasped the shaft of his Jethart axe.

Birrel had arisen and thrown off his plaid. The last glow of the sinking embers shone full on his strong squat figure, his bilious visage, matted beard, and muscular hands, giving him the aspect of an enormous gnome in their uncertain light.

"Ha! what now, sir?" muttered Lintstock, quietly.

Birrel unsheathed his dagger; the blade gleamed redly in the flame; but instead of grasping the hilt in the usual way, he unscrewed the pommel; and then fortunately a current of wind which streamed down the wide chimney and fanned the embers into a sudden flame, showed Lintstock how he took from the hollow ball a few red grains, and shook them into the posset-cup which had been prepared for Sir Roland and his friend, and which stood near the fire upon the warm hearth.

Lintstock grasped his axe tighter.

For a moment the wine-posset frothed and foamed in the light; then the fermentation subsided, and with the last gleam of the exhausted fire Lintstock saw the brodder envelop himself once more in his plaid, and, after stretching his limbs upon the warm ingle-seat, go composedly to sleep.

The firelight had expired, and then Lintstock could perceive the first faint grey of the morning, brightening coldly and steadily beyond the strong iron gratings of the hall windows; and being well aware that the sentinels would permit none to pass without Sir Roland's order or permission, and thus that the captive prisoner could not escape, Lintstock also addressed himself to sleep for the short two hours that intervened before the usual time of marching.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A DRAUGHT OF WATER.

"Now light is my song, as I journey along,
    Now my perilous service is o'er;
I think on sweet home, and I carol a song,
    In remembrance of her I adore."—TANNAHILL.

With the first peep of the sun's red disc above the Cairntable, the trumpet sounded in the court of the barmkyn; and starting at once to their arms, the arquebusiers, with the ready resolution of soldiers accustomed to be roused on a moment's warning at all hours and in all seasons, hastened from the hall, and began to fall into their ranks in the yard.

Many dead bodies, and that of the stalwart Fleming among them, were lying among the mire, where the fugitive cattle had trod them; a lance-spesade proceeded to call the roll, while the fourrier broached a cask of ale, from which every man took a long horn before marching.

Roland Vipont was the first who started at the sound of the trumpet.

"Hollo, Lintstock," cried he; "my sword and helmet, and bring hither the wine-pot. Come forth, my light Leslie; the trumpet hath blown."

Lintstock brought the posset to his master, who was about to divide it, by pouring a portion into another cup for Leslie; when the wakeful servant whispered into his ear, while lacing on his helmet—

"Hold ye, Sir Roland, and invite our new friend in the border maud to taste of it first."

"Methinks muddy ale, or ditch-water, would better suit his knave's throat; but why this request?"

"There hath been foul play in the night."

"Oho!" said Roland, changing colour and setting down the cup; "do you say so?"

"Poisoned?" asked Leslie, in a low, fierce voice.

Lintstock winked, and nodded towards Birrel, who, at that moment, for the third or fourth time, was endeavouring stealthily to leave the hall, with the last of the soldiers.

"Come hither, friend Dargavel,—for so I believe them callest thyself,"—said Roland, filling a wooden bicker from the large pot of mulled wine; "is it thus thou stealest away without bidding adieu to me, who am thy host; for thou knowest that I command all here while within the walls. Come, drink with us, friend; 'tis a bad maxim to ride with a fasting stomach, so thou art welcome to a share of this posset, which has simmered overnight by the fire. Dost thou hear me, fellow? Art thou deaf?"

Birrel's visage turned deadly pale, and a perspiration suffused the roots of his hair and matted beard.

"I never drink aught that is stronger than water—never, at any time," said he, with a quavering voice.

"This is false," said Leslie; "for I saw thee dipping thy moustaches, yea, and thy whole beard, in the demi-john last night."

"True—but in the morning I never drink either ale, wine, or usquebaugh—never, sir knights—wi' mony gude thanks for your courtesie?"

"Tarry with us, friend; be not in a hurry," said Roland—at a sign from whom Lintstock placed himself in the doorway—"of what, in the devil's name, does thy morning draught usually consist?"

"Milk," replied Birrel, becoming blanched with fear, and looking round for some friendly hole wherein to hide himself.

"A very hermit in temperance! I regret that, in consequence of all the cattle having escaped, we cannot accommodate you, my pretty man, with a draught of your favourite beverage. But hark you, sir," said Roland, unsheathing his formidable sword; "thou seest this blade?—well, if thou dost not drain this cup of wine to the bottom, I will pass this weapon to the hilt—yea, sirrah, to the very hilt, through thy body!"

"Of all the sights of horror and disgust," says a popular writer, "villany transformed at the death-hour into its natural character and original of cowardice, is among the most appalling." The witch-finder trembled in every limb, and seemed frozen to stone by this command.

"Ha! thou unfanged reptile, so we have thee by the throat?" cried Roland, withdrawing his keen, sharp weapon for the death-thrust; "off with it, to the dregs—yea, to the very dregs?"

The tongue of Birrel clove to his palate, for the fear of death and love of life were strong in his breast; he had dropped ten grains into the goblet—and he remembered the words of his master, that each grain was the life of a man. He gasped for breath, but could only utter inarticulate murmurs. He turned towards the doorway, and there stood Lintstock with his eye full of ferocity and his axe uplifted.

"Harkee, hound! dost thou hear me?" said Vipont, spurning him with his foot.

"Oh, Sir Roland, have mercy, have mercy! The servant is not responsible for what he does by the orders of his master?"

"A pleasant rascal this!" said Leslie. "So thou hast a master, eh?"

Birrel stammered, and paused; for, villain as he was, he meant not to betray Redhall.

"Think not that, by divulging his name, thou wilt save thy hang-dog life!" said Roland—who mistook his delay—"for I swear by the God that is in heaven! if thou drainest not this draught to the very bottom, I will run thee through the heart without more preamble. So quick! quick! swallow, swallow! dost think we have time to trifle about crushing a reptile so despicable as thee!"

The villain sank upon his knees, for they refused to sustain his weight; fear froze the very pulses of his heart, and palsied his tongue; his countenance became livid and clayey; his eyes sank, and his lips became blue.

"How frightful this villain is!" said Leslie. "Did ever a brave man look thus in the face of death?"

"Mercy, sirs! mercy! I will sin no more; I will be a gudeman and true—I will tell ye all—my master's name—but mercy, sirs! mercy!"

"Thy master's name! we seek it not," said Roland, as he smote him on the mouth with his gauntleted hand; "we seek it not; for then our honour would compel us to slay him wherever we met him, by holm or hillside, at kirk or in market; and I wish not to stain my father's sword with the blood of villains."

"A priest! then let me have a priest! but five minutes wi' a priest! for, oh, I have mickle to say, and muckle to repent o'!"

"Dog! thou art a Protestant, I believe, and requirest not a priest. No, go down to thy grave with the curse of the God of the living and the God of the dead on thy brow—that dogged front where the mark of hell is written! Drink! drink! dost thou hear me, Cain?"

Roland held the dreadful cup before his eyes by one hand, while, with the other, he gave him a violent prick in the breast with the point of his sword.

Birrel uttered a shriek like a fiend; and, draining the cup to the bottom, flung it full at the face of Roland, who stooped his head, and the wooden vessel was dashed to a thousand shreds on the opposite wall.

"Now I have but two hours to live!" he cried, with the voice of a damned one; "two hours! two hours! two hours!" and, darting through the doorway, he hurled Lintstock from his path as he would a child, and, with one bound sprang down stairs into the courtyard, where he passed through the startled soldiers like a whirlwind, with his visage overspread by the blue pallor of death, his mouth covered with foam, and his matted hair streaming in elf-locks behind him.

Snatching up a cord that lay in his path, he cleared the fosse with one bound, like an evil spirit; and, uttering a succession of frightful cries, plunged down the steep bank, towards the rough rocky bed of the Douglas.

"How now! is the fellow going to hang himself?" said Roland.

"Faith, poisoning might surely satisfy him," replied Leslie.

Master Birrel certainly was about to hang himself, but not by the neck.

"I must live—I must live—oh, yes, I must, for vengeance!" he yelled; for, coward as he was, he felt that he could have died happy, if, by so doing, he could destroy Roland Vipont and Jane Seton—yea, and his master too, who had sent him on an errand so fatal in its termination.

While some of the soldiers were burying the dead, and others were tracing the horses to the artillery, the poisoned ruffian ran wildly to a solitary part of the river, where he threw himself on his face, and imbibed an inordinate draught of cold water—drinking, drinking, drinking—as if he was a mere hollow pipe. Loosening his waist-belt, and untying the points of his doublet, he stooped and drank deeply again, burying his face in the water until his distended stomach felt swollen as if to bursting, and when he arose the whole landscape swam around him. Then, selecting the branch of a tree, he clambered up to it with the utmost difficulty, for he had turned himself into a mere water barrel.

Then, in a horror of anxiety—for every moment wasted seemed an eternity—he tied his ankles to the branch, and lowering his body perpendicularly till his hands rested on the turf, he remained suspended, head downwards, in the hope that, with the ocean of water he had drunk, he might disgorge the frightful poison he had been compelled to swallow. But long before this hideous operation was over, Roland Vipont, Leslie, and their soldiers, with the royal banners displayed, and their bright armour gleaming in the sun, were marching down the pastoral valley, on their route to Edinburgh, having now traversed the whole dale of the Douglas without discovering the Earl of Ashkirk.

"Now, fare ye well, Lanarkshire, and welcome the dun summit of Arthur's Seat," thought Roland; as, full of the most brilliant anticipations of happiness, he spurred his gallant horse and patted its arching neck. "In three days I will be with my dear Jeanie; and, in a month from this, whether the king sayeth yea or nay, she shall be my winsome bride!"

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE SECOND VISIT.

"Give me again my innocence of soul;
Give me my forfeit honour blanched anew;
Cancel my treasons to my royal master;
Restore me to my country's lost esteem,
To the sweet hope of mercy from above,
And the calm comforts of a virtuous heart."
                                                        Edward the Black Prince.

The soothing or sleeping draught had been duly administered by Tib Trotter, and Jane Seton slept.

Everything of late had happened most favourably for the intriguing lord advocate. The queen's delicate health, the king's anxiety, his fear and suspicion of the Douglases; the imprisonment of the countess of Inchkeith, and the retirement of the court to the Abbey of Balmerino; but chiefly the young earl's proscription, the banishment of all his retainers from the city, and the protracted absence of Roland Vipont in Douglasdale, from whence it was to be hoped Birrel would never permit him to return alive, left Archibald Seton and his sister utterly at the mercy of Redhall, the chambers of whose mansion were as secret and secure as those of the recently-established Holy Office at St. Andrew's.

Animated by no new evil intention, but solely by his clamorous desire to see her, to be near her, that he might touch her hands or kiss her cheek unrepelled, Redhall had administered the narcotic to his fair captive, whom he now prepared to visit.

It was midnight; his whole household was buried in slumber; and as the moment approached when he had proposed to pay this somewhat equivocal visit, a tremor took possession of his heart, a dimness came over his eyes, and he imbibed more than one glass of wine, to string his nerves and still his agitation.

"Poh!" said he, as his cheek reddened; "all this excitement about visiting a girl—a girl who is asleep, too."

Like many other Scottish houses where the walls were strong, Redhall's mansion was furnished with several narrow wheel-staircases, which, like gimlet-holes, perforated the edifice from top to bottom, communicating with the various stories. One of these descended from the door of his apartment to another which gave entrance to Jane Seton's, opening just behind the arras of her bed.

Redhall laid his poniard on the table, from which he took a candle, and treading softly in his maroquin slippers, found himself at the door of Jane's apartment, and there he paused. Though not a current of air swept up the narrow staircase, the candle in his tremulous hand streamed like a pennon, while a glow of fear and shame traversed his heart like a red-hot iron.

Tib had informed him that Lady Jane kept candles burning in her room all night; so extinguishing his, he noiselessly opened the little private door, and drew back the arras. A sense of flowers and perfume, mingled with the closer atmosphere of the chamber, was wafted towards him, and, by the light of two candles which, in massive square holders of Bruges silver, burned on the toilet-table, he was enabled to make a survey of the whole dormitory on which he was intruding. Though he was unconscious of any guilty intention, there was (he mentally acknowledged) something equivocal in the time and manner of his visit that appalled his heart. He felt shame glowing on his cheek: he saw spies in every shadow, and heard a voice in every echo of his own footfalls.

Softly he let the arras drop, but, in his excitement, forgot to close behind him the door which it was intended to conceal.

Unused, from the first hour she had occupied the chamber, the magnificent bed prepared for Jane Seton had not been disturbed, and with its cornices of carved oak, its festooned hangings and aspiring feathers, its heraldic blazonry and grotesque devices, it towered upon its dais like a monument in some old abbey aisle.

Placed on each side of a mirror, the two candles reflected a bright light upon the warmly-coloured tapestry of the apartment; the Persian carpet of its floor, the fresh flowers that, in jars of Venetian glass, decorated the mantelpiece, and all the innumerable little ornaments with which the taste and policy of Redhall had furnished it, to beguile the tedium or flatter the vanity of his unwilling prisoner.

"She sleeps!" said he, advancing on tiptoe, and shading his eyes with his hand, "she sleeps, and soundly too. Oh, how beautiful she is! How pure, how innocent she looks," he added, gazing upon her with eyes of adoration, for he loved her exceedingly, and with a depth of regard which, though not based on the same sentiments of esteem, was no-wise inferior perhaps to that of the more favoured Roland Vipont.

She was seated in a large arm-chair of the most luxurious description. Carved like a gigantic clamshell, the back, with its arms and sides, were of damask, stuffed with the softest down, and the woodwork was elaborately gilt. She reclined within it, with a hand, white as alabaster, resting on each of the arms; her head lay somewhat on her right shoulder, over which her unbound hair poured in a shower of ringlets, which, from her recumbent position, reached nearly to the ground. Her face was pale as her hands; but some vision was rising before her, through the depth of her slumber, and a soft smile played on her beautiful mouth.

Though feeling certain that, under the influence of what she had imbibed, Jane would not awake, Redhall scarcely dared to breathe; but, impelled by the delirium that was rapidly mounting to his brain, a devouring longing to touch, to embrace her, possessed him; and, kneeling before his sleeping divinity, he kissed both her hands repeatedly and affectionately. Then he became giddy, and his heart beat furiously; pulses rang in his ears, and all his senses began to wander wildly; he gently encircled her with his arms, pressed her to his breast, and kissed her soft cheek again and again. A blindness seemed to come over him.

"Oh, beautiful, indeed, thou art, and most adorable, too; but proud and pitiless to me—to poor me, that loves thee so well!" he murmured, becoming almost maudlin; "why hast thou so great a horror of a poor being that would kiss the very dust whereon thou treadest? Oh, this love is bewildering me—I am not the same man—oh, no,—'tis a torment—a frenzy."

His hot, dry eyes became moistened, and one large tear fell upon the cheek of Jane.

She suddenly opened her large startled eyes, and fixed them upon him with an expression of terror and stupefaction; while his own astonishment was so great that he forgot to release her from his embrace.

The draught had been less potent than the apothegar intended.

"'Tis a dream!" she muttered, and closed her eyes; "another dream, but always that face of horror!"

Then, becoming more awake, and more alive to her situation, and feeling that the arms of some one encircled her, she shuddered, and, in great alarm, attempted to rise, but her limbs were powerless, and a strange numbness tied her to her chair. She made a superhuman effort to cry, but her tongue was powerless.

"Mother! mother! what is this? Assist me, for I am wholly at his mercy! I am in the power of a demon, who will fascinate me with his eyes."

Laying her gently back, his first impulse was to retreat before perfect consciousness returned; but she seemed so agitated, so woe-begone, and so frightfully pale, that he dared not leave her; and, on his knees, began to chafe in his her soft and dimpled hands.

Gradually, the truth forced itself upon Jane. Her actual tormentor, and no vision, was before her. She began to weep, and covered her face with her snow-white hands, over which her hair fell like a glossy veil.

"Oh, despair! despair! am I abandoned for ever? Roland, Roland! come to me, dearest Roland!" she exclaimed, incoherently. "Oh, man, man! why dost thou persecute me thus?"

Sir Adam Otterburn was stung to the heart by her words; but, sighing deeply, he gently parted her dishevelled hair, and said—

"Lady Jane, I am aware that I am guilty of great wrong towards you; but it is the guilt of love, and love should pardon the frenzy it has caused."

"I can pardon your love, but can I pardon the misery it hath caused me? It is not the love of a sane man, but the fantasy of a madman. I am thy prisoner, lawlessly thy prisoner; but thou hast infamously violated the ties of honour and hospitality in breaking the privacy of a helpless woman. Fie upon thee, man! for I will raise upon thee even thine own detested household!"

She rose, staggering, and more than once passed her hand across her forehead, for her faculties were as yet obscured by the potion.

"Oh, deem me not so vile!" said Redhall, clasping his hands, and looking upon her with the most sad and solemn earnestness. "I came but to see, to touch, to be near you, to breathe but the same air with you, to look upon you without being repulsed, to sit by and worship you; and I have done so with such adoration as I have never felt even before the altar of my God; and I call Him to witness, if in my mind there was kindled one impure or one unholy thought."

"Fool!" said Jane, bitterly, for she was full of angry alarm; "thou ravest like one of Lindesay's playmen. Thy purity of thought should have made thee respect as sacred the chamber to which I am consigned. Sir Adam, in all thy love-making there is a fustian sophistry, which shows thou art immensely inferior to my Vipont; and he, though but a rough soldier, never dared resort to blasphemy in expressing his love for me."