CHAPTER LIX.

REUNITED.

"But am I not the nobler thro' thy love?
O three times less unworthy! likewise thou
Art more thro' love, and greater than thy years."

Meanwhile treason was not idle at home.

Sir Patrick Gray and Sir James Shaw, exasperated by the turn affairs had taken against them, and by finding, that instead of having their petty lairdships erected into lordships and earldoms, with many a fair slice of the lands of the Crawfurds, the Erskines, the Stewarts, and others, to whose confiscation and forfeiture they had fondly looked forward, and being no longer able to exact kain and herezelds at the sword's point again and again from the hapless rentallers of the king's castles, they entered into a closer compact with Henry for the removal of Margaret Drummond, and with Master Quentin Kraft, who, eluding the chain of guards and close watch kept upon the Borders between Tweedmouth and Solway Sands, had the hardihood to re-enter Scotland disguised, and he, together with Borthwick, who still lurked about the town and Castle of Berwick, were, as before, their ready means of communication with the court of London.

The two anti-national knights had both conceived a mortal grudge against Sir Andrew Wood, for no other cause, perhaps, than his being a sterling and unflinching patriot, who, by taking the English ships, had restored Margaret Drummond to her princely lover. Thus they had many a long conference, and one in particular on the very day after he sailed for Brest.

Shaw, as usual, half intoxicated,—and Gray, nervous, grim, and fiery as ever, sat over their wine in the half-naked hall of Kyneff, where Kraft, the notary, or attorney—for he was called both—prepared a statement of the number of ships, men, and guns carried by Admiral Wood. With this paper he departed on the spur to Berwick, from whence Borthwick conveyed it to London (then a four-weeks' journey at least), and there he informed the Bishop of Winchester, the secretary of King Henry, who was then residing at Baynard Castle, that on leaving Brest, the Scottish admiral would sail for Sluys; and that by having a powerful fleet to intercept him, he might easily, at one and the same time, crush one of the young king's most gallant subjects, assert the superiority of England on the sea, and revenge the affront so lately put upon her arms in the battle of the Firth of Forth.

Though kings had generally as little power of choice in love, then as now, and had to submit to the wishes and will of their subjects, and to the interests of their country, James IV., after striving to banish from his mind the gloom his father's fate had brought upon him, and after exiling from his presence most of those who had been the cause of that hapless father's downfall, gave himself up to the joy and intoxication of his passion for Margaret Drummond—a passion all untrammelled now by secrecy, and uncurbed by caution.

The whole nation knew that he loved her now—that they were secretly married, and that a little daughter had been born, to secure whose legitimacy and regal rights the dispensation of the Pope alone was wanting; and the Lyon King of Arms had gone to England, empowered to demand the instant liberation of its bearer, or denounce war by sea and land. But though anxious to destroy Sir Andrew Wood and his companions, and also to detain the Bishop of Dunblane, the subtle Henry VII. had no intention, if it could be avoided, of having a crisis so fatal to his darling matrimonial projects; and he still resolved, that by fair means or foul, Lord Drummond's daughter should be removed, to make way for an English princess.

It was now the beginning of August: the birds had ceased to sing, and were training their newly-fledged broods; the swallows were gathering for their long and mysterious journey, and the ripe corn waved in heavy ear.

The sun was setting beyond the fertile carse of Gowrie, and the evening was warm and balmy in bonnie Dundee.

The last of the traders had left the meal-market, and the lorimers, the bonnet-makers, the wabsters, and cordiners, had closed their booths about the old Salt Iron. The various bells were ringing for the vesper service, and the broad blue river, with its picturesque craft, lay sleeping in its beauty between the yellow sands and fertile slopes of Fife and Angus.

Dreaming little of the tangled web of trouble, care, and sorrow Scottish guile and English gold were weaving round their young and loving hearts, James and his fair-haired consort occupied the old Palace of St. Margaret, of which we gave the reader a description in the earlier chapters of this history.

The royal guard had been re-established under another captain, the town was occupied by a great number of armed men—Drummonds, Homes, and Hepburns,—all flushed with their recent victory at Sassentilly, and these were quartered on the wealthy citizens, among whom they remained at free quarters to be ready for any emergency as the country was far from being quiet or settled.

The young monarch gave himself up to all the joy of a complete reunion with his youthful consort, but she was unusually sad and thoughtful, as if a foreboding of approaching evil hovered in her heart and clouded her open brow.

"Dearest," said she, after a long pause, as they sat together in a recess of one of those deep old windows which were so well calculated for a quiet tête-à-tête, "how deeply am I indebted to you for your tenderness, which gratifies all my wishes, and anticipates all my thoughts. Oh, my dearest—my best beloved one!" she continued, clinging to him like a child; "let me creep closer to you."

"Sweet Maggie," said the handsome young king, as he passed a hand fondly and caressingly over her bright-coloured hair, which looked indeed "as if powdered with gold dust"—and this was the same stout hand which was afterwards hewn off his stiffened arm at Flodden,—"every moment we are separated seems an age, and yet the while my heart is full of thee! But a time is coming, when in the presence of all Scotland, we shall stand side by side upon the throne, and the greatest peers shall kiss this pretty hand, as their queen's."

"When our good Bishop returns—but not, alas! till then!" she murmured, looking upward, as her soft cheek fell upon his shoulder, "he is a weary time away."

The brightness of pure love shone in her fair face; and this young queen—for a queen, indeed, she was, though the Church would not yet acknowledge her—seemed enchanting in her beauty and her innocence.

"Fools speak of the right divine of kings," said James, gazing tenderly upon her. "By my soul, dear Margaret, the power of a beautiful woman is the only one that comes direct from heaven."

Margaret only sighed at this compliment, and her eyes filled with tears.

"Still nursing thine old sadness, Margaret!"

"Ah, call me pet names, as you were wont to do."

"Well, then, Maggie, why so sorrowful?"

"My aunt, the Duchess of Montrose, told me that there is a rumour going abroad—that—"

"That what?"

"That an old prophecy of Thomas of Ercildoune says,—

"When Pausyle and Tweed meet o'er Merlin's grave,
Scotlande and Englande one king shall have."

"There they can never meet, thank God!" said the king, laughing: "though Merlin lies buried in Drummellier, by Tweedside; for there I have seen his tomb. But what doth an old rhyme matter to us, Maggie?"

"They say moreover—"

"Who are they?"

"The people," said Margaret, giving way to tears, "that this prophecy will be accomplished by your wedding the daughter of Henry VII."

"Those who say so are fools! Has not this cunning old Tudor a son, who will be Henry VIII.? No English king can reign over Scotland, and I would not sit on the English throne were I its heir to-morrow; for who, then, would be king of broad Scotland, Margaret? and who would be a barrier between her people and the tyrannical nobility? Besides, tidings must long ere this have reached the English court that we are married, and well must Henry know that thus all hope of fulfilling the terms of that state betrothal, which assigned another Margaret to me, is at an end for ever."

Margaret only sighed, and her tears continued to fall.

"My bounibel," said James, "here are luxury, wealth, grandeur, rank, and greater are yet before thee; yet thou art not happy."

"Oh, pardon my ingratitude; but I have such strange dreams by night, and such dark forebodings by day! Something is always wanting to complete happiness."

"That is the curse of life, Margaret."

"Of mine at least," said she, folding her soft little hands.

"And that want—"

"Is security," said Margaret, sighing.

"Thou wilt always be loved and respected, Maggie," said her boy husband, as he caressed her; "for thou art not valued by the dimness or splendour of thy fortune, but for thy sweetness and piety, thy goodness of heart and purity of soul, rather than imaginary nobility of name."

"But your majesty must be ever watchful and ready to defend from danger your poor Margaret, who loves you so well—better than all the world beside;—yea, better even than her little babe—ours; and you must not leave me so often and so long for those meetings of council and affairs of state, for dire forebodings of evil crush me whenever I am left alone."

"Why so fearful of plots and wiles, sweet Maggie? But take courage, for I would defend you against a world in arms; and fear not either for our fair-haired little one, who may one day wed some gallant king of France or Spain, when she is beautiful as thyself, my kind-eyed Maggie!"

Such was one of many similar conversations which took place between the young king and his secretly wedded wife, while they awaited the bishop's return and the coming coronation; but whether the dark presentiments that hovered in Margaret's timid mind and saddened her winning manner were false or true, a little time will now serve to show.

CHAPTER LX.

LONDON IN 1488.

"Sir John got on a bonny brown beast
    To Scotland for to ride—a;
A brown buff coat upon his back,
    A short sword by his side—a;
Alas! young man, we sucklings can
    Pull down the Scottish pride—a."
                                                            Sir John Mennis, 1639.

Saint Swithin's Day in 1488—fortunately a fair and sunny one—was the busiest ever witnessed in the good city of London, if not since the English capital had a name, at least since the mayoralty of the loyal and wealthy Sir William Horne, whom King Henry VII. had knighted in the preceding year at Hornsey Park; and from its countless wooden thoroughfares—bricks were only beginning to be used about thirty years before—she poured forth her thousands, to witness the departure of a gallant admiral against the Scots.

"The first article of an Englishman's political creed," saith my Lord Halifax, "must be that he believeth in the sea!"—and a very good article it is.

Hence Henry VII. was so deeply concerned by the humiliation of Howard, that he summoned the most expert and experienced mariners in his kingdom, "and after exhorting them to purge away the stain east upon the English name," he offered the then handsome pension of a thousand pounds yearly, to any man who would undertake to bring before him, dead or alive, Sir Andrew Wood of Largo, though it was now a time of truce, and actually of treaty between the two nations; but such were the anomalies of an age when no man was particular about anything but the length of his sword and the trim of his beard—if he had one.

In this new project Henry had many difficulties to encounter, for at that time, England was almost destitute of a navy. "Before the reign of Queen Elizabeth," says Fuller, "the ships-royal were so few that they deserved not the name of a fleet, and our kings hired vessels from Hamburg, Lubeck, yea, from Genoa itself." The Great Harry, his first ship, cost him one hundred and fourteen thousand pounds; before this, he used to seize or press merchant vessels for warlike purposes when he required them.

The celebrity for skill and valour enjoyed by Sir Andrew Wood, caused him to be so much dreaded by the English, Dutch, and Portuguese, that some time elapsed before a volunteer was found. At last Sir Stephen Bull, a naval captain of known talent and well-tried courage, offered his sword and services to the King, who accepted them with joy; and three vessels, the largest and strongest that England could furnish, well-manned by chosen men, and mounted with heavy cannon, were placed at his disposal by John de Vere, Earl of Oxford, who was Lord High Admiral of England from the year 1485 to 1512, and who spared no pains to fit out this half chivalric and wholly vindictive enterprize,—for to their glory be it said, the English nobles—unlike the Scottish—have always been distinguished by a high degree of patriotism and love of the honour and interests of their native country; identifying themselves with both in all ages.

The chief of these three ships was the Unicorn—the caravel of the late Sir Andrew Barton.

Sir Stephen had been a merchant-trader of London, and was well known at Staple Inn, where the dealers of those days exposed their samples of wool, cloth, and other commodities for sale; and no vote had more influence than his at Aldermanbury, where the Guildhall was then situated, and where the council met; but fired by a laudable and honourable desire for upholding the glory of "Old England," he had buckled on his armour, and left his buxom dame and comfortable mansion with its glazed windows—then no ordinary luxury—at the corner of Fenchurch-street, near the Aldgate, to wage battle against "the hot and termagant Scots."

To the great, or uneducated mass of the English people, even in the present age, Scotland is a country of which but little is known. Then it was deemed a distant and remote, as well as hated land, and all expeditions against it, were fraught with danger and death.

In those "good old times" there were no electric telegraphs; no mails, rails, or "own correspondents," and no resident ambassadors or consuls. Every Scot entering England became a prisoner; every Englishman entering Scotland might be lawfully killed or captured by whoever could catch him. These were pleasant times withal; and thus, though it was a season of peace between the two countries, Henry, after wisely considering the recent convulsion in Scotland, and the new King's extreme youth—thought he might risk a little to punish the bold Scottish mariner, in the same fashion in which he had overwhelmed Sir Andrew Barton; and if war was declared by Scotland thereanent, he might easily contrive to repudiate the whole affair as a military quarrel between two rival knights—a passage of arms upon the sea.

Sir Stephen Bull had hoisted his flag on board the captured Unicorn, and he had spared no pains or expense in fitting her up; thus, not content with all the King gave him, he had borrowed largely from the opulent money-lenders in Lombard-street.

Edmund Howard was his captain.

The second ship was commanded by Miles le Furnival, son of the Lord of Farnham in Bucks—an ancient house, whose tenure it was to find the King of England a right-hand glove on his Coronation day, and to support his right arm when he held the sceptre. Their town residence, still known as Furnival's Inn, stood on the north side of Holborn.

The third ship was under the orders of the wealthy Fulke, Lord of Fulkeshall (now better known as Vauxhall), who is said to have been an ancestor of Guy of notorious memory.

Immense quantities of iron balls and stone shot—the latter from the royal quarries at Maidstone in Kent—had been put on board of these vessels, and they were crowded by the best marksmen of the ancient Fraternity of Artillery, or Gunners of the Tower; and the chief of these was our old friend, tall Dick Selby, the best cudgel-player that ever broke a head at Moorfields, or tossed the bar at Finsbury, and who, moreover, was the blithest toper that ever tossed off a horn, as the bluff host of the Belle Sauvage on Ludgate Hill was ready to testify.

Many brave volunteers accompanied Bull; these were all members of noble families—some of them gay fellows, whose white feathers and laced mantles would long be missed by many a bright blue eye in Paul's Walk, as the aisle of the great cathedral was named, being the favourite place of the Londoners for gossip and promenades; many, too, would prance no more among the horsemen at the Smoothfield, on Friday, or lounge at the Priory of St. John, at Clerkenwell, where the Sacred Mysteries were performed in the fine summer evenings.

Thus, the three ships were manned by mariners of tried skill, and soldiers of proved courage; but among them were not a few desperadoes from that sanctuary of miscreants, St. Martin's-le-Grand.

"Bring ye back my daughter, Captain Howard," cried old Abel Eyre, the stout fishmonger of Knightrider-street, as he came off to the Unicorn in a wherry, from the Old Swan Stairs; "bring her back to me, from yonder distant country, and I will give thee a pair of the best gold spurs Giltspur-street can furnish."

"Restore my niece, Rose," added Peter Puddle, of Puddle-wharf, "for, by my troth, I would rather she had turned cut-purse, or wedded the greasiest scullion of Pie-corner, than become the wife of a rough-footed Scot."

"If I ever return, good citizens," said Howard, through his open helmet, as he looked over the buckler-ports of the Unicorn; "thy daughter will be by my side. I took her away with me, and it is but fair I should restore her, if I can. Farewell, sirs, and remember me at vespers to-night," he added, with a sadness that chilled the hearts of the two portly citizens; "for sorely my mind misgives me, I shall never hear the English curfew bell again!"

Never had the banks of Thames seen a sight so gay or so busy, since London Stone was first placed by the verge of the old Prætorian-road!

In a gorgeous barge, covered by an awning, decorated by pennons and rowed by men in the royal livery, Henry VII. was on the river, accompanied by the Lord Mayor and commonalty, all in smaller barges, garnished with streamers and surrounded by a swarm of lesser boats, crowded by knights, courtiers, citizens, and beautiful women, all wearing the gayest of colours.

He wore his royal robes—a kirtle and surcoat, with his furred hood and mantle, and the George upon his breast. A smile of gratification lit up his usually grave face from time to time, as he caressed his chief favourite—an abominable monkey.

As he stood up in the barge to bow in return to the people, whose shouts rent the sunny air, his tall thin figure was conspicuous above his courtiers, "among whom we observed," as the newspapers would have said had there been one in this year of grace, 1488, Sir William Stanley, Lord Chamberlain of England, wearing his gold key of office; Robert Lord Brook, Knight of the Garter, and Lord Steward of the Household; Sir Richard Crofts, the King's Treasurer, and Sir Richard Edgecumbe, his comptroller, each bearing a white wand; Berkely, the Earl Marshal; Lord Dinham, the Treasurer of England; and Gerald, Earl of Kildare, the newly appointed Governor of Henry's lordship of Ireland, all attired in gorgeous costumes, while the fifty Yeomen of the Guard—a body established only two years before—clad in scarlet coats and black velvet caps, and armed with partisans and swords, were in the king's great barge, with their captain, Sir Charles Somerset, afterwards Earl of Worcester.

It was quite a gala day in London. The beautiful cross in Cheapside, and the Conduit, recently built by the Sheriff, Thomas Ilam, were covered with garlands of flowers; all the bells were tolling, and the houses which faced the river had their windows crowded with heads, and their horn lattices open,—for glass was not common in England until the middle of the sixteenth century, and even in 1558, when "the proud Earl of Northumberland" left Alnwick Castle for a time, the glass windows were carefully taken out, and thriftily replaced by plain wooden boards.

The culverins and bombardes of the Tower thundered out their farewell salute as the ships got under way; flags were displayed on the old Church of St. Katharine, where now the Docks are; and all the foreign argosies and the corn traders from the Cinque Ports, which in those days were compelled to land their cargoes at Queen-hithe, the rival of Billingsgate, were bedecked with banners and streamers, while many a broad piece of tapestry floated from the keep of the Tower, and from Baynard Castle, which had been rebuilt about sixty years before by the Duke of Gloucester.

The roofs and windows of quaint Old London Bridge, through the narrow arches of which the ebb tide was rushing, displayed a thousand faces and waving caps. It had then a grotesque row of houses and shops, forming a narrow street across the river, with a gothic Chapel of St. Thomas à Becket; an embattled drawbridge-tower, on which Hentzner, one fine morning, counted no less than thirty human heads, all of which had been carefully cooked and parboiled, according to act of parliament, in the kitchen of the said tower.

At last the topsails were sheeted home, and while their ordnance, amid clouds of smoke replied to the farewell salutes of the Tower and the deafening cheers of the people, St. George's red cross was thrice lowered in adieu to the king, and the vessels began to drop down the river, while a fry of wherries pulled by barefooted and barelegged watermen shot after them, their occupants cheering with delight at the anticipation of pelting with the mud of the then unpaved streets "the rough-footed Scots" of Andrew Wood; for those of Andrew Barton, when marched in chains through the thoroughfares of London, obtained some weighty marks of the goodwill borne by the citizens to foreigners in general, and the abhorred Scots in particular. In the days of Henry VII. and Henry VIII., we are told the London streets "were very foul, and full of pits and sloughs," and thus, plenty of muddy ammunition lay always at hand.

On board the ship of Miles Furnival sailed Hew Borthwick, bound to Scotland on another mission of infamy.

A deadly and subtle poison had been prepared by a certain Master Kraft, an herbalist whom Henry VII. patronised, and who was a brother of Quentin the Notary. This personage kept an apothecary's booth in Bucklersbury, a street which, from a very early period, until the great fire of 1666, was inhabited solely, or nearly so, by renders of simples, medicines, cosmetics, and deleterious drugs.

This poison had been delivered by Henry's agents to Borthwick, who was to leave nothing untried, by its means, to remove Margaret Drummond for ever from the path of Margaret Tudor.

Thus Hew Borthwick had embarked on board the caravel of Miles Furnival, being too wary to show himself near Captain Howard, who he knew would indubitably fling him overboard, without mercy or remedy.

Cheer after cheer continued to be interchanged as the vessels dropped down Thames with the ebbing tide, and with their white sails and silken streamers shining in the sunny evening light. The bank near East Smithfield, known as the Red Cliff, which gave a name to the ancient village of Ratcliffe Highway, was crowded by spectators, who waved their adieux to the tall and stately caravels—the hope of so many hearts.

The sun was sinking now, and soon the merry chimes of St. Clement Danes, and the deep ding-dong of the Bow-bell in the spire of St. Mary de Arcubus, with the smoke and steeples of London, the din of its streets with the voices of their assembled thousands, and the huge square tower of old St. Paul's, lessened and faded together in the distance, as the vessels stood down the widening and winding river, on their bold expedition to intercept Sir Andrew Wood of Largo, on his return from Sluys.

CHAPTER LXI.

THE ADMIRAL'S STORY—THE LEGEND OF CORA

                        ———————— "Peace, Kent!
Come not between the dragon and his wrath:
I lov'd her most, and thought to set my rest
On her kind nursery.—Hence, and avoid my sight
So be my grave my peace, as here I give
Her father's heart from her!"—King Lear, Act i.

While the two Scottish caravels (such was the name usually given to all large ships) lay at Sluys, the admiral left nothing unsaid, in his rough, hearty fashion, to rouse the spirit and fan the hopes of David Falconer and Robert Barton; but both sank lower, they grew weary of the flat shores of Dutch Flanders, with their gaudy houses, closely clipped hollies and stiff tall poplar trees; and of the sluggish Scheldt that flowed so noiselessly to the sea in slime and sunshine; and of rambling among the grass-grown fortifications of Cadsandt, the cannon of which commanded the navigation of the river; they were wearied too, by the endless interviews and diplomacy of the slow, pompous, and full-fed burgomasters of Bruges, Sluys, and Ardenburg, with their vast circular hats, great bombasted breeches, and long iron spadas; and heartily they longed to weigh anchor for home.

"Take courage, and be men," said the Laird of Largo to his two friends and companions, as they lingered over their wine, one sunny afternoon, in that famous old hostel on the quay at Sluys, the "Yung-fraü," kept by Dame Gudule Snichtercloot, who wore a cap with long ears, a score of petticoats, and had a long-legged stork sitting dreamily on each of the six steep gables of her house. "Take courage, carles; gadzooks! had I lost heart thus every time fortune gave me a head-wind, I had never gathered leeway in life, or been Laird of Largo and Newbyrne."

"True, true, Sir Andrew," said Barton, gnawing the ends of his mustachios; "but had the stout old skipper, my father, been a lord of that ilk—"

"He would have kent to a plack the price of Scottish honour and of the favour of foreign kings," said the Admiral, bitterly; "but being a humble man, he deemed that Scotland was the Scotsman's gift from God—for the poor man's sole inheritance is his country,—and so, he fought and died for her. Were I the Lion King of Arms, I would enact a law of heraldry that every Scottish peer and placeman should have his shield powdered with English rose-nobles, as indicative of the fealty they are ever ready to transfer for lucre, But were there two Adams in the Garden of Eden, and two Eves to mate with them, Father Zuill? I trow not. Gadzooks! one man's blood is as good as the blood of another, whatever his soul may be. But enough of this—I could spin you a yarn to the point, though I usually leave that task to the boatswain. Heard ye ever the story of King Malcolm's daughter Cora and Mac Ian the royal huntsman?"

"No."

"No" were the replies from each side of the table.

"And of how she wedded a youth of low degree?"

"Cora! I have heard of her," said Father Zuill, who was making a focus with his glass in the sunshine, and endeavouring to burn a hole in his cassock; "she was drowned in the Falls of Clyde."

"So sayeth old history, but old history is wrong. 'Twas a tale my poor mother was wont to tell me, when I was a wee halfling callant that spent the lee lang summer day in fishing for podleys at the auld wooden pier of Leith, and rambling on the Mussel-cape; and many a time have I thought of it after I became a sailor, like my father before me; and the auld woman's kind voice came to me in dreams, when the wind rocked me asleep on the swinging topsail-yard. Well, fill up the bickers—summon another stoup of Dame Snichtercloot's best Bordeaux, and I'll tell you the tale, for it may give you heart to bear up against your present crosses, and show how a sair broken ship may natheless come merrily to land."

After a few more preambles, the admiral began as follows—and although we have shown hitherto that he spoke in his own dialect, and mingled his phraseology with many a nautical simile and salt-water metaphor, lest the reader should tire of these, we have rendered his story into proper language, and in short preferred to tell it in our own way:—

Malcolm II., King of Scotland, surnamed Mac Kenneth, (his father, the victor of Luncarty, being the third of that name) was a wise, just, and valiant monarch, who divided his realm into provinces, putting over each a governor or sheriff to restrain the turbulent and lawless; he encouraged the commons to become skilful husbandmen and tillers of the soil, and to become merchants and traders on the sea. Under his rule all the arts of peace flourished, while those of war were not forgotten; for by his valour he spread his conquests far beyond the Saxon border, and by the annexation of the northern counties of England obtained the additional surname of

Rex Victoriosissimus.

Hence it is, that for many years after, the eldest sons of the kings of Scotland bore the title of Prince of Cumberland; and hence it is that we find the inhabitants of these northern counties of England so Scottish in aspect, dialect, and character. Malcolm had no son; but he had four daughters, all famous for their charms: the Princess Beatrix, wife of Crinian Abthane of the Western Isles; the Princess Doacha, wife of the Thane of Angus, and consequently mother of the terrible Macbeth; Muriella, married to Sigurd Earl of Orkney; and lastly, the Princess Cora, the most beautiful lady in the land.

Many powerful thanes and chiefs sought her hand in marriage, but the principal competitors were Kenneth, a Lord of the Isles; Græme, Thane of Strathearn; and Dunbar, Thane of Lothian: and so anxious was the king to secure by her means the firm adherence of one of these influential nobles, that he would not have hesitated to employ force and severity, but that he loved the gentle Cora with the tenderest love that can fill a human breast; for he had transferred to her, in another form, all the regard he had borne the queen her mother, who had now passed away to the company of the saints, and whose remains lay with those of her fathers, among the royal combs of lona.

Yet, when this good king waxed old, when his brow became lyart and his beard grew white, and when he saw that Cora, his youngest-born, had expanded into a beautiful woman—full-bosomed, graceful, and tall, with snow-white skin, soft eyes, and golden hair, he thought in his secret heart, how gladly he would see her some bold warrior's bride; lest, when the time came that he too should be borne through the valley of corpses in Kilmalie, that some of his bearded thanes and ferocious chiefs might decide the prize of her hand by the sword, and so deluge the land in Scottish blood.

Many of the great lords were more than usually importunate, because Malcolm's grandchildren, little Duncan, the son of Beatrix, and the boy Macbeth, the son of Doacha, might both die in infancy, or when they grew older, might perish in war, or in the forest, which was then fraught with danger to the hunter; for the woods were full of white mountain bulls, bears and wolves, elks, and other wild animals, that the old Scots of those hardy times loved to encounter and subdue, for wild sports were their chief pastime.

None of King Malcolm's court loved the chase like the Princess Cora, and she was ever the foremost of the hunters, mounted on a beautiful horse, which Gregory, Bishop of St. Andrew's, had procured for her in Arabia Petræa, with its bridle of silver, at which hung thirteen blessed bells; and as she gave each of these as a prize to the best horseman successively, in racing round the ring, the proverb first came among us of "bearing away the bell."

The old king spared no cost in the decoration of her chamber, which was entirely hung with bright-coloured silk, and its windows were glazed with clear beryl, though he and his courtiers contented! them with beds of soft heather, and had nothing in their windows save the iron gratings which gave them security. Moreover, the floor of her chamber was laid with the softest furs, and her bed and her pillows were the finest feathers, all procured by Mac Ian Rua, the Forester of Dunfermline, and favourite huntsman of the king, in an age when luxury was almost unknown.

She was an expert citharist, and none in Scotland sang more beautifully; thus, each night by the royal couch she sat with her harp on her knees, and sang the old king to sleep by rehearsing the lay of Aneurin, describing the great Battle of Cattraeth, which was fought in Etterick Forest, where, five hundred years before, the men of Dunedin were almost exterminated by the Saxons of Deiria; and this warlike song made the old king's heart leap within him, and he would beat time with his fingers, and thus sinking to sleep, would dream of his early days, of the field of Cramond, the flight of flanes and shock of spears, and his battles with Danes by the Earn and the Tay. But his chief favourite was the low sad song of "The Owl," which our Highlanders yet sing when the cloud of night descends upon the darkening mountains, word for word as Ossian sang it in Selma, many a long and misty year ago.

Yet it was strange that three chiefs so powerful, so handsome, and so valiant as the Thanes of Lothian, Strathearn, and the Isles, should be without interest in the eyes of the young princess—for a day seldom passed without their laying some offering before her. Græme brought from the Perthshire mountains the snow-white hide and sable horns of the mighty Scottish bull, the tusks of the savage boar, the antlers of the elk, and the claws of the red-mouthed wolf; to evince his prowess, Dunbar of Lothian laid before her the painted banners, the steel helmets, and white linen surcoats of the yellow-haired Saxons whom he had slain in many a field between the Tweed and Ouse; while Kenneth of the wave-beaten Isles brought a hundred bearded harpers, each of whom could frame a hundred songs in her praise, and the charms of whose united voices filled the air by day and the halls by night with melody; while by the number and splendour of their retinues, the usually sequestered court of the good King Malcolm was a scene of constant gaiety and delight; for the merriment of the palace seemed to grow apace with the years that grew upon him.

Still the princess remained unwedded, and the bells of many a church and chapel had rung on her twenty-third birthday, before the king began to lose patience; but whenever he waxed wroth, or even serious, Cora spread her white hands over her harp, shook back her long golden locks from her smiling face, and sang the song of "The Owl" with an eye so bright and a voice so sweet, that the kind king laughed at her drollery, kissed her, and was pacified.

Pondering on her opposition to his dearest wishes, one evening when the sun was low in the west, Malcolm II. left the old tower in the woods by a secret door, and wandered into the deep dark glen of Pittencrief.

The sunlight streamed along the wooded hollow, and tinged with many a brilliant hue the topmost branches of the tallest trees and the red battlements of the old tower which crowned the summit of the Dun,—a steep and lofty rock, at the base of which flowed a stream. The brown fox shot across the leafy dell, the dun fuimart peeped from among the long grass, and the cushat dove cooed on the branches of the ivied oaks, as the king walked slowly and thoughtfully on, until he reached a nook in the copsewood, where a pair of lovers were sitting side by side and hand in hand, with the arm of the man around the white neck of the maiden, whose soft cheek rested on his brown and sunburned face.

Then the old king paused, with a finger on his bearded lip, and held his breath, for their figures seemed familiar to him.

The maiden wore a mantle of yellow linen, with a tunic of scarlet silk that reached to her ankles, according to the fashion of the time; and instead of sleeves, this tunic had openings for her arms, which were white as hawthorn flowers, and were encircled by bracelets and armlets of fine silver. After the custom of all unmarried women, her hair, which was of the brightest golden colour, was uncovered, untied, and flowed in ringlets over her neck; and a brooch, which the king recognised to have been a gift of his own, beamed on her left shoulder.

Roused by a step among the last year's leaves, she started, and turned her beautiful face from her lover's breast, in fear and confusion.

"Cora!" said the King, in a breathless voice, and stood as one transfixed.

The youth wore a lurich of linked mail, with a cap of steel, and an eagle's wing therein. In his hand was a boar-spear, and on his back a short bow and quiver of arrows; at his belt hung a knife and silver bugle—for he was no other than the king's own huntsman, the son of Red John, and usually named Mac Ian Rua.

Malcolm stood silent for a minute, full of anger, grief, and scorn, for he now knew how her heart by pre-engagement had become invulnerable, and why the compliments of her princely suitors—the hardy Kenneth of the Isles, the gallant Græme of Strathearn, and the splendid Dunbar, who ruled all the fertile Lothians, from the sands of Tyningham on the east to the Torwood oaks on the west, were heard in vain.

"My own huntsman, by the holy crook of Saint Fillan! Have I lived to see my daughter in the arms of Mac Ian Rua?" exclaimed the old King, bitterly, as he strode forward, with his walking-staff clenched in his hand.

"Mac Ian," he exclaimed, "thou black-hearted traitor and presumptuous churl, what punishment is due to one who dares as thou this day hast dared?"

"Death," replied Mac Ian, without hesitation, yet pale as ashes, and laying a hand upon his breast, while with the other he handed his sword to the king; "death, Malcolm Mac Kenneth; and I am ready to die; strike and rid me of a life, that since the hapless hour I dared to lift my eyes and heart so high, has been to me a burden and a toil; for I lived as one who was in daily dread of losing his all—his life, his sun, and glory! God made thy daughter beautiful, O king, and if to love her was presumption, strike, strike here—one thrust, and all will be over!"

Pale as a statue, the Princess Cora stood between her incensed father and her humble but handsome lover, but not one word fell from her quivering lip, for her tongue was chained by love for both, by fear and by a pride that was not unmingled with shame, that her father, the proud old Malcolm II.—Rex Victoriosissimus—should have seen her hanging like a wanton on a common huntsman's neck.

But if the king was proud, he was also generous, and with dignity gave back the proffered sword to Mac Ian Rua.

"Mac Ian," said he, "thou has wickedly betrayed the trust I reposed in thee, in common with all my people; yet will I forgive thee. Take up thy bow and hunting-spear and begone; if within three days from this, I find thee within thirty miles of Dunfermline Tower, by the Stone of Fate, I will have thee torn asunder by wild horses—away!"

Thus commanded, Mac Ian Rua gave the princess a glance of sorrow and agony, and taking up his spear and bow, made a low reverence to the king, who watched him with a stern yet glistening eye, as he strode down the wooded glen and disappeared; for he had ever been his favourite hunter, and the old monarch had loved well to see Mac Ian bend that bow against the eagle, as it cleft the azure sky, or launch that spear against the wild boar, while its angry bristles stood erect, and its small and sunken eyes shot fire as it whetted its foam-covered tusks on the stump of some sturdy oak; and well had the good Malcolm loved to hear his favourite huntsman's bugle waking the wooded echoes of Pittencrief; and he now reflected almost with sadness, that he would never hear that ringing horn more.

"And as for thee, Cora," said the King, "the Black Abbess of Iona shall soon have thee under her care; thou knowest her? Muriella Mac Fingon—stern, ascetic, cold as ice, and immovable as the black stones of the isle; well, she shall have thee, if not as a nun, at least as one who requires much good guidance, wise counsel, and purification by prayer."

In a chamber of the old Tower, Cora secluded herself from all, and wept over this discovery and separation with shame, anger, and grief; but none shared the emotions of the king, save the young Macbeth, the son of Doacha, and his anger had no bounds; for he swore by the pillow of Jacob, on which our kings are crowned, and by the black rood of Scotland, that no mercy should be shown to Mac Ian; and for three days this furious boy scoured all Fife in search of him, beating every thicket and wood between Ardross and the Castle of Lindores.

But who could baffle the pursuit, or trace the steps of a hunter so wary, so bold, and expert as Mac Ian Rua? He had gone off towards the woods and mountains of the south and west; he crossed the Forth at Stirling Bridge, not the present one, but the more ancient, which was built in the days of Donald V., and inscribed—

"I am free to march, as passengers may ken,
To Scots, to Britons, and to English-men;"

and passing through the mighty forest of the Torwood, he went no man knew whither; at least the fiery young prince and his followers could never discover him, though a hundred head of cattle were offered for him dead or alive.

Notwithstanding his indignation, and the justness thereof, the old king soon missed his favourite huntsman sorely, for he loved all manner of forestry and venery, and Mac Ian had vigorously enforced all the laws of the woods; but now these were outraged and broken daily; for there was none so faithful to the king as he had been. So all the ancient rules of the forest were violated; stray droves of cattle broke through the royal wood at the time of St. John's Feast; men with horn and hound passed the night there; no longer did three blasts of a bugle announce to the keeper of the royal kitchen that Mac Ian had found a stray cow or flock of sheep, lawfully escheat to the king; goats rambled through the parks, and the new huntsman omitted to hang up one by the horns, according to the ancient use and wont; carts and wains passed through, and if the fine of thirty silver pence was exacted, the new forester spent them at the ale-brewster's, while the keeper of the king's wood and grass declared by all the devils he could no longer preserve either, for one was cut and the other eaten,—for waife-beasts rambled, and wild men hunted with spear and horn, and laughed at the rangers, for they now feared none, since Mac Ian Rua was gone.

Rumours of these things reached Cora in her bower; her colour came and went, and her eyes brightened as her old nurse told them; for these acknowledgments of her lover's courage and gallant bearing pleased and gratified her; but now, more than ever incensed against his daughter, the old king resolved to consign her, for a time at least, to the care of the rigid and reverend mother, Muriella, among those servants of God, the canonesses of Saint Augustine. There he hoped by prayer and solitude, by the force of good example and of pious precept, that Cora would be led into a proper train of thought; that the low-born churl, Mac Ian, would be banished from her memory; and that in good time she would accept as her husband one of those noble thanes or earls, who, in their love for her and jealousy of each other, were ready to clutch each other's beards.

Malcolm loved this bright-haired daughter—his last and youngest—dearly; yet he steeled his heart against her sorrows and reluctance to be immured in that lone Hebridean Isle, and with a train of faithful attendants departed from his Tower of Dunfermline in the woods of Fife, towards the Clyde, where Gillespie Campbell, the great Lord of Lochawe, was to have one of his largest birlinns in waiting to convey the royal train from the wooden bridge of Glasgow in all safety to the Port-na-curragh of Iona; and this birlinn was to be steered by one who had thrice, in the name of the Blessed Trinity, stretched his hand over the Black stones of the isle; for it was an old superstition—yea, old as the days of the Druids, that the timoneer who did so would never fail in his steering; and that the vessel he guided would assuredly come safe to land. But vain were all their reckonings, and vain their preparations.

Among the apple groves and oaken woods of Clydesdale the king and his train lingered long, for he loved well the free green wood, and at every turn of the old paved Roman Way by which they traversed that long and lovely dale, the great Scottish bull, with his snow-white mane and sable horns, shot past, crushing the trees in his path, and making even the ravening wolf and stubborn boar fly before him. Thus, as the king's train rode on, many a détour was made, many a shaft was shot, and many a lance was flung; but he saw none whose hand was so perfect, or whose aim was so true as those of Mac Ian Rua had been; and the beautiful princess smiled brightly at their discomfiture as she rode by the margin of the descending Clyde, making her fine Arabian horse caracole and paw the soft air of the warm summer morning.

And now the ceaseless din of falling water was heard, where the stream rolled over a linn of tremendous height and breadth.

There, roaring and rushing between their wooded shores, the whole waters of the Clyde, in one mighty volume, poured over a sheer precipice of four-and-eighty feet, down, down below, into a black and weltering pool, from whence the foam arose like smoke, but tinted by a hundred rainbow hues, in the hot sunshine that fell between the jagged rocks and tangled woods like a steady flood of light, to brighten the gushing flood of water.

Bewildered by the whirling and screaming of the wild birds, by the grandeur and sublimity of the scene, and almost stunned by a dreamy sense that stole over him while listening to the endless roar of that tremendous linn, cascade, or deluge that thundered down between the shattered woods, and boiled in foam against the upheaved crags till it shook the very shore, King Malcolm, with his white locks streaming on the wind from under his cap of steel, which was as girt by a crown of golden trefoils, reined in his horse upon the brink, with his shrinking daughter by his side, and gazed over the natural rampart into the wild confusion of waters that hissed and boiled in the gulf which yawned far down below.

"Look down, dear Cora," said he, kindly,—for his soul was awed; "look down if thou darest; for in all my kingdom, from Caithness to the Tyne, there is not such another linn as this. The very spray, as it cometh upward from that dark pool below, hangs on our hair like dew!"

At that moment, a cry broke from all the royal attendants, for scared, some say, by a loud blast from a bugle which sounded like that of Mac Ian Rua,—others say by the din of the mighty waterfall, the fiery Arabian steed of the princess reared up on the very verge of that tremendous brink—reared until its sable mane was mingling with its rider's golden hair, and wildly shook its head, till every silver bell at its bit and bridle jangled, and with Cora on its back, plunged headforemost down into that deep and awful den, the depth of which no mortal hand had fathomed, and which the boldest eye shrunk from contemplating!

In a moment Cora—the laughing and beautiful Cora, and her fiery horse, had vanished into that hideous maelstrom, which for ages had swallowed up rocks, trees, and herds, with all the débris swept down by that mighty stream from Clydesdale and the Western Lowlands!

The poor king closed his eyes in horror; he stretched his trembling hands to Heaven in silent agony, and by the quivering of his bearded lips his nobles knew that he was praying devoutly; and after commending his soul to God, he uttered a cry of despair, and was urging his steed towards the brink, when Græme, Kenneth, and Dunbar, the three lovers of his daughter, with Duncan, Earl of Caithness, Hugo of Aberbuthnoth, old Thomas of Errol, with his three sons, whose sturdy hands and hearts in former years had turned the tide of battle at Luncarty, flung themselves before him, and dragged his terrified horse from the giddy verge, and forcibly conducted him from the terrible scene.

Far down below the fall, where, calm and blue and shining, the broad majestic river rolled between its thick dark woodlands to the sea, three days after, the Arabian horse was found, swollen and drowned upon the sand, with its silver bridle and all its tinkling bells; but no trace appeared of the poor princess, from whom that fall upon the Clyde, even to this day, bears the name of Cora Lynn.

Long and deep was the sorrow of the old and lonely Malcolm, who returned to his grim and gloomy tower among the woods of Dunfermline, and committing the care of the kingdom to Dunbar, the justiciar of Lothian, Duncan, the chancellor, and Nicholas, the secretary, he gave himself up to grief and contemplation, prayer, and long communings with Gregory the Bishop of Saint Andrew's, who made him found and endow thirteen chapels to St. Mary, in thirteen different districts; a proceeding which, if it failed to ease the mind of the king, at least eased his treasurer of all the superfluous cash in his exchequer.

CHAPTER LXII.

STORY CONTINUED—"ERIS-SKENE!"

"Horsed on a speckled steed, Biserta's king
Traversed the extended line from wing to wing
To close the loose array he gave command—
Ten thousand lances flamed in every band;
And twice five squadrons in the van of war."—RONCISVALLES.

Now, when too late, the bereaved king thought he could willingly have bestowed his Cora upon even the humble huntsman, and believed he could happily have seen her the wife of Mac Ian, or of any honest man who would love her as she deserved to be loved; but now he had lost her in a moment, and in a manner so terrible that it seemed like a judgment direct from the hand of Heaven upon him, for his pride and severity; for, thought he,—

"I may control the bodies of my subjects, or those of my children, but God hath given me no power over the hearts or consciences of either. Woe is me! for the brightest diamond has fallen from my crown, and never more will my old bosom swell while she strikes her harp to the 'Battle of Cattraeth,' or never more will she soothe me to sleep with the low sad song of 'The Owl,' when the north wind soughs down the leafless glen, and the frozen lynn hangs owre the beetling craig like the beard on an auld carles chin. Oh, Cora! Cora!"

And the old king kept poor Cora's harp in his bed-chamber, and often in the stillness of midnight he wept, while his thin and wrinkled hands wandered among the strings, and woke their old familiar sounds again and again, till her voice seemed to mingle with them.

Now it happened that although her Arabian steed was drowned, the princess, by some blessed miracle of Providence, escaped; for she had been caught in her descent by one of the spouts or boiling streams that ascended upward from the bottom of the den, and unseen among the clouds of light and vapoury spray was flung far over a ledge of rocks into the smoother water beyond; and while the king, her sire, and all his bearded thanes, in their steel caps and iron lurichs, were beating their breasts, calling upon all the saints, and fixing their eyes upon the hazy horrors of the gulf below the lynn, she was swept gently onward, in a dream as it were; and then the hands of some one seemed to buoy her up; then she felt herself conveyed into a dark and shady chasm of rock, overhung by a gorgeous mass of wild-roses and ivy, honeysuckle and sweetbrier; and there, upon a bank of daisies and violets, kind hands laid her gently down—a hot breath came upon her cheek, as some one tenderly parted her soft and wet dishevelled hair from her chilled and pallid cheek; and after remaining long insensible, she opened her eyes to meet the enraptured face of the bold Mac Ian Rua, for he it was who had saved her.

No other leech than love was necessary to bring the half-drowned princess to life. Her heart soon beat with joy, and amid the double raptures of her escape and reunion with her lover, she forgot the sorrow of her bereaved father, and the terror of her friends on the summit of the cascade, from which she had been so awfully precipitated and so miraculously saved; and for the fleeting hours of that soft summer day till the sun sank behind the hills of Lanarkshire, she listened to the adventures of her banished lover, and heard him repeat a hundred times over all he had endured in danger, absence, doubt, and grief, while hovering in disguise near the court of the king; how he had accompanied her step by step from the palace in Fife to the banks of the Clyde; and how by the goodness of Heaven he had chanced to be at hand, and ready to save her from a death so terrible, by plunging boldly into the fierce and seething flood beyond the waterfall.

Love, like death, levels all distinctions,—and indeed he knows of none; thus, the daughter of the king assured Mac Ian that her passion was yet unchanged; and laving their clasped hands in the water that flowed at their feet—that perilous water from which Cora had so wondrously escaped—after the old fashion of Scottish lovers, they vowed to be leal and true, and wished that if one deserted or forgot the other, that God and the saints might so desert and forget the faithless and untrue.

Now this wish was doubtless very wrong, yet they were not punished for it, neither were they again separated; but to reward them for all they had suffered during Mac Ian's exile, and to seal their faith for ever, they received the nuptial blessing from a poor Gillie Dhia—that is, a culdee, or servant of God—who dwelt in a cell of rock in the wood of Cadzow; and then, to avoid all discovery, they crossed the Forth, the Tay, and Don, and travelled far north till they reached the forest of Glenfiddich. There Mac Ian built a bower, over the door of which he placed the antlers of a stag; and their daily food was furnished by his spear and bow, while the princess spun with her own white hands, to clothe herself and the bright-haired children with which God had blessed them; and thus, far from courts and camps, and the troubles of council and debate, they lived in happiness, in peace, and in seclusion.

Eight years passed away, and though the poor old king had never forgotten his lost daughter, he had learned to think calmly over the events of that terrible day at Cora's Lynn, and eight times as the mournful anniversary returned he shut himself up in a chamber, darkened and hung with sackcloth; and there he repeated those solemn prayers which the Church ordains shall be said for the dead; and solemnly he rehearsed them while the hot tears coursed over his silver beard: they were for the soul of his daughter, who was yet living in her birchen bower, and singing to her little ones among the woods that shroud the rolling Fiddich.

Aged though he was, the din of war now summoned Malcolm II. to the field, against those common foemen of the British Isles, the half-pagan and wholly barbarous Danes.

Sueno, King of Denmark, who then reigned in England, having driven Ethelred, monarch of that country, into Normandy, had an implacable hatred at Malcolm for yielding succour and assistance to the English, whom the Danes were rapidly crushing; and he resolved to send an army which should assail in his own dominions the King of the Scots, of whose title—Rex Victoriosissimus—he was jealous and impatient.

Landing in Murrayshire, under Enotus, in the year 1009, the Danes overthrew in battle the Scottish forces which opposed them; they took the Castle of Nairn, and cutting through the neck of land on which it stood, brought the sea round it, and named it Burg for the time; the fortresses of Elgin and Forres were next taken, and for nearly a year they held them; being the longest period that those invaders retained possession of Scottish earth, while alive, at least. They also took the Castle of Balvenie, and therein Enotus built a great chamber, which is still named the Danes' Hall. In the following year Malcolm marched against them in person with a powerful army, formed in three great columns, under Kenneth, Thane of the Isles, Græme, Thane of Strathearn, and Dunbar, Thane of Lothian; for they were yet feal men and true to the old king whose daughter they had loved so well.

Clad in a byrne, formed of steel rings, which were sewn flat upon a leathern tunic, and having on his head a square helmet, like those last worn by the guards of Charles the Bald, surmounted by a diadem, the venerable monarch rode at the head of his troops, who—although he wore a tunic of blue silk crossed by a white St. Andrew's saltire of the same material (which was then so rare and costly),—were mostly clad in long lurichs, with helmets of iron, and carried targets and swords, axes and mauls of ponderous weight, with bows and spears, having leaf-shaped blades of bronze or tempered steel. The wild clans of Galwegia marched beneath the banner of their lord, all clad in tartans, dyed with checks of purple and dark red, violet and blue, while their long locks flowed under their caps of iron; and they had their sturdy arms bare, as well as their legs, which were kilted to the knee. Albyn! Albyn! was their battle cry, and with the sound of the harp, the horn, and pipe, they roused their fiery hearts, when, after a march of some weeks' duration, they came in sight of the foe, drawn up in array of war, near the old Pictish Tower of Balvenie, then named the House of St. Beyne the Great—which stands on a high green bank overlooking the Fiddich and the rich landscape through which it wanders, where the dark firs cast the shadow of their solemn cones upon its lonely waters.

South-west of the castle the barbarous Danes were formed in deep ranks, all mailed in byrnes of iron rings, and bosses sown upon cloth or leather, with hauberks and painted surcoats to the knee, with spears and axes of steel and bronze, and ponderous iron maces that swung at the end of clubs and chains; while above their heads waved the enchanted banner with the Black Raven, which had never been unfurled without ensuring victory.

The mighty scalp of Benrinnes was shining in the warm glow of the rising sun; the snow-white mist was rising from the side of Corriehabbie, and the valley, the wood and water, rock and heather, all that make the scenery of the Fiddich so wild, so bold, and beautiful, were glowing under a warm summer sun; while the yells of the red-haired Danes on one side, the braying of mountain pipes on the other, the twanging of bows, and hiss of passing arrows announced that the battle was beginning.

The lonely heron and the mountain eagle were scared from rock and river by the flashing of the steel; but the cries of the combatants brought the gled and the hawk from the four winds of heaven, and high in mid-air, with outstretched wings, they overhung the nearing hosts, expectant of their coming feast—the flesh of horse and man.

This was the anniversary of the day on which he had lost his daughter, and the heart of Malcolm II. was oppressed, and full of dark and dire forebodings: so he anticipated both defeat and death.

The first charge was a furious one, and the onset was deadly and disastrous. The Danes plied the poleaxe, their national weapon, with savage fury; the Scots charged with their long pikes and two-handed swords, while swift and surely shot the archers on both sides from the rear ranks of the closing columns. Steel helmets and byrnes of shining rings, bucklers of tempered iron, and targets of thick bull-hide were cut by the sword, cloven by the axe, or pierced by the barbed arrow, or by the spear that was launched from afar; and unhappily in the early part of the battle, Kenneth of the Isles, Græme of Strathearn, and Dunbar of Lothian, fell from their horses, each struck by a mortal wound; for the first had the axe of Enotus the Dane driven through the brass umbo of his shield and the iron cone of his helmet, sheer down to his teeth; the second had his heart pierced through, byrne and buff, by a leaf-shaped javelin; and the third had a double-edged seax driven repeatedly through his body.

Valiantly fought the venerable king, and as fast as men fell, their places were supplied; but disheartened by the sudden loss of the three greatest chiefs in the land, his soldiers began to give way, and with a triumphant yell the heavily-armed Danes pressed on them—their eyes sparkling with rage and the lust of blood, while the horse-hair of their helmets mingled with their long and tangled locks and the wild volume of their shaggy beards.

Enotus, the Danish general, a powerful and gigantic warrior mounted on a white charger, and clad in a hauberk of burnished rings, with the skin of a bear floating from his shoulders on which the claws rested while the skull of the monster grinned above his basinet, soon singled out the King of Scotland, whom he knew by his venerable aspect, his silver beard, and the diadem of golden trefoils that encircled his helmet, which had three upright feathers of the iolar—for the Scottish king is the chief of all the Scottish chiefs;—and (though around him fought Gillemichael, Earl of Fife, Alan, Thane of Sutherland, who defeated the Danes on the nmir of Drumilea, Hugo of the Rutherford, whose ancestor twelve hundred years before had conducted King Reuther through the Tweed against the Britons, Crinian, Thane of Dunbar, and others, the very flower of the land), with his tremendous mace the Dane by one blow dashed out the brains of the royal charger, and by a second would assuredly have slain the king had not a sturdy warrior of the Murrayland, clad in striped breacan and wearing the long Celtic lurich to his bare knees, at that moment cloven the mighty Scandinavian almost in two by one stroke of his tuagh, or Scottish battle-axe.

"Well fare thee, my stalwart soldier," cried Malcolm; "for thou hast saved thy king!"

His protector re-mounted him on the white steed of the slaughtered Dane, and blowing his bugle to collect the scattered Scots, plunged into the thickest of the conflict, parting the foes before him like a field of corn.

"By the stone of Fate," cried the King, shortening his reins and grasping his sword, "yonder blast never came from other horn than the bugle of Mac Ian Rua!"

So said all who heard it.

"And if yonder fellow proved to be Mac Ian?" said the king's Secretary, wiping his bloody sword in the mane of his horse, "what then, sire?"

"Then he should have the best earldom in the north, were it but for the sake of her he loved and lost," said the brave old King, as he spurred once more to battle; but alas! disheartened by the loss of three of their greatest leaders, despite the bravery of Malcolm, and the fiery example of this warrior of the Murrayland, the Scots began to give way and retreat, but with their faces and weapons to the foe, until they gained an old rampart formed of turf, trees, and stones, the relic of former wars.

There the king's preserver encountered Enrique, the second Danish leader, and, under Malcolm's eye, cut off his head, and holding it aloft with one hand and his dagger with the other, cried, in Gaelic,—

"Eris-skene!—by this knife I did it."

"Eriskene, my brave man, thy name shall be," said the King; but natheless these valiant deeds, the Scots were still borne back in disorder.

Malcolm was swept away with the crowd of fugitives, who were all wedged in a narrow valley, till he found himself near an old chapel at Mortlach, which was dedicated to Saint Molach, the bishop and confessor, a Scot who, in the seventh century, was the assistant of St. Boniface of Ross, and whose bones lay in that sequestered fane.