"The king has come to marshal us, all in his armour drest;
And he has bound a snow-white plume upon his gallant crest."
MACAULAY.
The hostile lines were drawing nearer and more near; the shouts of the wild clansmen of Galloway mingling with the slogans of the Merse-men, who shouted "A Home! a Home!" were borne on the wind across the fertile fields that lay between the approaching columns.
A loud report pealed upon the stillness of the sky. It was the Great Lion, a ball from which made a gap in the ranks of the foe; others followed from a green knoll on which the royal culveriniers had posted themselves, but slowly and laboriously, for the gunners of the fifteenth century were somewhat less expert than those of our own day. James gazed fixedly and anxiously at the insurgent bands. He was looking for the prince, his eldest son.
"No victory can come to a heart filled with dark forebodings such as mine," said he to Montrose.
The Duke's reply was lost in the hollow of his helmet.
"No doubt young Rothesay is surrounded by a flattering crowd, all anxious to hail him as James IV."
"Ah, say not so, sire," said the faithful old peer, with a sigh; "yet such, alas, is perhaps the fate of kings."
"The fate of kings! thou thinkest so?—to see their own flesh and blood rise in rebellion up against them," replied James, incoherently; "yet is there not an old proverb—a prophecy—which says—what said it?"
Montrose did not reply.
"What said it?" repeated James, impatiently.
"That in Scotland this year a lion shall be slain by its whelps."
The king grew pale as death, for at that moment the wind blew out the banner of the third division of the insurgents, and above their long lines of shining helmets he recognised his own imperial flag, with the red lion rampant in its golden field.
"If I this day am slain, and the boy, my son, made king," said he, huskily, "Scotland—Scotland—what will become of her? Lord of St. John, doth not the scripture say, 'woe unto the land whose monarch is a child'? and my simple-hearted Rothesay is but little more in years."
At that moment a number of arrows and caliver-shots whistled past them, and the battle began in earnest, just as the distant bell of St. Ninian's Church tolled twelve.
The scene of this sanguinary encounter was the tract of land now known as Little Canglar, upon the east side of a brook called the Sauchieburn, about two miles from Stirling. A number of weeping-willows—called in Scotland sauch-trees—drooped over the water, and gave a name to the place, as they did to Sir James Shaw's barony. The birds were carolling aloft in the blue welkin; the air was pure, the sunshine bright and warm; the fragrance of the flowers and bearded grass was wafted on the soft summer wind; the mavis sang among the pale green sauches, and the cushat dove sent up its cry from the Torwood's shady oaks. Grey Stirling, the wooded brow of Craig-forth and the Ochil peaks, rose on the north, all mellowed in the summer mist; all nature looked beautiful and smiling; but herd and hirsel fled as the brass cannon opened on the adverse lines, and the shout and shock of the furious onset made the poor shepherd who stood afar off on the lone hill-side, hold his breath and bend his head in prayer—for when Scot met Scot, right well he knew how deadly and how deep would be the sacrilegious slaughter!
The king's vanguard, which was of course composed of his own clan, the gallant Stewarts and other Highlanders, armed with swords, long daggers, bows, and axes, led by John Stewart, Earl of Athole,—the conqueror of the Lord of the Isles—rushed upon the insurgents with a loud yell, such as can only rise from a Celtic throat. This attack was well supported by the king's left wing, composed of five thousand Perthshire spearmen, led by Lord Ruthven.
The Mersemen met them with their levelled lances—those pikes so terrible in warlike annals, "six Scottish ells in length," and an awful conflict took place; while the shouts of "A Home, a Home!" on one side, and the shrill cathghairn of the Athole Stewarts, were often turned into the shriek of agony or the groan of death, as the lance was thrust through the Highland lurich, or the claymore found a passage through the Lowland jack; while weapons broke and throats were grasped and daggers driven through plate and mail, through plaid and buff, or the swaying axe split helmets of tempered steel and targets of tough bull's-hide like withered nutshells.
"The first charge was valiantly given," says Drummond of Hawthornden, "launce meeting with launce; so the vanguard of the lords began to yield ground, and was strongly repulsed."
The men of West Lothian shot showers of arrows, to which the Highland archers replied; and for a few minutes the air was darkened by the passing flights, while men fell fast on both hands, and pressing on, pikemen and archers came closing up on every side with axe and sword, till a deadly and disastrous mêlée began between the royalists and insurgents, who rushed upon each other like two torrents broken loose.
On one side was the poor bewildered king, driven forward with this armed tide, confused, sorrowful, and irresolute, with the royal standard borne over his head by the Constable of Dundee; on the other was the heir of Scotland, agitated also by painful irresolution, by remorse and shame, and also having the royal standard above him, but surrounded by a brilliant band of nobles, all shining in polished steel, gold, plumage, and embroidery; and towards that quarter of the enemy's line, young Ramsay, Lord of Bothwell, at the head of the royal guard, made incredible exertions to hew a passage for the purpose of ridding the king, with his own hand, of as many high-born traitors as possible.
James sat motionless on his magnificent grey charger, with this forest of lances and sea of helmets flashing round him; and not one blow did he strike, but kept his eyes fixed with a species of despair on the banner of his son.
Conspicuous among the press of rebel lords and vassals towered the gigantic Earl of Angus, mounted on a powerful Clydesdale horse, and clad in fluted mail, his vizor up, and a profusion of beautiful feathers streaming from his helmet almost to the crupper of his steed. Aloft his mailed hand brandished, with deadly execution, a sword which for length and strength few men could wield, and he sent his voice before him like a trumpet; thus, it needed not the scarlet heart on his golden surcoat to proclaim the terrible Angus—the representative of his lord and chief, the captive Earl of Douglas.
By one blow he clove the Earl of Gleacairn through casque and gorget to the breast, and still pressing forward—
"On, on, my wild men of Galloway!" he cried; "a Douglas! a Douglas! on, on, for I have sworn to ride through this rabble rout red wat shod and mair!" (i.e., above the feet in blood).
"See ye the Lord Angus, with his helmet open?" cried Sir David Falconer to a Highland bowman; "shoot, my brave Celt, with a will!"
The Gaël—a MacRobert of Struan—shot an arrow, which glanced off the helmet of Angus.
"Shoot again," exclaimed Falconer; "'sdeath, fellow, wert thou a king's archer, I would hang thee in thine own bowstring for such a glee'd shot."
Again the Atholeman shot, and slew the standard-fearer of Angus, instead of his lord.
Undaunted by the terrible aspect of this potent and herculean lord, many knights and gentlemen of the royal army pressed over the crowd of shrieking men and falling horses—over all the wild dëbris of a hand-to-hand combat to reach him; but the most successful was Itamsay of Balmain, captain of the guard, and recently created Lord Bothwell. Though young, slight, and athletic, he rushed upon the formidable Angus, and intent only on killing him, rained his blows thick and fast upon the coat of fluted armour, from which the sparks of fire were driven by every stroke.
"False fool and plebeian villain!" said the disdainful Angus, parrying the blows skilfully with his long Banffshire blade; "methinks ye seem better used to the porridge spurtle than the knightly sword—but die, fellow, die! 'tis the hand of an earl that slays thee," he cried, as his long weapon found entrance under the left pass-guard of Bothwell's armour, and pierced him to the heart. With a wild cry he fell into the seething mass of death and life below. "Next time you meet me in Stirling streets, false loon, you will not pass me unveiled, I wot," added Angus, as he pressed on, cleaving helmets like pippins, and shredding away the tough ash-spears like reeds by a winter brook.
"My God—my God—look on me!" cried the poor king, on seeing this terrible episode, which, more than the thousand others occurring round him, cut him to the soul. Intent on avenging his many wrongs on this imperious rebel, he now for the first time that day drew his sword and put spurs to his horse; but a furious rush of mounted men-at-arms, on both sides, separated them hopelessly.
These were led by Home and Hailes, who, having recognized Falconer, though in plain armour, by the silver falcon which adorned his helmet, and had a knot of scarlet and yellow ribbons in its beak, pressed on to slay him; while the wretched Borthwick, with Sir James Shaw, Sir Patrick Gray, and Sir William Stirling of the Keir, disdaining all such humble antagonists, reserved alike their swords and strength for the king, whom the arch-traitor, their tool, had already indicated by the yellow plume in his head-piece; and towards him, and him only, they pressed surely and warily on.
Falconer, by one stroke, cut the reins of Lord Hailes' horse and so rid himself of one enemy; by another blow he struck Lord Home's casque from his head; yet, bareheaded and half-blinded by pride and fury, the noble pressed on, standing high in his stirrups, and showering blows on every side.
"A Home! a Home! By Saint Anne, fellow," cried he, "thou hadst better been tending the sheep on yon brae side than here in knight's armour."
"Better for you, perhaps, my Lord of Home," said Falconer, as by one skilful thrust, full upon the tempered gorget, he shot him out of his saddle on the heap of men below.
"Gang warily!" thundered a voice in his ear, and now the vengeful sword of one whom he trembled to encounter—old Lord Drummond—was flourished above him.
Covering himself, parrying thrusts and warding blows, poor Falconer sought only to escape from an antagonist whom he dared not assail, and for whose safety he would have laid down his life—for he was the father of Sybilla. But the fiery blood of the old noble was at boiling heat; he had seen "this skipper's son" defeat two chiefs of name, to whom he had promised his daughters, and a storm of feudal pride and aristocratic hatred of the king's humble favourite was swelling up within him, and the arquebussier would undoubtedly have been slain, had not Drummond of Mewie, who was hewing away on foot, with a Lochaber axe, hamstrung his horse; and as the snorting animal sank under him, Falconer fell heavily to the earth. His armour protected him from serious injury, but the horses of Borthwick, Shaw, Gray, and Keir, as these worthies spurred on, trampled him down; thus he was stunned, and became unconscious of all that passed over and around him.
A deadly conflict, hand to hand and horse to horse, ensued around the unhappy king, as these four infernal spirits, followed by a thousand others, all superbly mounted and accoutred, left the Duke of Rothesay far in the rear; and though archers and pikemen, troopers and knights, nobles and burgesses, pressed on with straining eyes and noisy tongues, with swords flashing and uplifted, to kill, to capture, or to overbear the most hapless monarch, save one, that ever sat upon the Scottish throne, the four ruffians were ever the nearest to him, but failed to reach him; for old Montrose, Lindesay, and all the loyalists fought nobly in a circle round the yellow plume; and there fell by James's side the Lord Erskine, who was slain by a Drummond; Sir Thomas Semple of Eliotstoun, who was pierced through the neart by a Border spear; William Lord Ruthven, the heritable sheriff of Perth; the Laird of Innes; Alexander Scott, director of the chancery, whose head was carried off by a cannon-ball, and many more gentlemen, with their friends and followers. The royal standard was beaten down and its bearer unhorsed; the cannon—the Great Lion—and all the ensigns were taken, and when the sun of that long summer flay was sinking behind the Grampians, and the shadows of the Torwood were deepening on the plain, the king's troops, overborne by numbers, after a long and gallant conflict, gave way, and a total and irreparable rout ensued.
"God help your majesty," said the young Lord Lindesay, as, pale, excited, without a helmet, and with his face streaked by blood, he took the king's horse by the bridle; "the day is lost, yet all is not lost with it while your sacred life is safe. No horse in the field can overtake this grey I gave you. Ride—ride north, and swiftly—the admiral's boats await you at the Craigward—farewell!"
"Ay, farewell, Lindesay—a long farewell to Scotland and to thee—for France or Holland now must be my home."
Thus urged, and knowing that alone and unattended he might escape more easily and unnoticed, than if followed by a train, James turned his grey horse's head towards the north, and gladly left behind that bloody and corpse-encumbered plain.
Thousands of arrows, with their feathers uppermost, planted all the turf around him; here the earth was torn by hoofs, and there it was furrowed up by cannon-shot. Men and horses, dead or wounded, or writhing and dying, lay singly or in piles and heaps together, among a vast débris of broken helmets, torn standards, and bloody pennons, splintered spears, swords, scarfs, and bucklers, near the Sauchieburn, which yet gurgled placidly along under its pale green willows, as the King leaped his fiery and unwearied horse over it, and with a breaking heart rode towards the banks of the Forth, while night and sorrow descended together on that disastrous field. On, on he rode with a breaking heart, as he hoped, unnoticed and unknown—but hoped in vain; for close behind, and tracking him like blood-hounds, as history tells us, were Sir Patrick of Kyneff, Sir James of Sauchie, Stirling of Keir, and Borthwick, the apostate monk of Dunblane.
"Look ye, sirs!
The breath of murder loads the air to-night—
Be watchful and be wary."
Old Play.
Under the Duke of Montrose, Lindesay his son, the Earls of Mar, Athole, and others, the main body of James's forces retired slowly through the Torwood, by the old Roman Way, still fighting with obstinate valour, and protracting the struggle until the long and lingering eve of June had faded into night, and darkness spread a veil over the horrors of the battle, when the royalists, as usual with all hastily collected levies, retired into the mountains, and disbanded.
The victorious lords, with the young prince still in their possession, passed that night near the field, and next day marched to the town and palace of Linlithgow.
The moon was shining in the summer sky, when Sir David Falconer freed himself from the bodies of three slain men, who lay heavily and coldly above him; rising from the field, he was able to look after his own safety—for many of the border prickers were hovering abroad in search of rings and jewels, or gold-handled daggers and embroidered belts. A body lay near him sheathed in bright armour; its gauntletted hands clutched the earth, the vizor of the casque was up, and the dead man's eyes glared horribly in the pale moonlight. Between his teeth were some blades of grass, which, when dying, he had bitten in his agony. On his breast sparkled the diamond jewel of the Thistle—for this was the corpse of Alexander Cunningham, the noble Earl of Glencairn. This brave warrior lay above the blue silk banner of his house, charged with its shakefork sable—the same pennon which his bride, fair Margaret of Hailes, had woven for his lance in their Castle of Kilmaurs.
Most of the wounded had been removed by their friends or by the merciful; others had been speared by the mosstroopers of Hailes, Home, and Buccleugh; thus, thick as grain on a harvest field, the bodies of the dead—white-visaged, and gleaming blue in their coats of mail—strewed all the plain; but they were quiet and still as the leafy woods or the azure sky of that sweet summer night.
Ignorant of where the royal forces had retreated, and anxious only to ascertain the fact of the King's safety—of which he had great doubts on beholding the number of the guard who were lying dead three and four deep, and whom he knew easily by their scarlet surcoats trimmed with yellow,—and being anxious to rejoin the frigate, Falconer arose with difficulty, and after refreshing himself by a draught of pure water from the Sauchieburn, at a place above where the dead lay in it, he took his way towards the north, and fortunately found a stray horse saddled and bridled grazing in a field, near the gate of which its rider, a trooper, with the laurel of the Grahams in his morion, lay dead. This animal with great docility permitted Falconer to seize the reins and leap on his back; thus mounted, he soon left the fatal field behind, and rode through the scattered oaks of the Torwood towards the ferry by which the Forth was crossed opposite Alloa.
The whole country appeared deserted; he saw no one, and heard not even a dog bark; thus the stillness became oppressive after the storm of war, the strife of wounds and agony, the carnage and horrors of the day that was past. He soon reached the boor-tree thickets at the Craig ward, and saw the beautiful river with the Clackmannan hills and old Alloa rise before him in the moonlight, with the King's ships at anchor in the stream, with courses loose and a spring upon their cables. Half a bow-shot from the beach were several well-oared boats, full of armed men, and by their garb Falconer recognised his own arquebussiera and the King's seamen, while the royal standard drooped from the boats' sterns, and swept the water.
"Ho—boat yoho!" cried he, leaping from his horse.
"David Falconer, at last!" cried a number of distant voices, as the oars dipped, and the boat shot in.
"Welcome in safety, messmate o' mine," said the bluff admiral, who was clad in his helmet and suit of steel; "we heard you had parted your cable in yonder devilish field."
"Only unhorsed, Sir Andrew."
"Any planks stove in, or timbers started?"
"None, thank Heaven! though I received a blow that must have killed me, had I not——"
"Like most Scotsmen in these troublous times, been well used to cuts and blows," interrupted Barton. "So the battle was fairly fought?"
"Yea, fairly as the Ball of Scone, as the saw hath it—fairly fought and most unhappily lost. Alas! yonder field of battle is the very garden of Death!"
"And what of the king?" asked several voices.
"The king—is he not on board the Yellow Frigate?"
"No," said the admiral; "I would to God he were, for then he would be in safe anchoring ground. Which way did he ride?"
"I know not, for I fell by his side in the middle of the battle——"
"Happy thou, my good Falconer, to share that day's vengeance with the king," said the admiral; "but that I had other ropes to splice, I had assuredly been with thee. Well?"
"The lord Lindesay gave him a horse of matchless blood and speed, whereon, if evil happened or the day were lost, he might reach you here at the Craigward——"
"We have never sighted him once, though many a fugitive hath crossed, for we have been little better than ferrymen since the gloaming fell. The auld Earl of Menteith, in his battered harness; the Preceptor of Torphichen, with three other knights of Rhodez; and many of the Ogilvies, as we knew by their tartan plaids and the hawthorn in their helmets; and Murrays, with the juniper twig;—most of them pricked with spears or slashed by sword cuts, have we taken across the river; but nought have we seen of the king, though the Preceptor averred that he saw him ride towards the north."
"What if he should have fallen from the Lindesay's fiery steed, and now be lying in the Torwood?"
"St. Mary avert it!" said Falconer. "Yet, when I bethink me now, I saw more than one dead man lying in his armour on the sward, between this and the field."
"Sayest thou so?" exclaimed the admiral, leaping lightly ashore, despite his years and rotundity, "and we are loitering here like so many hag-ridden lubbers! Barton, do thou keep the boats here for us; and, Falconer, take twenty of thine arquebusses and come with me; we'll bear up towards the battlefield a little way, and see if aught may be descried of the king; come on shore with your flasks, forks, and arquebusses, heave a-head my men, and quickly."
The soldiers hastened up the bank, and Falconer would have resigned his horse to the admiral, but the latter declined, saying "that he always lost some of his outer-sheathing when perched on horseback." So Sir David drew his sword, and led the way back to the field of battle.
They marched three or four miles without finding any trace of him they sought. At last the sound of hoofs was heard near the milltown of Bannock.
"Hist—tarry a bit," said the admiral. "Lie to, sirs."
"Halt!" cried Falconer, in a soldierly tone; "plant your forks and wind up your spanners! Be ready to fire at a moment's notice!"
Four heavily-armed horsemen, all riding furiously, the last however, a long way behind his companions, dashed along the road, and though repeatedly required to stop, they rode recklessly on, with their armour flashing, the horsehoofs striking fire, and disappeared among the Torwood oaks.
"Fire on the sternmost, and make him bring to," cried the admiral, angrily; "throw a shot across his forefoot."
An arquebussier fired: the bullet whistled close to the horseman's casque, and panting and breathless he reined up, while his horse plunged and reared fearfully.
"Hallo! haul taut your reins or braces! don't miss stays," said the admiral.
"From whence come you, sir?" asked Falconer, confronting him.
"From the field, as you may see," he replied, showing a drawn dagger in his right hand.
"Know you aught of the king?"
The other gave a diabolical laugh.
"Elsewhere I have heard that laugh!" said the admiral, advancing a step with his Jedwood axe in his hand.
"Are you not the Admiral Wood?"
"Yes; and thou——"
"Sir Hew Borthwick, at your service."
"Villain!" began Falconer; but the admiral stayed him.
"Saw ye the king to-day?"
"Yes—and moreover I saw him not a minute since."
"Where—where?"
"In yonder mill."
"And is he there now?"
"No," replied the subtle assassin; "he is one of yonder horsemen before me, and now rides hard to reach the Yellow Frigate."
"Say ye so;—about ship, my lads, and after him," said the admiral, as they hastily began to retrace their steps; while Borthwick, driving spurs into his horse, with a shout—but whether of fear or triumph it is impossible to say—dashed along the road after his three comrades.
The dagger in his hand was wet with James's blood!
On regaining the Craigward, the admiral and his companions found that they had been deceived, for neither the king nor any one else had approached the ferry since they had left it.
Many days passed away, yet no tidings were heard of the unfortunate king.
"Oh, for a tongue to curse the slave
Whose treason, like a deadly blight,
Comes o'er the councils of the brave,
And blasts them in their hour of might."
All unaware that he was singled out and tracked, James rode from that lost battle-field at a rapid trot, to reach the boats of Sir Andrew Wood; and every sound that rose from the Roman Way and woke the echoes of the Torwood—every shout and random shot of cannon or of hand-gun, made his heart vibrate and leap within him; for even as his own children did this good king love the people of his kingdom. His heart was full of prayer and sorrow, and the resolution which he had so often announced, of retiring to the court of his ally, Charles VIII., was now stronger than ever within him. As he thought of this, his saddened spirit rose, and he felt soothed by the beauty of the evening. The gorgeous sunset shot upward with a thousand golden rays behind the green peaks of the fertile Ochils, piercing the saffron clouds like veils of shining gauze; the giant oaks of the Torwood, many of them thirty or forty feet in circumference were rustling their heavy foliage; the solemn Scottish firs were shaking their wiry cones; and the perfume of the wild Gueldre roses loaded the evening air.
The coo of the cushat dove, the plashing of the Bannock under its pale green sauch-trees and white-blossomed hawthorns, the rocks spotted with grey lichens and green moss, the flowers, the birds, the foliage, the blue sky, the balmy air, and the beautiful mountains, all spoke to the poor king of his native home and that beloved Scotland which he had now resolved to leave for ever; and as he approached the Bannockburn he leaped the grey charger—Lindesay's last and fatal gift—across from bank to bank, and it cleared them by one furious bound. This was near Beaton's Mill, which still remains about one mile east from the field.
The mill was a strongly-built and old-fashioned house with crow-stepped gables, a heavily thatched roof, deep windows obscured by flour; a square ingle-lum, over which the green ivy clustered, stood at one end, while its huge wooden wheel revolved merrily at the other. Its snug and quiet aspect made the king think, with a sigh, (as he shortened his reins and rode on,) how much the contented and unambitious life of the occupant was to be envied.
Now it happened most unfortunately that Mysie Beaton, the gudewife of the Milltoun, was filling a pitcher with water from the dam; and on seeing an armed knight riding at full speed towards her, she uttered a shriek of terror and tossed away the tin vessel, which clattered noisily along the road, while she fled into her cottage adjoining the mill.
Terrified by the rolling pitcher and the foolish woman's sudden cry, the fiery grey horse swerved furiously round and threw his royal rider heavily on the road, close to one of those boor-tree hedges which generally in those days enclosed old gardens and barnyards in Scotland.
Gawain Beaton, the miller, a stout ruddy man about forty years of age, clad in a buckram gaberdine, which, like his beard and bonnet, was whitened by flour and meal, sprang to the door on hearing his wife cry and the armour clatter.
"Deevil mend thee, Mysie!" said he, angrily; "for thine eldritch scraigh hath scared the horse and slain this comely gentleman!"
"Oh! I trow not," said the woman, in great terror.
"Weel may ye trow sae," said the miller, in some consternation on beholding the excessive richness of the king's armour; "for if his vassals come this gate they will level the mill to its grundstane; we sall tyne our a', and hae to flee like maukins when the bratches are on the bent."
"Rise, sir—oh! rise; for the love of St. Mary and St. Ringan say where are ye hurt?" cried the miller's wife, kneeling down by the prostrate man; but there came no reply from him, though she placed her ear close to the barred umbriere of the closed helmet.
"Hoolie," said the honest miller to his buxom wife, from whose usually pink cheeks the roses had now fled and left them white as her coif of Mary of Gueldre's time; "Hoolie, gudewife, see ye nocht the knicht is feckless and weak? Let us bear him in ayont the hallan, and get ye the flask of usquebaugh and mak' him a milk posset."
While the fatal steed was galloping over the Carse, the miller and his wife raised the body of the inanimate man; and bearing him in, closed the mill-door, carefully secured its tirling-pin, and laid him on their humble box-bed; and then while the kind and sympathizing Mysie busied herself in making up a posset, the miller, her husband, undid the clasps of the gorget and the back and breast-plates, removing them all after taking off the helmet, which he did with ease, as it was opened simply by throwing up the metonniere which guarded the chin and throat, and which turned on the same screw with the vizor.
On doing this the miller saw a pale and handsome face, surrounded by thick, dark clustering hair, and a well-trimmed beard; but the stranger was still senseless, and a streak of blood was flowing from his mouth. On beholding so much manly beauty, the sympathy and remorse of the miller's wife were greatly increased; and on her knees she took the gauntlets off his hands and assisted Gawain to chafe them, and to lave the patient's brow with cool water which he brought from the Bannock in a black leather jack, about sixteen inches high; and then slowly the object of their care began to revive.
"Eh! sirs—oh! sirs—St. Mary sain us!—to see that comely face sae pale and sad!" exclaimed Mysie; "oh! withered be my tongue for uttering that doolfu' cry!"
"And dule it may bring to us, Mysie my doo," said the miller; "if some o' his lances pass this way—for his friends may slaughter us, or their enemies may slaughter him—for we kenna whether he fought this sorrowfu' day for the king—whom God bless—or the black-hearted nobles; but his degree is doubtless high; look at that armour, Mysie; ilka stud on't is pure gold, and the diamonds shine like stars on his baldrick and dudgeon knife!"
"Alake, alake!" mourned Mysie, who deemed herself the source of all, and whose sympathies were more and more excited by the apparent rank of the unknown; "the sicht o' this winsome gentleman wi' his silken hair bedabbled in bluid wad melt the heart o' a nether mill-stone."
"'Od, Mysie, I ken mine is loupin like a mill happer, and I wuss we were weel clear o' this ravelled hesp."
"And some fair lady in Lawder or Angus will be sitting on the tower-head wi' a fan in her hand, looking sadly owre moss and muirland for you, my puir sir," said Mysie, passing her hand timidly and kindly through James's silky hair. And now his senses began to rally. "I am richt glad, Gawain dear, I hid your steel bonnet and harness this morning——"
"And keepit me frae fechting for our noble king—mair shame to you, Mysie lass."
"Thanks, good people, thanks," murmured their patient, rising up slowly on his elbow, and gazing about him with sad and heavy eyes. He passed a hand across his damp and blood-stained brow, and looked again at the low-roofed and clay-floored cottage, with its bunkers or window-seats, its fir ambres and girnels, its Scottish fauldstools and wide fire-place, before which lay the half of a cart-wheel as a fender, and within which, though the month was June, there blazed a fire of turf and bog-fir under a huge three-legged kail-pot that hung on one of those wooden crocans, or crooks (last used in the Hebrides), and then he turned again with surprise to his attendants. "Honest people, accept my thanks, I pray you, for this great kindness—but say, where am I?"
"In the mill-toun o' Bannock, gentle sir," said Mysie, making low courtesy.
"How far from this day's field of sorrow?"
"Little mair than a mile, sir."
"He is a king's man," said the miller, with satisfaction.
"And who, gudeman, are you?" he asked, with mild dignity.
"Gawain Beaton, a puir miller, at your honour's service," said the host, removing his dusty bonnet; "and this is Mysie, my gudewife, sir."
"Here, then, I am safe. Thank God, I have not fallen among those who boast of gentle blood and heraldic blazonry," replied the other, while his eyes flashed.
"Gentle bluid—I dinna understand ye, sir. I am a far awa' cousin o' the Beatons o' Balfour," said Gawain, proudly.
"What, art thou, too, infected by this absurdity? But, Gawain Beaton, and thou, too, gudewife, if I live, shall find this service faithfully and thankfully remembered; but I fear me my days cannot be many now, for that fall from my horse has been a dreadful shock to me."
"Oh say, gentle sir, what can we do for you," said Mysie. "Command us—we are at your bidding."
"Then get me a priest, that I may confess."
"There is none nearer than Cambuskenneth or St. Ninian's Kirk," said Gawain, taking his walking-staff and dagger; "yet I can soon reach either; but may we ask your name, sir?"
"My gudeman, this day, at morn, I was YOUR KING," said James, with a hollow voice and sorrowful emphasis, as he sank back on the coarse box-bed.
Gawain stood as one terrified and confounded on hearing this; but Mysie, his wife, burst into tears, and wringing her hands in great fear and excitement, ran out upon the roadway as she heard hoofs approaching.
"A priest," she cried, "a priest, for God's love and sweet St. Mary's sake: a priest to confess the king!"
"To confess whom say ye?" cried the headmost of four armed horsemen, who, with helmets open and swords drawn, galloped up to her in the glooming.
"The king, the king, gude sirs—our puir and sakeless king!"
"And where is he, gudewife?"
"Lying in our pair bed—here, in here, ayont the hallan in my gudeman's mill. Oh, sirs, for a priest!"
"Hush, woman, I am a priest," said the first, who was no other than Sir Hew Borthwick, with a glance of infernal import to his three companions, as he leaped from his horse; "lead me to the king."
Borthwick entered the lonely mill, and his three companions, who were no other than Sir Patrick Gray of Kyneff, Sir William Stirling of Keir, and Sir James Shaw of Sauchie, after fastening their horses to the hedge without, followed him beyond the hallan, or wooden partition which formed the inner apartment.
"Upon desolate Aros there is wailing and weeping,
For the chief of her lords in the dark chamber sleeping;
In the dark chamber sleepeth our curly-tressed warrior,
In the day of the battle our bulwark and barrier."
Lament for Maclean of Aros.
The poor miller was inexpressibly alarmed on perceiving the four armed knights enter; the richness of their armour and accoutrements impressed him still more, and he hastened to say, in an explanatory manner—
"His horse threw him at our door—a wicked horse, sirs;—we have done a' we could—on my life, sirs, I assure you—my gude wife and I—that the horse——"
"Enough, enough, fellow," said Sir Patrick Gray, gruffly. "Stir up that fire, for this den of thine is as dark as a dungeon. Let us see where this king of ours is lying."
Though shocked and startled by the bearing of his visitors, Gawain hastened to throw a quantity of fir-apples on the fire, where they blazed and crackled and diffused a brilliant light throughout the humble apartment, and the highly polished-suit of the ruffians shone like silver as they stooped over the bed of the hapless and helpless king, who was "covered by a coarse checked rug," and on whom they gazed with eyes as pitiless in expression as their hearts were in feeling.
"Does your majesty fear death?" asked Gray.
"Nay, it never was my fear, and now it is my only hope," replied James, in a low voice, "but I asked for a priest, sirs——"
"Well—here I am—a priest, though cased in iron," said Borthwick.
"And for whom fought you to-day, false priest?"
"By the cross of Macgriddy! I fought for my own hand—as Hal o' the Wynd fought, in old King Robert's time; but I am, nevertheless, a priest—behold my tonsure—or what remains of it."
"It is enough—even the unworthy is better than none. And you will hear my confession?"
"Yea," answered the bantering ruffian, "wert thou as great a clown as ever played at Hogshouther."
"And who are ye, sirs?" asked the king, turning uneasily from this disrespectful person.
"I am William Stirling of the Keir," hissed one through his teeth.
"And thou art the Lord Gray?" said James to a second, his brow darkening, as he saw the scarlet tabard-coat, which had a lion within its engrailed border, and was worn above the armour of the wearer.
"Nay, I am only the Lord Gray's near kinsman, and captain of your majesty's castle at Broughty."
"Leave me," said James, bitterly; "I will confess myself—and oh, bless me, father, for I have sorely sinned."
A terrible smile spread over Borthwick's face, as he grasped his dagger, and saw the poor king, after three futile attempts to rise, sink powerlessly down on the miller's humble pallet. Gawain and his wife drew aside, awestruck and silent; Mysie held her apron to her mouth with one hand, while the other clasped her husband's arm; but the Lairds of Keir, Kyneff, and Sauchie stood a little in the background, and conferred together in whispers on what should now be done, for their minds were agitated by a slender doubt, though the viler slave of English Henry's gold felt none.
"Dost thou expect to recover?" he sneered.
"I trow I might," sighed the poor king, "if I had a physician."
"How long dost thou expect to live?" he asked again, playing with his victim as a cat does with a mouse.
"Alas! priest; He who numbereth the leaves in the Torwood, and every blade of grass in the Carse of Stirling, alone can tell."
"I never numbered either; yet I think thou'lt be a dead man in ten minutes."
A flush passed over James's pallid brow.
"Be it so, father; the world and all its vanities are nothing now to me;—wifeless, childless,—or worse, for my own son is in arms against me; my soul hovers, as it were, between this world and the next. Oh would, father, that I might cure my soul at the expense of my body!"
"Pythagoras——"
"He was a pagan."
"Well, what matters it," said Borthwick, becoming deadly pale, while his eyes gleamed with fire, and he felt himself endued with a demon's strength of mind and body, by the very magnitude of the crime he was about to commit; "what matters it," he continued, drawing one of those long Scottish dirks, such as are still worn with the Highland garb; "Pythagoras said that the eyes could not be cured without the head, nor the head without the body, nor the body without the soul! I am not now a priest, and cannot shrive thee; so by this stroke—and this—and this—I destroy both body and soul together!"
And with these terrible words the merciless ruffian buried his dagger "many times," says Lindesay of Pitscottie, in the breast of the unfortunate king, who expired without a sigh.
Thus perished James III., in his thirty-fifth year.
Terrified on beholding the committal of a deed so awful, the poor miller and his wife abandoned their mill and cottage, and fled into the recesses of the Torwood, where they lurked many days.
When they ventured to return with some of their neighbours, the body of the king was gone, and no trace of it remained, save the blood encrusted on the bedding where it had lain.
* * * * * * *
"Thou hast done it at last, ruffian!" said the grim Sir Patrick Gray; "such a deed hath not been seen in Scotland since that night in the Black Friary at Perth, when James I. was stabbed in Jane of Beaufort's arms. And now, sirs, what shall we do with this royal piece of carrion?"
"Let us fire the house, and leave it here to be consumed," said Shaw.
"Not a bad idea; but then consider the alarm it would raise."
"Let us fling it into the dam, then."
"Nay—toss him into the adjacent fields; there it will be found and buried as the corpse of some one slain in the battle of to-day," said the barbarous Laird of Keir.
"Then so be it; help me, sirs," said Borthwick, panting fiercely as he spoke; "for, o' my soul, dead flesh is heavy to bear. I am sorry we allowed yonder hagridden fools, the miller and his wife, to escape us, though."
The assassin and his companions dragged the gashed and bloody corpse irreverently cut upon the clay floor, and carried it in the moonlight across a neighbouring field, and there flung it info a ditch beside a thorn-hedge.
Ere he left it, Borthwick tore off the third finger of the right hand a large signet-ring, on the native amethyst of which was engraved a vine tree, fading and withered, because the current that flowed around was supposed to be wine instead of water. This strange device, which was adopted by the king (says Abercrombie) "when he saw his son in arms against him," bore the legend,—
"Mea sic mihi prosunt,"
and the wretch placed it on his own finger. They again thought of firing the cottage; but the sudden appearance of Sir Andrew Wood's party made them think of providing for their own safety.
Their interview is already related.
Keir, Kyneff, and Sauchie took the road for Linlithgow, but Borthwick rode on direct to Berwick—as the king's private signet, when transmitted to Henry VII., would be the best assurance that the King of Scotland was slain.
Had the admiral arrived fifteen minutes sooner, he might have saved James's life, and spared Scotland the disgrace of one more historical atrocity.
The house in which this cruel regicide occurred is still in existence, and is yet named Beaton's Milne, and the traditionary account of the murder preserved by the inhabitants of the town or hamlet, closely resembles that given in history, and reverently the good people still lower their voices, when pointing to the corner where their king was murdered. In 1667, as a date shows, the house of Gawain Beaton had been somewhat modernized; but it yet bears the aspect of antiquity and strength.
It stands about one hundred and fifty feet eastward of the road from Stirling to Glasgow; and though thatched, is yet as snug a little dwelling as when Gawain attended the happer and Mysie's spinning-wheel birred by its ingle in the days of the unhappy king, James III.
"Do men love thee? Art thou so bound
To men, that how thy name will sound,
Will vex thee lying underground."—TENNYSON.
The insurgent lords had marched from Linlithgow to Leith, but had not as yet obtained possession of the capital or its fortress which the provost and governor maintained against them. They had established themselves in the seaport, and the house of the late Sir Andrew Barton was assigned to the young Duke of Rothesay and his suite.
It was the 18th of June. The sun was as bright, the sky as blue, and the atmosphere as pure, as they ever are in that delightful month. The broad Forth, with its anchorage full of crayers, pincks, and caravels; its green isles and winding bays—the surf-beaten rocks and fertile promontories of Fife, with the fertile shores of Lothian were glowing in sunny light.
The seaport was still, perhaps, in its infancy, though Sir Andrew Wood, Sir Andrew Barton, Sir Alexander Mathieson, and Sir William Merrimonth, all brave knights, who received their spurs on their own decks, and who had fought their way at sea as merchant-skippers, had given to the burgh a wealth and importance such as no port in the kingdom had hitherto known; and though its wynds, alleys, and closes were quaint, small, and irregular, with all their gable-ends towards the street, though the shore was encumbered by boats, anchors, kailyards, and gardens, where now broad moles of stone bulwark in the river; and though its pier was of wood, without either lighthouse or martello tower, the stately argosies and gay caravels of these fighting merchant-traders, and of many others, gave a gay aspect to the harbour; though, as usual still, at this season, it was the least busy time, for the Baltic ships had not returned.
At anchor in the stream, or moored beside that wooden pier, which was burned by the English, 1544, lay those quaint old merchantmen, with their basketed tops, their lofty poops, and pinck-built, or square projecting sterns, which were retained until lately by some of the Leith whalers, and may yet be found among our Orkney shipping.
Leith was full of armed men; the nobles and their forces thronged every street and alley; their banners waved over the houses they occupied, and armour, spears, swords, and axes flashed incessantly in the sunshine, especially in the Wynd of St. Nicholas and the vicinity of the house of the Bartons. This was a lofty, strong, and turreted mansion, situated near the site of the present Custom-house, on the west bank of the Leith; and in after years, Henry VIII. gave the admiral of England special orders to cannonade and destroy it, during Hertford's invasion.
In the hall or chamber of dais of this noble dwelling of the old merchant, whose son and heir was then on board the Yellow Frigate, the Duke of Rothesay was seated in council with the victorious insurgent lords; and the splendour and luxury with which the enterprising trader (a man far in advance of them in "the march of intellect" and civilization, and far in advance of the age,) was enabled to decorate the dwelling his industry had won, must have formed a strong contrast to their rude stone-halls and the wooden benches of their secluded towers on the braes of Angus, or in the dells of Galloway; and so, no doubt, each earl, lord, and laird thought, as they twisted their wiry mustachios under their steel caps, and surveyed the apartment in which they held council—the dining hall of a Leith merchant, in the year of the first revolution.
It had six tall windows, each barred with iron and latticed with brass; the roof was arched with stone; but the walls were hung with pale brown leather, richly stamped with thistles and silver fleurs-de-lys. The oak furniture was enormously massive and strong; all the chairs were quaintly and grimly carved, and had arms with great knobs and square cushioned seats of blue Utrecht velvet. The fire-irons were chained to the jambs of the fire-place; for our forefathers, honest souls! being somewhat short-tempered, were wont to have disputes when they sat round the fire at night. In the recesses of the carved stone ambres and quaint old knobby cabinets, were many articles of vertu and rarity, which the taste of umquhile Sir Andrew Barton, when homeward bound, had made him select for his good dame in happier days. There were Turkish carpets, African skins, and Persian bows; Venetian crystals, Japanese canisters (brought by the way of the Red Sea), Muscovite bowls, and Italian bronzes; a plump Cupid sprawling on a dolphin's back; a St. John asleep; the model of a ship, and several Egyptian gods and goddesses, minus "pantaloons and bodices," on which the noble lords looked somewhat dubiously, "as smelling of sorcery and damnable idolatry;" but the late Sir Andrew was a pious and upright man—one who would rather have died than withheld a plack of the cess due to kirk or king; and in his mercantile days he never omitted to pay regularly to the Hospitallers of St. Anthony at Leith the kain to which they were entitled by law—a Scottish quart from every tun of wine that passed the Beacon Rock; and of all the fighting merchant-mariners of the time, none had paid more liberally the primo gilt, as it is still named,—a duty paid from time immemorial, to aid "the poor, old, and infirm mariners of Leith."
The southern windows of the hall, showed the ancient bridge of the burgh, the old gothic Hospital and Church of St. Nicholas, with its burying-ground, (on which, in after years, the citadel was built,) and the Links of North Leith, a green and level plain, which has now entirely disappeared, and become an irreclaimable waste, flooded at every tide. The eastern windows showed the opposite bank of the river, with the quaint shipping, the Beacon Rock, the wooden pier, the steeple of St. Anthony, and the picturesque outline of the old Timber Holfe, or bourse, where the Memel and Riga wood was sold, and where traders generally met for the transaction of business.
Sad, pale, and thoughtful, with a heart crushed between sorrow for the disappearance of his beloved Margaret, and the new mystery which involved the fate of his unhappy father, who had not been seen since the day of the battle, young Rothesay sat at the table, in a raised seat of honour: and his dark, melancholy eyes wandered alternately over the sunny landscape without, and the crowd of steel-clad, stern, and proud landholders who sat around the board or thronged the apartment, conversing and laughing, all very much at their ease,—for they were not the men to be awed by the presence or opinions of a spirit-broken boy, even though that boy was the heir of the throne.
On one side of him stood the Earl of Errol, the Lord High Constable of Scotland, with his white ivory baton of office; on the other sat the gigantic Earl of Angus, Lieutenant-general of the realm, clad in his dark armour, with the Red Heart crowned and emblazoned on his surcoat, and his gauntletted hands crossed upon that terrible weapon, which had slain Glencairn and many a gallant man. Of all the poor men of letters who thronged the court of James III., not one was present here; but in the sunny recesses of the windows were Catharine Stirling of the Keir, Countess of Angus, Beatrix Douglas, Dowager of Errol, wearing on her spousal finger a bone ring, to which the wedding-ring of her late lord was attached by a cord; Elizabeth Douglas, Lady Lyle, and other dames of the rebel faction, among whom were the sad and shrinking daughters of Lord Drummond—Sybilla and Euphemia—who fixed their eyes, furtively, however, on the Yellow Frigate and her armed consorts, now many in number, which were all riding at anchor, under the admiral's flag, in the roads, about two miles distant, after scouring the surrounding shores, and sinking every ship whose crew adhered to the insurgent lords. The latter had offered the most splendid bribes to the Leith masters, if they would arm ships and attack the Laird of Largo; but not one would sail against him, were a ducal coronet the reward of conquest.
Seven days had now elapsed since the battle of Sauchie had been fought; yet, in all that time, no tidings had been heard of James; for the poor miller, Beaton, had not yet dared to relate the terrible scene he had witnessed; and those who could have given the best information, viz., Gray and Stirling, stood by the prince's council board, exchanging those deep smiles that villains can only read.
"Every where we have offered bribes to those who may bring us sure tidings of your royal father," said Angus, "by twang of trumpet at every burghcross; I have proffered brave propines for drinking, and many a rich largess, yet no news hath come in."
"Rumours are current that the king has been assassinated," said the Lord Hailes, bluntly.
The young prince grew ghastly pale, and started with horror at the remark.
"By God's love and the Virgin's purity, I pray you, do not say so!" he exclaimed, imploringly.
"By both, I assure you, it is said so," returned the coarse, unfeeling noble.
"Rumour ever lies," said Sir Patrick Gray, angrily; "for on one hand 'tis said he has fled to England—on the other, to Holland; and there are many who maintain that he is on board the ships of that contumacious loon, old Largo, whose boats plied at the Craigward the live-long battle day, ferrying over the wounded and the fugitive."
"From my soul, I thank you for the hope, my good Sir Patrick," said the prince, mournfully.
"Until the king's flight or safety—his death or abdication are known, my lords, we can decide on nothing," said the constable.
"Save that we must keep together in arms," added Angus, "till Parliament meets, and we are voted scathless for the raid at Sauchie."
"We have gained a battle," said old Lord Drummond, in a growling whisper to his daughters: "we have routed our false king—slain his minion Ramsay of Balmain, whom some styled Lord of Bothwell; we have cut to pieces his red-doubletted guard; yet I am not one inch nearer discovering where the foul villains of the late court have hidden or murdered your sister Maggie, to further their English alliance."
Crushed by their own sorrows, the poor girls did not reply to this vituperation, save by the tears which fell silently over their cheeks. Young girls in general look to the bright side of everything: thus the sisters were full of hope; and they loved their lost Margaret so much, that they shrunk, instinctively, with dismay from the rough inferences of their father; and from the idea that any one could injure a being so gentle and so harmless.
"Listen to me, Effie Drummond," resumed the old lord, through his long mustachios, which resembled those of a walrus: "look a little more at the quarterings on Lord Hailes' tabard-coad and a little less at yonder devilish ships; and thou, too, Madam Sybilla—what, the fury! hath this skipper's son gained more influence over thee in one year than I have done in eighteen?"
Still they wept silently, for none had spoken to them kindly save young Rothesay, and he knew not their secret; but now the sudden entrance of Lord Home, with his mail covered by dust, relieved them of their father's persecution, fur all now turned to him.
"Welcome, Bailie of Coldinghame!" said Angus, who by his loftiness and confidence seemed more like a king than a mere peer; "what tidings—hast heard of our missing man?"
"Nought, save that he hath fled; but I have been harrying the lands of the malcontents, his people."
"And how many castles hast thou burned?"
"At the head of a thousand Border spears, I have ridden through all the Howe of Angus, where men shall long remember the slogan of a Home!" replied the chief, who was a very good type of those feudal nobles, who never bowed to religion or to law, and who never knew remorse for crime, or fear of God or man, and were generally as destitute of pure patriotism as ever Scottish peers have been in later years. "I have sacked twenty farm towns on the baronies of the so-called Duke of Montrose; I have ruined and dismantled ten castles in the Carse of Gowrie, and laid all the towns of Fife under heavy contribution."
"Ye have done well, by St. Bryde!" said Angus, giving a glance of stern curiosity at Rothesay, who had listened with stolid apathy.
And now entered, quite as hastily, Robert, Lord Lyle; he was one of James's most faithful servants, and had recently returned from an embassy to England, concerning the slaying of Barton.
"How now, Lyle—what news?" asked Angus.
"Men say the king is dead—murdered, and that the Lord Forbess hath risen in the north, and ridden from Aberdeen to Elgin o' Murray, displaying a bloody shirt upon a spear, and summoning all the Gordons, the Forbesses, and Leslies to rise in arms against you, and for vengeance! My lords, alake! this soundeth like evil."
"Let him do so; we may meet him and the northern clans by Sauchieburn, perhaps," said Angus; "but I would we knew the verity, whether or not the king is on board the ships of yonder stubborn admiral."
"Another messenger with tidings," said Lord Hailes; "my kinsman, Adam Hepburn, of the Black Castle, has come in from the east country, and would speak with his grace."
"Admit him," said Rothesay; "he may have news of the king my father."
Hepburn, a hardy and sunburned south-country laird, accoutred in a very plain and somewhat rusty headpiece, corslet, vambraces, and steel gloves, with an enormous sword, dagger, and wheel-lock caliver at his girdle, now pushed his way unceremoniously forward, but bowed low on perceiving the young prince, whom he knew at once by the richness of his dress—being without armour, and having on a short crimson velvet tunic, girdled tightly about the waist, long hose of spotless white silk, a violet-coloured cloak lined with white satin, and on his breast the sparkling collar of the Thistle.
"What news, laird? If of my father, by my soul, you shall have the best of all the forfeited baronies."
"Would I had such tidings to give," replied the soldier-like laird, who having no title was the truer Scotsman; "but I have merely come in on the spur, with a message from the captain of the king's Castle of Dunbar."
"Anent what?"
"Five English ships, which, after having lain wind-bound for many days in Phillorth Bay, have appeared off the Firth of Forth, and avoiding our cannon at Dunbar, now hover thereabout, plundering the coast, cutting away our fishers' nets, firing on their boats, and taking every advantage, after their old fashion, of these our present hapless broils."
"What can we do, my lords?" said the prince, whose patriotism was fired by hearing this news, which made Gray and Shaw exchange glances of anger and disappointment.
"Nothing that I know of, for Wood and all his people remain sullenly and proudly aloof from us, acknowledging no authority but that of James III.," said Angus.
"My father's good and faithful subject!" said Rothesay, with honest ardour.
"I will wager my coronet against a jester's cap, that old Largo will sail against these Englishmen, if we do but ask him," said Angus.
"I say nay," said Sir Patrick Gray.
"I gay yea," added Angus, frowning.
"If this English churl is yet tarrying in Scottish waters, we may be totally ruined," whispered Shaw to Gray.
"It cannot be he; this breathless courier speaks five ships; now young Howard had but three."
"True; yet I quake at the suggestion of sending out Wood against him."
In less than half an hour several urgent messages of similar import came from the Whitefriars of Aberlady; from the provost of North Berwick, and the prioress of the Cistercians there, all complaining of ravages committed along the coast of Eastern Lothian; and by the prince's desire the Albany herald was despatched to Admiral Wood, requesting him to come on shore, on the double purpose of discovering whether he knew anything of the king's safety, and if he would sail against the enemy.
Too wary to trust himself among these barbarous nobles, Sir Andrew "refused (says Abercrombie) to comply with the request unless good hostages were delivered to him for his security," thus, two of the peers volunteered for this service, George Lord Seaton and John Lord Fleming, both men of great integrity. They were sent to the fleet as hostages, and were received with all honour on board the Yellow Frigate, where they were put in ward in one of the great cabins, under the care of Willie Wad, the gunner, who voluntarily bound himself to drink an unlimited quantity of bilge should they escape.
In one hour after this, the great barge of the admiral, having his banner, azure, charged with a tree, or, and pulled by sixteen well-armed oarsmen, with Cuddie in the prow, and Robert Barton and Sir David Falconer, both sheathed in armour and accoutred to the teeth, swept past the Mussel-cape, and through the old harbour, with oar-blades flashing in the sunshine. They landed at the ancient bridge which crossed the Leith, near where a chapel of St. Ninian was erected soon after by an abbot of Holyrood, with consent of his chapter. It was removed about seventy years ago, and nothing remains of it now but an arched door. At the other end of the bridge was a miraculous well, which belonged to the Bailie of St. Anthony.
Accompanied by all his barge's crew, armed with their boat-stretchers, and having daggers and wheel-locks at their belts, the old admiral, with no other ornament above his armour than the silver whistle, which was the badge of his rank, strode through the Wynd of St. Nicholas, and entered the house of Barton, where ensued one of the most interesting interviews recorded in the history of those stirring times.
"Rebellion! foul dishonouring word,
Whose wrongful blight so oft hath stained
The holiest cause that tongue or sword
Or mortal ever lost or gained."—MOORE.
Undaunted by the presence of so many enemies, Sir Andrew Wood and his two faithful followers ascended the great turnpike stair of Barton's house, and were ushered by pages, esquires, and heralds into the presence of the young prince and the chief conspirators, several of whom were grouped in the recesses of the hall windows, conversing earnestly. Others sat in corners, drinking the right Rhenish, the Canary, and Bourdeaux with which the cellars of the wealthy Laird of Barton had been stored.
"Robbie Barton," said the admiral, as they pushed their way towards the dais; "by St. Anthony, 'tis enough to make thy father's bones start from their coral bed in the English sea when so many deil's buckies and gilded sharks hold wassail under his old rooftree! God sain thee, old shipmate o' mine," sighed Sir Andrew, as he cast his eyes over the hall; "many a long wine horn hast thou and I birled here, over our old yarns of lee shores and cannon-shot."
Barton felt his heart stirred doubly by grief and indignation; for every feature of this hall reminded him of his brave old father, and he was exasperated to find so many of his enemies installed there, all very much at their ease, and drinking from his cellars as if the contents thereof were their own.
"My lords and gentlemen," said he, sternly; "by my faith, ye reck little of hership and hamesücken."
"These are but the spray of the great wave, Barton," said Sir David Falconer, "and are small items in the great amount of treason and rebellion."
"And see," added the admiral, "on yonder window-bunker the traitor Sauchie, full to the beams with thy father's wine. Ah, false villain, one day I hope to see thee spritsail-yarded by three feet of a good rapier!"
By this time they had reached the presence of the prince, and his vicinity was fortunate for them, as the freedom of their remarks was such that several poniards were drawn, and there was every prospect of their being assailed, though the two noble hostages were certain to dangle from the Frigate's yardarm in an hour after. The young prince stood up, and coloured deeply as they appeared before him, and various whispers went round that otherwise silent circle of proud, ferocious, and unscrupulous peers; for, owing to the loftiness, dignity, and high bearing of Wood, there ran from tongue to tongue a suggestion that "he was the king—James himself;" and then a thrill pervaded all present, for he was the only one of three who wore a close casque, the rivets of the vizor having been secured before he came ashore, and his armour having gilded passguards on the shoulders, and puckered lambeaux similar to a suit frequently worn by the king on state occasions. The same resemblance occurred to Rothesay, who, looking up with eyes full of hope and timidity, said in a low and agitated voice,—
"Sir, are you the king my father?"
The artlessness of this question, and the touching accent of the young prince, smote the veteran admiral to the heart. He burst into tears, and replied, says Pitscottie,—
"I am not your father, sir; but I am his true servant, and the sworn enemy of those who have occasioned his downfall."
Though Lord Lyle and some of the nobles were touched by the pure, honest, and generous loyalty of Wood, his words kindled the rage and scorn of Angus and others. In the grief of age and manhood there is something very impressive; and thus, when that brave mariner wept there was a dead silence in the vast apartment; Rothesay covered his face with his violet-coloured mantle, while Barton and Falconer cast down their eyes, for they were deeply moved. But now that stately bearing, which made so many suppose the closed helmet concealed the face of James, kindled the pride of the nobles, who muttered among themselves, and to those who adhered to them.
"I would give three of my best crofts to see old Tarrybreeks, and these saucy tarpaulins, his comrades, with their master in yonder ditch beside the Bannock," said Sir James Shaw, who was somewhat tipsy, to Gray, who grasped his arm, and gave him a fierce and significant glance; for, in that iron age, banter (as we now understand it) was unknown in Scotland. Every man wore a sword and dagger; so jesting was perilous work at all times.
"You speak somewhat loftily, Master Wood," said Angus, with a haughty frown on his dark and commanding face.
"I am Andrew Wood, knight, my Lord Earl of Angus," he replied, firmly; "I received that title from a king's hand on my own deck, abaft the mizen-mast—a deck drenched with foreign blood! From my father, who was an honest and hard-working merchant-mariner of this good port of Leith, I inherited nothing but a bold heart, and my sturdy legs and arms. I have had to work my way through the voyage of life, with no compass but honesty, and no convoy but faith in God; and since I was an idle brat, who spent the day in fishing for podleys out of the fore-chains, I have never owed or wronged any man the value of a ropeyarn or a herring-scale—least of all do I owe any merit to a dead ancestry—thof most here, my lord, owe mickle mair to their ancestors than they owe to themselves, God wot! But enough of this; the gunner to his lintstock, the——"
"Remember, Laird of Largo," said Lord Drummond, with a darkening brow, "thou speakest to the Lieutenant-general of the kingdom, and to men who will not stoop to monarchs, for 'tis beneath the dignity of true nobility."
"Then why should I stoop to such as thee, an old jackfeather, when 'tis beneath the dignity of true manhood?"
"Let us have no brawling here, sirs," said the High Constable, stepping forward, as he saw the admiral disposed to "come to close quarters;" "remember my office, its high prerogative, and this presence."
"Know ye aught, Sir Andrew, of the king my father?" asked Rothesay.
"Alake! I do not," replied Wood, mournfully.
"Will you swear on your honour as a knight, that he is not on board your fleet?"
"There are over many knights here for me to be believed," replied Wood; "but I pledge you my faith and troth as a seaman, that he is not on board of any of the ships now under my broad pennon."
"Who were those you took off after the battle?"
"My Lord St. John of Jerusalem, the High Treasurer, the Mareschal de Concressault, and a few more loyal men: but as for the king,—God bless him, and confound his enemies!—of him I know nothing; even rumour hath not reached us in the Firth. My shipmates and I were ready to have risked our lives in his defence; and we landed many times on that evil day, yet saw him not, though duly warned by his Grace of Montrose that James would wear a yellow plume, and ride a grey charger."
Here Sir James Shaw gave a peculiar snort, and blew his nose to conceal his malicious laughter.
Then (as Buchanan records) Sir Andrew added,—
"If the good king is alive, I am resolved to obey none but him; if he is slain, I am ready to revenge him!"
At this Grey almost clutched his dagger, and felt assured he would never be safe while such a man as Wood lived.
"Would to St. Mary he had never left our ship!" said Barton, who had hitherto remained silent, "for then he would have been in safety from those false traitors, whom I hope to see one day rewarded as they deserve, by having their dog-throats cut from clew to ear-ring."
Perceiving that these rough speeches were rousing the anger and apprehension of the insurgent lords, and moreover that they were making too favourable an impression on Rothesay, who never forgot the three leal and true men who now so boldly confronted so many enemies—for Scotland's truest sons were seldom men of noble birth—Lord Angus said,—