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Title: The Scottish Cavalier: An Historical Romance, Volume 1 (of 3)

Author: James Grant

Release date: August 23, 2021 [eBook #66120]
                Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER: AN HISTORICAL ROMANCE, VOLUME 1 (OF 3) ***

  THE

  SCOTTISH CAVALIER.


  An Historical Romance.



  BY JAMES GRANT, ESQ.,

  AUTHOR OF
  "THE ROMANCE OF WAR, OR THE GORDON HIGHLANDERS,"
  "MEMOIRS OF KIRKALDY OF GRANGE," &C.



  Dost thou admit his right,
  Thus to transfer our ancient Scottish crown?
  Ay, Scotland was a kingdom once,
  And, by the might of God, a kingdom still shall be!
                                ROBERT THE BRUCE, ACT II.



  IN THREE VOLUMES.

  VOL. I.



  LONDON:
  HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,
  GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.

  1850.




  Contents

  Preface
  I. The Place of Bruntisfield
  II. The Preacher
  III. The Old Clockcase
  IV. A Pair of Blue Eyes
  V. A Pair of Rapiers
  VI. The Old Tolbooth
  VII. The Laigh Council House
  VIII. The Privy Council
  IX. Dejection
  X. Hope
  XI. Clermistonlee at Home
  XII. The Cottage of Elsie
  XIII. A Reverse
  XIV. Walter and Lilian
  XV. Love and Burnt-sack
  XVI. The Ten O'Clock Drum
  XVII. Clermistonlee Makes a Bad Mistake
  XVIII. The Growth of Love and Hope
  XIX. The Old Scottish Service




PREFACE.

From the historical and descriptive nature of the following tale, the
Author intended that certain passages should be illustrated with
notes, containing the local traditions and authorities from which it
has been derived; but on second thoughts he has preferred confining
these explanations to the preface.

History will have rendered familiar to the reader the names of many
who bear a prominent part in the career of _Walter Fenton_; but there
are other characters of minor importance, who, though less known to
fame than Dundee and Dunbarton, were beings who really lived and
breathed, and acted a part in the great drama of those days.  Among
these, we may particularise Douglas, of Finland, and Annie Laurie.

This lady was one of the four daughters of Sir Robert Laurie, the
first Baronet of Maxwelton, and it was to her that Finland inscribed
those well-known verses, and that little air which now bear her name,
and are so wonderfully plaintive and chaste for the time; but it is
painful to record that, notwithstanding all the ardour and devotion
of her lover, the fair Annie was wedded as described in the romance.
Her father, Sir Robert, was created a baronet in 1685.

The Old Halberdier and Hugh Blair (mentioned so frequently) are also
real characters.  The former distinguished himself at the battle of
Sedgemoor, and by a _Royal Order_, dated 26th February, 1686,
received "forty pounds for his good service in firing the great guns
against the rebells" who were opposed to Sir James Halkett's Royal
Scots.  The tavern of Hugh Blair was long celebrated in Edinburgh.
His name will be found in _Blackadder's Memoirs_, and frequently
among the _Decisions_ of Lord Fountainhall, in disputes concerning
various runlets of Frontiniac, &c.

Lord Mersington was exactly the personage he is described in the
following pages--an unprincipled sot.  From _Cruickshank's History_
it appears that his lady was banished the liberties of Edinburgh in
1674, for being engaged in the female assembly which insulted
Archbishop Sharpe.

Of Thomas Butler, an unfortunate Irish gentleman connected with the
ducal house of Ormond, who bears a prominent part in Volume III., an
account will be found in the London Papers of 1720, in which year he
was executed at Tyburn as a highwayman.

The song mentioned so frequently, and the burden of which is
_Lillibulero bullen a la!_ was a favorite whig ditty, and the chorus
was formed by the pass-words used during the Irish massacre of 1641.

The principal locality of the story is the Wrightshouse or Castle of
Bruntisfield, which stood near the Burghmuir of Edinburgh, and was
unwisely removed in 1800, to make way for that hideous erection--the
hospital of Gillespie.  As described in the romance, it was a
magnificent chateau in the old Scoto-French style of architecture,
and was completely encrusted with legends, devices, armorial
bearings, and quaint bassi relievi.

It was of great antiquity, and over the central door were the arms of
Britain, with the initials J. VI. M. B. F. E. H. R.

Amid a singular profusion of sculptured figures representing Hope,
Faith, Charity, &c., was a bas-relief of Adam and Eve in Eden,
bearing the following legend:--

  Quhen Adam delvd and Eve span
  Quhar war a' the gentiles than?

Between them was a female representing Taste, and inscribed _Gustus_.
"On the eastern front of the castle was sculptured a head of Julius
Cæsar, and under it _Caius Jul. Cæsar, primus Rom. Imp_.  On the
eastern wing were figures of Temperentia, Prudentia, and Justitia,
which it is remarkable were among the first stones thrown down."
(_Scots Mag._, 1800.)  On the west wing was a Roman head of Octavius
II., and five representations of the Virtues, beautifully sculptured.
_Sicut oliva fructifera_ 1376, _In Domino Confido_, 1400, _Patriæ et
Posteris_, and many other valuable carvings, which are now preserved
at Woodhouselee, adorned the walls and windows.

The east wing was said to have been built by Robert III.; _Arnot_
informs us, that the centre was erected by James IV. for one of his
mistresses, and about the close of the last century, Hamilton of
Barganie made many additions to it.  How the edifice obtained the
name of _Wright's_ or_ Wryte's-house_ is now unknown, as no
proprietor of it who bore that name can now be traced; but the
Napiers appear to have possessed the barony from an early period, and
their names frequently occur in local records.

Alexander Napier de Wrichtyshouse appears as one of an inquest in
1488.  His coat-armorial was a bend charged with a crescent, between
two mullets.  He married Margaret Napier of Merchiston, whose father
was slain at the battle of Flodden.  In 1581, among the commissioners
appointed by James VI., "anent the cuinze," we find William Napier of
the Wrightshouse, (_Acta Parliamentorum_) and in 1590, Barbara
Napier, his sister, was convicted of sorcery, for which on the llth
of May she was sentenced to be burnt at a "stake sett on the
Castellhill, with barrels, coales, heather, and powder;" but when the
torch was about to be applied, pregnancy was alleged, and the
execution delayed.  (_Calderwood's Historic._)

In 1632, William of the Wrightshouse was a commissioner at Holyrood,
anent the valuation of Tiends ; and two years after we find him
retoured heir to his father William in certain lands in Berwickshire;
but in 1626, "_terrarum de Brounisfield, infra parochiam de Sanct.
Cuthbert_" belonged to Sir William Fairlie of Braid.  In 1649 he
obtained a crown charter of his lands (_MS. Mag. Sigilli_), and in
1680, the last notice of this old family will be found in the
_Inquisitionum Retornatarum_, where it ends in a female.

Thus about the close of the 17th century, the Napiers had passed
away, and their barony was possessed by the Laird of Pennicuick.  All
that now remains of them is their burial place on the north side of
St. Giles' Cathedral, where may still be seen their mouldering
coat-armorial, with this inscription:--

  S. E. D.
  Fam. de Naperarum interibus,
  Hic situm est.


EDINBURGH, _March_, 1850.




WALTER FENTON;

OR,

THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER.



CHAPTER I.

THE PLACE OF BRUNTISFIELD.

  There is nae Covenant noo, Lassie,
    There is nae covenant, noo;
  The solemn league and covenant,
    Are a' broken through.
                          OLD SONG.


One evening in the month of March, 1688, a party of thirty soldiers
mustered rapidly and silently under the arches of the White Horse
Hostel, an old and well-known inn on the north side of the Canongate
of Edinburgh.  The night was dark and cold, and a high wind swept in
gusts down the narrow way between the picturesque houses of that
venerable street and the steep side of the bare and rocky Calton-hill.

Gathering in cautious silence, the soldiers scarcely permitted the
butts of their heavy matchlocks to touch the pavement: in a loud
whisper the officer gave the order to march, and they moved off with
the same air of quietness and rapidity which characterized their
muster, and showed that a very secret or important duty was about to
be executed.

In those days the ranks were drawn up three deep, and such was the
mode until a later period; so, by simply facing a body of men to the
right or left, they found themselves three abreast without confusion
or delay.

"Fenton," said the officer to a young man who carried a pike beside
him, "keep rearward.  You are wont to have the eye of a hawk; and if
any impertinent citizen appears to watch us, lay thy truncheon across
his pate."

This injunction was unnecessary; for those belated citizens who saw
them, hurried past, glad to escape unquestioned.  In those days, when
every corporal of horse or foot, was vested with more judicial powers
than the Lord Justice General, the night march of a band of soldiers
was studiously to be avoided.  Aware that some "deed of persecution"
was about to be acted, the occasional wayfarers hurried on, or turned
altogether aside, when forewarned that soldiers appeared, by the
measured tread of feet, by the gleam of a gun-barrel, or cone of a
helmet glinting in the rays of light that shot from half-closed
windows into the palpable darkness.

These soldiers belonged to the regiment of George Earl of Dunbarton,
the oldest in the Scottish army, and a body of such antiquity, that
they were jocularly known in France as Pontius Pilate's Guards.  With
red coats, they wore morions of black unpolished iron; breast-plates
of the same metal, crossed by buff belts which sustained their
swords, fixing-daggers and collars of bandoleers, as the twelve
little wooden cases, each containing a charge of powder, were named.
Their breeches and stockings were of bright scarlet, and each had a
long musket sloped on his shoulder, with its lighted match gleaming
like a glowworm in the dark.  The officer was distinguished by a
plume that waved from a tube on his gilded helmet, which, like his
gorget, was of polished steel, while to denote his rank he carried a
half-pike, in addition to his rapier and dagger, and wore a black
corslet richly engraved and studded with nails of gold, conform to
the Royal Order of 1686.  He was a handsome fellow, tall, and well
set up, with a heavy dark mustache, and a face like each of his
soldiers, well bronzed by the sun of France and Tangiers.

In that age, the closes and wynds of the Scottish capital were like
those of ancient Paris or modern Lisbon, narrow, smoky, and crowded,
unpaved, unlighted, and encumbered with heaps of rubbish and mud,
which obstructed the gutters and lay in fœtid piles, until heavy
rains swept all the debris of the city down from its lofty ridge into
the Loch on the north, or the ancient _communis ma_, on the south.
At night the careful citizen carried a lantern--the bold one his
sword; for men generally walked abroad well armed, and none ever rode
without a pair of long iron pistols at his saddle-bow.

The late king had made every kind of dissipation fashionable; and
after night-fall the gallants of the city swaggered about the Craimes
or the Abbey-Close, muffled in their cloaks like conspirators; and
despite the axes of the city guard, and the halberds of the provost,
excesses were committed hourly; and seldom a night passed without the
clash of rapiers and the shouts of cavalier brawlers being heard
ringing in the dark thoroughfares of the city.  Thieves were hanged,
coiners were quartered, covenanters beheaded, and witches burned,
until executions failed to excite either interest or horror; but with
the plumed and buff-booted Ruffler of the day, who brawled and fought
from a sheer love of mischief and wine, what plebeian baillie or
pumpkin-headed city-guard would have dared to find fault?  Of this
more anon.

Stumbling through the dark streets, the party of soldiers marched
past the Pleasance Porte, above the arch of which grinned a white row
of five bare skulls, which had been bleaching there since 1681.
Every barrier of Edinburgh was garnished with these terrible trophies
of maladministration.

Leaving behind them the ancient suburb, they diverged upon the road
near the old ruined convent of St. Mary of Placentia, which, from the
hill of St. Leonard, reared up its ivied walls in shattered outline.
Beyond, and towering up abruptly from the lonely glen below, frowned
the tremendous front of Salisbury craigs.  The rising moon showed its
broad and shining disc, red and fiery above their black rocks, and
fitfully between the hurrying clouds, its rays streamed down the
Hauze, a deep and ghastly defile, formed by some mighty convulsion of
nature, when these vast craigs had been rent from that ridgy
mountain, where King Arthur sat of old, and watched his distant
gallies on the waters of the Roman Bodoria.

For a moment the moonlight streamed down the defile, on the hill of
St. Leonard, with its thatched cottages and ruined convent, on the
glancing armour of the soldiers, and the bare trees bordering the
highway; again the passing clouds enveloped it in opaque masses, and
all was darkness.

"Sergeant Wemyss," cried the cavalier officer, breaking the silence
which had till then been observed.

"Here, an't please your honour," responded the halberdier.

"Where tarries that loitering abbeylubber, who was to have joined us
on the march?"

"The Macer?"

"Ay, he with the council's warrant for this dirty work."

"Yonder he stands, I believe, your honour, by the ruins of the
mass-monging days," replied the sergeant, pointing to a figure which
a passing gleam of the moon revealed emerging from the ruins.

"Mean you that tall spunger in the red Rocquelaure?  To judge by his
rapier and feather, he is a gentleman, but one that seems to watch
us.  So, ho, sir! a good even; you are late abroad to-night."

"At your service, Sir," responded the other gruffly behind the cape
of his cloak, which, in the fashion of an intriguing gallant of the
day, he wore so high up as completely to conceal his face.

"For King or for Covenant, Sir?" asked the lieutenant, who was
Richard Douglas, of Finland.

"Tush!" laughed the stranger; "this is an old-fashioned test; you
should have asked," he added, in a lower voice, "For James VII., or
William of Orange! ha, hah!"

"Hush, my Lord Clermistonlee, by this light."

"Right, by Jove!" exclaimed the other, who was considerably
intoxicated.

"Body o' me! it ill beseems one of His Majesty's Privy Councillors to
be roving abroad thus like a night hawk."

"I am the best judge of my own actions, Mr. Douglas," replied the
lord haughtily; but added in a whisper, "you are bound for the
Wrytes-house?"

"To the point, my Lord?" rejoined Douglas, drily.

"You will take particular care that the young lady--tush, I mean the
old one--they must not escape, as you shall answer to the Council.
Dost comprehend me--the young lady of Bruntisfield, eh?"

"Too well, my Lord," replied the cavalier, drawing himself up, and
shaking his lofty plume with undisguised hauteur.  "Curse on the
libertine fool!" he exclaimed to the young pikeman, as he hurried
after his party; "would he make me his pimp?  By Heaven! he well
deserves a slash in the doublet for casting his eyes upon noble
ladies, as he would on the bona-robas of Merlin's Wynd."

The young man's hand gradually sought the hilt of his poniard.

"What said he, Finland?" he asked, with a kindling eye and a
reddening cheek.  "He spoke of the Napiers, did he not?"

"Only to this purpose, that on peril of our beards the ladies do not
escape, especially the younger one.  Hah! they say this ruffling
libertine hath long looked unutterable things at Lilian Napier.  He
is a deep intriguer, and the devil only knows what plots he may be
hatching now against her."

"S'death!  Finland, assure me of this, and by Heaven I will brain him
with my partisan!"

"Hush, lad! these words are dangerous.  You are but a young soldier
yet, Walter," continued the officer, laughing; "had you trailed a
pike under Henry de la Tour of Auvergne, and the old Mareschal
Crecqy, like me, you would ere this have learned to value a girl's
tears and a grandam's groans at the same ransom, perhaps.  But, egad,
I had rather than my burganet full of broad pieces, that this night's
duty had fallen on any other than myself; and I think, Major, the
Chevalier Drumquhazel (as we call him) might have selected some of
those old fellows whose iron faces and iron hearts will bear them
through anything."

"Why, Finland," rejoined the pikeman, "you are not wont to be
backward!"

"Never when bullets or blades are to be encountered; but to worry an
old preacher, and harry the house and barony of an ancient and noble
matron, by all the devils!  'tis not work for men of honour.  The
Napiers of Bruntisfield are soothfast friends of the Lauries of
Maxwelton--and my dear little Annie--thou knowest, Walter, that her
wicked waggery will never let me hear the end of it, if we march the
Napiers to the Tolbooth to-night."

"You see the advantage of being alone in this bad and hollow-hearted
world," said Fenton, in a tone of bitterness, "of being uncaring and
utterly uncared for."

"Again in one of thy moody humours!"

"I have trailed this pike----"

"True--since Sedgemoor-field was fought and lost by Monmouth; but
cheer up, my gallant.  If this rascal, William of Orange, unfurls his
banner among us, we will have battles and leaguers enough; ay, faith!
to which the Race of Dunbar, and the Sack of Dundee, will be deemed
but child's-play.  And hark! for thy further contentment, I trailed a
partisan for four long years under Turenne ere I obtained a pair of
colours; and _then_ I thought my fortune made; but thou see'st,
Walter, I am only a poor lieutenant still.  Uncaring and uncared for!
Bravo! 'tis the frame of mind to make an unscrupulous lad do his
_devoire_ as becomes a soldier.  And yet I assure thee, friend
Walter, if aught in Scotland will make a man swerve from his
duty--ay, even old Thomas Dalzel, that heart of steel--'tis the blue
eyes of Lilian Napier, of Bruntisfield.  The beauty of her person is
equalled only by the winning grace of her manner; and I swear to
thee, that not even Mary of Charteris, or my own merry Annie, have
brighter charms--a redder lip, or a whiter hand.  Hast seen her, lad?"

"Oh, yes," replied the young man with vivacity, "a thousand times."

"And spoken to her?"

"Alas, no!" was the response, "not for these past three years at
least."

There was a sadness in his voice, which, with the sigh accompanying
his words, conveyed a great deal--but only to the wind--for the gayer
cavalier marked it not.

"If we start the game--I mean these Dutch renegades on the Napiers'
barony--it will go hard with them in these times, when every day
brings to light some new plot against the Government.  Napier of the
Wrytes--'tis an old and honourable line, and loth will I be to see it
humbled."

"What can prompt ladies of honour to meddle in matters of kirk or
state?"

"The great father of confusion who usually presides at the head of
our Scottish affairs.  True, Walter, the rock, the cod, and the
bobbins become them better; but I shall be sorry to exact
marching-money and free quarters from old Lady Grizel.  Clermistonlee
is the source of this accusation, which alleges that her ladyship
knows of an intended invasion from Holland, and that she hath reset
two emissaries of the House of Orange.  But a word in thine ear,
Fenton; there are villains at our Council-board who more richly merit
the cord of the Provost Marshal; and Randal Clermont, of
Clermistonlee, is not the least undeserving of such exaltation."

"If the soldiers overhear, you are a lost man."

"God save King James and sain King Charles, say I! but to old Mahoud
with the Council, which is driving the realm to ruin at full gallop.
Hah! here comes, at last, this loitering villain, the macer," added
Finland, as the moonlight revealed a man running after them.
"Fellow! why the deuce did you not meet us at the White Horse Cellar?"

"Troth, Sir, just to tell ye the truth," replied the panting
functionary, drawing his gilt baton from the pocket of his voluminous
skirt, "it is a kittle job this, and likely to get a puir man like me
unco ill will in such uncanny times--but I stayed a wee while owre
late may be, biding the ale cogue, at Lucky Dreep's change-house in
the Kirk-o'-field Wynd.  However, Sir, follow me, and we'll catch
these traitors where the reiver fand the tangs--at Madam's fire-side."

"Follow thee!" reiterated the cavalier officer, contemptuously;
"malediction on the hour when a Douglas of Finland and a band of the
old Scottish Musqueteers are bent on the same errand with a knave
like thee!  Step out, my lads, and, Walter Fenton, do thou fall
rearward again, and see that we are neither followed nor watched;
for, egad! these are times to sharpen one's wits."

Thus ordered, our hero (for such is the handsome pikeman) fell
gradually to the rear, and stopped at times to bend his ear to the
ground and his eyes on the changing shadows of the moonlit scenery;
but he heard nothing save the blustering wind of March, which swept
through the hollow dells, and saw only the shadows of the flying
clouds cast by the bright moon on the fields through which the
soldiers marched.

They had now passed all the houses of the city, and were moving
westward, by the banks of the Burghloch, a broad and beautiful sheet
of water, upwards of a mile in length, shaded on one side by the
broken woods of Warrender and the old orchards of the convent of
Sienna; on the other, open fields extended from its margin to the
embattled walls of the city.  One moment it shone like a sheet of
polished silver; the next it lay like a lake of ink, as the passing
clouds revealed or obscured the full-orbed moon.

"What lights are those twinkling in the woods yonder?" asked Finland,
pointing northward with his pike, on his party reaching the rhinns,
or flat at the end of the lake.

"The house of Coates, Sir--the old patrimony of the Byres o' that
Ilk."

"Harkee, macer, and the dark pile rising on the height, further to
the westward."

"The Place of Drumsheugh, Sir, pertaining of auld to my Lord
Clermistonlee.  He was just the gudeman thereof before these kittle
times.  A dark and eerie place it is, where neither light has burned
nor fire bleezed--a joke been cracked nor a runlet broached these
mony lang years.  He is a dour cheild that Clermistonlee, and one
that would--"

"Twist thy hause, fellow," said the pikeman, sternly, "for speaking
of your betters otherwise than with the reverence that becomes your
station."

"Ye craw brawly for the spawn o' an auld covenanter," muttered the
macer between his teeth, as they entered the dark avenue that led to
the place of their destination; "brawly indeed! but may-be I'll hae
ye under my hands yet, for a' your iron bravery and gay gauds."




CHAPTER II.

THE PREACHER.

  A stranger, and a slave, unknown like him,
  Proposing much means little;--talks and vows,
  Delighted with the prospect of a change,
  He promised to redeem ten Christians more,
  And free us all from slavery.
                                        ZARA.


On the succession of James VII. to the throne, the persecution of the
covenanters by the civil authorities, and by the troops under Dalzel,
Claverhouse, Lag, and officers of their selection, was waged without
pity or remorse, and the mad rage which had disgraced the government
of the preceding reign, was still poured forth on the poor peasantry,
who were hunted from hill to wood, and from moss to cavern, by the
cavalry employed in riding down the country, until by banishment,
imprisonment, famine, torture, the sword, and the scaffold,
presbyterianism was likely to be crushed altogether; but an odium was
raised, and a hatred fostered, against the Scottish ministry of the
House of Stuart, which is yet felt keenly in the pastoral districts,
where the deeds of those days are still spoken of with bitterness and
reprehension.

The parliament of Scotland was presided over by the Duke of
Queensbury, a base time-server: it appeared devoted to the new
sovereign, and declared him vested with solid and absolute authority,
in which none could participate, and had promised him the whole array
of the realm, between the ages of sixteen and sixty, whenever he
should require their services.  Notwithstanding these and similar
loyal and liberal offers, there existed a strong faction intensely
averse to the rule of a Catholic king; and though only three years
before Archibald, Earl of Argyle, and the equally unfortunate Duke of
Monmouth, had both perished in a futile attempt to preserve the civil
and religious liberties of the land, the unsubdued Presbyterians were
still intriguing with Holland, and concerting measures with William
Prince of Orange, for a descent on the British shores, the expulsion
of James by force of arms, and thus breaking the legitimate
succession of the Crown.  Suspicion of these plots, and the intended
invasion, had called forth all the fury and tyranny of the Scottish
ministry against those whom they supposed to be inimical to the then
existing state of things.

A certain covenanting preacher of some celebrity, the Reverend Mr.
Ichabod Bummel, and a man of a very different stamp, Captain Quentin
Napier, (an officer of the Scottish Brigade in the service of the
States-General,) both supposed to be emissaries of the Prince of
Orange, were known to be concealed in the house of Bruntisfield, the
residence of Lady Grizel Napier, widow of Sir Archibald of the
Wrytes, a brave commander of cavalier troops, who had fallen in the
Battle of Inverkeithing.  Unluckily for herself the old lady was a
kinswoman of the intercommuned traitor, Patrick Hume, "umquhile
designate of Polworth," to use the legal and malevolent phraseology
of the day; and consequently, notwithstanding the loyalty of her
husband, the eyes of that stern tribunal, which ruled the Scottish
Lowlands with a rod of iron, had been long upon her.  And now,
attended by a macer of Council, bearing a warrant of search and
arrest, a party of soldiers were approaching her mansion.

An archway, the piers of which were surmounted by two great stone
eagles in full flight, each bearing a lance aloft, gave admittance to
the long avenue that curved round the eminence on which the mansion
stood.  As the soldiers entered, the measured tap of a distant drum
was borne from the city on the passing night-wind, and announced the
hour of ten.

Thick dark beeches and darker oaks waved over them; the gigantic
reliques of the great forest of Drumsheugh, beneath whose shade in
the days of other years, the savage wolf, the stately elk, the
bristly boar, and the magnificent white bull of ancient Caledonia,
had roamed in all the glory of unbounded freedom, on the site now
occupied by the Scottish capital.

The blustering wind of March swept through their leafless branches,
and whirled the last year's leaves along the lonely and grass-grown
avenue, a turn of which brought the detachment at once in front of
the mansion.

The Wrytes-house, or Castle of Bruntisfield, was a high and narrow
edifice, built in that striking and peculiar style of architecture
which has again become so common--the old Scottish.  It was several
stories in height, and had steep corbie-stoned gables with little
round turrets at every angle, a lofty circular tower terminating in a
slated spire, numerous dormer windows, the acute gablets of which
were surmounted by thistles, rosettes, crescents, and stars.  Every
casement was strongly grated, and the tall fantastic outline of the
mansion rose from the old woodlands against the murky sky in a dark
opaque mass, as the soldiers passed the barbican gate, and found
themselves close to the oak-door, which closed the central tower.

The night was still and dark; at times a red star gleamed tremulously
amid the flying vapour, or a ray of moonlight cast a long and silvery
line of radiance across the beautiful sheet of water to the eastward.
The turret-vanes, and old ancestral oaks creaked mournfully in the
rising wind, and the venerable rooks that occupied their summits
croaked and screamed in concert.

"A noble old mansion!" said Walter Fenton; "and if tradition says
truly, was built by our gallant James IV. for one of his frail fair
ones."

"It dates as far back as the days of the first Stuart, and men say,
Walter, that its founder was William de Napier, a stark warrior of
King Robert II.; but fair though the mansion, and broad the lands
around it, the greedy gleds of our council-board will soon rend all
piecemeal.  Soldiers, blow your matches, and give all who attempt to
escape a prick of the hog's-bristle."

The musqueteers cautiously surrounded the lofty edifice, resistance
to the death being an every-day occurrence--but the windows remained
dark, and the vast old manor-house exhibited no sign of life, save
where between the half-parted shutters of a thickly-grated window a
ray of flaky light streamed into the obscurity without.  To this
opening the curious macer immediately applied his legal eye, and
cried in a loud whisper,

"Look ye here, Sirs, and behauld the godly Maister Ichabod himsel'
sitting in the cosiest neuk o' the ingle between the auld lady and
her kinswoman.  Hech! a gallows'-looking buckie he is as ever skirled
a psalm in the muirlands, or testified at the Bowfoot, wi' a St.
Johnstoun cravat round his whaislin craig."

"Silence!" said Fenton in an agitated voice, as, clutching the haft
of his poniard, he applied his face to the barred window; "silence,
wretch, or I will trounce thee!" and the scowling macer could
perceive that his colour came and went, and that his eye sparkled
with vivacity as he took a rapid survey of the apartment.  "Fool,
fool!" he muttered, as a cracked voice was heard singing

  "I like ane owle in desart am,
    That nichtlie there doth moan;
  I like unto ane sparrow am,
    On the house-top alone."


"The true sough o' the auld conventicle," said the bluff old
sergeant, merrily.  "Hark your honours, the game's afoot."

According to the rank of the house and the fashion of the present
time, the room which Fenton surveyed would be deemed small for a
principal or state apartment; but it was richly decorated with a
stuccoed ceiling, divided into deep compartments, as the walls were
by wainscotting, but in the pannels of the latter were numerous
anomalous paintings of scenery, scripture pieces, armorial bearings,
and the quaint devices of the Scoto-Italian school.  An old ebony
buffet laden with glittering crystal and shining plate massively
embossed.  The furniture was ancient, richly carved, and dark with
time; stark, high-backed chairs with red leather cushions, and tables
supported by lions legs and wyverns heads.  The floor was richly
carpeted around the arched fire-place, where a bright fire of coals
and roots burned cheerily, while the grotesque iron fire-dogs around
which the fuel was piled, were glowing almost red-hot, and the blue
ware of Delft that lined the recess, reflected the kindly warmth on
all sides.  The ponderous fire-irons were chained to the stone
jambs--a necessary precaution in such an age; and on a stone shield
appeared the blazon of the Napiers: _argent_, a saltire, engrailed,
between four roses, _gules_, and an eagle in full flight, with the
lance and motto, "_Aye ready_."  A tall portrait of Sir Archibald
Napier in the dark armour of Charles the First's age, appeared above
it.

A young lady sat near the fire-place, and on her the attention of the
handsome eavesdropper became immediately rivetted.  Her face was of a
very delicate cast of beauty; her bright blue eyes were expressive of
the utmost vivacity, as her short upper lip and dimpled chin were of
archness and wit.  The fairness, the purity of her complexion was
dazzling, and her glittering hair of the brightest auburn, fell in
massive locks on her white neck and stiff collar of starched lace.  A
string of Scottish pearls alone confined them, and they rolled over
her shoulders in soft profusion, adding to the grace of her round and
beautiful figure, which the hideous length of her long stomacher, and
the volume of her ample skirt could not destroy.  She was Lilian
Napier.

Opposite sat her grand-aunt, Lady Grizel, a tall, stately, and at
first sight, grim old dame, as stiff as a tremendous boddice, a skirt
of the heaviest brocade, the hauteur of the age, and an inborn sense
of much real and more imaginary dignity, could make her.  Frizzled
with the nicest care, her lint-white locks were all drawn upwards,
thus adding to the dignity of her noble features, though withered by
care and blanched by time; and the healthy bloom of the young girl
near her made the contrast between them greater: it was the summer
and the winter of life contrasted.  Lady Grizel's forehead was high,
her nose decidedly aquiline, her eyes grey and keen, her brows a
perfect arch.  Though less in stature, and softer in feature, her
kinswoman strongly resembled her; and though one was barely eighteen,
and the other bordering on eighty, their dresses were quite the same;
their gorgeously flowered brocades, their vandyked cuffs, high
collars, and red-heeled shoes, were all similar.

As was natural in so young a man, Walter Fenton remarked only the
younger lady, whose quick, small hands toyed with a flageolet, and a
few leaves of music, while her more industrious grand-aunt was busily
urging a handsome spinning-wheel, the silver and ivory mountings of
which flashed in the light of the fire, as it sped round and round.
Close at her feet lay an aged staghound, that raised its head and
erected its bristles at times, as if aware that foes were nigh.

There was such an air of happiness and domestic comfort in that noble
old chamber-of-dais, that the young volunteer felt extremely loth to
be one of those who should disturb it; but fairly opposite the
glowing fire, in the most easy chair in the room, (a great cushioned
one, valanced round with silken bobs,) sat he of whom they were in
search, and whom the macer had pronounced so worthy of martyrdom.

He was a spare but athletic man, above the middle height; his blue
bonnet hung on a knob of his chair, and his straight dark hair hung
in dishevelled masses around his lean, lank visage, and sallow neck.
His face was gaunt, with red and prominent cheek-bones; his eyes
intensely keen, penetrating, and generally unsettled in expression.
He wore clerical bands falling over that part of his heavily skirted
and wide-cuffed coat, where lapelles would have been had such been
the fashion of the day; his breeches and spatterdashes were of rusty
grey cloth; his large eyes seemed fixed on vacancy, and his hands
were clasped on his left knee.  When he spoke his whole face seemed
to be convulsed by a spasm.

"Maiden," said he, reproachfully, "and ye will not accompany me in
the godly words of Andro Hart's Scottish metre?"

"Think of the danger of being overheard, Mr. Bummel," urged the young
lady.  "I will sing you my new song, the _Norlan' Harp_."

"Name it not, maiden, for thy profane songs sound as abomination in
my ears!"

Lilian Napier laughed merrily, and all her white teeth glittered like
pearls.

"Fair as thou art to look upon, maiden, and innocent withal, the fear
grieves me that ye are one of the backsliders of this sinful
generation.  Thy 'Norlan' Harp' quotha?  Know that there is no harp
save that of Zion, whilk is a lyre of treble refined gold.  What
saith the sacred writ,--'Is any among ye afflicted, let him pray.  Is
any merrie, let him _sing psalmes_.'"

"I wot it would be but sad merriment," laughed the young lady.

"Peace, Lilian," said grand-aunt Grizel, while the solemn divine
fidgetted in his chair, and hemmed gruffly, preparatory to returning
to the charge.

"Maiden, when thou hast perused my forthcoming discourse, whilk is
entitled, '_A Bombshell aimed at the tail of the Great Beast_,' and
whilk, please God, shall be imprinted when I can procure ink and
irons from Holland (that happy Elysium of the faithful), thou shalt
there see in words of fire the straight and narrow path, contrasted
with the broad but dangerous way that leadeth to the sea of flame:
and therein will I shew thee, and all that are yet in darkness, that
the four animals in the Vision of Daniel hieroglyphically represent
four empires, Rome, Persia, Grecia, and Babylonia, and that the man
of sin, the antichrist, and the scarlet harlot of Babylon----"

At that moment the stag-hound barked and howled furiously, upon which
the preacher's voice died away in a quaver, and his upraised hand
sank powerless by his side.

"The dog howls eerily," said the old lady, "Gude sain us! that
foretells death--and far-seen folk say that dumb brutes can see him
enter the house when a departure is about to happen."

"--And further," continued the preacher incoherently, when his
confusion had somewhat subsided: "I will show thee that the blessing
of Heaven will descend upon the men of the Covenant--"

"Yea," chimed in Lady Grizel, "and upon their children--"

"Even unto the third and fourth generation."

"My honoured husband was as true a cavalier as ever wore buff," said
Lady Grizel, striking her cane emphatically on the floor; "but some
of my dearest kinsmen have shed bluid for the other side, and I can
think kindly o' baith."

"But if the King," urged Lilian; "if the King should permit--"

"Maiden!" cried Mr. Bummel, in a shrill and stern voice; "mean ye the
bloody and papistical Duke James, who, contrary to religion and to
law, hath usurped the throne of this unhappy land--that throne from
which (as I show in my _Bombshell_) justice hath debarred him--that
throne from the steps of which the blood of God's children, the
blessed sancts of our oppressed and martyred Kirk, rolls down on
every hand!  But the hour cometh, Lilian, when it is written, that he
shall perish, and a new religious and political millenium will dawn
on these persecuted kingdoms.  On one hand we have the power of the
horned beast that sitteth upon seven hills, and her best beloved son
James, with his thumbscrews, the iron boots and gory maiden,--the
savage Amorites of the Highland hills--who go bare-legged to
battle--yea, maiden, naked as the heretical Adamites of
Bohemia--those birds of Belial, the soldiers of Dunbarton--those kine
of Bashan, the troopers of Claverse, of Lag and Dalyel, the fierce
Muscovite cannibal--in England the _lambs_ of Kirke, and the gallows
of the Butcher Jeffreys--a sea of blood, of darkness, death, and
horror!  But lo! on the other hand, behold ye the dawn of a new morn
of peace, of love, and mercy; when the exile shall be restored to his
hearth, and the doomed shall be snatched from the scaffold--for he
cometh, at whose approach the doors of a thousand dungeons shall fly
open, the torch of rapine be extinguished, the sword of the
persecutor sheathed, and when the flowers shall bloom, and the grass
grow green on the lonely graves of our ten thousand martyrs.
Yea--he, the Saviour--William of Orange!"

The eyes of Ichabod Bummel filled with fire and enthusiasm as he
spoke; the crimson glowed in his sallow cheek--the intonations of his
voice alternated between a whistle and a growl, and with his hands
clenched above his head, he concluded this outburst, which gave great
uneasiness and even terror to the old lady, though Lilian smiled with
ill-concealed merriment.

"You have all heard this tirade of treason and folly?" said Douglas
to his soldiers.

"Hech me!" ejaculated the macer, drawing a long breath; "it is enough
to hang, draw, and quarter a haill parochin, I think."

"The Dutch rebel!" exclaimed Douglas, whose loyalty was fired.
"Soldiers! look well that none escape by the windows; close up, my
'birds of Belial;' and, harkee, Sergeant Wemyss, tirl at the pin
there."

The risp rung, and the door resounded beneath the blows of the
halberdier.  Lilian shrieked, Lady Grizel grew pale, and all the
blood left the cheeks of the poor preacher, save the two scarlet
spots on his cheek-bones.

"Woe is me!" he shouted; "for, lo! the Philistines are upon me!"

"The Guards of Pontius Pilate, he means," said the soldiers, as they
gave a reckless laugh.

A shutter flew open, and the fair face of Lilian Napier, with all her
bright hair waving around it, appeared for a moment gazing into the
obscurity without.

"Soldiers! soldiers!" she screamed, as the light fell on corslets and
accoutrements.  "O!  Aunt Grizel, we are ruined, disgraced, and
undone for ever!"




CHAPTER III.

THE OLD CLOCKCASE.

                In the meanwhile
  The King doth ill to throw his royal sceptre
  In the accuser's scale, ere he can know
  How justice shall incline it.
                                THE AYRSHIRE TRAGEDY.


The entrance to the mansion was by the narrow tower already
described, and which contained what is called in Scotland the
Turnpike, a spiral stair, turning sharply round on its axis.  The
small doorway was heavily moulded, and ornamented above by a mossy
coat armorial, the saltire and four roses.  The door was of massive
oak, covered with a profusion of iron studs, and furnished with two
eyelet holes, through which visitors could be reconnoitred, or, if
necessary, favoured with a dose of musketry.

"What graceless runions are you, that knock in this way, and sae near
the deid hour of the nicht, too?" asked the querulous voice of old
John Leekie, the gardener, while two rays of streaming light through
the eylets imparted to the doorway the aspect of some gigantic
visage, of which the immense risp was the nose.

"Gae wa' in peace," added the venerable butler, in a very blustering
voice, "or bide to face the waur!"

"Open, rascals!" cried the sergeant, "or we will set the four corners
of the house on fire."

"Doubtless, my bauld buckie," chuckled the old serving-man; "but the
wa's are thick, and the winnocks weel grated, and we gaed a stronger
band o' the English Puritans their kail through the reek in the year
saxteen-hunderd-and-fifty."  The over-night potations of the aged
vassals had endued them with a courage unusual at that time, when a
whole village trembled at the sight of a soldier.

"Wha are ye, sirs!" queried the butler, Mr. Drouthy; "wha are ye?"

"Those who are empowered to storm the house if its barriers are not
opened forthwith!" replied the sonorous voice of Douglas; "so, up!
varlets! and be doing, for the soldiers of the King cannot bide your
time."

The only reply to this was a smothered exclamation of fear from
various female voices within, and the clank of one or two additional
heavy bolts being shot into their places; and then succeeded the
clatter of various slippers and high-heeled shoes, as the household
retreated up the steep turnpike in great dismay.

"Now, ye dyvour loons!" cried the old butler, from a shot-hole,
"we'll gie ye a taste o' the Cromwell days, if ye dinna mak' toom the
barbican in five minutes.  Lads," he continued, as if speaking to men
behind, although, save the old and equally intoxicated gardener, the
whole household were women; "lads, tak' the plugs frae the
loop-holes.  John Leekie, burn a light in the north turret, and in a
crack we'll hae our chields frae the grange wi' pitchfork, pike, and
caliver.  Awa' to the vaults and bartizan--blaw your coals, and fire
cannily when I tout my old hunting horn."

These orders caused a muttering among the soldiers, who were quite
unprepared to find the house garrisoned and ready for resistance.  An
additional puffing of gun-matches ensued, and all eyes were bent to
the turrets and those parts which were battlemented; but no man
appeared therein or thereon, and the thundering was renewed at the
door with great energy.  Suddenly the bolts were withdrawn, the door
revolved slowly on its hinges, and the musqueteers who were about to
rush in, hung back with mingled indecision and respect.

In the doorway stood Lady Grizel Napier, leaning on her long
walking-cane; her dark-grey eyes lit up with indignation, and her
forehead, though marked by the furrows of eighty years, still
expressive of dignity and determination; nearly six feet in height,
erect and stately as lace and brocade could make her, she was the
belle ideal of an old Scottish matron.  She wore on the summit of her
frizzled hair a little coif of widow-hood, which she had never laid
aside since her husband was slain at Inverkeithing; and the
circumstance of his having died by a Puritan's hand alone made her
somewhat cold in the cause of the Covenant.  Her retinue of female
servitors crowded fearfully behind her, and by her side appeared the
silver-haired butler, armed with a huge partisan, while a battered
morion covered his head, as it often had done in many a tough day's
work; and behind him staggered the old gardener, armed with a
watering-pan, and a steel cap with the peak behind.

"Gentlemen," said the old lady, in a tone of great asperity, while
striking her long cane thrice on the doorstep, and all her frills
seemed to ruffle with indignation like the feathers of a swan;
"Gentlemen, what want ye at this untimeous hour?  Know ye not that
this is a house whilk we are entitled by Crown charter to fortify and
defend, as well against domestic enemies as foreign! and methinks it
is a daring act, and a graceless to boot, to march with cocked
matches, and bodin in array of war on the bounds of a lone auld woman
like me.  By my faith, in the days of my honoured Sir Archibald, ye
had gone off our barony faster than ye came, king's soldiers though
ye be."

"Excuse us, madam," replied Douglas, lowering his rapier, and bowing
with a peculiar grace which then was only to be acquired by service
in France: "we have a warrant from the Lords of his Majesty's Privy
Council, to arrest the persons of a certain Captain Napier, of a
Scots Dutch regiment, and the Reverend Mr. Ichabod Bummel, who are
accused of being treasonable emissaries of the
States-General--intercommuned traitors, and now concealed in your
mansion.  Your Ladyship must be aware that implicit obedience is the
soldier's first duty: surrender unto us these guilty men, otherwise
your house must be ransacked by my soldiers,--a severe humiliation,
which I would willingly spare the baronial mansion of a dame of
honour, more especially when I remember the rank and loyal service of
her husband."

"Gude keep us, Laird of Finland," replied the old lady, trembling
violently and leaning on her cane.  "O what dool is this that hath
come upon us at last?  My dream--my dream--it forewarned me of this:
as the rhyme saith--

  "A Friday nicht's grue
    On the Saturday tauld,
  Is sure to come true,
    Be it never sae auld."

"On my honour--nae such persons--I protest to you----"

"Enough, Lady Grizel," replied Douglas, with a little hauteur;
"positively we must spare you the trouble, if not the shame, of
making those unavailing but humiliating assertions, which the laws of
humanity and hospitality require.  The sooner this affair is over the
better--we crave your pardon, madam, but the king's service is
paramount.  Serjeant Wemyss, guard the door--follow me,
Walter--forward, soldiers, and I will unearth this clerical fox!"

Rushing past Lady Grizel, while the startled household fled before
them, the musqueteers pressed forward into the chamber-of-dais; but
the Reverend Mr. Bummel had vanished, and no trace remained of him,
save his ample blue bonnet, with its red cherry or tuft, and Walter
Fenton was certainly not the last to perceive that the young lady had
disappeared also.

"Search the whole house, from roof-tree to foundations," exclaimed
Douglas; "cut down all who make the least resistance; but on your
lives beware of plunder or destruction--away!"

A violent and unscrupulous search was made forthwith; every curtain,
every bed and pannel were pierced by swords and daggers; every press,
bunker, and girnel--the turrets and all the innumerable nooks and
corners of the old house were searched.  Every lockfast place was
blown open by musket-balls, and thirty stentorian voices summoned the
miserable preacher "to come forth;" but he was nowhere to be found.
Pale and trembling between terror and indignation, propped on her
long cane, the old lady stood under her baronial canopy on the dais
of the dining-hall, listening to the uproar that rang through all the
stone-vaults, wainscotted chambers, and long corridors of her
mansion, and regarding Richard Douglas and his friend the young
volunteer, with glances of pride and hostility.

Walter Fenton coloured deeply, and appeared both agitated and
confused; but Douglas coolly and collectedly leaned against the
buffet, toying with the knot of his rapier, and drinking a cup of
wine to Lady Bruntisfield's health, helping himself from the buffet
uninvited.

"Lady Grizel," said he, "by surrendering up these foolish and guilty
men, whom, contrary to law, you have harboured and resetted within
your barony, you may considerably avert the wrath of the already
incensed Council."

"Never, Sir! never will I be guilty of such a breach of hospitality
and honour.  Bethink ye, Sirs, the Captain Napier is my sister's son,
and it would ill become a Scottish dame to prove false to her ain
blude.  The minister, though but a gomeral body, is his friend--one
of those whom the people deem exiled and persecuted for Christ's
sake--ye may hew me to pieces with your partisans, but never would I
yield a fugitive to the tortures and executioners of that bluidy and
infamous Council."  And to give additional force to her words, Lady
Grizel as usual struck the floor thrice with her cane.

"Lady Bruntisfield," said Walter Fenton, gently, "beware lest our
soldiers, or that dog the macer overhear you."

"Glorious canary this!" muttered the Lieutenant, apostrophizing the
silver mug--"hum--I believe your ladyship is a Presbyterian."

"Though unused to be catechised by soldiers," replied the dame,
drawing herself up with great dignity, "I acknowledge what all my
neighbours know.  I am Presbyterian, thank God, and so are all my
household, who never miss a sabbath at kirk or meeting; and our
minister is one, who having complied with the government regulations,
hath an indulgence to preach."

"This applies not to the spy of that rogue William of Orange--this
pious Ichabod, whom we must hale forth by the lugs at every risk."

"Never before was I suspected of disloyalty to the Scottish Crown,"
said Lady Grizel, sobbing, "and now in my auld and donnart days, with
ane foot in the grave, it's hard to thole, Sirs--it's hard to thole.
How often hae these hands, wrinkled now, and withered though they be,
laced steel cap, greave and corslet, on my buirdly husband and his
three fair sons.  Ehwhow, Sirs! how often hae my very heart pulses
died away with the clang o' their horses' hoofs in yonder avenue.
Ane fell at Dumbar--another in his stirrups at the sack of Dundee,
and my fair-haired Archy, my youngest and my best beloved, the apple
o' my e'e, was shot deid by the side of his dying father, on the
field of Inverkeithing.  Save my sister's grandchild, all I loved
have gone before me to God--but though my heart be seared, and my
bower desolate, O Laird of Finland, this disgrace is harder to thole
than a' I hae tholed in my time."

Touched with her sorrow, Walter Fenton and Finland approached her;
but ere they could speak, a dismal voice, that seemed to ascend from
the profundity of some vast tun, was heard to sing, "I like an owle
in desert am," &c., and the verse was scarcely concluded when the
officer burst into a violent fit of laughter.

"O, ye fule man!" exclaimed the old lady, shaking her cane
wrathfully: "ye have ruined yoursel' and the House of Bruntisfield
too!"

"Where the devil is he?" said Douglas.  "Ah, there must be some
pannel here," he added, knocking on the wainscot with the pommel of
his sword.

"He is not very far off, your honour," said the macer approaching,
pushing his bonnet on one side, and scratching his head with an air
of vulgar drollery and perplexity.  "I'll wager ye a score o' broad
pieces, Finland, that I howk out the tod in a moment."

"Then do so," said Douglas, haughtily, "but first, you irreverend
knave, doff your bonnet in the Lady Bruntisfield's presence."

"There is something queer about this braw Flanders wag-at-the-wa',"
said the macer, approaching a clock, the case of which formed part of
the wainscotting.  It was violently shaken, and emitted a hollow
groan.  The macer opened the narrow pannel, and revealed the poor
preacher coiled up within, in great spiritual and bodily tribulation,
and half stifled by want of air.  His face was almost black, his eyes
bloodshot, and his features sharpened by an expression of delirious
terror bordering on the ludicrous.

"Dolt and fool!" exclaimed Walter, "what fiend tempted ye to rant
thus within earshot of us?"

"Gadso, I think the varlet's mad," said Douglas, laughing.  "Dost
think we will eat thee, fellow?"

"Mad!--I hope so, for the sake of this noble lady."

"And the marrow in his bones, Fenton."

"Come awa, my man," said the macer, making him a mock bow; "use your
shanks while the ungodly Philistines will let you.  Ye'll no walk
just sae weel after you have tried on the braw buits my Lord
Chancellor keeps for such pious gentlemen as you."

"From these sons of blood and Belial, good Lord deliver me!"
ejaculated the poor man, turning up his hollow eyes, as he was
dragged forth; "ye devouring wolves, I demand your warrant for what
ye do?"

"Macer--your warrant?" said Douglas.

Unfolding the slip of paper, the worthy official now reverentially
took off his bonnet, and in a sing-song voice drawled forth--

"I, Michael Maclutchy, macer to the Privy Council of Scotland, by
virtue _of_, and conform _to_, the principal letters raised at ye
instance of Maister Roderick Mackenzie, Advocat-Depute to Sir David
Dalrymple, His Majesty's Advocat, summon, warn, and charge _you_, the
said Reverend Mr. Hugh--otherwise Ichabod Bummel--is that richt,
friend?"

"Yea--I was so named by my parents Hugh, a heathenish name, whilk in
a better hour I changit to Ichabod, signifying in the Hebrew
tongue--'where is glory?'"

"Weel--weel, mind na the Hebrew--charge you to surrender
peaceably--and sae forth; it's a' there in black and white:
subscribitur _Perth_."

"Fie upon ye!" exclaimed Ichabod, "ye abjurers of the Lord, and
persecutors of his covenanted kirk."

"Away with him!" said Fenton to the soldiers.

"Truly ye are properly clad in scarlet, for it is the garb----"

"Silence, Sir; you make bad worse."

"Of your Babylonian mother."

"Peace!" cried Douglas.

"I liken ye even unto broken reeds----"

"On with the gyves, and away wi' him!" said the serjeant, and the
poor crack-brained enthusiast was unceremoniously handcuffed and
dragged away, pouring a torrent of hard scriptural epithets and
invectives on his captors, and chanting suitable verses from Andro
Hart's book of the _Psalmes_.

Lady Bruntisfield started as he was taken away, and was about to
bestow on him some address of comfort and farewell; but the young
volunteer interposed, saying with great gentleness,

"Pardon me, Lady Grizel--by addressing him you will only compromise
your own safety and honour.  O madam, I deeply regret your
involvement in this matter!  The Privy Council is not to be trifled
with."

"Madam," observed Douglas, "I believe I have the honour of being not
unknown to you?"

"You are the young Laird of Finland, who wounded my nephew
Quentin----"

"In a duel in Flanders--O yes--ha! ha! we quarrelled about little
Babette of the Hans-in-Kelder, or some folly of that kind.  I
acquaint you, madam, with regret, that in consequence of this
trumpeter of rebellion being found resetted here--your whole
family----"

"Alake, Laird, I have only my little grand-niece."

"Your whole household must be considered prisoners until the pleasure
of the Council is known.  In the interim," he added in a low voice,
"I hope your kinsman will escape; though he has been no friend of
mine since that time we fought with sword and dagger on the ramparts
of Tournay, I would wish him another fate than a felon's, for a
braver fellow never marched under baton.  Meanwhile, Lady
Bruntisfield, I am your servant--adieu;" and bowing until his plume
touched the floor, he withdrew.

Leaving his veteran serjeant, and Walter the volunteer, with twenty
men to keep ward, he returned to the city with his prisoner, who was
immediately consigned to the Iron Room of the Tolbooth.

For a few minutes after his departure Lady Grizel seemed quite
stunned by the dilemma in which she so suddenly found herself.  She
had now been joined by Lilian, who hung upon her shoulder weeping;
for the Privy Council of Scotland was a court of religious and
political inquisition, whose name and satellites bore terror
throughout the land.

Sergeant Wemyss posted seven of his musketeers within the barbican,
with orders "to keep all in who were within, and all out who were
so;" after which he withdrew with the remainder to the spacious and
vaulted kitchen, where, as occupying free quarters, they made
themselves quite at home, and crowded round the great wood-fire that
was roaring in the vast archway which spanned one side of the
apartment, joked and toyed with the half-pleased and half-frightened
maids, and compelled the indignant housekeeper (who, with Lady
Grizel's cast coifs and fardingales assumed many of her airs) to
provide them with a substantial supper, the least items of which were
a huge side of beef, a string of good fat capons, and an unmeasured
quantity of ale and usquebaugh for the soldiers; while his honour the
halberdier insisted on wine dashed with brandy, swearing "by the
devil's horns," and other cavalier oaths, "he would drink nothing but
the best Rhenish."  There was an immense consumption of viands, and
as the revellers became merrier, they made the whole house ring to
their famous camp-song,

  "Dunbarton's drums beat bonnie, O,"

to the great envy of those luckless wights in the barbican, who heard
only the bleak March wind sighing among the leafless woods, and
witnessed through the windows all this hilarity and good cheer from
which they were for a time debarred.

Mr. Drouthy the butler, and other old servitors, who had seen
something of free quarters under the Duke of Hamilton in England,
entered heartily into the spirit of entertaining their noisy
visitors, to whom they detailed the fields of Inverkeithing, Dunbar,
and Kerbeister, with great vociferation, and ever and anon voted the
Reverend Mr. Bummel a most unqualified bore, and declared that "the
house of Bruntisfield was weel rid of his grunting and skirling about
owls and sparrows in the desert."




CHAPTER IV.

A PAIR OF BLUE EYES.

  Thou tortur'st me.  I hate all obligations
  Which I can ne'er return--and who art thou,
  That I should stoop to take them from your hand?
                                      FATAL CURIOSITY.


The post of honour--that in the hall or lobby immediately outside the
room occupied by the ladies--had been appropriated by the serjeant to
Walter Fenton.

The young man placed his pike across the door of the chamber of dais
(as the dining-hall was named in those Scottish houses, which, though
to all intents baronial, were not castles) and then paced slowly to
and fro.

A lamp, the chain of which was suspended from the mouth of a
grotesque face carved on the wall, lighted the lobby or ambulatory,
and dimly its flickering rays were reflected by a rusty trophy of
ancient weapons opposite.  An old head-piece and chain-jacket formed
the centre, while crossbows, matchlocks, partisans, and two-handed
swords, radiated round them.  A deer's skull and antlers, riding
gambadoes, heavy whips and spurs, a row of old knobby chairs, and a
clumsy oaken clock, which (like many persons in the world) had two
faces, one looking to the lobby, the other to the dining-hall, ticked
sullenly in a corner, and made up the furniture of the place.

Save the monotonous vibrations of the clock, and an occasional murmur
of voices from the chamber of dais, no other sound disturbed the
solitary watch of Fenton, unless when a distant shout of hilarity
burst from the vaulted kitchen, and reverberated through the winding
staircases and stone corridors of the ancient mansion.

Absorbed in meditation, the young man walked slowly to and fro,
turning with something of military briskness at each end of the
half-darkened passage, by the indifferent light of which we must
present a view of him to the reader.

  "A young man, gentle-voiced and gentle-eyed,
  Who looked and spake like one the world had frowned on."

He seemed to be about twenty years of age; of a rather tall and very
handsome figure, which his scarlet sleeves, and corslet tapering to
the waist, and tightly compressed by a broad buff belt sustaining a
plainly-mounted sword and dagger, tended greatly to improve.  The
cheek-plates of his burgonet, or steel cap, were unclasped, and his
dark-brown hair rolled over his polished gorget in the profuse
fashion of the time; his pale forehead was thoughtful and
intellectual in expression; but the gilt peak of his cap partly
concealed it, and cast a shadow over a very prepossessing face of a
dark complexion, and somewhat melancholy contour.  His dark eye had a
soft and pleasing expression, though at times it loured and overcast.
The curve of his lips, though gentle, and haughty, and scornful, by
turns, was ever indicative of firmness and decision.  They were red
and full as those of a girl; but short black mustaches, pointed
smartly upward, imparted a military aspect to a face such as few
could contemplate without interest--especially women.  With the
manner of one who has early learned to think, and hold communion with
himself, his eye sparkled and his cheek flushed as certain ideas
occurred to him: anon his animation died away, he sighed deeply, and
thus immersed in his own thoughts, continued to pace to and fro,
until at the half-opened door of the chamber of dais there appeared
the fair face of Lilian Napier--a face so regular in its contour of
eyebrow, lip, and nostril, that the brightness of her blue eyes, and
the waving of her auburn ringlets, together with a decided piquancy
of expression, alone prevented it from being insipid.  She was
looking cautiously out.

On recognizing her, Fenton bowed, and the girl blushed deeply, as she
said hurriedly, and in a low voice,

"O joy!  Walter Fenton, is it indeed you? how fortunate! but oh, what
a night this has been for us all!"

"Mistress Lilian," said he (the prefix Miss as a title of honour did
not become common until the beginning of the next century) "need I
say that it has been a night of sorrow and mortification to me?  Yet,
God wot, what could I do but obey the orders of my superiors?"

"Hush!" she whispered; for at that moment Lady Bruntisfield came
forth, pale and agitated, with eyes red from recent weeping.

Tall in form and majestic in bearing, Lady Grizel Napier, as I have
said before, was one of those stately matrons who appear to have
departed with their hoops and fardingales.  In youth, her face had
possessed more than ordinary beauty, and now, in extreme old age, it
still retained its feminine softness and pleasing expression.
Undecided in politics, she was intensely loyal to James; while
condemning his government, she railed at the non-conformists and
reprobated the severities of the council in the same breath.  Like
every dame of the olden time, she was a matchless mediciner, and
maker of preserves, conserves, physics, and cordials, and, did a
vassal's finger but ache, Lady Grizel was consulted forthwith.  Like
every woman of her time, she was intensely superstitious: she shook
her purse when the pale crescent of the new moon rose above the
Corstorphine woods; if the salt-foot was overturned, she remembered
Judas, trembled, and threw a pinch over her left shoulder; she saw
coffins in the fire, letters in the candles, and quaked at deidspales
when they guttered in the wind.  She listened in fear to the
chakymill, or death-watch, which often ticked obstinately for a whole
night in the massive posts of her canopied bed.  Witches, of course,
were a constant source of hatred and annoyance, and, notwithstanding
her great faith in the Holy Kirk (and a little in Peden's
Prophecies), she had such a wholesome dread of the Prince of
darkness, that, according to the ancient usage, a piece of her lands
adjoining the Harestane was dedicated to him, under the dubious name
of _the gudeman's croft_, and, in defiance of all the acts against
this old superstition (which still exists in remote parts of
Scotland), it was allowed to remain a weedy waste, unsown and
unemployed.  With all this, her manners were high-bred and courtly;
her information extensive; and there was in her air a certain
indescribable loftiness, which then consciousness of noble birth and
long descent inspired, and which failed not to enforce due respect
from equals and inferiors.

On her approach, Walter Fenton bowed with an air in which politeness
and commiseration were gracefully blended.  Her bright-haired
kinswoman leant upon her arm, and from time to time stole furtive and
timid glances at the volunteer beneath her long eyelashes.

"Young man," said Lady Bruntisfield, "for a soldier, you seem good
and gentle.  Have you a mother" (her voice faltered) "who is dear to
you--a sister whom you love?"

"Nor mother, nor sister, nor kindred have I, madam.  Alas!  Lady
Grizel, I am alone in the world: the first, and perhaps it may be the
last, of my race," he added bitterly.  "But what would your ladyship
with Walter Fenton?"

"Ha! are you one of the Fentons of that Ilk?"

"Nay, lady, I am only Walter Fenton of the Scottish Musqueteers, and
nothing more: but in what can I serve you?"

"How shall I speak it?--That you will sleep on your post, and permit
this poor child--dost comprehend me?--oh!  I will nobly reward you;
and the deed will be registered elsewhere."

"Oh, no!--no! beg no such boon for me," said the blushing and
trembling girl; while the brow of the young man became clouded.

"You would counsel me to my ruin, Lady Bruntisfield: is it generous,
is it noble, when I am but a poor soldier?  Seek not to corrupt me by
gold," he said hurriedly, on the old lady drawing a purse from her
girdle; "for all I possess is my honour, the poor man's best
inheritance.  And yet, for the sake of Lilian Napier, I would dare
much."

The deep blush which suffused the soft cheek and white brow of Lilian
as the pikeman spoke, was not unobserved by the elder lady; and she
said, with undisguised hauteur,--

"How is this, sir sentinel?--ye know my kinswoman, and by that glance
it would seem that ye have met before.  Lilian, do thou speak."

Lilian trembled, but was silent and confused.

"I have often had the honour of seeing Mistress Lilian at my Lord
Dunbarton's," said the young man, hastening to her relief.

"How! are you little Fenton?"

"The Countess's page, madam."

"By my father's bones!" said Lady Grizel, striking the floor angrily
with her cane; "I little thought a time would come when I would sue a
boon in vain, either from a lord's loon or a lady's foot-page!"

These words seemed to sting the young soldier deeply; fire sparkled
in his eyes.  But tears suffused those of Lilian.

"Madam," said he firmly, "I am the first private gentleman of
Dunbarton's Foot, and am so unused to such hauteur, that had the best
man in broad Scotland uttered words like these, my sword had
assuredly taken the measure of his body."

"I admire your spirit, sir," said Lady Grizel gently; "but it might
be shewn in a more honourable cause than the persecution of helpless
women-folk."

"Lady Grizel, a soldier from my childhood, I have been inured to
hardship and trained to face every danger.  My conscience is my own;
my soul belongs to God: and my sword to the King and Parliament of
Scotland, whose orders I must obey."

"Then, gentle sir, be generous as your bearing is noble, and, in the
name of God, permit my little kinswoman to escape.  Alas! you know
well what is in store for us, if we are dragged before that odious
Privy Council--fine, imprisonment, torture----"

"Or banishment to Virginia," said Lilian, bursting into tears.

"God wot I pity you, Lady Bruntisfield, and would lay down my life to
serve you.  Retire--I will keep my post; your chamber has windows by
which----"

"Alas! they are grated, and there are sentinels without."

Fenton stamped his foot impatiently.

"Birds' eggs aye bring ill luck; and oh! Lilian, ye thoughtless
bairn, when ye strung up the pyets yesternight, I forewarned ye that
something would happen.  The thumbscrews and extortions of the
Council, yea, and banishment even in my auld age, I might bear,
though the thocht of being laid far frae the graves of my ain kindred
is hard to thole; but thee, my dear doo, Lilian--it is for thee my
heart bleeds."

"Oh! madam, they cannot be such villains as to harm her--so young--so
fair."

"You know not what I mean," replied Lady Grizel, pressing her hands
upon her breast, and speaking in an incoherent and bitter manner.
"Lord Clermistonlee rules at the Council-board, and he hath seen
Lilian.  Wretch--wretch, too well do I know 'tis for worse than the
thumb-screws he would reserve her!"

She paused; and Fenton starting, said--

"Oh, whence were all my unreasonable scruples?  Finland by his hints
warned me of Clermistonlee, that roué and ruffian, whose name brings
scandal on our peerage."

"Then let my dear aunt Grizel escape to some place of concealment,
and, good Mr. Fenton, you shall have my prayers and gratitude for
life."

It was the young girl who spoke; her accents were low and imploring;
and her whole appearance was very fascinating, for her timidity and
mortification added the utmost expression to her blue eyes, while her
lips, half parted, shewed the whiteness of her teeth, and lent a
sweetness and simplicity to her face.  The tenor of her address made
the heart of Walter flutter, for love was fast subduing his
scrupulous sense of duty.

"Artless Lilian," said he with a faint smile, "Lord Clermistonlee
aims neither at Lady Grizel's liberty or life.  He is a villain of
the deepest dye; and you have many things to fear.  It ill beseems a
lady of birth to sue a boon from a poor sworder such as I.  Leave me
to my fate, and the fury of the Council.  I am, I hope, a gentleman,
though an unfortunate one, and reduced to the necessity of trailing a
pike under the noble Earl of Dunbarton; but in spirit I can be
generous as a king, though my whole inheritance is to follow the
drum."

"I offered you money----"

"Lady Grizel," said Fenton, colouring again, "I hope that the poorest
musqueteer who follows the banner of Dunbarton would have rejected it
with scorn.  Though soldiers, we are not like those rapacious wolves
the troopers of Lag, of Dalzel, or Kirke the Englishman.  By my
faith, madam, for six shillings Scots per day I have often perilled
life and limb in a worse cause than yours; and why should I scruple
now?  Escape while there is yet time.  Lady Grizel, permit me to lead
you forth."

And, drawing off his leather glove, he offered his hand to the old
dame, who, struck by the gallantry of his manner, said--

"You have quite the air of a cavalier, such as I mind o' in my young
days, when the first Charles was crowned in Holyrood."

"I pretend not to be a cavalier," said Walter, with a sad smile: "the
camp is the school of gallantry."

"Fear for my Lilian makes me miserably selfish.  I would rather die,
good youth, than that a hair of your head should be injured; but that
this delicate bairn should be dragged before that fierce Council,
like some rude cottar's wife--'tis enough to make the dead bones in
the West-kirk aisle to clatter in their coffins!  Ere we go, say what
will be your inevitable punishment for this dereliction of duty?"

"A few days' close ward in the Abbey-guard, with pease bannocks and
sour beer to regale on, and mounting guard at the Palace porch in
back-breast and headpieces, partisan, sword and dagger; in full
marching harness, for four-and-twenty consecutive hours--that is all,
madam," said he gaily; though the inward forebodings of his heart and
his sad experience told him otherwise.  "In serving _you_, fair
Lilian," he added gently, and half attempting, but not daring to
touch her hand, "I shall be more than a thousand times recompensed
for any penance I may perform.  Believe me, it will weigh as a
featherweight against what the Council may inflict on Lady
Bruntisfield.  Now, then, away in God's name!  Ye will surely find a
secure shelter somewhere among your numerous friends and tenantry;
but seek not the city, for Dunbraiken's guards are on the alert at
every gate; and, above all, oh! beware of--of Lord Clermistonlee, who
(if Finland suspects truly) has a deep project to accomplish."

"Heaven bless thee, good young man!" faltered the venerable Lady
Grizel, laying her small but wrinkled hands upon his shoulders, and
gazing on him with eyes that beamed with heartfelt gratitude.
"Alack! alack! my mind gangs back to the time when three hearts as
brave and as gentle as yours, grew up from heartsome youth to stately
manhood under this auld roof-tree; but, oh, waly! waly! the cauld
blast o' war laid my three fair flowers in the dust."

A noise in the kitchen, and the loud voice of the halberdier calling
fresh sentinels, now caused them to hurry away.  To conceal about
their persons such jewels and money as they could collect from the
cabinets in the chamber of dais, to muffle up in their hoods and
mantles, to give one glance of adieu to the portrait of the dark
cavalier above the fire-place, and another of gratitude to Walter
Fenton, were all the work of a minute,--and they were led forth to
the avenue.  Grey morning was breaking in the east, and the black
ridge of Arthur's Seat stood in strong relief against the brightening
sky; the wind had died away, and the waning moon shone cold and dim
in the west, while, far to the northward, the dark opaque clouds were
piled in shadowy masses above the bold and striking outline of the
capital.  There the great spire of the Gothic cathedral, the ramparts
of its rockbuilt fortress, the crenelated towers of the Flodden-wall,
and the streets within "piled deep and massy, close and high," were
all glimmering in the first pale rays of the dawn, though the valleys
below, and the woods around, were still sunk in the gloom and
obscurity of night.  A sentinel challenged from the dark shadow of
the barbican wall, and his voice made the fugitives tremble with fear.

"Dunbarton," answered Walter, and on receiving the password, the
soldier stept back.  "And now, ladies, whence go ye?"

"As God shall direct--to some of our faithful tenant bodies, for
safety and concealment," sobbed Lady Bruntisfield.

"Poor Mr. Fenton!" murmured Lilian; "I tremble more for you than for
ourselves."

"A long farewell to our gude auld barony of Bruntisfield and the
Wrytes--to main and holm, and wood and water," said Lady Grizel,
mournfully; "we stand under the shadow of its green sauchs and oak
woods for the last time.  Once before I fled frae them, but that was
in the year fifty, when our natural enemies, the English, won that
doolfu' day at Dunbar, and again our hail plenishing will be ruined
and harried, as in the days o' the ruffianly and ungracious Puritans."

"Not by us, Lady Bruntisfield," replied the young man, slightly
piqued; "we are the soldiers of the gallant Dunbarton, the old Royals
of Turenne, les Gardes Ecossais of a thousand battles and a thousand
glorious memories, and your mansion will be sacred as if in the hands
of so many apostles.  Farewell, and God speed ye!  Would that I could
accompany your desolate steps to some place of safety! but that would
discover all."  They parted.

"I have done," muttered Walter, striking his breast; "and from this
hour I am a lost man!"

Hastily returning, he resumed his post, with his heart beating high
with the conflicting emotions of pleasure and apprehension.  Youth
and beauty in suffering, danger, or humiliation, form naturally an
object of interest and compassion; but Walter, though pleased by the
conviction that he had done a good action, and one so fully involving
the gratitude of Lilian Napier and her haughty relative, felt a dread
of what was to ensue, weighing heavily on his mind; for the Scottish
privy council was then composed of men with whom the proudest noble
dared not to trifle, and before whom the pride and power of the great
Argyle, lord of a vast territory, and chief of the most powerful of
the western clans, bent like a reed beneath the storm.  Poor Walter
reflected, that he was but a friendless and nameless volunteer, and
too well he knew that the council would not be cheated of their prey
without a terrible vengeance.

Scarcely had he resumed his post in the corridor, when the serjeant,
whose brown visage was flushed with carousing, and whose corslet
braces were unclasped to give space for the quantity of viands he had
imbibed, reeled up with a relief of sentinels, all more or less in
the same condition.

"All right, an't please you, Master Walter.  I warrant you will be
tired of this post of honour, and longing for a leg of a devilled
capon, and a horn of the old butler's Rhenish."

"I thought you had forgotten me, Wemyss.  You will have a care, sir,"
said Walter, addressing the soldier who relieved him, with a glance
that was not to be misunderstood, "that you do not disturb the ladies
by entering the chamber of dais; dost hear me, thou pumpkin-head?"

"Rot me, Master Fenton, I have clanked my bandoleers before the tent
of Monsieur of France, and I need nae be learned now, how to keep
guard on king or knave, baron or boor.  Dost think that I, who am the
son of an auld vassal of her ladyship's, would dragoon her out of
marching money?"

"'Tis well," replied the pikeman, briefly, as he retired, not to the
kitchen, but to a solitary apartment prepared for him by the orders
of his old patron, the halberdier.




CHAPTER V.

A PAIR OF RAPIERS.

  If thou sleep alone in Urrard,
    Perchance in midnight gloom,
  Thoul't hear behind the wainscot
    Of that old and darken'd room
  A fleshless hand that knocketh----"
                            HIGHLAND MINSTRELSY.


In a dark old wainscotted apartment, in the small arched chimney of
which a coal fire was glowing cheerily, supper and wine were sullenly
laid for Walter by a sleepy and half-frightened servant; but the
first remained untouched and the last untasted, at least for a time.
Removing his burgonet and gloves, he sat with his elbow on the table
and his forehead on his hand, with his fingers writhed among his
thick dark locks.  He was again sunk in one of his gloomy reveries;
but at times a smile of pleasure and animation unbent his haughty lip
and lit up his handsome face like sunlight through a cloud; and it
was evident he thought more of Lilian Napier's bright blue eyes, her
innocence, and her fears, than the dangers and ignominy to which
coming day would assuredly expose him.

The mildness, modesty, and beauty of the young girl, with the
touching artlessness of her manner, had awakened a nearer and more
vivid interest in his heart, one to which it had hitherto been
utterly a stranger.  It was the dawn of passion; never before, he
thought, had one so winning or so attractive crossed his path; he had
found at last the well-known face that his fancy had conjured up in a
thousand happy reveries, and he was predisposed to love it.  Her
tears and affliction for the last relative (save one) whom fate and
war had left, had increased her natural attractions, and a keen sense
of her unmerited humiliation, and the risk he ran for her, by
knitting their names together, all tended to raise a glow in young
Walter's solitary heart; for having no living thing in this wide
world to cling to, it was peculiarly susceptible and open to
impressions of kindness and generosity; now it expanded with a flush
of happiness and delight to which since thoughtless childhood it had
been a stranger; and in a burst of soldierlike enthusiasm, he uttered
her name aloud, and drained the pewter flagon of Rhenish to the
bottom.

As he set it down, a noise behind made him turn sharply round and
listen; nothing was visible but the dark stains of the wainscotting,
and its gilded pannels glistening ruddily in the glow of the fire.
From an antique brass sconce on the wall, the light of three great
candles burned steadily on the old discoloured floor, the massively
jointed arch of the fire-place, which bore a legend in Saxon
characters, on three old pictures by Jamieson, of cavaliers in
barrelled doublets, high ruffs, and peaked beards, and one of the
famous Barbara Napier of Bruntisfield, who so narrowly escaped the
stake for her sorceries, on a spectral suit of mail, and six old
heavily carved chairs, ranged against the wall like grotesque gnomes
with their arms akimbo; but although nothing was visible to create
alarm, the aspect of the chamber was so gloomy, that certain tales of
a spectre cavalier who haunted the old house, began to flit through
Walter's mind, and he could not resist listening intensely; still not
a sound was heard, but the wind rumbling in the hollow vent, and the
creaking of the turret vanes overhead.

"Tush!" said he, and whether it was the faint echo of his own voice
or a sound again behind the wainscot, he knew not, but he palpably
heard something that made him bring the hilt of his long rapier more
readily to hand.  The portraits, like all those of persons whom one
knows to have been long dead, when viewed by the dim candle-light had
a staring, desolate, and ghastly expression, and they really seemed
to "frown" over their high ruffs on the intruder, who would probably
have frowned in return, had he not, even in the harsh lines of the
old Scottish artist traced a family likeness to the soft features of
Lilian Napier.  But there was a stern, keen and malignant expression
in the features of the old sorceress, Lady Barbara, that made Walter
often avert his eyes, for her sharp features seemed to start from the
pannel instinct with life and mockery.

As sleep weighed down the eyelids of Walter, strange fancies pressed
thick and fast, though obscurely, on his mind; and though once or
twice the same faint hollow sound made him start and take another
survey of the apartment by the dim light of the sconce and dying
embers of the fire, his head bowed down on the table, and at last he
slumbered soundly.

Scarcely had he sunk into this state when there was a sharp click
heard; a jarring sound succeeded, and on the opposite side of the
room, about three feet from the ground, a pannel in the wainscotting
was opened slowly and cautiously, and the bright glare of a large oil
cruise streamed into the darkened apartment.  Beyond the aperture,
receded a gloomy alcove or secret passage, into the obscurity of
which the steps of a narrow stair ascended, and therein appeared the
figure of a man, who gazed cautiously upon the unconscious sleeper.
He was about thirty years of age, strongly formed, and possessing a
handsome but very weatherbeaten countenance.  He wore a plain buff
coat and steel gorget; his waist was encircled by a broad belt, which
sustained a pair of long iron pistols of the Scottish fashion, and a
sharp narrow-bladed rapier glittered in his hand.

Young Fenton still slept soundly.

The stranger regarded him with a stern and louring visage, on which
the lurid light of the upraised cruise fell strongly.  It betokened
some fell and deadly intention, and as the hostile ferocity of its
aspect increased as slowly, softly, and ominously he descended into
the apartment.

"Through which part of the iron shell shall I strike this papistical
interloper?" he muttered; "I will teach thee, wretch, to think of
Lilian Napier in thy cups!"

His right hand was withdrawn preparatory to making one furious and
deadly thrust, which assuredly would have ended this history (ere it
is well begun) had not the subject thereof started up suddenly,
exclaiming,--

"Back, rebel dog! on thy life, stand back!" and striking up the
thrust rapier, drew his own, and throwing a chair between him and his
adversary, he stood at once upon his guard.

"Malediction!" cried the stranger, furiously, "dolt that I was not to
have pistolled thee from the pannel!"

"Wemyss, Wemyss!" exclaimed Walter, "The guard--what; ho! without
there!"

"Spare your breath, for you may need it all," said the other, putting
down his lamp, and barring the door.  "This chamber is vaulted and
boxed, and long enough mayest thou bawl ere thy fellow-beagles hear
thee.  Defend thyself, foul minion of the bloodiest tyrant that ever
disgraced a throne.  Strike! for by the Heaven that is above, ere a
sword is sheathed, this floor must smoke with the blood of one or
both of us!  Come on, Mr. Springald, and remember that you have the
honour to cross blades with the best swordsman in the six battalions
of the Scottish Brigade."

"You are----"

"Ha, scoundrel!  Quentin Napier of Bruntisfield, by God's grace and
King William's, a captain of the Scots-Dutch; so fall on, for I am
determined to slay thee, were it but to keep my hand in practice for
better work."

The blades crossed and struck fire as they clashed; each cavalier
remained a moment with his head drawn back, the right leg thrown
forward and his eyes glaring on his antagonist.  Walter was ten years
younger than his adversary, upon whom he rushed with more ardour than
address, and consequently, in endeavouring to pass his point and
close, received a slight wound on the hand, which kindled him into a
terrible fury.  Napier excelled him in temper, if not in skill; he
parried all his thrusts with admirable coolness, until, perceiving
that the youth's impetuosity began to flag, he pressed him in turn,
the ferocity that sparkled in his eyes and blanched his nether lip
revealing the bitterness of his intention; but in making one furious
lunge, he overthrust himself, and was struck down with his sword-hand
under him.  Rage had deprived Walter of all government over himself;
in an instant his knee was on Napier's breast, and his sword
shortened in his hand with the intention of running him through the
heart, for his blood was now up, and all "the devil" was stirred
within him.  He felt the deep broad chest of his powerful adversary
heaving beneath him with suppressed passion and fury.

"Captain Napier," said Walter, "for the sake of her whose name and
blood you share--though you disgrace them--I will spare your life if
you will beg it at my hands."

"Strike!" and he panted rather than breathed as he spoke; "Strike!
life would be less than worthless if given as a boon by Dunbarton's
beggarly brat.  O, a thousand devils!--is it come to this with me?"

"Peace, fool!" exclaimed Walter, "peace, lest your words tempt me to
destroy you.  Accept life at my hands; they spared the blood of a
better man upon the field of Sedgemoor."

"Be it so," replied the discomfitted captain, sullenly receiving his
rapier; "I accept it only that I may, at some future time, avenge in
blood the stain thou hast this night cast upon the best cavalier of
the Scottish Brigade."  He ground his teeth.  "D--nation! my throat
is burning--any wine here?"  He drank some Rhenish from a flask, and
then continued, "Ho, ho, and now, since you know my hiding-place,
doubtless for the sake of the thousand marks this poor brain-pan is
worth, ye will deliver me unto our Scottish Phillistines--those Lords
of Council, who are steeped to the lips in infamy and blood!"

"Perish the thought!" replied Walter, sheathing his rapier with a
jerk.  "You are safe for me--and here is my thumb on't."

"Gad so, young fellow, I love thy spirit, and at another's expense
could admire your skill in the noble science of defence.  You fought
at Sedgemoor--so did I."

"For the King?"

"Why--not exactly."

"For James of Monmouth?"

"Humph!"

"Then doubly are you a branded rebel."

"I had been a glorious patriot, had we won that bloody field.  Young
fellow, you must have early cocked your feather to the tuck of the
drum!  Art a Papist?"

"Nay, I am a good Protestant, I hope."

"And loyal to our Seventh James, the crowned Jesuit?  Der tuyvel, as
we say in Holland, 'tis a miracle!" and after drinking from the
wine-flask, he resumed with greater urbanity, "When I remember how
you permitted the Lady Bruntisfield and my kinswoman Lilian to
escape, it shames me that I was not more generous; but the devil
tempted me to blood in that infernal hole to which I must return."

"Now, sir, since the ladies are gone, you will undoubtedly starve."

"Nay, the whole household know of my concealment, and old Drouthy
will not let me want for wine and vivres."

"They may inform."

"O never!  I am their lady's only kinsman--the last of the good old
line, and they are staunch servitors; a few among those, whom the
courtly villany of these times hath left uncorrupted.  'Tis well I
know all the outlets of the mansion, for it will become quite too hot
for me after to-night.  No doubt a band of your soldiers will be here
at free quarters until the whole barony, outfield and infield, are as
bare as my hand."

"In part, you anticipate rightly."

"Henckers! then I must shift my camp among our whig friends in the
west until----"

"Until what?" asked Walter, suspiciously.

"Thou shalt learn anon, and so shall all thy faction with a
vengeance!" replied the captain, while a deep smile spread over his
features.  "Meantime adieu, and may God keep us separate, friend!  I
trust to thine honour."

"Adieu!"

He sprang into the secret passage, closed the pannel, and Walter
heard his footsteps dying away as he ascended into the hollow
recesses of the thick wall, and sought some of those secret
hiding-places with which this ancient mansion abounded more than any
other edifice in or around Edinburgh.

Morning came, and with it came an order from the king's advocate to
bring the prisoners before the privy council, and to secure the
persons of their entire household for future examination and
thumb-screwing, if necessary.

The multiplied lamentations and exclamations of fear and sorrow,
which rang through the house of Bruntisfield on the arrival of Macer
Maclutchy, with this terrible fiat (which he announced with all the
jack-in-office insolence peculiar to himself), and the clank of
musquets and din of high words in the corridor or ambulatory, roused
Walter from a second short but sound sleep, and starting, he raised
his head from the table on which he had reclined.

Redly and merrily the rays of the morning sun rising above the oak
woods streamed through the grated window of the chamber, and threw a
warm glow on its dark-brown wainscotting.  It was a sunny March
morning, and the old oaks were tossing their leafless branches on the
balmy wind; the black corbies cawed on their summits, and the lesser
birds twittered and chirped from spray to spray; the clear sky was
flecked with fleecy clouds, and its pure azure was reflected in the
still bosom of the long and beautiful loch, that stretched away
between its wooded banks towards the east, where the old house of
Gilford and the craigs of Salisbury closed the background.

Walter felt his bruises still smarting from the recent struggle; he
examined the place of his fierce visitor's exit, but failed to
discover the least trace of it; every pannel fitted close, and was
immovable, for he knew not the secret.  The whole combat appeared
like a dream; but a scar on his hand, a notch or two on his sword,
and several overturned chairs, still remained to attest the truth of
it.  Hastening to unfasten the door which Quentin Napier had secured
with such deadly intentions, a little glove on the floor attracted
his eye.  He snatched it up.  It was very small, and of richly worked
lace, tied by a blue ribbon.

"She has worn this.  Oh, 'tis quite a prize," said the young man as
he kissed it, and laughing at himself for doing so, placed it within
the top of his corslet.

"My certie, here is a braw bit o' wark and a bonnie!" exclaimed Macer
Maclutchy, bustling into the room.  "Here is an order from the king's
advocat to bring the leddies o' Bruntisfield to the Laigh Council
House instanter, and the chamber o' dais is empty, toom as a
whistle,--the birds clean awa, and the gomeral that stood by the door
kens nae mair about them than an unchristened wean.  My word on't,
lads," he continued flourishing his badge of office, "some here maun
kiss the maiden or climb the gallows for last night's wark!"

After swearing an oath or two, which appeared to give him infinite
relief in his perplexity,

"Master Walter," said the old halberdier, "here is a devilish piece
of business--an overslagh, as we used to say in Flanders.  Rot me!  I
have searched every place that would hold a mouse, but the prisoners
are not to be found!  I have pricked with my dagger every bed, board,
and bunker, and so sure as the devil--make answer, Halbert
Elshender," he cried, shaking the sentinel roughly by his bandoliers,
"answer me, or I will truncheon thee in such wise, thou shalt never
shoulder musket more.  Fause knave! where are the prisoners over whom
I posted ye?"

"A lang day's march on the road to hell, I hope--the old one, at
least," responded the musqueteer, sullenly; "dost think I have them
under my corslet?"

"Faith!  General Dalyel will let ye ken, friend Hab, that a thrawn
craig or six ounce bullets are the price Scottish of winking on duty.
Ye'll be shot like a cock-patrick.  I pity thee, Hab--d--mme if I
don't; you've blawn your matches by my side on many a hot day's work,
and bleezed away your bandoliers in the face o' English, Dutch, and
German; but my heart granes for the punishment ye'll dree."

"You are all either donnart or drunk!" exclaimed the incensed
soldier; "if the ladies were in the chamber when I first mounted
guard, I swear by my father's soul, they are there yet for me.  I
neither slept nor stirred from the door; so they maun either have
flown up the lum or whistled through the keyhole----"

"Didst ever hear of a noble lady playing cantrips o' witchcraft like
a wife o' the Kailmercat, or that auld whaislin besom, your mother,
down by St. Roque?"

"What for no?--it rins in the family, this same science o'
witchcraft, gif a' tales be true."

"See if such a braw story will pass muster with Sir Thomas Dalyel.
Cocknails!  I think I see every hair o' his lang beard glistening and
bristling with rage!"

"And he will mind that my father was a staunch vassal o' the
Napiers!" added the poor musqueteer, in great consternation at the
idea of confronting that ferocious commander.  "What can I do or
say?--O help me, Master Walter!  Would to God I had been piked or
shot at Sedgemoor!"

"Wemyss," said Walter, advancing at this juncture, just as the
serjeant was unbuckling the soldier's collar of bandoliers.  "The
ladies are gone where I hope none, save friends, will find them.
Elshender is innocent, for I freed them, and must bear the punishment
for doing so; but next time, comarade Hab, you take over such a post,
see that your wards are in it."

"I had your word, Mr. Fenton," replied the musqueteer in a voice
between sorrow and joy; "your word at least in the sense, and we
alway deemed you a gentleman of honour, though but a puir soldier-lad
like mysel."

"True, true," replied Walter, colouring; "will not the generosity of
my purpose excuse the deceit?"

"Why, Mr. Fenton, I wish weel to the auld house, for I was born and
bred under its shadow, and mony o' my kin hae laid down their lives
in its service, and I can excuse it----"

"D'ye think my Lord Chancellor will, though?" asked the Macer
sharply, as he bustled forward, "or His Majesty's advocat for His
Majesty's interest?"

"Or Sir Thomas Dalyel o' the Binns?" added the serjeant testily.  "O!
what is this o't noo--after I, from a skirling brat, had made a man
and a soldier of thee?  O! 'tis an unco scrape--a devilish coil of
trouble, and I wish you weel out o't.  Retain your sword, my puir
child, but consider yourself under close ward until orders come anent
ye.  D--me!  I once marched three hundred prisoners from Zutphen to
French Flanders, among them the noble Count of Bronkhorst himsel, and
never lost but one man whom I pistolled for calling me a hireling
Scot, that sold my king for a groat, whilk I considered as a taunt
appertaining to the Covenanters alone.  Gowk and gomeral, boy, what
devil tempted thee to----but why ask?  Yon pawkie gipsey's blue
een----"

"Hush!"

"Hae thrown a glamour owre ye.  Wherever women bide, there will
mischief be.  'Tis a kittle job!  What a pumpkin-head I was not to
keep watch and ward mysel.  Rot me! a young quean's skirling, or a
carlin's greeting would hae little effect on me, for I have heard
muckle o' baith in my time.  Did no thought of our Council prevent ye
running your head in the cannon's mouth?"

"No; I saw women in distress, Wemyss, and acted as my heart dictated."

"Had they been two auld carlins with hairy chins, gobber teeth,
wrinkled faces, and hands like corbies' claws, I doubt not your
tender heart would have dictated otherwise.  But when next I set a
handsome young lad to watch a young lass, may the great de'il spit
me, and mak my ain halbert his toasting fork!"

"Ay, ay," muttered Macer Maclutchy, whose jaws were busily devouring
all the good things he could collect in buffet or almrie; "auld
Hornie may do so in the end, whatever comes to pass."

"O Willie Wemyss, Willie Wemyss!" quoth the veteran halberdier
apostrophizing himself; "dark dool be on the hour that brings this
disgrace upon thee, after five and thirty years o' hard and faithful
service, under La Tour d'Avergne, Crequy, Condé, and Dunbarton!  The
deil's in ye, Walter Fenton!  You were aye a moody and melancholy
cheild, and I ever thought ye were born under some ill star, as the
spaewives say."

"Braw spark though he be," said the Macer, "he's come o' the true
auld covenanting spawn, Mr. Wemyss--and birds o' a feather--here's
luck, serjeant, and better times to us a'"; and so saying he buried
his flushed visage in a vast flagon of foaming ale.




CHAPTER VI.

THE OLD TOLBOOTH.

Whether I was brought into this world by the usual human helps and
means, or was a special creation, might admit of some controversy, as
I have never known the name of parent or of kindred.--THE
IMPROVISITORE.


Many of the citizens of Edinburgh may remember the old Bank close,
and the edifice about to be described.  On the west side of that
narrow street, which descended abruptly on the southern side of the
city's central hill, stood in former days a house of massive
construction and sombre aspect.  Its walls were enormously thick and
elaborately jointed; its passages narrow, dark, and devious; its
stairs ascended and descended in secret corners, and one led to the
paved bartizan, which formed the roof.  Many of its gloomy chambers
were vaulted.  Over its small and heavy doorway appeared the date
1569, encrusted by smoke and worn with time.  The whole aspect of the
edifice was peculiarly dismal; the walls were black as if coated over
with soot, the windows were thickly grated with rusted iron
stanchells, and sunk in massive frames, the little panes were
obscured by the dust and cobwebs of years.

It was the ancient prison of the city.  In older days it had been
built by a rich citizen named Gourlay, and had held within its walls
the ambassadors of England and France.  From its strength it had been
converted into a Tolbooth, and was used as such until the time of the
Solemn League and Covenant, when the spacious and more famous prison
was adopted for that purpose; but the older, darker, more obscure,
and more horrid place of confinement was still used at this time.

A party of the ancient City Guard, armed with swords and Lochaber
axes, buff coats, and steel bonnets, occupied one of the lower
apartments entering from the turnpike stair, at the foot of which
stood a sentinel with his axe, before the door, which though small,
was a solid mass of iron-studded oak, bolts and long bars.

In a small but desolate chamber of this striking old edifice--the
same in which the hapless Earl of Argyle passed the night of the 29th
June, 1685, his last in the land of the living--Walter Fenton was
confined a prisoner, while the Reverend Mr. Ichabod Bummel, Mr.
Drouthy the butler, and other servitors of Lady Bruntisfield, were in
close durance in the greater or upper Tolbooth.  The roof, the walls,
and the floor of this squalid apartment were all of squared stones,
stained with damp and scrawled over with hideous visages, pious
sentences, and reckless obscenity.  Its only window was thickly
grated within and without, and there in the sickly light the busy
spiders spun their webs from bar to bar in undisturbed industry.  It
opened to a narrow, dark, and steep Close of dreary aspect; the
opposite houses were only one yard distant, and ten stories high; the
alley was like a chasm or fissure; a single ray of sunlight streamed
down it, and penetrating the cobwebs and dust of the prison window,
radiated through its deep embrasure, and threw the iron gratings in
strong shadow on the paved floor.  Though the day was a chill one, in
March, there was no fire under the small archway, where one should
have been, and the only articles of furniture were a coarse and heavy
table like a carpenter's bench, a miserable palliasse on a truckle
bedstead, and a water flagon of Flemish pewter.  One or two rusty
chains hung from enormous blocks in the dirty walls, for the more
secure confinement of prisoners who might be more than usually
dangerous or refractory, and the whole tout ensemble of the chamber
when viewed by the dim and fast-fading light of the evening was
cheerless, desolate, and disgusting.

The day had passed away, and now, divested of his gay accoutrements,
and clad in a plain unlaced frock of grey cloth, the young prisoner
awaited impatiently, perhaps apprehensively, the hour that would
bring him before that terrible council whose lawless will was
nevertheless the law of the land.  Sunk in moody reverie, he remained
with his arms folded, and his head sunk forward on his breast.

The shadow of the grating on the floor grew less and less distinct,
for as the light faded, his vaulted prison became darker, until all
became blackness around him.  Anon the pallid moon rose slowly into
its place, and from the blue southern sky poured a cold but steady
flood of silver light into the cheerless room, and again, for a time,
the shadow of the massive grating was thrown on the discoloured
floor.  All around it was involved in obscurity, from amid which the
damp spots on the walls seemed like great and hideous visages,
mocking and staring at the captive.

Bitter were the thoughts, and sad the memories that thronged fast
upon the mind of Walter Fenton; his dark eyes were lit, his lip
compressed, but there were none to behold the changes; his handsome
features were alternately clouded by chagrin, contracted by anger,
and softened by love.  Though ever proud in spirit, and fired by an
inborn nobility of soul, never until now did he feel so keenly the
dependence of his situation, or so fierce a longing for an
opportunity when by one brilliant act of heroism and courage, he
might place himself for ever above his fortune, or--die.  And Lilian!
O it was the thought of her alone that raised these vivid aspirations
to their utmost pitch; but his heart sank, and even hope--the lover's
last rallying point--faded away when he pictured the difference of
their fortunes and positions in life.  Scotland was then a country
where pride of birth was carried to excess; and a remnant of that
feeling still exists among us.  He reflected that he was poor and
nameless, compelled from infancy to eat the bread of dependence and
mortification, and now in manhood, having no other estate than his
sword and a ring, which, as he had often told Lilian with a smile
(and he knew not how prophetically he spoke) "contained the secret of
his life:" she the representative of a long line of illustrious
barons, whose shields had shewn their blazons on the fields of
Bannockburn, Sark, and Arkinholme, the inheritrix of their honours,
their pride, and their possessions.  Poor Walter! but he was too
thoroughly in love to lose courage altogether.

As a boy, he had sighed for Lilian, and he felt his enthusiasm
kindled by her gentleness and infantile beauty, for then his heart
knew not the great gulf which a few years would open up between them.
The ardour of his temperament made him now feel alternately despair
and hope--but the latter feeling predominated, for though the clergy
railed at wealth and all the good things of this life, and took
peculiar care to enjoy a good share thereof--the world was not so
intensely selfish then as it is now, for a high spirit and a bold
heart, when united to a gallant bearing, a velvet cloak, a tall
feather, and a long sword, were valued more than an ample purse by
the young ladies of that age, who were quite used to find in their
ponderous folio romances, how beautiful and disinterested queens and
princesses bestowed their hands, hearts, and kingdoms on those
valiant knights-errant and penniless cavaliers, who alone, or by the
aid of a single faithful squire, freed them from enchanted castles,
and slew the wicked enchanters, giants, gnomes, and fire-vomiting
dragons who had persecuted them from childhood.

To resume: poor Walter was intensely sad, for deeply at that moment
he experienced the desolate feeling, that he was utterly alone in
this wide world, and that within all its ample space there existed
not one being with whom he could claim kindred.  He felt that it was
all a blank, a void to him; but his thoughts went back to those days
when the suppression of the rising at Bothwell, struck terror and
despair into the hearts of the Presbyterians, and filled the dungeons
of the Scottish castles, and the Tolbooths of the cities with the
much-enduring adherents of the Covenant, beneath the banner of which
his father was supposed to have died with his sword in his hand--so
with her dying lips had his mother told him, and his heart swelled
and his eye moistened, as he recalled the time, the place, and her
tremulous accents, with a vivid distinctness that wrung his breast
with the tenderest sorrow, even after the lapse of so many years.

During the summer of 1679 those citizens of Edinburgh, whose mansions
commanded a view of the Grey friars kirkyard, beheld from their
windows a daily scene of suffering such as had never before been seen
in Scotland.

This ancient burial-place lies to the south of the long ridge
occupied by the ancient city; it is spacious, irregular, and
surrounded by magnificent tombs, many of them being of great
antiquity, and marking the last resting-places of those who were
eminent for their virtues and talents, or distinguished by their
birth.  It is a melancholy place withal.  For three hundred years
never a day has passed without many persons being interred there; and
the hideous clay, the yellow and many-coloured loam, that had once
lived and breathed, and loved and spoken, has now risen several feet
above the adjacent street, against the walls of the great old church
in the centre, and has buried the basements of the quaint and dark
monuments that surround it.  The inscriptions and grotesque carving
of the latter, have long since been encrusted and blackened by the
smoke of the city, or worn and obliterated by the corroding and fetid
atmosphere of the great grave-yard.  There is not a spot in all the
Lothians where the broad-leaved docken, the rank dog-grass, the long
black nettle, and other weeds grow so luxuriantly, for terrible is
the mass of human corruption, for ever festering and decaying beneath
the verdant turf.

In the year before mentioned, this ancient city of the dead was
crowded to excess with those unhappy non-conformists whom the prisons
could not contain, for already were their gloomy dungeons and squalid
chambers filled with the poor, the miserable, and devoted
Covenanters.  Strong guards and chains of sentinels watched by day
and night the walls of the burial-ground; and then the buff-coated
dragoon, with his broadsword and carbine, and the smart musqueteer,
with his dagger and matchlock, were ever on the alert to deal instant
death as the penalty of any attempt to escape.  The rising at
Bothwell had been quenched in blood; and these unhappy people had
been collected--principally from Bathgate--by the cavalry employed in
riding down the country, and being driven like a herd of cattle to
the capital, were penned up in the old churchyard.  And there, for
months, they lay in hundreds, exposed to the scorching glare of the
sun by day, and the chill dew by night--the rain and the wind and the
storm!  God's creatures, formed in his own image, reduced to the
level of the hare and the fox, with no other canopy than the changing
sky, and no other bed than the rank grass, reeds, and nettles, that
sprung in such hideous luxuriance from the fetid graves beneath them.

It was a sorrowful sight; for there was the strong and athletic
peasant, with his true Scottish heart of stubborn pride and
rectitude, his weak and tender wife with her little infants, his aged
and infirm parents.  Their miseries increasing as day by day their
numbers diminished, and other burial-mounds, fresh and earthy, rose
amid the hollow-eyed survivors to mark the last homes of other
martyrs in the cause of "the oppressed Kirk and broken Covenant."
And all this terrible amount of mental misery and bodily suffering
was accumulated within the walls of the capital, amid the noisy and
busy streets of a densely peopled city--and for what?
Religion--religion, under whose wide mantle so many thousand
atrocities have been committed by men of every creed and age; and
because these poor peasants had resolved to worship God after the
spirit of their own hearts, and the fashion of their fathers.

When the Duke of Albany and York (afterwards James VII.) came to
Edinburgh, the persecution was not continued with such rigour; but
the progress of time never overcame the resolution of the
covenanters, though many noble families were reduced to poverty,
exile, and ruin, while their brave and moral tenantry suffered
famine, torture, imprisonment, and every severity that tyrannical
misgovernment could inflict, until the Presbyterians were driven to
the verge of despair; intrigues with the Prince of Orange were set on
foot, and for some years a storm had been gathering, which, in the
shape of a Dutch invasion, was soon to burst over the whole of
Britain.

Walter's memory went back to those days, when, amid the tombs and
graves of that old kirk-yard, he had nestled, a little and wailing
child, on the bosom of his mother, who, imprisoned there among the
"common herd," had soon sunk under the combined effects of exposure,
starvation, degradation, and sorrow; and he remembered when coiled up
within her mantle and plaid, how he hid his little face in her fair
neck, trembling with cold and fear in dreary nights, when the moon
streamed its light between the flying clouds upon the vast and
desolate church and its thick grave-mounds, with the long reedy grass
waving on their solemn and melancholy ridges.

A mystery hung over the fortune of Walter Fenton.  Of his family he
knew nothing further than that his mother's name was Fenton, and his
own was Walter, for so she had been wont to call him.  Of his father
he knew nothing, save that he had never been seen since the cavalry
of Claverhouse swept over the Bridge of Bothwell, scattering its
defenders in death and defeat.  He had heard that his father there
held high command, but was supposed to have perished either in the
furious _mêlée_ on the bridge, or in the stream beneath it.
Concealing her rank in the disguise of a peasant, his mother had been
found in the vicinity of the battle-field, was arrested as a
suspected person, sent to Edinburgh, and imprisoned with other
unfortunates in the old church-yard.

Poor Walter used to remember with pleasure that they had always
remained aloof from the other prisoners, and were treated by them
with marked respect.  Their usual shelter was under the great
mausoleum of the Barons of Coates, the quaint devices and antique
sculpture of which had often raised his childish fear and wonder; he
recalled through the struggling and misty perceptions of infancy, how
day by day her fair features became paler and more attenuated, her
eye more sunken and ghastly, her voice more tremulous and weak, and
her strength even less than his own; for (he had heard the soldiers
say) she had been a tenderly nurtured and fragile creature, unable to
endure the hardships to which she was subjected; and so she perished
among the first that died there.

One morning the little boy raised his head from the coarse plaid
which on the previous night her feeble hands had wrapped around him,
and called as usual for her daily kiss; he twisted his dimpled
fingers in the masses of her silky hair, and laid his smiling face to
hers--it was cold as the marble tomb beside them; he shrank back, and
again called upon her, but her still lips gave no reply; he stirred
her--she did not move.  Then, struck by the peculiar, the terrible
aspect of her pale and once beautiful face, the ghastly eyes and
relaxed jaw, the child screamed aloud on the mother that heard him no
more.  He dreaded alike to remain or to fly; for, alas! there was no
other in whose arms he could find a refuge.

A soldier approached.  He was a white-haired veteran, who had looked
on many a battle-field, and speaking kindly to the desolate child, he
gently stirred the dead woman with his halberd.

"Is this thy mother, my puir bairn?" said he.

The child answered only by his tears, and hid his face in the grass.

"Come away with me, my little mannikin," continued the soldier, "for
thy mother hath gone to a better and bonnier place than this."

"Take me there too," sobbed the child, clinging to the soldier's
hand; "oh, take me there too."

"By my faith, little one, 'tis a march I am not prepared for yet--but
our parson will tell you all about it.  Tush!  I know the flams of
the drum better than how to expound the text; so come away, my puir
bairn; thy mother, God rest her, is in good hands, I warrant.  Come
away; and rot me, if thou shalt want while old Willie Wemyss of the
Scots' Musqueteers, hath a bodle in his pouch, or a bannock in his
havresack."

By the good-hearted soldier he was carried away in a paroxysm of
childish grief and terror; and he saw his mother no more.

By the beauty of her person, the exceeding whiteness of her hands,
and a very valuable ring found with her, she was supposed to be of
higher rank than her peasant's attire indicated; and those apparent
proofs of a superior birth, the soldiers never omitted an opportunity
of impressing upon Walter as he grew older; and cited innumerable Low
Country legends and old Scottish traditions, wherein certain heroes
just so circumstanced, had become great personages in the end; and
Walter was taught to consider that there was no reason why he should
be an exception.  But _who_ his mother was, had unfortunately
remained locked in her own breast; whether from excessive debility
and broken spirit she lacked strength to communicate with the other
captives, or whether she feared to do so, could not be known now; her
secret was buried with her, and thus a mystery was thrown over the
fortune of the little boy, which through life caused him to be
somewhat of a moody and reflective nature.

William Wemyss, a veteran serjeant of Dunbarton's musqueteers, became
his patron and protector; and a love and friendship sprang up between
them, for the orphan had none other to cling to.  Wemyss often led
him to the old churchyard, and showed him the grave where his mother
lay--where the soldiers had interred her; and there little Walter,
overcome by the mystery that involved his fate, and the loneliness of
his heart, wept bitterly; for the soldier, though meaning well, was
rather like one of Job's comforters, and painted his dependance in
such strong colours, and reminded him how narrowly he had escaped
being hanged or banished as "a covenanter's spawn," that the heart of
the poor boy swelled at times almost to breaking.  Then the soldier
would desire him to pray for his mother, and made him repeat a
curious but earnest prayer full of quaint military technicalities, in
which the good old halberdier saw nothing either unusual or outré.
Often little Fenton came alone to seek that well-known grave, to
linger and to sit beside it, for it was the only part of all broad
Scotland that his soul clung to.  The weeds were now matted over it,
and the waving nettles half hid the humble stone, which with his own
hands the kind soldier had placed there.  Walter always cleared away
those luxuriant weeds, and though they stung his hands, he felt them
not.  It was a nameless grave too, for the real name of her who slept
within it was unknown to him; and the desolate child often stretched
himself down on the turf, burying his face in the long grass, and
weeping, as he had done in infancy on the poor bosom that mouldered
beneath, retraced in memory, days of wandering and misfortune, of
danger and sorrow, which he could not comprehend.  Time, and that
lightness of heart which is incident to youth, enabled him at last to
view the grave with composure; but he sought it not the less, until
after his return from Sedgemoor; he hastened to the well-known place,
but, alas! the grave had been violated, and the charm of grief was
broken for ever.  _Another_ had been buried there; the earth was
freshly heaped up; and he rushed away, to return no more.

From childhood to youth the old Serjeant was his only protector:
though poor, he was a kind and sincere one; and the little boy became
the pet of the musqueteers.

A child, a dog, or a monkey is always an object of regard to an old
soldier or sailor; for the human heart must love something.

Little Walter carried the halberdier's can of egg-flip when he
mounted guard, learned to make up bandoliers of powder, polish a
corslet, to rattle dice on a drumhead, and to beat on the drum
itself; to fight with rapier and dagger; to handle a case of
falchions like any sword-player; and became an adept at every game of
chance, from kingly chess, to homely touch-and-take.  He learned to
drink "Confusion to the Covenant," in potent usquebaugh without
winking once, and swear a few cavalier-like oaths.  Like all such
pets, he was often boxed severely, and roundly cursed too, at the
caprice of his numerous masters, until the poor boy would have been
altogether lost, his ideas corrupted, and his manners tainted by the
roughness of camp and garrison, had not his humble patron been
ordered away on the Tangier expedition; and being unable to take his
little protégé with him, bethought him of craving the bounty of his
commander's wife, the Countess of Dunbarton, a beautiful young
English woman, who was the belle of the capital and the idol of the
Scottish cavaliers.  Struck with the soldier's story, envying his
generosity, pitying the little boy, and pleased with his candour and
beauty, she immediately took him under protection, adopting him as
her page; and never was there seen a handsomer youth than Walter
Fenton, when his coarse attire (a cast doublet of the serjeant) was
exchanged for a coat of white velvet slashed with red and laced with
gold, breeches and stockings of silk, a sash, a velvet cloak, and
silver-hilted poniard; and his dark-brown hair curled and perfumed by
Master Peter Pouncet, the famous frizzeur in the Bow.  He parted in a
flood of tears from his old patron, who slipped into his pocket a
purse the Countess had bestowed on himself, drew his leather glove
across his eyes, and hurried away.

At Lady Dunbarton's he had often seen Lilian Napier; she was then a
little girl, and always accompanied her tall and stately relative in
the vast old rumbling coach, with its two footmen behind and
outriders in front, armed with sword and carbine; for the noble dame
set forth in great state on all visits of ceremony.  Lady Grizel's
majestic aspect and frigid stateliness scared and awed the little
footpage; but the prattle of the fair-haired Lilian soothed and
charmed him, and he soon learned to love the little girl, to call her
his sister, to be joyous when she came, and to be sad when she
departed.

Young Walter, from his well-knit figure, and a determined aspect
which he had acquired by his camp education, was as great a favourite
among the starched little damoiselles of the Countess's
withdrawing-room, as his clenched fist and bent brows made him a
terror at times to the little cavaliers whose jealousy he excited;
and his military preceptors (the old Royals, then battling and
broiling at Tangiers) had inculcated a pugnacity of disposition that
sometimes was very troublesome; and he once proceeded so far as to
d--n the old Dowager of Drumsturdy pretty roundly, and draw his
poniard on the young lord her son, who, with his companions, had
mocked him as "a covenanter's brat."  The Countess made him crave
pardon of the little noble, and they shook hands like two
cut-and-thrust gallants of six feet high.

But when their companions, with childish malevolence, taunted poor
Walter as "my lord's loon," "the soldier's varlet," or "the powder
puggy," epithets which always kindled his rage and drew tears from
his eyes, Lilian, ever gentle and kind, wept with him, espoused his
cause, and told that "Walter's mother was a noble lady, for the
Countess had her ring of gold;" and the influence of the little
nymph, with her cheeks like glowing peaches, and her bright hair
flowing in sunny ringlets around a face ever beaming with
happiness--was never lost, or failed to maintain peace among them.
And thus days passed swiftly into years, and the girl was twelve and
the boy sixteen when they were separated.  Walter followed his noble
patron to the field, when the landing of Argyle in the west, and
Monmouth in the south, threw Britain into a flame.  Dunbarton, now a
general officer, marched with the Scottish forces against the former;
but Walter, as a volunteer, served under Colonel Halkett, with a
battalion of Scottish musqueteers, at the battle of Sedgemoor, where
he felt what it was to have lead bullets rebounding from his buff
coat and headpiece.  Since then he had been serving as a private
gentleman; but in a country like Scotland, swarming with idle young
men of good birth and high spirit, who despised every occupation save
that of arms, preferment came not, and he had too often experienced
the mortification of seeing others obtain what he justly deemed his
due, the commission of King James VII.

His recent interview with Lilian had recalled in full force all the
friendship of their childhood and the dawning love of older years;
but the manner in which he was now involved with the supreme
authorities seemed to destroy all his hopes for ever--in Scotland at
least; and yet, though that reflection wrung his heart, so little did
he regret the part he had acted, that for Lilian's sake he would
willingly run again, a hundred-fold greater risk.  The last three
years of his life had been spent amid the stirring turmoil of
military duty in a discontented country, where each succeeding day
the spirit of insurrection grew riper.  In the rough society with
which he mingled, never had he been addressed by a female so fair in
face and so winning in manner as Lilian of Bruntisfield; and thus the
charm of her presence acted more powerfully upon him.  Her accents of
entreaty and distress--her affection for Lady Grizel struggling with
anxiety for himself, had in one brief interview recalled all the soft
and happy impressions of his earlier and more innocent days, and love
obtained a sway over his heart, that made him for a time forget his
own dangerous predicament, in pondering with pleasure on the
mortifications from which he had saved the ladies of Bruntisfield,
the risks he had run for their sake, and consequently the debt of
gratitude they owed him.

From his breast he drew forth her glove a hundred times, to admire
its delicate texture and diminutive form; but he could not repress a
bitter sigh when contemplating how slight were the chances of his
ever again beholding the gentle owner, now when both unhappily were
under the ban of the law,--she a homeless fugitive, and he a close
prisoner, with death, imprisonment, or distant service in the Scots'
Brigade his only prospects.  Even were it otherwise,--and, oh! this
idea was more tormenting than the first,--her heart might be
dedicated to another; and she might, with the true pride of a noble
Scottish maiden, deem it an unpardonable presumption in the poor and
unhonoured pikeman to raise his eyes to the heiress of Sir Archibald
Napier of Bruntisfield and the Wrytes.  And thus, having introduced
to the reader the grand feature upon which our story must "hinge," we
shall get on with renewed ardour.




CHAPTER VII.

THE LAIGH COUNCIL HOUSE.

  Ye holy martyrs, who with wond'rous faith,
  And constancy unshaken have sustained
  The rage of cruel men and fiery persecutions;
  Come to my aid and teach me to defy
  The malice of this fiend!
                                  TAMERLANE.


The moon had passed westward; the close was gloomy as a chasm; and
Walter's prison became dark as a cave in the bowels of a mountain.
The clank of chains and bars as the door was opened roused the
prisoner from his waking dreams; a yellow light flashed along the
heavily jointed stone walls, and the harsh unpleasant voice of Macer
Maclutchy cried authoritatively--

"Maister Walter Fenton!--now, then, come forth instanter.  Ye are
required by the Lords of the Privy Council."

A thrill shot through Walter's heart: he endeavoured in vain to
suppress it, and, taking up his plain beaver hat, which was looped
with a ribbon and cockade à la Monmouth in the military fashion, he
descended the narrow spiral stair, preceded by the macer carrying his
symbol of office on his right shoulder, and attired in a long flowing
black gown.  Two of the Town-guard, with their pole-axes, and
Dunbraiken their captain,--a portly citizen, whose vast paunch, cased
in corslet and backpiece, made him resemble a mighty tortoise
erect,--kept close behind; and thus escorted, Walter set out from his
prison, to appear before a select committee of the dreaded Privy
Council of Scotland.

Encumbered by his long official garb, Macer Maclutchy's step was none
of the most steady.  He was evidently after his evening potations at
Lucky Dreeps; he wore his bonnet cocked well forward; and such a
provoking smirk of vulgar importance pervaded his features when, from
time to time, he surveyed his prisoner, that the latter was only
restrained by the axes behind from knocking him down.

In those days the hour of dinner was about one or two o'clock; but as
the Earl of Perth, the Lords Clermistonlee, Mersington, and others
loved their wine too well to leave it soon for dry matters of state,
and the thumbscrewing of witches and non-conformists, the evening was
far advanced before Walter Fenton was summoned for examination in the
Laigh Chamber, where the Council held their meetings under the
Parliament Hall, in a dark and gloomy region, where lights are always
burned even yet during the longest days of summer.

Passing a narrow pend or archway (where, in the following year, the
Lord President Lockhart was shot by Chiesly of Dairy), Walter and his
conductors issued into the dark and deserted Lawnmarket, passed the
Heart of Midlothian, from the western platform of which, the black
beam of the gibbet stretched its ghastly arm in the moonlight,--and
reached the antique Parliament Square, a quadrangle of quaint
architecture, which had recently been graced by a beautiful statue of
Charles II.  On one side rose the square tower and gigantic façade of
St. Giles, with its traceried windows, its rich battlements and
carved pinnacles all glittering in the moonlight, which poured aslant
over several immense piles of building raised on Venetian arcades,
and made all the windows of the Goldsmiths' Hall glitter with the
same pale lustre that tipped the round towers of the Tolbooth, the
square turrets and circular spire of the Parliament House, the whole
front of which was involved in opaque and gloomy shadow, from which
the grand equestrian statue of King Charles, edged by the glorious
moonlight, stood vividly forth like a gigantic horseman of polished
silver.

The square was silent and still, as it was black and gloomy.  A faint
chorus stole on the passing wind, and then died away.  It came from
the hostel, or coffee-house, of Hugh Blair, a famous vintner, whose
premises were under the low-browed and massive piazza before
mentioned.  The deep ding-dong of the cathedral bell, vibrating
sonorously from the great stone chambers of the tower, made Walter
start.  It struck the hour of nine, and, save its echoes dying away
in the hollow aisles and deep vaults of the ancient church, no other
sound broke the silence of the place; and Walter felt a palpable
chill sinking heavily on his spirit, when, guided by the macer, they
penetrated the cold shade of the quadrangle, and by a richly carved
doorway were admitted into the lobby of the house, which was spacious
and lofty enough to be the hall of a lordly castle.  From thence
another door gave admittance into that magnificent place of assembly
where once the estates of Scotland met--

  "Ere her faithless sons betrayed her."


Its rich and intricate roof towered far away into dusky obscurity;
its vast space and lofty walls of polished stone echoed hollowly to
their footsteps; and the bright moon, streaming through the mullioned
and painted windows, threw a thousand prismatic hues on the oaken
floor, on the grotesque corbels, and innumerable knosps and gilded
pendants of its beautiful roof,--on the crimson benches of the
peers,--on the throne, with its festooned canopy,--on the dark
banners and darker paintings, bringing a hundred objects into strong
relief, sinking others in sombre shadow, and tipping with silver the
square-bladed axes and conical helmets of the Town-guardsmen as they
passed the great south oriel, with its triple mullions and heraldic
blazonry.

From thence steep, narrow, and intricate stairs led them to the
regions of the political Inquisition, and the wind that rushed upward
felt cold and dewy as they descended.  At the bottom there branched
off a variety of stone passages, where flambeaux flared and cressets
sputtered in the night wind, and cast their lurid light on the dusky
walls.  And now a confused murmur of voices announced to the anxious
Fenton that he was close to this terrible conclave, whose presence
few left but on the hurdle of the executioner.

In an anteroom a crowd of macers, city guardsmen, messengers-at-arms,
and officials in the blue livery of the city, laced with yellow, and
wearing the triple castle on their cuffs and collars, a number of
persons cited as witnesses, &c., lounged about, or lolled on the
wooden benches.  The ceiling of the apartment was low, and the deep
recesses of the doors and windows showed the vast solidity of the
massively panelled walls.  A huge fire blazed in a grate that
resembled an iron basket on four sturdy legs, and its red light
glinted on the varied costumes, the weather-beaten visages, polished
headpieces and partisans of those who crowded round it.  The entrance
of Walter Fenton and his escort excited neither attention nor
curiosity; and feeling acutely his degraded position, he sought a
retired corner, and seated himself on a wooden bench.  The groups
around him conversed only in whispers.  A murmur of voices came at
intervals from the inner chamber; and Walter often gazed with deep
interest at its antiquely fashioned doorway, the features of which
remained long and vividly impressed on his memory; for he longed to
behold, but dreaded to encounter, the stern conclave its carved
panels concealed from his view.

Anon a cry--a shrill and fearful cry--announced that some dreadful
work was being enacted within; every man looked gravely in his
neighbour's face, (save Maclutchy, who smiled,) and the blood rushed
back on Walter's heart tumultuously.  Deep, hollow, and
heart-harrowing groans succeeded; then were heard the sound of
hammers and the creaking of a block as when a rope runs rapidly
through the sheave; then a low murmur of voices again, and all was
still; so still, that Walter heard the pulsations of his heart, and
in spite of his natural courage, it quailed at the prospect of what
he too might have to undergo.

Suddenly the door of the dreaded chamber flew open, and the common
Doomster and his two assistants, with their muscular arms bared, and
their leather aprons girt up for exertion, issued forth, bearing the
half lifeless and wholly miserable Ichabod Bummel.  His countenance
was pale and ghastly; his teeth were clenched, and his eyes set; his
limbs hanging pendant and powerless, bore terrible evidence of the
agonies caused by the iron boots, as his fingers, covered with blood,
did of the thumb-screws.  He groaned heavily.

"What has the gallows loon confessed, Pate?" asked Maclutchy, eagerly.

"Sae muckle, that the pyets will be pyking his head on the
Netherbow-porte when the sun rises the morn," replied Mr. Patrick
Pincer, the heartless finisher of the law, whose brawny arms and
blood-stained apron, together with all the disgusting associations of
his frightful occupation rendered him a revolting character.  "He
defied the haill council as a generation o' vipers; boasted o' being
a naturalized Hollander, and denied his ain mother-country."

"Wretch!" muttered Bummel, "well might I deny the land that produces
such as thee.  But there is yet a time, and in Heaven is all my
trust."

"Silence in court!" said the macer, imperiously thrusting the brass
crown of his baton in the sufferer's mouth.  "Ay, ay, denying his ain
country, eh?"

"Till my Lord Clermistonlee recommended a touch o' the caspie-claws,
and wow, Sirs, the loon stood them brawly, but when we gied him a
twinge wi' the airn buits, my certie! they did mak' him skirl!  Did
ye no hear him confessing, lads?"

"What! what?"

"Ou just onything they asked him.  Treason, awfu' to hear; about a
Dutch invasion and a rebellion among the Westland whigs, to whom he
shewed letters from Flume o' Polwarth, Fagel the Pensioner o'
Holland, Dyckvelt the Flemish spy, and a' hidden whar d'ye think?"

"Deil kens; in his wame, may be."

"Hoots; sewit up in the lining o' his braid bonnet."

The poor fainting preacher had now the felicity of being stared at by
a crowd who pitied him no more than the strong-armed torturers whose
grasp sustained his supine and inert frame.

"Soldier," said he to one near him, "art thou a son of the Roman
antichrist?"

"Na, I am Habbie, the son o' my faither, auld John Elshender, a
cottar body, at the Burghmuirend."

"Then, in the name of God," implored the poor man in a weak and
wavering voice, "give me but a drop o' water to quench my thirst,
for, oh youth, I suffer the torments of hell!"

The soldier who seemed to be a good-natured young fellow, readily
brought a pitcher of water, from which Bummel drank greedily and
convulsively, muttering at intervals,

"'Tis sweet--sweet as aqua-coelestis, whilk is thrice rectified wine.
Heaven bless thee, soldier, and reward thee, for I cannot."  He burst
into tears.

"Hath he taken the test," asked Maclutchy, "and did he acknowledge
the king's authority?"

"Ou onything, and so would you, Maclutchy, gif I had ye under my hand
as I'll soon hae that young birkie in the corner."

"'Tis false!" cried Ichabod Bummel, through his clenched teeth, "and
sooner than acknowledge that bloody and papistical duke, I would
kiss, yea, and believe the book of the accursed Mohamet, whilk as I
shew in my '_Bombshell aimit at the taile of the great Beast_,' was
written on auld spule banes, and kept by the gude wife of the
impostor in a meal girnel.  But fie! and out upon ye, fiends, for lo,
the hour of our triumph and deliverance from tyrants and massemongers
is at hand.  O, why tarry the chariot wheels of our Deliverer?"

  "I like ane owl in desart am,
    That nightly----"


"What!" exclaimed Maclutchy, in legal horror, "would ye dare to skirl
a psalm within earshot o' the very Lords o' Council, ye desperate
cheat, the woodie!  Awa wi' him by the lug and horn, or he'll bring
the roof about us."  He was hurried off.

Walter was deeply moved.  Pity and indignation stirred his heart by
turns, but he had not much time for reflection; at that moment the
drawling voice of the crier was heard, calling with a cadence
peculiar to the Scottish courts,

"Maister-Walter-Fenton."

He became more alive to his own immediate danger, and ere he well
knew what passed, found himself in another gloomy and pannelled
apartment, one-half of which was hung with scarlet cloth.  On a dais
stood the vacant throne with the royal arms of Scotland glittering
under a canopy of velvet, festooned and fringed with gold.

Scott has given us a graphic picture of this strange tribunal, when
it was presided over by the odious Duke of Lauderdale.  Let us take a
view of it as it appeared six years after, when that scourge of the
Presbyterians had departed to render at a greater bar an account of
his tyranny and enormities.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE PRIVY COUNCIL.

  'Tis noble pride withholds thee--thou disdain'st
  Wrapt in thy sacred innocence--these mad
  Outrageous charges to refute.
                      SCHILLER'S MAID OF ORLEANS.


A long table, covered with scarlet cloth, extended from the throne
towards the end of the room where Walter stood.  Large, red-edged,
and massively gilded statute books, docquets of papers, inkstands,
and the silver mace (now used by the Lords of Session), lay
glittering on the table, while a large silver candelabrum, with
twelve tall wax lights, shed a lustre on the striking figures of
those personages who composed the select committee of council.

On a low wooden side-bench lay certain fearful things, which (in his
present predicament) made the heart of Walter quail; though on the
field he would have faced, without flinching, the rush of a thousand
charging horse; they were the instruments of torture then authorised
by law; the _pilnie-winks_, the _caspie-claws_, and the
_iron-boots_--all diabolical engines, such as the most refined
cruelty alone could have invented.  With these, both sexes, even
little children were sometimes tortured until the blood spouted from
the bruised and crushed limbs.

The thumbikins were small steel screws like handvices, which, by
compressing the thumb-joints, produced the most acute agony; and this
amiable and favourite engine (which saved all trouble of
cross-examining witnesses), was first introduced by one of the
council, whose stern eyes were fixed on Walter Fenton,
Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Dalyel of Binns, a cavalier baronet of
great celebrity, whose name is still justly abhorred in Scotland.  He
had long borne a command under the Russian standard, where his
humanity had not been improved by service among Tartars and Calmucks.

The boot was a strong box enclosed with iron hoops, between which and
the victim's leg, the executioner, by gradual and successive blows,
drove a wooden wedge with such violence, that blood, bone, and marrow
were at last bruised into a hideous and pulpy mass.

Walter could scarcely repress a shudder when he surveyed those
frightful engines, under the application of which, so many
unfortunates had writhed; but he confronted with an undaunted air the
various members of that stern tribunal, which had so long ruled
Scotland by the sword, and many of whose acts and edicts might well
vie with those of the Inquisition, the Star-chamber, or any other
instrument of tyranny and misgovernment.

Two earls, Perth, the Lord Chancellor, and Balcarris, the High
Treasurer, were present; they were both fine-looking men, in the
prime of life, richly dressed, and wearing those preposterous black
wigs (brought into fashion by Charles II.), the ends of which rolled
in many curls over their broad collars of point lace.  The Bishop of
Edinburgh, the Lord Advocate, and his predecessor, the terrible Sir
George Mackenzie, of Rosehaugh, "that persecutor of the saints of
God;"--(he whose tomb was, till of late years, a place so full of
terror to the schoolboy,) occupied one side of the council-board.
Opposite sat John Grahame, of Claverhouse, colonel of the Scottish
life-guards, the horror of the Covenanters, (and to this hour the
accursed of the Cameronians,) but the handsomest man of his time.
His face was singularly beautiful, and his black, magnificent eyes,
were one moment languid and tender as those of a love-sick girl, and
the next sparkling with dusky fire and animation.  When excited, they
actually seemed to blaze, and were quite characteristic of his
superhuman daring and unmatched ferocity.

Cruel as the character of the Laird of Claverhouse has ever been held
up to us, let us not forget the times in which he lived, and how much
room there is for malevolent exaggeration.  Even Wodrow allows that
at times he showed compunction, mercy, and compassion.  Mutual
injuries, assassinations, and outrages heightened the hostility of
spirit between the Scottish troops and the Scottish people to a
frightful extent; but it is a curious fact, that the local militia
and vassals of the landholders were, by far, the most severe tools of
persecution.  The _real_ sentiments of the troops of the line, were
powerfully evinced by their joining _en masse_ the banner of the
Protestant invader.  In making these remarks, let it not be thought
we are attempting to gloss over the atrocities of the persecution,
the records of which are enough to make one's blood boil even at this
distant period of time.  The darkest days of our history are those of
which the industrious Wodrow wrote; but glorious indeed was the
ardour and constancy with which so many of Scotland's best and
bravest men gave up their souls to God in the cause of the "oppressed
kirk and the broken covenant."

Claverhouse was splendidly attired; his coat was of white velvet,
pinked with scarlet silk and laced with gold; over his breast spread
a cravat of the richest lace, and on that fell the heavy dark
ringlets of his military wig.  Near him sat Sir Thomas Dalyel,
colonel of the Scots grey dragoons.  This fierce soldier was in the
eightieth year of his age; he was perfectly bald, and a lofty
forehead towered above his keen grey eyes, that shone brighter than
his polished gorget in the light of the candelabrum.  To his stern
features a noble and dignified aspect was imparted by a long white
beard, that flowed over his plain buff coat, reaching to the buckle
of his sword-belt.  There was a very striking and antique expression
in the fine face of the aged and detested 'persecutor,' that never
failed to impress beholders with respect and awe.

There are but two others to describe, and these are of some
importance to our history.

Swinton, of Mersington, a law lord, who was never known to have been
perfectly sober since the Restoration, and whose meagre body,
nutcracker jaws, bleared eyes, and fantastic visage, contrasted so
strongly with the upright and square form of the venerable cavalier
on his right, and the dignified Randal, Lord Clermistonlee, who sat
on his left.

A renegade Covenanter, a profligate, and debauched roué, steeped to
the lips in cruelty, tyranny, and vice, the latter, after having
squandered away a noble patrimony and the dowry of his unfortunate
wife, still maintained his career of excess by gifts from the fines,
extortions, and confiscations, made by the Council on every pretence,
or without pretence at all.  He was forty years of age, possessing a
noble form, and a face still eminently handsome, though marked by
dissipation; it was slightly disfigured by a sword cut, and,
notwithstanding its beauty of contour, when clouded by chagrin and
ferocity, and flushed by wine, it seemed that of a very ruffian, and
now was no way improved by his ample wig and cravat being quite awry.
His dark vindictive eyes were sternly fixed on Walter, who, from that
moment, knew him to be his enemy.  Clermistonlee, who was not a man
to have his purposes crossed by any mortal consideration, had long
marked out fair Lilian Napier as a new victim to be run-down and
captured.  Her beauty had inflamed his senses, her ample possessions
his cupidity--it was enough; his wrath, and perhaps his jealousy,
were kindled against the young man by whose agency she had found
concealment, after he thought all was _en train_ by his accusing the
Baroness of Bruntisfield to the Council, and procuring a warrant of
search and arrest for inter-communed persons at her Manor of the
Wrytes-house.  His brows were contracted until they formed one dark
arch across his forehead; one hand was clenched upon the table, and
the other on the embossed hilt of his long rapier, which rested
against his left shoulder, and there was no mistaking the glance of
hostility and scrutiny he bent upon the prisoner.  The other members
of the Council were all highly excited by the revelations recently
extracted from Mr. Ichabod Bummel (by dint of hammer and screw),
concerning the intrigues of the whigs with the Prince of Orange.  The
letters of the exiled Baron of Polwarth, and of Mynheer Fagel, the
Great Pensionary of Holland, were lying before the Lord Chancellor,
who played thoughtfully with the tassels of his rapier, while his
secretaries wrote furiously in certain closely-written folios.
Several clerks, macers, and other underlings who loitered in the
background, were now ordered to withdraw.

"Approach, Walter Fenton," said the Earl of Perth.

"Fenton," muttered General Dalyel, "'tis a name that smacks o' the
auld covenant; I hanged a cottar loon that bore it, for skirling a
psalm at the foot o' the Campsie Hills, no twa months ago."

"And of true valor, if we remember the old Fentons of that ilk, and
the brave Sir John de Fenton of the Bruce's days," continued the
chancellor.  "Young man, you of course know for what you this night
compear before us?"

"My Lord, for permitting the escape of prisoners placed under my
charge."

"Prisoners charged with treason and leaguing with intercommuned
enemies of the state!" added Clermistonlee, in a voice of thunder.

"And you plead guilty to this?"

"I cannot deny it, my Lords."

"Good--you save the trouble of examining witnesses."

"A bonnie piece o' wark, young Springald!" said General Dalyel
scornfully; "a braw beginning for a soldier--but ken ye the price
o't?"

"My life, perhaps, Sir Thomas," replied Walter, gently; "yet may it
please you and their Lordships to pardon this, my first offence, in
consideration of my three years' faithful and, as yet, unrequited
service.  Heaven be my witness, noble sirs, I could not help it!"

"By all the devils!  Help what, thou fause loon!"

"Permitting the escape of Lady Bruntisfield and her kinswoman, the
young lady."

"Aha! the young lady!" laughed Claverhouse and Balcarris.

"I was overcome by their terror and entreaties.  Oh, my Lords, I seek
not to extenuate my offence."

"Plague choke thee!" said Dalyel, with a grim look; "a braw birkie ye
are, and a bonnie to wear a steel doublet--a fine chield to march to
battle and leaguer, if ye canna hear a haveral woman greet, but your
heart maun melt like snaw in the sunshine.  By the head of the king,
ye shall smart for this!  Sic kittle times thole nae trifling."

"I doubt not the young fellow was well paid for his untimely
gallantry," said Clermistonlee, with a provoking sneer.

"Any man who would insinuate so much, I deem a liar and coward!" said
Walter, fearlessly: the eyes of the Privy Councillor shot fire; he
started, but restrained himself, and the young man continued.  "No,
my Lord Clermistonlee! though poor, I have a soul above bribery, and
would not for the most splendid coronet in Scotland change sides, as
_some_ among us have done, and may do again."

"Silence!" replied Clermistonlee, in a voice of rage, for he writhed
under this pointed remark, having once been a staunch covenanter;
"silence, rascal, and remember that on yonder bench there lieth a
bodkin of steel, for boring the tongue that wags too freely."

"Enough of this," said the Chancellor, striking the table impatiently
with his hand; "Mr. Secretary, attend, and note answers.  Walter
Fenton, you are doubtless well aware of where the ladies of
Bruntisfield are concealed, and can enlighten us thereon."

"I swear to you, most noble Earl, that I know not!"

"Ridiculous!" said his tormenter, Clermistonlee, who was under the
influence of wine.  "Say instantly, or by all the devils, if there is
any marrow in your bones, we shall see it shortly:" with his
gold-headed cane he significantly touched the iron boots that lay
near.

"Hath he been searched according to the act of council, whilk
ordains,--sae forth," said Mersington; "for some of Madam Napier's
perfumed carolusses may be found in his pouch."

"Nothing was found on him, my Lord," replied Maclutchy, "save a sang
or twa, a wheen gun matches, twa dice, a wine bill o' Hughie
Blair's--the Council's orders to the Forces--and--and--"

"And what, Sir?"

"A few white shillings, my Lord."

"Whilk ye keepit, I suppose."

The macer scratched his head and bowed.

"Whence got ye that ring, sirrah?" asked the imperious Clermistonlee,
suddenly feeling a new qualm of jealousy.

"Ring, my Lord, ring!" stammered Walter, colouring deeply.

"Yea knave, it flashed even now, and by this light seems a diamond of
the purest water.  A common pikeman seldom owns a trinket such as
that."

"I cry-ye-mercy," said Dalyel; "had your Lordship seen my brigade of
Red Cossacks retreating after the sack of Trebizond and Natolia, ye
would have seen the humblest spearman with his boots and holsters
crammed to the flaps with the richest jewels of Asiatic Turkey.  I
mysel borrowed a string of pearls from an auld Khanum, worth deil
kens how mony thousand roubles.  Gad! some pretty trinkets fall in a
soldier's way at times."

"Sir Thomas," said Claverhouse, "I would we had a few troops of your
Cossacks, to send among the wrest-land whigs for six months or so."

"S'death!" said the General, through his massy beard, "your guardsmen
think themselves fine rufflers, and so they are, Clavers'e, but I
doubt muckle if in a charge they would have come within o' spear's
length of my Red Brigade.  Puir chields! lang since hae they stuffed
the craps of the wolves and vultures that hovered oure the bluidy
plains of Smolensk."

"Well, my Lords, about this ring," observed Clermistonlee, with
ill-disguised impatience, while endeavouring to waken His Majesty's
advocate, who, oblivious of "His Majesty's interest," had fallen fast
asleep.  "We all know that the Lady Bruntisfield has a god-daughter,
grand-niece, or something of that kind--a fair damsel, however; and
'tis very unlikely this young cock would run his neck under the
gallows (whereon I doubt not his father dangled) for nothing.
Fenton--harkee, sirrah, surrender the jewel forthwith, and say whence
ye had it, or the thumbscrews may prove an awkward exchange for it."

"Do with me as you please, my Lords, but ah! spare me the ring.  It
is the secret of my life--it is all that I possess in the world--all
that I can deem my own:" pausing with sudden emotion the young man
covered his eyes.  "It was found on the hand of my mother--my poor
mother, when she lay dead among the graves of the Grey Friars."

"When, knave?"

"In the year of Bothwell."

A cloud came over the face of Clermistonlee.

"In the year of Bothwell, my Lords," continued Walter, in a thick
voice; "that year of misery to so many.  I have been told my father
died in defence of the bridge; and my mother--she--spare to me, my
Lords, what even the poor soldiers who found me respected!  It was
preserved and restored to me by the good and noble Countess of
Dunbarton when, three years ago, I marched against James of Monmouth."

"The true pup of the crop-eared breed!" said Clermistonlee,
scornfully; "false in blood as in name.  Macer, hand up the ring!
His mother (some trooper's trull) never owned a Jewell like that."

The macer advanced, but hesitated.

"Approach, wretch, and, by the God that beholds us, I will destroy
thee!" cried Fenton, inflamed with sudden passion; and so resolute
was his aspect, that Maclutchy retreated, and now Mersington and the
king's advocate, who had been snoring melodiously, woke suddenly up.

"My Lords, you trifle," said the Earl of Perth.

"Halt, sirs!" added Claverhouse, who admired Walter's indomitable
spirit; "I cannot permit this; let the lad retain his ring, but say,
without parley, where those fugitives are concealed."

"On the honour of a soldier, I solemnly declare to you, Colonel
Grahame, that I know not."

"It is enough," responded Claverhouse, whose deep dark eyes had gazed
full upon Walter's with a searching expression which few men could
endure.  "Never saw I mortal man who could look me openly in the
face, when affirming a falsehood."

"This is just havers," said Mersington; "jow the bell for Pate Pincer
to gie him one touch of the boot."

"My Lords, you may tear me piecemeal, but I cannot tell ye; and, were
it otherwise, I would rather die than betray them!"

"Hush!" whispered Claverhouse, who admired his spirited bearing; but
Clermistonlee exclaimed in triumph,

"Heard ye that, my Lords, heard ye that?  Gadso! a half
acknowledgment that he can enlighten us anent the retreat of these
traitresses, and I demand that he be put to the question!"

Now ensued a scene of confusion.

"Aye, the boot!" said Rosehaugh, Mersington, and one or two others.
"Let him be remanded to the Water Hole--the caspie claws."

"My Lords, I protest--" said Claverhouse, starting up abruptly.

"Hoity toity!" said Mersington; "here's the Laird of Claverse' turned
philanthropist!  Since when did this miracle take place?"

"Since the cold-blooded atrocities this chamber has witnessed--"
began Claverhouse, turning his eyes of fire on the law lord; but the
entrance of Pincer and his two subaltern torturers, whom that little
viper, Mersington, had summoned, cut short the observation.  Walter's
blood grew cold--his first thought was resistance--his second, scorn
and despair.

"Had the noble Earl of Dunbarton, or all our blades, the old Royals,
been in Edinburgh instead of being among the westland whigs, ye had
not dared to degrade me thus!" he exclaimed, with fierce indignation.
"I disclaim your authority, and appeal to a council of war--to a
court of commissioned officers!"

"Uds daggers!" said Dalyel, "I love thee, lad.  Thou art a brave
fellow, and the first man that ever bearded this council board."

"But we will teach thee, braggart," said Sir George of Rosehaugh
sternly, "that from this chamber there is no appeal, either to courts
of peace or councils of war.  There can be no appeal----"

"Save to his majesty," added the Chancellor, who, to please James
VII., had recently embraced the Catholic faith.

"And of what value is the appeal, noble Earl, after one's bones have
been ground to powder by your accursed irons?'

"We do not sit here to bandy words in this wise," replied the
Chancellor; "Macer, lead the prisoner to the ante-room, while his
sentence is deliberated on."

After a delay of some minutes, which to Walter seemed like so many
ages, so great was his anxiety, he was again summoned before the
haughty conclave.  The first whose malignant glance he again
encountered was Clermistonlee, whose voice he had often heard in loud
declamation against him, and he felt a storm of wrath and hatred
gathering in his breast against that vindictive peer.  The monotonous
voice of the clerk reading his sentence with a careless off-hand air
now fell on his ear.

"Walter Fenton, private gentleman in the regiment of Dunbarton,
commonly called the Royal Scots Musqueteers of Foot, for default and
negligence of duty----"

"Anent whilk it is needless to expone," interposed Mersington.

"--And for your contumacy in presence of the Right Honourable the
Lords of His Majesty's Privy Council, you are to be confined in the
lowest dungeon of the common prison-house of Edinburgh, for the space
of six calendar months from the date hereof, to have your tongue
bored by the Doomster at the Tron-beam, to teach it the respect which
is due to superiors; and thereafter to be sent as a felon, with ane
collar of steel rivetted round your neck, to the coal heughs of the
right worshipful the Laird of Craigha' for such a period as the Lords
of the said Privy Council shall deem fitting--subscribitur Perth."

"Such mercy may ye all meet in the day of award!" muttered Walter.

"Withdraw!" said Lord Clermistonlee, with a bitter smile of
undisguised ferocity and malice.  "Begone, and remember to thank Sir
Thomas of Binns and the Laird of Claverhouse, that your tongue is not
bored this instant, and thereafter given to feed the crows."

Walter bowed, and was led out by the macer, while the council
proceeded to "worry" and terrify the remaining prisoners, Lady
Bruntisfield's household, and, after nearly scaring them out of their
senses, dismissed them all, (save two stout ploughmen, who were given
to Sir Thomas Dalyel as troopers,) with warning to take care of
themselves in all time coming, and with a promise of a thousand marks
if they gave intimation of their lady's retreat.




CHAPTER IX.

DEJECTION.

  A mournful one am I, above whose head,
    A day of perfect bliss hath never passed;
  Whatever joys my soul have ravished,
    Soon was the radiance of those joys o'ercast.
                              LAYS OF THE MINNESINGERS.


Walter was conducted back to the prison-house in Gourlay's Close, the
Heart of Mid Lothian being already filled with nonconforming culprits.

Preceded by Macer Maclutchy and the gudeman or governor of the
establishment, who wore the city livery, blue, laced with yellow, and
carried a bunch of ominous-like keys.  Walter found himself before a
little archway, closed by a strong iron door, which opened under the
great turnpike stair of the edifice, and led to the lower regions--to
a superstructure of vaults, which, from their low and massive aspect,
might have been deemed coeval with the days of the Alexanders.  The
light of the iron cruise borne by the gudeman failed to penetrate the
deep abyss which yawned before them on the door being opened, and the
cold wind of the subterranean chambers rushed upward in their faces.
Slowly descending the hollowed and time-worn steps of an ancient
stair, accompanied by his guard and conductors, poor Walter moved
mechanically: the lamp, as it flared in the chill atmosphere, shewed
the dark arches and green slimy walls of massive stonework forming
the basement story of the prison.  He felt a horror creeping over his
heart.  A profound and dismal silence reigned there; for these earthy
passages where the frog croaked, the shining beetle crawled, and the
many-legged spider span in undisturbed security, gave back no echo to
their footsteps.  In the heart of a populous city, thought he, can
such a place be?  Is it not a dream?

"Adonai!  Adonai!" cried a voice in the distance, so loud, so shrill,
and unearthly, that the gudeman paused, and the macer started back.
"How long, O Lord, wilt thou permit these dragons to devour thy
people?  Rejoice, ye bairns of the Covenant!  Rejoice, O ye nations,
for He will avenge the blood of his chosen, and render vengeance on
his adversaries."

"Hoots!  It's that fule-body Bummel blawing like a piper through the
key-hole," said the macer, and knocking thrice on the cell door with
his mace, added, "Gif your tongue had been bored with an elshin as it
deserved, my braw buckie, ye wadna hae crawn sae crouse.  However,
gudeman, his rebellious yammering will not disturb you muckle."

"The vaults are gey far doon--we would be deeved wi' him else,"
replied the gudeman; "but he gangs to the Bass in the morning, and
there he can sing psalmody to the roaring waves and the cauld east
wind, wi' Trail, Bennet, Blackadder, and other brethren in
tribulation."

"By my word, keeping thae chields on the auld craig is just feeding
what ought to be hanged," responded the macer, for these underlings
affected to acquire the cavalier sentiments of the day.  A door was
now opened, and Walter Fenton heard the voice of the gudeman saying,

"Kennel up there, my man.  You will find the lodgings we gie to
conventiclers and enemies of the king are no just as braw as Gibbie
Runlet's, doon at the White Horse.  There is a windlan o' gude straw
in that corner to sleep on, gif the rottons, and speeders, and asps,
will let ye, and a mouthfu' o' caller air can aye be got at the iron
grate, and sae my service t'ye."

"And keep up your spirits, Mr. Fenton," added the macer with a mock
bow, "for the toun smith, Deacon Macanvil, will be doun in the
morning to rivet round your craig the collar o' thrall wi'
Craighall's name on't, and sae my service t'ye too."

The sneers of these wretches stung Walter to the soul, and it was
with difficulty he restrained an impulse to rush upon them and dash
their heads together.  But the door was instantly closed; he heard
the jarring of the bolts as they were shot into the stonework, the
clank of a chain as it was thrown across, and then the retreating
footsteps of his jailors growing fainter as they ascended the
circular staircase.  A door closed in the distance, the echoes died
away, and then all became intensely still.  He was now left utterly
to his own sad and mortifying reflections, amid silence, gloom, and
misery.

The darkness was oppressive; not the faintest ray of light could be
traced on any side, and he wondered how the chill March wind swept
through the vault, until, on groping about, he discovered on a level
with his face, a small barred aperture, which opened to the adjoining
close.  In that high and narrow alley there was but little light even
during the day; consequently, by night, it was involved in the
deepest obscurity.

The cold, damp wind blew freely upon Walter's flushed face and waving
hair, as he moved cautiously round his prison, and feeling the dark
slimy walls on every side, discovered that it was a vault about
twelve feet square, faced with stone, destitute, damp, frightful, and
furnished only by a bundle of straw in a corner.  On this he threw
himself, and endeavoured to reflect calmly upon the perils by which
he was surrounded.

He was naturally of an ardent and impetuous temper, and consequently
his reflections failed either to soothe or to console him.  His
sentiments of hostility to Lord Clermistonlee were equalled only by
those of gratitude to the Laird of Claverhouse, by whose influence he
had, for a time, been spared a cruel and degrading maltreatment; but
that, alas! was yet to be endured, and the contemplation of it was
maddening.  To be given as a bondsman or serf, girt with a collar of
thrall or slavery, to work in the pits and mines of certain
landholders, was a mode of punishment not uncommon in those
vindictive days.

When the Scottish troops, under Lieutenant-colonel Strachan, defeated
the brave cavaliers of Montrose in battle at Kerbister, in Ross, on
the 27th of April, 1650, hundreds who were taken captive were
disposed of in that manner.  Some were given in thrall to
Lieutenant-general Lesly, many to the Marquis of Argyle, others to
Sir James Hope, to work as slaves in his lead mines, and the residue
were all sent to France, to recruit the Scottish regiments of the
Lord Angus and Sir Robert Murray.

Had his sentence been banishment to a foreign service, though it
would have wrung his heart to leave his native country, and forego
for ever the bright hopes and visions that had (though afar off)
begun to lighten the horizon of his fortunes, he would have hailed
the doom with joy; but to be gifted as a slave to another, to drudge
amid the filth, obscurity, and disgrace of a coal mine, O! he looked
forward to that with a horror inconceivable......

His mind became filled with dismal forebodings for the future.
Though he still remembered with sincere pleasure the services he had
rendered to the Napiers of Bruntisfield, his dreams of Lilian's mild
blue eyes and glossy ringlets were sadly clouded by the perils to
which they had hurried him.

All these proud and high aspirations, those intense longings for fame
and distinction, for happiness and power, in which the mind of an
ardent and enthusiastic youth is so prone to luxuriate, and which had
been for years the day dream of Walter Fenton, now suffered a chill
and fatal blight.  It is a hard and bitter conviction, that one's
dearest prospects are blasted and withered for ever; and to the heart
of the young and proud, there is no agony equal to that of unmerited
disgrace and humiliation.  Misery was Walter's companion, and further
miseries and degradations awaited him; but happily, the dark future
was involved in obscurity.




CHAPTER X.

HOPE.

  Thou art most fair; but could thy lovely face
  Make slavery look more comely? could the touch
  Of thy soft hand convey delight to mine
  With servile fetters on.
                                BOADICEA, ACT IV.


Three days passed away.  Three, and still there was no appearance of
the dreaded Deacon Macanvil with his hammer and rivets, and collar of
thrall.

The monotony of the prison had been unbroken save, each morning, by
the entrance of the gudeman of the Tolbooth and a soldier of the
Townguard, bearing a wooden luggie of fresh water and a slice of
coarse bread, or coarser oaten cake on a tin trencher, and to these
poor viands, the gudewife of the keeper, moved with pity for "such a
winsome young man," added a cutlet or two on the third day.  For the
first four-and-twenty hours this mean fare remained untouched, but
anon, the cravings of a youthful appetite compelled him to regale on
it.

In a retired, or rather, a darker corner of this miserable place, he
reclined on his truss of damp straw, listening to the lively hum of
the city without, and the deep ding-dong of the Cathedral bells as
they marked the passing hours.

Slowly the interminable day wore on.

Shadows passed and repassed the wretched aperture which was level
with the pavement, and served for a window.  Feet cased in white
funnel boots garnished with scarlet turnovers, gold spurs and red
morocco spur leathers, in clumsy Cromwellian calf-skins, or in
brogues of more humble pretensions, appeared and disappeared as the
passengers strode up and down the close; and many pretty feet and
taper ancles in tight stockings of green or scarlet silk set up on
"cork-heeled shoon," tripped past, the fair owners thereof
displaying, by their uplifted trains, rather more than they might
have done, if aware that a pair of curious eyes were looking upward
from the Cimmerian depth of that ghastly vault.  Bare-footed children
gambolled about in the spring sunshine; with ruddy and laughing faces
they peeped fearfully into the dark hole, and on discerning a human
face through the gloom, cried "a bogle, a ghaist!" and fled away with
a shout.

Propped on his staff, the toiling water-carrier passed hourly,
conveying limpid water from the public wells, even to the lofty
"sixteenth story," for a bodle the measure.  Lumbering sedans were
borne past by liveried carriers at a Highland trot; and the voices
that rang perpetually in the narrow alley, though enlivening the
prison of Walter, only served to make his sense of degradation and
captivity more acute.

Anon, all those sounds ceased one by one; the bells of evening
tolled, the ten o'clock drum was beat around the ancient royalty, and
died away in the depths of Close and Wynd, and night and silence
stole together over the dense and lofty city.  The last wayfarer had
gone to his home, and a desolate sense of loneliness fell upon the
heart of Walter Fenton.

"Alas, alas!" he exclaimed, "had my dear friend Lady Dunbarton been
on this side of the border, I had not been thus persecuted and
forgotten.  And Finland, why tarries he?  Friendship should bring him
to me, for shame cannot withhold him; I have committed no crime."

So passed the fourth day.

Night came on again, and the poor lad felt an oppression of spirit, a
longing for freedom, and abhorrence of his dungeon; so bitter and
intense, that reflection became the most acute torment.  He turned
restlessly among the straw, its very rustle fretted him, and he
started up to pace to and fro in the narrow compass of the vault.  He
muttered, moaned, and communing with himself, pressed his face
against the rusty grating, while listening intently to catch a
passing sound, and inhale the cool fresh breeze of the spring night.

Though so many thousand souls were densely packed within the
fortifications of Edinburgh, and every house was like a beehive or a
tower of Babel, at that hour the city was still as the grave.  Walter
heard only the throbbing of his heart.  The last dweller in the close
had long since traversed the lofty stair that ascended to his home;
the heavy door at the foot of the Prison turnpike stair had long
since been closed, and its sentinel had withdrawn to smoke a pipe or
sip a can of twopenny by the gudeman's well-sanded ingle.  From the
hollow recesses of its great rood spire St. Giles's bell tolled
eleven.

"Another night!--another--another!" exclaimed Walter, as he threw
himself upon the straw, and wrung his hands in rage, in bitterness,
and unavailing agony.  "Another night!--Oh, to be taught patience, or
to be free!"

From a sleepy stupor that had sunk upon him, the very torpidity of
desperation, he was roused by a noise at the grating: a face appeared
dimly without, and a well known voice said,

"Harkee, Fenton,--art asleep, my boy?"

"_Me voila_--I am here!" he exclaimed, as he sprang to the grating
and pressed the hand of his friend.

"You forget, Walter, that I am not calling the roll," laughed the
officer; "but _me voila_ is very old fashioned, my lad, and hath not
been used by us these two hundred years, since the battle of Banje en
Anjou.  By all the devils, 'tis a deuced unpleasant malheur this!"

"I thought you had forgotten me, Finland."

"You did me great injustice; but, lackaday, with Wemyss and my party
I have been for these three days worrying all the old wives and
bonnetted carles on the Bruntisfield barony, to take certain
obnoxious tests under terror of thumbscrews and gunmatch.  By my
honour, I would rather that my lord, the Earl of Perth, would march
with his mace on shoulder, anent such dirty work, for I aver that it
is altogether unbecoming the dignity and profession of a soldier.
And mark me, Walter, all this tyranny will end in a storm such as the
land hath not seen, since our father's days, when the banner of the
covenant was unfurled on the hill of Dunse."

"And are there no tidings of Dunbarton, our commander?"

"The deuce, no! there hath been no mail from London these fourteen
days; the rascal who brought the bag had only one letter, and getting
drunk, lost it in the neutral grounds, somewhere on the borders.  The
earl was to have taken horse at Whitehall for the north, on the first
of this month; 'tis now the penult day only, and he cannot be here
for a week yet, so patience, Walter."  Walter sighed.

"There are others here who have not forgotten thee, my dear Mr.
Fenton," said a soft voice, as a pretty female face, lighted by two
bright eyes, stooped down to that hideous grating.  "But, forsooth,
our good friend the Laird of Finland, seems resolved to talk for us
all, which is not to be borne.  I think he has acquired all the
loquacity of the French chevaliers, without an atom of their
gallantry."

"A thousand moustaches!" stammered the officer; "my fair Annie, I had
almost--"

"Forgotten me! you dare not say so; but O my poor boy Fenton, how
sorry I am I see thee there."

"I thank you, Mistress Laurie, but the honour of this visit would
gild the darkest prison in Scotland--even the whig-vault of Dunoter,"
said Walter, kissing the hand of the speaker, whom he knew to be the
betrothed of his friend, a gay and lively girl of twenty, whose
beauty was then the theme of a hundred songs, of which, unhappily,
but one has survived to us--the effusion of Finland's love and poesy.
Long had they loved each other; but the father of Annie, the old Whig
Baronet of Maxwelton, had engendered a furious hostility to Douglas,
in consequence of his soldiers having lived at free quarters on his
estates in Dumfriesshire, where they made very free, indeed, burned
down a few farms, shot and houghed the cattle, and extorted a month's
marching money thrice over, with cocked matches and drawn rapiers.

"This visit is as unexpected as it is welcome," continued Walter;
"and, for the honour it does me, I would not exchange--"

"Thy prison for a palace," interrupted Annie.  "Now, Mr. Walter, I
know to an atom the value of this compliment, which means exactly
nothing.  But we must not jest; I have to introduce a dear
friend--one who has come to thank you personally for those favours of
which you are now paying the price.  Come, Lilian, love," continued
the lively young lady, "approach and speak.  My life on't! how the
lassie trembles!  Come, Finland, we understand this, and will keep
guard while little Lilian speaks with her captive paladin."

"You are a mad wag, Annie," said the cavalier, as he gave her his
ungloved hand; "but lower your voice, dear one, or, soft and sweet as
it is, it may bring down the gudeman and all his rascals about us in
a trice."

"How can I find words to thank you, Mr. Fenton?" said the tremulous
voice of Lilian Napier, whose small but beautiful face appeared
without the massive grating, peeping through a plaid of dark green
tartan, a mode of disguise then very common in Scotland, and which
continued to be so in the earlier part of the last century.  Like a
hooded mantilla, it floated over her graceful shoulders, and a silver
brooch confined it beneath her dimpled chin.

"Lilian Napier here!" exclaimed Fenton with rapture; "ah, fool that I
was to repine, while my miseries were remembered by thee!"

"Ah, sir, the Lady Bruntisfield has lamented them bitterly.  Never
can we repay you for the unmerited severity and humiliations to which
you have been subjected in our cause.  Oh, can I forget that but for
you, Mr. Fenton, we might have become the occupants of that frightful
place, the air of which chills me even here!"

"Thee--O no, Lilian Napier, they could not have the heart to immure
thee here!"

"The lack of heart rather, Walter."

"The idea is too horrible--but now," he continued, in a voice of
delight, "you are speaking like my old companion and playfellow.
'Tis long--O, very, very long, Lilian, since last we conversed
together alone.  Do you remember when we gathered flowers, and
rushes, and pebbles by the banks of the Loch, and berries at the
Heronshaw, and gambolled in the parks in the summer sunshine?"

"How could I forget them?"

"Never have I been so happy since.  O, those were days of innocence
and joy!"

There was a pause, and both sighed deeply.

"Poor Walter, how sincerely I pity thee!"

"Then I bless the chance that brought me here."

"In that cold dark pit--Oh, 'tis a place of horror.  Would to Heaven
I could free you, Mr. Walter!"

"Ah, Lilian, call me Walter, without the _Mr_.  Your voice sounds
then as it did in other days, ere cold conventionalities raised such
a gulf between us."

"They can do so no longer," said the young lady, weeping; "we are
landless and ruined now, and O! did not fear for my good aunt Grisel
make me selfish, I would surrender myself to the council to-morrow."

"S'death! do not think of it!"

"We both accuse ourselves of selfishness--of the very excess of
cowardice, and of blotting our honour for ever, by meanly flying and
transferring all our dangers to you."

"Do not permit yourself to think so," said Walter, moved to great
tenderness by her tears.  "Dear Lilian, (allow me so to call you, in
memory of our happier days,) leave me now--to tarry here is full of
danger.  If you are discovered by the rascals who guard this place,
the thought of what would ensue may drive me mad; threats,
imprisonment, discovery, and disgrace--oh, leave me, for God's sake,
Lilian!"

"Besides, I may be compromising the safety of those good friends who
so kindly have accompanied me hither to-night.  Ah! there is a
terrible proclamation against us fixed to the city cross; they style
us those intercommuned traitors, the Napiers, umquhile of
Bruntisfield."

"Then leave me, Lilian--I can be happy now, knowing that you came----"

"From Lady Grisel," said Lilian, hastily, "to express her sincere
thanks for your kindness, and her deep sorrow for its sad requital,
which (from what you told us,) we could not have contemplated.
Indeed, Mr. Walter, we have been very unhappy on your account, and
so, impelled by a sense of gratitude, I came to--to--" and, pausing,
she covered her face with her hands and wept, for the new and
humiliating situation in which she found herself had deeply agitated
her.  She did not perceive a dark figure that approached her softly,
unseen by her friends, who were gaily chatting under the gloomy
shadow of a projecting house, and quite absorbed in themselves.

"Lilian, you were ever good and gentle," said Walter, altogether
overcome by her tears, and pressing her hand between his own.
"Deeply, deeply do I feel the mortification you must endure; but do
not weep thus--it wrings my very heart!"

She permitted him to retain her hand, (there was no harm in that,)
but his thoughts became tumultuous; he kissed it; and as his lips
touched her for the first time, his whole soul seemed to rush to them.

"Oh, Lilian, were I rich, I feel that I could love you."

"And if one is poor, can they not love too?" she asked artlessly.

"Oh, yes, Lilian--dear Lilian," said Walter, quite borne away by his
passion, and greatly agitated; but his arm could not encircle her,
for the envious grating intervened: "deeply do I feel at this moment
how bitter, how hopeless, may be the love of the poor.  But if I
dared to tell you that the little page, Walter, who so often carried
your mantle and led your horse's bridle--now, when a man, aspired so
far----"

The girl trembled violently, and said, in a feeble voice of alarm,
"Oh, hush--hush, some one approaches."

"Then away to Douglas, for he alone can protect you.  One word ere
you go: you have found a secure and secret shelter?"

"Humble and secret, at least."

"With the Lauries of Maxwelton?"

"Oh, no, their house is already suspected.  In the poor cottage of my
nurse, old Elsie Elshender, at St. Rocque--there we bide our fate in
poverty and obscurity."

"And your cousin, Napier, the captain?"

"Hath fled to the west--but that person--he is certainly
listening--adieu!"

"Remember me?"

"How can I forget?" she replied, naïvely, as she arose to withdraw;
but lo! the person started forward, and her hand, which was yet
glowing with Walter's kiss, was rudely seized in the rough grasp of
the intruder.  Fear utterly deprived the poor girl of power to cry
out.

"Aunt Grisel--dear grand-aunt Grisel!" was all she could gasp, and
she would have sunk on the pavement had not the eavesdropper
supported her.  He was a tall, stout gallant, and muffled, by having
the skirt of his cloak drawn over his right shoulder, so as to
conceal part of his face, then the fashionable mode of disguise for
roués and intriguantes.

"Lilian Napier, by all the devils!" cried Lord Clermistonlee, in a
tone of astonishment: he was considerably intoxicated, having just
left the neighbouring house, where he had been drinking for the last
six hours with the Lord President Lockhart.  "Now I thought thee only
some poor mud-lark, or errant bona-roba.  This is truly glorious.
Thou shalt come with me, my beauty.  What, you will scream?  Nay,
minx, then you have but a choice between the stone vaults of the
Tolbooth and the tapestried chambers of my poor old houses of
Drumsheugh and Clermistonlee--ha, ha!" and he began to sing the old
ditty:--

  "There was a young lassie lo'ed by an auld man----"


"Help, Finland, help, for the love of God!" cried Lilian, dreadfully
agitated, but the Lord continued:--

  "With a heylillelu and a how-lo-lan!
  Her cheeks were rose red, and her eyne were sky-blue,
  With a how-lo-lan and a heylillelu!
  And this lassie was lo'ed by this canty old man,
  With a heylillelu and a how-lo-lan!"

"By all the devils!  I can sing as well as my Lord the President,
though he hath three crown bowls of punch under his doublet."

"Douglas, Douglas, your sword--your sword!" cried Walter, grasping
the massive grating, and swinging on the bars like a madman, essaying
in vain to wrench them from their solid wrests; but ere the words had
left his lips, Lord Clermistonlee was staggered by a blow from the
clenched hand of the cavalier, and Lilian was free.

"Fly, Annie," he exclaimed to his love; "away with Lilian Napier to
the coach at the close head.  The devil, girl--art thou doited,--off
and leave me to deal with this tavern brawler.  Fore George!  I will
truss his points in first rate fashion."  The girls retired in
terror, and Douglas unsheathed his rapier.

"Beware thee, villain," exclaimed the other, drawing his long bilbo
with prompt bravery, and wrapping his mantle round the left arm.  "I
am a Lord of the Privy Council--to draw on me is treason."

"Were you King James himself, I would run you through the heart, for
applying such an epithet to a gentleman of the House of Douglas."

"You will have it then--come on, plated varlet, and look well to
guard and parry, for I am a first-rate swordsman."

Finland's cuirass rang with a rapier thrust from his assailant, who
fell furiously to work, lunging like a madman, and exclaiming every
time the fire sparked from their clanging blades,

"Bravo, bilbo!  Excellent--come on again, Mr. Malapert, and I will
teach thee to measure swords with Randal of Clermistonlee.  Gads-o,
fellow, thou art no novice in the science of fencing--crush me, what
a thrust! well parried--

  "With a hey lillelu, and a how----'

Damnation seize thee, man! how came that about!"

The sword of Finland, by one lucky parry had broken the Lord's rapier
off by the hilt, and ripped up the skin of his sword-hand with such
force that he staggered against the wall.

"I hope your Lordship is not hurt!" exclaimed his antagonist,
supporting him by the arm.

"Zounds, no! a little only," replied Clermistonlee, whom the shock
had perfectly sobered.  Full of rage, he tossed his embossed
sword-hilt over the house-tops, exclaiming, "Accursed blade, may the
hands that forged thee grill on the fires of eternity!"

It whistled through the air, and fell down the chimney of the dowager
Lady Drumsturdy, where it stuck midway, and so terrified that ancient
dame that, notwithstanding her hatred to "massemongers," she laid her
poker and shovel _crosswise_; but the mysterious noise in her
capacious "lum" formed a serious case for the investigation of
ghost-seers and gossips next day.

"Harkee, Laird of Finland," said Clermistonlee haughtily, "we must
enact this affair over again in daylight; meantime let us part, or
the Town-Guard will be upon us with their partisans, and I have no
wish that you should suffer for ripping up an inch or two of skin in
fair fight--you will hear from me anon."

"Whenever your Lordship pleases, I am your most obedient," replied
Douglas, bowing coldly as he hurried to join the terrified ladies,
with whom he had barely time to get into the hackney-coach and drive
off, when the door of the prison opened, and a few of the Town Guard,
who had heard the clashing of the rapiers, rushed forth with lanterns
and poleaxes; like modern police, exhibiting great alacrity when the
danger was over, they seized Clermistonlee.

"Dare ye lay hands on a gentleman," he exclaimed, fiercely shaking
them off.  "Unhand me, villains, I am Randal Lord Clermistonlee!  I
was assaulted----"

"By whom, my Lord, by whom?" replied the guardians of the peace,
cringing before this imperious noble.

"What is it to such rascals as thee?--oh, a knavish cloak snatcher,
or cut-purse, or something of that kind.  Retire--I have always hands
to defend myself."

The guard with hurried and half audible apologies withdrew, and the
brawling lord was left to his own confused reflections.  He tied a
handkerchief about his hand, and was about to withdraw, when a
thought struck him: he approached the grating of the low dungeon, and
placing close to it his face, which though unseen was pale with fury,
while his dark eyes gleamed like two red sparks,

"Art there, thou spawn of the Covenant?" he asked in a husky voice:
"Ah, dog of a Fenton, I will hang thee high as Haman for this night's
misadventure!"

The prisoner replied by a scornful laugh, and the exasperated roué
strode away.




CHAPTER XI.

CLERMISTONLEE AT HOME.

  "Too long by love a wandering fire misled,
  My latter days in vain delusion fled;
  Day after day, year after year, withdrew,
  And beauty blessed the minutes as they flew,
  These hours consumed in joy, but lost to fame----"
                                HAMILTON OF BANGOUR.


The town residence of Lord Clermistonlee was a lofty and narrow
mansion of antique aspect; it stood immediately within the
Craig-end-gate, that low-browed archway in the eastern flank of the
city wall, which, from the foot of Leith Wynd still faces the bluff
rock of the Calton.  With high pedimented windows and Flemish gables,
Clermiston-lodging towered above the mossy, grass-tufted, and
time-worn rampart of the city--the aforesaid portal of which gave
entrance to it on one side, while the more immediate path from the
great central street was a steep and narrow close, the mansions of
which were as black as the smoke of four centuries could make them.
Their huge façades, plastered over with rough lime and oyster shells,
completely intercepted the view to the south, while that to the north
was shut in by the black cliffs of the bare Calton and the
Multrees-hill with the ancient suburb of St. Ninian, straggling
through the narrow chasm that yawned between them, and afforded a
glimpse of Leith and the far-off hills of Fife.  At the base of the
hill lay the last fragments of the monastery of Greenside, and
opposite a thatched hamlet crept close to the margin of the Loch, the
broad sluice of which the irrascible Baillies of Edinburgh invariably
shut, when they quarrelled with a colony of sturdy and "contumacious"
weavers and tanners who had located there, and whose communication
with Halkerstoune Wynd they could cut off at pleasure by damming up
the waters of the Loch.  Immediately under the windows of the mansion
lay the park, hospital, and venerable church of the Holy Trinity,
founded by the Queen of James II. about two hundred years before.

On the night described in the last chapter, a large fire burned
cheerily in the chamber of dais; and the walls of wainscot, varnished
and gilded, glittered in its glow.  Supper was laid; carved crystal,
plate, and snow-white napery gleamed in the light of the ruddy fire,
and of four large wax candles that towered aloft in massive square
holders of French workmanship.  Over the mantel-piece, in an oak
frame amid the carving of which, grapes, nymphs, and bacchanals were
all entwined together, hung a portrait painted by Jamieson,
representing a pale young lady in a ruff and fardingale of James VI.
days, and having the pale blue eyes, exquisitely fair complexion and
lint-white locks, which were then so much admired.  It was his
Lordship's mother, a lady of the house of Spynie.

Silver plate, a goodly row of labelled flasks (bottling wine was not
then the custom) and various substantial viands formed a
corps-de-reserve on a grotesquely carved buffet of black oak, for
everything was fashioned after the grotesque in those days.  The
knobs of the red leather chairs, and the ponderous fire-irons, were
strange and open-mouthed visages; the brackets supporting the
cornices of the doors and the mantel-piece, were also strange
bacchanalian faces grinning from wreaths of vine-leaves, clusters of
grapes and crowns of acanthus.  Three long silver-hilted rapiers with
immense pommels, shells, and guards, pistols, steel caps, masks,
foils, and a buff coat richly laced with silver, lay all huddled in a
corner, while the broad mantel-piece presented quite an epitome of
the proprietor's character.

The massive stone lintel displayed in bold relief the legend carved
thereon by his pious forefathers,

Blyssit be God for al his giftis, 1540.

but above it lay Andro Hart's "Compendious Book of Godly Songs,"
beside the "Gaye Lady's Manuall," and the "Banqvet of Jests or change
or cheare imprinted at the shoppe in Ivie Lane 1634," a book of
ribbald ditties, another of farriery, another of falconry, obscene
plays; Rosehaugh's "Disertations" sent by the author, and used by
Clermistonlee to light his Dutch pipe; whistles, whips, hunting
horns, and drinking flasks, cards, dice, hawks' hoods, an odd pistol,
papers of council, warrants of search, arrest, and torture, mingled
with challenges and frivolous billets-doux.  A large wolfish dog, and
a very frisky red-eyed Scottish terrier slept together on the warm
hearth-rug.

Juden Stenton, the stout old butler, had stirred the fire and wiped
the glasses for the tenth time, tasted the wine for the twentieth,
and had made as many rounds of the table to snuff the candles, and
re-examine everything; he was very impatient and sleepy, and listened
intently with his head bent low, a practice which he had acquired in
the great civil wars.  The clock in the spire of the Netherbow-porte
struck midnight.

"Cocksnails!" muttered Juden, "twelve o'clock and nae sign o' him
yet.  What's the world coming to?  My certie, what would his farther
the douce Laird o' Drumsheugh hae thocht o' this kind of work?  He
(honest man!) was aye in his nest at the first tuck o' the ten
o'clock drum."

Juden was verging on sixty years of age; his figure was short and
paunchy, his face full and florid; his twinkling grey eyes wore
always a cunning expression, and had generally a sotted appearance
about them, which made it extremely difficult to determine whether he
was drunk or sober.  His large round head was bald, and his chin
close shaven, according to the fashion for the lower classes, few but
nobles and cavaliers retaining the manly moustaches and imperial.  A
clean white cravat fell over his doublet of dark-green cloth, the red
braiding of which was neatly curved to suit his ample paunch;
breeches of dark plush, black cotton stockings and heavy shoes, the
instep of each being covered by a large brass buckle, completed his
attire.  A scar still remained on his shining scalp to attest the
dangers he had dared in his younger days.

The last of a once numerous and splendid but now diminished
household, old Juden Stenton was a faithful follower of Lord
Clermistonlee, for whom he would have laid down his life without a
sigh of regret.  He acted by turns butler and baillie, cook and
valet, groom, farrier, trooper, and factotum, being the beau ideal of
the staunch but unscrupulous serving-man of the day, who changed
sides in religion, politics, and everything just as the Laird did,
and who knew no will or law save those of his leader and master.
When Clermistonlee (then Sir Randal Clermont of Drumsheugh), ruined
by the mad excesses into which he had plunged at the dissipated court
of Charles II., in a fit of despair joined the insurgent Covenanters
at Bothwell Bridge, Juden put a blue cockade in his bonnet, "girded
up his loins," as he said, "and went forth to battle for Scotland's
oppressed kirk and broken covenant."  But when Sir Randal's name (in
consequence of mistake, or of some friendly influence in the Scottish
cabinet) was omitted in the list of the attainted, and he changed
sides, obtaining--none knew how or why--rank and riches under the
persecutors, Juden changed too, and donning the buff coat and
scarlet, became a bitter foe to "all crop-eared and psalmsinging
rebels," and riding as a royalist trooper, suppressed many a harmless
conventicle, and hunted and hounded, slashed and shot, or dragged to
prison those who had been his former comrades, for in political
matters Juden's mind was as facile and easy as that of a German.

He had too often less honourably acted the pander to his lord, in
many a vile intrigue and cruel seduction; for of all the wild rakes
of the time (Rochester excepted) none had rushed so furiously on the
career of fashionable vice and dissipation as Clermistonlee; and even
now, when forty years of age, he continued the same kind of life from
mere habit, perhaps, rather than inclination.

But there was one chapter of his life which memory brought like a
cloud on his gayest hours, and which riot and revel could never
efface,--a sad episode of domestic mystery and unhappiness.
Clermistonlee, in the prime of his youth, had been wedded to a lady
of beauty and rank, of extreme gentleness of manner and softness of
disposition.  Like many others, _the fancy_ passed away; repentance
came, as his love cooled or changed to other objects.  He took the
lady to Paris, and there she died......  There were not wanting evil
tongues, who said he had destroyed her.  A kind of mystery enveloped
her fate; and even in his most joyous moods, sad thoughts would
suddenly cloud the lofty brow of Clermistonlee, a sign which his kind
friends never failed to attribute to remorse.  Many were the women
who had trusted to his honour, and found they had believed in a
phantom; until, at the era of our story, his name had become (like
that of the Marquis de Laval) a bye-word in the mouths of the people
for all that was wicked, irregular, and bad.

"Twelve o'clock," muttered Juden; "braw times--braw times, sirs!  I
warrant he'll be roistering in the change-house o' that runagate
vintner, Hugh Blair, at the Pillars.  A wanion on his sour Gascon and
fushionless Hock!  Waiting is sleepy work, and dry too.  Gude claret
this!  My service to ye, Maister Juden Stenton," he continued, bowing
to his reflection in an opposite mirror; "you're a gude and worthy
servitor to ane that doesna ken your value.  The members o' council
maun a' be fu' as pipers by this time except Claverhouse, wha canna
touch wine, and auld Binns, wham wine canna touch.  Hech! here he
comes; and now for a clamjamfray wi' the yett-wards."

A violent knocking at the city-gate close by announced the return of
his master from a midnight ramble.  The sentinel within opened the
wicket of the barrier; and on demanding the usual toll required of
belated citizens, a handful of pence, flung by the impatient lord,
clattered about his steel cap.  Clermistonlee entered, and, half
dragging a little crooked man after him, rapidly ascended the flight
of steps that led to the circular tower or staircase of his own
house.  In the low-pointed doorway, which was surmounted by an
uncouth coronet, stood Juden with a candle flaring in each hand,
bowing very low, though not in the best of humours.

"Od, that weary body Mersington is w' him!" he muttered.  "The auld
spunge--he'll drink the daylicht in!"

"Light the way there, Juden," cried his master.  "My good Lord
Mersington is generally short-sighted about this hour."

"Double-sighted, ye mean," chuckled the decrepit senator.  "Sorrow
tak' ye, Randal, ye maun aye hae your joke--he! he!  A cauld nicht
this, Juden," he added, while hobbling up the narrow stair, with an
enormous wig and broad-brimmed beaver overshadowing his meagre figure.

"A cauld morning rather, please your lordship," replied Juden
somewhat testily, as he ushered them into the chamber-of-dais, and
stirred the fire as well as the chain which secured the poker to the
jamb permitted him.

"Be seated, Mersington.  This way, my Lord; take care of the
table--devil! the man's blind," said Clermistonlee, as he somewhat
unceremoniously pushed the half-intoxicated senator into one of the
high-backed chairs of red maroquin.

Mersington was twenty years his senior, and never was there a pair of
more ill-assorted gossips or friends.  The one, a polished and
fashionable cavalier roué; the other, a cranky and meagre compound of
vulgarity, shrewdness, and ignorance, who was never sober, but had
obtained a seat on the bench in consequence of his inflexible
devotion to the Government, to please whom he would have sent the
twelve apostles to "testify" at the Bow-foot, had it been required of
him.  Clermistonlee unbuckled his belt, and flung his empty scabbard
to the one end of the room, his plumed beaver to the other, and drew
his chair hastily forward to the table.

"Where is your braw bilbo, my Lord?" asked Juden.

"What the devil is it to thee?--'Tis broken.  I will wear the
steel-hilted backsword to-morrow."

"The auld blade ye wore at the Brigg?"

"D--n Bothwell Brigg!  How is Meg?"

"Muckle the same, puir beastie."

"I hope, knave, thou gavest her the warm mash, and bathed her
nostrils and fetlocks."

"Without fail.  We maun tak' gude care o' her--the last o' a braw
stud of sixty, my faith!  But when a mear hath baith the wheezlock
and the yeuk----"

"How! has she both?"

"Had ye, a month syne, tar-barrelled that auld carlin, Elshender,
owre the muir at St. Rocque, Meg would hae been sound, wind and limb,
frae that moment."

"'Sblood!  Juden, dost think the cantrips of this old hag have really
bedevilled my favourite nag?"

"I'm no just free to say, my Lord; but it is unco queer that Meg
(puir beastie!) should fa' ill o' sae mony things just after Lucky
Elshender flyted wi' ye for riding through her kail for a near cut to
the Grange, the day ye dined wi' auld Fountainhall."

"By all the devils, Juden, if I thought this bearded hag had any hand
in the mare's illness, I would have her under the hands of the
pricker to-morrow," replied Clermistonlee, who was deeply imbued with
the Scottish prejudice against old women.  "We had before us to-day
two hags, whom we consigned to the flames; one for confessing
witchcraft, and the other for obstinately refusing to confess it."

Juden rubbed his hands.

"Ou aye--ou aye--he! he!" chuckled Mersington.  "Hae her up before
the fifteen--a full blawn case o' sorcery--on wi' the thumbikins!  I
have kent rack and screw bring mony a queer story to light:--riding
to Banff on a besom-shank--sailing to the Inch in a
milkbowie--bewitching wheels that ane minute flew round as if the
mill was mad, and the next stood like the Bass rock--raising a storm
o' wind in the lift by the damnable agency of a black beetle, 'ane
golach,' as Rosehaugh called it in the indictment.  We had a grand
case o' that lately in the northern courts."

"But the gude auld fashion o' tar-barrelling is clean gaing out in
thae fushionless days," said Juden, whom Mersington treated with
considerable familiarity.  "We havena had a respectable bleeze on the
Castle-hill these aucht years and mair."

"You may chance to have one very shortly," replied his lord
impatiently, "if Meg gets not the better of her ailings soon.  But
enough of this.--Let us to supper."

"Bluid, as I live!  Foul fa' the loon that shed it!" exclaimed Juden,
in accents of intense concern, as his master drew off his perfumed
gloves, and revealed the scar on his right hand.  "Whatna
collyshangie has this been, noo--and your braw mantle o' drab de
Berrie--oh laddie, when will you learn to tak' care o' yoursel?"
added honest Juden, who from force of habit still styled his lord as
he had done thirty years ago.

"Pshaw! you have seen my blood ere now, I suppose."

"Owre often, owre often," groaned the old man.  "You'll hae been
keeping the croon o' the causeway, I warrant, majoring rapier in
hand, as your faither was wont in his young days."

"No, no; I merely measured swords in Gourlay's close with one of the
Scots' musqueteers."

"Aboot what?  They're mad, unchancey chields, Dunbarton's men."

"A girl--the cursed baggage!"

"Burn my beard, if ever I saw dochter o' Eve that tempted me to
encounter a slashed hide!" said Juden, with a tone of thankfulness,
while his master tied a handkerchief round the wounded limb, and
applied himself to the viands before him, attending to his friend
with hospitality and politeness, and doing the honours of the table
with peculiar grace.

A roasted capon, mutton and cutlets, oysters fried and raw, a
gigantic silver mug of brandy and burnt sugar, a tankard of sack, and
several tall silver-mouthed decanters of claret, with manchets of the
whitest flour, oaten cakes, and fruit, composed the supper, on
sitting down to which, Lord Mersington, with an affected air and
half-closed eyes, by way of grace mumbled a distich then common among
the cavaliers--

  "From Covenanters with uplifted hands,
  From Remonstrators with associate bands,
  From such Committees as governed these nations,
  From Kirk Commissions and their protestations,
      Good Lord, deliver us!'


"Amen," said Clermistonlee, "d--n all Kirk Commissioners and Sessions
too!"

"The last keepit a firm hand owre such gallants as you, before King
Charles cam' hame," replied Mersington, who, like all meagre men, was
a great gourmand, and was doing ample justice to all the good things
before him.  Clermistonlee, too, notwithstanding the lateness of the
hour, did his part fairly--but all times were alike to him, his
irregular habits and debauched life had by long custom made them so,
and he assailed the capon, the cutlets, the oysters, and sack
tankard, in rapid succession, while Juden stood behind his chair,
napkin in hand, with eyes half-closed, and nodding head.

"Mersington, some more of the cutlets?  My Lord, you must permit
me--do justice to my poor house, a bachelor's though it be.  Juden,
hand that dish of Crail capons from the buffet."

The butler hastily placed before his master an ample dish containing
a pile of small haddocks prepared in a mode now disused and forgotten.

"Crail capons--allow me to help you; and don't spare the burnt sack,
my Lord."

"Thank ye:--weel, then, Clermistonlee, anent this business of the
Napiers," said Mersington, referring to a former conversation; "what
mean ye to do now, eh?"

"Use every means to obtain their lands--and Lilian to boot," replied
his friend, after a brief pause, and while a slight colour crossed
his cheek.  "I have taken a particular fancy for that old house of
Bruntisfield--ha, ha! with the parks adjoining.  Faith, the lands run
from the Harestarie to my own gate at Drumsbeugh, and from the Links,
where young Bruntisfield was slain long ago, to the house of the
Chieslies, beside the devil only knows how many tofts and tenements
within the walls of the city."

"A noble barony for a dowry!"

"It will form a seasonable subsidy to my exchequer, which is drained
to its last plack at present.  You know I have long loved this girl."

"Or _said_ so; but the lands, he, he! are forfeited to the King, man!"

"So were those of the Mures of Caldwell, yet Sir Thomas of Binns now
holds them as a free gift from the Council--and holds fast, too."

"Auld Dame Bruntisfield is but a life-rentrix; thou knowest, man,
that Captain Napier, of Buchan's regiment of Scots'-Dutch, is the
next and last heir of entail."

"Tush!  I will have _him_ under the nippers of the Lord Advocate ere
long; when his head is on yonder battlements of the Nether Bow, the
barony of Bruntisfield goes to Lilian Napier, and dost think,
Mersington, that chitti-faced girl will stand in my way?  I trow not.
Maclutchy and some of our best-trained beagles are on the captain's
track, and they will run him down somewhere in the west country,
depend upon it.  But 'tis neither hall nor holm, wood or water, that
will satisfy me----"

"Odsfish, man! he, he! what mair would ye hae, Randal?  There is the
auld dame denounced a rebel, and in default of compearance, put to
the horn; her moveable gudes and gear escheat to the King, conform to
the acts thereanent, and sae are the heritable, but the Council will
soon snap them up.  What mair would ye hae?"

"The person of little Lilian," said Clermistonlee, with a sinister
smile, as he winked over the top of his great silver tankard.

"Hee, hee!" chuckled Mersington.

"I would give a thousand broad pieces----"

"If ye had them!"

"Crush me! yes.----to discover where the young damsel is in hiding at
this moment.  Accustomed to subdue women from very habit, her piquant
coldness and hauteur have inflamed, surprised, and offended me, and
by all the devils, I will have her, though I should be tumbled down
the precipice of hell for it!" he continued, in the cavalier
phraseology.  "And this fellow, Fenton, this silken slave, who
crossed me on the very night I had hoped to have her arrested (he
ground his teeth), and that braggart, Douglas of Finland, who was so
ready with his rapier to-night, let them look to it; my path shall
not be crossed with impunity by man or devil."

"Nor is that of any Lord of Council, while a warrant of arrest and
ward may be had from Mackenzie for the asking, like the
_lettre-de-cachet_ o' our French friends."

"True, my Lord--our laws are severe; they are written in blood, like
those of Draco, the Athenian.  If this fellow, Finland, has the young
lady concealed about Edinburgh, and if I thought he had a deeper aim
in view, than merely crossing me, I vow to Heaven, I would make him a
terrible example to all such rascally intermeddlers with the purposes
of their betters."

His half-intoxicated companion looked slyly at him over his inverted
tankard, and replied,

"Get a warrant of search, and send every macer, messenger-at-arms,
and toun guardsman after your dearie--he, he! and proclaim at the
cross by tuck of drum, that the Right Honourable the Lord
Clermistonlee, Baron of Drumsheugh and Knight of the Thistle, will
pay one thousand marks of our gude Scottish money to the discoverer,
or producer----"

"Hush, Mersington, you jest too much on this matter.  Withered be my
tongue for speaking of this project to thee--but the deed is done,
and I might as well have proclaimed it by sound of trumpet at the
Tron."

"You have been a wild buckie in your day, Randal," said Lord
Mersington; "and when I think o' all the braw queans, gentle as weel
as simple, that you have loved and abandoned, gude-lackaday!  I
marvel that the whinger of some fierce brother or father hath not cut
short your career o' gallantry.  How about your fair one in Merlin's
Wynd?"

"Pshaw!  I tired of her long ago."

"And Lady Mary Charteris?"

"By all the devils, 'tis very droll to hear you speak of a noble lady
and a poor bona-roba in the same breath.  Mary is beautiful,
magnificently so, but wary, proud, and poor--we would hate each other
in a week.  Now I really think little Lilian Napier is capable of
fixing all my wandering fancies into one focus for life."

"He, he," chuckled Mersington, "I have heard you say the same o'
twenty.  But a peer of the realm, heir of--"

"The whole heraldic honours of the house of Clermont, which you see
on yonder window-pane, or, three bars wavy embattled, surmounted by a
lion _sable--argent_, a bend engrailed _gules_, and so forth.  Ha,
ha!"

"The coronet aboon them is a braw die, and ane that glitters weel in
lassies' een."

"With Lilian Napier it has no more value than a peasant's bonnet.  A
thousand times I have endeavoured to gain her notice, by the most
respectful attentions, which the little gipsy ever evaded, or
affected to misunderstand, treating me with the most frigid coldness.
The older lady, perhaps, is not indisposed towards me, but the memory
of--Fury! always _that_ thought!.....  I never was crossed in my
purpose, and now I mean to hang Quentin Napier, and marry his cousin
forthwith.  Ha, ha!"

"What, if he should discover and carry her off in the meantime?"

"Ah--the devil! don't think of that.  I would give a hundred French
crowns to have the right scent after her."

"I could do sae for half the money, my lord," said Juden, suddenly
waking up from his standing doze.

"The deuce! fellow, art _thou_ there?" exclaimed his master with
stern surprise.

"Fellow, indeed!" reiterated the ancient servitor, indignantly.
"Troth, I was the best o' gude fallows when I received on my ain
croon here, the cloure that Claverse meant for yours, in that braw
tulzie on Bothwell Brigg."

"True, Juden--though I like not being overheard in some matters,"
replied the lord more kindly; "but as Colonel Grahame and I are now
the best of friends, it would be better to recall the memory of
bygone days as little as possible.  Dost hear me?"

"And Alison Gifford--my lady that is dead and gone now, puir thing,"
continued Juden, spitefully and mournfully, knowing well that her
name stung Clermistonlee to the soul.  "Often, and often, she used to
say, 'you are a gude and leal servitor, Juden, and the laird (ye were
but a laird then), can never think enough, or mak' enough o' ye,
Juden--for ye are one that, come weal, come woe, peace or war,
victory or defeat, will stick to the house o' Clermont, Juden, like a
burr on a new bannet.  But losh me! _he_ doesna ken the worth o' ye
Juden!'"  The pawkie butler raised his table napkin to hide "the
tears he did _not_ shed;" but the face of Lord Clermistonlee, which
had gradually grown darker as he continued to speak, now wore a
terrible expression.  "Puir young Lady Alison! sae kind and sae
gentle, sae sweet-tempered, blooming and bonnie.  You were aye owre
rough and haughty wi' her, my lord----"

"Ten thousand curses!--wretch and varlet! whence all this insolence,
and why this maudlin grief?" cried Clermistonlee, in a voice of
thunder.  "Why speak of Alison? she sleeps in peace in the old aisles
of St. Marcel, in Paris, and are her ashes to be ever thrown upon me
thus?  S'death! away, sirrah.  Get thee gone, or the sack tankard may
follow _that_!"

And plucking off his long black wig, he flung it full in Juden's face.

Without making any immediate reply, the latter picked up the ample
wig, carefully brushed the flowing curls with his hand, and hung it
upon the knob of a chair.  He then turned to leave the room, but
pausing, said slyly--

"Then, my Lord, ye dinna want to ken where this bonnie bird could be
netted.  I could cast your hawk to the perch in a minute."

"Art sure of that, sirrah?"

"My thumb on't, Clermistonlee, I will."

"You are a pawkie auld carle, Juden," said his master, in an altered
voice; "but tell with brevity what ye know of this matter."

"Lucky Elshender, a cottar body at St. Rocque, owre the Burghmuir
yonder, was nurse to the Lady Lilian--yea, and to her mother before
her.  Though as wicked and cankered an auld carlin as ever tirled a
spindle, or steered hell-kail, she was ane leal and faithful servitor
to the house o' Bruntisfield, for her gudeman and his twa sons died
in their stirrups by Sir Archibald's side, on that black day by the
Keithing Burn.  Sae, Clermistonlee, as she is a body mickle trusted
by the family, if any woman or witch in a' braid Scotland can
enlighten ye anent this matter, it is Lucky Elshender.  And maybe my
Lord Mersington (he's asleep, the gomeral body) will be sae gude as
keep in memory, that there is not an auld wife in the three Lothians
mair deserving o' a fat tar-barrel bleezing under her, in respect o'
puir Meg's mischanter."

"Right, Juden," replied his master.  "She may be brought to the stake
yet, though the taste for such exhibitions is somewhat declining
among our gentles.  To-morrow I will have her dragged to the Laigh
Chamber; and if there is any truth in her tongue, or blood in her
fingers, I warrant Pate Pincer's screws will produce both.  Take
these, Juden, as earnest of the largess I will give if the scent
holds good."

But Juden drew back from the proffered gold pieces.

"If I am to serve ye, my Lord, as a leal vassal and servitor ought,
and as I served your honoured faither before ye, and my forbears did
yours in better and braver times, ye will hold me excused from
touching a bodle o' this reward, or ony other beyond my yearly fee
and livery coat.  Keep your gowd, Clermistonlee, for faith ye need it
mair than auld Juden Stenton; and sae, as my een are gathering
straws, I will bid your Lordship a gude morning, and hie cannily away
to my nest, for, by my sooth! there's the Norloch shining through the
window shutters like silver in the braid day light."  And so saying,
Juden withdrew with a jaunty step, pleased with his own magnanimous
refusal.

Though a good-hearted man in the main, and one, who (where his
master's honour, interest, fancy, or aggrandizement were not
concerned) would not have injured a fly, then how much less a human
being, Juden Stenton had thus without the slightest scruple set fire
to a train which might end in the ruin and misery of an already
unfortunate family, and the dishonour and destruction of an amiable
and gentle girl, in whose fortunes and misfortunes we hope to
interest the reader still more anon.




CHAPTER XII.

THE COTTAGE OF ELSIE.

  "Ha! honest nurse, where were my eyes before?
  I know thy faithfulness and need no more."
                                        ALLAN RAMSAY.


Several days elapsed without our tyrannical voluptuary being able to
do anything personally in the discovery, or persecution of the
Napiers.  His wounded hand from neglect became extremely painful, and
his late debauch with Mersington had thrown him into a state so
feverish, that luckily he was compelled to keep within his own
apartments; but obstacles only inflamed his passion and exasperated
his obstinacy.  It would be difficult to analyze the sentiments he
entertained towards Lilian Napier.  Love, in the purer, nobler, and
more exalted idea of the passion he assuredly had not.  His
overweening pride had been bitterly piqued by her hauteur.  The
beauty of her person, and the inexpressible charm of her manner had
first attracted him, and, notwithstanding the studied coldness with
which he was treated, the passion of the roué got the better of
judgment.  Lilian's great expectations, too, had farther inflamed his
ardour; but all the attentions which he proffered on every occasion
with inimitable address, were utterly unavailing, and for the first
time the gay Lord Clermistonlee found himself completely baffled by a
girl.  Surprised at her opposition, his pride and constitutional
obstinacy became powerfully enlisted in the affair, and he determined
by forcible abduction, or some such coup-de-main, to subdue the
haughty little beauty to his purpose.  Although he had been unable to
prosecute his amour in person, Juden and others had narrowly watched
the cottage of old Elshender, and brought from thence such reports as
convinced his Lordship that she alone could enlighten him as to the
retreat of Lilian and Lady Grizel, if they were not actually
concealed within her dwelling.

Though a munificent reward had been offered for their discovery,
trusting to the well-known faith and long-tried worth of their aged
vassal, the ladies had found a shelter in her humble residence,
correctly deeming that a house so poor and so near the city walls
would escape unsearched, when one at a distance might not.  There
they dwelt in the strictest seclusion and disguise on the very marge
of their ample estates, and almost within view of the turrets of
their ancient manor-house.

Since the torture to which the unhappy Ichabod Bummel had been
subjected, and his subsequent imprisonment on the Bass Rock (where
Peden of Glenluce, Scott of Pitlochie, Bennett of Chesters, Gordon of
Earlston, Campbell of Cesnock, and others endured a strict captivity
as the price of sedition), Lady Grizel and Lilian hoped that their
involvement with the Orange spies, and their flight, would soon be
alike forgotten, especially now, when they were so utterly ruined and
impoverished by proscription, that they were forced to share the
bounty of their humblest vassal.

Near the old ruined chapel of St. Rocque, and close under the
outspread branches of a clump of lofty beech trees, by the side of
the ancient loan that led to Saint Giles' Grange, nestled the little
thatched cottage of Elsie Elshender.  It was low-roofed, and its
thick heavy thatch was covered with grass and moss of emerald green.
The white-washed walls were massive, and perforated by four small
windows, each about a foot square, but crossed by an iron bar; two
faced the loan in front, and two overlooked the kailyard and byre to
the back.  The cottage had one great clay-built chimney, at the back
of which was a little eyelet hole, affording from the stone
ingle-seats a view of the arid hills of Braid, and the solitary path
that wound over their acclivities to the peel of Liberton, then the
patrimony of the loyal Winrams.  On one side of the door was a turf
seat, on the other a daddingstone, where (in the ancient fashion) the
barley was cleansed every morning, for the use of the family.  This
humble residence contained only a _but_ and a _ben_, or inner and
outer apartment, and both were furnished with box-beds opening in
front with doors.  The first chamber, though floored with hard beaten
clay, was as clean as whitening and sprinkled sand could make it; a
large fire of wood and peats blazed on the rude hearth; and in its
ruddy light the various rows of Flemish ware, beechwood luggies,
milk-bowies, horn-spoons, and polished pewter arrayed above the
wooden buffet or dresser, were all glittering in that shiny splendour
which a smart housewife loves.  Within the wide fireplace on a pivet
hung a glowing Culross girdle, on which a vast cake was baking.

It was night, but neither lamp nor candle were required; the fire's
warm blaze gave ample light, and a more comfortable little cottage
than old Elsie's when viewed by that hospitable glow, was not to be
found in the three Lothians.  Three oak chairs of ancient
construction, a table similar, a great meal girnel in one corner,
flanked by a peat bunker in the other, and an odd variety of stoups,
pitchers, and three-legged stools made up the background.  On the
table lay an old quarto bible from which Lilian read aloud certain
passages every night, Andro Hart's "Psalmes in Scot's meter," and the
"Hynd let loose" of the "Godly Mr. Sheils," who was then in the hands
of the Phillistines, and keeping the Reverend Ichabod Bummel company
in the towers of the Bass.  Two kirn-babies decorated with blue
ribbons, a quaint woodcut of our first parents' joining hands under
what resembled a great cabbage in the Garden of Eden appeared over
the mantel-piece, together with a long rusty partisan with which the
umquhile John Elshender had laid about him like a Trojan on the
battle-field of Dunbar.

Close by the ingle sat his widow Elsie enjoying its warmth, and
listening to the birr of her wheel.  She was a hale old woman of
seventy years, with a nose and chin somewhat prominent; her grey hair
was neatly disposed under a snowwhite cap of that Flemish fashion
which is still common in Scotland, and over which a simple black
ribbon marks widowhood.  Her upper attire consisted of a coarse skirt
of dark blue stuff, over which fell a short linen gown, reaching a
little below her girdle, which bristled with keys, knitting wires,
pincushion, and scissors.  Similarly attired in a short Scottish
gown, which showed to the utmost advantage the full outline of her
buxom figure, her niece Meinie, a rosy, hazel-eyed, and dark-haired
girl of twenty, stood by the meal girnel baking (Anglicé _kneading_),
and as the sleeves of her dress came but a little below the shoulder,
her fair round arms and dimpled elbows did not belie the pretty and
merry face, which now and then peeped round at the group near the
fire.  Two of these ought perhaps to have been described first.

Disguised as a peasant, Lady Grisel no longer wore her white hair
puffed out by Monsieur Pouncet's skill, but smoothed under a plain
starched bigonet, coif, or mutch (which you will), and very ill at
ease the stately old dame appeared in her hostess's coarse attire.
By way of pre-eminence she occupied the great leathern chair, in
which no mortal had been seated since the decease of John Elshender,
who for forty consecutive years had hung his bonnet on a knob
thereof, while taking his evening doze therein, after a day's
ploughing or harrowing on the rigs of Drumdryan.

Clad in one of the short gowns of Meinie, her foster-sister, Lilian
looked more graceful and decidedly more piquant, than when at home
rustling in lace, frizzled and perfumed; her fair hair was gathered
up in a simple snood like that of a peasant girl; but never had
peasant nor peeress more beautiful or more glossy tresses.  The poor
girl was very pale; constant watching and anxiety, a feeling of utter
abandonment and helplessness should their retreat be traced, had
quite robbed her of that soft bloom, the glow of perfect health and
happiness, her cheeks had formerly worn.

The cottage contained a secret hiding place, constructed by that
"pawkie auld carle," John Elshender, as an occasional retreat in time
of peril, and therein the noble fugitives remained during the day,
issuing forth only at night, when, the windows closed by shutters
within and without, and a well-barred door, precluded all chance of a
sudden discovery.  These precautions were imperatively necessary: had
the fugitives been seen by any one, the exceeding whiteness of their
hands, the softness of their voices, and, above all, the decided
superiority of their air, would have rendered all disguise
unavailing.  In silence and sadness Lady Bruntisfield sat gazing on
the changing features of the glowing embers; but her mind was
absorbed within itself.  Lilian was sewing, or endeavouring to do so;
her downcast eyes were suffused with tears, and from time to time she
stole a glance at Aunt Grisel.  Every sound startled and caused her
to prick her delicate fingers, or snap the thread, until compelled to
throw aside the work; she then drew near her grand-aunt, bowed her
head on her shoulder, and wept aloud.

"Lilian, love!" exclaimed Lady Grisel, endeavouring to command her
own feelings, though the quivering of her proud nether lip showed the
depth of her emotion.  "For my sake, if not for your own, do not
thus, every night, give way to unavailing sorrow and regret."

Lilian's thoughts were wandering to poor Walter Fenton in his prison,
and she still wept.

"Marry come up! it would ill suit this little one to become the wife
of a Scottish baron or gentleman of name!" said the old lady,
pettishly.  "Lilian Napier, those tears become not your blood, whilk
you inherit from a warrior, whom the bravest of our kings said had
nae-peer in arms.  Bethink ye, Lilian!  Ere I was your age, I had
seen my two brothers, Cuthbert and Ninian, cloven down under their
own roof-tree by the Northumbrian Mosstroopers, and brave lads they
were as ever levelled pike or petronel.  O! yet in my ears I hear the
clink of their harness as they fell dead on the flagstones of our
hall; and never may ye hear such sounds, Lilian, for they are hard to
thole.  But I was a brave lassie then, and could bend a hackbut owre
a rampart, or send a dag-shot through an English burgonet, without
wincing or winking once; for my memory gangs back to the days of
gentle King Jamie, ere the Scotsman had learned to give his
ungauntled hand to the Southron."

"Fearfu' times, my leddy," said Elsie, "fearfu' times! waly, waly, I
mind o' them weel."

"They tell us we are one people now," continued the Scottish dame,
with kindling eyes.  "Malediction on those who think so!  I am a Hume
of the Cowdenknowes, and cannot forget that my brothers, my husband,
and his three fair boys poured their heart's blood forth upon English
steel."

"Ill would it become your ladyship to do so," said Elsie, urging her
wheel with increased velocity, and resolving not to be outdone in
garrulity by Lady Grisel.  "Weel mayest thou greet my bonnie bairn
Lilian, for these are fearfu' times for helpless women bodies, when
the strong hand and sharp sword can hardly make the brave man haud
his ain; but they are as nothing to what I have seen, when the
doolfu' persecution was hot in the land.  I mind the time when,
trussed up wi' a tow like a spitted chucky, I was harled away behind
that neer-do-well trooper, Holsterlie, and dookit thrice in
Bonnington-linn by Claverse' orders, and just as the water rose aboon
my mutch, gif I hadna cried 'God save King Charles and curse the
Covenant,' I hadna been spinning here to-night.  Weary on't, I've aye
had a doolfu' cramp since that hour."

"A piece of a coffin keepeth away the cramp, Elsie, but 'tis an unco
charm, and one that I like not."

"Gude keep us! how many puir folk I have seen in my time hanged, or
shot, or writhing in great bodily anguish in the iron buits, wi'
lighted gun-matches bleezing between their birselled fingers, and
expiring in agonies awfu' to see and fearfu' to remember, and a'
rather than abjure the Holy Covenant and bless the King."

"And rightly were they served, false rebels!" said Lady Bruntisfield,
striking her cane on the floor.

"But let the persecutors tak' heed," continued Elsie, heedless of the
dame's Cavalier prejudices, "for their foot shall slide in due time
(as the blessed word sayeth), the day of their calamity is at hand,
and the sore things that are coming upon them make haste."

"O hush, dear Elsie," said Lilian, "you know not who may hear you."

"True, Madame Lilian," continued the old woman, "and your words are a
burning reproach against those who make it treason to whisper the
word, unless to the sound o' drums and shawlms, and organs.  These
are fearfu' times."

"Toots, nurse, I have seen waur," said Lady Bruntisfield impatiently.

"Aye, my Leddy, in the year fifty, when the army o' that accursed
Cromwell came up by Lochend brawly in array o' battle, wi' the sun o'
a summer morning glinting on their pike-heads and steel caps;
marching they were, but neither to tuck of drum nor twang of horn,
but to a fushionless English hymn, whilk they aye skirled on the eve
o' battle.  But our braw lads beat the auld Scots' march, and my
heart warmed at the brattle o' their drums and the fanfare o' the
trumpets.  O, their thousands were a gallant sight to see, a' lodged
in deep trenches by Leith Loan, and the green Calton braes covered
wi' men-at-arms, and bristling wi' spears and brazen cannon!  On the
topmost rock waved the banner o' the godly Argyle, and a' the craigs
were swarming wi' his wild Hielandmen in their chain jackets and
waving tartans.  An awfu' time it was for me and mony mair!  My puir
gudeman (whom God sain) rode in the Lowden Horse, under Sir
Archibald's banner (Heaven rest him too).  That morning I grat like a
bairn when hooking the buff coat on his buirdly breiest, and clasping
the steel helmet on his manly broo, (O, hinnie Lilian, ne'er may ye
hae to do that for the man ye loe!) ere he gaed forth to battle for
this puir cot, his little bairns, and me.  But heigh! it was a brave
sight, and a bonnie, to see our Lowden lads sweeping the English
birds o' Belial before them like chaff on the autumn wind, though my
heart was faint, and fluttered like a laverock in the hawk's grasp,
and I trembled and prayed for my puir man Jock.  My een were ever on
Sir Archibald's red plume----"

"Red and blue, gules and argent, were his colours, Elsie," said Lady
Grisel, whose tears fell fast.  "O, nursie, my ain hand twined them
in his helmet."

"True, my leddy," continued the old woman, whose strong feelings
imparted a force to her language, "my een were ever on that waving
plume, for well I kent where the Laird was, John Elshender was sure
to be if in life.  Aye, Lilian, hinnie, Sir Archibald's voice was as
a trumpet in the hour of strife.  'Bruntisfield!  Bruntisfield!
bridle to bridle, lads!'  We heard him shout on every sough o' wind,
'God and the King!' and ever an' anon his uplifted sword flashed
among the English helmets like the levin brand on a winter night, and
mony a gay feather, and mony a gay fellow fell before it."

"Peace, Elsie, enough!" said Lady Grisel, weeping freely at the
mention of her husband, who had greatly distinguished himself in that
cavalry encounter, where Cromwell's attack on Edinburgh was so
signally repulsed.  "If you love me, good nurse, I prythee cease
these reminiscences!"

"Weel, my lady, but muckle mair could I tell doo Lilian o' these
fearfu' times," continued the garrulous old woman, who loved (as the
Scots all do) to speak of the dead and other days; "muckle indeed,
for an auld carlin sees unco things in a lang lifetime.  But,
dearsake, your ladyship, dinna greet sae, for better times _will_
come, and bethink ye they that thole overcome, for when things are at
the warst, the're sure aye to mend; sae spake the godly Mr. Bummel to
those who outlived that fearfu' night in the Whigs' vault at
Dunottar."

"Ah!" said Lilian shuddering, for she thought of Walter Fenton.
"That was a dark dungeon, nurse, was it not?"

"Deep, and dark, and vaulted, howkit in the whinrock, yet therein
were ane hundred three score and seventeen o' God's persecuted
creatures thrust, and there they expired in the agony and thirst,
such as the rich man suffered in hell--where Lauderdale suffers noo.
Ah, hinnie, it was a dowie place; the Water-hole of the town guard is
a king's chamber in comparison; it is black, damp, and slimy as a
tod's den."

"Oh, madam, it is just in such a place they have confined poor
Walter--I mean this young man whom we have involved in our
misfortunes," said Lilian, in tears and confusion.  "It is ever
before me, since the night you sent me to him.  Dear Aunt Grisel, you
cannot conceive all he endures at present, and is yet to endure."

"He is of low birth, Lilian, and therefore better able than we to
endure indignity," said Lady Bruntisfield, somewhat coldly.  "Yet I
hope he shall not die--"

"Die!" reiterated Lilian, piqued at her kinswoman's coolness; "ah,
why such a thought?"

"I sorrow for him as much as you, Lilian.  The young man seemed good
and gentle, with a bearing far above his humble fortune, and a comely
youth withal."

Lilian made no reply, but a close observer would have perceived that
her blue eyes sparkled and the colour of her cheek heightened with
pleasure as Lady Grisel spoke,

"And said he of the council threatened him with torture?" she
continued.

"Clermistonlee--"

"Ah!" ejaculated Lady Grisel.

"Eh, sirs?" added Elsie.

"Clermistonlee," continued Lilian, shuddering, "would have had him
torn limb from limb, but for the intercession of Claverhouse."

"And for what does he hate the youth?"

"Permitting me to escape, I presume," replied Lilian, raising her
head with a little hauteur.

"Claverse'!" said Elsie, in a low voice; "then this is the first gude
I have heard o' him.  Folk say he is in league wi' the de'il (Heaven
keep us!) and that when the satanic spirit is in him, his black een
flash like wildfire in a moss-hagg.  Certes!  I'll no forget that
fearfu' day when he would hae dookit me to death for a word or twa."

"Colonel Grahame was guilty of most abominable ungallantry, Elsie;
and yet I do not think he would have ducked me."

"Ungallantry, Lilian!" said Lady Grisel, grasping her cane, "ye
should say a breach of law, ye sillie lassie.  Our barony hath power
of pit and gallows by charter from Robert the Auld Farrand, and it
was a daring act and a graceless, to drag a vassal from our bounds,
when I could have hanged her myself on the dule-tree, by a word of my
mouth!"  (Elsie winced.)  "But he stood the youth's friend, you say?"

"Yes, and what dost think, nurse Elsie, so did old Beardie Dalyel!"

"Marvellous! but mind ye the proverb, _Hawks dinna pyke out hawks'
een_.  The lad wears buff and steel, and eats his beef and bannock by
tuck of drum; and sae baith Claverse' and Dalyel shewed him that
mercy whilk a sanct o' God's oppressed kirk, would hae sued in vain
wi' clasped hands and bended knees."

"Ah, nurse, you don't know this young man.  He is so mild-eyed and
gentle, that Dalyel--"

"Meinie, ye hizzie, the cakes are scouthering!  Dalyel! folk say his
mother was in love wi' the deil; and my son Hab (a black day it was
too when he first mounted his bandoleers,) ance saw a kail-stock
scorched to the very heart when the auld knicht spat on it--but
fearfu' men are suited to fearfu' times."

"Hush, Elshender," said Lady Grisel; "they are indeed times when we
must fear the corbies on the roof, and the swallow under the eaves.
One might deem the council to have a familiar fiend at their command,
(like that fell warlock Weir, whose staff went errands,) for nought
passes in cot or castle on this side of the highland frontier, but
straightway they are informed of it.  From whence could they have
tidings that our gallant kinsman Quentin, and that fule body Bummel
were at Bruntisfield?  Landed at midnight from the Dutch frigate near
the mouth of the lonely Figget Burn, they were secretly admitted to
our house, in presence only of my baillie and most familiar
servitors, who would not betray me.  I rejoice the captain hath
escaped their barbarities--but Ichabod, poor man!--I suppose his
earthly troubles are well nigh over."

"A dreich time he'll have o't on the lonely Bass," said Meinie,
turning the savory cakes, and blowing her pretty fingers.  "There is
naething there but gulls flapping and skirling, the soughing wind and
roaring waves; but it will be a braw place to preach in, gif the
red-coats let him.  Oh, it would be the death o' me to be among these
red-coats."

"Unless Hab Elshender were one," said Lilian: and Meinie blushed, for
the linking of two names together has a strange charm to a young
heart.

"Ou' aye," laughed the light-hearted girl; "but Maister Ichabod may
cool his lugs blawing gospel owre the craigs, to the north wind, or
gieing the waves a screed o' that blessed "_Bombshell_," he aye
havers o'.  Better that than skirling a psalm at the Bowfoot, till
the doomster's axe comes down wi' a bang, and sends his head
chittering into a basket.  Ugh!'"

"Meinie, peace wi' this discourse, whilk beseems not!" said Elsie
with great asperity.  "I heard the lips o' the godly Renwick pray
audibly, after his head lay in Pate Pincer's basket.  Eh, sirs! what
a head it is _now_.  Yet the Netherbow guard watch it wi' cocked
matches day and night, for there is mony a bold plot made by the
Cameronians to carry it awa."

"But our unfortunate friend the preacher--how dearly, by his crushed
limbs, has he paid for his zeal in the cause of the Dutch prince!
Yet, as Heaven knoweth, I knew not that letters of treason to our
Scottish nobles were in his possession, or never would he have
darkened the door of Bruntisfield.  He deceived me; let it pass.  Sir
Archibald, thou rememberest well my husband, Elsie?--'tis well that
he sleeps in his grave.  Oh, judge what _he_ would have thought of
our downfal and degradation!"

"My mind misgives me, my lady, but Sir Archibald's kirk was the
fushionless ane o' episcopacy, and, indeed, he just gaed wherever the
troops marched, with trumpets blawing and kettle-drums beating waefu'
to hear in the day o' the Lord."

This last speech somewhat displeased Lady Grisel, who struck her cane
thrice on the clay floor, and there ensued a long pause, broken only
by creaking of the beeches in the adjoining grove, and the birr of
Elsie's wheel as it whirled by the ruddy fire.

"Come, your Leddyship," said Elsie, "let byegones be byegones, and
we'll be canty while we may.  Meinie can sing like a laverock in the
summer morning; sae, lassie, gie forth your best sang to please our
lady, and then we'll hae our luggies o' milk, and bit o' your
bannocks, a screed o' the blessed gospel, and syne awa to our rest,
for its waxing late."

Meinie of course was about to enter some bashful protest, when the
soft voice of her foster-sister said,--

"Do, dearest Meinie, and I will join thee; 'twill raise the spirits
of good aunt Grisel.  Ah, if I had only my spinnet, the cittern, or
even my flageolet here!"

"What is your pleasure, then, Madam Lilian?" asked Meinie,
curtseying, "_Lady Anne Bothwell's Lament_, or _The Broom of the
Cowdenknowes_?"

"Anything but the last," said Lady Bruntisfield.  "The Knowes of
Cowden hath passed away from the house of Hume, and bonnie though the
golden broom may be, it blooms for us no more."

"Sing '_Dunbarton's drums_,' Meinie," said Lilian, "you hum it from
morning till evening."

"And so do _you_, Madam," said Meinie slyly and bluntly; "but I loe
the merry measure."

"Ewhow, that's because o' my wild son Hab!" said Elsie, laughing.
"Mak' speed, lassie--our lady waits."

Meinie made another low old-fashioned curtsey, and then, while
continuing her task, sang the song and march composed for the Scots
Royals, or Dunbarton's Musqueteers, and which had then been popular
in Scotland for some years.  Lilian at times added her softer notes
to Meinie's, and their clear voices made the rough rafters, hollow
box-beds, and deep bunkers of the old cottage ring to that merry old
air:--

  "Dunbarton's drums beating bonnie, O,
  Remind me o' my Johnnie, O,

added Elsie, beating time with her feet to the mellow voices of the
girls; but Lady Bruntisfield heard them not, for with her glistening
eyes fixed on the glowing embers, she gradually sunk into a deep
reverie.  Animated each by her own secret thoughts, the girls sang
with tenderness and enthusiasm, and all were so much engaged that
none of the four perceived a _fifth_ personage, who suddenly made his
appearance among them.

In a corner of the cottage stood a great oak chest, apparently a meal
girnel, but having a false floor, and being in reality the mouth of
the subterranean place of concealment and escape, communicating with
the grove behind the cottage.  Such outlets were numerous in all
large mansions; and the dangerous times of the Solemn League had
caused the umquhile John Elshender to construct such a sallyport from
his humble dwelling; and on several occasions of peril it had saved
him from being hanged over his own door by Malignants, Covenanters,
and English, or whoever had the upperhand for the time.  Slowly the
girnel lid was raised, and the glowing firelight shone on the steel
breast-plate and bandoleers of a musqueteer.  He was a ruddy-faced
young man, with the prominent cheek-bones and shrewd expression of
the Lowland peasantry: stout and athletic in figure, his keen grey
eyes took a rapid survey of the cottage under the peak of his morion.
His face expressed surprise and curiosity, but as the song proceeded
he stepped slowly and softly out, and when it was concluded stood
close to the rosy and buxom Meinie.

"Hurrah!" he exclaimed, and gave her a resounding kiss on each cheek.
The wheel fell from the relaxed hand of Elsie, and a shriek burst
from Lilian, who believed they were betrayed, and threw herself
before her aged kinswoman.

"Hab, Hab, ye graceless loon," screamed Elsie, as her son now kissed
her, "how dare ye gliff folk this gate?"

"Hoots, Hab, ye've toozled a' my tap-knot," said Meinie, affecting to
pout; "ye came on me noo like a ghaist or a spunkie."

"Heyday, Meinie, my doo! ye want to be kissed again; do ye think I
have trailed a pike these eight years under my Lord Dunbarton,
without learning to tak' baith castles and kimmers by storm."

"Aye-aye, you are as bad as the warst o' them, I doubt not.  Lasses,
indeed--dinna come near me again."

"Hoity, toity, does she not want another kiss?"

"Haud, you wild loon," said his mother, in great glee; "do ye no see
who are present?"

"An auld neighbour carlin, I think, and as bonnie a young lass as I
ever saw on the longest day's march, d--n me."

Halbert suddenly paused, and became very much perplexed.  The blood
rushed into his swarthy face, as with an awkward but profound salute
he said, in an altered voice,--

"I crave your pardon a thousand times, noble madam; and yours, sweet
Mistress Lilian.  My humble duty to ye both, though it is not long
since I had the happiness to meet you.  It goes to my heart to see
you in attire so unbefitting your station.  O, Lady Grisel, I ken
oure well of all that has come to pass, for I was one of the thirty
files of musqueteers, that were with Finland at the auld place on
that sorrowful night last month.  They are hard times these, my lady."

"Fearfu' times, my son," chorussed Elsie.

"True, Halbert," said the old lady.  "Ruin and proscription now level
the most noble with the mean, the most unoffending with the guilty,
and blend all with the common herd.  But, Halbert, I bid ye welcome,
my man, and God bless ye!"

"And I too, Habbie," added Lilian; "for I cannot forget when we
bird-nested in the wood yonder, and gathered gowans and flowers on
the sunny braes in summer.  Oh!  Hab, in all your soldiering, I will
warrant ye have never been so happy as we were then."

The eyes of the soldier glistened.

"True it is, madam," said he, as slightly and bashfully he raised to
his lip the beautiful hand she extended towards him; "true, indeed.
I have spent many a happy hour under the canvass tent, and birled
many a wine horn merrily in the Flanders hostels and French cabarets;
but never have I seen such happy hours as those we spent when we were
bairns, amang the oakwoods of the auld place upbye yonder.  Often
hath brave Mr. Fenton, when tramping by my side on the long dusty
march, recalled their memory in such wise that my heart swelled under
its iron case.  And truly, honoured madam, though the same heart is
wrung to see you dressed in cousin Meinie's humble duds, never saw I
lassie that looked sae winsome.  Od rot it! how came your ladyship to
let that ill-omened corbie to darken your door?  when sure ye might
have been that dool and mischief would meet thereafter on your
hearthstane.  This goose Bummel----"

"Oh, Hab, ye gomeral, wheesht!" said Elsie, interrupting this
somewhat laboured address.  "Your notions o' ministers are gathered
frae your tearing, swearing, through-ganging, horse-racing, and
hard-drinking Episcopal curates and chaplains, that swagger about wi'
cockades in their bonnets and swords at their thighs, chucking every
bonnie lass under chin, and gieing ilka sabbath a sleepy,
fushionless, feckless, drouthie, cauldrifed discourse, whilk hath
neither the due birr nor substantious, soul-feeding effect o' the
true gospel, but savours rather o' the abomination----"

"Ahoi, mother, halt!--egad, or mind the iron gags, the fetterlocks,
and thumbikins!" cried her son, with an alarm that was no way
lessened by a violent knocking at the cottage door, where, at that
moment, the iron ring of the risp was drawn sharply and repeatedly up
and down.

The hearts of the poor fugitives forgot to beat!  Insult,
imprisonment, banishment, or worse, rushed upon the mind of Lady
Bruntisfield; the dark, gloating eyes and terrible presence of
Clermistonlee, upon that of Lilian: but Halbert Elshender snatched up
his musquet and blew the match till it glowed on his sun-burned face,
an action which made the women grow paler still.

"Beard of the devil!  Get into the girnel, Lady Grizel; and you,
madam Lilian--quick!" exclaimed the soldier in a vehement whisper.

"Halbert," faltered Lady Bruntisfield, "your father was a leal and
faithful vassal----"

"And I, his only son, will stand by you and yours to the death, even
as he would have done.  In--in--away to the Beech-grove, ere worse
come of it.  Mother, ye donnart jaud, doun wi' the lid, and pouch the
key.  And now, may I run the gauntlet from right to left, if you
(whoever you are) that tirl the risp so hard get not a taste of King
Jamie's new sweyne-feather!"  He screwed his dagger or bayonet to the
muzzle of his matchlock, and then demanded in a loud voice--

"Stand, stranger.  Who goes there?"

"One who must speak with Lady Bruntisfield, whom I know to be
concealed here.  Open, and without a moment's delay."

"Lost--lost!  Gude Lord, keep thy hand over _them_ and us!" murmured
Elsie, clinging to Meinie, as another loud and impatient blow shook
the well-barred door, and found a terrible echo in the trembling
hearts of the fugitives and their protectors.




CHAPTER XIII.

A REVERSE.

  A fredome is a noble thing!
  Fredome makes man to have liking;
  Fredome al solace to man gives,
  He lives at ease that frely lives.
                              BARBOUR'S BRUCE.


Walter was still where we left him in the eleventh chapter, an inmate
of the city prison.

The gloom, monotony, and degradation affected his mind, not less than
the confinement and noxious vapours of the place did his health, and
he felt his strength and spirit failing fast.  The longing for
freedom became one moment almost too intense to be borne, and the
next he sank into a listless apathy, careless alike of liberty and
life.  And as his health suffered, and his ardour died his aspect
became (though he knew it not) more haggard and ghastly on each
succeeding day.

The recollection of Lilian's midnight visit, alone threw a ray of
light through the gloom of his clouded fortune; over that event he
mused, at times, with unalloyed pleasure.  Anxiously he watched every
night, animated by a faint hope that she might come again; but Lilian
came no more.

"She came merely to thank me for my service, and I shall soon be
forgotten," he would say; and then came vividly on his mind, the
blight and disgrace which had been heaped upon him, and the abyss
into which he had been cast.  Keenly and bitterly he now felt his
loneliness in the world.  All this he might have escaped, perhaps,
but for the evil offices of the malevolent Clermistonlee; and when he
contemplated how dim and distant was the prospect of ever again
rising even to his former humble station, his heart was wrung; for,
with the fetters of a coward and slave, he felt that he possessed the
soul and the fire of a hero.

"Though poor and unpretending, I was a gentleman, so far as spirit,
bearing, and manners could make me.  I have done nothing that is vile
or dishonourable; but now, after fetters have dishonoured these
hands, and prison-walls enclosed me, can I ever again look my equals
in the face?  Yes! and may I perish, if Randal of Clermistonlee shall
not learn that in time!"

He spoke fiercely; for he had now, from very solitude, acquired a
habit of uttering his thoughts aloud.  He could not suppress his
dread that Lilian Napier, in the present proscribed and friendless
state of her family, might too easily fall into the toils of that
famous and powerful roué, whose crimes and excesses, in a country so
rigidly moral, were regarded with a horror and detestation, that made
women generally shun his touch as they passed him in the street, and
his glance by the wayside.  Remembering his parting words, the bitter
threat, and the fierce aspect of his visage and polecat eyes when he
last beheld him, Walter was justly under considerable apprehension,
that he might again be summoned before the Council, and either have
his sentence altered to one of greater severity, or have its most
degrading clauses carried into immediate execution.  In fact, Lord
Clermistonlee's temporary indisposition alone deferred such a
catastrophe.  Consequently day after day passed; the weeks ran on,
but he never saw another face than that of a grim old city-guardsman,
who each morning brought him a coarse cake, a bowl of porridge, and a
pitcher of water; and, acting strictly to the tenor of his orders,
withdrew without a word of greeting or condolence.

Thus day and night rolled on in weary and intense monotony, and poor
Walter by turns grew more fierce and impatient, or more listless and
apathetic.  Sometimes he dosed and dreamed away the day, on his bed
of damp and fetid straw, and by night paced slowly the floor of that
little vault, every stone and joint and feature of which, became
indelibly impressed on his memory.

But a crisis came sooner than he had anticipated.

One night he was roused from a deeper and heavier slumber than usual
by the unwonted light of a large lamp flashing on his eyes; he
started, awoke, and the glare blinded him for a moment.  Three
persons were close beside him.  One was the odious, sinister, and
hard-featured Gudeman of the establishment; the second was the old
soldier who acted as javelleur; and the third was a gentleman whose
lofty bearing and rich attire caused Walter to spring at once to his
feet.  He was a dark-complexioned and very handsome man, bordering on
forty years of age; he wore a coat of rose-coloured velvet, slashed
at the breast and shoulders with white satin; his breeches and
stockings were of spotless white silk; his boots of pale buff, and
accoutred with massive gold spurs.  His voluminous black wig was
shaded by his plumed Spanish hat, the band of which sparkled with
brilliants; while a long rapier, gold-headed cane and diamond ring
showed he was quite a man of fashion.  It was George Douglas, the
gallant Earl of Dunbarton.

"'Sdeath!  Walter, my boy, I little thought to find you here," said
he.  "Faugh! this place is like the old souterrains of Alsace or
Brisgau; yet here it was that the great Argyle once sojourned!"

"My Lord--my Lord!" exclaimed Walter joyfully--"how unexpected is
this honour!"

"I returned only this forenoon from London."

"A long journey and a perilous, my Lord.  I congratulate you on your
safe return."

"Thanks, my boy.  The Countess suffered much, she is so delicate, and
my private coach, though carrying only six inside and six without,
(beside our baggage) rumbled so heavily--but we were only five weeks
on the way--a very tolerable journey."

"Very; and still, my Lord, I have heard of it being done in three;
but the roads----"

"O they are pretty good now, I assure you, till one reaches the
debateable land and the old boundary road at Berwick.  There are
bridges over most of the rivers too; but the lonely places swarm with
footpads and highwaymen.  Wilt believe it? we had only one break down
by the way, and two encounters with gentlemen of the post.  Ah! I
winged one varlet near the Rerecross of Stanmore one night, and to be
a soldier's wife--egad how the Countess wept!  Immediately upon my
arrival at Bristo, I was waited on by the Laird of Finland, who told
me your story, and, as Lady Dunbarton would not rest until her young
protégée was at liberty, I had to bestir myself, and so--am here."

"I am deeply indebted to your dear Countess, my Lord Earl," replied
Walter with glistening eyes; "I owe her a thousand favours, which I
hope circumstances will never require me to repay."

"Thou art a fine fellow, Walter," replied the Earl, striking him
familiarly on the shoulder; "and thine inborn goodness of heart gains
and deserves the love of all who know thee.  The Countess----"

"O would that I could thank her now for years of kindness and
protection, when I was a poor and forlorn little boy!" exclaimed
Walter with deep feeling.

"And why not, lad? a coach awaits us at the close-head, and you are a
free man."

"Free! my Lord, _free_!"

"Free as the wind, and without a stain on thy scutcheon."

"_My_ scutcheon," repeated Walter coldly.  "Ah, my Lord, why jest
with my nameless obscurity."

"Think not so ungenerously of me.  The day shall come, Walter, when
we may see the argent and bend azure of the old Fentounes of that ilk
(I don't doubt the Lyon Herald will make thee a sprout of that
ancient stock) quartered, collared, and mantled with your own
personal achievements.  Tush, lad! the wide world is all before you,
and you have your sword.  Think how many Scottish cavaliers of
fortune have led the finest armies, and won the greatest battles, and
the proudest titles in Europe!  I have this moment come from the
Council Chamber, where with half a dozen words, I have reversed all
thy doom, and had it expunged from their black books."

"I would, noble Earl, that the same generosity had been extended to
the Napiers of Bruntisfield."

"Nor was it withheld.  What think you of that beautiful minx Annie
Laurie of Maxwelton (I warrant thou knowest her--all our gay fellows
do) waylaying me in her sedan.  We met at the Cowgate Stairs, which
ascend to the Parliament House, and there desiring her linkboys and
liverymen to halt right in that narrow path, she vowed by every bone
in her fan, I should never get to Council to-night--ha! ha! unless I
pledged my word as a belted Earl to have her friends the Napiers
pardoned as well as thee.  A brave damsel, faith! and would do well
to follow the drum.  Zooks!  I wish young Finland had her."

"And the Napiers----"

"Are pardoned; but they have fled, egad! nobody knows where.  How
exasperated Perth, Balcarris, and other high-flying cavaliers were by
the influence I seemed to possess over the votes at the Board, having
won alike the noble Claverhouse, the ferocious Dalyel, and that
addlepated senator, Swinton of Mersington."

"Lord Dunbarton, I have no words to express my feelings."

"Pshaw! in all this affair I see only the meanness of the despicable
world.  Deeming thee a poor and friendless lad, whose whole hope was
the fortune of war, and whose only inheritance a poor half-pike,
these blustering Lords of Council did not hesitate to misuse thee
shamefully.  Here thou art immured and forgotten, until one comes, on
whom they reckoned not, but who, in addition to a coronet, writes
himself Knight of the Thistle, Commander of the Scottish Forces, and
Colonel of a devoted regiment of fifteen hundred brave hearts as ever
marched to battle, and lo! his wish is law, his breath bears all
before it.  Walter Fenton, have a soul above the petty injuries of
lordlings such as these, and cock thy feather not a whit the less for
having endured their jack-in-office frowns."

Here the Gudeman rattled his keys, and awe alone kept his
constitutional impatience in check.

"And how did your Lordship overcome the hatred of Clermistonlee, my
most bitter persecutor?"

"O, he is quite a devil of a fellow that!  Ha! ha!  He got a rapier
thrust a few nights ago, which has luckily confined him to his
apartments, and deprived the Council of his pleasant company and
amiable advice.  Ah, he is a brave fellow, too, Clermistonlee; but
though an expert swordsman and accomplished cavalier, he is, withal,
too much of a roué and fanfaron for my taste.  And, harkee, Walter, I
have one request to make ere we leave this abominable souterrain;
that you will have no recourse to arms, for the severity with which
as a Privy Councillor he may have treated you."

"Your Lordship's wish was ever a law to me; but if I am set upon----"

"Zounds! then spare not to thrust and slash while hand and hilt will
hold together," said the Earl, as they ascended the spiral stair of
the prison, preceded by the gudeman thereof, who never ceased bowing
until they issued into the dark and narrow alley then named Gourlay's
or Mauchane's Close.  Walters heart beat joyously, and his pulse
quickened as the cool night wind blew upon his blanched but flushing
cheek.

"He must have been a thoroughpaced tyrant, the constructor of this
den of thine, gudeman," said the Earl, surveying the prison as he
handed some silver to the governor; "but I suppose we must pay
largess nevertheless;" and, taking the arm of his companion, they
ascended the steep alley together.  "You have followed my drums now,
Walter; for, let me see----"

"Since Candlemas-tide '85, my Lord."

"How, boy--for three years?"

"Ever since you defeated Argyle's troops at the Muirdykes," said
Walter with a sigh.

"Hah!--is it so?  I have been somewhat forgetful of thee in these
bustling times, but shall make immediate amends.  I have promoted
many a slashed and feathered ruffler when thy quiet merit was passed
unheeded.  You fought under Halkett at Sedgemoor: it was a
well-ordered field that, and had Lord Gray's horse properly flanked
Monmouth's infantry, their Lordships of Feversham and Churchill,
might have had another tale to tell at St. James's.  S'death! we are
likely soon to have such scenes again, for there will be a convulsion
in our politics that will make and unmake many a fair name and noble
patrimony."

"This is a riddle to me, my Lord."

"So much the better--my suspicions would be called treason to King
James by the Lords of the Laigh Chamber.  Our Scottish troops are
concentrating fast round Edinburgh from the West and Borders--even
our frontier garrison at Greenlaw is withdrawn here, so perhaps the
Northumbrian thieves will get out their horns again, as they did in
Cromwell's time after that day of shame at Dunbar.  You will come
with me to Bristo, of course?" continued the Earl, as they issued
into that main street which runs the whole length of the old city,
and was long deemed for its bustle, breadth, height, and variety of
architecture the most striking in Europe.

Then it was silent and empty, for the hour was late; the countless
windows of the lofty mansions which shot up to a giant height on each
side, in every variety of the Scottish and Flemish tastes, with
fantastic fronts, of wood or stone, turreted, corbelled and
corbie-stoned, gable-ended, balconied, and bartizanned, were dark and
closed, or lighted only by the silver moon which bathed one side of
the street in a flood of pale white lustre, while the other was
immersed in obscure and murky shadow.  The long vista of the
Lawnmarket was closed by the gloomy and picturesque masses of the
great gothic cathedral, the façade of the Tolbooth, and the high
narrow edifices of the Craimes, a street wedged curiously between St.
Giles and the place now occupied by the Exchange.

A hackney-coach like a clumsy herse, one of the few introduced into
Edinburgh only fifteen years before, and consequently deemed a
splendid and luxurious mode of locomotion, stood at the mouth of the
Pend or archway.  The driver, a tall, gaunt fellow, dressed in a
plain gaberdine of that coarse stuff, with which a recent Act of the
Scottish Parliament compelled the humbler classes to content
themselves, stood bonnet in hand by the heavy flight of steps which
enabled first the Earl and then Walter to ascend into the recesses of
the vehicle.  The door was closed with deliberation; the driver
clambered into his place on the roof, and slowly and solemnly his two
horses dragged the lumbering machine up the Lawn-market, over the
rough and steep causeway of which it rumbled like a vast caravan.

"We make great advances in the art of luxury, we moderns," said the
Earl; "Ah! twenty years ago there was nothing of this sort!  And
there is that new invention, the snaphaunce-lock, which is as likely
to supersede the good old match, as the screw-hilted dagger of
Bayonne is to eclipse the glories of the old sweynes-feather.  Were
you ever in one of these Dutch conveyances before, Walter?"

"Once only, my Lord, when I accompanied Lady Dunbarton to Her Grace
of Lauderdale's levee at Holyrood."

"Though our preachers inveigh bitterly against them, as dark places
wherein to cloak wickedness and knavery, and in opposition uphold the
good old fashions of saddles, pillions, and sedans, I think this is a
pleasant and a useful contrivance withal."

"But will you be pleased to remember that my present attire is a very
unfitting one for the presence of the Countess?--soiled as it is by
the contaminations of that noxious vault----"

"Right, Walter--and I had forgotten that my little Lætitia is
somewhat fatigued with her journey.  You can pay your devoirs in the
morning, and tell Finland, Gavin of that Ilk, the Chevalier
Drumquhasel, and such other of my cavaliers as have arrived in the
city, that we shall be glad to see them at our morning déjeûné at
Bristo.  I have ordered a glorious bombarde of choice canary to be
set abroach; so don't forget to tell them that.  But anent the
Napiers," continued the earl, "they are intimate friends of yours, I
presume?"

"Friends!" stammered Walter; "alas, my lord, do you think that the
proud and stately old Lady of Bruntisfield, would rank a poor and
obscure lad like me among her friends?  Save your noble self and the
Countess, I have no friends on earth--none."

"Ungrateful rogue! thou forgettest thy fifteen hundred comrades, each
of whom is a friend.  But by all the devils, there is a mystery in
this!  'Tis quite a romance.  What tempted you to run tilt against
the council in this matter?  No answer.  It will not pass muster with
me, Mr. Fenton.  A pretty damoiselle is enough, I know, to tempt any
young gallant to swerve from his strict line of duty.  I found it so
in my bachelor days.  There is old Mackay of Scoury, who now commands
our Scots in the service of the States'-General, openly deserted from
us in Holland (when we followed the banner of Condé), and joined the
enemy--for what? ha, ha! the love of a rosy little Dutch housewife,
who had gained his weak side, the Lord knows how; for we Scots
musqueteers considered ourselves great connoisseurs in women, wine,
and horse-flesh.  Apropos! of Lilian Napier--I doubt not you know
where this little one is concealed."

"I do, my lord," answered Walter, with vivacity.

"Heydey!  I am right, then," laughed the gay nobleman, "you got a
kiss, I warrant.  _Point d'argent point de Suisses!_ as we used to
say of the Swiss gendarmerie, ha, ha!"

"Thanks, and the consciousness of doing a generous act, were my sole
reward."

"Very likely; but I'll leave the Countess to worm the secret out of
thee.  Ha, ha! 'tis very unlikely that a young spark would peril his
life thus, and look only for a Carthusian's reward from a dazzling
damoiselle of eighteen.  Ho!  I had served under Turrene, Luxembourg,
and Condé, long ere I was thy age, and know well that a bright eye
and ruddy lip--but here is the gate of the Upper Bow, and two fresh
heads grinning on its battlement since I saw it last.  Whose are
they?"

"Holsterlee and some of his comrades dispersed a conventicle among
the Braid hills lately."

"Poor rogues!  If you do not mean to accompany me; we must part here;
and in the course of to-morrow, if you know where the ladies of
yonder old castle at Bruntisfield are in concealment, you will
doubtless acquaint them with the decree I have obtained in their
favour.  But their kinsman, Quentin Napier, can neither be pardoned
nor relaxed from the horn."

"'Tis well," thought Walter.

The Bow, a steep winding street that descended the southern side of
the hill on which the old city stands, was then closed by a strong
gate called the Upper Porte, under the shadow of which the coach
stopped.  On the right a heavy Flemish house projected over the
street, on beams of carved wood; on the left, the house of Weir the
wizard frowned its terrors across the narrow way.  A sentinel opened
the creaking barrier, received the nightly toll, and Walter, after
bidding adieu to the generous Earl, was about to retire, when the
latter called him back.

"Harkee, Fenton; you have far to go, and in these times, when
soldiers are openly murdered in the streets, my rapier may be of some
service should any quarrelsome ruffler cross your path; take it, for
I have pistols."

"A thousand thanks, my lord," replied Walter, receiving from the Earl
a long and richly chased rapier sheathed in crimson velvet.

He threw the embroidered belt over his shoulder, and strode away with
a feeling of pride and elation, to find himself once more a free and
armed man; while the great caravan occupied by the earl, rumbled down
the windings of the narrow street with increased speed, waking all
the echoes of its hollow stone staircases, and scaring those
indwellers who heard them through their dreams; all sounds heard by
night in the Bow being fraught with imaginary terrors, and attributed
to the wandering spirit of that diabolical wizard, who a short time
before had expiated his real and supposed enormities amid a blaze of
tar barrels on the castle hill, and whose uninhabited mansion was
then viewed with horror, as it is still with curiosity.

With a heart brimming with exultation, and glowing with anticipations
of happiness, which for the time made the revolving world in all its
features shine like a beautiful kaleidoscope, Walter pirouétted and
danced down the Lawnmarket and through the narrow Craimes.  Was it
possible that but an hour ago he was so very wretched and degraded?
Was it not all a dream, this new joy, a dream from which he feared to
awake?  Ah, thought he, one requires to have tasted the bitterness of
captivity, to know the value and the glory of freedom.

Again he wore a sword, and the consciousness of bearing arms and
having the spirit to use them, imparted to the cavaliers of other
times a bearing, to which the gentlemen of the present age are
strangers.

As the clanking wicket of the Netherbow closed behind him, the flap
of a night-bird's wing caused an involuntary thrill of disgust; he
looked up to the central tower of the Porte, and, faugh! a huge gled
was winging away heavily from the iron spike whereon a hideous head
scowled at the passers, and by the tangled locks that waved on the
midnight wind around its sweltering features, Walter thought he
recognised the face of the preacher, Ichabod Bummel, of whose fate he
was still in ignorance.  With pity and disgust he hurried on, and,
without molestation or adventure, reached his quarters in the White
Horse Cellar--the place where this eventful narrative commenced a few
weeks before--a spacious and ancient but long-forgotten inn, situated
at the bottom of a small court opening from the Canongate.  Rising
from a great arcade, which formed of old the Royal Mews, this edifice
is now remarkable only for its antiquity and picturesque aspect, its
gables of carved wood, perforated with pigeon-holes, its enormous
stacks of chimneys, and curious windows on the roof.  At the time of
our tale, there was always a body of troops billetted there, greatly
to the annoyance of Master Gibbie Runlet, the host thereof, who found
them neither the most peaceful nor profitable occupants of his
premises.




CHAPTER XIV.

WALTER AND LILIAN.

  She's here! yet O! my tongue is at a loss;
  Teach me, some power, that happy art of speech,
  To dress my purpose up in gracious words,
  Such as may softly steal upon her soul.


The whole of the next day passed ere Walter Fenton found time to
visit the fugitives; he was anxious to be the first bearer of the
good tidings confided to him by the Earl, and luckily intelligence
did not travel very fast in those days.  In Edinburgh there was but
one occasional broadsheet or newspaper, "The Kingdoms Intelligencer,"
and a house situated a mile or two from the city wall, was deemed a
day's journey, distant among wood, rocks, and water.  Thus the rural
residences of the Napiers, Lord Clermistonlee, Sir John Toweris of
Inverleith, Sir Patrick Walker, of Coates, and others, were situated
in places over which the busy streets and crowded squares of the
extended city have spread like the work of magic.

Walter had some difficulty in discovering the exact locality of
Elsie's cottage, which was situated among a labyrinth of haw and
privet hedges, and consequently the evening was far advanced before
he presented himself at her humble abode, and caused the
consternation described in a preceding chapter.

"I must speak instantly with those who are concealed here," said he;
"I am a friend of the Lady Bruntisfield--the bearer of most happy
tidings."

"I think I should know your voice," said Hab, still deliberating, and
puffing at his match.

"And I thine, Halbert Elshender; I am one of Lord Dunbarton's men."

"Welcome, Mr. Fenton!" exclaimed Hab, undoing the door briskly; "I
wish you much joy of being out of yonder devilish scrape."

"How are you back so soon, Hab?  By my faith, I thought you were
browbeating the westland Whigs, and roystering at free quarters among
the stiffnecked carles of Clydesdale."

"And so we were, sir, for three blessed weeks.  Cocks' nails! ilka
man was lord and master, and mair of the billet he had, loundering
the gudeman, kissing the gudewife, and eating the best in cellar and
ambrie, and then settling the lawing with a flash of a bare blade or
a roll on the drum, as Finland and yourself have dune too.  But hech!
things are likely to be otherwise; it's a bad sign when the
nonconformist bodies begin to cock their bonnets in face of the
king's soldiers, as they are doing now."

"Ay, 'tis thought there will be the devil to pay between King James
and the English, who were ever jealous of the Stuart rule.  The
Ladies of Bruntisfield are here, are they not?"

"Maybe sae, and maybe nae," replied Hab cunningly, still keeping his
match cocked.

"How!" asked Walter, frowning, upon which Elsie cried in great alarm,

"Eh, sirs,--Hab, Hab, ye gomeral, speak the gentleman fair."

"To be plain, Mr. Fenton," asked Halbert bluntly, "came ye here as
friend or foe?"

"A late question, when I am within arm's length of you.  Halbert
Elshender, I pledge my honour I am here in honest friendship."

"And quite alone, sir?'

"The deuce!  Sirrah, I am as you see," responded Walter impatiently.
"Mistress Lilian is here, and her noble kinswoman too, I doubt not."

Hab winked knowingly, and knocked on the panels of the vast girnel,
the front of which he opened, and the two fugitives forth stepped,
pale and agitated.  The first sight of Walter's military garb
startled them; but bowing profoundly, he said, in the formal fashion
of the time,

"Lady Bruntisfield, your most obedient humble servant--Mistress
Lilian, yours."

"Your servant, sir," muttered the ladies, and they all bowed to each
other three several times.  Lilian blushed deeply.

"Ah," said Walter, "I have then the happiness to be remembered."

Lady Grisel, on adjusting her spectacles, immediately recognized him,
and held out her hand with a smile, in which hauteur, kindness, and
timidity were curiously blended.

"Welcome, young gentleman; though our fortunes are somewhat clouded
now, I rejoice their shadow has not long blighted yours, and I
congratulate you on your restoration to liberty."

"And I, in turn, wish you every joy at a sudden change of fortune.
The decrees of Council are reversed; your lands, your liberty, your
coat armorial, are restored, and you are free to return to the
ancestral dwelling of your family whenever it pleases you; to cast
aside for ever that humble attire, though, believe me, fair Lilian,
it never appeared to me so graceful or charming as at this moment."

Again Lilian blushed deeply; her bright eyes were full of inquiry and
expression; her cherry mouth, half open, displayed the whiteness of
her firm little teeth, and she never appeared so fascinating to
Walter as, when laying her hand gently on his arm, she said,

"Ah, Mr. Fenton, is this indeed true?"

Of its truth the old lady appeared to have some doubts.  She remained
for a few moments silent and motionless.  Her first thought was one
of rapture; her second of surprise and distrust, for might not this
be a wile of Clermistonlee? might not the price of the young man's
liberty be their betrayal to the Council?  But no! she suppressed the
ungenerous thought, when, bending her keen eyes on Walter, she read
the openness and candour expressed in his handsome face.

"This is indeed a reverse!  O what joy!" she exclaimed; "and yet 'tis
strange," she added, striking her cane with great energy on the clay
floor; "very strange withal, that no macer, usher, herald, or
deputation of Council hath come to me with intimation hereof.  This
is marvellous discourtesy in the Earl of Perth, to a dame of honour,
who hath had the privilege of the tabouret before the Queens of
France and Britain.  Young man, were you specially commissioned to
tell me this happy intelligence?"

"Not exactly," said Walter, colouring in turn; "but it is so pleasant
to be the herald of joy, that I am glad another has not anticipated
me.  Indeed, as the reversal of your sentence was publicly proclaimed
at the cross this forenoon, by the Albany Herald and Unicorn
pursuivant, with tabard and trumpet, I am astonished you have not
heard of it.  But honest Hab's reluctance to admit me--"

"O teach me to be thankful," exclaimed Lady Grisel, raising her
bright grey eyes and clasped hands to Heaven; "to be grateful for
this great and singular mercy!  Then all our persecution is over?"

"My dear madam, it is so, and for ever."

Another burst of acclamation from Hab shook the cottage, and he
kissed Meinie again in the excess of his exultation.

"O nurse Elsie, my dream is read," said Lady Grisel.  "Last night I
thought I saw Sir Archibald's favourite horse--ye mind his auld
trooper, spotless Snawdrift.  A white steed, ye know, Elsie, betokens
intelligence; and his being spurgalled shewed it would be speedy.
His saddle was girth uppermost--"

"Whilk boded luck, and never mair may it leave the house o'
Bruntisfield, thanks to the battling Lord!" said Elsie, piously.

"I am unused to receive boons," said the stately dame; "but would be
glad to know to what or to whom the house of Napier is indebted for
this signal favour of fortune."

"To my generous Lord and Colonel, the princely Dunbarton, whom God
long preserve!  Here are the pardon and reversed decree of
forfeiture; I received them from his countess, who desired me to bear
them to you with her best regards."

"O, Mr. Fenton!" exclaimed Lady Grisel, whose artificial pride now
quite gave way before the natural warmth and gratitude of her heart.
And her broad silver barnacles became dim with tears as she received
the documents which bore the well-flourished signature, "Perth,
Cancellarius," and the seal of Council.  "God knows, good youth," she
continued, pressing Walter's hand in her's, "that if I repined much
at the sad occurrences of the last few weeks, it was for the sake of
this fair child alone.  Alake! at her age to be thrown into poverty
and obscurity were to die a living death--but now--"  Lilian, in a
transport of tears and joy, threw her arms around her aged relative
and kissed her.

"Poverty and obscurity!" thought poor Walter; "How can I dare to love
a being so far above me, when these are all I have to share with her?"

With her snood unbound and her bright hair flying in beautiful
disorder, the lively girl rushed from Elsie to Meinie alternately
kissing and embracing them, till honest Hab began to rub his mouth
with his cuff in expectation of the favour going round; and in her
girlish delight, she seemed a thousand times more charming than when
clad in her long stomacher, and compelled to imitate Lady Grisel's
starched decorum and old-fashioned stateliness of demeanour.

"Ah, good Heavens," she suddenly exclaimed, "we are quite forgetting
poor cousin Quentin."

"The deuce take cousin Quentin!" thought Walter, and he hastened to
inform her that the Council had resolved to cut the Captain into
joints the moment they could lay hands on him.

Meinie, whose cakes had long since been scorched to a cinder, now
gave Hab a box on the ear, and retreating from him with a pout of
rustic coquetry, placed several three-legged stools near the fire,
around which they seated themselves by desire of Lady Grisel, herself
occupying the great elbow-chair, against which her tall walking-cane
was placed by Elsie with great formality.  The venerable cottager was
very lavish in her praises of Walter, for whom, as the bearer of such
good tidings, she felt a cordial admiration; and, heedless of
Lilian's confusion, continued to whisper it in her ear.

"A handsome cavalier, hinny.  Saw ye ever sic een?--they glint like a
gosshawk's.  His hair is like the corbie's wing wi' the dew on it;
and his cheeks are like red rowan berries.  He is indeed a winsome
young gallant, my doo Lilian!--no ane o' our law-breakers, who spend
the blessed Sabbath in ruffling through the streets in masks and
mantles, or dicing, drinking, or playing at shovel-board in a vile
change-house, or playing at pell-mell like the godless Charles; but a
gospel-fearing and discreet youth, as gude as he's bonnie, I doubtna."

"Oh, hush, Elsie!--he will hear you," said Lilian in a breathless
voice.

"What did you say his name is, hinny?" asked Elsie, who was rather
deaf.

"I never said," whispered Lilian; "but it is Walter Fenton--a pretty
one, is it not, nurse?"

"Fenton?--he'll be ane o' the auld Fentons owre the water; as gallant
and stalwart a race as ever Fifeshire saw."

"I hope so," sighed Lilian; "but, oh Elsie! there is some sad mystery
about this poor young man.  When a very little child, he was found
nestled in his dead mother's bosom in the kirk-yard of the
Greyfriars, in that terrible time you will remember?"

"My bonnie bairn, it was indeed a fearfu' time; but, by his winsome
face, I warrant him come o' gentle kin."

"Dost think so, dear nursie?"

"Not Claver'se himsel has an eye that glints wi' mair pride, or a lip
that curls mair haughtily.  True gentle blood can aye be kent by the
curl o' the lip.  I warrant his blude's as gude as ony in braid
Scotland."

"Oh; 'tis for that I pity and love him so much," said Lilian
artlessly.  As she spoke, Walter, who was conversing with Lady
Grisel, unexpectedly looked full towards her; he had removed his
steel cap, and the long black locks beneath it flowed in cavalier
profusion over his scarlet doublet.  He never looked so
prepossessing; and, fearing that he had overheard her, the cheek of
the timid girl grew scarlet and then deadly pale; and to hide her
confusion, she bent her face towards the old nurse, requesting her to
bind up her hair.

"In ringlets and heart-breakers such as never Maister Pouncet
fashioned, shall I twine thy bonnie gowden hair to-morrow, hinny,"
said the old woman, kissing with fond respect the white forehead of
Lilian; for those were days when the highest and the lowest classes
in Scotland were bound together by such endearing ties as never will
exist again.  "And nae mair shall your dainty arms and jimpy waist be
bound wi' aught but Naples silk and three-pile taffeta."

"Ah! nurse Elsie, if my heart is always as happy and light as
Meinie's, it will matter little what I wear."

"Sae said your lady mother, that's dead and gane; yea, and your
great-aunt Grisel too (but silk and damask are grand braws, hinny!):
and, waes me! thae wrinkled auld hands hae braided the bonnie hair o'
baith.  And now the head o' ane is turned frae the hue o' the raven's
wing to that o' the new-fa'n snaw; and the head o' the other, oh,
waly! waly! lies low in the kirk vaults o' St. Rocque.  I mind a time
when the hair o' my lady there was as glossy as yours; yea, and her
brow as smooth, and her cheek glowing like the red rowan berry.  It
is many a lang and weary year ago, and yet it seemeth but as
yesterday, when your kinsman, umquhile Sir Archibald, first cam
riding up the dykeside to Cowdenknowes, wi' my puir gudeman, John
Elshender, astride his cloak-bags on a high trotting mear; and weel I
mind the time when first he drew his chair in by the ingle, and
lookit awfu' things at Lady Grisel.  Certes, but she was ill to
please at her toilet after that!  Frae morning till e'enin' there was
nought but busking wi' braws, frizzling and puffing and perfuming;
tying and untying, and flaunting wi' breast-knots and fardingales,
and working wi' essence o' daffodils and gilliflower water.  That was
mony a year before that vile limmer Cromwell led his ill-faured host
on this side o' the English bounds.  He was a braw and a buirdly man
Sir Archibald, though when last he rode forth frae the aikwoods o'
the auld Place owre the muir, his pow was lyart enough.  Methink I
see him yet, as I saw him first, our brave auld laird!  His green
doublet o' taffeta, stiff wi' buckram, bombast, and gowden lace--his
lang buff boots and clanking spurs--his broadsword and
dudgeon-knife--and a bonnie ger-falcon on his nether wrist, wi' a
plume on its head and siller varvels on its legs.  Mony a sair gloom
he gaed that braw chield, the Laird o' Caickmuir; but Lady Grisel
could never thole the Muirs, for they gained baith haugh and holm by
pinglin' wi' base merchandise in Nungate o' Haddintoun, when the
Humes were winning the broomy knowes o' Cowden by the sharp spur and
the long spear----"

"In fearfu' times, Elsie," said Lilian laughing.

"Ay, indeed, hinny," continued the garrulous old woman.  "Fearfu'
times they were, when the Lord o' Crichton, wi' his fierce knights in
their bright armour, on barbed horses, ravaged a' the West-kirk
parochin to the castle-gate of Corstorphin, ruining lord, laird, and
tenant body alike,--giving the cottar's home, the baron's tower, and
the priest's kirk to torch and sack.  Fearfu' times they ever are,
hinny, when Scottish braves and Scottish blades are bent on ilk ither
in the fell stoure o' battle."

"Elshender," said Lady Grisel--(interrupting these reminiscences, of
which the reader is perhaps as tired as Lilian was)--"you have left
the band on your wheel."

"Save us and sain us!" exclaimed the old woman, hobbling to her
wheel.  "The last time I did sae, the gude neighbours span on't the
haill night, and ravelled a' my gude hawslock woo."

"Thou shouldst be more careful, Elshender," said Lady Grisel gravely.
"It bodes ill luck; and a red thread should be tied to the rock.

  Red thread and Rowan tree,
  Mak' warlock, witch, and fairy flee.

I marvel, Lilian, that your friend and gossip, Annie Laurie, came not
to visit us the moment she heard the proclamation of our innocence,
and the Council's injustice."

"Dear Annie was the first to fly hither when our fortune was at the
lowest ebb," said Lilian timidly.  "Ah, Heaven, if she should be ill!
She knows how welcome are the bearers of happy tidings."

"And most welcome is Mr. Fenton!" said the old lady, pressing his
hand so kindly that Walter's heart leaped, and he scarcely dared to
glance at Lilian.  "Dear child, I tremble to think of all you have
braved for our sake,--the torture, the bodkin, the dungeon!  It was
noble and generous.  The hero of the old romance, Sir Roland of
Roncesvalles, could not have done more."

"Spare me the shame of these thanks, madam.  The honour of serving
your ancient house is sufficient requital to one so--so nameless as I
am.  But, pray remember it is to my very good lord, the noble
Dunbarton, you alone owe this happy change in fortune."

"And to-morrow, so early as decorum will permit, and when our
servitors can attend in such state as befits our quality, shall he
and his gentle Countess (English though she be) receive our best
thanks.  The Lady Lætitia is the first of her nation," she added, and
down went the cane on the floor; "yea, the first that Grisel Hume
could ever thole.  Lilian, we will immediately set forth on our
return to the Place of Bruntisfield."

"You will permit me to have the honour of escorting you, madam?"

"Thanks, Mr. Fenton.  There is a troop of horse at free quarters on
the barony; and if----"

"They belonged to Dalyel's Grey dragoons.  They were withdrawn by the
decree of Council; and I heard their kettledrums beating through the
city this evening."

"'Tis well.  Then we will return by coach, as it would be unseemly to
do so on foot.  We have long incommoded you, my poor Elshender."

"Gude, your ladyship, think not of it," replied Elsie; "all I hae is
yours, and mair would be if I had it.  I and mine ate of your bread
and drank of your cup in prosperity, and may shame and dishonour fall
on our grey hairs if in adversity we fail in our duty to the Napiers
o' Bruntisfield!"  Elsie wept: "and you especially, Hab, ye mickle
gomeral, wi' the king's cockade in your bonnet!"

"Burganet, ye mean, Lucky; we soldiers of the king wear braw
burganets of bright steel."

"But these are fearfu' times, my lady, when the superior is beholden
to the vassal for a roof to cover them, and a mouthfu' o' meat; but
think o't, madam; the auld house is dark and empty, and the auld
survitors are scattered owre the barony among the tenantry, and the
keys o' the barbican gate are owre the muir wi' the ground baillie,
auld Sym o' the Greenhill."

"That loitering runnion should have been the first to present himself
before us!" exclaimed Lady Grizel; "but I care not; let Hab and
Meinie accompany us now, for our attire is too unseemly for
appearance in daylight.  I am impatient to return; for O, Elsie, thou
knowest well this night is the old returning anniversary of my
marriage and the laird's death, and dost think I will spend it under
another roof than that of Bruntisfield, if I can avoid it?"

"Of course not, my lady--but ewhow!  I'll be alone in this auld cot,
to be scared by spunkies or gyre earlins, for there is no' a place in
a' the Lowdens for deid-lichts, bodochs, and unco' things, like the
auld massemongers' kirk doun the loan there."

"Peace, Elsie! and remember that there lie the bones of the Napiers
for ten generations.  Lay the bible on the table when we go," said
Lady Grizel, with solemnity, "and place a four-leaved clover and
rowan-tree sprig over the fireplace, and, dost hear me, Elshender,
lay the poker and shovel crosswise above the gathering peat--"

"Crosswise?" muttered Elsie; "doth not that pertain to the auld
papistical leaven o' idolatry?"

"It doth, I own, but the sign of the cross is a right good charm
against the machinations of the evil one.  You must have found that
one made with red chalk on the bed-head, keepeth away both cramp and
nightmare.  My honoured mother used these marks, and by advice of
Quentin, the abbot of Crossregal.  O, Elshender, that is a long, long
time ago, yet I mind it as yesterday."

"Cocksnails!" muttered Hab; "a jovial stoup of Barbadoes kill-devil
were a far better charm, and I douot not the abbot would have thought
so too, eh, Master Fenton?"

"Dear nurse," said Lilian, "surely one so harmless and so pious as
thee need fear nothing."

"Had ye heard the bummel o' the fairy boy's drum amang the lang grass
in the loan and the stocks o' the hairst fields, brave though your
bluid be, Lilian, it would turn, even as water.  But if Lady Grizel
requireth service of Hab and Meinie, it beseems no' the wife o' auld
John Elshender to grudge it.  Mony a year I have dwelt here, lang
before the mirk Monanday, and ne'er saw aught that was unco, but I
canna get owre my fears, though there is a horseshoe on the door
where my puir gudeman nailed it forty years ago; there is a sprig o'
rowan-tree owre the lintel, and the heart o' an elfshotten nowte,
birselled wi' wax, and stuck fu' o' pins under the door step."

"A grand charm, Elsie," said Lady Grizel gravely; "no evil thing can
enter or prevail against it."

"And so with these notable allies, gudewife, you think you will face
out the terrors of one night alone?" said Walter impatiently, for
soldiering had rubbed off much of that superstition which still
exists in Scotland.

"I have courage to do whatever my lady requires o' me as her bounden
vassal," replied Elsie sharply; "courage! my certie! young sir, mony
a lang year before you saw the light, I learned to look without
blenching on steel flashing in my ain kailyard, and battle-smoke
rowing owre holm and hollow.  A Scottish wife, maun, needs hae
courage in thae fearfu' times, when never a day passes without a son,
a gudeman, or a brother having to buckle on steel cap and corslet
whenever the laird cries, 'Mount and ride!'  How mony a time and oft
has the bale fire at Libberton-peel, and the cry o' 'Horse and
spear!' made my douce gudeman crawl out frae his cosy nest in that
bein boxbed, wi' a heavy curse on the English, the nonconformists, or
malignants (or whaever kept the countryside astir for the time), then
donning morion, jack and spear, he rode awa, de'il kens where, at Sir
Archibald's bidding, for they were aye together in drumming and
dirdum, trooping and travelling, hunting and hosting, sic as may we
never see again!  But alake! there is a whisper gaing owre the land,
that waur is yet to come than the wildest persecutor could think o'."

"Beard o' Mahoun!" said Hab impatiently, "you are at your weary
auld-world stories again.  Let all bygones be forgotten, mother, and
as for the trooping and tramping of those days, when my faither rode
by laird's bridle, God send we may soon have the same again!  But if
our Lady means to return to the old place to-night, the sooner she
sets out the better."

"True, Halbert," said Lady Grizel, "for the hour waxes late; but,"
she added, striking her cane on the floor, "we will require a coach,
for, late or early, we must return in such state as befits us."

"Hab," said Walter, "hurry to the Portsburgh, and desire the master
of the inn there immediately to send his hackney coach (I know he
keeps one), with horses to drag it, and link-boys conform."

"He is a dour auld carl, I ken," replied Hab, throwing off his
bandoleers, and preparing to start.  "Our inquartering there a month
ago, has neither improved his temper or gudewill.  It will be the
dead hour of night when I tirl his pin, and he may refuse to obey me."

"How, if you say the coach is for a lady of quality."

"For _me_, Halbert?" added Lady Grizel with dignity.

"Ay, madam, and ask my authority."

"Then show him the blade of your sword," said Walter: "'tis the best
badge of authority to an insolent boor."

"But the auld buckie, though round as a puncheon, of Rhenish, can
handle backsword and dagger, double and single falchions like any
French sword-player; and look ye, Mr. Fenton, though a bare blade
passed well enough in the Low Countries under Condé, or in the west
under Claver'se, it will not do at all within sound of the Iron Kirk
bell."

"Right, Halbert; we have neither law nor reason for browbeating the
poor vintner; but faith, our living so long at free quarters has
imparted to us a somewhat imperious mode of requiring service at all
hands.  Get the coach as you may, Hab, but be speedy."

"And Hab, my son," cried Elsie with anxiety, "keep the middle o' the
gate till ye come to the place o' the Highrigs; and gif ye hear aught
like the bummel o' a wee drum amang the lang grass or fauld-dykes by
the wayside, neither quicken nor slacken your pace."

"For remember," added Lady Grizel, "it is equally unlucky either to
meet or to avoid fairies or evil spirits."

"This cowes the gowan!" exclaimed Hab with a laugh, which awe for the
old dame failed to restrain.  "Lady Bruntisfield, a lad that hath
heard Dunbarton's drums beating the point of war in the face of the
Imperialists, need not care a brass bodle for all the fairies and
witches in braid Scotland, and Gude kens, but there is plenty o'
them--young anes, at least--eh, cousin Meinie?" and suddenly kissing
her red cheek, he made a sweeping salute to the others, and sprang
from the cottage.

Elsie now remembered that in her alternate joy and anxiety, the usual
hospitality had been quite forgotten.  Her nappy stone jars of
usquebaugh and brown ale, with their attendant quaighs--crystal being
then a luxury for the great and wealthy alone--cheese and bannocks of
barley-meal were produced, and each person drank the health of all
the rest with an air of solemn formality.  The strong waters were
tasted first for form-sake, and then their horns were replenished
with the dun beverage of October, while their stools were all drawn
close to the blazing fire, Lady Grizel, in the leathern chair,
occupying the centre.  Every face beamed with the purest happiness,
and none more than that of Walter Fenton, and his handsome dark
features, shaded by his clustering hair, glowing in the light of the
fire and radiant with joy, formed an agreeable contrast to the paler
and more interesting Lilian, whose eyes beamed with vivacity and
drollery.  Even old Elsie's face became dimpled with smiles, and she
whispered in Meinie's ear, that "her auld een had never seen a mair
winsome pair" than Walter and Lilian.  Low as the whisper was, it
reached the ear of the latter, or she divined its meaning, and it
covered her with the most beautiful confusion, for to a young girl,
there is nothing so indescribably charming, as when first her name is
linked with that of a lover.

Though very happy, they were very silent.  Lady Grizel was sunk in
reverie; Lilian was a little abashed, and Walter, who was turning
over his thoughts for a subject to converse on, was becoming more
perplexed, until relieved by Elsie's loquacity, which found an ample
theme in the terrors of the famous gnome or fairy boy, whose
appearance about that time had caused no small consternation in
Edinburgh.  On the summit of the Calton--as all the gossips of the
city were at any time ready to aver on oath--he was heard at midnight
beating the role to the fairies, who came forth from under the long
dewy blades of glittering dog-grass or heavy docken-leaves, from
crannies in the rocks, and mole-tracks in the turf, to dance merrily
on the Martyr's rock, in the blaze of the silvery moon.  And, worse
still, this same devilish gnome, by the clatter of his infernal drum,
summoned weekly from the four quarters of heaven, the gyre-carlins
and witches to Satan's periodical _levée_, and often the benighted
citizen as he wended up the long and dreary loan from Leith (to which
the ruins of a monastery, and a gibbet hung with skeletons, lent
additional terrors), paused in dismay, when the din of the enchanted
drum rang from the dark rocks on the gusts of the midnight wind, and
the troop of gathering hags astride broom-sticks and sprigs from a
gallows-tree, swept like a storm through the air, bending strong
trees to the earth, laying flat the ripening corn, and rumbling among
chimney-heads, making the nervous indwellers cower under the
bed-clothes, and tremble in the wooden recesses of their snug
box-beds, while they murmured old charms against sorcery and the
devil.  Other witches of more aquatic propensities, were ferried
across Firth and Bay in eggshells, sieves, and milk-bowies, to that
damnable conclave, where plots were laid to blast their neighbours'
kail or cattle, and work all manner of mischief, as the Records of
Justiciary show.  On all these appalling facts, Lady Grisel and Elsie
descanted with such earnest seriousness, that Walter felt half
inclined to shiver with the rest, when the wind rumbled in the
chimney as if a flock of gyre-carlins were sweeping past it, to their
_levée_ on the Calton, about the bluff black rocks of which Lady
Grisel averred emphatically, she had repeatedly seen them swarming in
the bright moonlight, like gnats in the summer sunshine; and after
evidence so conclusive, we hope nobody will doubt it.




CHAPTER XV.

LOVE AND BURNT-SACK.

  HORATIO.  'Tis well, sir, you are pleasant.
  LOTHARIO.  By the joys
      Which my fond soul has uncontrolled pursued,
      I would not turn aside from my least pleasure,
      Though all thy force were armed to bar my way.
                                              N. HOWE.


The evening of the night described in the preceding chapter had been
a glorious one.  The giant shadows of the rock-built city were
falling from its central hill far to the eastward, and all its myriad
casements were gleaming in the light of the western sky, where amid
clouds of crimson, edged with gold, the sun's bright disc seemed to
rest on the dark and wooded ridge of the Corstorphine hills, from
whence it poured its dazzling flood of farewell radiance on all the
undulations of the wide and varied scenery.  On the vast and dusky
mass of the hoary city which presented all the extremes of strong
light, and deep retiring shadow, on the great stone crown of St.
Giles, on the cordon of towers that girt the castled rock, and the
stagnant lake that washed the city's base two hundred feet below,
fell full the blood-red lustre of the setting sun.

The same warm tints glared along the western slopes of those bluff
craigs and hills that rise to the westward, green, silent, stern, and
pillared with basalt, rent by volcanic throes into chasms and gorges;
where, though darkness was gathering, the slanting sunbeams shot
through, and gilded objects far beyond.  The loch, the city's
northern barrier, usually so reedy and so stagnant, now swollen to
its utmost marge by recent rains, was dotted by wild ducks and teals,
that seemed floating in liquid gold, and like a polished mirror the
water reflected its banks with singular distinctness.  On one side
appeared the inverted city, where gable, tower, and bartizan shot up
so spectral, close, and dense, that it seemed like one vast fairy
castle; on the other, a lonely and grassy bank dotted with whins,
alder trees, weeping willows, and grazing sheep, while the old square
tower of St. Cuthbert, rising above a clump of firs at one end of the
loch, was balanced by the church of the Holy Trinity and its ancient
orchard at the other.

On the northern bank of this artificial sheet of water flocks of
crows were wheeling in circles among the furrows, and following the
slow-drawn plough; and from the thatched cottages of St. Ninians,
that nestled close to the ruins of an ancient convent, the smoke
arose in long steady columns, and unbroken by the faintest puff of
wind soared into the evening sky, and melted away into the blue
atmosphere.

The sun had set.

The last rays died away on the cathedral spire, and Arthur's round
volcanic cone; the last wayfarer had been ferried across the loch,
and had disappeared over the opposite hill; successively the seven
barriers of the city were closed for the night, and then the evening
bell from the old wooden spire of the Tron rang on the rising wind.
Though this evening had been a beautiful one, and all the gayer
denizens of the city had flocked to the Lawnmarket and Castle Hill
(then the only and usual promenades), the tall feather and laced
mantle of Lord Clermistonlee had not been seen there.

From the windows of his chamber-of-dais he had long been surveying
the view before described, but in one feature of it alone he seemed
most interested.  It was, where to the westward above the open fields
named Halkerstoun's Crofts, he saw the smokeless chimnies of his
empty, dismantled, and deserted mansion of Drumsheugh, which for many
a year had been abandoned to a venerable colony of rooks and owls.
The broad acres of fertile land that spread around it were now no
longer his.  Successively haugh, holm, farm, and onsteading, mill,
and field had passed away to the possession of others, and of the
noble estate acquired by his ancestors, and which he had gained as a
dower with his fair cousin Alison, nothing remained but the silent
and dreary mansion, which was fated soon (by his pressing
necessities) to pass into other hands.  To Clermistonlee this was the
leading feature of the landscape, and long and fixedly he surveyed
its square stacks of dark old chimnies that rose above the bare and
leafless woods.

The expression of his face was fierce and unsettled; his cheek was
deeply flushed; but that might be attributed to the briskness with
which he and his gossip Mersington had pushed the tankard between
them since dinner.  They were both deep drinkers, and in the old
Edinburgh fashion it was no uncommon thing, for his Lordship (when he
gave a dinner party) to lock the room door, and in presence of his
guests send the key flying through the barred window into the
Norloch, thereby intimating that there could be no egress until the
last of a long array of flasks, which Juden mustered on the buffet,
was drained to the bottom; after which the door was unhinged, and all
the guests were carried home by their servants in chairs or shoulder
high.

One hand was thrust under the ample skirt of his shag dressing-gown;
the other drummed on the window panes; but a stern expression
gathered on his broad and lofty brow, and sparkled in his deep-set
hazel eyes.

Mersington sat near the cheerful fire.  His weazel-like visage was
radiant at times with a malicious smile, which briefly gave way for
one of sincere pleasure, each time he applied to his thin and ever
thirsty lips the tankard of burnt sack, which his affectionate hand
never quitted for a moment.  His mighty senatorial wig--the badge of
his wisdom and power--hung on the chair-knob behind him, and his bald
pate shone like a varnished ball in the evening twilight.  His pale
grey eyes wore their usual expression, by which it was impossible to
detect whether he was drunk or sober; but they often wandered to a
panel opposite, where the following was chalked in a bold irregular
hand.


_His honor the Laird of Holsterlee bets the Right Honourable Lord
Clermistonlee_ £10,000 _of gude Scots monie payable at
Whitsuntide--his mear Meg against Fleur de Lysy or Royal Charles.  To
be run at Easter on the sandis of Leith, God willing._

  CLERMISTONLEE.
  HOLSTERLEE, Scots Guards.


"Forsooth! you are a proper man to start from the board, and turn
your back on a guest thus," said Mersington.  "Whistle a bar o' that
oure again.

  "There was a clocker, it dabbit at a man,
        And he dee'd wi' fear,
        And he dee'd wi' fear----"

"he--he, it seems to gie you as mickle comfort as the burnt sack."

"Perdition, man!" exclaimed the other, wheeling so briskly round,
that he startled his guest in the act of taking another long deep
draught.  "How can you jest with my distress?  I tell thee, friend
Mersington, if the lands of Bruntisfield and the Wrytes, on which I
have built my hopes, slip through my fingers thus, I may yet come to
the husks and the swine-trough, like the prodigal of old.  Behold my
manor of Drumsheugh on the brae yonder; for these ten years a puff of
smoke hath not curled from its chimneys; the moss is on its hearths,
and cobwebs obscure the gilding of its galleries and chambers: the
long grass waves in the avenue as it doth in the stable-court, where
my good and careful father mustered eighty troopers in jack and plate
the night before Dunbar was fought and won by Cromwell.  My ancient
tower of Clermiston is in the same condition, and both are mortgaged
to that prince of scribes and scoundrels, Grasper, the Writer in
Mauchin's Close.  This match with Holsterlee, too!  S'blood!  Juden
says the mare is elfshotten, and our best jockies opine that I can
never win against Holster's racers, which have won the city purse
these five years consecutively."

"As for the race--he, he! to be off wi' the Laird, swear your mare
hath been bewitched, and burn some auld carlin in proof o't."

"D--nation!  I am a ruined and impoverished man!"

"He, he! the auld gossips of Blackfriars' Wynd tell another story."

"What do they say?"

"That Clermistonlee can never come to want, as his friend the de'il
has given him a braw purse, with moudieworts' feet on't, and sae lang
as he preserves it, he shall never lack siller."

"I wish to God he had! but where got ye this precious information?"

"At the tea-board o' my Leddy Drumsturdy, nae further gane than
yesterday."

"Stuff and nonsense!"

"I hope sae, for just sic a purse brought the learned Doctor Fian to
stake in 1590.  I've read the ditty against him--he, he! but to come
to the swine-trough, that would be an unco pity, you have such a braw
taste for getting up dinners and suppers, that his grace the gourmand
o' Lauderdale was just naething to ye."

"Say rather Juden Stenton, my ground baillie, major domo, squire of
the body, and everything."

"Then your burnt sack is just perfection; but alake! you now begin to
see the end o' chambering, dicing, drinking, racing, and wantonness.
And puir Alison Gifford--faith, you made her tocher flee fast enough!'

"This admonitory tone becomes _thee_ well!" said Clermistonlee, with
scornful emphasis; "and truly, thou art like one of Job's comforters."

"He, he!" chuckled the senator, who had a strange fancy for
maliciously stinging his companion.  "This is the end o' spending
puir Alison's money among horse-coupers, vintners, panders,
de'ils-buckies, and bona-robas----"

"Hold, Mersington!  I beg you will hear me with gravity.  My good
cousin and gossip, at times I have found your advice of the first
value.  You know how immensely fond I am of Lilian Napier, and having
been pretty fortunate with the sex in my time (crush me! like
What-is-his-name, I might say, _Veni, vidi, vici_,) I made the little
minx an offer of marriage, and, would'st believe it? she really had
the impudence to reject me."

"A braw buckie like you, Randal?  For what?"

"Forsooth, only because I was a matter of some twenty years older
than herself."

"Pest upon the gypsy! but then there is that plaguy entail--"

"Pshaw!  I could soon have that broken.  Lady Grisel hath the
life-rent, and after her death (which cannot be far off), and failing
the captain, the Lands go entire to Lilian.  Now her cousin, this gay
spark in the service of their Mightinesses, the States-General, by
his leaguing and intriguing with that Dutch intromitter, Orange
William and our rascally recusants, hath made the entail null--a dead
letter--ha!"

"Faith, Randal, if you get your claws laid on the Bruntisfield
barony, the rents thereof will puff your purse out brawly for a time.
But alake! it's like a sieve that aye rins out--ever filling, but
never full.  Bethink ye, man, there is the auld mansion having the
right of dungeon, pit and dule-tree, wi' the grange, mains, yards,
orchards, stables, doo-cot, bake and brewhouses pertaining thereunto
(o'd I've the haill inventory by heart).  The four merk land o' auld
extent named Nether Durdie bounded by the Burghloch--the fishings o'
that water, the rigs, rowme and holm o' Drumdryan, wi' the farm-toun
to the eastward thereof holden o' the city for ane crown-bowl o'
punch yearly, and ane armed man's service, and whilk payeth 57 bolls
o' wheat, twa firlots o' barley, forty and aught o' aitmeal, 64 gude
fat capons, and sae forth--my certie! by twa women being relaxit frae
the horn you have lost a' that, and deil kens how mickle mair."

"Fool--fool! this croaking maddens me!" exclaimed Clermistonlee,
starting a second time from the table, and pacing about the room.

"Come--come, my Lord," said Mersington, putting on his wig; "he--he!
ye may huff and hector at Juden as ye please, but these are hard
words for a Swinton to swallow."

"I crave your pardon, gossip, but why torture me thus?  I must have
some signal and terrible revenge on Dunbarton for his interfering
with me in this matter.  Could we not bring him under suspicion of
the Council?"

"A moral and physical impossibility."

"Juden would give him the contents of a carbine if I gave him a hint
anent it."

"It would be wiser to let him alone.  You would have his chief, the
Marquis of Douglas, and every one of the name on ye like a nest o'
hornets, for they are a proud and thrawart race, that winna thole
steering.  Ye maun train your hawks at other lures.  Od's fish, man!
his mad musqueteers would sack and slaughter the haill city."

"And Fenton!" continued the Lord, grinding his teeth, "I would travel
to Jericho to have him within reach of my rapier--I would, d--n
me--to pull his nose off!  What a ravelled hesp is my fortune!  My
wounded hand, too----"

"Hee, hee! how can you expect it to heal, when the haill blude in
your body is turning into burnt sack and sugared brandy?"

"It has kept me from prosecuting this affair.  But I am getting
desperate, Mersington; between love of the girl, lack of her lands,
and fear of poverty, nothing now can save me but a dash."

"Spoken like yoursel--like the wild Randal Clermont o' 1670.  But
what do ye propose?"

"To carry off Lilian and make a Highland wedding of it--ha, ha!"

"Hee, hee! abduction, reif, and felony, anent whilk see the acts of
the seventh parliament of James V. and James VI.  Parliament
twenty-first, chapter fourth--hee, hee! these would bear hard on your
case, my birkie."

"Pshaw! am not I, too, a Lord of the Parliament? so, friend
Mersington, reserve this musty jargon for the Hall of the Tolbooth.
How often hath a Scottish baron with his band ridden to its threshold
with jack and spear, and while his trumpets blew defiance at the
Cross, laughed the fulminations of the three estates to scorn!"

"Ye mean mad Bothwell, with his thousand spears; but Clermistonlee,
wi' his man Juden, would cut a sorry figure riding up the gate on the
same errand."

"But the mere abduction of a girl?"

"It canna be sae bad in law, as abducting that dour auld carle, Durie
the Lord President, whom a mosstrooping loon, by orders o' Traquair,
carried off bodily, across his saddlebow, frae the dreary Figget
whins, and warded for sax calendar months in the vault o' a Border
peel.  For my part, I have hated the name o' womankind since my Lady
Mersington had me fined a thousand merks Scots, for that damned
conventicle whilk, in my absence, she held on my lands.  But Gude be
thanked, I had my vengeance, by having her banished the liberties of
the city, for hearing that Recusant runion Ichabod Bummel preach,
whilk rid me and a' Bess Wynd o' her eternal clack.  Faith,
Clermistonlee, ye are welcome to abduct _her_, gif ye please, he, he!"

"I thank you, gossip, but beg to decline," said Clermistonlee,
draining his tankard of sack; "but to show thee, most learned
senator, the value and veneration I bear those acts you have just
cited, I shall this very night carry off Lilian Napier, whom, my
spies inform me to be concealed somewhere to the south of the town.
O, by all the devils, I'll easily find the place.  My blood's up; I
will make my fortune to-night, or mar it for ever."

His sallow cheek glowed, his dark eye flashed, and taking a very
handsome pair of pistols from the mantelpiece, he began to load them
with great deliberation having previously summoned his faithful
rascal Juden, by furiously ringing a handbell.

"What's in the wind now, my Lord?" he asked, rubbing his eyes, having
been abruptly summoned from an afternoon nap.

"You will learn ere long," said his lord with a sternness that made
the bluff butler's eyes to dilate with surprise; "but see that you
are as prompt to act as to ask questions.  You must bear a message
from me to the Place."

"Eh? to Drumsheugh--at this time?"

"To Beatrix Gilruth."

"My Lord--I--I--" stammered Juden.

"Saddle a horse, ride round the loch, and tell her that the young
lass she wots of will be there to-night, and that she must have some
of the old rooms in the north wing, those that overlook the rocks,
prepared for her reception."

"Where the gipsy was put, that we harled awa frae the west country?"

"What, the wench whom Holsterlee took off my hands, the same.  You
stare oddly--dost hear me fellow--art thou sober?"

"As a judge, my Lord."

"Then hear me and obey.  Desire this hag, Beatrix, to have all
prepared for my fair one's reception--fires lit and tapestry brushed,
and, on peril of thine own life, be speedy and secret.  Tarry neither
there nor by the way, as I will want thee when the town drum beats at
ten o'clock."

"She's an uncanny body, Lucky Gilruth, though I mind the time when
there was not a bonnier lass in a' the Lowdens," said Juden,
scratching his rough chin with undisguised perplexity; "but now, the
auld wrinkled hizzie, she deserves the tar barrel as weel as lucky
Elshendder."

"What the devil is all this to me?"

"It is a lonesome and eerie road across Halkerstoun's crofts by the
lang gate, and on such an errand to such a woman, with the mirk night
coming on----"

"Blockhead! thou hast been guzzling in the wine cellar.  Begone, or I
will beat thee; but first have the mare saddled as well as the horse,
and procure a good link, and fail not when the drum beats.  I will
ride the Duke, 'tis a strong old trooper, and used to carrying
double--hah!  Away, away, and on peril of thy life, speak of this to
no man."

"You will find me as of auld, Clermistonlee, a hawk of the right
nest."

"Look well to Meg's girths."

"Ay, my Lord, a fidging mear should be weel girded--now then hoe! for
the Place."

Juden drained a wine cup that his master handed him, and in five
minutes more, the mare's hoofs rang on the causeway of the steep
wynd, and died away as he descended into the deep gorge; under Neil's
Craigs, wheeled through the Beggar's Row, and ascended the opposite
bank.




CHAPTER XVI.

THE TEN O'CLOCK DRUM.

  DU CHATEL.  The gates stand open; no man shall molest you.
      Count Dunois, follow me--you gain no honour in lingering
      here.

  RAIMOND.  Seize on this moment! the streets are empty,--
      Give me your hand.
                            SCHILLER'S MAID OF ORLEANS.


Clermistonlee was well aware that the forcible abduction of a young
lady of family (or quality, according to the phraseology of the
time), would create no small degree of indignation against him; but
confiding in his rank, and in the influence of the powerful faction
to which he belonged; aware that never could he otherwise obtain
possession of Lilian's person, and ultimately her property, goaded by
dread of poverty rather than avarice, inflamed by his own wild
fancies and irregular passions rather than by love, and spurred on by
the taunts and advices of the half cunning and wholly malicious
Mersington, he sat longing with the utmost eagerness for the time of
action, the tuck of the ten o'clock drum, after the beating of which,
all within the city walls usually became so silent and still.  He
knew also that the family of Napier had experienced a severe shock by
their recent forfeiture, and a squadron of Dalyel's dragoons being
quartered on their estate for three weeks past, and being yet under
hiding (as the term was), the abduction of Lilian could be more
easily executed; and if once within the barred doors and grated
windows of his desolate mansion on the rocks at Drumsheugh, or the
massive chambers of his still more lonely tower on Clermiston Lee,
Lilian might bid farewell equally to mercy and to hope.

Aware of the lonely situation of Elsie's cottage on the verge of the
great Burghmuir, fully two Scottish miles from the city cross, and
knowing that the locality was always deserted after dusk, in
consequence of the unsettled nature of the times, and a horde of
footpads who infested the remnants of its forest and the deep
quarries and moss-haggs through which the roadway wound, and which,
independent of a gibbet, a ruined church and graveyard, deterred all
and sundry, after the city gates were closed, from travelling that
way after dusk--considering all those things, the noble roué had no
doubt of being able to fire the little cottage, and, in the
confusion, to bear away Lilian across his saddle-bow.  And to cast
suspicion in another quarter, he had desired Juden to have a bonnet
or two, a grey maud and a bible, to leave on the road close by, that
the odium of the outrage might fall on the houseless Cameronians who
lurked among the hills to the southward.

Tipsy as he was, when the time approached for Clermistonlee setting
forth, Lord Mersington had still sense remaining to say,

"Tak' tent, Randal, my man--hee, hee!--bide ye a wee, ere worse come
o't.  You may bring king, council and parliament about your lugs for
this, and the Foulis o' Ravelstone, Congaltoun o' that ilk, and
Merchiston himsel will swarm like a hornet's nest, and 'Horse and
spear!' will be the cry through half the country side--he, he!'

"Curses on thy everlasting chuckle!" muttered the other between his
teeth, as with fierce impatience he thrust his brass-barrelled
pistols into his embroidered girdle.  "What the devil are Ravelstone
or Congaltoun to me?  If the worst comes, 'tis but flying to the west
highlands till the affair blows over.  I can count kindred with some
of the best who bear the name of Campbell."

"Kindred that will truss ye wi' a tow, and hand ye over for twenty
merks to the first macer or corporal of horse that the Chancellor
sends after you.  Remember how Assynt served Montrose thirty-eight
years ago?"

"Your suspicions wrong my highland kinsmen, who are honourable
men----"

"But true blue whigamores withal--hee, hee! and brawly you'll look
coming up the Netherbow in a cart like Montrose, puir fellow! wi' the
town halberds bristling round ye, and Pate Pincer wi' his axe maybe,
and our noble friend Perth sitting in the Lower Chamber wi' his
finger on the acts of James the Vth and VIth, anent wilful
fire-raising--hee, hee! and as for the lassie----"

"My Lord, this is intolerable stuff!" said Clermistonlee, shrugging
his shoulders; "you cannot be so young a politician as not to
perceive that a storm is approaching, which will crush and confound
together all the factions that now distract the land, and keep our
swords for ever by our sides.  All men see it--else whence this
muster of troops and din of preparation on both sides of the Border."

"Storm--a storm said ye?"

"Yes, amid which, if we can hold our own bonnets on our heads, we
will be clever fellows, Swinton."

"And whence blows the breeze, think ye?"

"'The Lowlands of Holland,' as the song says," replied the cavalier
lord, drawing himself up with a scornful smile.

"Wheesht!--hee, hee, hee!" chuckled the other, waving one hand
warningly, while burying his rat-like visage in the sack tankard to
hide the cunning smile of intelligence that spread over it.  "Harkee,
Randal, whare'er the de'il be laird, you'll be tenant--hee, hee!'

"I value a crash in politics at the worth of a brass tester, and bid
hail to the days of hard blows and buff coats.  Ha! ha!  I may pick
up a marquisate in the scramble," laughed Clermistonlee, flapping his
hat over his eyes.  "You will not accompany me to-night, being
scarcely cavalier enough for this kind of work."

"Hoots, man, a double-gowned senator of the College of Justice, a
Lord of Council and Session, aiding and abetting in wilful
fire-raising!  Doth not the act say, 'Quha cummis and burnis folk in
their housis will be guilty o' treason and lese-majestie?' and as for
running off wi' the lassie Lilian, that is clearly a kidnapping o'
the lieges, whilk, according to Skene and Sir Thomas o' Glendoick----"

"Gossip Mersington, there are overmuch wine and law in thee to-night
to leave room for common sense.  Ha! there goes the ten o'clock drum,
and that loitering villain has not yet returned!"

He threw open a window that faced the south, where the black mansions
of the Netherbow towered up from the steep hill at the foot of which
his house was situated.  The sound of a distant drum, beat in slow,
regular, and monotonous measure, was heard on the wind at intervals,
as a drummer of the Civic Guard (an old corps of Scottish
gensd'armes, which existed from the fatal day at Flodden until 1818,)
ascended St. Mary's Wynd, his usual nightly round, after having
descended the Bow, and beat along the once lordly and fashionable
Cowgate, where kings have feasted royally, and where Scottish nobles
and the ambassadors of foreign powers were wont to dwell--but now the
hideous abode of misery and crime, and long since abandoned to the
dregs of mankind.  On strode the drummer, and the gates of the
Netherbow revolved back at his approach: as he passed under its
double towers, its picturesque spire and high embattled arch, the
great street of the city, wide and lofty, but dark and deserted, rang
to the same monotonous chamade and all its echoing closes, broad
paved wynds and old arcades of wood or stone, its circular stairs and
oaken outshots gave back a thousand reverberations as "the ten
o'clock drummer" strode on, until reaching the Town Guard House,
where he finished his perambulation of the ancient Royalty by a long
and loud ruffle, which scared the vultures from the skulls that
mouldered on the parapets of the prison, startled the rooks in the
gothic diadem of St. Giles, and made all its hollow vaults and high
arched aisles, where the dead of ages lie, give back the warlike
sound.

The drum rang loudly as it passed the archway that led to the lodging
of Clermistonlee, who threw down the window with a crash, exclaiming,

"Malediction on my messenger--I must mount and ride without him.
Hah! here comes the loitering rascal in time to save his shoulders
from a stout truncheoning."

A horse's hoofs rang in the courtyard; Juden's heavy boots clattered
on the pavement as he dismounted and ascended to the chamber-of-dais,
puffing, panting, and looking very pale and disconcerted.

"So-so, fellow," said the irritated lord, "it has pleased you to
return at last."

"With God's providence, my Lord."

"How, fool?  What means this unwonted piety?  Art drunk, fellow?"

"Fie, Juden!" said Mersington, "a fou-man' and a fasting horse,
should hae come faster home hee, hee!"

"You saw this woman, Gilruth, and left my message, I presume:"

"Yes, my Lord, yes," gasped Juden.

"What the devil is all this?  There is something wrong with thee,
Juden."

"Then to be plain wi' your Lordship, I canna thole the auld Place
after nightfa'?  I aye think o'--think o'----"

"What?" asked Clermistonlee, furiously.

"O' puir Leddy Alison," whined Juden, half in sorrow, and half in
spite.  "Eh, sirs! but the auld Place o' Drumsheugh is fu' o' her
memory, and I seemed to hear her sweet low voice in every sough o'
the auld aik trees, and to see her shadow in every glint their
branches threw on the moonlighted avenue and auld grey house."

"Fool, fool," said Clermistonlee in a subdued voice, "you speak as if
she had been murdered."

"Nor did she fare mickle better," muttered Juden, under breath,
however.

"Poor Alison!--so gentle and unreproaching," said the lord in a low
musing voice, "Alison--once that name was ever on my lips--her
presence was ever with me, and her idea raised a rapture in this
hollow heart, to which it has since been a stranger.  Yes, my love
was a very true one."

"While it lasted," said Mersington.

"Of course," rejoined the other, recovering himself.  "I loved her to
distraction once; or thought so, and by all the devils, 'tis quite
the same thing.  She is dead now, and peace be with her; but peril of
thy life, Juden Stenton, trouble me no more with such untimely
elegies.  And pray, Master Morality, how have you dared to loiter
away these two hours past?"

"Ask that elfshotten Mear Meg?" said the butler, testily.  "Either
the cantrips o' Beatrix Gilruth, or Lucky Elshender (baith o' whom
are weel deserving o' the branks and tar barrel, Mersington), hae
clean bewitched that puir beast.  May I never lay head on a pillow
to-night, if I wasna' spell-bound on Halkerston's Crofts, where I
continued to ride and spur, wi' the black Calton looming in front and
St. Cuthbert's kirk behind!  but I never neared the one, or got
further from the other; and yet Meg was fleeing like the wind, or as
fast as ever she did for city purse or king's plate on the sands o'
Leith.  The night was dark: a cauld wind swept owre the crofts, and
soughed among the kirkyard yews and lang nettles by the drystane
dykes; red lights gleamed in the runnels that bummel down the brae
side, and redder stars were shooting in the lift.  A cauld
perspiration burst owre me, every hair bristled under my bannet----"

"Rascal--art mocking us?"

"Patience, my Lord," groaned poor Juden.  "I kent there was a spell
on me, and I tried to say some holy word or name; but, as the deil
would hae'd, the sounds aye stuck in my throat; and there I sat,
sweating and trembling, and spurring a galloping nag that never
progressed; and there indubitably I must hae been until cockcrow, if
I hadna----"

"What?" exclaimed his master, stamping with impatience.

"Made a grasp at a rowan tree that grew near, and pu'ed a bunch o'
the last year's berries, when lo! the charm was broken, and Meg shot
awa like the wind--and I cleared the lang gate as if the Paip and the
Deil were behind me."

"And dost think, rascal, that I believe one word of this precious
Tale of a Tub, foisted up to deceive me, for time spent in the
village change-house yonder!  Ha, knave! remember the old saw--Good
wine makes a bad head and a long story."

"My Lord, as I left the place, auld Gilruth cried, 'A safe ride to
ye, Juden,' and her eldritch laugh is yet dingling in my lugs."

"That makes it a clear case o' withcraft," mumbled Mersington, who
was now very tipsy.  "He-he!--we'll hae the carlin before us in the
morning, Juden.  Ay, my Lords (macers, silence in court!), this is as
clear a case o' witchcraft as ever came before us--and the Act under
Queen Mary (puir woman) anent sorcery bears just upon it.  Your
Lordships will remember," continued the senator, who thought himself
on the bench, "the cases o' Isabel Eliot and Marion Campbell, twa
notorious witches, who, for renouncing their baptism, and dancing a
jig wi' the deil, were burnt at the Cross wi' ten others in the
September o' seventy-eight, for whilk see the Record o'
Justiciary--hee-hee, a braw bleeze!"

"I will show a blaze on the Burghmuir to-night worth a dozen of
it--ha, ha!" laughed Clermistonlee, as he drew on his voluminous
boot-tops of stamped maroquin with silver bosses.

"O'd, Clermistonlee, do ye really mean to burn Elshender's cottage?"
asked Juden with delight.

"Yea, sink me! from rigging-tree to ground-stone."  Juden rubbed his
hands.

"If the auld witch is bed-ridden," said he, "it will save the Provost
a bundle o' tar-barrels, forbye a pock o' peats."

"And perhaps cure those spells which you think the hag hath cast upon
my best nag?  And so, Mersington, you will not ride with us to-night?"

"No, by my faith!"

"Then your learned Lordship forgets one notable point of our old
Scottish law, by which a guest becomes the bounden ally of his host."

"True; but only if loons come against him wi' harness on--boden in
effeir o' weir, as the Acts have it."

"As the chase after Lilian may be a hot one, omit not to spread most
industriously that I am gone to the west, to England, to the devil,
or any where, to put them off the right scent--ha, ha! while I am
luxuriating in the smiles of Venus in the recesses of my snug old
house over the hill there.  Dost hear me?  By Jove, he's very drunk.
Fetch me a tass of brandy and burnt sugar, Juden."

It was brought immediately, in one of those long glasses then made at
the citadel of Leith.  It set Clermistonlee's impatient blood on fire.

"Another for thyself, Juden, and then to horse, and away.  Your
servant, gossip Mersington: if unfortunate, you will see me in the
course of to-morrow; if otherwise, the devil knows when.  Marriage
and hanging go by destiny--so do all other things--with a hey lilleu
and a how lo lan."

"Aye-aye, awa ye neer-do-well--ye deil's buckie--I'll stay and keep
the terrier company.  The sack is glorious--the English port auld as
the mirk Monanday a' sixteen hunder and fifty-twa--a-clear case o'
sorcery, your Lordship--o' dark dealing wi' the great enemy o'
mankind--hee-hee!--and woman kind baith."

His head sank forward on his wine-bespattered cravat, and the senior
senator of the College of Justice fell fast asleep.




CHAPTER XVII.

CLERMISTONLEE MAKES A SAD MISTAKE.

But if this young lady will marry you, and relieve us, O my
conscience!  I'll turn friend to the sex, and rail no more at
matrimony.--THE LYING VALET.


Issuing from a private gate in the northern flank of the city wall,
at the foot of the court attached to his mansion, the Lord and his
staunch follower mounted in a narrow lane, overhung on one side by
gloomy trees, and on the other by the ancient hospital of the Holy
Trinity.  The great oriel, or triple window of its church was then
faintly lighted by the beams of the rising moon, the silver disk of
which seemed to rest on the sable ridge of Arthur's Seat.  They
passed through the Calton, then a straggling burgh, consisting of
antique houses of Flemish aspect, but occupied by a very inferior
class of citizens, and entered the long and solitary path called
Leith Loan, which was formed by an ancient trench of the Great Civil
Wars; hollowly rang their horses' hoofs between the black rocks of
the Calton on one hand, and the steep bank of St. Ninian on the
other, where the ivied and shattered walls of a convent presented in
the bright moonlight a striking variety of light and shade.

To avoid every chance of recognition or surprise, Clermistonlee thus
made a complete circuit of the city, leaving it on the side opposite
to the scene of his operations.  The night soon became as cloudy and
dark as he could have wished it, for, as the fitful moon became
involved in opaque masses of vapour, every object was rendered
obscure and indistinct.  On one side of the way lay the lake, like a
sheet of ink, and beyond it rose up the stupendous cliffs and
ramparts of the castle, and the gigantic outline of the city towering
like a mighty bank of cloud, through which the lights of distant
casements glimmered like far and fitful stars.  On the other side
spread open fields and solitary farms; the castles of the Touris of
Inverleith, the Kincaids of Warriston, and two or three small and
lonely hamlets.

"Clermistonlee," began Juden, closing up to his master as the Long
Gate became darker and more lonely, for the cottages of St. Ninian
were now far behind; "If the auld witch, Elshender, by kecking
through a spule bane should divine our errand, our riding will be to
little purpose I reckon.  She is an unco uncanny body, Lucky Elsie,
and though her gudeman was a trooper, and did richt leal service in
King Charles' wars, I would fain see her brought to the tar-barrel,
for, wow, but I hate an auld blench-lippit, long-chaffit, sunk-eyed
carlin, as I do sour ale or the deil."

The Lord vouchsafed no reply to these sapient remarks, and Juden,
feeling somewhat uneasy at his silence, the darkness, and their
vicinity to the old Cross-kirk of St. Cuthbert, with its great square
central tower and broad burial grounds, studded with mossy tombstones
and slabs half sunk in the long reedy grass, spurred nearer and spoke
again.

"And then to think o' Meg, puir beastie! to fa' ill o' the wheezlock,
the malanders, and deil kens a' what, the very night ye trampled down
that auld cummer's kailcastocks, and wi' this match wi' Holsterlee to
come off at Easter!  Troth, my Lord Mersington has thumbscrewed and
tar-barrelled scores o' auld besoms on the half o' sic evidence o'
malice, and ungodly ill will.  And I would beg o' you to gie
Mersington a hint, that she was the gossip of Helen of Peaston, who
was burned ten years byegone.  Od's fish!  I saw the brodder o' the
High Court run his steel pricker thrice into Belzeebub's mark on her
bare back--a lang black teat whereat she suckled Hornie's imps, and
she neither winced nor skirled.  And for what I would like mickle to
ken----"

"Silence."

"Doth not this auld deevil, Elshender, deserve the tar-barrel as weel
as her neighbour cummer."

"I tell thee, silence!  Blow the match that must light the link."

"The link--now?"

"Thou hast it I hope, pumpkin-head?"

"Yes--yes, my Lord--but wow I wish this desperate job weel oure."

"Art getting white-livered?  Is this our first affair of the kind?"

"What, if the coach with the skeleton Lady cam' rumbling up Leith
loan after us!  It is about her hour noo.  Burn my beard, if I wadna
die o' sheer fright."

"Would to Heaven she came then, and rid me of a thorough household
pest."

"Ay, ay, but ye would sune find the want o' puir auld Juden.  Wha
would spice the Canary and Rochelle, mull the sack and sugar the
brandy like me?  Wha then would doctor your nags, break your hounds,
and train your hawks wi' leash and lure, and do everything ye can
think o', frae birselling a crail capon to backing a troop-horse, and
frae brushing your spurleathers, to being your staunch henchman on
sic a hillicate errand as this?  Hech, Sir!  I am picking up my
thanks now for standing by ye wi' buff and bilbo on many a stormy
day, fighting now for the kirk and then for the king--a bab o' blue
ribbons in my bonnet to-day, a cavalier's white feather the morn,
just as it suited you to uphold one banner because the other was like
to be beaten down."

"Rascal! let these be the last of those impertinent reflections which
you permit yourself to make on my conduct.  Recollect that as my
bounden vassal, my will is thine, my word thy law--enough--and seek
not as usual, old Mr. pertinacity, to have the last word with me."

"I am mum, my Lord." Juden checked his horse and fell to the rear in
high dudgeon.

Making a complete circuit of the suburbs, they crossed the Burghmuir,
where the turrets of Bruntisfield rose above the dark oaks of the
olden time.  Clermistonlee took a long survey of the stately old
mansion and its domain, and greatly refreshed with the noble aspect
thereof, pushed on with increased speed.

When they approached the little cottage it was dark and silent as the
ruined chapel beside it, and the beechen grove which overshadowed
them both.  The smoke of the rested night fire curled up pale and
grey among the dark copsewood, from the massive clay-built chimney,
but there was no other sign of life within.  Concealing their horses
behind a thick privet hedge, the conspirators approached the cottage,
Clermistonlee unrolling an ample rocquelaure of scarlet cloth to
throw over Lilian as a muffler, the moment she rushed forth to escape
the conflagration.

"The hut is very still," said the Lord.  "Zounds! if she should be
gone away."

"Impossible," responded Juden.  "Jock, my sister's son, watched the
place until mirk night came on.  But hear me--one word, my Lord, ere
we come to the onset?"

"What the deuce is it now, thou most incorrigible prater?"

"Would it no be better to ding up the door and carry the lady off
before I fire the bit placie, lest the flame bring those who might
strike in to the rescue?"

"True, Juden, you speak sensibly for once," replied his master, who
staggered a little in consequence of his recent potations, and felt
no ordinary excitement as the moment approached, when he hoped to
clasp Lilian Napier in his arms, and bear her off in triumph.
Clermistonlee had long been the wildest gallant of his time, and in
such a desperate affair as this he felt quite in his element.

Poising a large stone aloft, he hurled it against the door with all
the impetus he could lend it; but the barrier yielded not.  An
exclamation, half smothered in the depths of a box-bed, showed that
the inmates were sufficiently alarmed by the thundering shock, and
poor Elsie lay quaking under the bed-clothes, in full conviction that
the devil and his elvish drummer to boot, were about to force an
entrance.  Again and again Lord Clermistonlee hurled it against the
cottage door; but it remained fast as a rock, for several strong bars
of wood inserted in the massive wall, gave it all that security which
was then as necessary to the hut as to the palace.  Juden raised
aloft the flaring link, and its light streamed by fits on the
thatched roof and whitewashed walls, on the divot seat in front, with
woodbine and wild rose-tree clambering above it; on the high beech
trees that spread their arms to the night wind, scaring the rooks
from their leafless nests, and the sparrows from the thick warm
thatch which the blazing link menaced every instant.

"Reif and roist the obstinate yett!" exclaimed Juden, capering as the
stone rolled back upon his shins, and Clermistonlee, exasperated by
the unlooked-for delay, furiously thrust the link into the heavy
thatch.  The dense mass smouldered and smoked for an instant, while
the dry straw below struggled with the thick stratum of green moss
above, till the former prevailed, and a broad lurid flame shot
upward, revealing the broad fields and pasture land, the rough dykes
and budding hedgerows, the dreary road that wound over the adjacent
hills, the far recesses of the beechen grove, bringing forward the
knotted branches and gnarled and ivied trunks in strong relief, from
the darkness and obscurity of the wooded vista behind.  Full on the
roofless walls and pointed windows of St. Rocque fell the fitful
light, and on the spacious burial ground, where close and thick lay
the headstones of those unfortunates who perished in the deadly
pestilence of 1645.  In a few minutes a mass of blazing thatch fell
inwards through the bared and scorched rafters, and a terrific scream
ascended from within.  Fire now flashed through the little square
windows of the cottage, and its whole interior became filled with
yellow light; but the door still remained fast, while the shrieks
that rang within made Clermistonlee tremble with apprehension.

"Fury and confusion!" he exclaimed, "she may be scorched to death by
that flaming mass of thatch!  Horror! aid me--fool and villain--to
burst in the door! quick, or the accursed Baillie of the Portsburgh
with his trainband of souters and wabsters will be on us."

While he was speaking, the cottage door flew open, and, amid a shower
of sparks, which she threw from her attire, a female rushed forth in
a slate of distraction.

"'Tis she, Juden!" cried Clermistonlee, "'tis she!  I could know that
purple hood among a thousand!" and rushing forward with a tipsy shout
of triumph and rapture, he snatched up the the slight figure, over
which his staunch bravo threw the ample and stifling rocquelaure in a
manner that showed he had practised it on former occasions, as it
effectually prevented her cries from being heard.  Tall, strong, and
muscular, Clermistonlee with perfect ease placed his fair captive on
the croupe of his horse, and, springing into the saddle, gave it the
spur so suddenly, that it bounded into the air, and he lost a stirrup.

"Courage, Juden!" he exclaimed, while his heart panted with love and
exultation; "to horse and spur for the Place of Drumsheugh--but first
assist me--confusion!  I have lost a stirrup--quick, varlet, the
curb-rein.  So, now, look to thy petronel, for, by Jove!  I hear a
horn blowing somewhere."

Trembling with terror, and shaken furiously by the bounding of his
restless horse, the muffled captive lay helpless in his bold embrace.
One hand and arm were firmly clasped round her light and shrinking
figure, the other held the reins of his powerful horse, which dashed
along the road, clearing dyke and hedge at a bound, until gaining the
summit of the Burghmuir, where the road was rendered dangerous by the
ancient quarries, moss-haggs, and heron-shaws that bordered it.

"My dear Lilian, why will you struggle with me when I tell that your
efforts are vain; but fear not, gentle one, I will slacken my horse's
speed if you wish it."  He spoke with the utmost deliberation and
coolness; for he was too much used to such affairs to feel at all
puzzled in making an apology; besides, he was very tipsy.  "You have
long rejected me, dear Lilian, and forced me to this act, for which I
crave your pardon with the most abject humility--by all the devils I
do!  I am not one to stand on trifles, as thou knowest: no, sink me!
and if it is in the power of man to bend a woman's will to his, thine
shall bend to mine."

This address was in no way calculated to quiet the terrors of his
prisoner: his lordship was becoming more and more confused and
intoxicated, as every bound of his horse forced into his head the
fumes of the wine of which he had partaken so freely; and so he
continued in the same strain--

"What dost say, little one--my beloved Lilian I mean--you will
struggle, you will scream?  Permit me to insinuate, my dear Madam,
that it will be worse than useless, for nothing can avail you now but
pleasing me; a course I would advise you to pursue forthwith.  I know
some devilish fine women that would be proud to do it--crush me if I
do not!  My dearest Lilian, (what was I saying?) I will teach thee to
love as I would wish to be loved.  My heart and coronet are at your
feet--will not sincere love beget love?  By all the devils, I know it
will!  You will pardon all this to-morrow, for I know women forgive
all that has love for an excuse; then how much more so you, that are
ever so gentle and kind, when other dames are so haughty and cold;
d--n them! amen.  You think me a wicked ruffian, eh?  Zounds!  I am
not at all so, but a very fine fellow in every respect, though an
unfortunate victim of love to thee and fear of a few rascally
creditors.  My pretty Lilian, in fact I love thee so tremendously,
that even the pen of Scuderi could never describe it; and I swear by
this kiss, dear Lilian, and this--and this--a thousand furies!  where
am I?"

He became sobered in a moment, for, on removing the mantle to salute
the soft cheek of the girl, instead of beholding, as he expected, the
head of a seraph peeping forth from a mass of bright ringlets, lo! a
ray of the sickly moon streamed on the hooked nose, peaked chin, grey
haired, and smoke-begrimed visage of Elsie Elshender.

"Horror!" exclaimed Clermistonlee, whose rhapsody this terrible
vision had cut short.

"Avaunt, hag of hell!" and, trembling in every fibre with rage and
disgust, he flung the poor woman from his arms, and goading his horse
with the sharp rowels, dashed up the dark and rough Kirk Brae at a
break-neck pace; while Juden, totally unable to comprehend what had
taken place in front, partly drew up as the female rolled by the
way-side, near the gate of the Place of Bruntisfield.

"Awa wi' ye! fie and out upon ye, ye sons o' the scarlet woman!"
exclaimed Elsie in great wrath and tribulation, for she soon
recovered the use of her tongue.  "May a' the plagues of Egypt fa'
upon your ungodly heads!  May the Lord send cursing vexation and
rebuke!  Out upon ye! fie, and a murrain upon ye!"

Juden was astonished; but no sooner did he hear her shrill voice, and
behold by the moonlight her aged and withered visage, with long
tangled hair falling grey around it, than he became seized with a
superstitious terror, which the raising of her long skinny arm and
crooked finger, as if to curse, completed; and he stayed not to hear
the expected anathema.

"The first fuff o' a haggis is aye the hottest, but I'll not bide a
second.  Tak' that, ye accursed witch, until you are tarbarrelled!"
he exclaimed, and fired his long horse pistol full in her face.  Poor
Elsie fell forward motionless, while Juden, without daring once to
look behind him, dashed at full gallop after his lord, who had
already crossed Halkerston's Crofts, and was nearing the village of
St. Ninian.




CHAPTER XVIII.

THE GROWTH OF LOVE AND HOPE.

  The lady of my love resides
    Within a garden's bound;
  There springs the rose, the lily there
    And hollyhock are found.
  An instant on her form I gazed,
    So delicately white;
  Mild as a tender lamb was she,
    And as the red rose bright.
                    LAYS OF THE MINNESINGERS.


It is, perhaps, unnecessary to inform the reader that, thanks to the
delay caused by Juden's cunning or superstition, Lord Clermistonlee's
intended seizure of Lilian Napier had been attempted an hour too
late.  This was indeed fortunate.  Had it been made earlier, blood
and blows and loss of life must have undoubtedly ensued.

Exactly one hour before the unexpected visit which ended in the
destruction of Elsie's cottage, and nearly terrifying the poor woman
out of her senses, her late guests had all departed in one of those
vast and solemn hackney equipages (before described) which crawled
away over the Burgh muir like the mighty catafalco of a deceased
hero, past the end of the still and waveless Burghloch, and up the
dark and gloomy avenue of Bruntisfield, after being nearly an hour in
traversing, a space which any modern cab will carry one over in three
minutes.  Like a true gallant of the day, Walter Fenton stood on the
footboard behind, while Hab with his matchlock slung, shared the
driver's ample hammer-cloth, so that the ladies and their attendant
Meinie (whose delight and wonder at being in such a vehicle must be
duly commemorated) were pretty safe from those bold lads of the post
who prowled about after nightfall with sword and pistol, making every
unarmed citizen who chanced to pass that way, stand and deliver cloak
and purse with so cavalier an air, that it was almost impossible to
refuse.

With as much formality as if she was entering a conquered city, Lady
Grizel received the keys of the barbican gate from her ground-baillie
Syme, of the Greenhill, who, bareheaded, with three stout sons,
bearing torches, and several of the old servants who had found
shelter in Syme's onsteading, and whose clamorous joy burst forth in
loud pæans of triumph, as she was led by the baillie into the old
baronial chamber of dais, the canopy of which, to the simple "tenant
bodies" of those days, was fraught with more terrors than the chair
of the Lord President Lockhart.

"A thousand welcomes to your Ladyship," said Symon, bowing profoundly
for the twentieth time.

"Thanks, Symon," replied Lady Bruntisfield, giving him her hand to
kiss.  "I hope your gude wife is well, and that your youngest bairn
got over its hooping cough by the means I prescribed."

"My lady, wi' the advice o' a barber-chirurgeon----"

"A barber-guse! did I not tell ye to pass that afflicted bairn three
times through a blackberry bush, whilk is an infallible remedy--but
I'll see after it mysel to-morrow."

Lilian wept and laughed, and gave her hands to the servants to kiss,
for her heart beat as joyously to find herself under the old
ancestral roof, as if she had doubled Cape Horn since she last saw
it.  She kissed grand-aunt Grizel, and rushed from one dark and
silent apartment to another, as if to gladden them by her happy
presence, and looked forth with beaming eyes on the waving woods and
the long expanse of the placid lake, whose dark bosom gave back the
light of a thousand stars, and anon she paused to listen to that old
familiar sound, the cawing of the rooks amid those great hereditary
oaks, the remnants of the vast forest of Drumsheugh, which, in the
days of St. David, surrounded the city and its castle on every side.

Meantime, standing under the old velvet canopy, and leaning on her
walking-cane, Lady Grizel was listening with a kindling eye and
glowing cheek to her ground-baillie, who poured forth a dismal and
exaggerated report of the extortions and outrages committed on her
tenantry by Capt. Crichton's troop of the Grey Dragoons, who had
carried off all the baillie's own grain, "whilk he had laid up for
seed; they had taken the best cow, and a notable nowte from the
gudeman of Netherdurdie, and nae less than three bonnie servitor
lassies frae the farmtoun of Drumdryan; they had toomed every
corn-ark, meal-girnel, and beer-barrel in the barony, forby and
attour, extorting riding-money three times owre wi' cockit carbines!"
It was a lamentable story, and three energetic taps from the Lady
Grizel's cane closed the tale.

She, however, found her own mansion scatheless, save where several
drawers and lock-fast places had been forced and damaged during the
search of Macer Maclutchy and other underlings in authority, for
treasonable papers (and more especially loose cash), while in the
cellars an empty runlet or two, and empty flasks in such number that
Drouthy the butler surveyed them in silence for ten minutes before he
began to swear and count them--bore evidence of the strict search
which Sergeant Wemyss and his musqueteers had prosecuted in the lower
regions of the house.  The news of their lady's return spread to the
Home-grange and neighbouring cottages like wildfire, and, half
dressed, the good people came crowding to the mansion testifying by
repeated acclamations their joy at her return and restoration to
rank; for, save the honoured, envied (and, from that moment, hated)
Elsie Elshender, none knew where she had been concealed for the past
month.  It was generally thought that she had fled to England, to the
"Lowlands of Holland," or some other "far awa place."  The affection
which the Scottish tenantry ever manifested for the old families on
whose lands they dwelled, whose banner their ancestors had followed,
with whose name and fame, and hope, and happiness, or misfortune,
their own were so interwoven, and under the wing of whose protection
so many generations of their race had lived and died, was a noble
sentiment of the purest love peculiar to the nation.  It knit
together in a manner which we cannot now conceive, the interests of
the highest and the lowest--a remnant of the good old patriarchal
times, which strongly marked the character of the people, and, like
the endearing ties of clanship, was very different from the feudal
tyranny that existed in other lands.

Late though the hour, the old house was crowded with glad faces;
casks of ale were set abroach by Mr. Drouthy, and every ruddy cheek
became flushed with joy and the brown October beverage; every eye was
bright and moist; a buzz of happiness pervaded the spacious mansion,
and rang in the dark woods around it.  But midnight passed; the
morning waxed apace, and now the baillie rang the household bell, as
a warning for all to retire, and, making an obeisance, bonnet in
hand, he set the example by trotting away on his plump Galloway cob.

Walter Fenton, as he had no excuse, (though every wish,) to stay,
would have retired with the rest; but this Lady Grizel's hospitality
would by no means permit; he remained without much pressing, and
after the parting or sleeping cup had been passed round, they
separated for the night, and Walter, in the same apartment which had
witnessed his combat with Captain Napier, lay down on his couch, not
to sleep, but to brood over bright and joyous visions of the future
that were never to be realised.  One moment his heart glowed with
unalloyed rapture and unclouded hope; and the next he was half
despairing when he compared his humble fortune with that of Lilian.
His whole inheritance was military service: of his family he knew
nothing but their name.  He was a child of war and misfortune; and
these, more than he could foresee, were to be his companions through
life.  He was poor and obscure; while Lilian, with her artless beauty
and girlish sweetness of manner, inherited the name and blood of one
of the oldest and proudest houses in the Lowlands--barons to whom the
Prestons of Gourton, the Kincaids of Warriston, and the Toweris of
that ilk, were but mushroom citizens; and when he pictured the grey
old mansion which sheltered him, so tall, so grim, and aristocratic
in aspect and association, and the many acres of fertile field, of
grassy pasture, and bosky wood that stretched around it, and weighed
in the balance his half-pike......

Lovers are the most able of all self-tormentors.  His horizon became
fearfully overcast, and his bright visions seemed to end in smoke,
till hope came again to his aid.  Poor Walter! he was now fairly in
love, and for the first time; his heart was unhackneyed in the ways
of the world, and he knew not that the time might come when, with an
inward smile, he would wonder that he ever thought so.  But between
his own anxious fears, the cawing of the rooks and creaking of the
turret vanes, grey morning began to brighten the far off east before
he slept.

With the first blush of dawn, old Elspat Elshender arrived with a
confused but lamentable history of the disasters and terrors of the
night--of how she had been carried away by the devil and Major Weir
on a high trotting horse--how claps of thunder had rung around her
cottage, and lightning consumed it--and that it was not until she was
able to repeat the Lord's Prayer that they assumed the forms of Lord
Clermistonlee and his hellicate butler, Juden Stenton, and thereafter
vanished in a flash of fire, leaving Elsie among the nettles and
whins at the avenue gate.

Lady Bruntisfield, who, seated in her arm-chair, cane in hand, had
listened to this wonderful narrative with great gravity, was at no
loss to attribute the enterprise to the proper personages, and though
the indignation she felt was very great, her alarm and uneasiness
were greater.  She now saw to what lengths the passion and daring of
this rash and profligate suitor might carry him.  In consequence of
his rank and power, (which the complaints of a hundred old women
could never shake,) it was deemed expedient to commit the affair to
silence, but to be on their guard, and in future never to go abroad
without an armed escort--composed of old Syme the baillie and his
sons, or some such stout fellows, with sword and pistol.  Meantime,
the burning of the cottage (a loss which Elsie deeply mourned, for
there she had dwelt a wife and widow for more than forty years,) was
attributed by some to the outcast Cameronians who lurked among the
whins of Braid, and by others to certain malicious spunkies who then
inhabited the morasses to the westward.

At a late hour next morning Walter awoke.  It was now the month of
April.  The sun shone warmly from a bright blue sky streaked with
fleecy clouds that gleamed like masses of gilded snow, as his
radiance streamed aslant between them.  The grass and the budding
trees were heavy with dew, and the merry birds were chirruping and
hopping from branch to branch, as if their little hearts rejoiced at
the approach of summer.  The ravenous gled and the ominous rook were
soaring on their dark wings into the azure sky, and their light
shadows floated over the still bosom of the loch, scaring the lonely
heron that waded in its waters, till piercing up, and farther up they
grew mere specks in the welkin, as they flew towards the rising sun.
The old mansion, with its tall smoky chimneys and projecting turrets,
gleamed cheerily in the red sunlight that streamed down the long
shady avenue, where myriads of gad-flies wheeled and revolved in the
golden beams as they pierced and shot through the thickening
foliage--thickening and expanding under the warm showers and warmer
sun of April, the balmy month of fresh leaves and opening flowers, of
fleecy clouds and bright blue skies.

The beauty of the spring morning, and the passages of the preceding
night, made Walter feel joyous and gay.  At his toilet he took more
than usual care in folding his cravat of point lace, hooking his
coat, of tight and spotless buff, with its bars of silver lace, and
in twisting his smart moustachios.  His thick dark locks escaped from
under a bonnet of blue velvet, adorned with the cross of St. Andrew
and a single white feather.  His breeches were of red regimental
cloth, and his stockings of scarlet silk.  A gorget of bright steel,
and a long basket-hilted rapier, suspended by a buff shoulder-belt,
were his only arms, and he was altogether a handsome and
gallant-looking fellow.  With a light step, and a lighter heart, he
followed the servant, who ushered him into the chamber of dais, where
Lilian arose from tinkling on the spinnet, and running towards him
with that delightful frankness which made her so charming, bade him
good morning.

For the first time since they were children, he found himself alone
with her, and the young man felt seriously embarrassed.  Lilian
seemed so fresh, rosy, and beautiful, the touch of her hand was so
gentle and graceful, and the purity of her complexion so dazzling,
(exhibiting just enough of red to shew perfect health,) that she
might have passed for the goddess of the season.  The richness and
neatness of her dress did full justice to her round and charming
person; a well busked boddice and stomacher of black taffeta, edged
round the fair and budding bosom with a deep tucker of rich lace, and
short sleeves frilled with deep falls of the same revealed her round
and spotless arm, from the dimpled elbow to the slender waist.  Her
bright glossy hair (Meinie had found her very difficult to please in
its arrangement that morning) rolled over her shoulders in massive
tresses, perfumed, and tied with a white ribbon, which drew them back
from her delicate temples and beautiful ears.  A carcanet of Scottish
pearls--those found of old on the rocks of Orrock--encircled her
neck, and a long sweeping skirt of black satin gave a stateliness to
her air, which with the admirable contour of her nose and short upper
lip, by their noble yet piquant expression, completed.  Her blue eyes
were beaming with delight, and a half blush played about her cheek as
she glided towards Walter Fenton.

"My dear old friend," said she, after the usual compliments, "I hope
you slept well in this poor house of ours, notwithstanding the ghosts
that make it their special business to plague all visitors; but after
the turmoil of last night, I can hardly doubt it."

"The redness of your cheek, gentle Lilian, shows me that you must
have slumbered soundly, and have quite recovered the terrors of the
last few weeks."

"O no, I scarcely slept at all, or did so only to dream I was still
at poor Elsie's, hiding in the meal girnel.  My head is buzzing still
with the clamour of the tenantry (are they not all dear folks?) and
old Syme of the Hill, with his doleful catalogue of enormities,
stoutrief and hamesucken committed by the troopers; and then poor old
Elsie with her mishaps!  Ah, good Heavens! if it was really the devil
that ran off with her!  But were not the poor vassals happy last
night?  O I could have kissed every one of them; and I am so happy,
Mr. Fenton, to find myself under this dear old roof again, that I
could dance with glee if you would join me.  But you, who were so
kind when greater friends shunned and forgot us, you who have endured
so much contumely for our sake, how can we ever recompense or thank
you?"

"By ceasing to remember it as an obligation.  O rather view it as a
duty!" said Walter, in a low voice.  "Madam Lilian, often ere this, I
have by intentional remissness of duty, saved many an unfortunate
from the dungeon and the cord.  But they were poor Recusant
Cameronians whose escape was valued as little as their lives.

"As nurse Elsie says, these are indeed fearful times," replied
Lilian, laughing; "but truly, when I remember the kind and gentle
little Walter I used to play with long ago, I think you must be much
too tender hearted for soldiering."

"Under favour, Lilian," said Walter, feeling his heart flutter as she
spoke, "a true soldier is ever compassionate; and the hand that
strikes down a foe should be the first to succour and protect him
when fallen.  I am too well aware that in these days of religious
persecution and political misrule, the Scottish soldier is often, too
often indeed, the instrument----"

"Hush, friend Walter! art not afraid I will betray thee?  Have you
forgotten that horrid vault, the Tolbooth, and its grim Gudeman?"

"Ah, the rascally clown, I have a crow to pluck with him yet; but I
was only about to say, that in these days of ours----"

"Ah, you are about to speak treason again," said she playfully.  "I
mean to be very loyal, and must not permit you, although there are
none here who would betray you, unless it be the old corbies that
croak on the chimney head.  But come with me, and I will show you
their nests in some strange places, I promise you; and I have flowers
to visit, and my pigeons too, poor pets!  I once thought never to
behold them again.  Come, Mr. Fenton, your hand; how beautiful the
morning is!"

Charmed with her vivacity, Walter became every moment more delighted
with Lilian Napier.  With a very cavalier-like air which he had
acquired among his Parisian comrades of the Musqueteers, who had
returned from the French to the Scottish service only ten years
before, he hastened to give her his ungloved hand, and they sallied
forth into the garden, where the deep rows of Dutch boxwood that
edged the walks, the leaden statues of satyrs, swains, and
shepherdesses, the gravelled terraces and flights of steps, the old
mossy sun and moon dial, and the fantastic arbours, were all in
admirable keeping with the quaint old manor house that towered above
them.  Old John Leekie, the gardener, clad in his coarse sky-blue
coat, and long ribbed galligaskins, reverently doffed his broad
bonnet, and bowed his lyart head, as his young mistress passed, and
patting his shoulder with her hand, bade him a "good morning."  The
old man's eye brightened as he surveyed the garb and bearing of
Walter Fenton, and continued his occupation of hoeing up the early
kail, with a sigh;

  "For he thought of the days that were long since by,
  When his limbs were strong, and his courage was high:"--

and when he rode in the iron squadrons of the loyal Hamilton and
stern Leslie.

"Gentle Lilian," said Walter, colouring deeply as he gazed on the
fine old mansion, the walls of which were quite encrusted with coats
armorial and quaint legends, "it is when surveying so noble a
dwelling as this that I feel most bitterly how hardly fortune has
dealt with me."

"Tush, friend! hast never got the better of those old glooms and
fancies yet?  Read the motto over yonder window; ah! 'tis my
dressing-room that," said the lively girl, pointing to a distich in
Saxon characters, which was one of the many that adorned the edifice.

  "Quhen Adam delved and Eve spanne,
  Quhair war a' the gentlis than?"


"It is very true; but I, who am a soldier, cannot think of those
things like a philosopher."

"Then do not think of them at all."

"How numerous are the coats and quarterings here! there is the eagle
of the Ramsays, the unicorns of the Prestons, and the saltier of
Napier."

"But, Mr. Walter, do you know that Aunt Grizel asserts there is an
ancient prophecy which says, that like the Scottish crown, the
fortune of our house came with a lass, and will go with one."

"Indeed!" rejoined Walter, considerably interested, "its fortune?"

"That is--you must understand--you know that," and here poor Lilian
became seriously embarrassed, "that it came to the Napiers by
marriage from the Wrytes, and by marriage it will go to others."

Walter's heart fluttered; he was about to say something, but the
words died on his lips, and there ensued a silence of some minutes;
Lilian, who sometimes became very reserved, being abashed by what she
had said, and Walter stupidly pondering over it.  Lilian was the
first to speak.

"See you that old corbie on the branch of the dale tree, that horrid
branch, all notched by the ropes of old executions?"

"He with the bald head now watching us?"

"The same: what think you Aunt Grizel says?  He saw my great
grandsire and his train in all their harness, ride down the avenue
when they marched with brave King James to Flodden."

"By that reckoning he must be--let me see--one hundred and
seventy-five years old."

"O, there are some older than that hereabouts; but come to the
dovecot, and there we shall see birds of brighter plumes and better
augury than these gloomy corbies."

As they approached the dovecot, a round edifice vaulted and domed
with stone in the most ancient Scottish fashion, a tame pigeon winged
its way from amid the scores that clustered on the roof, and after
fluttering for a time over Lilian's head, alighted on her shoulder
and nestled in her neck, rubbing its smooth and glossy head against
her soft cheek, and even permitting Walter to stroke its shining
pinions, which in the sunlight varied alternately from green to
purple, and from purple to red and gold.  On each leg it had a silver
varvel with Lilian's cypher on it.  As Walter caressed the beautiful
bird, his hand often touched the soft cheek and softer tresses of the
happy and thoughtless girl.

"How properly this gentle emblem of innocence and happiness greets
you as its mistress."

"And am I not its proper mistress?" asked Lilian artlessly.  "It is
the bird of peace, too."

"And love--so that it well becomes the hand of beauty."

"Ah! you are beginning to be waggish now.  It is just so that your
friend Douglas of Finland--he with the flaunting feathers--addresses
my gay gossip, Annie Laurie.  You know Annie?  She is considered the
first beauty in the Lothians, and 'tis said (but that is a great
secret, and you must not say I said so) that the young lairds of
Craigdarroch and Finland are going to fight a solemn duel about her.
She is much taller than me."

"Then she is too tall for my taste."

"Oh! but I am quite little; you used to call me little Madam Lily
once.  But her hair is the most beautiful brown."

"I prefer," said Walter, taking up one of Lilian's heavy tresses, "I
prefer the colour that approaches to gold."

"And her eyes are just like mine."

"They must be beautiful indeed."

"Ha, ha!" laughed the merry girl: "harkee, Mr. Fenton, did I not know
positively to the contrary, I would think you had been in France."

"Wherefore, Madam?"

"Because," said she, roguishly, with half-closed eyes, "you twist all
one's speeches into compliments so readily and bluntly, and so quite
unlike our douce Scots' gallants (who always let slip the opportunity
while they are making up their minds), that you quite remind me of
Monsieur Minuette, who came here with the Duke of York.  Ah, you
remember him, with his long sword--how like a grasshopper on a pin he
looked; and he tried stoutly with his frightful rigadoon and the
bretagne, to put our good old Scottish dances into the shade, and so
out of fashion.  And yet Aunt Grizel says that, to see the Lady Anne
(she that is now princess of Denmark), so tall and stately, and
Claverhouse, so graceful and courtly, dancing the Italian vault-step,
enraptured every body.  O, it it was quite a sight.--But there
jangles the house-bell, and now let us hie to breakfast."

Once more she placed her hand in Walter's, and they returned to the
chamber of dais, where Lady Bruntisfield, no longer disguised in the
humble attire of a cottar, but in all her pristine splendour of
perfumed brocade, and starched magnificence of point lace and puffed
locks frizzled up like a tower on her stately head, welcomed Walter
with a courtesy of King Charles the First's days, and kissed her
grandniece.

After a long and solemn grace, the repast began.  The most
substantial breakfast of these degenerate days would dwindle into
insignificance when compared with that which loaded the long oaken
table of Bruntisfield House.  In the centre smoked a vast urn of
coffee, surrounded by diminutive cups of dark-blue china, flanked on
the right by a side of mutton roasted, on the left by a gigantic
capon; a dish of wild ducks balanced another of trout, both being
furnished by the adjacent loch; broiled haddocks, pickled salmon,
kippered herrings, pyramids of eggs, and piles of oat and
barley-cakes; wheaten loaves and crystal cups of honey were also
there; but chief above all towered a vast tankard of spiced ale;
beside it stood a long-necked bottle of strong waters to whet the
appetite, lest through the eyes it should fairly become satisfied by
the mere sight of so many edibles.

At the lower end of the board, the servants were accommodated with
bickers and cogues of porridge and milk, which they supped with
cutty-spoons of black horn, while two mighty trenchers of polished
pewter held the magazines from which they drew their supplies.  The
custom of domestics sitting at the same table with their superiors
was then almost obsolete; but Lady Grizel, whose memories and
prejudices went back to the days of King James VI., still retained
the ancient fashion, and consequently all her household sat down with
her, save two old serving-men in green livery, with her crest on
their sleeves: these were in attendance each as an _écuyer
tranchant_, or cutting squire.  On the party being joined by the
ground bailie, Syme of the Greenhill, who, in consequence of his
being a bonnet-laird, was permitted to sit above the salt, the
important business of making breakfast proceeded with all the gravity
and attention such a noble display deserved.  Cheerful and
good-humoured, though punctilious to excess, like every noble matron
of her time, Lady Grizel Napier did the honours of the feast with
that peculiar grace which makes a guest feel so much at home.  She
never once recurred to late events, but conversed affably on the
topics of the day, like Lilian, investing little trifles with an air
of interest that made them quite new and charming to Walter; for
though aged and failing fast, she still possessed that art so
agreeable in a well-bred woman, that even when she talked nonsense,
one could scarcely have thought it so; and certainly, when witches,
spells, and ghosts were the theme, the wise and gentle King James
himself was nothing to her in credulity.

"Symon, I hope ye obeyed my injunctions to the letter, in the affair
o' your bairn's hooping-cough," said the old lady, who took an active
hand in all the family matters of her vassalage.

"Faith did I, my Lady, but found the wee thing no' a hair the better
of it.  It is an unco trouble, the cough, but Lucky Elshender says,
gif I put my forefinger down the bairn's throat for fifteen minutes,
it will never cough mair."

"I'll warrant it o' that," said the old lady, scornfully; "but how
dare she prescribe for any bairn on the barony without consulting me?
I'll gang o'er in the gloaming and see about it."

"Mony thanks to your Ladyship."

An air or two on the virginals, and Lady Anne Bothwell's touching
_Lament_ performed at full length by Lilian in her sweetest manner
concluded the visit, and Walter reluctantly prepared to retire.  Lady
Bruntisfield and Lilian departed in their sedans with two armed
servants before and two behind them, to pay a most ceremonious visit
of thanks to Lord Dunbarton and his beautiful Countess, and Fenton,
after accompanying them to the arch of the Bristo Port, left them to
the care of their retinue, and receiving a warm invitation to visit
them soon again, pursued his way in a maze of stirring thoughts
through the steep wynds, narrow closes, and crowded streets of the
city to his sombre quarters in the Canongate.




CHAPTER XIX.

THE OLD SCOTTISH SERVICE.

  The soul which ne'er hath felt a genial ray
  Glow to the drum's long roll or trumpet's bray;
  Start to the bugle's distant blast, and hail
  Its buxom greetings on the morning gale--
  _Such_ the muse courts not.
                                LORD GRENVILLE.


On the return of Walter Fenton to the White Horse Cellar, Douglas,
who was lounging on the broad flight of steps in front of the
edifice, and chatting gaily with a buxom damsel of the establishment,
informed him that Holsterlee of the Life Guards had just been there,
saying that the Earl of Dunbarton and the Lords of the Privy Council
required his attendance at the Lower Chamber--immediate attendance.

His mind became troubled at this information: though unconscious of
having done anything new to incur displeasure, it was with
considerable anxiety he bent his steps to the precincts of that
dreaded tribunal.

The Lairds of Craigdarroch and Holsterlee, (or as the latter was
commonly called, Jack Holster,) two of Claverhouse's cavalier
troopers lounged in the antechamber smoking their Dutch pipes, while
the yeomen of the Scottish Guard in their blue bonnets and scarlet
doublets, armed with long daggers and gilt partisans, thronged the
Parliament Close and outer lobby of the house.

Their presence in some degree lessened his anxiety, as the absence of
the military police of the city, and the viler menials of the law,
announced that matters of state, and not of inquisitorial persecution
were before that powerful and extraordinary conclave.  He waited long
in the well-known antechamber, whose features brought back a host of
gloomy thoughts, amid which his mind wandered continually to the
house of Bruntisfield; but he endeavoured to mingle in the gay
conversation of the two guardsmen, who talked nonsense as glibly and
laughed as loudly as if they had been in Hugh Blair's tavern on the
opposite side of the square, instead of being within earshot of those
whose names were a terror to the land.  After all that was of
importance to the state had been discussed and dismissed, Walter, on
being summoned by the drawling and hated voice of Maclutchy found
himself before the same bench of haughty councillors he had
confronted a few weeks before; but now its aspect was different; the
rays of the meridian sun streamed cheerfully into their dusky place
of meeting, and hangings which appeared sable before were now seen to
be of crimson velvet, fringed and tasselled with gold, gilded chairs,
and the throne surmounted by the royal arms with the gallant Lion in
_defence_; the rich and varied dresses of the Lords, massively laced
and jewelled with precious stones, embroidered belts, and embossed
sword-hilts, were all sparkling in the several flakes of light that
gushed between the strong stanchells of the ancient windows into the
gloomy and vaulted room.

The stern basilisk eye of Clermistonlee alone was fixed on Walter as
before.

The Lord High Treasurer, the Chancellor, and the sleepy Mersington,
withdrew as our hero entered.  Near the head of the table stood the
Earl of Dunbarton in his rich military dress of scarlet, with the
cuffs slashed and buttoned up to reveal the lawn sleeves below; his
gallant breast was sheathed in a corslet of polished steel,
beautifully inlaid with gold, and over it fell his lace cravat and
the sable curls of his heavy peruke.  His badge as Commander-in-chief
of the Forces, an ivory baton with silver thistles twined round it
was in one hand; the other rested on his plumed head piece.  The
magnificence of his attire formed a strong contrast to that of the
stern Dalyel, who wore a plain suit of black armour like that of a
curiassier of Charles I., but rusted by blood and perspiration, and
defaced by sword cuts and musquet balls, it was a panoply with which
his long silvery beard and iron, but dignified face corresponded
well.  Making a half military obeisance to these Lords of Council,
Walter, felt not a little reassured by the presence of his patron the
Earl and Sir Thomas Dalyel.

"Mr. Fenton," said the former, "we have much pleasure in presenting
you with that to which your merits so much entitle you--a pair of
colours in my ancient regiment of Royal Scots, vacant by the death of
young Toweris of that ilk, who has been slain in a late camisadoe in
the north, with some broken rascals of the Clan-Donald.  You will
therefore hear the king's commission read over, and thereafter sign
your oath of fealty to us without delay, as the day is wearing
apace."  Taking up a small piece of parchment to which appeared the
Great Seal of Scotland, the signatures of the King and Secretary of
State, and his (Dunbarton's) own seal with the four quarters of
Douglas, the Earl read the following, which we give verbatim:--

"I George, Earl of Dunbarton, Lord of Douglas, Knight, Baronet, and
Knight of the Thistle, Lieutenant-General, and Commander-in-chief of
the Scottish forces, by virtue of the power and authority given to me
by His Most Sacred Majesty James VII., do hereby constitute you,
Walter Fenton, Gentleman, an Ensign of the Royall Regiment of Ffoote
in that companie wheroff his Honor the Laird of Drumquhazel,
Chevalier of St. Michael, is captain.  You are therefore to obey such
orders as you may receive from His Majesty and your superiors, as you
expect to be obeyed by your soldiers according to the Rules and
Discipline of War.

"Given under my hand and seal at the Bristo Port.

"DUNBARTON."


Though astonished at all this unusual formality, Walter bowed in
pleased and grateful silence, and then he heard the stern voice of
Major-General Dalyel.

"Maister Fenton, you will please to repeat after me, and sign your
oath of Fealty to this Council and the three estates of the realm."

"Oath of Fealty, Sir Thomas?" reiterated Walter, equally surprised
and offended at this new proposal, which accompanied the
long-wished-for gift.  "My Lords, though deeply grateful for this
mark of your favour, I deplore that you should suspect me----"

"Sir," interrupted Lord Clermistonlee, hastily and haughtily, "at
_present_ we suspect you of nothing; but the corruption of these
times, when the very air seems infected with treason and disloyalty,
have made an oath of fealty necessary from this time forth."

"To the King?"

"No--to the Officers of State and the Parliament of Scotland--and woe
unto those who shall break it!  An Act of Council previous to one of
the House, made it law an hour ago.  Art satisfied, sirrah?"

"My Lords, I like it not, for it implies a suspicion a man of spirit
cannot thole," replied Walter, in an under tone, as he advanced to
the table; and Clermistonlee, seized by a sudden fit of passion, was
about to pour forth some of his furious and abusive ebullitions, when
Dunbarton said mildly:

"Walter, an edict of council hath (as his Lordship said) made this
law, which will be more fully confirmed by the three estates.  Mr.
Secretary, read aloud the oath of fealty, and the young gentleman
will sign it."

"By my beard, he had better, or prepare for his auld quarters again,"
added Dalyel, sharply, striking his heavy toledo on the floor.

Thus urged, Walter heard the oath of allegiance, which the
approaching crisis in the affairs of those factions that then rent
both Scotland and England, rendered necessary for the security of the
Government--promising "faithfully to demean himself to the estates of
Scotland presently met;" and affixed his name thereto, little
foreseeing how dear that oath was yet to cost him, and how
unfortunate in its influence it was, at a future time to prove to his
fortunes.  As if he foresaw it, a dark smile lit the sinister eyes of
Clermistonlee; it was a peculiar scowl of deep and hidden meaning;
and though Walter soon forgot it at the time, he remembered it in
after years when the cold hand of misfortune was crushing him to the
dust.

"I trust, young birkie," said the fierce Dalyel with a keen glance,
"that you will never again waver in the execution of your duty or
military devoir; but be stanch as a red Cossack, and ever ready to do
his Majesty gude and leal service (_whatever be his creed_) against
all false rebels and damned psalm-singers, whilk are the same."

"I will gage my honour for him," said Dunbarton.

"How readily my Lord defends his loon," whispered Clermistonlee to
Dalyel, but not so low as to be unheard; and the Earl's cheek
flushed--his brows knit; but he made no reply, save waving his hand
to Walter, who withdrew.

The warm noonday sun streamed brightly down the High-street; the
musical bells of Saint Giles jangled merrily in the pure breeze that
swept through the stone-arched spire; and Walter Fenton never felt so
happy and light of heart as when he issued from the sombre
Parliament-close into the bustle of that grand thoroughfare; and
giving full reins to his fancy, allowed it to career into regions
fraught with the most brilliant visions of the future: fame, fortune,
happiness, all were there in glowing colours, but were--never to be
realized.

Poor Walter!  That hour laid the foundation of the airy palace of
love, glory, and renown, which every ardent young man builds unto
himself, and which indeed is the only fabric that costs nothing but
the bitter achings of a seared and disappointed heart.  To Walter it
was the dawn of joy; his foot, he thought, was now firmly planted on
the first step of the dangerous ladder of honour; and with his
thoughts divided between war, ambition, and Lilian Napier, and with
his heart glowing with exultation, he pulled forth the little scrap
of parchment to re-examine it again and again, as he skipped down the
crowded street, and a severe concussion against a tower of the
Netherbow first roused him from his dreams.  He was in excellent
humour with himself, pleased with everybody, and enraptured with the
Lords of Council, whose orders he was ready to obey in everything,
whether they were to storm a tower or fire a clachan, march to
England, or duck an "auld wife" in the North Loch.

"My stars are propitious to me to-day," said he aloud, as he
half-danced down the street towards the White Horse Cellar.  "O, may
Heaven give me but opportunities to win a name; and if the most
unflinching perseverance--the most spotless loyalty--and a headlong
valour, such as not even Claver'se can surpass, will bring me honour
and renown, I feel that I _shall_ win _them_.  O Bravo for the roll
of the drum! the rush of the charging horse! and the ranks of pikemen
shoulder to shoulder!  I am one of the Guards of St. Louis--King
James's Scottish Musqueteers--the old _Diehards_ of Dunbarton."



END OF VOL. I.



  LONDON:
  PRINTED BY HARRISON AND SON,
  ST. MARTIN'S LANE.



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