The Captain of the Guard

"So cheerlessly I live on without hope or aim, a wedded nun, amid councils of fierce and stern men, whose meetings, debates, and thoughts are all for opposition, and revenge for the terrible deed of 1440."

"In other words, Murielle, men who are ripe for treason and rebellion."

"Why will you speak or think so harshly of us?" she asked so imploringly that Gray kissed her tenderly as his only or best reply.

"And that spiteful beauty your sister – what says she of me now?" – "That you are the king's liege man," was the cautious answer.

"She is right, my beloved one – I am his till death – "

"And our enemy!" said a sharp voice close by them, like the hiss of a snake.

They turned and saw Margaret, the countess of Douglas, standing at the entrance of her bower-chamber, the tapestry covering the door of which she held back with one hand. She was clad entirely in black, with a long veil of fine lace depending from the apex of her lofty head-dress, enveloping her haughty head and handsome white shoulders. She was somewhat changed since Gray had seen her last, for angry passions were lining her young face prematurely; her marvellous beauty remained in all its striking power; but it was the beauty of a devil —diavolessa, an Italian would term it. Ten years of feud and anxious hostility to the crown and its adherents had imparted a sternness to her fine brow, a keen boldness to her black eyes, and a sneering scorn to her lovely lip that made her seem a tragedy queen.

"And so another errand than the king's message, anent his minion's life or death, has brought you hither, scurvy patch!" said she scornfully; "but by St. Bryde I shall rid our house and my sister of such intrusive visitors!"

"Madame," Gray began, with anger.

"Varlet – would you dare to threaten me?" she exclaimed, holding up a clenched hand, which was white, small, and singularly beautiful; "but, my gay moth, you will flutter about that poor candle until your wings are burnt. I have but to say one word to Douglas of this clandestine meeting and he will hang you in your boots and tabard above our gate, where Herbert of Teregles and many a better man has hung."

"Oh, sister Margaret," urged Murielle, trembling like an aspen-leaf.

"Ha – to speak that word would remove the only barrier to your being duchess of Albany – and why should I not speak it?" she continued fiercely and with flashing eyes; "Why should I not speak it?"

"Because, dear Maggie, you have still some gentle mercy left, and Heaven forbids you," said Murielle, clinging to her pitiless sister.

"Begone, madam," said the latter imperiously; "your instant obedience alone purchases my silence. But here comes Sir Alan Lauder."

So ended abruptly, as at the abbot's house in Edinburgh, this unexpected meeting. Terror for her lover-husband's life made Murielle withdraw instantly with her sister, just as Sir Alan Lauder of the Bass, who was still captain and governor of Thrave, approached with an undisguised sneer on his lips to say that the earl would receive Sir Patrick Gray at brekfaast, in his own chamber, and there give his answer to the king's message.

CHAPTER XLVIII

DOUGLAS AND GRAY

And darest thou, then,

To beard the lion in his den,

The Douglas in his hall? —

Scott.

Clad in a robe of fine scarlet cloth, which was lined with white fur, and fastened by a brooch or jewel at the neck, and which was open just enough to show an undershirt and long hose of buff-coloured silk, the earl of Douglas was seated in a high-backed easy-chair, which was covered with crimson taffety. His feet were placed on a tabourette, and close by, with his long sharp nose resting on his outstretched paws, crouched Souyllard, the snow-white bloodhound, uttering deep growls from time to time.

Breakfast, which consisted of cold beef, partridge-pie, flour cakes, wheaten bread, honey, ale, and wine, was spread upon the table, which, like the rest of the carved oak furniture, and like the castle itself, seemed strong enough to last twenty generations of Douglases. The equipage was entirely composed of the beautiful pottery of Avignon, which was all of a dark-brown metallic tint, like tortoise-shell, but perforated and in relief.

At the earl's hand, in the old Scottish fashion, stood a flat-shaped pilgrim-bottle of usquebaugh. It was from Beauvais, and bore a Scots lion, with the three fleurs-de-lys, and the name of Charle Roy VII., for it was a personal gift from the then reigning monarch of France to Douglas, when last at his hunting-castle in the wood of Vincennes.

A painted casement, one half of which stood open, admitted the warm rays of the summer sun through the deep embrasure of the enormously thick castle-wall, and afforded a glimpse without of the far-stretching landscape and the windings of the Dee, and, nearer still, the green islet it formed around Thrave, on the grassy sward of which some noisy urchins and pages belonging to the feudal garrison were gambolling, playing at leapfrog, and launching stones and mimic spears at an old battered quintain, or carved figure of an armed man, which stood there for the use of those who practised tilting.

As Gray entered in his armour, with his surcoat on and his helmet open, readier for departure than a repast, the earl, without rising or offering his hand, bowed with cold courtesy, with a sardonic smile on his white lip and hatred in his deep-set eyes. He made a signal to a page who was in attendance to withdraw, and they were immediately left together. "I said last night that it was ill speaking between a full man and a fasting," said he; "we are both fasting this morning, so, Sir Patrick, let us eat, drink, and then to business."

As they were both anxious to come to the point at issue, after a few morsels of food and a draught of spiced ale, the grim earl spoke again: —

"I have read the king's letters – that anent the laird of Bombie, and that which invites me to a conference at Stirling, with a safe conduct to me and all my followers. By my faith, Sir Patrick, I think their number, in horse, foot, and archers, will be their best safe conduct. The first letter demands – "

"The release, the instant release of my kinsman, Sir Thomas MacLellan, of Bombie, and of that ilk, steward of Kirkcudbright, whom you unlawfully and most unworthily detain here a prisoner," said Gray, whom the cool and insolent bearing of Douglas exasperated beyond the point of prudence. "What if I refuse," asked the latter with an icy smile.

"That the king and council will consider."

"What if he be dead?"

"He is not dead," exclaimed Gray with growing excitement; "last night I heard his voice, for he addressed me as we entered the barbican."

"Ha!" said Douglas sharply, with a furious glance.

"But dead or alive, lord earl, in the king's name I demand his body!"

"That shall I grant you readily," replied Douglas grimly, as he blew on a silver whistle which lay on the table. The arras of the doorway was raised, and there reappeared the page, to whom the earl gave a ring, which he drew from his finger, and said, "Tell James Achanna to lead forth the laird of Bombie from the vault, and to obey my orders."

The page bowed and retired; and he observed, if Gray did not, the terribly sinister expression which at that moment filled the earl's eyes.

"You said lead forth, my lord; hence my kinsman lives, and I thank you," said Gray with more composure.

"Some men die between the night and morning, others between the morning and the night; – but now about this conference at Stirling: what boon does the king hold out as an inducement for a Douglas to risk so much as an acceptance of royal hospitality?"

"Boon, my lord?"

"By St. Bryde, I spoke plainly enough!"

"'Twas said the restoration to you of the office of Warden of the Marches towards England, the seat at the Privy Council, and the commission of Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom."

"In short, all of which I was unjustly deprived, by Crichton's influence, during my absence in France and Italy," said the earl, removing the breast from a partridge.

Gray did not reply, for at that moment the castle bell was tolled slowly, and a strange foreboding seized him. "With the recollection of the Black Dinner of 1440 before me, by the Devil's mass! I would require some great boon to tempt me, assuredly," said the earl, with a laugh which had something diabolical in its sound.

"My lord, there will be the king's safe conduct."

"King's memories are precarious. Since the day of the bloody banquet at which my kinsman perished, I have been, as it were, a man of granite in a shirt of steel – immoveable, implacable – and feeling no sentiment but the longing for revenge!"

The earl, with a sparkling eye and a flushing cheek, spoke as feelingly as if he had not had a secret hand in the execution of his nephews, nor won anything by it.

"King James," he added, "has yet to learn what a ten years' hatred is!"

"Ten years?" reiterated Gray, as he thought of Murielle.

"Ten years – we are in the year 1450, and for the ten which have preceded it, my armour has scarcely ever been off," said the earl; "and even in my own hall the sword and dagger have never been from my side."

"For the same reason, my lord, you have kept other men's armour on, and others' weapons on the grindstone," replied Gray; "but endeavour to be as good and loyal as your fathers were, earl of Douglas – renounce your evil leagues, and bonds for rebellion, else you may find the king alike more wise and powerful than you imagine."

"I seek not advice from you, laird of Foulis," said Douglas, with proud disdain. "Within sound of the bells of Holyrood, or those of St. Giles, your king may be both powerful and wise; but on this side the Moat of Urr, I have my doubts of his power or wisdom."

"How, my lord?"

"He would scarcely be wise to venture into the wilds of Galloway, even with all the forces he and that fangless wolf, his chancellor, may collect; and never powerful enough to do so, with the hope of success." – "Daring words, when said of one who is king of all Scotland."

"But I am lord of all Galloway, and I shall uphold its ancient rights and laws in battle, as stoutly as Earl Archibald did in Parliament."

"An old story, my lord," said Gray, rising.

"True; in the days of Robert II.," added Douglas, rising also.

"In 1385," observed Gray, with a scarcely perceptible smile.

"I forget." – "Though you forget many things, my lord," said Gray, rashly and impetuously, "do not imagine that you or they are forgotten."

"Does this imply a threat, my cock-laird of the north country?" asked Douglas, with profound disdain.

"As you please – I am a plain soldier."

A ferocious expression darkened the earl's face; but Gray drew back a pace, and laid a hand significantly on his tabard.

"Sir Patrick Gray, I advise you to get your horse and begone!" thundered Douglas, starting to his feet. "Without there! Order Sir Patrick's horse to the barbican-gate!"

"But your answer to the king?" said Gray, tightening his waistbelt, and preparing for a sudden start.

"That I shall convey in person to Stirling."

"And my kinsman – "

"Dead or alive?" said Douglas, with a sullen glare in his eye. Alarmed by the expression of the earl's face, Gray said earnestly: —

"Lest you might not obey the king's commands, proud lord, or might scoff at my humble request, I bring you a mother's prayer for her son."

"A mother's?" said Douglas, pausing as they descended the staircase together.

"The prayer of my father's sister, Marion Gray, for her son's release." – "It comes too late," muttered the earl under his black moustache, as they issued into the sunny court-yard of Thrave.

CHAPTER XLIX

THE FATE OF MACLELLAN

Lift not the shroud! a speaking stain

Of blood upon its sable seen,

Tells how the spirit fled from plain,

For there the headsman's axe hath been.

Ballad.

"The king's demand shall be granted, but rather for your sake – come hither," said the earl.

There was a cruel banter in his manner, a bitter smile on his face, and Gray grew pale, and felt the blood rush back upon his heart with a terrible foreboding as they crossed the court-yard.

Then his eye at once detected something like a human form stretched at full length upon the ground, and covered by a sheet. About it there could be no doubt – it was so cold, white, angular, and fearfully rigid. Upon the breast was placed a platter filled with salt – a Scottish superstition as old as the days of Turpin – and close by lay an axe and bloodstained billet, about which the brown sparrows were hopping and twittering in the warm morning sunshine. With a choking sensation in his throat, Gray stepped resolutely forward.

"Remove this cloth," said the earl to some of his people who were near; and on their doing so, there was seen the body of a headless man – a body which Gray knew too well to be that of his friend and kinsman, for on the breast of the soiled and faded pourpoint was embroidered a gold scutcheon, with the three black chevrons of MacLellan.

"Sir Patrick, you have come a little too late," said the sneering earl; "here lies your father's sister's son; but, unfortunately, he wants the head, and a head is an awkward loss. The body, however, is completely at your service."

Grief and indignation almost choked Gray's utterance. He knelt down and kissed the cold right hand, which yet bore the mark of an iron fetter, and then turning to the earl, said, "My lord, you may now dispose of the body as you please; but the head – "

"Behold it on the battlement above you!"[4]

Gray mounted his horse, which was at that moment led to the outer gate by the earl's grooms; and mistrusting them, though feeling as one in a terrible dream, before putting his foot in the stirrup he carefully examined his bridle, girths, and crupper. Then, says Sir Walter Scott in his history, "his resentment broke forth in spite of the dangerous situation in which he was placed": —

"My lord," said he, shaking his gauntleted hand close to the earl's beard, "if I live you shall bitterly pay for this day's work; and I – Patrick Gray of Foulis – tell thee, that thou art a bloodthirsty coward – a disgrace to knighthood and nobility!"

He then wheeled round his horse, pressed the sharp Rippon spurs into its flanks, and galloped off.

"To horse and chase him!" cried the earl, furiously. "I will ride to Stirling, false minion, with your head at my saddle-bow! To horse and follow him – this venturesome knight must sleep beside his kinsman!"

"But he came on the king's service," urged Sir Alan Lauder, as he put his foot in the stirrup of his horse, when some twenty or thirty mounted moss-troopers came hurriedly from the stable court.

"Bah! love-lured and destiny dragged him hither. Let slip Souyllard the sleuth-bratch. Horse and spear, I say, Lauder and Achanna – a hundred crowns for the head of yonder minion! I swear by St. Bryde of Douglas and Kildara, by the Blessed Virgin and her son, never to eat at a table, sleep in a bed, to rest under a Christian roof, or to lay aside sword and armour, till I have passed my dagger through the heart of Patrick Gray, dead or alive!" – "If you break this terrible vow," said Sir Alan, aghast at the earl's fury, and the form it took in words.

"Then I pray Heaven, at the judgment day, to show such mercy to me as I shall show my enemies," was the fierce response.

It was fortunate for the earl that he soon found a friar to release him from a vow, the fulfilment of which must have entailed a vast deal of trouble, fuss, and discomfort upon him and his followers.

"A hundred crowns and St. Bryde for Douglas!" was the shout of the moss-troopers, as they dashed through the outer gate, and with their light active horses, their steel caps, jacks, and spears, they clattered over the drawbridge; but Gray, after escaping six or eight crossbow bolts, was already three miles before them, and spurring in hot haste along the road towards Dumfries.

It was a fortunate circumstance for him that he was well mounted on a fleet, strong, and active horse; for he was a muscular man, and heavily mailed, while his pursuers, being Border Prickers, wore but little armour, and their wiry nags were used to scamper on forays in all weathers and seasons by day and night, over moor, and moss, and mountain sides.

Gray knew well that if taken his death was certain; for Douglas, reckless, ruthless, and bloodthirsty, by nature, was certain now to give full scope to his long-treasured hatred.

He no longer heard the whooping of his pursuers; he had either distanced them, or they were husbanding their energies for a long chase; but there came after him at times, upon the hollow wind, the grunting bark of the sleuth-bratch, by which he was surely and savagely tracked, Souyllard, the earl's favourite white bloodhound, and the heart of the fugitive swelled anew, with grief and rage, and hatred of his unrelenting tormentor.

He was far from shelter or succour, for until he reached the Lothians, all the land belonged to his enemies, or to those who dared not protect him. For miles and miles before him stretched flattened hills and open plains covered with waving heather, the purple tints of which were glowing in the noonday sun, and these tints deepened into blue or black on the shaded sides of the glens. The whirr of the blackcock was heard at times, as it rose from the pale green or withered yellow leaves of the ferns that grew among the rushes, where the trouting burn brawled, or by the lonely ravine, the red-scaured bank, or stony gulley, which Gray made his foam-covered horse clear by a flying leap.

Louder and nearer came the savage bay of the sleuth-bratch, and Gray, as he looked back, could see it tracking him closely and surely; while about three miles distant the border spears of his pursuers glittered on the summit of a hill.

He had swam his horse through the Urr and spurred on for miles, and now before him lay Lochrutton, with its old peel-house, named, from its loneliness, the castle-of-the-hills; then, as he was about to cross a foaming tributary of the loch – a stream that tore, all red and muddy, through a stony ravine – the bounding sleuth-bratch came upon him, and sprang at his horse's flanks, just as the terrified animal rose into the air to cross by a flying leap.

Clenching his gauntleted hand, Gray struck the fierce brute on the head, and it fell into the rushing torrent; but gained the other side as soon as he, and sent its deep, hoarse bay into the air, as if to summon the pursuers. Now, the terrible sleuth-bratch was running parallel with his horse's flanks, and vainly he strove to strike at it with his sword. His temples throbbed as if with fever, and now, for air, for coolness, and relief, he drew off his barred helmet; then he tossed it into a bush, for the double purpose of staying the hound and concealing it as a trace of his flight. Spurring on – he redoubled his efforts to escape; he called to his horse – he cheered and caressed it, while the perspiration of toil oozed through the joints of his armour, from his gorget to his spurs.

The terrible white hound was preparing for a final, and, doubtless, a fatal spring, when a man, whose head and shoulders were enveloped in a scarlet hood, suddenly rose from the whin bushes amid which Gray was galloping, and, by a single blow from his ponderous mace, dashed out the brains of the dog, killing it on the spot.

Gray had just time to perceive that his preserver was Malise MacKim, the smith of Thrave, when he passed on like a whirlwind; and now he saw before him, in the distance, the lovely and far-stretching valley of the Nith, the long bridge, the red-walled town, the spires, and the old castle of Dumfries. He dashed through the portal of the bridge, and pushed on by the way for Edinburgh; but, owing to the rough and devious nature of the roads, night overtook him among the wilds of Tweedmuir. If he drew bridle for a moment, he still heard the tramp of hoofs in his rear, for now fresh horsemen had joined in the pursuit; and, but for the relays he had so wisely provided, and of which he only once availed himself, he had assuredly been taken and slain.

At Moffat, he obtained his own favourite horse from the priest of the village church.

"Will you not, for safety, have your charger's shoes reversed?" said the churchman, as Gray mounted.

"Like King Robert of old; but there is no snow to reveal the track."

"But there is mud, and the ways are deep and soft."

"True; but who is here to do it for me?"

"The smith at the forge."

"Nay, nay, good father," said Gray, shortening his reins; "hear you that!" a whoop and a bugle blast, came together on the night breeze; "I must even trust me to my good Brechin blade and Clydesdale nag; for both are our good king's gift," and he set forth with renewed speed.

He had good reason for declining to loiter, for just as he rode off, the mountain pass, which opens into the valley, rang with shouts and the rush of many iron hoofs, as the laird of Hawkshaw and the Hunters of Palmood, with Sir Alan Lauder and a band of Douglas moss-troopers, came galloping down.

On, on, rushed the fleet horse, with its small head outstretched, and cutting the night air, as the prow of a ship cleaves the water. The taper ears lay flat on its neck, the mane streamed behind like smoke from a funnel, and the quivering nostrils shot forth white puffs of steamy breath at every bound; while foam and blood mingled together on its flanks, as the sharp Rippon spurs of the daring rider urged it fast and furiously on.

This flight of Sir Patrick Gray from Thrave suggested to Scott the escape of Marmion from the future chief of the Douglases – the earl of Angus, at Tantallan.

CHAPTER L

WILL HE ESCAPE?

Black is my steed as a cloud of rain,

There's a star of white on his brow;

The free gales play with his feathery mane,

And lightnings gleam round his feet of snow.

Polish Poetry.

Dark foliaged glens and heathy hills, furrowed fields and wayside cottages, with the pale smoke curling through their roofs of yellow thatch and emerald moss; rock-perched towers, with corbelled battlements and grated windows; deep fordless rivers, pathless woods, and uncultivated wolds, seemed to fly past, and still the steed with its bare-headed rider rushed on at a frightful pace, as if it was enchanted, or bestrode by an evil spirit, like that of Lenore in the ballad of Burger.

The moon was shining brightly now.

Near Stobo the pursuers came so close upon Gray that he began to fear escape was impossible – the more so, as fresh blood-hounds were baying on his track. On reaching the Tweed, instead of crossing it by a ford – the river was deeper everywhere then than now – he waded or swam his horse up the current for about a hundred yards, and backed it into a low-browed fissure or cavern which he discovered amid the rocks.

Dismounting, he drew his sword and dagger, threw the bridle over his left arm, and stood at the cavern mouth to confront all or any who might come near, and resolved if they discovered his lurking place to sell his life dearly; but he felt how much the long ride in heavy armour over rough ground had impaired his natural strength. His sinews were stiffened, his overtasked muscles were swollen with pain, and his mind was as weary as his body.

On the silver current of the Tweed, as it brawled over its broad bed of pebbles, the moon shone bright and clearly; close by, a tributary from the hills rushed over a brow of rock, and formed a feathery cascade, which plunged into a deep pool. There the peasantry affirmed that a kind fairy was wont to appear at times, and to bend over the cascade, mingling her white arms and floating drapery with the foam, as she sought to save those wayfarers whom the evil kelpie in the darksome linn below sought to drown and devour.

Nor hideous kelpie, nor lovely fairy were visible to-night; but now came the hoarse grunting bark of four large sleuth-bratches, as they leaped with heavy plunges to the margin of the stream: there the scent was lost, and they were once more, as at every running water, at fault, so they ran snorting and sniffing to and fro among the leaves, reeds, and water-docks, with the breath curling up from their fierce red nostrils like white steam in the clear moonlight.