The Captain of the Guard

They were all the daughters of barons and knights – Maud Douglas of Pompherston, a lovely girl with black hair, dark hazel eyes, and a queenly bearing; Mariota Douglas of Glendoning, whose auburn hair won her the name of the Caillean Rua among the Galwegians; Lady Jean of the Cairnglas, and the three daughters of Sir Alan of the Bass, all lassies with "lint white locks," and others, to the number of twelve, were plying their needles busily; but Murielle sat apart, and, with her cheek resting on the palm of her hand, gazed listlessly upon the hazy landscape that spread in the summer sunshine far away from below the castle wall.

The work on which those ladies were busy was one of those huge pieces of tapestry in the manufacture of which the fair ones of those days delighted, and, when completed, it was to be a donation to the abbot of Tongland on New Year's Day, 1442, as it represented the life and miracles of St. Bryde (or Bridget), the patron of the house of Douglas; and this great web spread over all the knees and daintily-slippered feet of the fair workers, as it fell in waves along the floor of polished oak.

Therein their needles had depicted the saint in her little cell under a large oak at Kildara, in Munster, where the wild ducks that swam in the Bog of Allen and the birds that flew over the Curragh, alike obeyed her voice, and went and came at her command; and there, too, was shown how, at her desire, the milk of the cows on the Wicklow hills became butter, and how, when she prayed, it was multiplied threefold for the use of the poor; and other miracles long since forgotten.

This year had been memorable for prodigies. On the 17th of March, says Sir James Balfour, there appeared "three suns in the firmament at the noontyde of the day; and in Auguste a fearfull comett, having a crowned sword hanging from it." Where one sun is seldom seen, three must have produced an unusual effect; so these and similar matters formed the staple topics for discussion among the ladies of the countess, who unanimously came to the conclusion that "something terrible and startling would certainly ensue; but what that might be none could say – a murrain among the cattle, a famine in the Merse, a royal raid into Galloway, an invasion by the English – perhaps the death of the chancellor!"

"The last is not likely," said Maud of Pompherston, throwing back her heavy black braided hair behind the whitest and smallest of ears.

"Why?" asked all.

"I mean, if the tidings be true which my father heard yesterday at the cross of Dumfries."

"What did he hear?" asked the countess sharply, while the workers paused, and all their eyes were bent on Maud.

"That the heralds had proclaimed at the crosses of Edinburgh, Stirling, and Scone, that – that the king – "

The poor girl hesitated, for the bold flashing eye of the countess fell darkly on her, and its expression at times was rather bewildering.

"A boy of thirteen years," said Margaret bitterly. "Well, that the king – "

"Has been pleased – "

"Deluded, you mean."

"To create the chancellor Lord Crichton of Crichton in Lothian. Rumour added that his youngest son, George, would soon be made earl of Caithness, in place of the forfeited Earl Alan, who was killed ten years ago at the battle of Inverlochie."

"Anything more?" asked Margaret, beating the floor with her foot.

"The regent is to be Lord Livingstone of Callendar."

"Did the heralds not add that he granted them a coat of augmentation to their arms?" said Margaret, with hate in her eye, and the smile of a devil on her lovely lip; – "a headsman's axe and block, all bloody and proper! Well, well; so be it. We'll powder these new-fangled coronets with tears and the dust of death ere another yule be past – please Heaven, we shall!"

"'Tis said, too, that the king is about to be married to a fair lady of Flanders."

"This child! – who – who?" asked the ladies together.

"I wot not," said Maud; and the girls laughed loudly.

"Little Maggie Lauder of the Bass would suit him better, in years at least," said the countess, as she caressed the lint white locks of Sir Alan's youngest daughter, a girl of some nine years or so. "In sooth, cousin, you have a rare stock of news."

"Countess, I have more still."

"More?"

"The heritable sheriff of Perth, Sir William Ruthven of that ilk, accompanied by a party of the king's guard, have marched into Athole, and there captured John Gorm Stewart."

"A friend and ally of my husband, who had a message from him not ten days ago – he captured him, say you?"

"Ay, and slew him."

"John of Athole slain?"

"Yes, on the north Inch of Perth, with thirty of his followers; but Ruthven was also killed, and MacLellan and Gray, the commanders of the King's Guard, were wounded."

"The fools! to fight each other, when both were allies of ours; for this sheriff of Perth has a daughter wedded to George Douglas, of Leswalt, here in Galloway. So Gray was wounded – and the jesting MacLellan, too?"

On first hearing these names, the hitherto listless Murielle started, and turned to Maud Douglas; but feared to ask the question that seemed to burn her tongue.

"Is aught wrong, sister, that you start thus?" asked Margaret, half contemptuously.

"No – why do you ask?" said Murielle timidly.

"I thought a gnat had stung you."

"Oh, it was Andrew Gray, of Balgarno, who was wounded," said Maud good-naturedly, as she turned in haste to Murielle, whose anxiety she wished to relieve.

"Was your father sure of this?" asked the countess.

"The Provost of Dumfries had the surest tidings."

Margaret smiled bitterly at her pale sister.

"Alas!" thought the latter, in her heart, "he is not spoken of. Oh, can he be dead, that others have led where he was wont to lead?"

After a pause,

"Murielle," said the countess, with some asperity, "if you will not work with us, take your harp, and sing. Occupation will at times divert the mind, even from its most bitter thoughts. Please to give us the ballad of 'Sir Hugh le Blonde.'"

The ladies urged her to do so, but she replied briefly and wearily, —

"Under favour, I cannot sing."

"You cannot sing?" reiterated the countess, pausing in her work, and gazing at Murielle with her full black eyes, above which hung the wavy fringe of her absurdly lofty horned head-dress.

"I cannot sing that ballad – at least, just now."

"And wherefore?"

"I have forgotten it," said she, turning to the window.

"Do you remember when last you sang it?" asked Maud Douglas kindly, in a low voice.

"Oh yes, dear Maud," said Murielle, as her soft eyes filled with tears at the recollection of that night in the house of the abbot at Edinburgh, where – outwardly, at least – they all seemed so happy, and where her lover hung over her, as she played and sang for him, and him only.

The impetuous young countess, a little despot in her own household, grew weary of her sister's silence and reserve, for Murielle's attachment was no secret to the family; she tossed aside the tapestry, and desired Mariota, the Caillean Rua, to summon her pages and a musician, that they might dance and practise the pavan, which was a slow and stately measure then in fashion, and which took its name from the peacock, because it was danced by knights in their mantles and ladies in their trains; but Murielle said gently, but firmly, as she withdrew to a corbelled stone balcony, upon which the windows of the bower-chamber opened, —

"Excuse me, dear Maggie, I pray you; but I am not in the mood either to dance or sing."

Irritated still more by this, Margaret followed, and found her with her face bowed upon the parapet, and weeping bitterly.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE BALCONY

The nymph must lose her female friend,

If more admired than she;

But where will fierce contention end,

If flowers can disagree? —

Cowper.

"Is it so with you?" said the countess, roughly grasping her arm; "is it so – still mourning for that scurvy captain of the king's morris-pikes?"

"Morris-pikes! Oh, sister, can you compare to mummers, the men who formed the van at Piperden?"

"Ay, where a Douglas routed Piercy – a service, like others, committed to oblivion now," was the bitter response.

Murielle wept in silence, while her haughty sister continued to regard her with an expression in her eyes very much akin to disdain.

The poor girl had frequently been fretted and galled by hearing a much-loved name – alas! it might only be a much-revered memory– reviled; yet she bore it meekly, hoping daily for a change. But weeks became months, and months became seasons, yet no change came in the bearing of her sister; which, always haughty, turned at times violent and tempestuous.

The proud Margaret felt that she had done a wrong action by her second espousal, which had raised doubts in her mind that even the papal dispensation might fail to dispel; and while she writhed under this conviction, and longed for vengeance on the slayers of that handsome lover and boy-husband – whom she secretly mourned, even when in the arms of the subtle Earl James, she felt – she knew not why – irritated, and at times exasperated, by the meek, quiet, and passive tenor of Murielle's existence.

"Tears still," she resumed, "always tears; but beware how the earl finds you thus."

"Oh, Margaret, I have studied to conceal my living sorrow from him – from you – from all."

"But in vain, for all have seen it. There is not a trencher-boy in the kitchen, or a groom in the stables, but knows of it as well as I do."

"Have you never considered, sister, what a terrible thing it is to have to forget – to strive at crushing all memory of the past – all hope for the future; to rend from the heart a love it has cherished for years?"

"Years!" reiterated Margaret, with an angry laugh; "you are but eighteen, Murielle."

"And you not twenty."

"Yet I have wept for a dead husband."

"And been consoled," was the unwise reply.

Margaret's cheek grew white with suppressed passion at the inference which might be drawn from this casual remark; but she said, emphatically, —

"Enough of this; my husband, to strengthen his house, has resolved that you shall become the bride of one who is second to none in Scotland; and he has sworn it on the cross of his sword, by God and St. Bryde, that it shall be so, even should he chain you to the altar-steps, in Tongland Abbey kirk."

"Oh, Maggie," said Murielle, in a piercing voice, "do not talk to me thus. I have given my heart into the keeping of Patrick Gray, and death itself cannot restore it to me, or rend it from him. Trustingly I gave it, dear sister, yonder – yonder, at the three auld thorns of the Carlinwark; so be merciful to me, for no better, fonder, or purer love than his, was ever offered up to woman."

"A king's minion!" said the countess, spitefully; "but it is the will of God you shall never be this."

"Never! Say not so; it sounds like a prophecy. Never – "

"But as the earl, my husband, has sworn – "

"Oh, impiety!"

"The bride of a nobler and better."

"A better, say you?" exclaimed Murielle, with an angry laugh.

"Dispute it if you can – Robert, duke of Albany."

"An outlawed traitor," said Murielle, warming in her turn; "is this your husband's scheme?"

"Yes, a scheme formed for your honour."

"It is a bold one."

"Most of his schemes are so," replied Margaret, quietly.

"Duke Robert is contracted to a daughter of Charles VII. of France," said Murielle, taking courage.

"The same power that permitted my second marriage, can annul his contract, and give him back his troth, from Mademoiselle Radegonde."

"Well, rather than break mine, and be his bride, sister, you shall see me stretched in Tongland Abbey kirk, as cold as the marble tombs that lie there!"

"We shall see," replied Margaret, biting her cherry-like nether lip, and stamping her foot in growing wrath; but Murielle threw her white arms round her neck, and said plaintively, —

"You do not, you cannot mean all you say, Maggie. Ah, do not scold, when you should guide and aid me."

"Is it not my desire to see you happy?"

"Yes," sobbed Murielle; "I know, I hope that it is."

"And my husband's?"

"My kinsman, the earl, is a fearsome man!" said Murielle, with an ill-repressed shudder.

"Have I not striven for years to be your guide, your friend, your comforter, and now – "

"You would undo all the past, by making me the wife of the exiled Albany, that your husband's terrible aims and ends may be furthered, his feudal power and splendour increased."

"By raising you, perhaps, to" – the countess paused – "to a throne, little fool!"

"A throne?" reiterated Murielle, in absolute bewilderment.

"Yes, a throne," said Margaret, in a low voice, as she bent her black flashing eyes close to her startled sister's face; "where can all this leaguing and combination with Henry of England, Christian of Oldenburg, John of the Isles, and with so many discontented barons, end, but in the destruction of Livingstone, of Crichton, and of that boy-king, in whose name they slew the earl of Douglas?"

"Saint Mary keep us, sister; but this is murder, treason, regicide!" said Murielle, in terror and incredulity.

"I am speaking in our castle of Thrave," said the countess, significantly, as she patted the strong rampart with her white jewelled hand; "but I am unwise in talking to you of schemes, the magnitude of which you cannot comprehend, and the daring of which appals you."

"Oh, Maggie, all this can end but in one way."

"How?"

"Destruction, forfeiture, and death!"

"We shall see," replied the countess, calmly smoothing back her silky hair; "but to resume about this Patrick Gray —who is he, that he should aspire to love my sister, the daughter of a line of powerful earls?"

"He is a gentleman of stainless reputation, the trusted subject of the late king and of his son; a loyal soldier, whom, if I choose, I might marry to-morrow, and defy you all!" said Murielle, angrily.

Margaret now laughed in good earnest at her sister.

"Defy us?" she exclaimed; "lassie, you have gone crazy! I speak not of Ormond, of Pompherston, of Glendoning; but know you not that the smallest laird who bears our name could muster lances enough to harry his father's nest at Foulis, level his tower to the ground-stone, and swing his whole generation on the nearest tree?"

Murielle knew fully the truth of this, but she felt an increasing emotion of anger at the injustice and control to which she was so bluntly subjected, and now her haughty sister spoke again.

"Bear this in mind, that thrice has Earl James sworn by his most sacred oath, God, and his father's bones 'that our heather lintie, Murielle, shall be the bride of Albany, and sib to the throne, if not one day upon it;' so cease to think more of this lover of yours, who, by the bye, I believe, once loved me."

"Loved you!" exclaimed Murielle, in a breathless voice; "you, Margaret?"

"Yes," continued the imperious beauty, with confidence.

"He ever admired you, and as my sister, felt a friendship for you; but be assured that his dear heart never wandered from me," was the equally confident reply.

"You are a child!" retorted the countess.

"Perhaps I am, to endure all this petty tyranny; but a day may come – there are times when even a poor worm may turn."

"But think no more of him, I command you, for he is better as he is, dead, than living to be the rival of Robert, duke of Albany."

"Do not tell me, sister, that he was slain," said Murielle, in an imploring voice, while, her tears again fell fast; "he is not dead. I know that he is not dead!"

"You know?" said Margaret, changing colour.

"Yes."

"Indeed – how?"

"Because I am living still!" replied Murielle, with divine confidence and hope.

CHAPTER XIX

A FEUDAL LORD

And joy is mine

When the strong castles besieged shake,

And walls uprooted, totter and quake,

And I see the foemen join,

On the moated shore all compass'd round

With palisade and guarded mound.

Lays of the Minnesingers.

The result of this conversation, the wild and daring schemes of ambition and revenge it unfolded, – schemes of which she was to be made the tool and the victim, filled Murielle with alarm, and made her more than ever resolve to seek refuge in a convent; but an escape from the guarded castle of Thrave was not a matter to be easily accomplished, as its garrison, formed of the earl's most faithful "retainers, was (as we are told in the third of volume of 'Caledonia'), never less than one thousand armed men."

A recent writer says, "in Scotland, but a hundred years ago, the head of a family was paramount, and household discipline was wielded without mercy." If such was the case a hundred years ago, it was exercised with greater rigour in the days of the second James.

So poor little Murielle found Thrave with all its splendour, a veritable prison, and the earl, her brother-in-law, a haughty and exacting tyrant.

Thrave, his greatest stronghold, was built upon an island of twenty acres in extent, formed by the rough and rapid Dee, situated about ten miles above its estuary, and thirty from its source, which is among the wooded hills of Minnigaff.

There on that islet the crusader Alan IV., lord of Galloway and constable of Scotland, had a fortress, and thereon, in after times, the Black Knight of Liddesdale, the comrade of Wallace and Bruce, reared the present castle of Thrave, a vast pile, the donjon of which is yet seventy feet in height, with walls eight feet in thickness, built of common stone from the adjacent moors.

The first story of this great pile consisted of the larder, the arsenals, and the dungeon, where many a chained wretch has wept during the hours that intervened between time and eternity.

In the second story were the apartments of the men-at-arms, the warders, grooms, and pages.

The third contained the apartments of the baron, his family, their guests, and the ladies' bower-chamber, with one apartment long secluded, that in which Archibald, earl of Douglas and lord of Galloway, – he whose second son won by his valour the titles of duke of Spruce and prince of Dantzig, died on the 3rd of February, 1400. Small Gothic windows gave light to these upper chambers, and narrow slits and loopholes to the lower.

A square barbican and four round flanking towers, with a deep fosse and drawbridge, formed the external barrier. After passing these, the only entrance to the keep was by a door placed so high in the wall that it opened on the second floor, and this strange mode of access was farther secured by a small portcullis, grooved into the solid stone, the work of "the Brawny MacKim," the hereditary smith of the family.

To victual this stronghold each of the twenty-eight parishes which form the stewardry of Kirkcudbright had to contribute a Lardner-mart-cow at Martinmas, for winter provisions; and the last attempt to levy these twenty-eight cattle was made in 1747, by William Maxwell, of Nithsdale.

In the front wall of the great tower, and immediately above the gateway, which bore all the armorial achievements of the proud and lordly owners, there still projects a large granite block, named the gallows knob, or hanging-stone, which, in the olden time, was seldom without its tassel, as the moss-troopers phrased it.

"Lest this barbarous emblem of feudal power should be minus its usual decoration," says a local historian, "when putrefaction became offensive before the corpse was cut down, if a malefactor was not in custody to be tucked up, it was replenished by some unoffending vassal. The charnel into which these victims were thrown is to this day named the 'gallows slot,' and notwithstanding the time that has elapsed since the downfall of the house of Douglas in Galloway, human bones in abundance were turned up when the present highway was made through it there in the year 1800."

Such was the grim feudal dwelling where now Murielle Douglas found herself an inmate, – almost a prisoner, – foredoomed to be the tool, perhaps the victim, of the dark plots and of the ambition and pride of its lord and owner, whose general character the following anecdote will amply illustrate.

As Steward of Kirkcudbright and Lord Warden of the Western Marches, he ordered James Achanna, with a strong and well-armed band, to apprehend Sir Herbert Herries of Terregles, a gentleman of ancient family, who had large possessions in the stewardry, and bring him prisoner to Thrave, despite the tears of his daughter, Lady Maxwell, of Carlaveroc, and the entreaties of his youngest son, who was rector of Kirkpatrick.

He was oddly charged with "daring to recover a portion of his own property, which had been appropriated by Achanna and other lawless followers of the house of Douglas, and further, of resisting them in arms."

Sir Herbert was a man of high courage and probity, who had given himself as a hostage to England for the ransom of James I. He had been a commissioner for the trial of Murdoch, duke of Albany, father of that Duke Robert who was now the bête noir of Murielle; and he had lately been one of the ambassadors who had gone to France to arrange the marriage of the gentle and unfortunate Margaret of Scotland with the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XI, the French Nero, of terrible memory.

When brought before Douglas, in the hall, he was surveyed with stern and haughty malevolence.

"Your little blockhouse of Terregles," said the earl, mockingly, as he lounged in his canopied chair, "in common with other fortlets of the petty barons of Galloway, is only occasionally decked with a dangling villain, whereas our gallows knob of Thrave has not been without a tassel for fifty years, and so it shall be while Dalbeattie wood grows and the Urr water runs!"

"True," replied Terregles; "and one who was my henchman, my foster-brother, and my most faithful friend, taken by your ruthless wretch Achanna, is hanging there at this moment."

"And having hung the usual time, he shall now be removed to make way for his master."

"Earl Douglas, you dare not!" exclaimed Sir Herbert, starting forward.

"Dare not! ha! ha! and why?"

"I am the king's liege man, and a baron of parliament!"

"Is that all you can urge?" asked Douglas, still mocking.

"No – "

"What more?"

"Even now a royal herald is at the gate, with an express order for my release."

"Mahoun! its coming has sealed your doom. Achanna, tear off his ruff, and replace it with a hempen cravat," was the stern order of Douglas; so the unfortunate Sir Herbert was instantly hanged in his armour from the gallows knob, while the king's herald was ignominiously expelled.

Yet this fierce and unscrupulous lord paid large sums to the Church for masses for the souls of his ancestors, and had periodical fits of prayer and fasting, which were very troublesome, alike to his cooks and hungry retainers. At times he trembled for bad news if he saw a crow in his path, and crossed himself if he saw the new moon for the first time through a window. He smeared himself, like Achanna, with ashes on Ash Wednesday, and ate hot cross-buns with due reverence on Good Friday; and to him the abbot of Tongland, as keeper of the avenue to heaven, or the other place, was alternately a demigod to worship or a bugbear to avoid. Yet, withal, he had connived with Crichton and the regent in the destruction of his kinsmen, and wedded the wealthy widow of Earl William, but consoled himself with the solemn dispensation of Pope Eugene IV., who, however, was then deposed by the Council of Basle.

CHAPTER XX

THE MISSION

Of this great voyage which you undertake,

Much by his skill and much by my advice

Hath he foreknown, and welcome for my sake

You both shall be, the man is kind and wise.

Fairfax's Tasso.

Though left by the Douglases as dead upon the street, Sir Patrick Gray survived the horrors of the tumult at the Abbot's Gate; and though covered with severe wounds, inflicted by swords, daggers, and pikes, he grew well and hale again; but only after a year of suffering, convalescence, and confinement to a sick chamber, during which his fiery and energetic spirit writhed in inactivity – for there are some men whom it is alike difficult to subdue or kill.