!BERKEIEY .IBRARY JNIVEKSITY OF CALIFORNIA \ ^ THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. |in f istorital BT JAMES GRANT, ESQ. (Late Q2nd Regiment), AUTHOR OF "THE BOMANCE OP WAS," "THE AIDE-DE-CAMP," ETC. Doat thou admit his right Thus to transfer our ancient Scottish crown ? Aye, Scotland was a kingdom once And, fey the might of God, a kingdom still shall be ! EOBEKT THE BKUCE, Act II. LONDON : GEORGE BOUTLEDGE AND SONS. THE BROADWAY, LUDQATE ; NEW YORK: 416, BROOME STREET. BY JAMES GRANT Price 2s. each, Fancy Board*. THE BOMANCE OF WAB. THE AIDE-DE-CAMP. THB SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. BOTHWELL. JANE SETONJ OB, THE QUEEN'S ADYOCA13. PHILIP BOLLO. LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. MABT OF LOBRAINE. LUCY ABDEN; OB, HOLLYWOOD HALL. TBANK HILTON; OB, THE QUEEN'S OWN. THE YELLOW FBIGATE. HABBY OGILVIE ; OB, THE BLACK DBAGOONS. ABTHUB BLANE. SAURA EVKEINGHAM; OB, THE HIGHLANDEB8 OF GLENOB "!HE CAPTAIN OF THE GUABD. LETTY HYDE'S LOVEBS. THB CAVALIEBS OF FOBTUNE. SECOND TO NOSE. THE CONSTABLE OF FBANCB. THE PHANTOM BEGIMENT. THE KING'S OWN BOBDEBEBS. ; ' THE WHITE COCKADE. GEOKGE KOUTLEDGE AND SONS, THE BJiOADWAY, LUDGATE. SCO 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 not- withstanding all the ardour and devotion of her lover, the fair Annie was wedded as described in the romance. Her lather, Sir Robert, was created a baronet in 1685. The old halberdier and JLigh Blair (mentioned so fire- IT PSEFACE. quently) are also real characters. The former distinguished himself at the battle of Sedgemoor, and by a 'Royal Order t dated 26th February, 1686, received " forty pounds for nis good service in firing the great guns against the rebells " who were opposed to Sir James Halkett's Eoyal Scots. The tavern of Hugh Blair was long celebrated in Edinburgh. His name will be found in BlacJcadder* s Memoirs, and fre- quently among the Decisions of Lord Fountainhall, in dis- putes concerning various runlets of Frontiniac, &c. Lord Mersington was exactly the personage he is described in the following pages an unprincipled sot. From Cruick- ahanlcs 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 con- nected with the ducal house of Ormond, who bears a promi- nent part in the second volume, 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 Lillebulero butten a la ! was a favourite 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 de- scribed 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 wore the arms of Britain, with the initials J. VI. M. B. F. E. H. E. Amid a singular profusion of sculptured figures represent' PREFACE. V ing Hope, Faith, Charity, &c., was a bas-relief of Adam and Eve in Eden, bearing the following legend : ufjett &lram trelfatr antr . e. $. jfam. tre fiaperotbm fntmfiutt, P>tc situm est, KDIKBUEGH, CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE PLACE OP BRUNTISFIELD Page 1 II. THE PREACHER 7 III. THE OLD CLOCKCASE 15 IV. A PAIR OP BLUE EYES 22 V. A PAIR OP RAPIERS 30 VI. THE OLD TOLBOOTH 39 VII. THE LAIGH COUNCIL HOUSE 49 VIII. THE PRIVY COUNCIL 54 IX. DEJECTION 63 X. HOPE 66 XI. CLERMISTONLEE AT HOME 74 XII. THE COTTAGE OP ELSIE 86 XIII. A KEVERSE t . 98 XIV. WALTER AND LILIAN 107 XV. LOVE AND BURNT SACK 119 XVI. THE TEN O'CLOCK DRUM 126 XVII. CLERMISTONLEE MAKES A SAD MISTAKE 132 XVIII. THE GROWTH OP LOVE AND HOPE 138 XIX. THE OLD SCOTTISH SERVICE 149 XX. LES GARDES ECOSSAIS. , 153 XXI. THE GLOVE 157 XXII. A BALL IN THE OLDEN TIME 167 XXIII. Two LOVES FOR ONE HEART 180 XXIV. BEATRIX GILRUTH 190 XXV. THE SEDAN 202 XXVI. ADVENTURES OP THE NIGHT CONCLUDED 209 XXVII. THE FENCING LESSON 213 XXVIIT. THE LUCKENBOOTHS 21 nil CONTENTS. CH. XXIX. THE WHITE-HORSE CELLAR Pagt 229 XXX. THE BETROTHAL 241 XXXI. THE DEFIANCE 251 XXXII. THE MARCH FOR ENGLAND 254 XXXIII. THE HAWK AND THE DOVE 266 XXXIV. A STATESMAN OF 1688 271 XXXV. TRUST AND MISTRUST 275 XXXVI. THE GUISARDS 279 XXXVII. THE REVOLT AT IPSWICH 286 XXXVIIL FREE QUARTERS 294 XXXIX. -THE REDEEMED PLEDGE 301 XL. THE SWART RUTTERS 305 XLL LILIAN 311 XLIL How CLERMISTONLEE PRESSED HIS SUIT 317 XLIII. CLAVERHOUSE TO THE RESCUE 323 XLIV. THE SECRET STAIR 328 XL V. THE ATTEMPT 334 XL VI. EDINBURGH THE NIGHT OF THE REVOLUTION 339 XL VII. SACK OF HOLYROOD 346 XLVIII. THE VEILED PICTURE 356 XLIX. LOVE AND PRINCIPLE 364 L. THE PASS OF KILLYCRANKIE 372 LI. THE LAST HOUR OF DUNDEE 378 LIL ST. GERMAIN 384 LIII. THE CAVALIERS OF DUNDEE 391 LIV. THE 20TH OF SEPTEMBER, 1692 401 LV. THE EFFECT OF THE POSTSCRIPTUM 410 LVI. THE BATTLE OF STEINKIRKE 414 LVIL A DISCLOSURE 423 LVIII. WALTER FENTON AND THE KINO 433 LIX. THE RETURNED EXILE 437 LX. THE BUBBLE BURST 442 LXI. LOVE AND MARRIAGE ARE TWO 448 LXII. THE RING AND THE SECRET 453 LXIII. THE IRON ROOM THE DEATH SHOT 460 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. OHAPTEE I. THE PLACE OF BKUNTISFIELU. 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. I. B 2 THE SCOTTISH CAVAL1E2. 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 htr^u-ul on, or turned altogether aside, when forewarned that soldiers ap- peared, 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 o Dunbarton, the oldest in the Scottish army, and a body 01 such antiquity, that they were jocularly known in France a Pontius Pilate's Guards. With red coats, they wore morioii 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 woode.i 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 iignted match gleaming like a glowworm in the dark. The otficer 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 en- graved 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 moustache, 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 foetid 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 via 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 fashion- able ; and after nightfall 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, coinen THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 3 were quartered, covenanters beheaded, and witches burneJ, until executions failed to excite either interest or horror but with the plumed and buff-booted ruffler of the 'day, who brawled and taught from a sheer love of mischief and wine, what plebeian baillie or pumpkin-headed city-guard would have dared to find fault P 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 nis distant galleys on the waters of the Homan 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 en- veloped 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 abbey -lubber, who was to have joined us on the march P" "TheMacer?" " 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 Eocquelaure ? 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 4 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. pall ant of the day, he wore so high up as completely to con- veal his face. " For King or for Covenant, sir P " asked the lieutenant, who was Eichard 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." " Eight, by Jove ! " exclaimed the other, who was con- siderably intoxicated. 'Body ^ . 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 tusfr I mean the old one: they must not escape, as you shall an swer to the council. Dost comprehend me the young lady ofBruntisfield, 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 ma 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 ..ot?" "Only to this purpose, that on peril of our beards the ladies do not escape, especially the younger one. Hah ! they sav 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 Au- vergne, and the old Mareschal Creeqy, 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 iny burgan.et full of broad pieces, that this night's duty THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 5 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 wi" 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 bj Monmouth ; but cheer up, my gallant. If this rascal, Wil- liam 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 uncar- ing and uncared for. Bravo ! 'tis the frame of mind to make an unscrupulous lad do his devoir 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 P " " 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. 6 THE SCOTTISH CATALIEE. i; If we start the game I mean these Dutch renegades on the Napier's barony, it will go hard with them in these times, when every day brings to light some new plot against the government, ft apier of the Wrytes 'tis an old and honour- able 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, ofT Clermistonlee, is not the least undeserving of such exaltation." " If the soldiers overhear, you are a lost man." " God save King James and sane 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, birling 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 fireside." " Follow thee ! " reiterated the cavalier officer, con- temptuously ; " malediction on the hour when a Douglas of Finland and a band of the old Scottish musketeers are bent on the same errand with a knave like thee. Step out, my lads, and, Walter Fenton, do thou fall rearward again, and pee that we are neither followed nor watched; for, egad! these are tunes 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 Marcn, which swept through the hollow dells, and THE SCOTTISH CAVAIIER. 7 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 rkinns, 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 chield 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." CHAPTEE 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. Z AHA. ON the succession of James VII. to the throne, the per- secution of the covenanters by the civil authorities, and by the troop? under Dalzel, Claverhouse, Lag, and officers of J* THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE. tlieir selection, was waged without pity or remorse, and the mad rage which had disgraced the government of the pre- ceding 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 alto- gether ; but an odium was raised, and a hatred fostered, against the Scottisli 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 Mon- mouth, 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 con- certing 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 stanp, Captain Quentin Napier (an officer of the Scottisli 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, not- withstanding the loyalty of her nusband, 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 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE. 9 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 often. 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 un- bounded 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 detach- ment 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 Penton j " 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 man- 10 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE. sion, 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 musketeers 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 desert 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 tune, the room which Fenton surveyed would be ieemed 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 wainscoting, but in the panels 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 em- bossed. 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 wy verns' heads. The floor was richly carpeted around the arched fireplace, where a bright fire of coals and roots burned cheerily, while tho THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. 11 grotesque iron firedogs 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 fireirons 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, en- grailed, 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 fireplace, and on her the attention of the handsome eavesdropper became immediately riveted. Her face was of a very delicate cast of beauty ; her bright blue eyes were expressive of the utmost vivacity, as her short uj>per Hp 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 JN"apier. Opposite sat her grand-aunt, Lady Grizel, a tall, stately, and at first sight, grim old dame, as stiff as a tremendous bodice, 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 GrizeFs 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 indus- trious 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 roud. Close at her 12 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. 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-clais, 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 ; liis 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 ' JN"orlan' Harp.' " " Name it not, maiden ; for thy profane songs sound as abomination in my ears I " Lilian Napier laughed merrily, and all her white teeth glit- tered 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 fidgeted in his chair, and hemmed gruffly, preparatory to returning to the charge. " Maiden, when thou hast perused my forthcoming dis- course, whilk is entitled, ' A Bombshell aimed at the Tail of the Great Beast,' and whilk, please God, shall be imprint^ THE SCOTTISH CAVALIBB. 13 when I can procure ink and irons from Holland (that happy Elysiuin of the faithful), thou shalt there see in words of fire the strait and narrow path, contrasted with the broad but dangerous way that leadeth to the sea of flame : and therein will I show thee, and all that are yet in darkness, that the four animals in the Vision of Daniel hieroglyphically repre- sent 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 staghound 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 folks 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, con- trary 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 mille- irium 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 01 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 14 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. 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 bo snatched from the scaffold, for he cometh, at whose ap- proach 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 enthu- siasm as he spoke ; the crimson glowed in his sallow cheek the intonations of his voice alternated between a whistle and 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 P " 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 rioment gazing into the obscurity without. "Soldiers, soldiers!" she screamed, as the light fell on corslets and accoutrements. " O ! aunt Grizel, we are runed, disgraced, and undone for ever." THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 1$ CH APTEE 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. THB 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 eyelets 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 hundred 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, P " queried the butler, Mr. Drouthy; " wha are ye ? " " Those who are empowered to storm the house if its bar- riers 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 shoe*, 16 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. as the household retreated up the steep turnpike in great dismay. " JSow, 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 anx !" Bushing past Lady Grizel, while the startled household fled before them, the musketeers 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 destruc- tion away/' i. o 18 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEK. A violent and unscrupulous search was made forthwith; every curtain, every bed and panel were pierced by sworda 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 indigna- tion, 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, wainscoted chambers, and long corridors of her mansion, and regarding Eichard 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." " JN"ever, 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 themacer, overhear you." " Glorious canary this !" muttered the lieutenant, apo- strophizing the silver mug " hum I believe your ladyship is a Presbyterian." " Though unused to be catechized 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 indul- gence to preach." THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 19 " This applies not to the spy of that rogue William of Orange this pious lehabod, 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 Dunbar 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 ap- proached 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 panel here," he added, knocking on the wainscot with the pommel of his sword. " He is not very far off, your honour," said the macer ap- proaching, 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 wainscoting. It was violently shaken, and emitted a hollow groan. The macer opened the narrow panel, and revealed the poor preacher coiled up within, in great spiritual and bodily tribulation, and half stined by want of air. His face was almost black, his c2 20 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 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 P" " 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 Draw buits my Lord Chancellor keeps for such pious gentle men 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 reve- rentially 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, ad- vocat-depute to Sir David Dalrymple, his majesty's advocat, summon, warn, and charge you, the said Reverend Mr. Hugh otherwise Ichabod Burninel is that richt, friend?" " Yea I was so named by my parents Hugh, a heathenish came, 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 sur- render peaceably and sae forth ; it's a' there in black and white : subscribitur Perth." " Pie 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 ill? spirb r " *' 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 sergeant, find the poor crack-brained enthusiast was unceremoniously handcuffed and dragged away, pouring a torrent of hard THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 21 scriptural epithets and invectives on his captors, 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 trilled 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 4 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 con- sequence of this trumpeter of rebellion being found resetted here your whole family - " " Alake, laird, I have only my little grandniece." " 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, 1 am your servant adieu ;" and bowing until his plume touched the floor, he withdrew. Leaving hi^ veteran sergeant, 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 oc- cupying free quarters, they made themselves quite at home, and crowded round the great wood-fire that was roaring in 22 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 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 Hhenish." There was an immense consumption of viands, and as the revellers became merrier, they made the whole house ring to their famous camp-song, " Dumbarton'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 thia 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 vocifera- tion, and ever and anon voted the Reverend Mr. Bummel a most unqualified bore, and declared that " the house of Bruntisfield was weel rid o' his grunting and skirling about owls and sparrows in the desert." OHAPTEE 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 appro- priated by the sergeant 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 aot castles), and then paced slowly to and fro. THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 23 A lamp, tlie chain of which was suspended from the mouth of a grotesque face carved on the wall, lighted the lobby or ambulatory, and dimly its nickering rays were reflected by a rusty trophy of ancient weapons opposite. An old head-piece and chain-jacket formed the centre, while crossbows, match- locks, 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-hali, ticked sullenly in a corner, and made up the furniture of the place. Save the monotonous vibrations of the clock, and an occa- sional murmur of voices from the chamber of dais, no other somd 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 corri- dors of the ancient mansion. Absorbed in meditation, the young man walked slowly to aid 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 frcvned 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 fasnion 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 lowered 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 moustaches, pointed smartly upward, imparted a military aspect to a face such as few could con- template without interest especially women. With th manner of one who has early learned to think, and hold com- munion with himself, his eye sparkled and his cheek flushed as certain ideas occurred to him: anon his animation died awayj he sighed deeply, and thus immersed in his OWD 24 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 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 eye- brow, lip, and nostril, that the brightness of her blue eyes, and the waving of her auburn ringlets, together with a de- cided 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, " Oh 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 sav that it has been a night of sorrow and mortification to me. Yet, G-od wot, what could I do but obey the orders of my superiors ? " " Hush ! " she whispered; for at that moment Lady Brunt- isfield came forth, pale and agitated, with eyes red fron 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 govern- ment, 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 vas- sal'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 over- turned, 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, notwith- standing 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 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEK. 25 him, under the dubious name of the gudemans 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 informa- tion 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 fal- tered) " 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 Fen ton ?" '' Ha ! are you one of the Fen tons of that ilk ? " "Nay, lady, I am only Walter Fenton of the Scottish Musketeers, 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 else- where." " Oh, no, no ; beg no such boon for me," said the blushing and trembling girl ; while the brow of the young man be- came 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. 26 THE SCOTTISH CATALIEK. " I liave often had the honour of seeing Mistress Lilian at my Lord Dumbarton'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 gentle- man 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 shown 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 consciezise is my own ; my soul belongs to God ; and my sword tc 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, imprison- ment, 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 thought- less bairn, when ye strung up the pyets yesternight, I fore- warned 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." " xou know not what I mean," replied Lady Grizel, THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 27 pressing her hands upon her breast, and speaking in an inco- nerent 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 thumbscrews 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 rouS and ruffian, whose name brings scandal on our peerage." " Then let my dear aunt Grizel escape to some place of con- cealment, 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 fasci- nating, for her timidity and mortification added the utmost expression to her blue eyes, while her lips, half parted, showed the whiteness of her teeth, and lent a sweetness and simpli- city to her face. The tenor of her address made the heart of Walter nutter, for love was fast subduing his scrupulous sense of duty. " Artless Lilian," said he with a faint smile, " Lord Cler- mistonlee 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 fa^e, and the fury of the council. I am, I hope, a gentleman, though an unfor- tunate 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 musketeer 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." 28 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIES. " 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 backbreast and headpieces, partisan, sword and dagger, in full marching harness, for four-and- twenty consecutive hours, that is aU, madam," said he gaily, though the inward forebodings of his heart and his sad expe- rience 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 recom- pensed 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 vene- rable 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 fireplace, 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 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 29 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 rock-built 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 stepped back. " And now, ladies, whence go ye ? " " As God shall direct, to some of our faithful tenant bodies, for safety and concealment," sobbed Lady Bruntis- field, " 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 thou- sand 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 accom- pany 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 1'eart Deating high with the conflicting emotions of pleasure and apprehension. Youth and beauty in suffering, danger, or humiliation, form naturally an object of interest and com- passion ; but Walter, though pleased by the conviction that te 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 80 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. whom the proudest noble dared not to trine, and before whom the pride and power of the great Argyle, lord of a vast terri- tory, 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 sergeant, 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 P " " 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 RAPIEBS. If thou sleep alone in Urrard, Perchance in midnight gloom, ThouFt hear behind the wainscot Of that old and darken'd room A fleshless hand that knocketh HIGHLAND MINSTRELSY. IN a dark old wainscoted 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 ox THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEK. 31 his hand, with his fingers writhed among his thick dark locks. He was again sunk in one of his gloomy reveries ; but at tunes a smile 01 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, witK 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 thought- less 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 wainscoting, and its gilded panels 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, 011 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 V said he, and whether it was the laint echo of his 82 THE SCOTTISH CATALIES. own voice or a sound again behind the wainscot, he knew net, 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 candlelight 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 panel 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 the 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 panel in the wainscoting 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 pos- sessing a handsome but very weatherbeaten countenance. He wore a plain buff coat and steel gorget ; his waist was en- circled 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 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 Curious and deadly thrust, whicn assuredly would have ended THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 33 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 1 was not to have pistolled thee from the panel." "Wemyss, Wemyss!" excMmed 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 >awl 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 ia 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 antago- nist. Walter was ten years younger than his adversary, upon whom he rushed with more ardour than address, and conse- quently, 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, perceiv- ing 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 hi with suppressed passion and fdry 4 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE. " Captain Napier," said Walter, " for the sake of her whose name and blood you share though you disgrace them I wiU 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 discomfited captain, sullenly receiv- ing 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 Hhenish from a flask, and then continued : " Ho, ho, and now, since you know my hiding-place, doubt- less for the sake of the thousand marks this poor brain-pan is worth, ye will deliver me unto our Scottish Philistines, 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." " Gadso, 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 1." " 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 Bruntisiield and my kinswoman Lilian to escape, it shames rne 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 viires." THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 35 w They may inform." " O never ! I am their lady's only kinsman the last of tlie good old line, and they are stanch 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 quar- ters until the whole barony, outfield and infield, are as bare t AS my hand." I " 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. 4 " 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 panel, and Walter heard his footsteps dying away as he n^cended 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 ana 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 muskets 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 r^ dined. '.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 giow on its dark-brown wainscot- ing. 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 back- ground. D 2 56 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 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 panel 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 oil the floor attracted his eye. He snatched it up. It was very small, and of richly-worke(f lace, tied by a blue riband. " 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 ! " ex- claimed Macer Maclutchy, bustling into the room. " Here is an order from the king's advocat to bring the leddies o' Brun- tisfield to the Laigh Council House instanter, and the cham- ber 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 over- slagh, as we used to say in Flanders. Rot me ! I have searched every place that would hold a mouse, but the pri- soners 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. Eause 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 musketeer, 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 '11 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 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIKB. 37 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' witch- craft like a wife o' the Kailmercat, or that auld whaislin besom, your mother, down by St. Rocjue ? " . " 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 stanch vassal o' the JSTapiers ! " added the poor musketeer, in great conster- nation 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 sergeant was unbuckling the soldier's collar of bando- liers. " 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, com- rade Hab, you take over such a post, see that your wards are in it." " I had your word, Mr. Fenton," replied the musketeer 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 sergeant testily. " ! 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 considei S)urself under close ward until orders come anent ye. me ! I once marched three hundred prisoners from Zut- phen to French Flanders, among them the noble count of IJronkhorst himself, and never lost but one man whom I pis- H5 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. toiled 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 P Yon pawkie gipsy'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. Hot me ! a young quean's skirling, or a carlin's greeting would hae little etTect on me, for I have heard muckle o' baith in my time. I) id 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 old 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'Auvergne, Crequy, Conde, and Dunbarton ! The deil 's in ye, Walter Fenton ! You were aye a moody and melancholy chield, and I ever thought ye were born under some ill star, as the spae- wives 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, sergeant, and better times to us a* ;" and so saying he buried his flushed visage in a vast flagon of foaming ale. SCOTTISH CAVALI1SK. 89 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 IMPROVISITORB. - 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 pas- sages narrow, dark, and devious ; its stairs ascended and descended in secret corners, and one led to the paved bar- tizan, which formed the roof. Many of its gloomy chambers were vaulted. Over its small and heavy doorway appeared the date 156, 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 giated 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 i 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 is such until the tune 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 tie ancient City Guard, armed with swords and Lochaber axes buff coats, and steel bonnets, occupied one of the lower aparments entering from the turnpike stair, at the foot of which s:ood a sentinel with his axe, before the door, which, though small, was a solid mass of iron-studded oak, bolts and long >ars. In a small bit desolate chamber of this striking old edifice the same in which the hapless earl of Argyle passed the niojht of the 2lth June, 1685, his last in the land of the living Walter Fenton was confined a prisoner ; while the Reverend Mr. Lhabod Bummel, Mr. Drouthy the butler, and other servitors c Lady Bruntisfield, were in close durance in 40 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 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 do^'n it, and penetrating the cobwebs and dust of the prison window, radiated through its deep embrazure, 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, end the only articles of furniture were a coarse and heavy table like a carpenter's bench, a miserable paillasse on a truckle bed- stead, and a water -flagon of Flemish pewter. One or two rusty chains hung from enormous blocks in tie dirty walls, for the more secure confinement of prisoners who might be more than usually dangerous or refractory, tnd the whole tout ensemble of the chamber, when viewed Try 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 appre- hensively, 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 hiri. Anon the pallid moon rose slowly into its place, and rom the blue southern sky poured a cold but steady flood f silver light into the cheerless room, and again, for a time, the shadow of the massive grating was thrown on the discolotred floor. All around it was involved in obscurity, from anid which the damp spots on the walls seemed like great and Hdeous visages, mocking and staring at the captive. Bitter were the thoughts, and sad the fnemories that thronged fast upon the mind of Walter Fejiton; his dark eyes were lit, his lip compressed, but therd were none to behold the changes ; his handsome features fere alternately Jouded by chagrin, contracted by anger, aid softened by THE SCOTTISH CAVALIES. 41 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 op- portunity when by one brilliant act of heroism and courage, he might place himself for ever above his fortune, or die. And Lilian ! Oh, 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 rally ing-point faded away ^ hen 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 lie was poor and nameless, compelled from infancy to eat the bread of depend- ence 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 represen- tative of a long line of illustrious barons, whose shields had shown 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 enthu- siasm 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 faith- ful 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 s&d, 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 ail a blank, a void to him j but 42 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. his thoughts went back to those days when the suppression of the rising at Both well, 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 ban- ner 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 Greyfriars kirk- yard, 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 distin- guished 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 inscrip- tions 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 graveyard. There is not a spot in all the Lothian s 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 decay- ing beneath the verdant turf. In the year before mentioned, this ancient city of the dead was crowded to excess with those unhappy nonconformists 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 musketeer, 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 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 43 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, ana 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 o\\n 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 increas- ing 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 JDutch 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 j and he remembered when coiled up within her 44 THE SCOTTISH CAYALIE2. mantle and plaid, how lie Lid 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 thict 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 melee 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 cf 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, THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE. 45 who had looked on many a battle-field, and speaking kindly to the desolate child, he gently stirred the dead woman wita 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 Musketeers, hath a bodle in hirf 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 sergeant of Dunbarton's mus- keteers, 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 church- y&/d, and showed him the grave where his mother lay where the soldiers had interred her ; and there little Walter, over- come by the mystery that involved his fate, and the loneliness 46 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. of his heart, wept bitterly ; for the soldier, though meaning well, was rather like one of Job's comforters, and painted his dependence 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 outre. 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 lown 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 sergeant w as his only pro- tector : though poor, he was a kind and sincere one ; and the little boy became the pet of the musketeers. 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 usquebaugli 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 mime- I THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 47 rous 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 protege 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, ;itying the little boy, and pleased with his candour and eauty, 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 sergeant's) 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 h?vd 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 demoiselles 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 Koyals, then battling and broiling at Tangiers) had inculcated a pugnacity of disposition that sometimes was very trouble- some ; and he once proceeded so far as to d n the old dovrager of Drums turdy 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 liands like two cut-and-thrust gallants of six feet high. 48 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. But when tlioir 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 musketeers, afc 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 re- flection wrung his heart, so little did he regret the part he had acted, that for Lilian's sake he would willingly run again a hundredfold 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 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE. 49 pleasure on the mortifications from which he had saved tho ladies of Bruntisfield, the risks he had run for their sake, ad 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 presump- tion 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 wondrous 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 au- thoritatively " Maister Walter Fenton ! now, then, come forth in- stanter. 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 riband and cockade a la Monmouth in the military fashion, he descended the narrow spiral stair, pre- ceded 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 poleaxes, and Dunbraiken their captain, a portly citizen, whose vast paunch, cased in corslet I. E 60 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER, 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 steacly. He was evidently after his evening potations at Lucky Preeps ; 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 nonconformists, 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 Lawn-market, 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 architec- ture, which had recently been graced by a beautiful statue of Charles II. On one side rose the square tower and gigantic facade of St. Giles, with its traceried windows, its rich battle- ments, 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 cir- cular 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 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 51 of the cathedral bell, vibrating sonorously from the great stone chambers of the tower, made Walter start. It struct 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 pal- pable 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 faithle&s sons betrayed her." Its rich and intricate roof towered far away into dusky obscuritv ; its vast space and lofty walls of polished stone echoed nollowly 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, messen- gers-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. s 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 head- i2 62 THE SCOTTISH CATALIEB. pieces, and partisans of those who crowded round it. Tha 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 re- mained long and vividly impressed on his memory ; for he longed to behold, but dreaded to encounter, the stern con- clave 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 Tie too might have to undergo. Suddenly the door of the dreaded chamber flew open, and the common doomster and his two assistants, with their mus- cular 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 thumbscrews. 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 SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. 53 the brass crown of his baton in the sufferer's mouth. " Ay, ay, denying his ain country, eh P " " 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 JDutch invasion, and a rebellion among the westland Whigs, to whom he showed letters from Hume 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 ? " "JN"a, I am Habbie, the son o' my faither, auld John Elshender, a cottar body, at the Burghmuir-end." " 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 ccelestis, 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 be 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 papist- ical duke, I would kiss, yea, and believe the book of the accursed Mohamet, whilk, as I show in my * Bombshell aimit at the Taile of tlie Great Beast,' was written on auld spule banes, and kept by the gude wife of the impostor in a mea? girnel. But fie ! and out upon ye, fiends, for lo ! the ho 1 !? 54 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIBB. !>f our triumph and deliverance from tyrants and masse* mongers is at hand. O, why tarry the chariot-wheels of our Deliverer P " " I like aiie owl in desart am, That nightly " " What I " 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 panelled 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 PBIVT 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, witn 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 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 55 qpail; though on the field he would have faced, without flinching, the rush of a thousand charging horse ; they were the instruments of torture then authorized by law ; the pilnie- wiriks, 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 hand-vices, wtich, 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 intro- duced 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 com- mand 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, py 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 Inqui- sition, 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 manv 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. Oppo- site 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 56 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER, 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 arid 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 exaggera- tion. Even Wodrow allows that at times he showed compunc- tion, mercy, and compassion. Mutual injuries, assassinations, and outrages heightened the hostility of spirit between tlie 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 persecu- tion. 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 tip 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, nut- cracker 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 Handal, Lord Clermistonlee, who sat on his left. THE SCOTTISH CAVALTEE. 67 A renegade Covenanter, a profligate, and debauched roud, 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 dissi- pation ; it was slightly disfigured by a sword-cut, and, not- withstanding 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 ]N apier 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, anf perhaps his jealousy, were kindled against the young man oy whose agency she had found concealment, after he thought aD was en train by his accusing the baroness of Bruntisfield to the council, and procuring a warrant of search and arrest for intercommuned persons at her manor of the Wryteshouse. 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, w r hile 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 valour, if we remember the old Fentons of that ilk, and the brave Sir John de Fenton of the Bruce 's days," 58 T.HE SCOTTISH CATJLLIES. I continued the chancellor. " Young man, you of course know for what you this night compear before us P" " My lord, for permitting the escape of prisoners placed tinder my charge." " Prisoners charged with treason and leaguing with inter- communed enemies of the state ! " added Clermistonlee, in a voice of thunder. " And you plead guilty to this P " " I cannot aeny 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 r " " 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 P " " Permitting the escape of Lady Bruntisfield and her kins- woman, the young lady." "Aha! the young lady!" laughed Claverhouse ana Balcarris. " I was overcome by their terror and entreaties. Oh, my lords, I seek not to extenuate my offence." " Plague choke thee ! " said I)alyel, 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 & 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 un- timely 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 Clermis- tonlee ! 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 stanch Covenanter ; " silence, rascal, and remember that on yonder bench there lieth a bodkin of steel, for boring the tongue that wags too freely." THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. 69 " Enough of this," said the chancellor, striking the table impatiently with his hand ; " Mr. Secretary, attend, and note answers. Walter Fenton, yon are doubtless well aware of where the ladies of Bruntisfield are concealed, and can en- lighten us thereon." " I swear to you, most noble earl, that I know not ! " " Bidiculpus ! " said his tormentor, Clermistonlee, who was Tinder 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 forcesand and " "And what, sir?" " A few white shillings, my lord." " "Whilk ye keepit, I suppose." The macer scratched his liead 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. " x ea, knave, it flashed even now, and by this light seems a diamond of the purest water. A common pikeman seldom owns a trinket sucli as that." " I cry ye mercy," said Dalyel ; " had your lordship seen ray brigade of Red Cossacks retreating after the sack of Tre- bizond and Natolia, ye would have seen the humblest spear- man with his boots and holsters crammed to the flaps with the richest jewels of Asiatic Turkey. I myself 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 troous of your Cossacks, to send among the westland Whigs for six months or so." " S'death ! " said the general, through his massy beard, " your guardsmen think themselves fine rufflers, and so thoy are, Claver'se, but I doubt muckle if in a charge they would hare come within a spear's length of my Red Brigade, Puir 60 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. chields ! lang since hae they stuffed the craps of the wolves and vultures that hovered oure the bluidy plains of Smolensk." " ~We\l, 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 inter- ewt," had fallen fast asleep. "We all know that the Lady Brun- tisfield 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 Mon- mouth." " The true pup of the crop-eared breed ! " said Clermiston- lee, scornfully ; " false in blood as in name. Macer, hand up the ring. His mother (some trooper's trull) never owned a jewel 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 pas- sion ; and so resolute was his aspect, thatMaclutchy 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." THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER 61 " It is enough," responded Claverhouse, whose deep dark eyes had gazed full upon Walter's with a searching expres- sion 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 Merslngton; "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 Olaver'se turned philanthropist ! Since when did this miracle take place P " " Since the cold-blooded atrocities this chamber has wit- nessed," 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 pur 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 autho- rity, and appeal to a council of war- -to a court of commis- sioned officers." " Uds daggers ! " said Daly el, " 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 Hosehaugh 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. 62 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. " And of what value is the appeal, noble earl, after one*s boaes 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 anteroom, 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 Musketeers of Foot, for default and negligence of duty " " Anent whilk it is needless to expone," interposed Mer- sington. " 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 riveted round your neck, to the coal heughs of the right worshipful the laird o* 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 ! " mut- tered 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. TUB SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. 6S CHAPTEE IX. DEJECTION. A mournful one am I, above whose head, A day of perfect bliss hath never passed j Whatever joys my soul have ravished, Soon was the radiance of those joys o'er cast. LAYS OF TUB MINNESINGERS* WALTER was conducted back to the prison-house in GOUT- lay's Close, the Heart of Midlothian being already filled with nonconforming culprits. Preceded by Macer Maclutchy and the gudeman or gover- nor of the establishment, who wore the city livery, blue, laced with yellow, and carried a bunch of ominous-lite 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 superstruc- ture of vaults, which, from their low and massive aspect, might have been deemed coeval with the days of the Alexan- ders. 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 subter- ranean 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, showed 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 P " Adonai ! Adonai ! " cried a voice in the distance, so loud, o shrill, and unearthly, that the gudeman paused, and the macer started back. " How long, Oh Lord, wilt thou permit these dragons to devour thy peojjle P E-ejoice, ye bairns of the Covenant ! E/ejoice, 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 fcrough the keyhole," said the macer, and knocking thrice 0n the cell door with his mace, added, " Gif your tongue had Oeen bored with an elshin as it deserved, my braw buckie, ye 04 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. wadna liae crawn sae crouse. However, gudeman, his re- bellious 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' Traill, Bennet, Blackadder, and other brethren in tribulation." " By my word, keeping thae chields on the auld craig ia 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 Fentor heard the voice of the gudeman, saying, " Kennel up there, my man. You will find the lodgings we gie to eonventiclers 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 Macanvii, 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 stomework, the clank of a chain as it was thrown across, and then the retreating footsteps of his jailers 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 aper- ture, 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 invoiced in the deepest ob- scurity. 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, dia THfi SCOTTISH riYALlEA. 65 covered that it was a vault about twelve feet square, faced with stone, destitute, damp, frightful, aiid 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 con- sole him. His sentiments of hostility to Lord Clerrnistonlee w(*re equalled only by those of gratitude to the laird of Claver house, 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 mad- dening. 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 Stra- chan, 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 Eobert 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, ob- scurity, and disgrace of a coal-mine, oh, 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 JSTapiers of Bruntisfield, his dreams of Lilian's inild blue eyes and glossy ringlets were sadly clouded by the perils to which they had hurried him. All those 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 we I. F 68 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. blasted and withered for ever ; and to the heart of the young and proud, there is no agony equal to that of unmerited dis- grace 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 5 but comet thy lovely face Make slavery look more comely ? could the touch Of thy soft hand convey delight to mine With servile fetters on ? BOADICBA, 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 Tolbpoth and a soldier of the Town-guard, 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 Crom- wellian 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 setup 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 oyes were looking upward from the Cimmerian depth of that ghastly vault. Barefooted THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 67 children gambolled about in the spring sunshine ; with ruddy arid 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 aedans 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 gono 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 P 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 thr^w himself upote the straw, and wrung his hands in 68 THE SCOTTISH CA VALISE. 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 bonneted carles on the Bruntisfield barony, to take certain obnoxious tests under terror of thumbscrews and gun match. 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 un- becoming 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 fathers' 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, Waltei." 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 Fin- land, 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 rfee thee there." *' I thank you, Mistress Laurie, but the honour of this visit THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 69 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 beau- tiful 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 remem- bered by thee ! " " Ah, sir ! the Lady Bruntisfield has lamented them bit- terly. 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." 70 THE SCOTTISH CJLVALIEB, " 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 1 pity thee ! " " Then I bless the chance that brought me here." "In that coid, 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 srned 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 Grizel make me selfish, I would surrender >nyself to the council to-morrow." " S'death ! do not think of it." " We both accuse ourselves of selfishness of the very ex- cess 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 inter communed traitors, the Napiers, uniquhile of Bruntisfield." " Then leave me, Lilian I can be happy now, knowing that you came " " From Lady Grizel," said Lilian, hastily, " to express her lincere thanks for your kindness, and her deep sorrow for its THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 71 sad requital, which (from whatyou told us) we could not have contemplated. Indeed, Mr. Walter, we have been very un- happy on your account, and so, impelled by a sense of grati- tude, I came to to " and, pausing, she covered her face with her hands and wept, for .the new and humiliating situa- tion in which she found herself had deeply agitated her. She did not perceive a dark figure that approached her softly, unseen bv her friends, who were gaily chatting under the gloomy snadow 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 mortifica- tion 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. R.ocque there we bide our fate in poverty and obscurity." " And your cousin, Napier, the captain H " " Hath fled to the west : but that person he is certainly listening adieu ! " " Remember me." " How can I forget ? " she replied, naively, as she arose to withdraw ; but lo ! the person started forward, and her hand, 72 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIKB, which was as yet glowing with Walter's kiss, was rudely seized in the rough grasp 1 of the intruder. Fear utterly deprived the poor girl of power to cry out. -Aunt Grizel dear grand-aunt Grizel ! " 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 roues and intriguantes. " Lilian Napier, by all the devils ! " cried Lord Clermis- tonlee, in a tone of astonishment : he was considerably intoxi- cated, 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 tapistried 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 presi- dent, 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 h' long bilbo with prompt bravery, and wrapping his mantle THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 73 round the left arm. " I am a lord of the privy council to draw on rne 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 clang- ing blades, " Bravo, bilbo ! Excellent come on again, Mr. Malapert, and I will teach thee to measure swords with Itandal of Clermistonlee. Gads-o, fellow, thou art no novice in the science of fencing crush me, what a thrust ! well parried " ' With a heylillelu, 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 anta- gonist, 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, " Ac- cursed 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 ghostseers 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 fignt ; you will hear from me anon." " Whenever your lordship pleases, I am your most obedi- dient," 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 74 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEfL clashing of the rapiers, rushed forth with lanterns and pole- axes ; 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, with- drew, 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 ex- asperated roue strode away. CHAPTER XL CLERMISTONLEE AT HOME. Too long by love a wandering fire misled, My latter days in vain delup'ori 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 BAIVOCL'R. 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 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 75 tliem. Their huge fapades, 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 irascible 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 the Sixth's days, and having the pale blue eyes, ex- quisitely 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 epi- tome of the proprietor's character 76 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. The massive stone lintel displayed in bold relief the legend carved thereon by his pious forefathers, fitt fee <8olr for al f)ts gtftt's, 1540. but above it lay Andro Hart's " Compendious Book of Godly Songs," beside the " Gave Lady's Manual!," and the " Banqvet of Jests or change or cheare imprinted at the shoppe in Ivie- lane, 1634," a book of ribald ditties, another of farriery, another of falconry, obscene plays ; Hosehaugh's " Disserta- tions" 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 P My certie, what would his faither 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, accord- ing 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 dimi- nished household, old Juden Stenton was a faithful follower of Lord Clermistonlee, for whom he would have laid down hia THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE. 77 life without a sigh of regret. He acted by turns butler and baillie, cc ; k and valet, groom, farrier, trooper, and factotum, being the beau ideal of the stanch 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 Both well 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 perse- cutors, Juden changed too, and donning the buff coat and scarlet, became a bitter foe to " all crop-eared and psalm- singing 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 unliappiness. Clermistonlee, in the prime of his youth, had been wedded to a lady of beauty and rank, of extreme gentle- ness 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 78 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 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 Claver- house, wha canna touch wine, and auld Binns, wham wine canna touch. Hech ! here he comes ; and now for a clam- jamfray wi' the yettwards." 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 j 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 wi'him!" he mut- tered. " 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 rou6 ; the other, a cranky THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 79 and meagre compound of vulgarity, shrewdness, and igno- rance, who was never sober, but had obtained a seat on the bench in consequence of his inflexible devotion to the govern- ment, 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 P" " 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 hat)* baith the wheezlock and the yeuk " " How ! has she both P" " Had ye, a month syne, tar-barrelled that auld carlin, Elshender, owre the muir at St. Rocque, Meg would hae beer 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 fly ted wi' ye for riding through her kail for a near cut to the Grange, the day ye dined wi' auld Fount ainhalL" " 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 moriy 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 golack,' KnE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. as Itosehaugh 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." "Blaid, as I live! Foul fa' the loon that shed it .'"ex- claimed Juden, in accents of intense concern, as his master drewoff 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 merelymeasured swords in G-ourlay's close with one of the Scots musketeers." "Aboot what? They're mad, unchancey chields, Dun- barton'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, com- posed 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 protestationo, Good Lord, deliver us ! *' THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 81 " Amen," said Clermistonlee, " d n all kirk commia sioners and sessions too !" " The last keepit a firm hand owre such gallants as you, before King Charles cam' hame," replied Mrsington, who, like all meagre men, was a ^reat 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 con- versation ; " 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 Hairstane to my own gate at Drumsheugh, 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 front 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. " 82 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIE&. " Tush ! I will hare 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 P 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 hac, Randal P 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 P " " The person 01 little Lilian," said Clennistonlee, 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 in- flamed, surprised, ana 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 slily at him over his inverted tankard, and replied, " Get a warrant of search, and send every macer, messen- ger- at-arms, and toun guardsman after your dearie he, he ! THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE. 83 and proclaim at the cross by tuck of drum, that the right honourable the Lord Clermistonlee, baron of Druinsheugh, 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, Bandal," 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 whingei- 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 fan- cies 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 en- grailed gules, and so forth. Ha, ha ! " " The coronet aboon them is a braw die, and ane that glit- ters 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 pur- pose, 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 mean time P " " Ah the devil ! don't think of that. I would give a hun- dred French crowns to have the right scent after her." " I could do sae for half the money, my lord," said Judev suddenly waking up from his standing doze. 84 YHE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE. " The deuce ! fellow, art tJiou there P " exclaimed his master with stern surprise. " Fallow, indeed ! " reiterated the ancient servitor, indig- nantly. " Troth, I was the best o' gude fallows when I re- ceived 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 G rahame and I are now the best of friends, it would be better to recall the memory of bygone days as little as possible. Dost hea'r 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 tli house o' Clermont, Juden, like a burr on a new bannet. But losh me ! lie docsna 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 Cler- mistonlee, 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, bloom- ing, 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 flowingcurls with his hand, and hung it upon the knob of a chair. He then turned to leave the room, but pausing, said slily " 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 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. 85 an altered voice ; " but tell with brevity what ye know of this matter." " Lucky Elshender, a cottar body at St. Hocque, owre the * B irghmuir 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 faithfu' 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 !urn. Sae, Clermistonlee, as she is a body mickle trusted by the family, if any woman or witch in a' braid Scotland can en* lighten 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 some- what 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 aggrandisement 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. JJ(5 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB CHAPTEE XII. THE COTTAGE OF ELSIE. Ha ! honest nurse, where were my eyes before ? I know thy faithfulness and need 110 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 Mersing- ton 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, notwith- standing the studied coldness with which he was treated, the passion of the rout got the better of judgment. Lilian's great expectations, too, had further inflamed his ardour ; but all the attentions which he proffered on every occasion with inimit- able 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 con- stitutional 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 un searched, when one at a distance might not. There they dwelt hi the strictest seclusion and disguise on the very marge of their ample estates, and almost within view of the turrets of their ancient ^lanor-house THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEK. 87 Since the torture to which, the unhappy Ichabod "Bummel had been subjected, and his subsequent imprisonment on the Bass Rock (where Peden of Glenluee, Scott of Pitlochie, Bennett of Chesters, Gordon of Earlston, Campbell of Ces- nock, and others, endured a strict captivity as the p/ ; ce of sedition), Lady Grizel and Lilian hoped that their involve- ment with the Orange spies, and their flight, would soon be alike forgotten, especially now, when they were so utterly ruined ai*d impoverished by proscription, that they were forced to siiare the bounty of their humblest vassal. Near the old ruined chapel of St. Eocque, 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's Grange, nestled the little thatched cottage of Elsie Elshender. It was low-roofed, and its thick heavy thatch was covered with grass and mos& 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 wlich was a little eyelet-hole, affording from the stone ingle-sea~s a view of the arid hills of Braid, and the solitary path that vound 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 anciert fashion) the barley was cleansed every morning, for the use of the family. This humble residence contained only a but^nd 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 laige fire of wood md peats blazed on the rude hearth ; and in its ruddy light the various rows of Flemish ware, beechwood luggies, milkbowies, horn-spoons, and polished pewter arrayed above the vooden buffet or dresser, were all glittering in that shiny splendour which a smart housewife loves. Within the wide fireplace on a pivot hung a glowing Culross girdle, on which a vtst cake was baking. It was night, but neither lamp nor candle were required ? the fire's warm blaze gave anple light, and a more comfort- able little cottage than old Elsie's when viewed by that hospitable glow, was not to :>e found in the three Lothian s. 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 baciground. On the table lay an 88 THE SCOTTISH CATALIEB. 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 waa then in the hands of the Philistines, and keeping the Reverend Ichabod Bummel company in the towers of the Bass. Two kirn-babies decorated with blue ribands, 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 chia somewhat prominent ; her grey hair was neatly disposed irnder a snow- white cap of that Flemish fashion which is still common in Scotland, and over which a simple black riband marks widow- hood. 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 ke/s, 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 (Anglice kneading), and as the sleeves of aer dress came but a little below the shoulder, her fair rouno arms and dimpled elbows did not belie the pretty and merry face, which now and then peeped round at the group rear the fire. Two of these ought perhaps to have been described first. Disguised as a peasant, Lady Grizel no longer wore her white hair puffed out by Monsieur Pouncets skill, but smoothed under a plain starched oigonet, coif, or mutch (which you will), and very ill at eas the stately old dame ap- peared 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 o/ John Elshender, who, for forty consecutive years had hung ais bonnet on a knob thereof, while taking his evening doze therein, after a day's ploughing or harrowing on the rigs of Drundryan. 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 s simple snood like that of a peasant girl ; but never had peasant nor peeress more beau- tiful or more glossy tresses. The poor girl was very pale ; constant watching and anxiety, a feeling of utter abandon THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. ment 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 re- mained 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 thoir hands, the softness of their voices, and, above all, the decided superiority of their air, would have rendered all dis- guise 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 Grizel. 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 Grizel, 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 leaned to give his ungauntled hand to the Southron." 90 THE SCOTTISH CAYALIEE. *' Fearfu' times, my leddy," said Elsie, " fearfu' times ! vraly, 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." " 111 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 Grizel. " W A el 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' perse- cution 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 Claver'es 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 Cove- nant 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, heed- less 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 near 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 *.he sound o' drums, and shawlms, and organs. These are fearfu' times." "Toots, nurse, I have seen wir, ' aid Lady Bruntisfield impatiently. THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER 91 " 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 Hieland- men, 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 " " Bed and blue, gules and argent, were his colours, Elsie," said Lady Grizel, whose tears fell fast. " O, nursie, my ain band 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 and 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 Grizel, 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 pr'ythee cease these reminiscences." , my lady, but muckle mair could I tell doo Lilian 92 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 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 out- lived 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 com- parison ; 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 Grizel, 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 cool- ness ; " ah, why such a thought P " " 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 per- ceived that her blue eyes sparkled and the colour of her cheek heightened with pleasure as Lady Grizel spoke. " And said he of the council threatened him with torture P" she continued. " Clermistonlee " " Ah !" ejaculated Lady Grizel. "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 P " " Permitting me to escape, I presume," replied Lilian, raising her head with a little hauteur. " Claver'se ! " said Elsie, in a low voice ; " then this is the THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. 93 first glide 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 ungal- lantry, Elsie ; and yet I do not think he would have ducked me." " Ungallantry, Lilian ! " said Lady Grizel, 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 fhe Auld Farrand, and it was a daring act and a graceless, to drag a vassal from our bounds, when 1 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 dinnapylce out Tiawlcs een. The lad wears buff and steel, and eats his beef and bannock by tuck of drum ; and sae baith Claver'se and Dalyel showed him that mercv 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 bandoliers), 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 Grizel ; " 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 butlchabod, poor man, 1 suppose his earthly troubles are well nigh over." " A dreich time he'll have o't on the lonely Bass," said 94 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. Meinie, turning the savoury cakes, and blowing her pretty fingers. " There is naething there but gulls napping 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 f 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 remem- berest well my husband, Elsie ? 'tis well that he sleeps in his grave. Oh, judge what he would have thought of our down- fal and degradation." " My mind misgives me, my Jady, 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 Grizel, 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 bygones be bygones, 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 it's waxing late." Meinie of course was about to enter some bashful protest, when the soft voice of her foster-sister said, ma f3TTISH CAVALTEK. 95 " Do, dearest Meinie, and I will join thee ; 'twill raise the spirits of good aunt Grizel. 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 BothwelVs 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 Dunbartons drums, Meinie," said Lilian " you hum it from morning till evening." " And so do you, madam," said Meinie, slily and bluntly ; " but T 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 Eoyals, or Dunbarton's Musketeers, 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, appa- rently 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 upper hand ror the time. Slowly the girnel lid was raised, and the glow- ing firelight shone on the steel breast-plate and bandoliers of 96 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. a musketeer. 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 poutj "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. Lassies, 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 Grizel, I ken oure well of all that has come to pass, for I was one of the thirty files of mus- keteers 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. " Bum and proscrip- tion 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 ! " I too, Habbie," added Lilian ; " for I cannot forget THE SCOTTISH CAYAuiEU 97 when we bird-nested in the wood yonder, and gathered gowaiis 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 oak-woods of the auld place up by yonder. Often hath brave Mr. Fenton, when tramping by my side on the long dusty march, recalled their memory in such wise that rny 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 chap- lains, 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 musket 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. &8 THE SCOTTISH CAYAL1ES. " 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. CHAPTEE XIII. A EEVEKSE. 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. WALTES was still where we left him in the eleventh chap- ter, 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 in- tense 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 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. 9fc 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 thin* 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 Ms 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. " Thoigh poor and unpretending, I ivas 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 fiandal 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 pre- sent proscribed and friendless state of her family, might too easily fall into the toils of that famous and powerful roue, 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 greet- ing or condolence. Thus day and night rolled on in weary and intense mono- tony, and poor Walter by turns grew more fierce and impa- tient, 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, ever^ stone and joint and feature of which, became indelibly im- pressed on hii memory. JOG THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. "But a crisis came sooner than he had anticipated. One night he was routed from a deeper and heavier slitns* oer than usual by the un\v onted 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 esta- blishment ; the second was the old soldier who acted as javel- leur ; 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 souter- rains 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 in- side and six without (beside our baggage), rumbled so heavily but we were only five weeks on the way a very tolerable journey." " Yery ; 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 encoun- ters with gentlemen of the post. Ah! I winged one varlet near the Berecross of Stanmore one night, and to be a sol- dier's wife egad how the countess wept ! Immediately upon my arrival at Bristo, I was waited on by the laird of Finland, *ho told me your storv, and, as Ladv Dunbarton would not THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 101 rest until her young protfyt 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 re- quire me to repay." v " 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 !" ex- claimed 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, col- lared, 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 JSTapiers M 102 TITS SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. " 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 Daly el, and that addlepated sena- tor, 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 nheritance 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 him- self 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- oifice 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 Cler- mistonlee, 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 accom- Elished cavalier, he is, withal, too much of a rout andfanfaron >r my taste. And harkee, Walter, I have one request to make ere we leave this abominable souterrain that jrou 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. Walter's 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 construe- THE SCOTTISH CATALIEB. 103 tor 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 " Since Candlemas-tide '85, my lord." " How, boy, for three years P " "Ever since you defeated Argyle's troops at the MULT- dykes," said Walter with a sigh. " Ha ! 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 Churchhill 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 trea- son 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 Green- law 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 Bristp, 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, tur- reted, 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 obsc'vire and murky shadow. The long vista of the Lawnmarket was closed by the gloomy and picturesque masses of the great- Gothic cathedral, the facade 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, SOA THE SCOTTISH CAVAL1EH. A hackney-coach, like a clumsy hearse, one of the few intro* duced into Edinburgh only fifteen years before, and conse- quently 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 gabardine of that coarse stuff, with which a recent act of the Scottish parliament com- pelled 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 P" " Once only, my lord, when I accompanied Lady Dunbar- ton 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 Lsetitia 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 dejeune 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 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. 105 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 demoiselle 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 Conde), 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 musketeers 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. " Heyday ! I am right, then," laughed the gay nobleman, " you got a kiss, I warrant. Point d' argent point de Swisses! 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 Car- thusian's reward from a dazzling demoiselle of eighteen. Ho ! I had served under Turenne, Luxembourg, and Conde, 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 conven- ticle among the Braid hi]ls 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 tipper 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 106 THE SCOTTISH 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 him- self once more a free and armed man ; while the great cara- van 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 attri- buted to the wandering spirit of that diabolical wizard, who a short time before had expiated his real and supposed enor- mities 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 kalei- doscope, Walter pirouetted and danced down the Lawnmarket aud through the narrow Crairnes. 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 cava- liers 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 whig 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 spiko 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 recog- nized the face of the preacher, Ichabod Bummel, of whose THIS SCOTTISH CAVALTEE. 107 fate he was still in ignorance. With pitv 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 R-oyal Mews, this edi- fice 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 billeted 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. bhe'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 broad-sheet or news- paper, 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 resi- dences 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." 108 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. " I think I should know your voice," said Hab, still deli- berating, 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 P By my faith, I thought you were browbeating the westland Whigs, and roistering 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 so_- diers, 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 kins- woman 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 fugi- tives 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," mvttered the ladies, and they all THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEH. 103 bowed to each other three several times. Lilian blushed deeply. "Ah," said Walter, " I have then the happiness to be remembered." Lady Grizel, 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 aie 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 when- ever 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 appearea so fascinating to Walter as, when laying her hand gently on his arm, she said, " Ah, Mr. Fenton, is this indeed true P" 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 tc the council ? But no ! she suppressed the ungenerous thought, when, bending her keen eyes on Walter, she read the open- ness 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 haa 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 arid 110 THE SCOTTISH CA.VALIEE. 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 Grizel, 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 P" " 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 Grizel. " 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 showed 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 Grizel, whose artificial pride now quite gave way before the natural warmth and gratitude of her heart. And her broad silver barnacles be- came 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 hers, " 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 a^ed 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 P" 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 #oing round ; and in her girlish delight, she seemed a thou- THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEK. Ill eand times more charming than when clad in her long stomacher, and compelled to imitate Lady Grizel'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 cin- der, 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, arouna which they seated themselves by desire of Lady Grizel, 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 goshawk'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 Pen- ton 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. WTien a very little child, he was found nestled in his dead mother's bosom, in the kirkyard of the Greyfrairs, in that terrible time you will re- member ?" " 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, 112 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. or a lip tliat curls mair haughtily. True gentle blood can aye be kent by the curl o' the lip. 1 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 Grizel, 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 over- heard 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 1 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 toge- ther 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 Grizel 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. Hocque. I mind a time wnen 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 Grizel. 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 1 the auld place owre the muir, THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 113 fiis pow was lyart enough. Methink I see him yet, as I saw liim 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 Grizel could never thole the Muirs, for they gained baith haugh and holm by pinglin' wi' base merchandise in Nungate o' fiaddin- toun, when the Humes were winning the broomy knowes s yoking mistress passed, and patting his shoulder with her hand, bade him a " good morning." The old man's eye brightened as he sur- veyed 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 s\nce 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 en- crusted 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 P Bead 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 tae 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 Eamsays, 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 I. L 146 THE SCOTTISH CAVALlEli. crown, the fortune of our house came with a lass, and will go with one." "Indeed!" rejoined Walter, considerably interested, "its 1* J. O fortune r " 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 Hps, 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 P 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 pigeonwinged 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 per- mitting 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 cipher 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 happi- ness greets you as its mistress." " And am I not its propei 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, THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE. 14? 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 everybody. O, it was quite a sight. But there jangles the housebell, and now let us hie to breakfast." Once more she placed her hand in Walter's, and they re- turned 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 mos. 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 48 THE SCOTTISH CATALIBB. .aerrings, pyramids of eggs, and piles of oat and barley-cakes ; srheaten 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 accom- modated 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, wi^h her crest on their sleeves : these were in attendance each as an fauyer tranchant, or cutting squire. On the party being joined by the ground-baillie, 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 pos- sessed 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 obeved my injunctions to the letter, in the anair o' your bairn's hooping-cough," said the old lady, who took an active hand in all the family matters of her " 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 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE. 149 without consulting me P 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 BothwelTt 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 ac- companying 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, ana crowded streets of the city to his sombre quarters in the Canongate. CHAPTEE 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 GRKNVILLB 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, ancl 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 un- conscious 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 k>se and outer lobby of the house. 150 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. 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 ap- peared 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 Clenmstonlee 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 sheat&ed 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 mag- nificence of his attire formed a strong contrast to that of the stern Daly el, who wore a plain suit 01 black armour like that of a cuirassier of Charles I., but rusted by blood and perspira- tion, and defaced by sword cuts and musket 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 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIES. 151 reassured by the presence of his patron the earl and Sir Thomas Dalyel. " Mr. Fenton," said the former, " we have much pleasure ; ii presenting you with that to which your merits so much entitle you a pair of colours in my ancient regiment o* 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 ma- jesty 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." v* " Oath of fealty, Sir Thomas ? " reiterated Walter, equally surprised and offended at this new proposal, which accom- panied 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 P " "No; to the officers of state and the parliament of Scot 152 THE SCOTTISH CAT^LIEB. land; 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 saul) made this a 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 quar- ters again," added Daly el, 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 Dal^el, with a keen glance, " that you will never again waver in th.-> execution of your duty or military devoir ; but be staunch as a red Cos- sack, 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." *t " I will gage my honour for him," said Dunbarton. " How readily my lord defends his loon," whispered Cler- mistonlee 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 brU- THE SCOTTISH CAVAL7ER. 153 liant 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 dis- appointed 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 Eng- land, 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 mkemen shoulder to shoulder ! I am one of the Guards of St. Louis- King James's Scottish musketeers the old Diehards of Dun- barton." CHAPTEE XX. LES GAEDES ECOSSAIS. Thus shall your country's annals boast your corps, And, glorious thought ! in times and ages hence, Some valiant chief to stimulate the more, And urge his troops, the battle in suspense, Shall hold your bright example to their view. RUDDIMAUN'S MAO. Louis, surnamed the Saint, king of France, having taken the cross, sailed with a splendid retinue of knights, nobles, and soldiers bent on the delivery of Jerusalem from the pro- fanation of the Moslem ; and, landing in the East, laid siege to Damietta (in Lower Egypt), which he triumphantly won 164 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER by storm. But, after enduring innumerable hardships and disasters by the sword, and by pestilence from the fetid waters of the marshy Nile and the lake of Menzaleh, he was overthrown in battle at Mansoura, and made captive by the soldan. This was about the year 1254, when Alexander III. was king of Scotland. In these eastern wars, St. Louis was twice saved from death by the valour of a small band of auxiliary Scots crusaders, commanded by the earls of March and Dunbar, Walter Stewart, lord of Dundonald, and Sir David Lindsay of Glen- esk. Those brave adventurers had the good fortune to rescue the French monarch, first from the scimitars of the followers of the king of the Arsacides, a Mahommedan despot ; and afterwards from the emissaries of the comtesse de la Marche. Our good King Alexander, sent ambassadors to congratulate St. Louis on his deliverance from these double perils ; and on his return from this first crusade, the two monarchs agreed that, in remembrance of these deeds of fidelity and valour, there should remain in France, in all time coming, " a standing company or guard of Scotsmen recommended by their own sovereign," and who should in future form the garde-du-corps of the most Christian king. Such was the origin of the bravest body-guard that Europe ever saw, though our ancient historians are fond of dating its* formation from the days of Charlemagne and Gregory the Great of Scotland. The guard thus established by St. Louis marched with him to his second crusade, in the year 1270. It was then led by the earls of Carrick and Athole, Sir John Stuart, Sir William Gordon, and other brave knights, most of whom perished with Louis of a deadly pestilence before the walls of Tunis, and tinder the towers of Abu Zaccheria. This noble band of Scottish archers remained constantly in France, and were the only military corps in that country, until King Charles VII. added a few French companies to increase his guards, still giving the Scots their old pre-emi- nence and post of honour next the royal person. Their leader was styled premier capitaine of the guards, and as such took precedence of all military officers in France. When the French sovereign was anointed, he stood beside him ; and when the ceremony was over, obtained the royal robes, with all their embroidery and jewels, as his perquisite. When a city was to be stormed, the Scottish archers led the way ; when it surrendered, the keys were received by their captain from the hands of the king. THE SCOTTISH CAVA.LIEE. 155 Twenty-five of them, "in testimony of their unspotted fidelity," wore over their magnificent armour white hoquetons of a peculiar fashion, richly laced and embossed with silver. Six of them in rotation were ever beside the royal person by night as well as by day at the reception of foreign ambassadors in the secret debates of the cabinet in the rejoicings of the tournament the revels of the banquet the solemnities of the church, and the glories of the battle-field. These Scottish hearts formed a zone around the monarchs of France ; and at the close of the scene, the chosen twenty-five had the privelege of bearing the royal remains to the regal sepulchre of St. Denia. It would require volumes, instead of a chapter, to recount all the honours paid to the Scottish guard, and the glory acquired by them in the wars of five centuries. Led by Alexander earl of Buchan, great constable of France, they performed good service in that great battle at Banje-en-Anjou, where the English were completely routed ; and at Yerneuil, where Buchan died sword in hand, like a brave knight, and covered with renown, at the same moment that Swinton, the gallant laird of Dalswinton, slew the boasting Clarence with one thrust of his border-spear. In 1570 the guard consisted of a hundred cuirassiers, or kommes-des-armes, a hundred archers of the corps, and twenty- five " keepers of the king's body," all Scottish gentlemen of noble descent and coat-armour. They saved the life of the tyrant Louis XL at Liege ; and at Pavia fought around the gallant Francis in a circle until four only were left alive, and then, but not till then, the king fell into the hands of the foe. In gratitude for their long-tried faith and unmatched valour, they were vested with " all the honour and confidence the king of France could bestow on his nearest and dearest friends ; " and thus, in a little band of Scottish archers, ori- ginated the fashion of standing armies, and the nucleus of the great permanent forces of France. " By this means," says an old Jacobite author, " our gentry were at once taught the rules of civility and art of war ; and we were possessed of an inexhaustible stock of brave officers, fit to discipline and to command our armies at home, and ever sure to keep up that respect which was deservedly paid to the Scots' name and nation abroad." As Sir James Hepburn's regiment of pikemen they returned to Scotland in 1633, being sent over by Louis XIII. to attend the coronation of Charles I. at Edinburgh. On the com- mencement of the great and disastrous civil war eight years after, they loyally adhered to the king, and were then by the 456 THE SCOTTISH OATALliSR. cavalier army first styled the Royal Scots. On the reverse of Charles's fortune and subversion of all order, they went back to France ; and under Louis of Bourbon, due d'Enghien, shared in all the dangers and glorios of that campaign on the frontiers of Flanders, so famous for ending in the utter destruction of the Spanish host, the death of the brave Conde de Fuentes, the fall of ThionviT:e, Philipsburg, Mentz, Worms, and Oppenheim, till the waters of the Rhine re- flected the flash of their armour ; and there fell the veteran Hepburn, with his helmet on his brow, and the flag of St. Andrew over him. Re turning in 1678, they re-entered the Scottish army as the earl of Dunbarton's foot ; and eight years after served against the ill-fated Monmouth, and suffered severely, being attacked at Sedgemoor by his cavalry in the night, their posi- tion being discerned through the darkness by the glow of their lighted matches, At the Union in 1707, on the incorporation of the forces as the British establishment and when Scottish blood and Scottish treasure were more than ever required to further the grasping aims and useless wars of that age the Royals, in consequence of their high standing in arms and venerable antiquity, were numbered as the First, or Royal Scots Regi- ment or Foot, a title they have since maintained with honour, and on a hundred fields have upborne victoriously the same silver cross which the brave archers of Athole and the spearmen of Buchan unfurled so gloriously on the plains of Anjou, and at Verneuil, on the banks of the Aure. Proud of themselves and of the honours their predecessors had sustained untarnished in so many foreign battles, Dun- barton's musketeers felt an esprit de corps, to which at that time few other military bands were entitled ; and it was with a bosom glowing with the highest sentiments of this descrip- tion, that Walter Fenton for the first time clasped on the silver gorget and plumed headpiece of his junior rank, and found himself really a standard-bearer of a regiment deemed the first in Europe, and whose boasted antiquity had become a jocular proverb, obtaining for it the name of Pon- tius Pilate's guard. When next he paid his devoirs at the residence of the Napiers, Lilian fairly blushed with pleasure to see him look- ing so gallant and handsome ; for, to a young girl's eye, a nodding plume, a golden scarf, and jewelled rapier, were considerable additions to an exterior otherwise extremely prepossessing. The t>aleness resulting from his confinement had quit* THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 157 passed away ; his olive cheek was suffused with the rich, warm glow of health ; while buoyant spirits, new hopes, and high aspirations, lent a lustre to his eye and a grace to his actions, which was not visible before, when he felt himself to be the mere object of patronage and dependence the poor private gentleman, with a brass-hilted whinger and corslet of alack iron. Again and again he visited the old turretted house on the Burghmuir, and drank deeper draughts of that intoxicating passion which, from its hopelessness, he dared hardly acknow- ledge to himself. Every day he became more and more in love, and felt that it would be impossible (with all his awe of Lady Grizel's fardingale and cane) to keep it long a secret from the being who inspired it. CHAPTER XXL THE GLOVE. Distrust me not, but unreserved disclose The anxious thought that in thy bosom glows ; To impart our griefs is apt to mitigate, And social sorrows blunt the darts of fate. EVENING, a Poem. A. MONTH had passed away, and the summer came ; it was a month of unalloyed happiness to Walter Fenton, who, at the somewhat solitary mansion of Bruntisfield, was a frequent and always a welcome guest ; and there he spent every mo- ment he could spare from his military duties, which chiefly consisted of being on guard at the Palace porch or privy coun- cil chamber, a review on Leith Links, before old Sir Thomas, of Binns, practising King James's new mode of exercise, by flam of drum, or " worrying " various unhappy old women to gay " God save the king," pronounce the rising at Bothwell a rebellion, Archbishop Sharpe a martyr, and Peden an im- postor. Notwithstanding the early season of the year, the game in the woods had particularly taken his fancy ; so had the herons, eels, teals, and trout of the loch ; and rabbit-warrens, and foxes that lurked among the great quarries ; and with Finland he generally contrived to finish the day's loitering at the hall fire, where Lady Grizel, with the birr of her silver- mounted wheel, performed a burden to the long and monoto- nous tales she inflicted, of the splendours of King Charles'8 court, the terrors of the wars of Montrose, and the spells and charm/* of sorcerers and witches warnings, ghosts, and 158 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. heaven knows what more ; but all of which proved much more interesting to her hearers in that age, than it could to my readers in this. Walter loved better to hear the wiry tinkling of Lilian's cittern or virginals, after the old lady had fallen fast asleep, and then Annie Laurie joined her clear merry voice to the deeper notes of Douglas ; and they were ever a happy evening party when the pages of " Cassandra," or " The Banished Vir- gin," and other romantic folios of the day luxury, music, and conversation, free and untrammelled as any lover could wish- made the hours fleet past on silken wings. Ever joyous and ever gay, it was a circle from which Walter departed with regret, and counted one by one the long and weary hours until he found himself there again. Notwithstanding her violent prejudice against the obscurity of his birth, Lady Grizel warmly admired the young man for the frankness and courage he displayed, his general high bear- ing, and above all, for a certain strong resemblance which she averred he bore to her youngest son, Sir Archibald JSTapier, who was slain in the unfortunate battle of Inverkeithing, when Cromwell forced the passage of the Forth. Lucky it was for Walter that this strong idea took posses- sion of her mind. From that time forward she loved to see him constantly, to watch his actions and features, and to listen to the tones of his voice, until, to her moistened and aged eyes, the very image of her youngest and best-beloved son seemed to be conjured up before her ; and so strong became her feelings when this fancy possessed her, that it would have been a relief to have fallen upon his neck and kissed him. To her it was a living dream of other days a dream that called back sorrow and joy, and a thousand tender memories from the mists that envelope the past ; and Walter was often surprised to find her eyes full of tears when, after a long pause, she addressed him. Perhaps for nothing but this ten- der and mysterious source of interest, would she have per- mitted such an intimacy to spring up between the nameless soldier and Lilian, the last hope of her race, the heiress of the honours and possessions of the old barons of Bruntisfield and the Wrytes. But her mind was now becoming enfeebled by age, and prudence struggled in vain with her powerful fancies. Lilian (but this is a secret known only to ourselves and her gossip Annie), admired young Fenton too, though with ideas widely differing from those of her grandaunt, because he was a very handsome lad, with a cavalier air, and locks curling THE SrnTTISH CAVALIEE. 159 over a white and haughty brow ; keen dark eyes, that were ever full of fire, but became soft and chastened when he looked on her. She soon deemed that the curl of his lip showed a " Spirit proud and prompt to ire ; " but she never observed his moustachioed mouth without think- ing what a very handsome one it was. His soft mellow voice was deep in its tones, and she loved to listen to his words till * her young heart seemed to vibrate when he spoke. He was generally subdued rather than melancholy in manner ; but the depth 01 his own thoughts imparted to all he said an interest, that could not fail to attract a girl of Lilian's gentle dis- position. But his enthusiasm and his vehemence startled her at times, when he spoke of the soldiers of Dunbarton, and of the glory he hoped to win beneath those banners which Turenne and the great Conde saw ever in the van of battle. Gratitude, too, had no small share in her sentiments towards him, when, reflecting on the risk he had so generously run to save her dearest and (except one) her only relative from a humiliating examination by the imperious privy council ; and she shud- dered to think how narrowly he had escaped the extremity of their wrath; for every instrument of torture was then judi- cially used at the pleasure and caprice of the judicial authorities. A month, we have said, had passed away : in that brief time a great change had gradually stolen over the hearts of Walter and Lilian Napier. No declaration of love had been made on his part, and there had been no acceptance on hers ; but they were on the footing of lovers : secret and sincere, each had only acknowledged the passion to themselves : to her he had never whispered a word of the love that now animated every thought and action ; but she was not ignorant of his affection, which a thousand little tendernesses revealed and love will beget love in others. They both felt it, or at least thought so. Though his dark eyes might become brighter or more lan- guid, his voice more insinuating, and his manner more grace- ful and gentle, when he addressed her, never had he assumed courage sufficient to reveal the secret thought that with each succeeding interview was daily and hourly becoming more and more a part of his existence. Often he longed to be an earl, a lord, or even a laird like Pinland, that then he might *hrow himself and his fortune at her feet, and declare the depth of his passion in those burning expressions, that 160 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE. thousand times trembled on his hps, and were there chained by diffidence and poverty. He was very timid, too : what true lover is not P A circumstance soon occurred, which, however trivial ID itself, was mighty in its effect on our two young friends ; and, by opening up the secret fountain of nope and pleasu!"^, altered equally the aspect of their friendship and the eveu tenor of their way. Lilian was fair and beautiful indeed ; and (though not one of those magnificent beings that exist only in the brains oi romancers), when gifted with all the mystic charms and romantic beauty, with which the glowing fancy of the lover ever invests his mistress, she became in Walter's imagination something more angelic and enchanting than he had previously conceived to exist ; for a lover sees everything through the medium of beauty and delight. Notwithstanding the real charms of her mind and person, she possessed a greater and more lasting source of attraction, in a graceful sweetness of manner which cannot be described. With a voice that was ever " low and sweet," and with all her girlish frankness and openness of character, she could at times assume a womanly firmness and high decision of manner, which every Scottish maid and matron had need to possess in those days of stout hearts and hard blows, when brawls and conflicts were of hourly occurrence, as no man ever went abroad unarmed ; and the upper classes, by never permitting an insult to pass unpunished, became as much accustomed to the use of the sword and dagger as their plodding descendants to handling the peaceful quill and useful umbrella. On a bright evening in May, when the sun was sinking behind the wooded ridge of the dark Corstorphine hills, and when the shadows of the turrets of Bruntisfield and its thick umbrageous oaks were thrown far across the azure loch, where the long-legged herons were wading in search of the trout and perch, where the coot fluttered, and the snow-white swan spread its soft plumage to the balmy western wind, Walter accompanied Lilian Napier and her fair friend, Annie Laurie, in a ramble by the margin of the beautiful sheet of water, the green and sloping banks of which were enamelled by summer flowers. The purple heath-bell, bowers of the blooming hawthorn, the bright yellow broom, and a profusion of wild rose-trees, loaded the air with perfume ; for everything was arrayed in the greenness, the sunlight, the purity, the glory of summer, and the thick dark oaks of Drumsheu^h towered up as darkly and as richly, as when the sainted King David and his bold THE SCOTTISH CAVAIINE. 101 thanes hunted the snow-white bull and bristly boar beneath their sombre shadows. The charms of the beautiful Annie Laurie live yet in Scot- tish song, though the name and memory of the gallant lover whose muse embalmed them is all but forgotten. Tall and fair, with a face of the most perfect loveliness, she had eyes of the darkest blue, shaded by long black lashes, cheeks tinged with red like a peach by the morning sun, and bright auburn hair rolling in heavy curls over a slender and delicate neck, imparting a graceful negligence to the dignity of her fine figure. Her whole features possessed a matchless expression of sweetness and vivacity; her nose was the slightest approach to aquiline ; her lips were short and full ; her profile eminently noble. A broad beaver hat, tied with coquettish ease, and adorned by one long ostrich feather drooping over her right shoulder, formed her head-gear ; while a dress of light-blue silk, with the sleeves puffed and slashed with white satin, and white gloves of Blois, fastened by gold bracelets, formed part of her attire. She carried a pretty heavy riding-switch, which completed the jaunty, piquant, and saucy character of her air and beauty. The young ladies were walking together, and Lilian hung on the arm of her taller friend ; while her cavalier was alternately by the side of each. Though loving Lilian, he conversed quite as much perhaps more with her gay companion, whose prattle and laughter were incessant ; for Annie invariably made it a rule to talk nonsense when nothing better occurred to her. Walter treated both with the utmost tenderness, but Lilian with the greatest respect ; he now felt truly what Finland had often averred, " that the girl one loves is greater than an empress." " And so, Mr Fenton," said Annie, continuing her inces- sant raillery, "is it true that a party of Dunbarton's braves were out at the House of Linn yesterday, dragooning the poor cottars to pray for King James, to ban the Covenant, and all that P" "It is but too true, I fear. Indeed J was on that duty, and at the Richardson's barony of Cramond, too." "Oh, such valour! to terrify women and children, and drive the poor millers and fishers away ; to stop the mills, break the dams, spoil the nets, and sink the boats. Fie upon you ! Don't come near me, sir. Alas for the warriors . the great Conde, how sadly they are degenerating! Oh, Mr. Fenton, we positively blush for you; do we not, gossip Lilian P " " Fair Annie, you are very severe upon me. If I was o& & X 162 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. gucli a duty, could I help it? A soldier must hear and obey." " Even to ducking his mother, I suppose. Go to I have no patience with such work ! And was it by Finland's orders that all the old cummers of Cramond were sent swimming down the river tied to chairs and cutty-stools ? " " But they were very old, and ugly, too ; besides the stream was very shallow. And as they were all caught in the act of singing a psalm in the wood of Dalmenie, what else could we do but duck them well for their contumacy P It was rare fun, I assure you, and Finland nearly burst his corslet with laughing ; but I assure you, ladies, we only ducked the old women of the village. 5 * " Aye, aye ; the young would not get off scatheless, I fear," replied Annie, giving him a switch with her riding-rod ; " I know soldiers of old. But, marry, come up ! our Teviotdale lads would have given you a hot reception had you come among them with such hostile intentions." " Then the worse would be their fare," said Walter, in a tone of pique. "When ordered by our superiors to test the people " " Heigh-day ! Now, good Mr. Fenton, suppose you were commanded to test us in that rough fashion, because we would not pronounce Sharp a martyr and the Covenant a bond of rebellion, and said just whatever you wished of us ; what then ? For, in sooth, we would say none of those things ; would we, gossip Lilian ? " " But then we should each be sent voyaging down the loch on a cutty-stool," said Lilian, joining her friend in a loud burst of merriment. " On my honour, ladies, " said Walter, very seriously, " these orders of council refer only to the rascal multitude. Who ever heard of a lady of rank being treated like a cottar- wife ? " " High and low share alike the vengeance of the council, and Argyle lost his head for some such bubble. I cannot forget how, in the January of '82, six years ago (faith, I am getting quite an old spinster !), Claver'se and his troop took a fancy to quarter themselves at our house of Maxwelton, be- cause my youngest sister had been christened by that poor man Ichabod Bummel, who carries misfortune wherever he shows his long nose. The cavalier troopers ate and drank up all they could lay hands on, in cellar, buttery, and barn- yard ; and I was terrified to death by the clank of their jack- boots and long rapiers, as they laughed and swore, and pur- sued the servants up one stair and down another. But Cla- ver'se drew his 1aair in by the hall-fire, and taking me upo* THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. 163 his knee, looked on me so kindly with his great black eyes, that I forgot the horror my mother's tales of him had inspired me with ; and he kissed me twice, saying I would be the bonniest lass in all Nithsdale and has it not come true ? But Colonel Grahame is so ferocious " "Oh, *hush, Annie," whispered Lilian, for the name of Claverhouse was seldom mentioned but with studied respect and secret hatred, from the fear of his supernatural powers. " Tush, dear Lilian ! I am resolved to assert our preroga- tive to say whatever we have a mind to. But to return to the raid of yesterday. Had you heard Finland describing how valiantly his soldiers marched into the little hamlet, with drums beating, pikes advanced, and matches lighted, driving wives and weans and cocks and hens before them, you would (like me) have felt severely that the brave cavaliers of Dun- barton, Les Gardes JEcossais of Arran and Aubigne, the stout hearts that stormed the towers of Oppenheim, had come to so low a pass now. If ever Finland goes on another such barns- breaking errand, I vow he shall never come into my presence again." " Under favour, fair Annie, " said Walter, laughingly, " your heart would soon relent; for I know you to be a true cavalier-dame, notwithstanding all this severe raillery." " I have heard her say quite as much to the earl of Perth ; what dost think of that, Walter ?" said Lilian. " It is more than the boldest of our barons dared have done in these degenerate days ; but he would find how impossible it is to be displeased with you, fair Annie. How is it, Madam Lilian, that you do not in some way assist me against the raillery of your gossip ? Her waggery is very smarting, I assure you." Ere Lilian could speak, the clear voice of Annie interrupted her by exclaiming " Aha, Mr. Fenton, you have dropped something from the breast of that superbly pinked vest of yours is it a tag, a tassel, or what ? " " I know not," he muttered hurriedly, putting his hand in the breast of his coat. " It fell among the grass," said Lilian. " Oh, I have it, I have it ! " added Annie, springing for* ward and picking something up. '* "Tis here on my honour, a glove ! " " A lady's it fell from his breast," said Lilian, in a breath less voice. " Of beautiful point lace one of yours, gossip Lilian O brave ! ha, ha ! " 164 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. " Mine mine, said you ? " Lilian's voice faltered ; she grew pale and red alternately, while adding, with, an air of confusion, " You are jesting as usual, you daft lassie. Oh, surely 'tis a mistake ! " " Judge for yourself, love. I saw you mark it ; here are vour initials worked in beads of blue and silver." " It is but too true I lost it some weeks ago," faltered Lilian, whose timid blue eyes stole one furtive glance at the handsome culprit under their long brown lashes, and were instantly cast down in the utmost confusion. She was ex- cited almost to tears. " ForsootTi, there is something immensely curious in all this, Mr. Fenton," continued the waggish Annie, twirling the little glove aloft on the point of her riding-switch. "We must have you arraigned before the high court of love, and compelled to confess, under terror of his bow string, to a jury of fair ladies, when and wherefore you obtained this glove." "Now, Mr. Fenton, do," urged Lilian, entering somewhat into the gay spirit of her friend, though her happy little heart vibrated with confusion and joy as tumultuously as a moment ago it had beat with jealousy and fear. " Tell us when you got it, and all about it." " The night Ichabod Bummel was arrested," replied "Wal- ter, who still coloured deeply at this unexpected discovery, for he was yet but young in the art of love. " Aha, and Lilian gave it ! My pretty little prude, and is it thus with thee ? " " Cease, I pray you, Annie Laurie," said Lilian, in a tone very much akin to asperity. " I hope Mr. Fenton will re- solve this matter himself." " Forgive me, Lilian forgive me, madam. I found it on the floor after your escape, and I kept it as a token of remem- brance. You will pardon my presumption in doing so, when I say, at that time, I thought never, never to meet you again, and assuredly could not have foreseen the happiness of an hour like this." He spoke in a brief and confused manner, for he was concerned at the annoyance Annie's raillery evi- dently caused Lilian. " Permit me to restore it," he added, with increased confusion, " or perhaps you you will permit me " "What?" " To have the honour of retaining it." " Oh no, no ; how could you think of that ? " said Lilian, hurriedly and timidly, as she took the glove from the upheld riding-rod, and concealing it in some p^rt of her dress, con- tinued, " now let us hear no more of thk Hilly affair. Ah, Mr. THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. 165 Walter, how sadly you have exposed yourself! To carry one's old glove about you, as Aunt Grizel does a charm against cramp, or thunder, or ill luck. 'Tis quite droll ! Ah, good heavens ! " she added, in a whisper, " do not tell her of this affair, Annie." "Dost think I am so simple ? Finland has taught me how one ought to keep one's own secrets from fathers and mo- thers, and aunts too." " But to-morrow your sedan will be seen trotting over the whole town, up this close and down that, as you hurry from house to house, telling the wonderful adventure of the glove, and trussed up quite into a story in your own peculiar fashion, as long as the Grand Scipio, or any romance of Scuderi." " For Lilian's sake, let me hope not, Mistress Laurie," said Walter, imploringly, to the gay beauty. " Trust me for once, dear Lilian," said Annie, patting her cheek with her riding- switch, " I know when to prattle, and when to be silent. Dost really think, my sweet little gossip, that I would jest with thy name, as I do with those of my Lady Jean Gordon, Mary of Charteris, the countess of Dun- barton, or any of pur wild belles who care not a rush how many fall in love with them, but bestow glances and kerchiefs, and rings and love-knots of ribbon, on all and sundry ? I trow not. Apropos of that ; I know three gentlemen of Claver'se Guards who wear Mary's favours in their hats, and if these ribbons are dyed in brave blood some grey morning, she alone will be to blame, for her coquetry is very danger- ous. Young Holsterlee will be at the countess of Dunbarton's ball a la Fran$aise next week ; observe him narrowly, and you will see a true love-knot of white ribbons at his breast ; and if the young lords Maddertie and Fawsyde are there, you will see each with the same gift from the same fond and liberal hand. Ah, she is a wild romp ! It was the Duchess Mary's late suppers, and Monsieur 'Minuette's Bretagnethat quite spoiled her, for once upon a tune she was as grave, discreet, and silent as as myself." " O you wag such a recluse she must have been." " Quite a little nun ! " added Annie, and both the charming girls laughed with all the gaiety of their sex and the thought- lessness of their rank. Lilian was both vexed and pleased at the discovery that Fenton had for so many weeks borne her glove in his bc^om ; but from that time forward she became more reserved in Irs presence, and walked little with him in the garden, and still less in the lawn or by the banks of the loch. 166 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. She did not avoid his presence, but gave him fewer oppot tunities of being alone with her. Did she think of him less P Ah, surely not. A lover is the pole-star of a young girl's thoughts by day and night, and never was Walter's image absent a moment from the mind of Lilian ; for like himself she numbered and recounted the hours until they met again. Their meetings were marked by diffidence and embarrassment, and their parting with secret regret. Walter, too, was somewhat changed, from the knowledge that Lilian had discovered his passion. His voice, which seemed the same to other ears, became softer and more in- sinuating when he addressed her. He was, if possible, more respectful, and more timid, and more tender. His imagina- tion what a plague it was, and how very fertile in raising ideal annoyances ! One hour his heart was joyous with delight at the memory of some little incident a word or a smile ; and the next he nursed himself into a state of utter wretchedness, with the idea that Lilian had looked rather coldly upon him, or had spoken far too kindly of her cousin the captain of the Scots' Brigade. Though the latter was a bugbear in his way, Walter did not seriously fear a rival ; for he wore a sword, and, after the fashion of the time, feared no man. He dreaded most the loss of Lilian's esteem, for he dared not think that yet she linked love and his name together in her mind. Could he have read her heart and known her secret thoughts, he would have found a passion as deep as his own concealed under the bland purity and innocence of her smile, which revealed only well-bred pleasure at his approach. Many days of anxious hoping and fearing, &c., passed, after the affair of the glove, but he saw Lilian thrice only. She kept close by the side of her grand-aunt Grizel, and the old lady seldom left her wheel and well- cushioned chair in the chamber-of-dais, " Why did she not permit me to retain the glove P " he would at times say to himself. " Then I would have no cause for all my present doubts and fears. Had we been alone, perhaps sne would have done so " Walter was right in that conjecture. THE SCOTTISH CAVALTEE. 167 CHAPTER XXII. A BALL IN THE OLDEN TIME. Shades of my fathers, in your pasteboard skirts, Your broidered waistcoats arid your plaited shirts, Your formal bag-wigs wide- extended cuffs, Your five-inch chitterlings and nine-inch ruffs -, I see you move the solemn minuet o'er, The modest foot scarce rising from the floor. SALMAGUNDI. ON the south side of the city where the old Liberton road branching off' enters it by two diverging routes, one by the narrow and ancient Potter-row, and the other by the street of the Bristo Port, a formidable gate in the re-entering angle of the city-wall, which bristled with cannon and overlooked the way that descended to the Grass-market, there stood, in 1688 (and yet stands), an antique mansion of very picturesque aspect. It is furnished with numerous outshots and projec- tions, broad, dark, and bulky stacks of chimneys reared up in unusual places, and having over the upper windows circular pediments enriched with initials and devices, but now black- ened by age and encrusted with the smoky vapour of centuries. It is still known as the " General's House," from its having been anciently the residence appropriated to the Commander- in-chief of the Scottish forces. A narrow passage leads to it from that ancient suburban Burgh of Barony, the Potter's- row, where, doubtless, many a psalm-singing puritan of Monk's regiment, many a scarred trooper of Leven's iron brigade, and many a stern veteran of the Covenant have kept watch and ward, in the pathway which is stiU, as of old, styled, par excellence, THE General's Entry. Its garden has now become a lumber-yard, and is otherwise encroached upon ; its stables have long since vanished, and mean dwellings surround and overtop it ; the windows are stuffed with old hats and bundles of straw or rags ; brown paper flaps dismally in the broken glasses, and its once gay chambers, where the " cunning George Monk," the grave and stern Leven, Dalyel of the iron-heart, and the gallant Dun- barton feasted royally, and held wassail with their comrades, have, like all the surrounding mansions of the great and noble of the other days, been long since abandoned to citizens of the poorest and humblest class. In 1688 its aspect was very different. Standing then on the very verge of the city, it was deemed 168 THE SCOTTISH CAVATJUtt. in the country, though now the gas lamps extend two milea beyond it, and dense and populous streets occupy the sHes of two straggling and unpretending suburbs of thatched cottages and " sclaited lands." To the southward of the road, a narrow rugged horseway, passed through fields and thickets towards the great loch of the burgh, and ascending its opposite bank, passed the straggling suburb named the Causeway-side, where there were many noble old villas, the residences of Sir Patrick Johnstone, of the laird of Wester- hall and others, and sweeping past the ruined convent of St. Catherine of Sienna, wound over the hill (near a gibbet that was seldom unoccupied by sweltering corpses and screaming ravens), towards the Barony of Liberton, a lonely hamlet with a little stone spire, and the tall square tower of the Winrams, in older days the patrimony of a lesser baron named Macbeth. To the westward of the general's house were fertile fields that extended close up to the defences of the city, then a long line of lofty and embattled walls built of reddish-coloured sandstone, strengthened at intervals by towers alternately of a round or square form, which defended its various ports or barrier-gates. Within this stony zone rose the dark and massive city, which for ages had been increasing in dense- ness ; for, in consequence of the nature of the times, and the dubious relations of the country with its southern neighbour, the citizens seldom dared to build beyond the narrow compass of the walls. From these causes, and in imitation of those bad allies the French, Edinburgh, like ancient Paris, became deeper and closer, taller and yet more tall ; house arose upon house, street was piled upon street, bartizan, gable, and tower, shot up to an amazing height, and were wedged within the walls, till the thoroughfares, Eke those of Venice, were only three feet broad, and in some places exhibited fourteen tiers of windows. An Act of the Scottish Legislature was found absolutely necessary to curb the rage for stupendous houses, and in 1698 it was enacted, that none should be erected within the liberties of the city exceeding five stories in height. Prior to the middle of the seventeenth century Edinburgh, could not boast of one court or square save that of White Horse Hostel, if indeed it could be termed either. The access to these vast and imperishable piles was by turnpike stairs, steen, narrow, dark, and mysterious. The population of the city was then about 50,000; but as it increased, so did the denseness of the houses ; even the but- tresses of the great cathedral were all occupied by little dwellings, till the venerable church resembled a hen with a THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 169 brood under her wings. Year by year for seven centuries the alleys had become higher and narrower, till Edinburgh looked like a vast city crowded in close column on the steep faces of a hill, until the building of a bridge to the north, when it burst from the embattled girdle that for ages had pent it up, and more like another Babylon than a " modern Athens" spread picturesquely over every steep rock and deep defile in its vicinity. But to return : On a dusky evening Walter Fenton and Douglas of Fin- land, muffled in their ample scarlet rocquelaures, which completely hid their rich dresses, came stumbling along the dark and narrow Potter's-row, towards the gate of the general's house, where a mounted guard of the Grey Dragoons sat motionless as twenty statues, the conical fur cap of each trooper forming the apex of a pyramid, which his wide cloak made, when spread over the crupper of his horse. Still and firm as if cast in bronze, were every horse and man. Each trooper rested his short musketoon en his thigh, with the long dagger screwed on its muzzle. This guard of honour was under arms to receive the general's military guests, and the fanfare of the trumpets and a ruffle on the kettle-drum announced that Sir Thomas Daly el of Binns had just arrived. In the entry stood a foot soldier, muffled in his sentinel's coat. " One of ours, I think," said Douglas. " Art one of the old Die-hards, good fellow ? " " Hab Elshender, at your service, laird." " Hah ! hath the Lady Bruntisfield arrived P " asked Walter. " Ay, sir," replied Hab, with a knowing Scots' grin ; for he understood the drift of the question. " Ay, sir, and Madam Lilian too looking for a' the world like the queen of the fairies." Within the gate, the court was filled with light and bustle. Carriages of ancient fashion and clumsy construction, pro- fusely decorated with painting and gilding, with coats armo- rial on the polished panels and waving hammer-cloths, rolled up successively to the doorway; sedans, gaudy with brass nails, red silk blinds, and scarlet poles ; military chargers, and servants on foot and horseback in gorgeous liveries, all glit- iering in the light of the flaring links which usually preceded svery person of note when threading the gloomy and narrow thoroughfares of Edinburgh after nightfall. Impatient at every moment which detained him from the aide of Lilian, now, when he could appear before her to the utmost advantage, Walter, heedless of preceding his friend. /70 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEK. sprang up the handsome staircase of carved oak, the walls of which were covered with painted panels and trophies of arms, conspicuous among which was the standard of the unfortu- nate Argyle, taken in the conflict of Muirdykes three years before. Here they threw their broad hats and red mantles to the servants, and were immediately ushered into a long suite of apartments, which were redolent of perfume and brilliant with light and gaiety. Douglas, whose extremely handsome features were of a dark and olive hue, like all those of his surname generally, wore the heavy cavalier wig falling over his collar of point d'Espagne and gold-studded breastplate. Walter had his own natural hair hanging in dark curls on a cuirass of silver, polished so bright that the fair dancers who flitted past every moment saw their flushed faces reflected in its glassy surface. Their coats and breeches were of scarlet, pinked with blue silk and laced with gold ; their sashes were of yellow silk, but had massive tassels of gold ; and their formidable bowl-hiited rapiers were slung in shoulder-belts of velvet embroidered with silver. Their long military gloves almost met the cuffs of their coats, which were looped up to display their shirt- sleeves a new fashion of James VII. ; and everything about them was perfumed to excess. Such was the attire of the military of that day, as regulated by the " royal orders " of the king. Threading their way through a crowd of dancers, whose magnificent dresses of bright-hued satins and velvets, laced with silver or gold, and blazing with jewels, sparkled and shone as they glided from hand to hand to the music of an orchestra perched in a recessed gallery of echoing oak, they passed into an inner apartment to pay their devoirs to the countess, who for a time had relinquished the dance to over- look the teaboard a solemn, arduous, and highly-important duty, which was executed by her lady-in-waiting, a starched demoiselle of very doubtful age. Though rather diminutive in person, the countess of Dun- barton was a very beautiful woman, and possessed all that dazzling fairness of complexion which is so characteristic of her countrywomen. She was English, and a sister of the then duchess of Northumberland. Her eyes were of a bright and merry blue ; her hair of the richest auburn ; her small face was quite enchanting in expression, and very piquant in its beauty ; while her fine figure was decidedly inclined to ' She was one of the fashionable mirrors of the day, and the standard by whom the stately belles of Craig's-close and the TEtE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 17) Blackfriars-wynd regulated tlie depth of their stomachers and the length of their trains the star of Mary d'Este's balls at Holyrood, where, in the splendour of her jewels, she had nearly rivalled the famous duchess of Lauderdale ; and though an Englishwoman, notwithstanding the jealousy and dislike which from time immemorial had existed between the two kingdoms, she was, from the suavity of her manner, the bril- liancy of her wit, and the amiability of her disposition, both admired and beloved in Edinburgh. With a pretty and affected air, she held her silver pouncet- box in an ungloved and beautifully-formed hand, which was whiter than the bracelet of pearls which encircled it. Close by, upon a satin cushion, reposed a pursy, pug-nosed, and silky little lap-dog, of his late majesty's favourite and long- eared breed. It had been a present from himself, and bore the royal cipher on its silver collar. Near her, on a little tripod table of ebony, stood the tea-board, with its rich equi- page, and a multitude of little china cups glittering with blue and gold. The tea, dark, fragrant, and priceless beyond any now in use, was served by the prim gentlewoman before mentioned (the daughter of some decayed family), who acted as her useful friend and companion ; and slowly it was poured out like physic from a little silver pot of curious workmanship, a gift from Mary Stuart (then princess of Orange), and the same from which she was wont to regale the ladies of Holyrood. Tea was unknown in London at the time of the Restora- tion ; and when introduced a few years afterwards by the Lords Arlington and Ossory, was valued at sixty shillings the pound ; but the beautiful Mary d'Este of Modena was the first who made it known in the Scottish capital in 1681. This new and costly beverage was still one of the wonders and innovations of the age, and was only within the reach of the great and wealthy until about 1750 ; but the royal tea-parties, masks, and entertainments of the Duchess Mary and her affable daughters, were long the theme of many a tall great- grandmother, and remembered with veneration and regret among other vanished glories, when, by the cold blight that fell upon her, poor Scotland felt too surely that " a stranger" filled the throne of the Stuarts. Lady Grizel of "Bruntisfield, and other venerable dowagers and ancient maiden gentlewomen (a species in which some lold Scottish families are still very prolific), all as stiff as pride, brocade, starch, and buckram could make them, were sitting very primly and uprightly in their high-backed chairs, clus- tered ro^nd the countess's little tripod table, like pearls 172 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIE2. about a diamond, when the cavaliers advanced to pay then respects. " Welcome, Finland," said the countess, addressing Douglas according to the etiquette of the country. " My old friend Walter, your most obedient servant. How fortunate ! we have just been disputing about romances, and drawing compa- risons between that lumbering folio * The Banished Virgin' and the * Cassandra.' You will act our umpire. My dear boy, let me look at you : how well you look, and so handsome, in all this bravery ; doth he not, Mistress Lilian P " Lilian, who, in all the splendour of diamonds and full dress, was leaning on aunt Grizel's chair, blushed too perceptibly at this very pointed question, but was spared attempting a reply, for the gay countess continued : " Remember, Walter, that the great Middleton, who be- came an earl, and lieutenant-general of the Scots' Horse, began his career like yourself, by trailing a partisan in the old Royals then Hepburn's pikemen in the French service ; and who knoweth, my dear child, where your's may end P Heigho ! These perilous times are the making and unmaking of many a brave man. So, Mr. Douglas, we were disputing about (Madam Ruth, assist the gentlemen to dishes of tea) about what was it ? O, a passage in the ' Cassandra.' " " I shall be happy to be of any service to your ladyship," began Finland, with his blandest smile, while raising to his well-moustachioed lip a little thimbleful of the new-fashioned beverage, which he cordially detested, but took for form's sake. " We are in great doubts whether Lysimachus was justified in running his falchion through poor Cleander, for merely desiring the charioteer of the beautiful princesses to drive faster. You will remember the passage. We all think it very cruel, and that no lover is entitled to be so outrageous." Douglas knew the pages of his muster-roll better than those of the romance in question, but he answered promptly, " I think Master Cleander was an impudent rascal, and well deserving a few inches of cold iron, or a sound truncheoning at the hands of the provost-marshal. I remember doing something of that kind myself about the time that old mares- chal de Crecqui was blocked up and taken in Treves."- " Ay, Douglas, that was when we were with the column of the M*oselle," said the earl, who now approached and leaned on the back of the countess's chair. " It was shortly after* the brave Turenne had been killed by that unlucky cannon- ball that deprived France of her best chevalier. We were in full retreat across the river. Some ladies of the army were THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 173 f the reap* THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 265 trnard flashed a farewell ray in the evening sun, as they dis- appeared over the distant hills. Then the grief of Lilian could no longer be restrained, for a heavy sense of utter desolation fell upon her heart. " Oh, Annie, Annie ! " she exclaimed, and throwing herself upon the bosom of her friend, burst into a passion of tears. The bustle, the glitter, and the music, all combined, had caused an unnatural degree of excitement, and had sustained their spirits while the troops were pouring past, enabling them to behold with calmness a thousand tender partings. All now were away silence and stillness succeeded the ex- citement had evaporated, and they experienced an unnerving reaction which rendered them miserable, and they wept with- out restraint for the lovers that Lad left them perhaps for ever. CHAPTER XXXIII. THE HAWK AND THE DOVE. O wae be to the orders, that marched my love awa, And wae be to the cruel cause that gars my tears' dounfa ~ t The drums beat in the morning, before the screich o' day, The wee fifes played loud and shrill, and yet the morn was greyj The bonnie flags were a' unfurled, a gallant sight to see, But waes me for my soldier-lad, that marched to Germanic. MOTHERWELL. THE intense sadness of Lilian for some days after the march of the troops, soon led Lady Grizel to suspect that her heart and hopes were away with the Scottish host ; and the blush that ever suffused her cheek on Walter's name being men- tioned, convinced the old lady that her conclusions were just. Lilian knew well what was passing in the mind of her grand- aunt, and as she had never hitherto concealed a thought from her, she threw herself upon her neck, and with tears, blushes, and agitation, which made her innocence appear more than ever charming, confessed how she and Walter Fenton had plighted their solemn troth, and showing his ring, implored her pardon and her blessing upon them both. " God bless thee, mine own dear child ! " said the kind old lady ; " though poor Walter Fenton hath nothing on earth but his heart and his sword, and though I might wish a longer pedigree than he, good lad, can boast of, still I esteem him for his manly bearing I love him for his generosity : and I have ever loved thee, Lilian, much too well to with- hold aught on which thy happiness depends. May the kind 20D THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. God bless tliee, my fair-haired bairn ! and may thy love be fortunate and happy as it is innocent and pure ! " Lilian's heart was full, and she wept on the breast of her kind old kinswoman. After a time the idea did occur to Lady Bruntisfield, that the first-love of her grand-niece, who since the captain's out- lawry had become the only hope and last representative of an old baronial race, should be a nameless and penniless soldier, about to become a partisan in a dangerous civil war, was a matter for serious deliberation ; but her blessing had been given, her honour had been pledged, and neither could be now withdrawn. She remembered, too, that if William con- quered in the coming struggle, that Lilian would be dowerless : for on her own demise, the lands of Bruntisfield and the Wrytes (of which, as before stated, she had but a life-rent) passed to her nephew, the captain of the Scots Dutch, as next heir of entail ; and she knew that the crafty Lord Clermis- tonlee, who had long been Lilian's avowed suitor, based his mercenary and ambitious hopes mainly on breaking this law, by bringing the unfortunate captain under the ban of the council, now no difficult matter, as he had openly joined the standard of the prince of Orange. Though his lordship's rank made him, in one respect, an eligible suitor, his general character for cruelty, debauchery, and every fashionable vice, caused him to be viewed with detestation by all, save a few wild and kindred spirits ; and there were current certain dark, and, perhaps, exaggerated stories concerning the death of his lady several years before ; and these, more than anything else, led every woman, in that moral age, to regard him with secret horror. Yet all admitted that he was pre-eminently a handsome man, and that none dressed so magnificently, danced more gracefully, had better-trained hawks and hounds, or fleeter racers, than Randal, Lord Clermistonlee. Notwithstanding all this, Lady Grizel would rather have seen her dear-loved Lilian in the coils of a boa-constrictor than in his arms ; and as the image of the daring rouS came vividly before her, she blessed poor Walter more affectionately, and kissing her fair grand-niece again, made her feel more happy than she ever thought to have been in the absence of her lover. Rendered buoyant in spirit by the hopes which the affection and appro- bation of her venerable kinswoman had kindled anew within her breast (for love and hope go hand in hand), she retired to the garden, to view, for the hundredth time, the spot where she had plighted her faith and love to Walter Fenton a THE SCOTTISH CAYALIEK. 267 Species of hand-fasting in those days so solemn and binding, mat it was almost esteemed a half- espousal. Day was closing, and the old knotty oaks creaked mourn- fully in the evening wind : now their October foliage was crisped and brown ; the branches of many were bare and leafless, and the voice of the coming winter was heard on the hollow gale ; while the fallen leaves and faded flowers, the apparent exhaustion and decay of nature, increased the idea of desolation in her mind, and poor Lilian's heart swelled with the sad thoughts that oppressed it. Seated by the mossy dialstone, resigned to solitude and to sorrow, she yielded to the grief that gradually stole over her, and wept bitterly. How vividly she recollected all the circumstances of that dear interview, and Walter's last injunction " Hemember the hour beside the fountain, and forget not the 20th of September ! " The hour was the same, and the fountain was plashing with the same monotonous sound into the same carved basin, and the voice of Walter seemed to mingle with the echo of the falling water. " Walter ! Walter ! " she exclaimed, and dipping her hands again in the water, pressed to her lips the pledge he had given her at parting his mother's ring, the only trinket he had ever possessed in the world ; and though small its appa- rent value, it contained a secret that was yet to have a potent influence on the fortunes of both. On the preservation of that ring depended the life of Walter and the mystery of his birth. Absence had now rendered more dear to her that love which preference, chance, and congenial taste had previously made the all-absorbing feeling of her heart. " And he was here with me three weeks ago ! Only three weeks ! Alas ! dear Walter, if years seem to have elapsed since then, what will the time appear before we meet again ? Oh, that I had the power of a fairy, to behold him now ! " She turned her eyes to the south to where, above its thick dark woods, the embattled keep of the Napiers of Merchiston closed the view. There she had last seen the Scottish host winding over the muir, and remembered the last flash of arms in the sunlight, as a straggling trooper disappeared over the ridge. Her heart yearned within her, and her agitation in- creased so much that she reclined against the cold dialstone, and covered her face with her hands. At length she became more composed, and her grief gave way to softer melancholy, as the sombre tints of the balmy 268 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER autumnal evening crept over the beautiful landscape. The Bun was setting, and, amid the saffron clouds, seemed to rest afar off. like a vast crimson globe above the dark pine-woods that cover the ridges of Corstorphine. The bright flush of the dying day stole along the level plain from the westward, lighting up the grated casements, the fantastic chimneys, and massive turrets of the old manor-house, and the gnarled trunks of its ivied beeches and old " ancestral oaks." Pouring aslant from beneath a screen of dun vapour like a thunder- cloud edged with gold, the sun's bright rays gave a warm but partial colouring to the scenery, glittering on the dark-green leaves of the holly hedges, then gaudy with clus- ters of scarlet berries, and rendering more red the crisped and faded foliage that bordered the shining lake. White smoke curled up from many a cottage-roof embosomed among the coppice ; and as the sunbeams died away upon the stir- less woods and waveless water, Lilian recalled many an evening when, at the same hour, and in the same place, she had leant upon Walter's arm, and surveyed the same fair landscape ; and the memory of his remarks, and the tones of his voice, came back to ner with a fond but painful dis- tinctness. Her favourite pigeon, with the snow-white pinions and silver varvels, alighted on her shoulder, and nestled in her neck; but the caresses of her little pet were unheeded. Lilian neither felt nor heard them ; her heart was with her thoughts, and these were far away, where the Scottish drums were ringing among the border hills and pathless mosses. The face, the air, the very presence of her lover, came vividly before the ardent girl ; like a vision of the second sight, she conjured them up, and his voice yet sounded in her ears as she had last heard it softened, tremulous, and agitated ; but, alas ! now mountains rose and rivers rolled between them, and kingdoms were to be lost and won ere again she felt his kiss upon her cheek. The dove seemed sensible of the sor- row that preyed upon its mistress, and, nestled in her soft bosom, lay still and motionless, with bowed head and trailing pinions. " By Jove ! she is a magnificent being," said a voice. " Now, fair Lilian now, by all that is opportune, you must hear me." She started, but was unable to rise, from confusion and fear. Lord Clermistonlee stood beside her. His dark velvet mantle half concealed his rich dress, as the plumes of his Blouched hat did the sinister expression of his proud and im- pressive features. He was armed with his long sword and THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. 269 : and had a brace of pistols in his girdle. A large hawk sat Upon V>J wrist, and the expression with which his large dar* f^alyel, who was now armed with his great Muscovite sabre, sallied forth to find them- selves within the barbican, the strong iron gate of which defied all their attempts. The fierce old soldier rent his beard, and swore some terrible oaths in the Tartar, Russ, and Scottish tongues, till ladders were procured and the walls scaled. They rushed down the avenue to find only the traces of many feet in the snow, the extinguished torches strewn about, the marks of horse-hoofs and coach-wheels, which, instead of going towards the city, wound over the Burghmuir towards the Castle of Merchiston ; and, after many turnings and wind- ings made evidently to mislead pursuers, were lost altogether among the soft furzy heath at the Harestone, the standard- stone of the old Scottish muster-place. CHAPTEE XXXVII. THE EEVOLT AT IPSWICH. 1 scorn them both ! I am too stout a Scotsman* To bear a Southron's rule an instant longer Than discipline obliges. SCOTT. UNCONSCIOUS of this bold abduction, a whisper of which would have driven him mad, on the verv night it took place, Walter Fenton was seated with Douglas of Finland in the public room of a large hostel or tavern in the central street of Ipswich. It was the sign of the " Bulloign Gate :" the house was curious and old-fashioned ; and on entering, one descended several steps, in consequence of the soil having risen upon the walls. Its fantastic front presented a series of heavy projec- tions, rising from grotesquely-carved oak beams, diagonally crossed with spars of the same wood ; little latticed windows, and two deep gloomy galleries, and projecting oriels, over which the then, leafless woodbine and honeysuckle clambered, and from thence to the curious stacks of brick chimneys, and broad Swiss-like roofs, with their carved and painted eaves. The host, a bluff and burly Englishman, with the whole of his vast obesity encased in a spotless-white apron, and exhibit- ing a great, unmeaning, and bald-pated visage, every line of THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. 287 which receded from the point of his pug nose, aat within the outer bar, where countless jugs of pewter, mugs of Delft, and crystal goblets shone in the light of a sea-coal fire, that roared and blazed in the wide fire-place of the public room. At a table in one corner .of the latter, a ponderously fat Southern was engaged in discussing several pounds of broiled bacon and a small basket of eggs. Over the great pewter trencher his round flushed face beamed like a full moon, while he had the wide cuffs of his coat turned up, and a great nap- kin, like a bib, tucked under his chin, to enable him to sup without spotting his glossy suit of drap-de-Berri. Near him were several groups of saucy-like citizens, in short brown wigs and plain broad-cloth suits, playing at tric- trac, knave-out-o'-doors, and drinking mulled beer or egg- flip ; while from time to time they eyed the Scottish officers askance, and whispered such jokes as the prejudices of the lower English still inspire them to make upon aliens. These they did, however, very covertly and quietly, not caring to enter into a brawl with two such richly-clad and stout cava- liers, armed with sword and dagger, and whose comrades, fifteen hundred in number, were all in the adjoining street. Our friends sat silent and thoughtful, drinking each a pos- set of wine. Walter's eyes were fixed on the glowing embers of the fire and the changing figures they exhibited ; while Finland seemed wholly intent on reading two papers pasted over the mantel-piece. One was the sailing notice of " the good ship Restoration, which was to sail from the Hermitage- bridge, London, for Leith, on the penult of next month, ye master to be spoke with on ye Scots-walk, where he would promise civility and good entertainment to passengers." The other was a proclamation, signed W. E/., regarding the quar- ters of the Scottish forces in divisions. The cavalier's brow grew black as his eye fell on it ; and he sighed, saying :- ^ " Matters are now at a low ebb with the king. .Religion and misfortune have fairly check-mated him, as we say at chess," "Measter, say rather his curst Scottish pride and ob- stinacy," said a great burly fellow, whose striped apron and greasy doublet announced him to be a butcher. Finland gave him a scornful glance ; but being unwilling to engage in a brawl, was about to address Walter again, when the corpulent citizen, having gorged himself to the throat, now felt inclined to be jocular ; and looking at the long bowl-hilted rapiers and poignards of the Scots, said : " Sword and dagger ! by my feeth, thee art zo well vortified, that if well victualled, as thy coontryman, lousy KiDg Jemmy, 288 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. zaid to the swash-bookler, thee wouldst be impregnable. He was at Feversham by tlie last account," resumed the butcher, " with that long-nosed Jesuit, his confessor, about to embark vor France or Ireland devil care which. Here is a long horn, lads, that king and confessor may gang to the bottom together." " Silence, rascal !" said Walter. " Eemember that we wear the king's uniform." " Dom ! and wot care I ?" said the bumpkin, pushing for- ward with every disposition to annoy and insult, while a dozen of his townsmen crowded at his elbow. " Have ye not changed sides, like the rest of your canny coontrymen, and joined King "William?" "We have not!" replied Douglas, fiercely, making a tre- mendous effort to keep down the storm of passion and national hostility that blazed up within him. " Our solitary regiment alone remains yet true to James VII., over whom (with all his faults) I pray heaven to keep its guard. I abhor his religion, and despise the bigots by whom he is surrounded, as much as you may do, good fellow ; but I cannot forget that he is our rightful king ; and for him, as such, I am ready to die on the field or the scaffold, should such be my fate." The fire of his expression, the dignity of his aspect, and the splendour of his attire, completely awed the English boors, and for a moment they drew back. "You mistake, good people, if you think that, like too many of our comrades, we have changed banners. No ! we are still the faithful subjects of that king who heirs his crown by that hereditary right which comes direct from God. This Dutch usurper (whom the devil confound!) hath made us splendid offers if we will take service with him, and march to fight for his rascally Hollanders under Mareschal Schomberg, instead of our good and gallant Dunbarton ; and, to intimidate us, is even now enclosing us in your town of Ipswich by blocking up the roads with troops. But let him beware ! we have stout hearts and strong hands, and Dunbarton may show him a trick of the Black Douglas days, that will cool the Dutchman's courage, despite his black beer and Skiedam. Yes, Fenton ; the arrival of Schomberg to command us bongrS mal gr will bring us to the tilt." While Douglas spoke with animation and energy, the Ipswichers had gazed upon him with open mouths and eyes, not in the least comprehending him; but their champion, suddenly taking it into his head that he was defied, threw his hat on the ground, and tucked up his sleeves, saying : " Dom, but I'll vicht thee for a vardin. and ye Lave zo much THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 289 about thee. Dom thee and all thy lousy coontrymen ; they should be droomed out o' the town, before they get fattened up among us. Come on, my canny Scot, and if I doant lace thy buff coat for all its tags and tassels, I aint Timothy Tesh of the Back Alley." " Hoozah ! " shouted the rabble in the room and at the doorway, where they had collected in great numbers on hear- ing high words in the tavern. " Sawney, hast anything else than oats in thee pooch ? " cried one. " He hath some brimstone, I'll warrant," added another. " Oot upon thee for a vile Scot that zold his king for a groat, to zave his precious kirk." " Come on, Measter Scot, and I drub thee in vurst-rate style as old JNoll did thy psalm-sing countrymen at Dunbar- field. Eat thee ! my vather was killed there." " Heyday, my canny Scot, wilt try a fall with me for a copper bawbee ? Dom thee and thy mass-moonging race of Stuarts to boot. May ye all go to hell in the lump ! " " Ware your money, my masters, there are Scots thieves among us," said the host, entering into the spirit of his townsmen. Walter and Douglas exchanged mutual glances expressive of the scorn they felt. " Silence, knaves ! " cried Finland, kicking over the table, dashing all the jugs to pieces, and drawing his sword. " This is but a poor specimen of that southern spirit of generosity and hospitality of which (among yourselves) we hear so much said. Bullying and grossly insulting two unoffending strangers, who are guiltless of the slightest provocation ; and I tell thee, butcher, that were it not beneath a gentleman of name and coat-armour to lay hands on your plebeian hide, I would break every bone it contains." Flushed with ale and impudence, and encouraged by the presence of his friends, the fellow came resolutely forward ; he was immensely strong and muscular, but rage had endued Douglas with double strength, and seizing him by the brawny throat, he dashed him twice against the wall with such force, that the blood gushed from his nostrils in a torrent, and he lay stunned without sense or motion. His comrades were somewhat appalled for a moment ; but gathering courage from their numbers, and enraged at the rough treatment experienced by Mr. Tesh, they snatched up the fire-irons, stools, and chairs, and commenced a simul- taneous assault upon the two cavaliers, who, rapier in hand, endeavoured to break through them and gain the doorway, II F 290 THE SCOTTISH CAYALIEK. where now a dense and hostile crowd had collected, who poured upon them a thousand injurious taunts and invectives. The affair was beginning to look serious. Fired by their insolence and the old inherent spirit of national animosity, Walter Fenton lunged furiously before him, and shredding the ear off one fellow, slashed the cheek of a second, ran a third through the shoulder-blade, but was borne to the ground by a blow from behind. Walter's sword-hand was com- pletely mastered, and he struggled with his heavy assailants, unable to free his dagger or obtain the least assistance from Finland, who, with his back to the wall, was fighting with rapier and poignard against the dense rabble that pressed around him. Walter struggled furiously. The moment was critical, but he was saved by the timely arrival of an officer with a few of the Hoyal Scots, who burst among them sword in hand. " Place, villains make way," he exclaimed, with the voice and bearing of one in high authority. " I am George; earl of Dunbarton ! " They fell back awed not less by his demeanour than by the weapons of his followers. " Chastise these scoundrels, Wemyss," said he to a Serjeant who followed him. " Lay on well with your hilts and bando- liers ; strike, Halbert Elshender, for it is beneath a gentleman to lay hands on clodpoles such as these." Thus urged, the soldiers, who required little or no incentive to make use of their hands against their southern neighbours, laid on with might and main, and, clearing the house in a twinkling, drove the clamorous host out with his guests ; after which they overhauled the premises, and set a few of his best runlets abroach. " A thousand thanks, my lord earl, for this timely rescue," exclaimed Finland. "But for your intervention I must indubitably have hurried some of those rogues into a better world." " And I had been worried like an otter by a pack of terriers," said Walter; "however, I have had blood for blood." " The old moss trooper's justice, Master Fenton," said Serjeant "Wemyss, drinking a flagon of wine. " God bless the good cause, and all true Scottish hearts." " Here is to thee, Wemyss, my noble halberdier," said the frank earl, drinking from the same cup ; " and I would to the powers above, that this night King James had under his standard ten thousand hearts like thine. But time presses L THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 291 away, lads, to the muster-place, for hark, our drums are beating." " The gn6rale / " exclaimed Fen ton and Finland, as the passing drums rang loudly in the adjacent streets. " Yes, gentlemen, the crisis has come," said the Earl ; " an hour ago, De Saaomberg arrived to deprive me of my command." " By whose orders P " " The Stadtholder's." "We know him not, save as an usurper," said Walter Fenton ; " and rather than obey his Mareschal, we will die with our swords in our hands." Wemyss flourished his halbert, the soldiers uttered a shout, and poured forth to the muster-place. It was a clear frosty night ; the whole sky was of the most beautiful and unclouded blue. Seven tolled from the bells of St. Peter's church. The winter moon, broad, vast, and saffron- coloured, rising above a steep eminence called the Bishops'- hill, poured its flaky lustre through the narrow and irregular streets of Ipswich, which, in 1688, differed very much^rom those of the present day. There terror and confusion reigned on every hand, for, on the drums beating to arms, the mayor and inhabitants feared that the Scots would burn and sack the town, which assuredly they would have done, had Dun- barton expressed a wish to that effect. Save where the bright moonlight shot through the crooked thoroughfares, the whole town was involved in gloom and obscurity ; but every window was crowded with anxious faces, watching the Scots hurrying to their alarm-post, while the flashing of their helmets and the clank of their accoutre- ments impressed with no ordinary terror the timid and the disloyal. By this time King James had fled from Whitehall, and under an escort of Dutch troops, was nobody knew where. William was in possession of his palace, from whence he issued orders to the troops, and proclamations to the people, with all the air of a conqueror and authority of a king. The entire forces of Britain had joined him, save sixty gentlemen of the Scottish Life Guards, and a few of the Scots' Greys (who were on their way home, under Yiscount Dundee), and the Royals, whom, from their number, discipline, and known faith to James, the Stadtholder was very desirous of sending abroad forthwith, under command of the marshal- duke of Schomberg, a venerable soldier of fortune, whose arrival at Ipswich on the night in question had brought matters to a sudden issue. u2 292 THE SC01TISH CAVALIEE. Clad in a plain buff coat, with a black iron helmet and breastplate, Dunbarton galloped into the market-place of Ipswich, where the two battalions of his musketeers were arrayed, three deep, in one firm and motionless line, with the moon shining brightly on their steel caps, their glittering bandoliers, and the gleaming barrels of their shouldered arms. As he dashed up, the four standards two of white silk, with the azure cross, and two with the old red lion and fleur-de- lis were unfurled, and a crash of prolonged music rang through the echoing street, and many a bright point flashed in the moonlight as the arms were presented, and the hoarse drums rolled the point of war, while the handsome earl bowed to his holsters, as he reined up his fiery horse before his gallant comrades. The music died away, again the harness rang, and then all became still, save the hum of the fearful crowd, and the rustle of the embroidered banners. " Fellow- soldiers of the Old Royals ! " exclaimed the earl, " at last the hour has come which must prove to the uttermost if that faith and honour which have ever been our guiding- stars, our watchword and parole, still exist among us when we must strike, or be for ever lost ! Through many a day of blood and danger we have upborne our banners in the wars of Luxembourg, of the great Conde, and the gallant Turenne ; and shall we desert them now ? I trow not ! Oh ! remem- ber the glories of France and Flanders, of Brabant and Alsace. Remember the brave comrades who there fell by your side, and are now perhaps looking down on us from amid these sparkling stars. O, my friends, remember the brave and faithful dead ! " Shall it be said that the ancient Eoyals, Les Gardes Ecos- csais of the princely Louis, so faithful and true to the race of Bourbon, deserted their native monarch in this sad hour of his fallen fortune, and at most extremity ? No ! I know you will serve him as he must be served, till treason and rebellion are crushed beneath our feet like vipers I know you will fight to the last gasp, and fall like true Scottish men I know ye are prepared to dare and to do, and to die when the hour comes ! " A deep murmur of applause rang along the triple ranks. " That hour is come ! Even now, Frederick de Schom- berg, the tool and minion of the Dutch usurper and his par- ricidal wife, is within the walls of Ipswich, empowered to deprive me of my baton, which I hold from the parliament of Scotland, and to lead you where ? To the foggy flats and pestilential fens of Holland, the land of agues and hypocrisy, to fight for his be^arly boors and pampered burgomasters, THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 293 and to encounter our ancient comrades of France the bold and beautiful France, whose glories we and our predecessors have shared on a thousand immortal fields. Between us and our home lie many hundred miles. De Ginckel, with three housand Swart B,uyters, hovers on the Lincoln road to inter- ?pt us ; Sir John Lanier, with two squadrons of English ivalry, awaits us on another ; while that false villain Mait- land, with a foot brigade of our Scottish guards, is pushing on from London to assail our rear. But fear not, my good and gallant comrades, for by the blessing of God, by the holy consecration of these standards, by the strength of our hands, by tha valour of our hearts, and the justice of our cause, we will cut our way through ten thousand obstacles, and reach the far-off hills of the Scottish highlands, where the loyal clans are all in arms, and wait but the appearance of Dundee and myself to sweep like a whirlwind^ down on the Low- lander ! " A loud shout from fifteen hundred men rang through th market-place, and the brave heart of Dunbarton swelled with exultation at the devotion of his loyal soldiers, and anger at the desertion of their false comrades. He was not, however, without considerable anxiety as to the issue of this decided revolt, or rather appeal to arms, at such a distance from their native land, and in a place were they were so utterly without sympathy, succour, or friends where to be a Scotsman was to be an enemy. But the very desperation of the attempt endued him with fresh energy. Ere he marched his devoted band, he addressed Gavin of that ilk, a tall gigantic officer, with a rapier nearly five feet long " Go to the house of the town treasurer, and tell him inotantly to hand you over 10,000 for the service of King James, under pain of immediate military execution. If the villain demur " " I'll twist his neck like a cock-patrick," said Gavin. " You will rejoin us at the bridge of the Orwell." " And how if these rascally burghers make me prisoner P" " Then, by the blood of the Black Douglas !" said the earl, passionately, " I will not leave one stone of Ipswich standing upon another." Gavin strode away, and his tall feathers were seen floating above the heads of the shrinking crowd that occupied the lower end of the market-place. " And harkee, Finland !" continued the earl, " take young Walter Fenton and fifty tall musketeers, break open the English government arsenal, and bring off four pieces of cannon which I understand are there ; press horses wherever 294 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. you can get them ; blow up the magazine ; and join us at the bridge forgetting not, if you are invaded, to handle the citizens at discretion, in our old Flemish fashion. By Heaven, they may be thankful that I have not treated their town of Ipswich as old John of Tsercla, the Count Tilly, did Magdeburg. Away, then!" CHAPTEE XXXVIII. FREE QUARTERS. FALSTAPP. 'Sblood ! 'twas time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me scot and lot too. HENRY IV. THE redness of the moon passed away as it ascended into the blue wide vault, and its cold white lustre was poured upon the level English landscape that spread at the feet of the Scottish soldiers, as they began to ascend the heights, or gentle eminence to the northward of Ipswich. Above the winter smoke of the dense little town, the spires of its churches stood out in bold relief, like lances glittering through a sea of gauze ; and the wick or bend of the beautiful Orwell swept in a silvery semicircle, like a gleaming snake, among the fallow fields and leafless copsewood; and far around the scenery spread like a moonlit map or fairy amphitheatre. All was still in the town below ; at times a light twinkled, or a voice rang out upon the quietness that reigned there, but the Scots Royals, who were halted on the brow of an eminence, over which wound the northern road (the way to their distant home) heard nothing to indicate the success of their comrades. Anon a vast blaze gleamed broadly and redly on the night, revealing a thousana striking objects unseen before, the church of St. Peter, with its gleaming windows, and the Gothic facade of Wolsey's ruined college. A loud explosion followed, a shout rose up from the town below; then all became still, and it seemed, as before, to float in the calm misty light of the silver moon. " Finland has blown up the English magazine," said the earl ; " and here he comes." The clatter of hoofs and wheels ringing in the narrow streets, and rumbling above the hollow bridge of the Orwell, approached; steel caps flashed in the moonlight above the parapet, the gleam of arms was reflected in the surface of the river, and in a few minutes Douglas, Walter Fenton, Gavin of that ilk. and their party seated on the tumbrils* THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 295 lashed up with, four pieces of beautiful brass cannon, marked with the oroad arrow and red rose of England, and drawn by twelve horses, captured for the occasion. "Bravo, Finland!" exclaimed the earl; "here are four braw marrows for old Mons Meg." "Would to heaven, my lord, they were in the Maiden Castle alongside of her, with the standard of the Cock o' the North waving over them !" " How so ? art famt- hearted, man?" " Tush, I am a Douglas. Ask Gavin." " What news, my tall grenadier P You have the rix-dollars, I hope." " My lord earl, the devil a tester. This English burgo- master was not a whit dismayed by my threats, but assailed me with a band of tip-staves ; so, with drawn rapier, I was glad to beat a retreat, and gain Finland's band with my skin whole." " And what think you inspired him to beard us thus P" asked Walter. " By the head of the king, I care not ! " said Dunbarton, setting his teeth, and rising in his stirrups. " I will hang him from yonder steeple, and inquire after." " Jeddart justice all the world over," muttered old Wemyss. " He had received news that Sir John Lanier, with his regiment of dragoon guards and Langstone's horse, have already reached Saffron Walden, in which case it were madness in us to tarry." " Gavin, must we then retreat P" said the earl, colouring with passion. " Who brought these evil tidings P" " An English gentleman." " Pshaw I don't think he can be relied on." " I know him to be a man of good repute," replied Gavin ; " Sir Tuffcon Shirley, of Mildenham. He fought for the king at Sedgemoor. I warrant him brave and honourable as any cavalier in his country." " Be advised, noble earl," urged the grim old laird of Drumquhasel ; " every moment is worth the life of a brave comrade." " Indubitably so," added the Heverend Dr. Joram, as he spurred a prancing mare which he had borrowed uncon- ditionally, with holsters and saddle-bags, from the host of the Bulioicrn-gate. " As Sir John Mennys saith in his Musanun Delicise " Hee that fights and runnis away, May live to fight " Fo know the ro^t,. sirs.'* *QQ THE SCOTTISH CAYALIEE. " We are not wont to make such reservations, reverend ^ir ; but you are in the right," replied the earl. " March in silence, comrades, and with circumspection. Keep your ranks close, and your matches lighted forward ! " About midnight they passed JSTeedham, a town on the Orwell. All was dark and silent ; scarcely a dog barked as they marched through its deserted streets, and continued their way, by the light of the stars, across the fertile country beyond. The fugitive Scots marched with great care and rapidity ;* four hundred miles lay between them and their native land, a long and perilous route, on which they knew innumerable dangers and difficulties would attend them. De Ginckel, the Dutch earl of Athlone, Sir John Lanier, and Colonel Langstone, with six regiments of horse and dra- goons, and Major Maitland with a brigade of the renegade Scottish guards, were pressing forward by various routes to intercept and cut them off. No man dared, on peril of his life, to straggle from the ranks ; for, as Scotsmen and loyalists, they were doubly enemies to the English peasantry, who would infallibly have murdered any that fell into their hands, as they had clone all the Scottish wounded and stragglers after the battle of Worcester. And thus, animated by anxiety, hope, and the exhortations of the gallant Dunbarton and his cavaliers, they marched, all heavily accoutred as they were, with such amazing rapidity, that, long ere daybreak, they had left Bury St. Edmunds, with its ancient spire and once mag- nificent abbey, twenty miles behind them. Making detours through the fields, cutting a passage through walls, hedges, and fences, they avoided every town and village, and more than once were brought to a halt by Gavin, who led the avant guard, declaring that he saw helmets glittering in the light of the waning moon. They forded the waters of the Lark, and the cold grey light of the winter morning began to brighten the level horizon, throwing forward in dark relief the distant trees and village spires, as they came in sight of Ely, .without having encountered their Dutch or English foemen. The cold was intense ; and the same white frost that pow- dered the grassy lawns and leafless trees, encrusted the iron helmets and corslets of the soldiers, whose breath curled from their close ranks like smoke from a fire. To Scotsmen even the most hilly parts of the landscape appeared almost a dead level, where Ely, with its fine cathedral and street, that strag- gled on each side of the roadway, seemed floating in a sea of white mist, through which the Ouse wound lie a golden thread. Shorn of its beams by the thick winter haze, the morning sun, like a luminous ball of glowing crimson, as- THE SCOTTISH C1VALIBB. 297 tended slowly into its place, and the great tower and pinnacles of Ely cathedral gleamed in its light as if their rich gothic carving had been covered with the richest gilding, and the tall traeeried windows shone like plates of burnished gold. The reverend Dr. Joram, who had dashed forward with cocked pistols to reconnoitre, returned to report, with military precision, that " it was a fair city, open, without cannon or fortifications of any kind ; and that, if it contained soldiers, they kept no watch or ward. And I pray Heaven," he added, " we may get wherewith to break our fast." " We will march in with drums beating," said the earl. " Allans, mon tambour major ! Give us the old Scottish march, with which stout James of Hepburn so often scared the Imperialists in their trenches on the Oder and the Maine." With drums beating, standards displayed, and matches lighted, the solid column marched into the little city of Ely j'ust as the tenth hour rang from the cathedral bells, and halt- ing, the earl sent to the affrighted mayor to demand peaceably three hours' quarters and subsistence for 1,500 Scots in the service of king James. The mayor, who on the previous night had despatched a most loyal address to the new King William, was considerably dismayed to find the city so sud- denly filled by the soldiers of a nation he equally feared and detested : but to hear was to obey. The determined aspect of young WrUer Fenton, with his features flushed and red by the long and frosty night march, his drawn rapier, and Scot- tish accent and fashion of armour, made the mayor use every exertion to get his unwelcome visitors peaceably billeted on the terrified citizens, who expected nothing less than imme- diate sack and slaughter. To the earl he sent a flowery invitation to breakfast, thus anticipating Dunbarton, who had proposed to invite himself. The other cavaliers quartered themselves on any houses that suited their fancy ; and Walter Fenton, Finland, and their jovial chaplain took possession of a handsome old mansion at the extremity of the city, having with them Wemyss and a few soldiers, to prevent treachery, surprise, or inattention on the part of the occupants, whom they desired to prepare a substantial breakfast, on peril of their lives, ere the drums beat to arms. It was an ancient, oriel- windowed house, with clusters of carved chimneys rising from steep wooden gables, around which the withered vine and dark-green ivy clambered ; its gloomy dining-hall, lighted by three painted and mullioned windows, was floored with oak, and curiously wainscotted. A great pile of roots and coal was blazing in the 298 THE SCOTTISH CAVAL1EB. fire-place, and a shout of approbation burst from the frozen guests as they clattered in, and drawing chairs around the ioyous hearth, threw aside their steel caps, and demanded breakfast as vociferously as if each was lord of the mansion, and the venerable butler looked from one to another in con- fusion and dismay. "Fellow, where is thy master?" asked Finland; "why comes he not to greet the king's soldiers, if he is a true cavalier ? " " To be plain, sir, his honour took horse, and rode off whenever your drums were heard beating down-hill." " Some rascally old roundhead ! and why did he ride was he afraid we would eat him P" " I know not, sir ; but a bold horseman is my master ; and he dashed into the Ouse as if he saw the game before him." " Or the devil behind ! " added the clergyman. " Mahoud ! a thought strikes me he crossed the Ouse what if he be gone to warn De Ginckel of our route ? The Swart Euyters were last seen at Haverhill." " Convince us of that, doctor," said Walter, " and we should burn this fair house to the ground-stone." " Gadso, lad ; let us have breakfast first. Harkee, butler " " Thou se'st, reverend sir," began the old servant, trembling. " Avaunt, caitiff! dost thou tliou me ? * I am come of good kin,' as the old morality saith," cried Joram ; " fetch me a pint of sack posset, dashed with ginger, and a white loaf, while breakfast is preparing ; and if you would save your back from my riding-rod, and your master's mansion from the flames, see that our repast be such as not even Heliogabalus could find a fault with." " And bring me a wassail bowl of spiced ale," said Finland. " And me a stoup of brandy, master butler," added Serjeant Wemyss. " And me the same," chorussed Hab Elshender and the soldiers at the lower end of the hall ; while his reverence the chaplain, stretching himself before the ruddy flames, began the old ditty of the Cavaliers of Fortune. '* Now all you brave lads, that would hazard for honour Hark ! how Bellona her trumpet doth blow j Mars, with many a warlike banner, Bravely displayed, invites you to goe ! Germani, Denmark, and Sweden, are smoking, With a band of brave sworders each other provoking, Marching in their armour bright, Summonis you to glory's fight, Sing tan ta, ra, ra, ra, ra, ra ! " THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE. 299 As his reverence concluded, he drained the sack posset, which the white-haired butler placed obsequiously before him. " Many a time and oft have I heard my father chant that old Swedish war- song," said Finland. " He commanded a regiment of Ruyters under Gustavus." " O Vivat ! Gustavus Adolphus, we cry, Withthee all must either win honour or die! Tan ta, ra, ra, ra, ra, ra ! " sang the chaplain ; " O 'tis a jolly anthem. Here's to his memory Gustavus Adolphus, the friend of the soldier of fortune the Csesar of Sweden the star of the north ! I per- ceive, gentlemen," continued the divine, " that there are vir- ginals and music in yonder oriel window. What say ye shall we summon the rosy English dame, whose dainty fingers I doubt not, press those ivory keys, that she may sing us some of the merry southern madrigals King Charles loved so well?" " Nay, doctor, by Heaven ! " said Walter, as the thought of his absent Lilian (for whose sake all the sex were dear to him) flashed upon his mind. " If there are ladies here, no man shall molest them while I can hold a rapier." " Hear this young cock o' the game," said Joram, angrily ; " he cocks his beaver like a mohock already." " Well spoken, young comrade," said Finland ; " our clerical friend hath mistaken his avocation. Instead of entering holy orders, he should have been purveyor to old Dalyel's Red Cossacks." " 'Sdeath ! gentlemen," said the divine, colouring ; " I only jested, and you turn on me like so many harpies. But as for you, Mr. Fenton, my pretty cavaliero, who proposed burning the mansion to the ground-stone P" " I knew not that it contained ladies." " My lady comes of an old cavalier family, noble sirs," said the old butler, with great perturbation ; " and would herself appear to greet you, but illness " " It is enough, good fellow," replied Finland ; " how is she named?" " She is a daughter of old Sir Tufton Shirley." " Then God bless her !" said Joram ; " her father's hall of Mildenham can show the marks of Cromwell's bullets. And your master, gaffer Englishman his name?" " Marmaduke Langstone," answered the servant hesi- tatingly. " Who commands a corps of Red dragoons on the bordert of Bedfordshire?' The same." 800 THE SCOTTISH CA "Then hell's malison on Mm for a false, canting, prick- eared, roud-headed, double-dyed traitor!" exclaimed the chaplain, furiously, as he attacked a cold sirloin, with the same energy as if it had been the proprietor. " He is now tracking us from place to place ; but if he comes within reach of our cannon Gadso ! let him look to it." A sumptuous breakfast of cold roasted beef, venison pies, broiled salmon, white manchets, cheese, butter, eggs, milk, possets of sack, tankards of spiced ale, coffee, &c., had been spread on the table of the dining-hall, by the timid English servants, whose dread and aversion of their unwelcome guests often made the latter laugh outright. " I am glad," said Walter, as he breakfasted, " we have taken quarters in the house of so false a traitor. I should like much to have a horse ; and, for the service of King James, I will mulct him of the best in his stable." Wemyss and other soldiers, who occupied the lower end of the long oak table, were feasting, with all the voracity of famished kites, on the rich viands ; but while hewing down the great sirloin in vast slices, Hab Elshender declared that he " would rather have a cogue of brose at his mother's ingle-neuk, than the best that bluff England could produce." " And well I agree with thee, friend Hab," said the veteran Wemyss. " My heart misgives me, we will be sorely forfoughten, ere we see the blue reek curling from our ain lumheeds. But here is to Dunbarton God bless his noble heart, and the good old cause." " Good Wemyss, and you, my brave lads," said Dr. Joram, from the head of the table, " I crave to drink with you." " Thanks to your reverence thanks to your honour," muttered the soldiers, bowing and drinking. The meal was a very protracted one ; but the moment it was over, Dr. Jpram muttered a hasty blessing, called loudly for more wine, lighted his great pipe, unbuttoned his vest and with Finland sat down to a game of tric-trac ; the soldiers began to examine their bandoleers and muskets, and Walter repaired to the ample but nearly empty stables, where, from among the indifferent farm horses the necessities of war had left behind, he selected a fine-looking charger, high-headed, close-eared, square-nosed, and broad-chested, and having saddled, bridled, and caparisoned him to his entire satis- faction, led him forth just as the generate was beaten. Mounting, he galloped to the muster-place, well pleased with the acquisition the law of reprisal and the fortune of war en- titled him to make. THE SCOTTISH CAYA1IB. 801 CHAPTEE XXXIX. THE REDEEMED PLEDGE. Ha ! dost thou know me ? that I am Lothario ? As great a name as this proud city boasts of. Who is this mighty man, then, this Horatio, That I should basely hide me from his anger ? FAIR PENITENT. REFRESHED by tlieir halt at Ely, the soldiers of Dimbarton pushed on towards " Merry Lincoln," the merriment of whose citizens would probably be no way increased by their arrival. Marching by the most unfrequented route to avoid the highway, they pursued a devious path through fallow fields and frozen lawns, and sought the shelter of every copsewood. The level plains of fertile England could oppose but few and feeble obstacles to the hill-climbing Scots, accustomed from infancy to the rocky glens and pathless forests of their rugged mountain home ; however they found it necessary to abandon the four pieces of English cannon, which were spiked and concealed in a thicket, and thus unencumbered, they hurried on with increased speed. Walter's heart grew buoyant and gay as the day wore apace, and the picturesque villages with their yellow thatched cottages and ivy-covered churches, the old Elizabethan halls and brick-built manors of Cambridge and Lincolnshire, were passed in rapid succession. He knew that every pace lessened tb.e distance between Lilian arid himself, and before the sober winter sun descended in the saffron west, he hailed with pleasure the old town of Crowland, with its great but ruined abbey, the walls of which were buried under masses of luxuriant ivy. Far over the gently undulated landscape shone the purple and yellow rays of the setting sun ; Crowland Abbey, its old fantastic houses and village spire, on the summit of which the vine and ivy nourished, and all the winter scenery were bathed in warm light. The Scots were descending a slope towards the town, when a shot fired by the avant guard, gava them an alert ; then the voice of Dunbarton was heard com- manding his brave musketeers to halt, while Gavin of that ilk came galloping back from the front. " My lord earl," said he, "we have seen the glitter of steel above the uplands yonder." " Then we have been brought to bay a: last. With six 302 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEK. thousand horse on our flanks, it was not likely we would pass the ridings of Yorkshire without a camisado. Strike tip the Scottish point of war, and let these knaves show themselves. The shrill fifes and brattling drums rang clear and sharp in the pure frosty air, and ere the last note had died away, a body of horse appeared on an opposite eminence. Their broad beaver hats and waving feathers, polished corslets and scarlet coats, declared them English. " 'Sdeath," said the earl, " they are Langstone's Eed Dragoons, so De Ginckel's Black Eiders are not far off." " 'Tis but a troop of sixty, my lord," said Walter. " Dost think they are within range?" asked Gavin, as his grenadiers began to open their pouches and blow their fuses. " Scarcely, and we have no ammunition to spare ; so if they molest us not, I freely bid them good speed in God's name." A single cavalier was now seen to spur his horse to the front, and after riding along the roadway a few yards, to rein up and fire a pistol in the air. By the military eti- quette of the time, this was understood to be a challenge to single encounter, or to exchange shots with any cavalier so inclined. Full of ardour, and youthful rashness, and burning to dis- tinguish himself, Walter Fenton exclaimed, " I accept the challenge of this bravadoer ; you will permit me, my Lord Dunbarton ? " " Doubtless, my brave lad, but beware ; yonder fellow appears an old rider ; his harness is complete a la cuirassier, as we used to say in France." " Scaled all over like an armadillo, as we used to say at Tangier," added Dr. Joram. " Speed thee, Fenton, and show the rebel villain small mercy." Walter galloped within a few paces of his adversary, who had now reloaded his pistol. His powerful frame which ex- hibited great muscular strength, was cased in a corsle^ of bright steel, buff coat and gloves, and enormous jack boots, fenced by plates of iron ; his head was defended by an iroii cap covered with black velvet, (a fashion of James VII.), and was adorned by a single feather ; he carried a long carbine and still longer broadsword. His hair was cut short, and his chin shaved close in the Dutch fashion. He levelled a pistol between his horse's ears with a long and deliberate aim at Walter, whose eye was fixed in painful acuteness upon the little bWk muzzle and stern grey eye that glared along tlie barrel THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 303 He fired! The ball grazed the cheek-plate of Walter's morion He never winced, but felt his heart tingle with rage and ex- ultation, as in turn he levelled his long horse-pistol at the Williamite trooper, who was reloading with the utmost cool- ness. Walter fired, and with a loud snort, a strange cry, and terrific bound, the strong Flemish horse of his adversary sank to the earth, and tore up the turf with its hoofs. Its brain had been pierced. The rider lost his pistol by the plunge, but adroitly disengaging himself from the twisted stirrups, high saddle, and convulsed legs of the fallen steed, he un- sheathed his long sword, and brandished it, crying " Vive le JRoi Guillaume ! come on, young coistrel !" While the cheers of his comrades and a brisk ruffle on their drums made his heart leap within him, Walter sprang from his horse, and throwing the reins to Hab Elshender, drew his slender, cavalier rapier, and rushed to encounter his strong antagonist, but a glance sufficed to stay his forward step and upraised hand, and to lull the excitement of his spirit. " Captain Napier !" he exclaimed, on recognizing beneath the dark head-piece, the stern, unmoved, but not unhandsome features of Lilian's kinsman, and his rival. " I told thee, Fenton, we would meet again," said Napier, coldly, and sternly, " and I swore when that hour came to spare thee not. It hath come, so do unto me, as thou wilt be done by." " For the sake of her whose name and blood you inherit in common, I would rather shun than encounter you. Your life I spared it once." " Why remind me of that?" sa d Napier, furiously, while his cheek reddened. " 'Tis better to die than remember that the boldest heart of the Scots Brigade owes its existence to the favour of a beardless moppei; like thee! bethink thee, man," continued Napier, sneering*!/, "the entail your sword can break it in a moment ; Quentin Napier is the last of his race, and then Lilian becomes an heiress." " Away, sir," replied Walter, sadly and calmly, as he dropped the point of his sword, "you have mentioned the only thing that in an hour like this, unnerves my hand to en- counter you." At that moment a drum of Dunbarton's beat a charge. " Hark ! your comrades are impatient," said Napier, scorn- fully ; " fall on, you nameless loon, for here shall I redeem the E ledge I gave or die," and swaying his sword with both hands, e attacked Walter with great fury and undisguised ferocity. His couraae was well met by Wiilto's address, but his 304 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. bodily strength, and weight of weapon were far superior, an-l he pressed on pell mell, until a deep gash in the right cheek reminded him of the necessity of coolness. The wound which would undoubtedly have roused another man to additional fury, had the effect of giving Napier a caution, that enabled him to parry Walter's successive cuts and thrusts with great success. Without the least advantage being gained on either side, the combat continued for three or four minutes, during which the greatest skill in swordsmanship was exhibited by both cavaliers, in their attempts to pass each other's points, until a stone in the frozen turf caught Walter's heel, and he was thrown to the earth with great force. Ere he could draw breath, the captain sprang upon him like a tiger, and with his sword shortened in his hand, and a knee pressed upon his breast, he exclaimed in a fierce whisper through his clenched teeth, " Now I have thee ! now your life is in my hand, but even now will I spare it, if here before the God that is above us, ye swear for the future to renounce all hope and thought of Lilian Napier now, yea, and for ever !" "Never !" gasped Walter, panting with rage and shame, for an exulting shout from the Red dragoons stung him to the soul ; " never ; by what title dare you impose such terms on me?" " By the right of a kinsman and betrothed lover who would save her from contamination, by becoming the wife of an un- known foundling, a beggarly vaiiet, a soldier's wallet boy ha !" and he ground his teeth. Walter felt stifled as his corslet was compressed beneath the heavy knee of his conqueror, and he made many ineffectual struggles to grasp his poniard, but it lay below him. "Renounce renounce! swear swear!" hissed Napier through his teeth. " Never, never," groaned Walter. " Then die !" shouted Napier ; and raised his shortened sword which he grasped by the blade ; but endued with new energy at the prospect of instant death, Walter, by a vigorous effort of strength, with one hand flung his adversary from him, and pinning him to the earth in turn, unsheathed his long dagger, and while labouring under a storm of wrath and fury, drove it twice through the joints of his shining gorget, but unable to withdraw it after the second blow, sank upon his enemy, and they lay weltering together in blood. " Jiy bitter and my heavy curse be on thee, Walter Fen- ton !" nissed the dying Napier through his chattering teet* t THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 305 " and if thou gettest her, may the curse of heaven, and thi curse that fell on Jeroboam be thine ! mayest thou die child Jess, and be the last as thou art the first of thy race !" He fell back and expired. CHAPTER XL. THE SWART RUYTERS. With burnished brand and musketoon. So gallantly you come ; J read you for a bold dragoon, That lists the tuck of drum. ROKEBY. WHEN Walter Fenton recovered, he found himself on horseback, and his comrades on the march, beyond Crow land, and the setting sun was about to dip below the far-off horizon. A throng of thoughts chased each other through his mind, but sorrow was the prevailing one. The rage he had felt against Napier for his taunts, the hatred for his rivalry, and animosity for his politics, had all passed away ; he felt now the keenest sorrow for his fate, and remorse that he had fallen by his hand. The thought did flash upon him, that by the fatal issue of the encounter, Lilian was indisputably heiress of Bruntisfield and the Wrytes, but shrinking from contemplation of it, he dismissed it from his mind, as unworthy to be dwelt upon. By him the warm congratulations of his friends were unheeded and unheard ; his whole mind was absorbed in the idea that he had slain the only kinsman of his beloved Lilian, and destroyed the last of a long and gallant race, and already in. anticipation he beheld her tears, and heard the sorrowful re- proaches of the proud Lady Grizel. The appearance of the advanced party of Langstone's troopers, whom the earl knew belonged to Sir John Lanier's brigade of English horse, had considerably increased the dread of the retreating regiment. There was now every pro- Bpect of being enclosed and cut off, for independent of infantry pouring from twentv different roads upon their route, there were 6,000 horse following them on the spur from the eastern and western counties, Actuated by loyalty, by dread of cap- ture and consequent disarmment, decimation, captivity, or dis- persion, they marched with great rapidity, and to cheer them on, the earl and his officers constautlv encouraged them by n. x 306 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. enthusiastic addresses and encomiums, to which the brave Royals responded by shouts and cheers. Shrill blew the fifes, and the braced drums rang briskly, as they entered upon a dreary wold to the northward of Crow- land, a grassy and heathy waste, or down, over which the fading light of the setting sun shone in all its saffron splen- dour. On debouching from the 'road over which the tall poles, with the slender stems of the hops twining and clamber- ing, though leafless and faded, formed an archway through the thick and dense hop gardens that bordered each side of the way, the advanced guard uttered a shout of surprise and defiance, and halted till the main body came up. Goring his horse, Dunbarton dashed to the front, and beheld a dense column of darkly-armed cavalry formed in line across the moor, about a gunshot distant. They were motion- less as statues, and the setting sun shone full upon their serried files and glittering weapons ; they were solderlike in aspect ; their helmets and corslets were of unpolished iron, as black as their long jack-boots ; their yellow coats, heavily cuffed, and with looped skirts, proclaimed them Dutch. Their horses were large, heavily jointed, and as phlegmatic in aspect as their riders, for the whole brigade stood motionless and still as a line of bronze statues. Even their blue standards, with the white ,/ew, hung pendant and unmoven. A little in advance of the line was an officer on horseback, motionless, inert, and seemingly fast asleep ; he was a man of vast rotundity, and cased in a capacious cuirass of polished steel, which gave him the aspect of a mighty tortoise, or some great bulb of which the gilt helmet formed the apex. An enormous basket-hilted sword swung on one side of him, and a brass blunderbuss on the other ; while a great tin speaking- trumpet, like that of a Dutch skipper (then common in all armies, and last used by the brave Lord Heathfield), was grasped in his right hand. So utterly lifeless seemed the whole array, that if any other proof was wanting, it alone would have proclaimed them Hollanders. " Dutch, by all the devils !" cried Dunbarton, galloping back to the fioyals. " "Pis the Baron de Ginckel and his Swart Euyters. Pikes against cavalry ! Gavin, throw your grenadiers into the centre. Finland, Drumquhasel, brave gentlemen, march me your companies to the front. Mus- keteers, blow your matches, open your pans, and prepare to give fire !" " Shoulder to shoulder, my boys !" cried Dr. Joram ; " though the number of Gog be countless as the sand on the sea-shore, fear not !" THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 307 *God save King James ! Hurrah!" cried the .Royals, as the pikemen rushed forward to form the outer faces of the square, in which Dunbarton resolved to cut a passage through the Dutch, as there was no time for a protracted fight by taking advantage of the localities ; for other troops were press- ing forward on every hand. Like a vast hedgehog with all its bristles erected, the band of Scots, in one dense mass, de- bouched upon the wold, with their fifteen hundred helmets and myriads of bright points gleaming in the last flush of the set sun. The stout pikemen, with their long weapons charged (or levelled) from the right haunch before them, formed the outer faces of the square ; and the musketeers, with their smoking matches and polished barrels, the rear-rank ; in the centre were the grenadiers, with their open pouches and lighted grenades, clustered round the Scottish standards, beneath which the old national march was beaten by twenty drums, as the whole column moved, with admirable order and invincible aspect, towards the centre of that long line of horse, whose flanks, when thrown forward, would quite have encircled them. With his half-pike in his hand, Walter marched in front of the first face, and he felt a glow of ardour burn within him as they neared the Swart Ruyters for so these horsemen were named, from their black armour. The moment the Eoyals advanced, De Ginckel placed his great trumpet to his mouth, and puffing out his cheeks, in a voice of thunder, bellowed an order to break and form squad- rons, for the purpose of attacking the Scots on every side. Hoarsely and deeply, in guttural Dutch, rang the words of command, as each successive captain gave the order to his troop ; and the whole line became instinct with life and action. Swords and helmets flashed, and standards waved, as the heavy iron squadrons, galloping obliquely to the right and left, formed in two dense columns, preparatory to charging. " We will be assailed on every hand," exclaimed the earl ; " but be firm, my brave hearts, and quail not, for our lives and liberties depend upon the issue of this conflict. Halt J pikemen ; keep shoulder to shoulder like a wall." " Vivat I " cried the Dutch dragoons ; " gluck ! gluck ! vivat Wilhelm!" On they came in heavy masses, but ere their goring spurs had urged their ponderous chargers to the gallop, the voice of Dunbarton was again heard " Musketeers, open your pans give fire ! " " Hurrah ! down with the Stadtholder, and death to his hirelings ! " cried the Scots ; and the roar of six hundred mus- 308 rrfE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. kets seemed to rend the very air, and reverberated like thunder over the echoing heath. From each face of the square, above the stands of pikes, six ranks poured at once their volleys, three kneeling and three firing over their heads, according to the old Swedish custom of the Scots when formed in squares. Two hundred grenades soared hissing into the air, sank and burst, and the effect was tremendous on the advancing Dutch. More than a hundred and fifty troopers and horses fell prone on the frozen heath, dead or rolling in the agonies of death, and were fearfully trampled and kicked as the rear- ward squadrons, instead of dashing onward, reined up simul- taneously, and appalled by the slaughter, and aware of the inutility of attacking a square of resolute infantry, began to recoil. A shout of fierce derision burst from the reti eating Scots, as De Grinckel, like a vast Triton blowing on a conch, galloped from troop to troop, bellowing in furious Dutch the order to advance, accompanied by a storm of hoarse abuse ; but his Huyters were immovable, and he beat both officers and men with the bell of his trumpet in vain. While reloading and blowing their matches, the musketeers continued retiring with all expedition towards a thick coppice that grew on the margin of the moor about a mile distant. The Dutch cavalry re- formed, for pursuit. The roadway on the snow-covered moor- land was scarcely visible in the grey twilight ; on the right, it branched off towards Boston, and on the left towards Folk- ingham. Dunbarton knew not the exact route, but his whole aim for the present moment was to reach the copsewood, where he would be less assailable by horse. When but a quarter of a mile from this friendly bourne, a drum was heard to beat within its recesses, a long line of bright arms flashed under its dark shadows, and as if by magic the fugitive band beheld Maitland's brigade of the Scots G-uards two thousand strong, drawn up in firm array, with the red matches of their shouldered muskets gleaming like a wavy line of wildfire in the twilight of the evening. The shout of wrath and dismay that burst from the soldiers of Dunbarton, was immediately succeeded by another; for lo ! a dense body of cava>y debouched from the Boston road, forming line at full gallop as they spread over the wold, while another, in dark and close array, came leisurely up at a trot from the ancient town of Folkingham, and all their trunnpets sounded at once In martial and varying cadence, as they came JB sight of the fugitives, and reined up for further orders. THE SCOTTISH CAVALIES, 309 ** Lanier's troopers on the right ! " said Finland. " Marmaduke Langstone on the left ! " added Dr. Joram ; " hemmed in lost there is nothing for it now but surrender to the Philistines." " Or die in our ranks ! " said Walter Fenton. "Eight, my young gallant," replied the earl. "All is indeed lost now ; but discretion is oft the better part of valour, and by yielding for the present we may the better serve King James at a future period, than by being shot on the instant, and thus ending our lives and our loyalty together. What say ye, cavaliers and comrades?" Though the earl spoke thus lightly, his heart was throbbing with smothered passion, and the murmur that broke from his soldiers was expressive rather of wrath and fury than acquiescence to his advice. Then a dead silence followed, and not a sound was heard throughout the different bands arrayed on the level waste, but the clank of accoutrements, as two Dutch officers, de- spatched by the baron de Ginckel rode up to Langstone and to Lanier, to communicate the orders of their leader, who was rapidly advancing with his strong column of Huyters, so dis- posed as completely to cut off afl hope of flight in any direc- tion. In spite of his natural courage, Walter felt his heart now become a prey to intense sadness, if not apprehension. Jaded and wearied by excessive fatigue, his comrades were dispirited and little inclined for new strife, to engage in which, so far from their native land, and when hemmed in by forces so much more numerous, would have been madness. He con- templated with horror being a prisoner to the Dutch or English, to be banished perhaps to the West Indies or some far foreign station, or to endure a protracted captivity, and a shameful death ; in either case, perhaps never again to behold his Lilian and his loved native land, for to a Scotsman the love of home is a second being a part of his existence. So much was he occupied with these sad thoughts, that he was not aware a flag of truce was approaching, until he saw an English cavalier rein up his horse within a few yards of him. The stranger bowed gracefully, saying " Sir Marmaduke Langstone would speak with the earl of Dunbarton; he is bearer of a message from Goderdt de Ginckel, earl of Athlone." " Say forth, Sir Marmaduke," replied the noble Douglas ; " if it be such as a Scottish earl may hear without dishonour. What says mynheer of Athlone? " The Englishman laughed and replied, 310 THE SCOTTISH CAYALiEB. " He desires me to acquaint your lordship and those gallant Scots who have so rashly revolted from King William " " You mistake, sir ; we never joined the banner of the Stadtholder, and cannot be termed revolters." " Then ye are rebels by the laws of the land." " No* of England, as we owe it neither suit nor service." " Then ye have broken the laws of your own country." " Under favour, Sir Marmaduke ! we hold our commissions *rcm the Scottish parliament, from whom we have received no orders, since we marched south among you here ; and you sadly mistake in naming those rebels, who still wear the king's uniform." "My lord," rejoined the English knight, haughtily, "I have no time to argue these niceties with you. fie Ginckel desires me to inform you, that he will grant such terms as might be expected by any other foreign foe who hath marched on English ground, with drums beating and standards dis- played ; and these are, life and kindness, on an unconditional surrender of arms and all martial insignia, yielding yourselves prisoners at discretion." The swarthy cheek of the earl grew gradually crimson with passion as Langstone spoke ; but an expression of shame and mortification succeeded. " Alas, alas ! " said he, looking sadly on the silk standards that rustled in the evening wind. " Are those old banners that were wrought for us by the noble demoiselles of Ver- sailles to be thus dishonoured at last ? Often have they been pierced by the bullets, but never sullied by the touch of a foe ! " "We will yield to our ain kindly folk," cried Sergeant v^emyss and several soldiers ; "we will yield us to Major Maitland and the Scots Guards." "You must surrender to the Swart Euyters alone, my brave hearts ! " cried Langstone. " And what if we do not ? " asked Dunbarton. " Good, my lord, the consequences will be frightful un- conditional surrender, or utter extermination Dutch terms. On every hand you are hemmed in, and every road to your native land is blocked up by enemies. My noble lord," and here with generous confidence the brave Englishman rode close to the levelled pikes, " be advised by one who wishes well to Scot as to Southern. If one cannot fight prudently to-day, better be fighting a year hence, than have the sod growing green over us. Shall I ride back to the baron, aud promise your surrender ? " *' Be it so ; but deeply do I grieve that Sir Marmaduke THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 311 Langstone, whose family has ever been distinguished for valour and loyalty, is the"propounder of such bitter terms to George of Dunbarton." " The times are changed, my lord ; live and let live is my motto ; had such been the maxim of James II., this sword, which my father drew for his at Marston, had not this day been drawn against him. Liberty of conscience is dear to us all, and I respect the high principles of those soldiers who rushed to the standard of our deliverer." " Then learn still more to respect the chivalry and gene- rosity of the few whose principles of loyalty bound them to their unhappy king in the darkest hour of his distress and misfortune." " Decide, my lord, decide for the Swart Huyters are clos- ing up troop upon troop." "We will yield our national standards to the Scottish Guards our arms and persons to De Ginckel." "It is enough," replied Sir Marmaduke, as he wheeled round his horse, and rode towards the immense Dutch com- mander, whose Ruyters with the brigades of Scotch and English, had now hemmed in the fugitives, as it were in a large hollow square. Far off, at the horizon of the frozen heath, the winter moon, shining red and luminous, rose slowly into the blue sky, eclipsing the light of the diamond-like stars as it ascended ; and its pale splendour fell brightly and steadily on the fitful weapons and the dark masses of half-mailed men, among whom they gleamed on the white and powder-like frost that glittered silvery and clearly on every blade of grass, and on the dark spots that dotted the plain to the southward. There many a rider and horse were lying stiff and cold. CHAPTER XLL LILIAN. I love thee, gentle Knight ! but 'tis, Such love as sisters bear ; O, ask my heart no more than this, For more it may not spare. KNIGHT TOOOENBURO. THE image of Clermistonlee and his threats came painfully upon Lilian's memory. She shrieked for aid, but her cries were lost in the vacuity of the old-fashioned coach in which she was being carried off. She strove to open the windows, 312 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. but they were immovable as those of a castle, and she re- signed herself to tears and despair. The vehicle was rumbling and jolting over a waste of frozen snow ; here and there, a farm-house or a congealed rivulet were passed, but every- thing appeared so strange and new, when viewed in their snowy guise by the twilight of the mirky winter night, that Lilian had not the most remote idea in what direction she was taken ; and shuddering with cold and apprehension, the poor girl crouched down in a corner of the coach, and aban- doned herself to grief and wretchedness. The excessive chill of the night, and prostration of spirit Under which she laboured, produced a sort of stupor, and when the coach stopped, she was unable to move ; but a tall, dark man, muffled and masked like an intriguing gallant of the day, lifted her out. As one in a dream, who would in vain elude some hideous vision, she attempted to shriek ; but the unuttered cry died away on her lips, and she closed her eyes. A strong embrace encircled her ; a hot breath (was it not a kiss ?) came upon her cold cheek, and she felt her- self borne along ; doors closed behind her, and by the warmth of the altered temperature, she was aware of being within a house. She was seated gently in a chair ; and now she looked around her. A large fire of roots was blazing on the rough stone-hearth ; its ruddy glow rendered yet more red the bare walls and strongly-arched roof of a hall (built of red sand- stone), such as may be seen in the old fortlets of the lesser barons of Scotland. The windows on each side were deeply embayed by the thickness of the wall, and a deep-browed arch spanned each ; they had stone seats covered with crimson cushions, and foot-mats of plaited rushes. The hurrying clouds and occasional stars were seen through the strong basket-gratings that externally defended these prison- like apertures. The hall was paved, and its rude massive furniture consisted only of a great oblong table of oak, several forms or settles, a few high-backed chairs, and :me upon a raised part of the floor, at the upper end, had a canopy of crimson cloth over it, announcing that it was the state-chair of the lord of the manor. Swords, pikes, arque- buses, hunting and hawking appurtenances, with a few veiled pictures, were among its ornaments. A great alniery, or cupboard (so called from the old hos- pitable custom of setting aside food as alms for the poor), occupied one end of the apartment, and an ancient casque surmounted it. Various bunkers of carved oak, bound with won, occupied the other. On the right hand of the doorway, THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 313 a stone lavatory, covered with magnificent sculpture, pro ected from the wall. This old-fashioned basin was furnished with a hole to carry off water, and was an indispensable conve- nience to every ancient dining-hall. With one rapid glance of terror Lilian surveyed the whole place, and started from her chair to be confronted by one whose aspect made her instinctively shrink back. The keen and hawk-like eyes of Beatrix Gilruth were fixed upon her with an expression at once menacing, searching, and scornful. There was something in the wild visa,ge of this inexplicable woman that excited curiosity, while her air terrified, and her withered person repelled approach. " Who are you, woman ? " asked Lilian firmly, as, stepping back a pace, she surveyed her from head to foot ; " and what are you ? " " What am I ? " reiterated the other, with a voice that thrilled, while her grey eyes gleamed with a blue light, and Bhe ground her teeth. " I am what thou shalt be, my pretty ininx s ere ye leave these walls, perhaps." Lilian, terrified by her aspect and her answer, sank into a chair, saying, as she clasped her hands and looked up implor- ingly from her bright dishevelled hair, " Woman, for the love of God, say where am I ? " ' In the tower of Clermistonlee." ' So my soul foreboded ; but can he have dared thus far P ft "' What will he not dare that man can do P " * Oh Heaven, protect me ! " ' Neither the heaven that is above us, nor the hell that is beneath, will protect you, pretty one ; but you will be made what many as fair have been the toy, the plaything of an hour, to be cast aside when some new fancy has seized the wayward mind of your lord and betrayer. Look at that veiled portrait " At that moment three distinct knocks were heard against the almery. Lilian started and turned pale. " Yes, yes," said Beatrix scornfully, addressing the knocker, " you are impatient. There was a tune but it matters not I bide mine ; and my long-delayed vengeance will wither thee up, false lord, even as if the lightning of God had scorched thy perjured soul." Low as this was uttered, it reached the ears of Lilian ; she became doubly terrified, and a momentary feeling of utter abandonment made her cover her face with her hands and weep bitterly. But suddenly starting up, she said with energy " I will go hence, madam ; and whatever be the danger, I 314 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. will risk it. But the snow, the darkness, and the distance- oh, horror ! a-unt Grizel gossip Annie what will they think of this ? what will become of me ? " " Stand," said Beatrix, interposing. " Are you mad, to think of leaving this roof in the middle of a winter night ? Remember the dreary lea of Clermiston, the rocks ana the frozen marshes of Corstorphine, you are fey, maiden, to think it." " Begone, thou ill woman," replied Lilian, contemptuously ; I will go, and I dare thee to stay me." " Then," rejoined Beatrix spitefully, " remember the barred windows, the bolted gates, and the good stone-walls. Pooh ! maiden, take tent and bide where ye are ; for I swear ye can never go from hence, but at the pleasure of my lord." " Insolent ! Know ye who I am P " asked Lilian. " The young lady of Bruntisfield," answered Beatrix coldly ; a wayward kss with a braw tocher, it seemeth, one who E refers a younger cap and feather than my lord. Ha ! hath e not sworn (and mark me, maiden, he never swears in vain ! ) that he will compel thee yet to beg his love at his hand as a boon, even as humbly as he now sues thine." " In sooth ! " retorted Lilian, with angry surprise. " He will surely have the aid of some such witch as thee, to work so modern a miracle." " Witch, quotha ! " replied Beatrix, whose withered cheek began to redden with passion. " Lilian Napier, there was a time when these grey, grizzled locks were once as bright and as glossy as thine ; when this brow was as smooth, this faded form as round, yea, and as beautiful ; this step as light, and this poor face as fair, as thine now are. So beware thee of taunts, maiden ; for the time is coming (if thou art spared) when thou mayest be loathsome as I now am, and loathing as I now do. That hour is coming ; for Clermistonlee hath an evil eye, beneath whose baleful influence all that is good and beautiful in woman will wither and die. Oh ! Lilian Napier, what a tale of love and weakness, shame and misery, sin and horror, would the history of my life reveal ! But my hour of revenge is coming. Yes " Again three knocks louder than before rang on the almery ; and Beatrix, trembling, ceased to talk, and busied herself in laying a supper on the hall-table. " Oh, Walter ! Walter ! " murmured Lilian, " if you knew of this if you were here to protect me ! " Her tears flowed freely. " Walter ! " reiterated Beatrix, musing ; " can it really be the same P No, it is impossible ; and yet, why not P He is THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE. 315 your lover, tlien, this "Walter ? " she asked in a low voice, while laying some cold grilled meat, confections, and wine from a buffet. " I know he is that blush tells me (when did my cheek blush last ?). He is young and handsome, I warrant P " Lilian nodded an affirmative. " And men say he is brave ? " " Oh, yes ! brave as a hero of romance," said Lilian in the same low tone ; for there is nothing so pleasing to love as to hear the object of it praised. " And so noble, so generous ! If true worth gave a title, my dear Walter would be a belted earl." " Instead of being a poor standard-bearer in the ranks of Dunbarton." " You have ' seen him then P " said Lilian, her blue eyes beaming, as she almost forgot her present predicament in the thought of her lover. " Is he not handsome, good woman P" " It is the same ! " exclaimed Beatrix, in her shrillest tone. " Walter, the powder-boy the soldier's brat hah ! " she ground her teeth, and clenched her shrivelled hands like knots of serpents " I bide my time. Oh, I will be fearfully avenged ! " A third time there was a knocking on the almery, and Beatrix muttered " I am dumb I will speak no more." She pointed to the supper-table, and, throwing herself into a chair, fixed her sunken eyes upon the red, glowing fire, and lost in her own wild thoughts, continued to jabber with the rapidity and restlessness of insanity. It was evident that she was partly deranged, a discovery which, while it raised the pity of the gentle Lilian, increased the dread and the horror of her situation. Clermistonlee, with his faithful rascal Juden, were both within earshot. The former had sufficient tact and experience to know that it would be better to defer any interview with Lilian until next morning, by which time he hoped she would be a little more familiarized with her situation ; and leaving Juden, who was ensconced in the recesses of the almery, to be a check upon the troublesome garrulity of his only female domestic, he retired to a snug apartment, where, enveloped in his shag dressing-gown, and comforted by a great tankard of his favourite mulled sack, and several books of " ungodly jests," he practised all his philosophy to enable him to endure this temporary separation from Lilian, consoled bv the idea that she was completely in his clutches, within nis strong tower, which he was entitled to defend against all men living ; 316 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. and well aware that, in the political storm which in another week would convulse all Scotland from the Cheviots to Cape Wrath, the abduction of a girl more especially the daughter of a " persecuting cavalier" would be less regarded than the wind blowing over the muir. As the still, quiet night wore on, and the fumes of the wine mounted into his head, very strange ideas floated through the brain of the roue. Again and again the thought of Lilian beinof so utterly in his power intruded itself upon his heated imagination; he felt his blood begin to glow: his mind became confused ; he endeavoured to combat his constitutional wickedness, and, by aid of his repeated potations, and a highly-seasoned grillade, dozed away the night very comfort- ably in a well-cushioned chair ; while his leal henchman was in the same happy state of oblivion, through the medium of various stoups of ale, which he imbibed in the spence or buttery. Not so did poor Lilian pass the slow and heavy hours. ^ The repast prepared for her was left untouched, she re- sisted every invitation to repose, and resolved on passing the night by the hall-fire; until, reflecting that she would be quite as safe in one part of the tower as in another, and wishing to be alone, that she might weep unseen, she was ushered by Beatrix up a narrow stair into a little sleeping apartment, the greater part of which was occupied by a great hearse-looking tester, or canopy bed. The only light in tLe chamber came from the fire-place, where a heap of logs and coals were blazing, and diffusing a warm glow on the dark wainscotted walls, the oaken floor, and rude ceiling, which was crossed by a massive dormant-tree of oak, covered with grotesque and hideous carving. There was something very gloomy and catafalcque-like in the aspect of the gigantic bed in which Lilian was to repose ; its massive posts of dark oak and darker ebony were covered euibossage, and the deep crimson curtains, with heavy fringes, fell in shadowy festoons, while four great plumes of feathers surmounted the corners in sepulchral grandeur. It stood upon a raised dais of three steps, and on the back, amid a wilderness of bassi-relievi, flowers, angels, satyrs, and ivy, appeared the coronet and gorgeous blazon of Clermistonlee. " I cannot sleep here, good woman," said Lilian, shudder- ing ; but the noise of the closing door, and the bolt jarring outside, was her only reply. She found herself alone. Her first impulse was to fasten her door within securely; her second to examine the chamber, by the light of the fire. In the deep little window stood a beautiful cabinet, on the upper THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE, 317 part; of wliicli were a mirror and all the usual appurtenances for a lady's toilet, but of the most costly and elegant descrip- tion, with all the perfumes, oils, essences, and lotions then most in vogue. She turned from them with disgust to survey the walls, for the fear of secret entrances was impressed powerfully upon her mind by her knowledge of the number that existed in her own home ; but, upon examination, she found nothing to increase her dread, save the cabinet, the doors of which were locked, and ^eturned an unusually hollow sound when she touched them. Alternately a prey to fear and indignation, she walked about the little apartment, or sat by the fire weeping and praying, until sleep began to oppress her ; and, unable longer to resist its effects, with an audible supplication to Heaven that the morrow might bring about her release, she threw herself (without undressing) on the bed, and almost imine- diately fell fast asleep. CHAPTEB ZLIL HOW CLERMISTONLEE PRESSED HIS SUIT. A strong dose of love is worse than one of ratafia ; when once it gets into pur heads it trips up our heels, and then good night to discretion. THE LYING VALET. FROM an uneasy slumber that had been disturbed by many a painful dream, Lilian started, awoke, and leaped from the bed. The embers of the night fire still smouldered on the Jiearth- stone, and the rays of the red sun rising above a gorge in the Corstorphine hills, radiated through her grated window as through a focus. Pressing her hands upon her temples, she endeavoured to collect the scattered images that had haunted her sleep. She had dreamt of Yv'aiter. He seemed to be present in that very chamber, to stand by her gloomy bed, and smiled kindly and fondly as of old. He bent over to kiss her, but, lo ! his features turned to those of Lord Olermistonlee ; the great tester-bed, with its plumage and canopy, became a hearse ; she screamed, and awoke to find it was aay. ISTow all her former feat* and indignation revived in full force, and she wept passionately. Reflecting how completely she was at the mercy of Clerinistonlee, whose character for reckless ferocity, and steady obstinacy of purpose, she knew too well ; she resolved to endure with patience, and await 818 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. with caution an opportunity for release or escape. How little she knew of what was acting in Edinburgh ! And her beloved kinswoman, so revered, so tender, and affectionate, but so aged and infirm. " O horror ! " exclaimed Lilian, wringing her hands, " this must have destroyed her." " Open, Madam Lilian," said the voice of Beatrix G-ilruth, as she knocked at the door ; " open, my lord awaits you at breakfast in the hall." Lilian hesitated; but aware that resistance would not better her fortune, with her usual frankness ran to the door, opened it, and despite the repulsive sternness of Gilruth's aspect, impelled by a sense of loneliness, and a wish to gain her friendship, she bade her good morning, and lightly touched her hand. Her air of innocence and candour im- pressed the misanthropic heart of Beatrix, and she smiled kindly. While leading her before the mirror to assist in arraying her for breakfast, the bosom of the unfortunate castaway could not repress a sigh, and a scanty tear trembled in either eye, as she writhed her withered fingers in the soft masses of Lilian's hair. " I will show thee, my bairn, what a braw busker I am," said Beatrix, "though 'tis long since these poor fingers have had aught to do with top-knots and fantanges." Resigned and careless of what was done with her, Lilian remained with a pale face of placid composure and grief, gazing unconsciously upon her own beautiful image as re- flected in the polished mirror ; and though she marked it not, there was a vivid and terrible contrast between her statue- like features, and those of her tirewoman keen, attenuated, and graven with the lines of sorrow, rage, bitterness, and misanthropy ; the true index of that storm of evil passions and resentful thoughts that smouldered in her heart. At length the captive was arrayed so far as the skill of Beatrix would go ; her dress (that in which she had left home) was long, flowing, and heavily flounced in the French fashion, derived from Albert Durer, who represented an angel in flounced petticoats expelling Adam and Eve from Paradise hence flounces were all the rage. She wore long and heavy ruffles of the richest lace, a string of pearls and amber was twisted among the bright braids of her beautiful hair; a diamond drop depended from each of her delicate ears, and a rich necklace, like a collar, with a pendant, encircled her neck, the whiteness and purity of which never appeared in greater splendour, than when contrasted with the faded skin of poor Beatrix. Passive under her hands, Lilian allowed THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 819 her great natural beauty to be thus dangerously enhanced, and when she stood up, her rather diminutive stature being increased by her high-heeled maroqum shoes, and the grace with which she wore her commode and floating flounces, caused the poor woman, whom so many fair ones had succes- sively supplanted, to utter an exclamation of delight. " Come," said she, " my lord awaits you ; how pleased he will be." " Oh, my G-od !** exclaimed Lilian, in deep anguish ; " and was it to please him you have thus arrayed and attired me. Fie upon thee, ill woman ! " " Here at least his bidding must be obeyed implicitly, as when a hundred of his men stabled their horses in the bar- bican stalls. He is a dangerous man, ninny, and never tholed thwarting, though the hour is coming when he shall thole bitter vengeance, and dree the deepest remorse. But I bide my time I bide my time." As she led Lilian into the hall, Clermistonlee advanced to receive her, with an imperturbable air of assurance, gallantry, and devotion. Through one of the deeply-recessed windows, the light of the morning sun fell full upon his noble face and figure, which the richness of his dress displayed to the utmost advantage. He wore an embroidered suit of light blue satin slashed with white : he had round his neck the gold collar of the thistle, and had over his left breast the green riband and oval badge of the order ; a diamond-hilted rapier sparkled in a baldrick that was stiff with gold embroidery ; his flowing peruke was redolent of perfume ; his ruffles were miracles of needlework, and his brilliant sleeve buttons flashed whenever his hands moved. Hateful as he was at all times to Lilian, now he was more so than ever ; surprise, indignation, fear, and contempt, agitated her by turns, and she gazed on him in painful sus- pense, awaiting his address. He had evidently made his toilette with more than usual care, and resolving to give Lilian no time for reproaches, he led her at once to a seat, saying, " My dear girl will no doubt be in a prodigious passion with me, but ladies are kindly disposed to forgive every little mistake that has love for its excuse. 'Tis but a dismal old peelhouse this, dear Lilian, but I hope you slept well. The wind sings in the corridors, the corbies scream on the roof, and all that, but with a clear conscience you know, oh, yes, one may dose like a top, or a lord of sessin. *' A clear sharp morning this ; I rode as far as Craigroyston before sunrise. There is nothing so improves one's com- 320 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIlfi. plexion as a gallop in the morning air. Apropos ! what do you think of this embroidered suit ? Tis the last fashion from Paris ; that old villain Saunders Snip, in the Craimes, brought it direct from thence last month. On a good figure it is quite calculated to make an impression. Look'ee, fair Lilian ; these ruffles cost me twenty guineas a pair, not a tester less, I assure you ; and the sleeve buttons are the first of their kind, and were made by Monsieur Biitong, the eminent Parisian jeweller, for that glorious fop, the Comte d'Artois, who pre- sented them to a friend of mine in the Scots Archers. " But this tie of my overlay, ha ! that is a contrivance of my own; graceful, is it notr exactly I knew you would think so. Droll, is it not, that our tastes should be the same ? You see, my dear girl, at what trouble I have been to please you. Smile again, dear Lilian," continued his lordship, whose overnight potations the morning ride had failed quite io dispel ; "by Heaven, you look divine ; where shall I find words to compliment the beauty of your appearance this morning ! " " You really seem to require all your verbosity for piaising yourself, my lord," said Lilian, coldly. " Now now, do not be so angry," said Clermistonlee, taking her hand in spite of all her efforts to prevent him. "I am justly so, my lord," replied Lilian, making a strong effort to restrain her tears under an aspect of firmness and determination. " By what right have you dared to bring me here and detain me prisoner ? " "Hoity, toity right, dear Lilian? the right of a most devoted lover." " My lord, you will be severely punished for this. The law " " Ha, ha ! Lilian, there is no law now, no order, morality, nor anything else. The world is turned upside down, (at least Britain is) revolutionized, bewildered, and the old days of battle and broil, reiving and rugging, have come back in all their glory. In this desperate game, my girl," he added, through his clenched teeth, " Clermistonlee must repair his fortune or be lost for ever ; but enough of this ; let us to breakfast, and then we will talk over matters that lie nearer our hearts. Nay, nay, no refusal breakfast you musl have." He led her towards the long hall-table, where, thanks to Juden's catering and ingenuity, a noble repast was laid, in the profuse style of ancient gourmandizing ; and the un- scrupulous factotum who stood near with a napkin under his arm, and a long corkscrew in his hand, surveyed Lilian with THE OOTTISH CAVALIES. something between a smirk and a leer, which was sufficient to increase the fear that oppressed, and the anger that swelled within her breast. She withdrew, saying, with a voice that trembled between indignation and apprehension, " Spare me this continued humiliation. Oh, my Lord Clermistonlee, if there remain within your breast, one spark of that bright spirit which ought ever to be the guiding-star of the noble and the gentleman, you will restore me to my home, to the only relative (save one) whom death has left m? in this wide world. Be generous, my lord," continued Lilian, touching his hand with charming frankness ; " oh, be generous, as I know you are brave and reckless. Restore me to my home, and I pledge my word you will never be questioned concerning my abduction. I will pass it over as a foolish but daring frolic. Hear me, my lord, in pity hear me." Clermistonlee trembled beneath her gentle touch ; but answered with his usual air of raillery, " Hoity, toity, little one ! art going to read me curtain lectures already ? My dear Lilian, it is too bad really ! The abduction ? Oh, the ardour of my love will be a sufficient excuse for that ; and as to being questioned I don't think any person will permit himself to question me, if he remem- bers that I am the best hand at pistol, rapier, and dagger, in broad Scotland. " Beside, dear Lilian, (why dost always shrink ? dost think, child, I am going to eat thee like a rascally ogre) if thou wouldst save thine honour," here his voice sank involuntarily into an impressive whisper, " become mine. Thou shouldst be well aware that after living in the power of one who is so tremendous a roue by habit and repute, no woman could go forth into the world without lying under suspicions of a very unpleasant nature. The roisters at Blair's coffee-house have got hold of the story, for it hath made a devil of a noise in the city, and in the mouths of the Bowhead gossips, and Bess- wynd scandal-mongers, our little affair will be quite a romance." This cruel speech, which was uttered with the utmost cool- ness and deliberation by Clermistonlee, who played the while with his gold sword-knot, came like ice upon the heart of the unhappy Lilian, who could not but secretly acknowledge that it was too true. She grew pale as death, and, unable to reply, gazed upon her tormentor with a look of such intense aversion, that he could not repress a haughty smile of astonish* ment. " Ha, ha ! for what do you take me P " II. T 322 THE SCOTTISH " For a monster ! " murmured Lilian, in a voice almost inarticulate. "Oh oh! you regard me as a poor sparrow doth a gerfalcon." " Alas ! " said Lilian, weeping as she sank into a seat, " the simile is but too true." "You are very unpolite, Madam Lilian; a gerfalcon is between the vulture and the hawk." Lilian answered only by her tears, and his lordship began to get a little provoked. " A devil of a breakfast this, my pretty moppet," he con- tinued, with an air of composure ; " when these vapours have passed away, peradventure you will condescend to hear my addresses meantime consider yourself quite at home, and for Heaven's sake (or rather your own), do take a share of such humble cheer as this my poor house of Clermiston affords." And without troubling her farther, he threw back the curls of his peruke, and attacked the devilled duck, the cold sirloin, and wassail-bowl of spiced ale, the smoking coffee and hot bannocks, forthwith. Within the recess of a window, reclined upon the cushion of one of those stone side-seats so common in old Scottish towers, Lilian sat with her face covered with her hands, and shaded by the masses of her fine hair which fell forward over her drooping head. The glory of the red morning sun streamed full upon her tresses and turned them to wreaths of gold. She seemed something etherially beautiful, and the sen- sual lord felt his heart beat with increased ardour as he gazed on her from time to time ; but aware, from old experience, that it was useless to press her to partake of his luxurious breakfast, he resolved to trouble her no more until the first paroxysm of her indignation had evaporated. Juden and Beatrix having finished their luggies of porridge and ale at the lower and uncovered part of the table, were now engaged, the former in making lures of feathers and raw meat to train two young hawks that sat near him on a perch, with their long lunes or leashes coiled round it ; and the latter, while affecting to occupy herself with some household matter, from the bay of an opposite window, watched with a keen, restless, and often malicious expression, the nonchalant lord and the unhappy Lilian, for whom, at times, she felt some- thing akin to pity, and fain would have set her at liberty ; but the keys of the tower-gates were buckled to Juden's girdle, and every window was closed by a grating like a strong iron harrow. In the faint hope of some rescue approaching, Lilian gazed THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE. 323 earnestly from the window she occupied. It faced the south, and overlooked the then dreary waste of Clermiston Lee, which, with all the undulating country extending to the base of the Pentlands, and that gigantic range, towering peak above peak, as they diminished in the western shire of Linlithgow, were covered with one universal mantle of dazzling snow. Afar off above the hills of Braid the level sun poured its red rays through a hazy sky across the desolate landscape ; the thickets, bare and leafless, stood like cypress groves in the waste; the dim winter smoke from many farm-house and cottage lum of clay, ascended in murky columns into the frosty air, but around the lonely tower on the Lee, there was an aspect of stillness and desolation that struck a chill upon Lilian's heart. Far off, on the Glasgow road, that passed the picturesque old church, the thatched hamlet and Foresters' Castle of Corstorphine, a strong square fortress flanked by round towers, a solitary traveller, muffled in his furred rocquelaure and leathern gambadoes, or grey maud and worsted galligaskins (according to his rank), spurred his horse towards the city ; but such occasional passers were all beyond the reach of Lilian. The bridle-road to the town was hidden, and not a foot-print stained the spotless mantle of the level Lee. At times a hare or fox shot across it, from the woods or rocks of Corstorphine, but no other living thing approached, and the heart of poor Lilian grew more and more sad as the dreary day wore on, and night once more approached. CHAPTER XLIIL CLAVEEHOUSE TO THE EESCUB. , The winter cold is past and gone, And now comes on the spring $ And I am one of the Scots Life Guards, And I must fight for the King. My dear ! And I must fight for him ! OLD SONG. ^ BY orders from William of Orange, who had taken posses sion of James's palace, and issued from thence his sounding declarations and imperial mandates, Goderdt de Ginckel, with the utmost expedition, marched the captured Scots towards London, where the Stadtholder (though he had not yet been crowned) was intent on revenging, by the lash and bullet, this signal instance of resistance to his authority. In conse* T2 324 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. quence of this event, he had the first " Mutiny Act " framed, but being an edict of the English parliament, it could in no way apply to Scottish troops. Aware of the esprit de corps and indomitable valour of the old musketeers, and fearful of revolt or rescue, De Ginckel sent Lieutenant Gavin, twenty other officers, and five hun- dred privates, in charge of Sir Marmaduke Langstone, direct to London, towards which place he marched the remainder by another route ; keeping near his person and under sure escort, Lord Dunbarton, Walter Fenton, Finland, and other officers, whose hostility of spirit was more undisguised than their comrades, De Ginckel advanced some miles in rear of the main body of his Black Horsemen. The earl was destined for the Tower of London ; Walter and his brothers in misfortune for the cells of Newgate. In every town and village through which they were marched, dense mobs of " the rascal multitude " attended and loaded them with every insult and opprobrium, such as the vulgar, the cruel, and the wicked are ever ready to hurl upon the fallen or the unfortunate. Marrowbones and cleavers were clattered around them ; effigies of King James, and a figure meant to represent a Scotchman, were carried or kicked along the streets before them, and, amid yells and hootings, warming- pans were everywhere displayed from the windows at their approach ; at that time a famous mode of insulting the Ja- cobites, being a palpable hit against the legitimacy of the young prince of Wales. " Fie upon the Scots ! Out upon thee, mon ! "No warm- ing-pan king ! William for ever, and down to hell with all Scots, papists, and massmongers! Hurrah!" yelled the rabble on every hand, while vollies of mud, stones, dead cats, &c., were showered on them from every hand. Meanwhile their Dutch escort rode on each side with the most phlegmatic indifference, every man seeming as if fast asleep in his volu- minous breeches and wide jack-boots. " Down with the race of Gog the soldiers of the priests of Baal ! " cried an old puritan ; " down with Scots Jemmy and liifci cursed Jesuits ! " Weak and exhausted l>y constant marching, lack of food and sleep, dispirited by misfortune, and disfigured by mud and their torn and soiled attire, in the captives no one could have recognized the dashing cavaliers who passed northward a day or two before. They had all been deprived of their horses and arms, and been robbed of everything of value their cuirasses, purses, rings, &c., by their guard. De Giiickel was as brutal and merciless as a Carrib Indian, and THE SCOTTISH CAVALlE.fi. 323 repeatedly struck the unfortunate cavaliers with his speaking- trumpet. " Ach Gott ! " he often cried to his Ruyters ; " if von ob de 1 brisoners escape, ye shall answer for him, body for body, b} cast ob dice on de kettle-trum-head ! " "My good comrades, and gallant gentlemen," said the earl of Dunbarton to the little group that marched around him, " were it not that I feel in my heart assured that an hour of vengeance and retribution will come, I would die of sheer spleen and mortification, for the insults we are compelled to put up with." " I pity these bluff-headed Saxon boors, because they know no better," replied Walter, staggering, as a stone struck him on the temple ; " but De Ginckel " " My dear fellow," said Finland, bitterly, " 'tis a sample of the good old southern hospitality and kindness of which we hear so much in romance, and so little in history." " But," continued Walter, " 1 despise these poppy -headed Dutch poltroons in their black iron doublets, and would risk my share of heaven to have De Ginckel under my hands on Scottish ground, with none to interfere, and no weapons but our rapiers and a case of good pistols." " You speak my thoughts," said the earl, through his clenched teeth. " My malediction on Langstone and his Red Dragoons. Had they and such as they been good men and true, we had not been reduced to this misfortune ; and our misguided king, instead of being a houseless fugitive, had dwelt in Windsor still, where now the usurping Stadtholder keeps court and council. Sirs, of a verity we live in strange times ! " As they had now crossed the !Nen, had left behind old Peterborough (with the hoary fane where St. Oswald's bony arm worked miracles of old), and were marching through the open country, being free from the yells and missiles of the mob, they could converse with tolerable freedom, though at times De Ginckel thundered silence through his trumpet, or a Swart Ruyter, more waggish or wickedly inclined than his soporific comrades, pushed his horse sidelong to tumble one of the captives among the half-frozen mud that encumbered the roadways. Their mortification and dejection increased at every step of their retrograde march, and even the lively sal- lies of Dr. Joram failed to enliven them. The sombre evening was closing, when De Ginckel, with his Ruyters and their captives, after traversing the fenny district between Cambridge and Lincoln, came in sight of Huntingdon, where, as Dr. Joram remarked, " the devil'f 326 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE. god-son, that prime rascal, old Noll, first drew breath." The dying light of the winter sun tipped the spires of the ancient town-hall and the church of All Saints, and glimmered on the sluggish windings of the Ouse. The prisoners were pursuing a lonely road : on one side lay a thick copsewood, and on the other one of those wide and desolate fens then subject to the inundations of the Ouse, whose waters in many places formed deep and solitary meres or tarns. Within the recesses of the wood, the quick eye of Walter had soon detected the glitter of arms, to which he drew the attention of the earl. "It matters not," replied the dejected noble, "no arms now glitter under James's standard; we are lost men, my dear lad. It will be black tidings for my little Lsetitia, when the accursed Tower of London holds the last lord of Dun- barton." " And what thinkest thou, Walter, our dear lassies will say when they hear we are in Newgate ? " asked Finland. " 'Twill be rare news for the Lord Clermistonlee," replied Walter, in a fierce whisper. " But look, gentlemen ! behold! In heaven's name, are these friends or foes ? " As he spoke, a troop of horse, clad in brilliant armour, with their white plumes waving in the evening wind, and their long uplifted rapiers flashing in the setting sun, and all gallantly mounted on matchless black horses, filed forth from the cop- pice, and drew up like magic on the roadway, about a hundred yards in advance of the Swart Ruyters, who instantly reined up. One cavalier, splendidly accoutred, rode to the front, wheeled round his snorting horse that pawed the air, and issued his orders with stern rapidity " Gentlemen of the Scottish Guard, prepare to charge ! Uncase the standards ! Sound trumpets ! " The banneroles were unfurled, the trumpets sounded, the kettle-drums ruffled, and each brave cavalier pressed forward in the saddle, as if impatient for the order to rush to the charge. " Ach tuyfel ! " shouted De Ginckel through his trumpet ; " Scots Horse der tuyfel ! Sabre de brisoners cut dem into de towsand becies ! Fall on, you Schelms ! " But there was no time. " 'Tis Claverhouse, and the remains of his regiment. I would know his black steed among a thousand horse ! " ex- claimed the earl. "Now God be with thee, thou gallant Grahame, for at last our hour of vengeance is come ! Oh for a sword ! How gallantly they formed line ! Now, now ! for- ward, my Scottish hearts ! " The dark eyes of the proud Douglas gleamed with fire, aa THE SCOTTISH CAVALIES. 327 tlie deep and distinct order, " Cavaliers of the Life Guard- forward ! charge ! " burst from the lips of Dundee ; and with the force of a whirlwind, the sixty Scottish Guardsmen, bridle to bridle and boot to boot, rushed with their uplifted swords to the onset. " Unsling carbines blow matches fire ! tousand tuyfels ! no ! traw sworts ! " bellowed De Ginckel through his trum- pet, as the front rank of his Ruyters recoiled in confusion on the rear. " Gentlemen, prepare to save yourselves !" exclaimed the earl of Dunbarton, as the Dutch troopers cast off the cords that bound the prisoners to their waiut-belts. " Heaven save us !" ejaculated Dr. Joram j " 'tis a perilous case this, truly !" " To the rescue, Claverhouse ! A Grahame ! A Grahame ! God for Scotland and James VII. ! To the devil with the Stadtholder ! hurrah!" cried the Life Guards. It was a critical moment for the dismounted prisoners, who were hemmed in among the hostile horsemen, and each felt his heart beat like lightning, and his breath come thick and fast, for death or deliverance were at hand. Between the close files of the Swart Ruyters, Walter Fen- ton saw the full rush of the advancing troop, in their shining harness, and chief of all, the lordly viscount of Dundee, a lance-length in front, with his sword brandished aloft, and his white ostrich-feathers streaming behind him, his cheek glowing, and his wild dark eyes flashing with that super- natural brightness which was the true index of his fierce and heroic spirit. Though the Dutch were as four to one, the Scottish cavaliers were fearless. There was a tremendous shock a flashing of swords, as their keen edges rang on the tempered helmets and corslets of proof a furious spurring of horses and Walter felt himself beaten to the earth, as if by the force of 'a thunderbolt ; the light left his eyes, and he heard the voice of Claverhouse ex- claiming enthusiastically " Well done, my Scots' Life Guard ! Well done, my berry- brown blades !" " Come on, De Ginckel !" cried Holsterlee. " Hand to hand, old gorbelly. Come on ! for here are the hand and sword that shall punch a hole in thine earl's patent !" A heavy hoof struck the head of Walter, as a horse plunged over him, and the Dutch recoiled in utter confusion. He remembered no more. Hewn down by the long swords of the Ruyters, poor old Wemyss and Halbert Elshender lay dead beside him. 328 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIKB. CHAPTER XLIV. THE SECEET STATE. Chloris ! since first our calm of peace Was frighted hence, this good we find, Your favours with your fears increase, And growing mischiefs make you kind. EDMUND WALLER. HEAVILY and slowly passed the cloudy winter day at Cler miston, and evening found Lilian seated, full of tears and misery, by the great fire that rumbled in the arched chimney, and threw a ruddy glow on the rough architecture of the ancient hall. According to old etiquette, there were but two chairs, one for the lord of the manor and the other for his lady ; the additional seats were mere stools. Lilian occupied one of thtse chairs, and her suitor the other. On one of the stone benches within the ingle sat Juden Stenton, still trim- ming hawks' lures ; opposite was Beatrix, spinning with all the assiduity of Arachne. These from time to time regarded her with furtive glances, which roused her anger not less than the presence and odious attentions of their lord did her appre- hension. She felt a load accumulating on her breast, as the night wore on; anxiety was impairing her strength and weakening her fortitude, and whenever Clermistonlee ad- dressed her, she answered only by tears. Touched at last by her sorrow, a sentiment of generosity at times would prompt him to return her to her home ; but other thoughts came with greater power, and the momentary weakness was immediately dismissed. " Psha !" thought he ; " 'tis only a woman." Sitting close by her, he spoke from time to time in a low voice ; and the scorn, malice, and jealousy which lighted up the keen grey eyes and pinched features of the fallen and for- gotten Beatrix on these occasions, filled the gentle Lilian with a horror and pity which she could not conceal. The presence of this unfortunate woman, who, with the indefatigable Juden, formed now his entire household, was a curb for the present on the vivacity of his lordship's passion, and seemed to re- strain it within the decorous bounds of gentle whispering. He oon tired of that, and ordering supper to be laid, took advan- tage of the domestics' absence to draw his chair still nearer Lilian, and take her hands within his own. She was so humbled, so gentle and broken in spirit, that she permitted THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER, 329 them to remain, and the passiveness of tlie action made the heart of Clermistonlee glow with additional ardour. " She loves me in secret," thought he ; " but how charming is her coyness how enchanting her modesty ! My dear Lilian " " My lord, oh cease to persecute me thus. What wrong have I done you ? In what have I offended, that you should make me so utterly miserable P" " What a soft, low, charming voice ! Does it offend you, to hear the sighs of the most honourable love that ever warmed a human heart P" " This is the mere cant of love-making flirtation the phrases you have addressed to hundreds. My lord, I know their full value, and despise them. 'Tis enough ! I can have no love for you." "Indeed !" " None so for heaven's sake spare me more of this humilia* tion, and let me begone to the house of Bruntisfield." " Now what strange infatuation is this ? No love for me P" mused the egotist. " Why, damsel, when I was in London with Charles, all the women were mad about me I was quite the rage. Rochester and I led the way in everything. But that was before Bothwell Brig." He glanced at a veSed pic- ture that often attracted his eye, and disturbed the current of his thoughts. " No love for me!" he resumed, after a pause. " My pretty one, does my zeal offend you P" " Like your flattery, it does ; and my captivity here a captivity which, I fear, will ever be a stain upon my honour, makes me abhor you." " Abhor ? Oh ! 'tis a word never said to me before. Pro- voking Lilian! But, "he added, maliciously, "you are right your honour is lost, and there is only one way to redeem it/. She gave him a momentary glance of inquiry and disdain. Clermistonlee drew a ring from his finger. Lilian started back. " Never never ! death were better." " Hah then you are still thinking of him this beggarly boy this nameless soldier this so-named Fenton. 'Tis a cursed infatuation, madam ; for doubtless, soldierlike he will forget you, while the flower of your youth is wasted in fruit- less reliance on his constancy and advancement to honour and fortune." "Forget me?" reiterated Lilian, raising her bright blue eyes to the speaker. " Oh no, he never will forget me ! Dear, dear Walter," she added, weeping bitterly j " I know thy worth and truth too well to lose my own." 330 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. " He will forget thee," said Clermistonlee, angrily. " Never !" replied Lilian, energetically clasping her hands. " In the busy city, and on the lonely hills, in the hour of battle and storm by sea and land, he will ever think of me ever, ever !" "But he may be slain?" said the lord, maliciously. " Cruel cruel !" " What then hah ?" " No second choice would ever make me violate the solemn vow I pledged to him that plight which I called on heaven to witness and angels to register." Clermistonlee made no reply, but her fervour and her words stung him to the soul ; her eyes sparkled and her usually pale cheek glowed ; but he knew that it was for the love and by the recollection of another ; his first thoughts were those of wrath ; his second spleen and sorrow. He arose and stepped aside a little. " Unfortunate that I am !" said he, with something of sad- ness and real love in his tone and manner. " By what witch- craft am I so hateful to her ; but I must quit her presence for a time at least, or lose all hope of her favour for ever." He walked to and fro, while Lilian, resigned again to tears, covered her face with her handkerchief. " Beatrix," said Clermistonlee, in a fierce whisper to the shrinking woman, as she laid supper on the long dark oaken board, over which six tall waxen candles flared from a great iron candelabrum. " Beatrix Gilruth hear me, old shrivel- skin ! Hast never a love-philtre about thee ? Ere now I have known thee to my own cost use such things." She gave a keen and fierce glance with her sunken eyes, and drawing him into one of the deeply-bayed windows, pointed to where the square keep and round towers of the castle of Corstorphine threw a long dark shadow across the frozen lake that, like a mirror before its gates, lay shining in the cold light of the winter moon. " You see yonder castle P" she said. "Yes." " And the aged sycamore beside the dovecot-tower P" "Yes yes." " Then remember how, nine years ago, the lord of that fair mansion perished under its shadow; and how his own good rapier, urged by the hand of the woman he had wronged, was driven yea, to the very hilt in his false and fickle heart. Often at mirk midnight have I seen the dead-light glimmer- ing on his tomb in St. John's kirk, and illuminating the west window of the Foresters' aisle." THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEK. 331 She gave him a glance so expressive of hatred, fear, con- tempt, and reproach, that he almost quailed beneath it ; and as she pointed to the veiled portrait, he turned abruptly away. Her words and allusion had evidently a deep effect on Clermistonlee. He was about to retire, but paused irreso- lutely, turned, and paused again. Then kissing Lilian's hand, he said in a gentle tone " Forgive me if I have offended, but love for you makes me perhaps act unwisely. Adieu, dear Lilian : if my presence is obnoxious, I hasten to relieve you of it. Till to-morrow, adieu ; and pleasant dreams to you." He bowed profoundly, and retired to his own apartment followed by Juden, who kept close to his heels, as a spaniel would have done. " Will you not sup, Madam Lilian ? " asked Beatrix in a kinder tone than usual. " Sup oh, no ! " " Bethink you, lady ; the whole day hath passed, and you have tasted nothing but a posset of milk with a little sack. Still weeping ! 'Twas so with me once ; but I shall never weep again, until I have wrung tears of blood from my betrayer." " Now you are going to frighten me again. A light, if it please you, good woman ; I wfll retire. Another night under his roof'! My poor aunt Grizel .... how bad, how wicked is this ! " " My lord desired me to ask if you wished to read a little : it may compose your mind." " Oh, yes ! a thousand thanks, kind Beatrix. Bring me a Bible, if you have one." Beatrix laughed. " A Bible ! when was one last seen in the tower of Cler- miston P JSTot since the days of auld Mess John, I warrant ; and his was torn up by the troopers for cartridges. There is nothing here but a rowth of evil play and jest books, and some anent hawking, hunting, and farriery ; and others, my bairn, that suit only women like me." " Poor Beatrix ! " said Lilian kindly, touching her hand, for the exceeding humility of her manner raised all her pity. Beatrix surveyed her for a moment, with a troubled and dubious expression. Seldom was it that a word of compassion or commiseration fell upon her ear. Her heart was touched ; a moisture suffused her eyes ; but fearing to betray her feel- ings through the outward aspect of moroseness and misan- thropy she had assumed, she set a light upon the cabinet of the bedchamber, and hurried away. 332 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIBB. Again, as on tlie preceding night, Lilian fastened the door ; and though the number and complication of its ancient iron locks somewhat reassured her, her heart sank when she sur- veyed the great gloomy tester-bed, with its dais, its solemn plumage and festooned canopy the sombre wainscoting, and well-barred window, past wnich the changing clouds were hurrying in scudding masses, alternately obscuring and re- vealing stars. Kneeling at a chair near the fire, she prayed long and fervently, and, with innocent confidence, arose more assured and courageous, though aware that, by anxiety, want of food and rest, her natural strength and spirit were greatly impaired. A folio volume lay upon the cabinet; it was covered with purple velvet, on which a coat-of-arms and these words were exquisitely embroidered : " Alison, Lady Cler- mistonlee, on her marriage-day, ye penult Maij, 1668." The hand of her tormentor's unhappy wife had probably worked these words : all the dark and mysterious stories con- cerning her misfortunes and her fate came crowding upon the mind of Lilian, and filled her with melancholy forebodings. Perhaps, thought she, this was her chamber, and that her bed, where often she had wept away the dreary night in un- seen and unregarded sorrow. Full of mournful interest, she unclasped and opened the volume. It was the Bentivolio and Urania of Kathaniel Ingelo, one of the prosy and meta- phorical romances of the seventeenth century. The first words arrested her, and she read on : " He was no sooner entered within the borders of the for- lorn kingdom of Ate, than the unhealthfulness of the air had almost choked his vital spirits ; and being removed from the gladsome sun by a chain of hills, that lifted up their heads so high that they intercepted the least glance of his comfortable beams : it was dark and rueful. He chanced to light upon a path that led to Ate's house, which was encompassed with the pitchy shade of cypresse and ebon-trees, so that it looked like the region of death. As he walked, he perceived the hollow pavement made with the skulls of murdered wretches. At the further end of this dismal walk he espied a court, whose gates stand open day and night ; in the midst whereof waa placed the image of cruelty, with a cup of poyson in one hand, and a dagger wet with reeking bloode in the other. Her hairs crawled up and down her neck, and sometimes wreathed about her head in knots of snakes ; fire all the while sparkling from her mouth and eyes . . . ." This dismal passage in no way tended to alleviate the per- turbation of her spirits ; and hastily closing the volume, she prepared to retire. Aware that proper rwaose was absolutely THE SCOTTISH CAVA*,*B. 333 necessary to enable her to sustain ail she might have to en- re u.uter or endure from Clermistonlee, remembering the apparent security of her apartment, and somewhat reassured by the cheerful blaze thrown by the fire upon the dark brown panelling and high old-fashioned bed, she slowly and reluct- antly began to undress, often pausing to re-examine her room ; but perceiving nothing more to alarm her, gathering up the bright tresses of her hair into a caul, she unrobed and sprang into bed. The sleep and the heaviness that preyed upon her now completely evaporated : and more awake than ever, she felt only the keenest sensations of fear, and her prevailing horror was Clermistonlee. By the light of the wood fire, that poured its broad blaze up the massive stone chimney, she surveyed the room with watchful eyes, that ached from the very intensity of their gaze, and the shadows of the carved posts seemed like those of giants thrown against the panelled wall. Weariness overcame her, and she was about to drop asleep, when a sound was heard, and one of the doors of the cabinet rattled and opened ; a cold wind blew upon her face ; and by her recumbent position, she beheld a steep staircase winding away down into darkness she knew not where, between the masonry of the massive wall. She would have screamed, but terror chained her tongue ; and almost fainting, and afraid to move or breathe, she continued to regard it with the most painful anguish and intense alarm. But up that dark and mysterious outlet, so suddenly disclosed, no sound came but the night wind, which moved the oak-door of the cabinet mournfully to and fro. Lilian's strength seemed utterly to have left her ; and, though painfully anxious to learn the secrets of this staircase, which communicated so immediately with her bedchamber, she lacked equally strength to rise, and presence of mind to examine it. But the current of air that swayed the door to and fro, closed it ; the sound rumbled away in the far echoes of the tower, and all became still. Now more alarmed by the re- flection that she was sleeping in this remote room alone, with a secret entrance, she bitterly regretted her imprudence in undressing, but had not the courage to rise and repair what a certain prophetic apprehension made her fear had been very unwise. Excessive lassitude at last completely overcame her, and she slumbered. 334 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB, CHAPTEE XLV. THE ATTEMPT. Once in a lone and secret hour of night, When every eye was closed, and the pale moon And stars alone shone conscious of the theft, Hot with the Tuscan grape, and high in blood, Haply I stole unheeded to her chamber. FAIR PENITENT. WHEN Clermistonlee retired from the hall to the study or parlour, which was the only comfortably-furnished apartment in the dreary old tower, he resigned himself to reflection, and sipping his mulled sack, a great tankard of which Juden placed unbidden, and quite as a matter of course, at his elbow. His thoughts at first ran in the usual channel, a determina- tion to possess Lilian, from the double incentives of passion and pecuniary necessity. He was on the brink of ruin ; and her property, or expectations of it, were ample and noble. She was very unprotected ; the land was convulsed and trembling on the verge of a great civil war, though as yet no tidings had reached Edinburgh of what was passing in Eng- land ; and so, as the sack diminished in the tankard, his lordship's thoughts became in proportion more strange, more amorous, and confused. His brain wandered. He was rest- less and uneasy ; his flowing dressing-gown seemed to fit him like a horse-hair shirt ; and his disturbed manner was not unobserved by his faithful and subservient factotum. The latter attempted some consolation, after his fashion ; but it was not palatable. " Begone to the bartizan ! " exclaimed his master, angrily, " and bring me instant tidings if anything seems astir in the country about us. I expect news from the city hourly. Leave me." Juden vanished. " The deevil tak' lovers and lords ! " he muttered, as he drew his broad worsted bonnet over his cross visage, and ascended to the bartizan of the tower, and setting his teeth hard, as he faced the keen north wind, took a survey of the dreary and snow-covered landscape. On the passing wind ten o'clock came sullenly from the spire of St. John of Cor- stprphine ; then all was deathly still, save the sough of the winter breeze as it swept over the dreary lee, and whistled through the open corbels of the projecting tower. THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEK. 335 Juden liad no particular fancy for enacting the part of warder in so cold a night, and after taking a rapid survey of the extensive waste, he was about to descend again, when an unusual redness in the sky to the eastward arrested him. It rose in -the direction of the city, and resembled the lurid and wavering glow of a great conflagration. The red blaze was rapidly spreading and crimsoning the edges of the dusky clouds above, and throwing forward in strong relief the southern edge of the Corstorphine Hills, and the dark pines that shaded them. Astonished, perplexed, and alarmed, Juden continued to gaze in the direction of the light, until a loud holla startled him, and he perceived a man on horse- back close to the foot of the tower. " Ho !" cried Juden through his hand, for the wind blew keen and high. " What want ye, friend ?" " Ko a night's lodging, or I wadna come here," answered the other testily. " Closed gates and dark windows betoken cauld cheer and a caulder ingle." " Beware o' your tongue, friend," replied the butler from aloft. " Langer lugs than yours hae been nailed to the tower yett. You have come frae Edinburgh, I warrant ?" " Troth have I, on the spur, man, so open the yett, Juden Stenton." " What's a' the steer there this night P" " Gif you had been there ye wad ken," responded the other with sulky importance. " I bear a letter for my Lord Clermistonlee on the king's service, which king Gude kens and the deil cares." " Thir are kittle times, friend," replied the butler, warily ; " so if King James himsel' came to the peel o' Clermiston this mirk night, not a bolt would be drawn, or a lock undone. Tie the letter to this twine, gossip, and sae gang your way in peace." Rendered cautious by the nature of the times, and by being constantly on the alert against force and treachery, the wary old servitor lowered over the wall a string, to which after sundry curses the horseman tied a letter, and Juden towed it up, " hand over hand." " 111 folk are aye feared," said the stranger ; " and I doubt there are but few clear consciences in Clermistonlee. My horse is sair forfoughton wi* my ride frae the West-port ; he fell at the Foulbrigs, and was nigh swept awa, when fording the Leith doon by there ; but I maun een ride on to his honour the laird o' Niddry without a stirrup cup or a ' God save ye. Out upon Clermiston and its ill-mannered loons!" and 336 THE SCOTTISH CA dashing spurs into his horse, the servant galloped at a hunting pace away to the westward, and disappeared among the hollows at the verge of the Lee. Anxious to learn the contents of a letter in which he doubted not he had as much interest as his lord, Juden hurried down the corkscrew stair from the bartizan, and re- pairing to the little study where his half-muddled master was gazing dreamily into the fire, and imbibing his sixth cup of sack, he placed the little square billet before him. Clermis- tonlee tore it open, and read hurriedly, " Dear Gossip, " A glorious revolution hath been accomplished, (and I am just drinking to its success in sugared brandy), but Satan seems to have broken loose in the city, whilk the rascal sort hath fired in six different places. The acts of estate and council are mere nullities. Your presence is required by the council anent ane address to the new king. We are to have a grand onslaught to-morrow against Baal's prophets, the host of Pharaoh, and a' that, ye ken. " Yrs. at service, " MEESINGTON." " Postscriptum. Keep the bonnie bird in the cage close ; her kinsman Napier hath been slain by young Fenton, and ye know how the entail stands. Yale ! King William the Second of Scotland for ever!" Clermistonlee's first impulse was to start up and buckle on his sword, exclaiming, " My gambadoes, Juden ; the red leather ones saddle Meg, and, peril of thy life, look well to but no no ! I will not. Thou mayest go to the devil, Mersington, with thy drunken scrawl, the address, and the council to boot. I leave not Clermiston to-night. Napier slain and by Fenton! By George, how the plot is thickening ! 'Tis glorious. Juden, don your shabble, and ride to the city ; tell my gossip Mersington in the matter pending, mark me, knave ! in the matter pending to use my name as he shall deem fitting." Juden replied by a leer of deep cunning (for he too was something of a politician), and, animated by an intense curiosity to know what was acting in the city, hurried away, and in ten minutes had left far behind him the dreary tower and frozen muir, above which its dark outline reared like that of a spectre. As the fumes of the wine mounted upward, the heated imagination and inflamed passions of Clermistonlee got com- THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE. 337 pietely tlie better of his senses. Thoughts of Lilian's beauty and helplessness came vividly before him ; but such reflections instead of kindling his pity, roused all his passion for her tc an ungovernable height. Draining a cup of brandy to make him yet more reckless of consequences, and snatching a candle, he staggered from the room, and descended the narrow stone stair that led from his apartment. He knew that he was alone, for Beatrix was under lock and key ; yet he stepped with singular caution. Every stone in the rough walls seemed a grotesque face, regarding him with mockery and wrath ; he saw a figure in every shadow, heard a step in every whistle of the midnight wind. He dared not look at portraits as he passed, lest their eyes might seem to move ; and thus, though the entire consciousness of his dark intent came broadly and appallingly home to his heart, such was the influence of his ungoverned passions that a spirit of the merest obstinacy urged him to finish what he in part commenced, arid the high pulsations of his heart increased at every step which brought him nearer to the chamber of hia victim. He entered the hall. The feeble rays of his upheld candle seemed only to reveal the size and darkness of the place, and the grey winter twilight that struggled through its thickly grated and deeply-arched windows. The embers of the fire still smouldered on the hearth, and, reddening when the hollow wind rumbled down the wide chimney, threw the shadows of the great oaken table, the dark grotesque cabinets and highbacked chairs in long and frightful figures on the paved floor. Entering the almonry, he opened a door, within it, which revealed a narrow passage in the wall that communicated with the secret outlets of the place, and led directly to the cabinet in Lilian's room. He stood within it, and the warmth of its atmosphere in- creased the ferment of his blood. Unconscious of the proximity of so dangerous a visitor, the innocent girl slept soundly, but lightly. Shading the light with his hand, he gazed impatiently up .m the slumbering beauty. Her hair, which overnight she had put up with the care- lessness so natural to grief, had now escaped from the caul, and rolled over the pillow in masses that glittered like gold in the rays of the uncertain light. She was very pale, but a slight glow began to redden her cheek, and it was graced with a smile of inexpressible sweetness. Twice he approached, and twice drew back irresolute. S28 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE. An unseen hand seeme d to restrain him ; the air of perfect innocence pervading the presence of the sleeping girl pro- tected her for a time ; and scarcely daring to breathe, the intruder continued to gaze upon her. She slept softly. At last, tears fell over her cheeks, and she tenderly murmured " Dear Walter, have I not said that I love you?" Clermistonlee, on whose bent-down cheek her soft breath came, started at these words as if a serpent had stung him. One of those fierce, malicious, and scornful smiles, which so often imparted to his handsome features a fiendish expression, contracted them but for a moment ; another of intense sadness and languor replaced it. At that instant, unable longer to restrain himself, he clasped her in his arms. " Lilian !" he exclaimed, " dear Lilian, be not alarmed it is I." A piercing shriek, that startled the furthest recesses of the old and desolate tower, burst from the lips of Lilian ; it was one of those deep and wailing cries of pain and horror which, when once heard, are never K>rgot. " Villain, unhand me ! Oh ! spare me, my lord spare me for the love of God !" " Be calm, Lilian why should you fear me ? Do I not adore you ? Yes ; I prize your love beyond the possession ot life. Dear girl, look not on me thus. I am the most devoted of lovers, and bythil kiss, dearest d nation !" He attempted to kiss her ; but, endued with new strength by rage and fear, her little hands clutched fiercely his thick moustaches, and twisted his head aside, as she had done once before so effectually. "Hear me!" he continued, "hear me, sweet Lilian; I came but to say that I loved thee ." " Love me ! oh ! horror ! leave me, or I shall expire leave me !" At that moment a loud explosion, followed by the fanfare of trumpets and the ruffling of kettle-drums beneath the walls of the tower, arrested all the faculties of Clermistonlee, and by throwing his thoughts into another channel, covered him with shame ; and he started back, the image of astonishment and irresolution. JSTot so Lilian ; her presence of mind was instantly restored. Springing to a window, and fearlessly dashing her hands through the panes of glass, she cried in agonized accents " Help ! help ! for the love of the blessed God ! Help me, or I perish!" " Lilian ! Lilian !" cried a voice that filled her with transport* It was that of Walter Fenton. THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. A glance sufficed to show her a gallant troop of horse haltec beneath the tower in the grey morning twilight. Again she would have spoken, but the strong hand of Clermistonlee dragged her furiously back into the apartment. CHAPTEE XLVL EDINBURGH THE NIGHT OF THE REVOLUTION. Meanwhile, regardless of the royal cause, His sword for James no brother sov'reign draws. The Pope himself, surrounded with alarms, To France his bulls, to Corfu sends his arms j And though he hears his darling son's complaint, Can hardly spare one tutelary saint. TICKBLL, Edit. 1749. FROM the hour in which Lilian had been torn from her, the aged Lady Grizel had never raised her head. Affection and horror, wrath and insulted pride, had all aggravated to the utmost the weakness and debility consequent to exceeding old age ; and by her weeping domestics the venerable dame was borne to her great chair in the chamber-of-dais, where she remained long insensible to all that passed around her. The storm and hurry of political events employed otherwise Sir Thomas Daly el and those friends who might have served her in this dilemma; and now she found herself quite deserted. Syme, the baillie, and the whole male population of the barOny, had fruitlessly searched the Burghmuir for the re- mainder of the night and morning ; but, for reasons which will shortly be apparent, any application to the privy council or magistrates of Edinburgh would have been utterly futile, as their attention was amply occupied by more important matters than the abduction of a girl. Long fits of stupor, succeeded by querulous bursts of pas- sion, left the poor old lady so weak, that, as Elsie related to Sir Thomas of Binns, " between the night and morning, she cried on Sir Archibald to save her doo Lilian ; and then she just soughed awa like a blink o' the sunshine, and lay back under her canopy in the chaumer-o'-deese, a comely corpse to see as ever was streekit." The old lady did not die, however, but recovered her sensel/ by having a pistol fired at her ear by the rough old Muscovite trooper, " a cure for the vapours, whilk," he said, " he had often seen practised on Samoieda." As before related, in consequence of the vigilance of Sir z2 340 THE SC01TISH CAVALIEE. James Montgomerie, the privy council and people of Scotland had been kept for several weeks in a state of painful uncer- tainty as to the fate of James's affairs in England ; but a letter from Lord Dundee reached the Scottish ministry, expressive of apprehensions for the issue of a conflict between the troops of the king and those of his invader. To ascertain the true aspect of affairs, they despatched into England a man named Brand, a baillie of Edinburgh, who basely betrayed his trust by carrying his despatches straight to the prince of Orange, to whom he was introduced by Dr. Burnet. On Craigdarroch's arrival at the Scottish capital, and others with similar tidings of the desertion and dissolution of the army, the flight of James, and success of William, the long threatening storm burst forth in all its fury. Scotland at that time swarmed with brave and hardy soldiers, skilful officers, ruined barons, and desperate vassals the veterans of the covenant, and the endless wars of Sweden, France, and Flanders ; thus, ingloriously as the campaign had passed over in the south, a cloud was gathering on the Highland hills, that threatened to descend, as of yore, in wrath and blood on the fertile Lowlands. Infuriated by the severities of what was called the "twenty- eight years' persecution," the Lowland population were ripe for armed revolt, and the capital, to which they flocked in overwhelming masses, became the grand centre of their operations, and the scene of newer atrocities. The greatest outrages were committed upon the persons and property of those unhappy catholics, episcopalians, and cavaliers, who fell into the hands of this wild mob. Perth, the lord chancellor, fled ; the j>rivy council, which had been severe to the nation, in proportion as it was servile to James, despatched an immediate address to William, and none were more cordial in their offers of dutiful service than Provost Prince, and the worthy council of Edinburgh ; those very men who had so lately declared to the unfortunate Stuart, that they " would stand by his sacred person on alJ occasions." Now they were equally prompt in offers to his dethroner, to whom they complained bitterly " of the hellish attempts of Romish incendiaries, and of the just grievances of all men, relating to conscience, liberty, and property." For three days the capital was in the power of a mad and lawless rabble, who, rendered furious by bigotry and intoxication, committed the most dreadful atrocities. The houses of all who were obnoxious to them were plun- dered and given to the flames, and all effects of value were THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. 341 scattered in the streets. There were episodes of horror ensued such as Edinburgh had never witnessed before. The streets were filled with the smoke of burning houses ; the air was sheeted with flame ; the shrieks of the perishing inmates, the howls of their destroyers, and the crash of falling masonry, rang night and day. The college of the Jesuits was levelled to the dust ; crosses and relics, statues, pictures, and vest- ments were borne aloft through the streets, and consigned to the flames amid yells of derision. The ale and wine found in the cellars of the cavaliers in flamed the inborn savagism of the multitude, who were urged by their ministers to commit a thousand nameless atrocities. For three days they continued in a state of perfect intoxica- tion (says Lord Balcarris in his "Memoirs"), and in open daylight, in the crowded streets of the city, committed upon the persons of many catholic ladies such outrages as cannot be written, and " without any attempt being made by the authorities to restrain such brutality." (Pp. 22, 27.) Of all the members of the old government, none was more obnoxious to the people than Sir George Mackenzie, of Hose- haugh, the celebrated lawyer and essayist, who had rendered himself an object of intense hatred by the severity with which he had stretched the criminal laws to answer the views of the government ; and who, in his office of public prose- cutor, had obtained the unenviable soubriquet of " the per- secutor of God's saints," "the blood-thirsty advocate," " bluidy Mackenzie ;" and to this hour his vaulted mausoleum at Edinburgh is regarded with hatred and loathing by the old Cameronians and "true-blue" presbyterians. His mansion in Rosehaugh-close was soon made the object of attack. The night of the third day had closed over the city, and still the scene of tumult and frenzy, the din and the flames of destruction loaded the air with sounds of horror and outrage. In great anxiety for his personal safety, the unhappy states- man heard with no ordinary perturbation the increasing roar of sounds, like the chafing of a distant sea ; the mingling of a myriad human voices, and the rush of feet, which betokened the approach of a vast mob. With drums beating before them, and armed with various weapons, the thousand bright points of which gleamed in the lurid blaze of the uplifted torches, a dense mass of ragged, squalid, and insane-looking men, poured like a human flood into the deep and narrow alley, at the foot of which still stands the house of Rosehaugh. iWrimed with smoke and filth, maddened by intoxication and excess, their yells, as thej 342 THE SCOTTISH CAVALI2B. resounded between the solid walls of the narrow street, rang like those of fiends from some deep abyss, and the heart of Mackenzie died away within him. To appeal to their pity would be like craving mercy from the waves of an angry ocean ; there was no escape, no remedy, no bribe, no hope ; for among that terrible mob were the fathers, the sons, the brothers yea, and the mothers of those who at his instance had perished in thousands, by the sword, by the torture, and the gibbet, or were lingering out a miserable existence as slaves and bondsmen in the distant Indies. " My God ! my God ! for what am I reserved ?" he ex- claimed, as from a lofty upper window he surveyed the dense mass of madmen, who, wedged in the alley below, impeded each other's motions. Conspicuous above all, raised on the shoulders of two strong men, whose arms and faces were smeared with blood and blackness, there was upborne a man, whose sad-coloured garments and white bands announced him a preacher; his gaunt visage and long hair of raven hue waving around a face ghastly, though flushed with passion, his large hazel eyes glowing like those of a tiger, his upraised hands clenching one a Bible, and the other a broadsword, declared him a wild enthusiast (another " Habakuk Muckle- wrath"). It was Ichabod Bummel, who had escaped from the damp vaults of the wave-beaten Bass, and had now come to take vengeance on Mackenzie for his exile, his captivity, his crushed bones, and long persecution. " Come forth, Achan, thou troubler of Israel ! " he shrieked; " come forth, thou destroyer of the good and just, thou per- secutor of the saints of God ! come forth, thou thing that art accursed, or we will burn thee in the ruins of thy dwelling, and salt them with salt. Courage, my brethren ! Oh, is not this a brave hour and a glorious one ? For lo, the time is come when the host of Pharaoh shall be discomfited and striken as of old. Achan, thou persecutor of the covenanted kirk, behold me towering amid Baal's prophets, four hundred and fifty men, as the book saith ! " This rhapsody was responded to with yells of ardour, and the din of hammers rang like thunder against the strong oaken door of the mansion, while many bullets were dis- charged at the windows, which were securely grated. A door of massive oak closed the entrance of the turnpike stair, and though the whole house resounded under the energy of the blows, the barrier refused to yield, though gradually it was falling in splinters, a process too slow to suit the fierce impatience of the increasing mob. THE SCOTTISH CATALIER. 343 & Let flu be brought," cried Ichabod, " let the mansion be consumed, tJat its flames may be as a light to the house of Judah. Kno\?, O thou persecutor of God's covenanted saints, that a sword is this night upon the inhabitants of Babylon, and upon her princes, and her mighty men ; for it is the load of graven images, anof they are mad upon their idols." Urged by this blasphemous application of Scripture, burn- ing brands were heaped by the people against the door, and soon the increased yells of satisfaction announced to the miserable advocate that the barrier was rapidly giving way, and that in another moment the reeking hands of the de- stroyers would be upon him. He threw round a glance of agony, the barred windows denied all hope of escape, and now his stern soul sank at the prospect of a cruel and immediate death, when lo ! one tremendous yell of another import brought him once more to the shattered windows. " It is a dream !" he exclaimed. A troop of the Hoyal Life Guards, with their bright arms flashing in the light of the waving torches, were hewing and treading down the mob like a field of rye ; and chief above all shone one cavalier it was Dundee the gallant, the terrible Claver'se, that man-fiend, whom all deemed six hundred miles away. There was no mistaking the splendour of his armour, the nobility of his air, the ferocity of his purpose. " Close up fall on, gentlemen ; no quarter to the knaves !" he exclaimed, while, standing erect in his stirrups, he showered his blows on every side, his white plumes rising and falling in nnison with his trenchant rapier. " Hey for King James ! Ho for the cavaliers ! Down with the rebels down with the whigamores !" cried Holsterlee and others, as they pressed forward, and the rabble grovelled in the dust beneath the tremendous rush of the heavy horses, and their riders in steel and buff. In a minute the narrow alley was cleared of the living, and piled knee-deep with dead and dying. The shrill voice of Ichabod, as he was borne off by his disciples, was heard dying away in the distance, lik3 that of an evil spirit carried away by a stormy wind. By something like a miracle, Lord Dundee had traversed the whole of hostile England, and though menaced on every hand by great bodies of troops, had reached his native capital in safety; bringing with him not only the sixty cavalier troopers (who of all his cavalry alone remained stanch to him), but with them Walter Eenton, Lord Dunbarton, Fin- land, and other officers retaken from De Ginckel. They now rode under his orders as gentlemen-troopers, mounted on heavy black chargers that had whilome belonged to the Swart 344 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEK. Ruyters ; and the wliole, with standards displayed, had en- tered the city about an hour before the assault on Bosehaugh'a house. The reverend Dr. Joram, late chaplain to the Eoyal Scots, also bestrode a horse which he had taken as his spoil in battle ; and had donned a trooper's corslet, with which his clerical bob-periwig consorted as oddly as with the fierce and tipsy expression of his flushed and florid face, and with the stern cock of the Monmouth beaver that surmounted it. The gallant divine had recently imbibed so much wine that he could scarcely keep his saddle. Of the fate of their captured comrades they as yet knew nothing ; but Gavin of that ilk, with twenty other officers and five hundred men, were then at London, close prisoners ; the rest had returned to their colours ; and after a time, the whole, seeing the futility of resistance, ultimately embarked peaceably under the orders of their new commander, the veteran duke de Schomberg. None were punished, " as the new govern- ment had not yet been fully recognized in Scotland." Eosehaugh had been saved from a terrible immolation ; but the services of the night were not yet over. Claverhouse, with his cavaliers, retired to a quiet part of the city, under protection of the castle batteries, where a brave garrison of catholic soldiers, led by the duke of Gordon, remained yet stanch to James. " My lord earl," said Dundee to Dunbarton, " we must be somewhat economical of our persons and horses, when encountering these mad burghers and drunken saints, and not forget that we are the last hope of the king in this hotbed of presbytery and rebellion." " True," replied the earl, " and I rejoice that we have but few to regret, and few to mourn for us if we perish in the struggle on which we are about to plunge." The eyes of the viscount filled with dusky fire. " Dunbarton," said he, " I am alone in the world. Our grateful king has given me honours to which none can succeed, for I have cast the die by which they are lost for ever ; and nowhere can my coronet be more gloriously surrendered than on the battle-field." " I thank Heaven that the countess, my dear little Lsetitia, is in England," said the earl, pointing to the lurid flames that from the blazing houses of the Abbey-hill flashed along the shadowy vista of the Canongate, glowing redly under the arch of the Netherbow, and throwing forward in bold relief a thousand fantastic projections of the old Flemish mansions that reared up their giant fronts on either hand. " J thank THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 345 Heaven that she is in a safer place than this poor city of wild fanatics." " Would that I could say the same of Lilian ! " thought Walter, with a deep sigh. " Can she be safe amid all this dreadful uproar?" At that moment a dense rabble approached, with drums beating, torches blazing, and weapons glinting. " To the palace ! to the abbey ! " cried a thousand hoarse voices. " Let us pull doon the temple of the idolater, and gie his fause gods to the flames ! " and they swept forward, greeting the troop of guards with yells of hatred and menace. They were led by whom ? Lord Mersington, with his wig awry, his clothes soiled with dust, and his face flushed with exertion ! The earl of Balcarris relates " that this fanatical judge, with a halbert in his hand, and drunk as ale and brandy could make him," led on the rabble to the assault of time- hallowed Holyrood ; but before reaching the eastern extremity of the city, his followers were joined by the trained bands in their bun coats and bandoliers, the magistrates, and other authorities, who vested this lawless mob with an air of order and official importance. " Will those villains really dare to molest the palace of our kings ?" said Dundee, his eyes kindling, as he looked after the revolters, and reined up his impatient horse. " What will they not dare ?" rejoined Dunbarton ; " but I doubt not they will experience a warm reception. Wallace, who commands the guard, is a brave cavalier as ever drew sword, and the traitors will make nothing of it." " Under favour, my lords," said Fenton, " they are in great numbers, and I have misgivings as to the issue." " Wallace he is an old friend of mine," said Finland. " 'Sdeath ! we've seen some sharp work together on the frontiers of Flanders ; and with your permission, my lords, I will take a turn of service with him to-night." " As you please," replied the viscount ; " Dunbarton com- mands here, though he rides in my troop. Go ha, ha ! two heads are better than one." " I go, then ; and yonder fanatical senator may beware how he comes within reach of my hand." " Thy riding- whip, say rather." " I volunteer also," said Walter, who was under great anxiety to have an opportunity of visiting Lilian. " And I too," added the reverend Jonadab Joram. " I long to encounter wilh Bible and bilbo, yonder preacher of sedition, that urges on this unhanged rout of traitors. For know ye, gentlemen, (hiccup) that one preacher is better in Scotland 846 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. than twenty drummers to find recruits for the devil's service j so, in his own phraseology, I will gird up my loins, and &' forth to battle against them. Come on, gallants ! Ho, fa* King James, and down with the whigamores ! Baib-a-dub rub-a-dub " " Beware, sirs, for the good cause has not many such spiriti to spare," said Claver'se, as they dashed spurs into their horses, and making a detour down one narrow wynd and up another, reached, without interruption, the deep-groined arch- Way of the palace porch, an ancient gothic edifice, heavily turreted and battlemented. CHAP TEE XLYII. SACK OF HOLTEOOD. 'Twas a dream of the ages of darkness and blood, When the ministers' home was the mountain and wood j The musquets were flashing, the blue swords were gleaming, The helmets were cleft, and the red blood was streaming ; The heavens grew dark, and the thunder was rolling, When on Welwood's dark muirland the mighty were falling. ANONYMOUS. " WELCOME, gentlemen," exclaimed Wallace ; "I never stood in such need of advice and comradeship." He was a handsome man, above six feet in height ; his gold- coloured cuirass and buff coat, laced with silver, announced him a captain ; the slouch of his broad Spanish hat, with its drooping plumes, and the tie of his voluminous white silk scarf, gave him inimitable grace. "Welcome, Finland, to share the poor cheer and hard- fighting of Holyrood. By Mahoud ! but times are changed with the king's soldiers. I have endured a three days' siege here, and matters are not likely to mend." " No ; a rabble, many thousands strong, by all the devils ! the very riddlings of St. Ninian's and the Beggar's-row, are at this moment approaching, and if one of your guard be left alive by daylight it will be a miracle." " Dost think so ? " rejoined Wallace, as he led them to a table in the outer court of the palace, where a lantern placed on a table revealed a few drinking-horns, a keg of eau de vie, and some objects of a more unpleasant nature, the dead bodies of several soldiers, shot by the rioters during the day. '* You hold out a dark future to us, Finland, and, nevertheless, like the true soldier I have ever known thee, come to take a turn of service with vw," THE SCOTTISH OAVALIEB. 347 "As you see," replied Finland, laughing, as he filled a horn from the keg unbidden. " Drink with me, gentlemen," said Wallace. "With all my soul ! " hiccupped Dr. Joram. " This keg of brandy was lately in the cellars of the Jesuits, and some friendly rogue trundled it our way. God bless the good old cause ! my service to ye, sirs. Hark, comrades- drums ! " he added, as he drained and threw down the cup. " 'Tis the march of the trained bands," said Walter. " Indeed ! " rejoined Wallace, sternly. " Let all the whig- amore scum of Scotland come, they are welcome. I am one of the good old race of Elderslie, and I thank Heaven that in an hour like this, it hath been the hap of one of my name to have entrusted to his care the defence of the palace of our princes, and yonder holy fane, the sepulchre of their bones one of the fairest piles that ancient piety ever founded, or modern fanaticism destroyed." His swart countenance lighted up, and signing the cross (for this noble cavalier was a true catholic), he drew his sword. " Hark, a chamade ! " said Walter Fenton ; " now let us hear what these rascals have the impudence to say ; " and the three cavaliers repaired to the porch, leaving the divine to continue his devoirs to the brandy-keg. They beheld a very extraordinary scene. Wallace's company was an Independent one. It was some- thing less than a hundred strong, and had the great porch of the palace and the two lesser gates of the boundary wall to defend. In the former there were sixty musketeers drawn up, as it was the point of the greatest danger ; the remainder were posted at the small gates, which were well secured by internal barricades. The great fa$ade of the magnificent palace, with its deep quadrangle and six round towers, loomed through the starless gloom of the winter night ; lights flickered in the gallery of the kings of Scotland, and through the lofty casements of its long corridors and echoing chambers, for there many proscribed catholic and cavalier families, terrified women, and helpless children, had fled for refuge. And from the great western windows of the chapel royal shone " the dim religious light" of the distant altar, where many a devout worshipper, in the ancient faith of our fathers, sent up, with catholic fervour, the most solemn prayers to God for conquest and for succour. How different was the scene without those sacred walls, with their shadowy aisles, their glimmering shrines and marble tombs their dark, deep, solemn arches, and myste- rious echoes. 31-8 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. Through the strong gate of vertical iron "bars that closed the dark round archway of the porch, the cavaliers beheld the long vista of the Canongate, extending to the westward. Ita long perspective of ancient and picturesque edifices, turrets, outshots, and gables, was vividly lit up by the crimson glare of the blazing houses on the Abbey-hill, to the northward of the palace. A dense mob that had gathered in the Cowgate, provided with weapons and torches, mingled with trained bandsmen, and having drums beating, and the earl of Perth's effigy, borne aloft before them, after traversing the West Bow and High-street, maltreating all they met, were now descending the Canongate ; and the light of their brandished flambeaux streamed through the groined portal of the palace, glittering on the helmets and arms of the soldiers drawn up within it in close array, and beyond on the tall outline of the tower of James V. As the drums of the trained bands continued to beat the point of war, the rabble poured forth from all the diverging wynds and alleys, until like a river swollen by a hundred tributary streams, the dense mass that debouched upon the open space around the ancient Girth-cross of the once holy sanctuary, covered the whole arena. The united roar of ten thousand angry voices swelled along the lofty street, and the red torchlight revealed many an uncouth visage, distorted by drunkenness, fanaticism, and ferocity. Several muskets and pistols were incessantly discharged, while stones, sticks, frag- ments of furniture, dead cats, and every available and imaginable missile were hurled in showers over the battle- ments of the porch, and strewed the pavement of the court within. In front were Grahame and Macgill, two captains in the trained band, armed with their buff coats, steel caps, and half- pikes ; several baillies, in their scarlet gowns and gold chains ; Lord Mersington, reeling about and brandishing a partizan, his senatorial wig and robes in a woeful plight ; the Rev. Ichabod Bummel, bare-headed, and spurring like a madman a short, plump, and active Galloway cob of which he had possessed himself, and over the flanks of which, his long spindle shanks and scabbard trailed upon the ground. On each side were the Marchmont and Islay heralds, the Unicorn and Ormond pursuivants, in their tabards blazing with em- broidery, and their tall plumed bonnets ; behind was a confused forest of uplifted hands, and weapons, swords, pikes, staves, and halberts, which flashed incessantly in the wavering THE SCOTTISH CAVAL1ES. 849 glare of the brandished torches, and chief above all were the effigy of the chancellor, and a great orange and blue standard ; the first the colour of the Revolutionists, the second of the Covenanters. The houses of the earl of Perth, the lairds of JSTiddry, Blairdrummond, and others, were blazing close by, and the sky was sheeted with fire. The contents of their cellars were rolled into the streets and staved, and the rich and luscious wines of France, the nut-brown ale, and crystal usquebaugh streamed along the swollen gutters, where hundreds of rioters were wallowing like pigs in the kennel, and were trod to death beneath the feet of the mighty host that swept over them. After a flourish of trumpets, the senior herald cried with a loud voice, " In the name of the lords of his majesty's privy council, I, the Islay herald-at-arms, summon, warn, and charge you, Captain William Wallace, under pain and penalty of loss of life and escheat of goods " " Yea, and the loss of salvation," screamed Ichabod, with a voice of a Stentor, as he brandished his Bible and bloody sword. " Woe unto ye who march against God with banners displayed ! Woe unto ye who would build up the walls of Jericho, which the Lord hath casten down ! Take heed, ye vipers and soldiers of Jeroboam, lest the curse that fell on Hiel, the Bethelite, fall upon ye also ! Woe unto ye, wor- shippers of the Babylonian harlot, the mother of sin, for the hour is come when it is written that ye shall perish ! " " And escheat of goods arid gear," continued the herald, " forfeiture of name and fame." " Surrender, ye d d loons ! " cried Mersington, " or hee hee, we'll gie ye cauld kail through the reek, conform to the Acts of Estate." " Sound trumpets for silence ! " exclaimed the herald indignantly ; but now the voice of Mr. Bummel was again heard. " Oh, for one moment of the hand that smote the foes of Zion ! " he exclaimed, raising to heaven his sunken eyes that in the torchlight seemed to fill with a yellow glare. " Oh, for God's malediction on the brats of fiabel ! Lo ! 1 see a sign in the lift they are delivered unto us, that we may dash them against the stones. On, on, and spare not ! smite and slay ! death to the false prophets ! death to the soldiers of the idolatrous James ! " " I, the Islay herald-at-arms " " Haud your d d yammering ! " cried Captain Grease* of 350 THE SCOTTISH CA.VALIEE. the trained bands, interrupting in turn ; " close up, my trained men ! come on, my buirdly Baxters, and couthie craftsmen advance pikes musketeers, blow matches give fire ! " " Give fire ! " re-echoed the deep voice of Wallace within the groined portal. A loud discharge of musketry took place, and the bullets of the mob rattled like a hailstorm against the walls, or whistled through the archway of the porch. Three soldiers fell dead, but nearly forty of the rabble were shot, for every bullet fired by the " Brats of Babel " killed at second hand. Still they pressed forward with undiminished courage, and assailed the three gates of the palace at once, and pressing close to the bars of the portal, fired their muskets and pistols through with deadly precision on the little band within. Here Wallace commanded in person, with a bravery worthy of his immortal name, and encouraged by his animated exhortations, his gallant few, though falling fast on every hand, stood firm, with a resolution to die, but never surrender. Walter Fenton and Finland commanded each about twenty musketeers at the lesser gates, which the insurrectionists assailed pell-mell with hammers and pickaxes, and as nothing but a cruel death could be expected if this mob of infuriated madmen obtained entrance, the poor soldiers fought as much for then* lives as for honour and protection of the palace and chapel royal. From a platform of planks and furniture, overlooking the south back of the Canongate, Walter's party poured a fire upon the mob with deadly effect ; the palace wall was high, the gate strong and well secured, so they hurled ponderous stones and swung hammers against its solid front in vain. So it fared with Finland, who defended the northern door- way of the royal gardens near a little turretted edifice called Queen Mary's Bath. This experienced soldier had speedily made four loop-holes through the strong wall, and the rioters, as they approached the gate, were shot down in such rapid succession that an appalling pile of dead and dying lay before it, forming a barrier so hideous, that their companions began to recoil in dismay, and poured a storm of bullets and abuse from a distance. The blaze from the Abbey-hill illuminated the whole garden, and the dark buttresses, the square tower, the deep-ribbed doorway, and tall lancet windows of the beautiful church of the Sancta Crucis were all bathed in a blood-red hue by the flaring sheets of flame that ascended from the burning houses. " St. Bride speed you, my gallant Douglas ! " cried Wallace, THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. 351 who, anxious for the maintenance of his post, made a hurried round of the walls. " Art keeping the knaves in check ? " "Let the deed show," replied Finland. "By my faith! their dead are lying chin deep without the barrier. 'Twas a brave stroke in tactics this enfilade of the approach ; and the flames of yonder great mansion enable my bold hearts to aim with notable precision." " 'Tis the noble lodging of the great chancellor," rejoined Wallace, turning his flushed face towards the ruddy glow ; "and I grieve deeply that many noble dames of the first quality are likely perishing amid yonder flames ; however, death is preferable to dishonour at the hands of fanatical clowns. This day they dragged my sister through the streets and in open day my God!" He ground his teeth and smote his breast. " Malediction ! " exclaimed Finland ; " can we not succour them?" " Impossible," replied the other, resuming his military non- chalance. " I cannot spare a man. Bonnie black- eyed Maud, of Madertie, and merry Annie, of Maxwelton, are both yon- der ; this morning they fled to the house of Perth. God sain them both now I must see how fares young Fenton." He hurried away, leaving Finland transfixed by what he had revealed. "Follow me, some of ye," he exclaimed; "let six maintain the post. Come on, gallants, we will save these noble dames, or die." His party had now been reduced to twelve ; but forgetful of everything save the probable danger of Annie, he rushed through the garden followed by six soldiers armed with pikes, and leaving the precincts of the palace by a secret doorway near the old royal vault, hurried through the narrow suburb of Croft-an-Bigh, and felt his heart leap as the hot glow of the burning houses was blown upon his cheek, and the sparks fell like red hail around him. The roar of voices and of musketry still continued around the palace with unabated vigour; but here the mob lay generally wallowing in the liquor that flowed along the street, or were busy in revelling around piles of wine flasks, runlets of wine, and barrels of ale, or hurrying away with whatever plunder they had saved from the fast-spreading conflagration. The house of the chancellor, a lofty edifice, with turrets at the angles, steep roofs, and great stacks of chimneys, stood a little way back from the street, with a row of tall Dutch pop- lars before it ; but these were now blackened and scorched by 352 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. the forty flames that rolled in volumes from the windows, and clambered over the sinking roofs. The smoke ascended into the clear air in one vast shadowy pillar, and showers of sparks were thrown as from the crater of a volcano. Not one of the inmates was visible, for every window was full of flame, and Finland felt distraction in his mind as he gazed upon the blazing house ; but suddenly several females appeared upon the stone gutters and upper bartizan, waving their handker- chiefs, and crying in piteous accents for mercy and for suc- cour ; but they were unheeded by the mob, or, if heard, only treated with derision. " A ladder, a ladder ! " exclaimed Finland, whose arms and attire were so much disfigured by smoke and dust, that he seemed in no way different from the other armed citizens that thronged the streets. " Death and confusion ! a hundred bonnet pieces for a ladder ; my brave friends, my good com- rades, your pikes truss them into a ladder. Ere now I have led an escalade of such a turnpike. Bravo, my bold hearts ! " and with the silent precision of practised campaigners, the soldiers with their scarfs trussed or tied their six pikes into the form of a scaling-ladder. In a moment it was placed against the wall. " Guard the passage," cried Finland, as he disappeared through one of the upper windows. The heat and smoke were so great that he could scarcely breathe ; for the old mansion being all wainscotted, burned like a ship, and ancient paintings, costly hangings, carpets, furniture, books, and all the magnificent household of the great chancellor, was crumbling to ashes beneath the relentless name. The hot conflagration often drove Finland back, and made his very brains whirl ; but he found other passages, across the yielding floors, and ascending from story to story, at last felt gratefully the cooler air upon his flushed and scorched face as he stepped upon the flame-lighted bartizan, and Annie, with a wild hysterical laugh, threw herself into his arms, and immediately swooned. " Your hand, Lady Madertie away, away ! " cried he ; " we have not a moment to lose ;" and bearing his burden like a child, he attempted to descend the staircase ; but lo! the forked flames shot up the spiral descent, and drove him back upon the platform, which was thirty feet in height. All retreat was cut off. Annie was insensible ; and Finland, as he leant against tbje parapet and pressed her to his breast, and felt the masses of her soft hair blown against his face, became giddy with despair. At a little distance Matilda of Madertie, a beautiful THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE. 353 blonde, was kneeling before her crucifix, and praying with all the happy fervour of a true Catholic ; her long dark hair was streaming over her shoulders. Near her were several female servants, crouching against the parapet, and who, exhausted by the energy of their shrieks, and the near approach of death, lay in a kind of stupor, without motion, and seeming scarcely to breathe. Finland thought only of Annie; but a glance sufficed to show that their fate was sealed. The whole of the lofty house beneath the turret where they stood was an abyss of flames, and the glare, as they flashed upward and around him, compelled him to close his eyes ; and thus a prey to grief and horror, he moved to and fro upon the toppling wall until the slate roofs sank crashing into the flam- ing pit with a roar, and now one vast sheet of broad red fire asconded into the air, making the calcined walls that confined it rend and tremble ; a shout came up from the street below ; the whole city, the hills, and the sky seemed to be on fire. The flames came closer to Finland he felt their scorching heat ; the next seemed to sweep his cheek, and Annie's wav- ing locks and his own, that mingled with them, were burned away together. " Laird of Finland," cried a soldier from below, " the tree -r-the tree ! " " 'Tis death at all events," replied the cavalier ; and quick as light, with his long scarf, he bound the slender waist of Annie to his own, and stretching from the wall, got into the lofty and strong poplar tree, and began to descend slowly and laboriously. A shout burst from the soldiers in the garden below. " God receive us ! " cried Maud of Madertie, holding up her crucifix to heaven. At that moment the wall gave way beneath her, and she disappeared for ever. Finland's desertion of his post proved ultimately fatal to the defence of Holyrood, which, by the efforts of Wallace, Walter Fenton, and the church-militant, Dr. Joram, waa protracted until eleven at night. Then the soldiers of Fin- land, having been all shot down, a party of the trained bands, led by Captain Grahame, broke down the gate with sledge^ hammers, and then the armed mob, roused to an indescribable pitch of frenzy and ferocity by the liquors they had imbibed, the resistance and slaughter, and the exhortations of the religious maniacs who led them, crowded like a hell disgorged into the outer court and inner quadrangle of the palace. Taken thus in flank, the soldiers of Wallace were almost immediately destroyed. That brave cavalier was hewn down, n 2 A 854 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. his body was hacked to pieces, his entrails torn out and cast inro the air. Many of his soldiers who surrendered were shot in cold blood, and all the wounded perished. Walter Fenton, gathering a few of the survivors upon his platform, still con- tinued to fire upon the sea of madmen that swarmed around them. Conspicuous among his followers, upon his prancing Gal- loway cob, towered the tall and ghastly figure of Mr. Ichabod Bummel ; and, urging the work of death, he sent his powerful voice before him wherever he went. " No quarter to the birds of Belial ! smite them both hip and thigh. On, ye chosen of Israel, who now, in the good fight of faith, shall extirpate the heathen, sent forth even as the Jews were of old." " Pick me down yonder villain," cried Fenton to his sol- diers ; and bullet after bullet whistled past the head of the preacher, but he seemed to bear a charmed life, and escaped them all. " On, on to the good work, and prosper ! " he cried. " Smite and slay ! smite and slay ! lest the curses that befel Saul for sparing the Amalekites fall upon ye." Thus urged, the people hewed the soldiers limb from limb, and the bodies of the dead shared the same fate. Seeing all lost, Walter and Dr. Joram had torn the cavalier plumes from their hats, and leaped upon their horses, hoping to cut their way through the press, or escape unknown. But, alas ! Joram was recognised by the terrible Ichabod, who, urging his Galloway towards him, brandished his sword, and ex claimed with stentorian lungs " 'Tis a priest of Baal, and this night will I send him howl- ing to his false gods ! Come on, Jonadab Joram, thou wolf in sheep's clothing." " Approach, thou d ned, round-headed, prick-eared, cove- nanting, and rebellious rapscallion ! " cried the doctor in great wrath, urging his horse towards his clerical antagonist ; but the crowd was great between them, and they were enabled to glare at and menace and bespatter each other with scrip- tural abuse and very hard names, for some time before they came within sword's point ; for they were both intoxicated, the one with brandy, and the other with an enthusiasm that oordered on insanity. " Come on, thou villanous whigamore," cried Joram, flourishing bis long rapier ; " thy glory and thee shall depart to the devS together ! " " Out upon thee, and the bloody papistical duke whom thou servest, and hast blasphemously prayed for ; but the curse iiat fell upon Jeroboam hath already fallen upon him he THE SCOTTISH CAT ALT EB. 355 shall die without a son, and be the last of his persecuting race, despite the brat in the warming-pan." " On thy carcase, foul kite, will I avenge this treason against the Lord's anointed?" replied Joram, spurring his horse. " Thou fool ! " shrieked Tchabod, with a hollow laugh ; " was that accursed tyrant who fiddled while Rome blazed beneath him the anointed of the Lord ? " " Have at thee, trumpeter of treason !" " Caitiff and firebrand of hell, at last I have thee !" and their swords flashed as they fell upon each other like two mad bulls. The superior strength and skill of the cavalier chaplain quite failed him before the ferocious enthusiasm of the pres- byterian, whose long broadsword, swayed by both hands, was twice driven through his body at the first onset. " King and high kirk for ever !" cried poor Joram, as he fell forward with the blood gushing from his mouth ; but, still un- satisfied, Ichabod seized him as he sank down, writhing one hand in his hair, and throwing the body across his saddle- bow, he slashed off the head, and held it aloft, a grinning and dripping trophy. " Behold," he exclaimed, in an unearthly voice, "behold the head of Holof ernes !" All was over now. Walter gave a hurried glance around him. The palace was being sacked by the rabble, who carried off all they could lay their hands upon ; but it was upon the beautiful chapel, that venerable monument of ancient art and David's pious zeal, that the whole tide of popular fury was poured. In five minutes it was completely devastated. The tall windows, with their rich tracery and stained glass, were destroyed ; the magnificent tombs of marble and brass, the grand organ, the altar, with its burning candles and great silver crucifix, the rich oak stalls of the thistle, with the swords, helmets, and banners of the twelve knights, were all torn down, and the beautifully variegated pavement was stripped from the floor. All the wood and ornamental work, the pictures, reliques, furniture, vestments, &c., were piled in front of the palace, and committed to the flames amid the yells of the populace, whose cries seemed to rend the very welkin. Dashing spurs into his horse, Walter gave him the reins, and sweeping his eword around him, right, left, front, and rear, he broke through the crowd, and, followed by a score of bullets, galloped up the Canongate and escaped, the sole survivor of that night's slaughter a* Holyrood 29 350 *HE SCOTTISH CAlALIEB. CHAPTEE XLVIIL THE VEILED PICTUEE. To the Lords of Convention 'twas Claver's that spoke, Ere the King's crown shall fall there are crowns to be broke ^ So let each Cavalier who loves honour and me, Come follow the bonnet of bonnie Dundee. SCOTT. SKIRTING the city, Walter soon left the roar of the angry multitude far behind him ; he was galloping among fallow fields, hedge-rows, and solitary lanes, and the silence of the country was a relief to his excited spirit after the fierce tumult of the last six hours. The snow had melted ; Dairy-burn, and other little rills that traversed the dark fields, gleameci like silver threads in the starlight. "Walter passed the ioch, and reached the old place of Drum- dryan ; the house was ruined and desolate, roofless and win- dowless, and the roadway was strewn with fragments of furni- ture. His anxiety increased, and, goring his horse onward, he dashed up the dark dewy avenue of Bruntisfield, and reined up at the barbican-gate. The perfect silence, unbroken even by the barking of a dog, and the strong odour of burned wood, had in some sort prepared him for the sight he wit- nessed. There, too, had been the hand of the destroyer, and a great part of the once noble mansion was a bare, blackened, and open ruin. Its corbie-stoned gables and round turrets stood bleakly in bold relief against the starry sky ; and from the depths of its vaulted chambers, the remains of the smoul- dering conflagration sent forth at times a column of smoke into the calm winter atmosphere. The court and garden were strewn with broken furniture, torn hangings, books, and household utensils. The sudden snorting of his horse drew Walter's attention to two corpses that lay near the outer door. They were those of John Leekie, the gardener, and Drouthy, the aged butler, who, like true vassals, had both "with harness on their backs," perished at their lady's threshold. Both had on cors- lets and steel caps, and one yet grasped a broken partisan. Pull of dire thoughts of vengeance, Walter galloped back to the city, every corner of which was now overflown with the tide of confusion and uproar that had been so long concen- trated around Holyrood. He naturally sought the Castle- hill, where Dundee and Dunbartori, with their sixty follower*, THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE. 357 who of all the Lowlands seemed now alone to remain true to their fugitive king, were drawn up under the cannon of the Half-moon. " So the villains have sacked Holyrood," said Dundee, smiling grimly. " To their contentment," replied Walter. "Poor Finland, our jolly chaplain, Wallace, and a hundred brave soldiers, have gone to render a last account of their faithful service ; and I alone, survive, my lords." " To avenge them, add, sir. 'Tis the hope of repaying with most usurious interest this heavy account of blood that alone makes me bear up," replied Dundee with enthusiasm ; " and God give me inspiration, for I feel I am the last hope of the old house of Stuart." At that time certain persons who styled themselves a Con- vention of the Estates were assembled in conclave, and thither went the brave Dundee, though conscious that, personally or politically, he was the bitterest foe of every man present. " My lords and gentlemen," said he, observing the chill that fell on the assemblage when he appeared " I have come here as a peer of the realm, to serve his mai'psty James VII. and the parliament of Scotland ! and I demand that, if the latter has no occasion for my service, it will at least protect my friends and self from the insults of the base-born rabble." With one voice this hastily collected and illegally con- stituted assembly exclaimed " We cannot and will not !" " Then farewell, sirs," replied the viscount, with a smile of pride and scorn. " When again I appear before you, it will not be to entreat, but to command it will not be to plead, but to punish; and now, let my trumpets sound To horse! In the country of the clans, the hills are as steep, the woods are as pathless, the glens as deep, and the rivers as rapid, as in the days of the Romans ; and again from the wild north shall the whole tide of Celtic war roll on the traitor Lowlsnda, as in the days of the great Montrose. When again you hear the voice of Dundee, my lords of Convention, tremble /" He clasped on his headpiece and retired. As the jangle of his sword and spurs descending the stone turnpike died away, a deep silence pervaded the dusky hall ; for the threats of this chivalric soldier, when united to their foreknowledge of his dauntless courage, his unflinching loyalty, his loftiness of mind, and intense ferocity, threw a chill upon the more cold- blooded and calculating revolutionists. But soon the gallant blare of the trumpet, the stirring brattle of the brass kettle- drums, the clang of iron hoofs, and jingle of steel scabbard* 358 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. and chain bridles, awaking all the echoes of the great cathe* dral, and the hollow arcades of the dark Parliament-square, announced the march of the Life Guards those sixty brave gentlemen who, of all his once numerous and fondly cherished army, now alone remained stanch to the hapless James. Dark looks were exchanged, and as the music grew faint, all seemed to breathe more freely. Then the querulous voice of Lord Mersington was heard, and in the half-lighted hall, his dwarfish figure, clad in his senatorial robes, was dimly Been on the rostrum, and, as he addressed the Convention, from the effect of his recent potations and over exertion, he swayed on his heels like a statue on a pivot. His speech was somewhat to the following purpose. "That for sae mickle as the vile and bloody papistical James, duke of Albany and York, having assumed the regal sceptre without the oath required for due maintenance of re- ligion, and having altered the ancient constitution of the king- dom by ane exertion of tyrannous and arbitrary power, had forfeited all richt to the crown of Scotland, now and for ever ; that it be forthwith settled on the Stadtholder William, and Mary his spouse ; that there be made a list of grievances to be redressed, and a new act framit, anent witchcraft, papacy, prelacy, and ither abominations." The last echoes of the trumpets of Dundee had died away under the arch of the Netherbow Port, and the motions of Mersington were carried with universal approbation. " Thus," says the author of " Caledonia," " the revolution in England was conducted constitutionally by the Parliament; but in Scotland, unconstitutionally by the Convention. The English found a vacancy of the throne, the Scots made one ; the one grave and regarding law, the other vehement and disregard- ing it." With a heaviness of heart, a deep and morbid sadness against which he struggled in vain, Walter rode down the steep Leith Wynd. He was now a private trooper under Dundee, and leaving Lilian far behind him ; for he was going, he foresaw, to perish under the fallen banner of a desperate cause and ruined king ; but soon the clash of the cymbals, the fanfare of the trumpets, the tramp of the stately horses, the high bearing of their gallant riders, and that innate lofti- ness of soul, which made Dunbarton and Dundee rise supe- rior to their fortune, and seem to set fate at defiance, com- municated a new ardour to his heart, and it soon beat respon- sive to the martial music, as the troop of cavaliers traversed the city's northern ridge, and riding by the Long Gate saw THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 359 the morning sun rising afar off above the snow-clad Lammer- rnuir, gilding Preston Bay, the far hills of .Fife, and the shining waters of the dark blue Forth. Dundee rode near Fenton, who finding, more than once, the dark and pensive eyes of this singularly handsome soldier fixed upon him with something of that foredoomed expres- sion, indicative of his future fate and fame, he ventured to ask, " Whither go you, my lord Y" " Wherever the shade of Montrose shall direct me," was the thoughtful and poetical reply. " Believe me, Mr. Fen- ton," he continued, after a pause, " under whatever circum- stances, or however oppressed by fate, I will acquit myself before God, the world, and my own conscience. Yes ! " he exclaimed, with flashing eyes, and striking his gloved hand upon his corsleted breast, " I will hazard life and limb, estate and title, name and fame, yes, I would peril even my salvation, were it possible, in the cause of my honour and allegiance ; and if I cannot save the throne of King James, at least I will not survive its fall so the will of G-od be done!" There was something sublime in his aspect as he spoke ; his dark and lustrous eyes were full of fire ; his face, the manly beauty of which few have equalled, and none sur- passed, was suffused with a warm glow, and the proud curl of his moustached lip, showed the high spirit of achievement that burned within him. The soul of the great Montrose seemed indeed to inspire him, and in such a moment all the darker and weaker points were forgotten. His ardour was communicated to Walter, whose heart beat fast as he exclaimed, " Noble Dundee, to victory or the grave, to the field or the scaffold, I will follow thee, and in that hour when I fail in my duty or allegiance, may woe betide me, and dishonour blot my name ! " Dundee pressed his hand and replied, " In the wilds of the pathless north, ten thousand clay- mores will flash from their scabbards at the call of Dundee. The loyal and gallant clans have not forgotten the glories of Alford, Inverlochy, and Auldern, when the standard of James Grahame, of Montrose, was never unfurled but to victory. Again, like him, will I lead them against this Dutch usurper, whom, in an evil hour, I saved from death upon the battle- field of Seneff. Yes, after he had fallen beneath the hoofs of Vaudemont's Eeitres, I saved his life at the risk of my own, and horsed him on my own good charger, when, could hia 360 . THE SCOTTISH CAYAL1EB, future ingratitude to me, and the usurpation of this hour have been foreseen, my petronel had blown his brains to the wind." " Ha ! what wants his grace of Gordon?'" said Dunbarton, as the flash of a cannon broke from the dark castle wall, and a puff of white smoke curled away on the clear morning air, while the echoes of the report reverberated like thunder among the black basaltic cliffs of the great fortress, past which they were riding. A little arched postern to the west- ward opened, and a soldier appeared, waving a white flag from the brow of the steep rock, which the turretted bastion over- hung. The troop halted, and their kettle-drums gave three ruffles in honour of the duke. " Tarry for me, gentlemen comrades," said Claverhouse, " while I confer with k the cock of the north,' " and galloping to the base of the castle rock, he dismounted, and notwith- standing his steel harness, buff coat, and jack boats, clam- bered with great agility to the postern, where he held a con- ference with the duke of Gordon. What passed was never known ; but each is said to have needlessly exhorted the other to loyalty and truth. The multitude, who from a distance had watched the de- parture of the hated Dundee, fled back to the city, and reported to the lords of the convention, that " there was a coalition and general insurrection of the adherents of the bluidy Claver'se," and thereupon a dreadful panic ensued. The city drums beat the point of war ; the duke of Hamilton and other revolutionists, who had for weeks past been secretly bringing great bands of their vassals into Edinburgh, where they were concealed in cellars and garrets, now rushed to arms, and the members of Convention, confined in their hall, were terrified and put to their wit's end by the uproar. Lord Mersington, it is related, exchanging his senatorial robe and wig, " for ane auld wife's mutch and plaid," fled to his lodging, and appeared no more that day ; but their fears were causeless, for Dundee, and the devoted cavaliers who accom- panied him in his chivalric but hopeless enterprise, were then passing the woods and morasses of Corstorphine, on their route to the land of the Gael. At a hand gallop they soon flanked the grey rocks and pine- covered summits of those beautiful hills, and the sequestered village lay before them, with the morning smoke curling from its moss-roofed cottages, its broad lake swollen by the melting mows, but calm as a mirror, save where the swan and dusky waterouzel squattered its shining surface; the ancient kirk THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 361 peeped above a grove of venerable sycamores, and to the south stood the castle of the old hereditary .Foresters of Corstorphine. *' What castles are these on the right and left?" asked Dundee. " I warrant Mr. Holster can tell ; he knows every- thing and everybody." " Yonder hold with the loch flowing almost to its gates, is the house of the Lord Forester," replied the cavalier trooper, " a leal man and true." " And that tall peel on the muirland to the north ?" " The tower of Clermiston, my lord." " What ! the house of Randal Clermont um a converted covenanter, and worshipper of the rising sun, eh P" " Tis said his name is at the address sent by the turncoat council to the Stadtholder," said Dunbarton. " Assure me of that," exclaimed Dundee, sharply reining up his horse, " and by all the devils, I will hang him from hia own bartizan, lord and baron though he be ! Halt, gentle- men, we will pay these lords a visit ; they, or their stewards, must pay us riding money, for the king's service. My lord earl, and thirty of you gentlemen, will detour across to Cler- miston, while I will ride down to make my devoir to the Forester of these hills forward, trot." The troop separated, and Walter somewhat unwillingly accompanied Lord Dunbarton, whose party galloped in single files along the muddy and rough bridle-road that led over the lea to the gate of the solitary tower. They encircled the barbican wall, which was built partly on fragments of low rock, without being able to find entrance, the great gate being securely fastened, and the stillness of the place seemed to imply that it was uninhabited. A shriek, echoing through the vaulted recesses of the tower, rang out upon the clear morning air ; a window was dashed open, and a female hand, white and bleeding, appeared, while a voice calling for aid made the blood of Walter Fenton rush back upon his heart. " On, on, good sirs !" he exclaimed, leaping from his horse ; " some work of hell is being enacted here ! " and he rushed against the tower gate, making fruitless efforts to burst it open ; but they were as those of a child against the solid planks of the barrier. " By Mahoud's horns, Clermistonlee is at his old tricks again ! " cried Jack Holster, leaping from his saddle, and un- glinging his carbine. " He hath a lass in his meshes ; alight gallants all, or the fair fortress will be won by storm, while we dally in the trenches." 362 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. " Would to God I had a petard !" exclaimed Walter *, " this gate is like a wall." " Unsling your carbines, gentlemen," said tlie earl of Dunbarton. " A volley at the lock give fire ! " Thirty carbines poured their concentrated volley upon the gate ; it was torn to fragments, and an aperture formed which admitted the troopers ; to creep through, and rush on with his drawn rapier, were to Walter a moment's work. By pulling the leathern latch of a long oak pin which secured the door of the tower, they procured ingress, and rushed up the turnpike stair to the hall, at the very moment that Lilian was just sinking backwards, with her hands clasped in despair, while Lord Clermistonlee, enraged by her outcries, and the new and pressing danger, was endeavouring with ferocious violence to drag her into some place of concealment. "False villain!" exclaimed Walter, springing upon him with his rapier. " I have a thousand insults to avenge ; but this, and this, and this, repay them all!" and he made three furious lunges at his rival, who escaped two by the interven- tion of Dunbarton, who vigorously interposed ; but he re- ceived one severe wound in the left shoulder. Infuriated by the sight of his own blood, and being a man of great strength and agility, he grappled fiercely with Walter, breathlessly exclaiming, in accents of rage " Woe betide thee, thou unhanged rascal ! A sword ! a sword ! lend me a sword, some one ! Juden ! Traitors, I am a lord of parliament, and dare ye slaughter me under the rooftree of my own fortified house ? This is hership and hamesucken with a vengeance! Death and confusion, vil- lains ; recollect I am unarmed ! " " Lend him a sword, some of you," said Walter. " Oh, no, no ; spare him," moaned Lilian, who was sup- ported by the earl of Dunbarton. "Base-born runnion, and son of a dunghill!" exclaimed Clermistonlee, with that intense ferocity and scorn which he could so easily assume at all times ; " an hour will come when this insult shall be fearfully repaid " here the clenched hand of Walter struck him down. Staggering backward, making a futile attempt to recover himself, his clutching hands tore away the veil that concealed the portrait alreadj mentioned. The face it revealed instantly arrested the for- ward stride and menacing sword of Walter Fenton, wha stood irresolute, trembled, and the sinking sword half fell from his relaxed hand, as he muttered 4< What is this coming over my spirit now P That face seems like a vision from the grave to me ! " THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 363 " 'Tis the Lady Alison, my lord's late wife," said the shrill but sullen voice of Beatrix. " Pshaw !" rejoined Walter ; " then my weakness is over. Give him a sword, gentlemen. In fair stand-up fight I will meet him here, with case of pistols, sword, and dagger, or anything he pleases." " O part them, for the sake of mercy ! " implored Lilian. Juden came in at that moment, clad in his steel bonnet and buff jack, and swaying an enormous partisan, was rushing upon Walter Fenton like a wild boar, when Holsterlee laid him flat with his clubbed carbine. The swooning of Lord Clermistonlee closed the brawl for the time ; loss of blood, over-drinking, and over-excitement, had quite prostrated all his energies. Walter immediately sheathed his sword, and, kneeling down, was the first to tender assistance ; for " com- passion ever marks the brave." Clermistonlee was borne away to his own apartment by the growling Juden, whose thick pate was little the worse of Holsterlee's stroke ; and Lilian was now Walter's next and immediate care. The disorder and scantiness of her attire, the pallor and horror of her aspect, and her presence in such a place, had previously informed him of all, and no sooner were they in a more retired apartment, than, throwing herself into his arms, she wept bitterly. Meanwhile, the unscrupulous cavaliers were ranging over the entire household, breaking open every press, cabinet, and girnel, with the butts and balls of their carbines, in search of wine, vivres, or anything else that suited their fancies. Juden kept always a full larder, and its con- tents furnished a sumptuous breakfast. Several whole cheeses, a cask of ale, and a thirty- gallon runlet or two of canary, were trundled into the hall ; and a hearty repast, with the usual military accompaniments of mirth and laughter, was enjoyed by the hungry troopers, whose appetites a night spent in their saddles, and a ride in the keen air of a winter morn- ing, had sufficiently whetted. In a few minutes Lilian, with faltering accents, had in- formed Walter of her abduction, of the hours of suffering she had endured, and her anxiety to return to Lady Grizel ; but, alas ! poor Lilian knew not that perhaps her only relative had perished in the conflagration of her old ancestral home. Aware that Dundee meant to halt for an hour or so, to await despatches from the earl of Balcarris and the ex-lord- advocate, Walter resolved without delay to accompany Lilian to Edinburgh, and there convey her to some place of safety, ere he cast himself upon the world for ever ; for from tha 3G4 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. hour lie was like a reed tossed upon the waves of misfortune. By the assistance of Jack Holster, he had Clermistonlee'g favourite tnare prepared for Lilian ; and, after refreshing her with a milk-posset made by the cynical Beatrix, they departed for the city at a quick trot : the plain buff-coat, steel cap, and accoutrements of Walter, enabling him to pass for a Royalist or Revolutionist, as occasion required. As soon as they began to converse, the pace of their horses was checked, and they proceeded slowly : forgetful of Claver- house and of his pledged word, Walter remembered only the presence of Lilian ; and their minds were so much absorbed in their mutual explanations and plans for the future, that they marked not the tardiness of their progression towards Edinburgh. CHAPTER XLIX. LOVE AND PRINCIPLE. My promised husband and my dearest friend ; Since heaven appoints this favoured race to reign, And blood has drenched the Scottish fields in vain, May I be wretched and thy flight partake ? Or wilt not thou for thy loved Chloe's sake, Tired out at length submit to fate's decree. TlCKELL. " AND this is the fate to which you have dedicated yourself?" said Lilian, weeping; "to become a follower of that fierce Dundee in the desperate course on which he is about to fling himself. Oh, Walter Fenton, this is the very folly of enthu- siasm. Too surely can we see that the hand of fate is against the house of Stuart." " Lilian," replied her lover, with mournful surprise, " the daughter of an old cavalier house should have other thoughts than these. Remember, dear Lilian, there is not in Europe a royal race for which so many of the good and the gallant, the brave and the loyal have from the foughten field and tho reeking scaffold given up their souls to God. Let no man judge harshly of those whose splendour is dimmed for a time ; for the hour shall come when in the full zenith of their pride and power, the old line of our Scottish kings " " 'Tis all a dream, Walter. Tiie entire nations are against them. I feel a presentiment that they and their followers are doomed to wither and perish like brands in the Lurning." THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 365 " My faith ! art turning preacher, lassie ?" "'* Oh, what a prospect for thee, Walter ! " " The world is all before me ; and I can always preserve my honour, my heart, and my sword. But thou, Lilian " " Am beside thee, dear Walter," said, she, with touching artlessness ; " and is not happiness better than honour?" " True, true," replied the young man, while he kissed her hand, and his eyes filled with tenderness. " Ah, Lilian, it is the thought that I am leaving you, perhaps for ever, that alone unnerves me for the deadly venture in which we are about to engage. Hopeless though the cause of James may be, we have sworn not to survive it ; and, come weal or woe, we will unfurl his standard on the northern hills, and if it waves not over us in victory, it shall never do so in defeat or dishonour ; for to the last man we will perish on the sod beneath it. Your memory alone will make me sad but am I singular ? How many of these my brave companions have gentle ones to leave, mothers who bless, and sisters who love them, while I am alone. Save thee, there is nothing that binds me to this world. What of it is mine? The six feet that shall make my grave!" " ! most ungrateful Walter," said Lilian, in a low voice of confusion and tenderness ; " is not all that I have yours, manor and lands ? are not these possessions ample ? Greedy gled," she added, smiling ; " what better tocher would you nave?" " Lilian," sighed Walter, in a thick voice, as he pressed her hand to his heart, " it may not be, dearest yet awhile, at least." The blushing girl gave him a timid and startled glance of inquiry. " I am solemnly pledged to Dundee." " Cruel Claverhouse ! has he more charms for you than I have ? " " You know that my heart is full of you, Lilian ; but there is also room for ambition in it. I cannot live ignobly and obscure ; as such I would be unworthy to possess you. I would feel myself a nameless intruder under the rooftree of your created ancestors, whose armorial blazons on every panel and window-pane, would shame my meaner birth, and put me to the blush." " Ungrateful ! after all I have urged and said. 'Tis a dream, Walter, a mere dream, but one that will make the world dark oh ! very dark to me." " 'Tis very true; I am choosing the path of proscription, 366 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. danger, and death ; but the fortune of war may better the prospects of my faction." " After years of separation, perhaps." "With happiness in prospect, they would soon pass, dear Lilian." " Oh, this wicked Claverhouse ! he hath quite cast a glamour over you. How can you talk so calmly of years of separation ? What may not be lost in tha,t time ? " " My life on the field, or scaffold, perhaps." " Your life is mine, Walter ; it was pledged to me. Have you forgot the 20th of September, and the hour by the fountain?" " Dearest girl, how could I ever forget it? Tis true, Lilian, that VP are in the very flower of our days ; the bloom of our youta ana existence is at its full; love, tenderness, beauty, and susceptibility, all glow within our hearts." " And will not the roll of years make them dull, diminish their force, and cool their fervour ? Oh, heavens ! I am quite making love to you," said Lilian, blushing crimson ; " but danger and the risk of losing you have endued me with great boldness." " But time will never diminish the love I bear thee, Lilian ; and the memory of this hour's bitter struggle this conflict between a love that is irresistible and the strong ties of honour, that bind me to the banner of Dundee, will haunt me to my grave ! " Tears started into his eyes. A silence ensued. Poor Lilian had nothing more to urge ; and despite of all her gentleness, felt both intensely grieved and mortified, if not quite piqued, at Walter, whose heart was wrung by an agony too acute for words. As they rode past the thick woodlands that shelter the venerable church of St. Cuthbert, they heard a shrill but cracked voice chanting slowly, " I like ane owl in dsart am, &c." " By Jove ! 'tis the villain who slew poor Joram," exclaimed Walter, drawing' a pistol from his holsters ; but the voices of two other persons finishing the verse, arrested him. "Astonish- ment ! 'tis the voice of Finland!" said Walter, as he spurred his horse close to a fauld dyke, on the other side of which he saw what? Annie Laurie, and his old friend and brother cavalier, Finland, on their knees, beside Mr. Ichabod Bummel, chanting a psalm in most dolorous accents. " By all the devils ! " said Walter, almost bursting with laughter ; " 'tis the age of miracles this ! What, ho ! Dick THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. 367 Douglas and Mistress Anne Laurie, singing hymns among the heather, like two true laverocks of the persecuted kirk." " Woe unto thee, thou troubler of the just in spirit ! " cried Mr. Ichabod, unsheathing his broadsword. " I have plucked the youth and the maiden like brands from the fire which is fated to consume all such unrepentant persecutors of Israel as thee." " I have seen a new light," said Finland, giving Walter a sly wink of deep meaning. " And so have J," added Mistress Laurie, demurely : " and command thee, Walter Fenton, thou man of sin, to treat this holy expounder of the Gospel with becoming reverence." " Annie oh, Annie ! " cried Lilian, as she boldly leaped the mare over the fauld dyke, and threw herself into the arms of her friend. " My service to you, Mr. Ichabod," said Walter, bowing to the rawboned preacher ; but quite unable to unriddle the mys- tery of this rencounter, he whispered to Finland (while the slayer of Joram was engaged with Lilian), " What the devil does all this mean, Dick ! " " Learn in a few words," replied Finland, who was in as miserable a plight as dust, smoke, and a hundred bruises could make him. " Annie and I had a most miraculous escape amid the horrors of last night. I will tell you of it anon, 'twas quite a devil of a business. As for me, I am well used to such camisadoes, having been blown up at Namur, and twice nearly drowned in the Zuiderzluys ; but how my ador- able Annie escaped, Heaven, who saved her, can only know. We were in the hands of the most villancus mob the world ever saw ; they were about to hang me from the arm of the Girth-cross ; and Annie oh ! my blood bubbles like boiling- water when I think of what they intended for her ; when this leathern-jawed apostle, who, with all his psalm-singing and whiggery, hath some good points of honesty about him, brought us off, sword in hand ; we bundled out of the city, without blast of trumpet ; and here we are. As a gentleman of cavalier principles," said Finland, colouring, " you may marvel that I would condescend to chant a psahn like a mere clown or canting herdsman ; but as we are utterly at the mercy of this Ichabod Mummel or Bummel, I had no choice. He needs must -tush ! you know the musty old saw." " It is enough, maiden," said the preacher, replying to something Lilian had said, and taking, with an air of real kindness, the little hand of the shrinking girl within his own great bony paw, " I know thee to be the kinswoman of that 808 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. godly matron, Grizel Napier, who, though wedded to as cruol a persecutor as ever bestrode a war-horse yea, and though leavened in their wickedness withal, sheltered me in the days of my exceeding tribulation, when there was a naming sword over Israel, and when, as a humble instrument in the cause of that great saviour of the kirk (whose coming I foretold in my Bombshell, whilk hath not yet the luck to be printed), I came from Holland to this land of anarchy, and had novrhere to lay my head. She clothed and sheltered me, for the sake of that loved kinsman who is now no more, slain by some accursed persecutor, whom I would smite yea, maiden, both hip and thigh, if I had him within reach of this good old whinger, that so oft hath avenged, the fall of our martyrs ! " Walter instinctively grasped his sword, startled by the stern energy of the preacher, who continued " It is enough, maiden with me ye are safe, and to a place of peace I will conduct you and your friend ; but for these two sons of the scarlet woman these slaves of Jezebel, who have been nursled in the blood of our saints and martyrs, and in whom it grieves me to think ye have garnered up your hearts, I may not, and cannot, with a safe conscience, protect them. Let them depart from me in peace ; let them follow him who, ere long, will be called to a severe account for all his dark misdeeds John Grahame of Claverhouse." " 'Tis sound advice, Mr. Bummel," said Walter, tightening his reins, and drawing off his glove. " By Heaven ! I had quite forgotten ; he will have crossed the Forth by this time, and it will require some exertion of horseflesh to rescue my honour. Finland, we must go. Mount Lilian's horse. Lilian," he added, in a low and tremulous voice, " farewell now ; commend me to Lady Grizel, and bid her bless me ; farewell, Lilian we must part at last ; " and stooping from his horse, he gently pressed her to his steel-cased breast, and kissed her. " Oh ! Walter, remain remain," murmured Lilian. " It cannot be it is impossible now ; I am pledged to Grahame of Claverhouse." And afraid to trust himself longer within hearing of her soft entreaties, lest love might over- come the stern principles of loyalty in which he had schooled himself, he leaped his horse over the fauld dyke ; and while he felt as if his very heart was torn by the agony of that separation, he dashed along the road to the west, leaving Finland to follow as he chose. "With a mind overcharged by sad and bitter thoughts, Walter galloped madly on. retracing the way he had coma THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 3(>i) fnth Lilian ; liis mind seemed a very whirlpool, and the events of the last twenty-four hours a dream. A steep old bridge, which the roadway crossed near the ancient manor of Sauch- toun, was ringing beneath his horse's heels, when a distant shout made him rein up. " Hollo ! " cried Finland, as he came after him breathlessly on the panting mare ; " what the devil art gone mad, Wal- ter P Oh this tormenting love ha ! ha ! " " I envy this happy flow of spirits, Finland ! " " Then you envy me the possession of all that fate hath left me in this bad world. This devilish commotion hath confiscated my free barony of Finland, and torn my arms at the cross ; still I am more gay than thee, who hath nothing to lose." " And after parting with one you love," continued Walter, almost piqued by his friend's lightness of heart : " parting, perhaps for ever " " Tush, man 1 am used to such partings. I have had many a love that was true while it lasted ; but none like the passion I bear my dear Annie. My first flame was a blue- eyed demoiselle of the Low Countries (her mother was a fleuriste in Ghent). I thought I loved her very much ; but somehow at Bruges, Mons, and Bergen-op-Zoom, 'twas ever the same ; I always left some one with a heavy heart ; and cursed the generate, when in the cold foggy mornings it rang through the dark muddy streets, waking the storks on the high roofs above, and the drowsy boors in their beds below. I know that the wheels of fate and fortune are ever turning ; some points may, and others must, come round to their first starting-place, so I always live in hope. I was very sad in Ghent when our drums beat along the street of St. Michael, and I bade adieu to my fair one, coming away, I remember, by the window instead of the door." " How why ? " " I don't know, man," laughed Douglas : "but so we often left our billets in French Flanders. But I assure thee, lad, that under all this gaiety my heart is as heavy as thine ; for I vow to thee, that the recollection of Annie, with her be seeching blue eyes, her dark clustering hair and pallid cheek, the touching cadence of her voice, and the words she said to me, are imprinted on my heart as if the hand of Heaven had -written them there. By the bye, I have composed a famous song about her." " A song ! " " Music and all. I wrote it on the night we were aDout to u SB 370 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. sack the old house of Bruntisfield, in search of yonder spindle- shanked apostle. Ah ! if in my absence Craigdarroch should dare but ho ! yonder are some of our friends halted under a tree upon that grassy knowe." " There is something odd being acted there. Does not yonder white feather wave in the steel bonnet of Dundee ? " " He is permitting some false Whig to sing his last psalm under the convenient branch where he is doomed to feed the corbies. Dundee is very kind in that way sometimes." Recrossing the stream called the Leith, they rode towards a knoll that rose amid the marshy ground near the castle- loch of Corstorphine. There a dozen of the cavalier troopers were dismounted, and leaning on their swords or carbines, were holding their bridles in a cluster round Dundee, who was still on horseback, and in the act of addressing a dis- armed prisoner, in whom with surprise and sorrow they recognized the young laird of Holsterlee. Cool and collected, with folded arms, he firmly encoun- tered the large dark eyes of Dundee, which were fixed with stern scrutiny upon hun. The group of his comrades sur- veyed him with glances of mingled scorn and pity. " Holsterlee ! " said the viscount, who held in one hand a long Scots pistol, in the other a letter ; " how little could I once have suspected that you, the best cavalier of the king's life-guard, and one in whose loyalty and high spirit I trusted so much, would stoop to this dishonour ! The attempt simply of deserting to take service with this vile usurper, though bad enougli in itself, is as nothing compared to the treachery which this stray letter has revealed. Fool and villain ! thou knowest that I am the last hope of the king's cause in Scot- land, and that if I fall it will be buried in my grave ; and yet thou art in league with this accursed Convention to destroy me ! A thousand English guineas for my head, thou villanous scape-the-gallows and companion of grooms and horseboys, who hast squandered away a fair repute and noble patrimony among rakehelly gamesters and women of pleasure, dost thou value the head of a Scottish peer at a sum so trifling ? hah !" He uttered a bitter laugh. " What," he resumed, " hast thou to urge, that I should not hang thee from the branch of this beech-tree ? " " That I am a gentleman," replied Holsterlee boldly ; " a lesser baron of blood and coat-armour by twelve descents, and should not die the death of a peasant churl or faulty hound." " Eight ! " exclaimed Dundee, whose dark and terrible e^es THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. 371 began to fill with tlieir dusky fire. " A gentleman should die by the hand of another, for every punishment is disgraceful. DEATH is the only relief from the consciousness of crime. Thou shalt have the honour of perishing by the hand of the first cavalier in Scotland. Thus shalt thou die now God receive thy soul ! " and pointing upward with his bridle-hand, he levelled the pistol and fired, The ball passed through the brain of Holsterlee, and flattened against the plastered wal of a neighbouring cottage. The body sank prostrate on th( turf, quivered for a moment, and then lay still and stiffening, with upturned eyes and relaxed jaws. This act, whicn was the most terrible episode in the life of the stern Dundee, threw a chill on the hearts of his com- rades ; but he did not permit them to remain gazing on the lifeless remains of one who had ridden so long in their ranks, and who was the gayest fellow that ever cracked a jest, shuffled a card, or handed a coquette through the stately cotillon or joyous couranto. " Our nags are somewhat breathed after the hot chase he gave us, gentlemen," said Dundee, deliberately reloading his pistol, and endeavouring under an aspect of external com- posure to conceal the immediate sorrow, remorse, and anger that too surely preyed upon his heart. " To horse ! sling carbines forward trot !" and away they rode in silence, leaving the cold remains of the dead man lying on the grassy sward, with his blood-dabbled locks waving in the morning wind, while the gleds and ravens wheeled and croaked around him with impatience. But he felt not the one, and heard not the other. He was stripped by the cottagers, and as his dress was re- markably rich, to prevent further inquiry they interred him where he lay between the bare beech-tree and the old cottage wall* * On removing the walls of an old cottage near Tynecastle, a mile west ward of Edinburgh, in 1843, the remains of a skeleton were found buried close by j the skull had been pierced by a bullet. In the plastered wall of the edi- **e a ball was found flattened against the stone. Edin. Advert,, April .8, 1843 THE SCOTTISH CA VALUE, CHAPTER L. THE PASS OF KILLYCEANKIE. Heard ye not ! heard ye not ! how that whirlwind the Ga81, Through Lochaber swept down from Lochness to Lochiel And the Campbells to meet them in battle array, Came on like the billow, and broke like its spray ! Long, long shall our war- song exult in that day ! IAN LOM, OP KEPPOCH. THE revolution might be said to be now fully achieved ; gave Dundee, Balcarris, and a few of their followers, all had submitted to the new sovereign whom these two nobles would rather have slain than acknowledged. Dundee had been re- quired by a trumpet to return to the Convention ; he treated the summons with scorn, and after cutting his way through a party sent to intercept him, reached the Highlands a proscribed fugitive, branded as an outlaw and traitor, and stigmatized with every epithet that Presbyterian rancour, heightened by the remembrance of his former military ex- cesses, could heap upon him. Colin, earl of Balcarris, the high treasurer, was captured and thrown into a dungeon. The weak and servile Melville, the crafty and fanatical Stair (the Scottish Talleyrand), and the not less crafty duke of Hamilton, were now at the head of the government, and these, though all staunch Presby- terians were by the king united in council with a few of tne high-church nobles, an intermixture which inflamed the animosities of both parties, and sowed the seeds of hatred, discord, and confusion. With his troop of faithful cavaliers, Dundee continued to wander from place to place in the Highlands until the begin- ning of May, 1689, when he appeared at the head of about two thousand clansmen led by Sir Donald Macdonald, the chiefs of Glengarry, Maclean, Locheil, and Clanronald all names which shall ever be associated with the purest ideas of chivalry, generosity, and valour. He had only about one hundred and twenty horse, but they were composed entirely of gentlemen, and were commanded by a Sir William Wallace, a brave cavalier ; Walter Fenton was his cornet, and carried the standard. Lieutenant-General Hugh Mackay, of Scoury, now com- mander-in-chief of the Scottish forces, colonel-commandant of the Scottish brigade, and privy councillor of Scotland, THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 372 marched against liim at the head of nearly five thousand foot, and with two regiments of cavalry. Neither the fall of Edinburgh Castle (which Sir John Lanier demolished), nor t.he disappointment of assistance from Ireland which James had promised him, could damp the ardour of the brave Dundee. Deficiency of provisions had compelled him to shift his quarters frequently, and his devoted followers had endured the most severe privations ; but under these they disdained to complain, when they knew that Dundee sharec them all. Like Montrose, he was eminently calculated for a Highland leader. In his buff coat and headpiece he marched on foot, now by the side of one clan, and anon by the ranks of another, addressing the soldiers in their native Gaelic, flattering their long genealogies, and animating the fierce rivalry of clanship by reciting the deeds of their forefathers, and the sonorous verses of their ancient bards. " It has ever been my maxim, Mr. Fenton," said he to our friend on one occasion, " that no general should command an irregular army in the field without becoming acquainted with every man under his baton." On the 17th June, 1689, he marched to the Pass of Killy- crankie, where one of the most decisive battles in Scottish history was bravely fought and fruitlessly won. Dawn was brightening on the hills of Athole ; and Walter, who, quite exhausted by a long series of hardships, cold, starvation, and a pistol-shot wound, was sleeping under his horse's legs, was aroused by the sonorous and guttural cry of a sentinel, who screamed out in Gaelic " Hoigh, Mhic Alastair Mhor ! Hark to the war-drum of the Saxon !" It was the morning of a battle ! Walter's first thought was of Lilian ; his second of the prospects of victory. The dear image of Lilian made him rise superior to his fortune. Since they had so abruptly separated, he had never heard from her ; and it was now many months. How long the time seemed ! Amid his dreamy musings, the gentle expression of her face often came powerfully to his recollection, with all the vigour of a deeply impressed vision ; and recollection summoned the tones of her sweet voice to his heart like the memory of some old familiar air, and all the gushing tenderness of his soul was awakened. But with these remembrances too often camo bitterness and despair, and he kissed with all a lover's fervour the scarf her hands had wrought him. Gleams of memory, and vivid visions of happiness, which he foresaw too surely could never be realized, made his heart swell alternately witb 574 THE SCOTTISH CAVALlEfl, tender recollections and joyous anticipations, that died away to leave him hopeless and despairing. Now they were on the "brink of a battle which Walter welcomed with anxious joy ; for it would be not less decisive as to the issue of his love, than for the fortune of James and the fate of the British people. It was a glorious morning in June ; the purple summer heather, the long yellow broom, the wild briar and honey- suckle, that clambered among the basaltic cliffs, loaded the air with a rich perfume ; while, through the savage and stu- pendous gorge of Killycrankie, the rising sun poured a flood of golden lustre, bringing forward in strong light the wooded acclivities of those sublime hills, that heave up to heaven their scaured and wooded sides, involving in dark shadow the deep rocky chasms, through which the foaming Garry rushes to mingle its waters with the rapid Tummel chasms so profound, and hidden by the overhanging foliage, that the roar only of the unseen water was heard, awakening the echoes of the dewy woods and shining rocks. Nothing in nature can surpass the wild grandeur and im- posing sublimity of this mountain gorge, the frowning terrors of which, in after years, so impressed a brigade of Hessians in the last of our Scottish wars, that they refused to penetrate what appeared to them to be the end of the habitable world. Save theimountain torrent foaming down from the lofty hills, appearing one moment to hurl its spray against the shining rocks, and urge masses of earth and stones along with it, and disappearing the next, as it plunged into the bosky wood- lands, all was still as death in that Highland solitude, when, in steadiness and order, Dundee drew up his little host at its northern verge, admirably posted on well-chosen ground, two miles from the mouth of the pass ; the only road to hia position being the ancient pathway that wound along the face of the precipitous cliffs, where the least false step threatened tistant destruction even to the most wary passenger. Dundee's band for it was indeed no more, though named an army was only two thousand strong, and composed of various little parties, which were the nucleus of the corps he expected yet to form. On the right was the soi-disant regiment of Sir John Macdonald ; a small body of the clans, under the illustrious chiefs of Locheil, Glengarry, and Clan- ronald. the Atholemen under Ballechin, Wallace's troop of horse, and a corps of three hundred half-clad aud miserably accoutred Irishmen, composed the main body. Dundee's old troop, in which rode the Earl of Dunbarton, his officers, and THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 375 several Highland gentlemen, formed the reserve of cavalry. The Highlanders, arrayed each in the picturesque tartan of their native tribes, were formed in close ranks, with their filleadhbegs belted about them ; their brass- studded targets, long claymores, ponderous poleaxes, and long-barrelled Spanish rules, shining in the rays of the meridian sun. The brandishing of weapons and clan-standards, and the fierce notes of war and defiance, as the various pibrochs rang among the echoing hills, announced that the troops of Mackay were in sight. And now the brave and anxious Dundee, clacl in his rich scarlet uniform, with the tall plumes waving on his polished headpiece, his fine features full of animation, and his black eyes alternately clouded by anxiety, or flashing with valour and energy, galloped from clan to clan, inspiring them by every exertion of graceful gesture and military elo- quence to add that day to the fame of their forefathers. The murmuring hum which, from afar off, announced the drums of Mackay, grew more and more palpable, and in- creased until the hoarse and sharp reverberations of the mar- tial music rang between the steep impending rocks of the long mountain pass through which the foe was penetrating. Anon the Scottish standards, the red lion with the silver cross, and one with that of St. George (borne by Hastings' regiment), and the yellow banners of the Scots brigade, ap- peared at intervals of time, and weapons were seen flashing through the openings of the chasmed rocks and sable woods of drooping pine. The day had passed slowly in anxious expectation : it was evening now, and the sun had verged to the northwest, but from between gathered masses of saffron clouds streams of dazzling light were radiating ; and the setting rays, as they poured aslant on the mountain sides, made the deep pass seem darker as it receded beyond them. The rattle 01 the drums, and the blare of trumpet and bugle, the clank of bandoliers and tread of feet, rang with a thousand reverberations between the brows of that tremendous gorge, as the army of Mackay debouched from its windings, and formed successive battalions on the little level plain or hollow, above which the fierce and impatient Highlanders, " like greyhounds in the slips strain- ing upon the start," were formed in array of battle. Un- dauntedly they surveyed the measured steadiness and pre- cision of the Lowland soldiers, whose silken standards fluttered gaily above their moving masses of polished steel caps, their screwed bayonets, and long pikes, that were ever flashing in the setting sun 376 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE. Sir James Hastings' English regiment, and those of Levea and Mackay belonging to Scotland, were arrayed in that bright scarlet which was to become so famous in future wars ; but the battalions of Balfour, liamsay, and Kenmore, wore the black iron caps, the scarlet hose, and yellow coats of the Scotch-Dutch brigade. The cavalry corps of the Marquis of Annandale and the Lord Belhaven wore coats of spotless buff and caps of polished steel. Their numbers, discipline, and order would have stricken with di^nay any other volunteers than the Highlanders, whose hearts had never known fear, and who had long been accustomed to rout both horse and foot with equal speed and success. As the practised eye of Mackay reconnoitered the position of Dundee, he pointed to the clan, and said to young Cameron of Locheil, who rode near him " Behold your father and his wild savages ; how would you like to be with him ?" " It matters little," replied the young man haughtily ; " but I recommend you to be prepared, or my father and hia 1 wild savages ' before night may be nearer you than you would wish." The reports of a slight skirmish between the right wing of the Highlanders and Mackay's left, made the hearts of all beat quicker; and in the interval, Dundee exchanged his scarlet coat for one of buff, richly laced with silver ; and over it he tied a scarf of green, which the Highlanders considered ominous of evil. Leaping on horseback, he galloped to the front, and a shout of impatience burst from the Highland ranks. It was now eight o'clock, and the sun was dipping behind the hills, when a simultaneous volley ran from flank to flank along Mackay's line ; and while the roar of the musketry rang from peak to peak, and rebellowed along the sky and among the hills like thunder, with a thousand echoes, Dundee gave the order to charge ; and in deep silence, and like a cloud of battle, the race of old Selma came down ! [Reserving their fire until within a pike's length of King William's troops, the Highlanders poured upon them a deadly volley ; and throwing down their muskets, drew their clay- mores, and, under cover of the smoke, charged with the fury of an avalanche, striking up the levelled bayonets with their studded targets, and hewing down with sword and axe, routed the Lowland soldiery in. a moment. The brave Maclean cut the left wing to pieces ; while Has- tings' Englishmen, on the right, had equal fortune from the THE SCOTTISH f?A ALIEB. 377 Oamerons and Macdonalds. Dunbarton, at the head of six- teen mounted cavaliers, actually routed the whole artillery, and seized the cannon ; while, led by Finland, the remainder of the troop broke among the dense and recoiling mass of Mackay's regiment, riding through it as easily as through a field of rye. King William's Dutch standard was captured by Walter- Fenton, who, after a short conflict, drove his sword through the corslet of the bearer, and, spurning him with his foot and stirrup, bore off the trophy. Meanwhile Finland encountered a mounted cavalier, and had exchanged blows before he recognised Craigdarroch, his rival, in the leader of Annandale's Horse, whom his brave little band had now assailed, and with whom they were main- taining a desperate and unequal combat of one to five. ** Surrender, Finland ! " said Fergusson, haughtily. " Have at thee, rebel ! " cried his adversary, and by one blow struck his rapier to pieces. His sword was raised to cut down the now defenceless trooper, and end their rivalry for ever, but, animated by chivalric generosity, he spared him, and pressed further on the broken ranks of the enemy. Carrying aloft the Dutch banner, Walter Fenton rode towards Dundee, who was applauding Sir Evan Cameron of Locheil, and urging his clan yet further to advance. Dundee (whose panting horse was in the act of stooping to drink of a mountain runnel), with his eyes of fire turned to the disordered masses of Mackay, was brandishing his sword towards them, when a random bullet pierced his buff coat above the corslet, and buried itself in his shoulder under the left arm. The sword dropped from his hand ; a deadly pallor over* spread his beautiful features ; he reeled in his saddle, and would have fallen, but Walter supported him, and held before his eyes the yellow standard of the Stadtholder. " Now, God be thanked, they fly ! " said he, in a voice which showed how intense were the torments he endured ; " you are a brave lad, Fenton the dying hour of Claver'se is at hand, but he will not forget you. Meet me at the house of Urrard in an hour, if all goes well and I survive till then. Make my dutiful service to the noble Lord Dunbarton, and desire him to assume the command. Adieu ; " and placing his hand on the orifice to staunch the blood, he rode over the field at a rapid trot. In a mass of disorder, horse and foot, musketeers, pikemen, and cavalry, the soldiers of Mackay were driven like a flock of frightened sheep down the narrow pass, while the fierce clansmen, swayin^ with both hands axe and claymore, " cut 378 THE- SCOTTISH OAVALIEH. down," says an old author, many of Mackay's officers and soldiers, " through skull and neck to the very breast ; others had their skulls cut off above their ears like nightcaps ; some had their bodies and crossbelts cut through at one blow ; pikes and swords were cut like willows, and whoever doubts this may consult the witnesses of the tragedy." Thanks to the skill of Dundee and the valour of the Highlanders, never was a more decisive victory won. Mackay lost his tents, baggage, artillery, provisions, and his standards ; he had two thousand men slain and five hundred taken prisoners. Such was the battle of Killycrankie, or Rinn Ruaradh, as it is stU, named by the peasantry, who attribute the ultimately fataj effects of the victory to the circumstance of Dundee wearing yreen, a colour still esteemed ominous to his sirname. A ru\ party had so industriously circulated concerning it, had lc~* deemed it, in his own phraseology, "a shameful and mafapert fact, unseemly to men, and abominable in the sight of Heaven, that these twain should remain un wedded ; " and by his influence, Clermistonlee was duly cited before the kirk session. Resistance was in vain, for now the clergy had suc- ceeded to the council's iron rod ; and temporal proscription and spiritual excommunication invariably followed delay. Clad in a sack of coarse white canvass, and on his knees before a staring congregation of stern Presbyterians, he " confessit his manifold sins and enormities," as the records of the kirk show, " and was rebukit by the godlie Mr. Bummel for the space of ane hour, being comparit to ane owle in ye desart ; ' and it appears that the minister, in his ire, made such direct reference to the abduction of Lilian, in language so pointed, so coarse, and unseemly, that, overwhelmed with shame and horror, the poor girl, unable to bear the scornful scrutiny and malevolent glances of her own sex, sank down in the gloomiest recesses of the old family pew, and swooned. This event, together with the cruel inuendos industriously circulated by the gallants and gossips of the city, was her crowning misfortune ; from that hour her peace was blighted, and her fair fame blotted for ever. Her friends pitied and acquaintance shunned her. She endured the most intense grief and bitterness of soul that a sensitive and delicate woman could feel ; for even the very children of the Whig faction pelted her sedan when it entered the city, and called her " My lord's leman," " Clermistonlee's minion," and the " Deil's dearie." The united effects of grief, shame, mortification, and in- sulted pride, were soon visible on her health; her cheek grew blanched and thin, her eyes dim ; and though she did not weep, her sorrows lay deeper, and the canker-worm preyed upon her suffering heart. And not the least offensive to her feelings were those offerings of friendship which were mingled with condolence, when Lady Drumsturdy and others advised her to think seriously of the long and assiduous attentions of Clermistonlee ; in short, " after all that had taken place " to receive him as her husband ; that being, in their opinion, the only way to restore her forfeited honour. The inuendo concealed under this odious advice provoked the anger of Lilian, whose concern was increased by perceiving 384 THE SCOTTISH CAVAL1EB. that Lady Grizel, and her own bosom friend and gossip, Annie, were beginning to be of the same opinion. The~i countenance, and the hope of "Walter's return, had alone sus- tained her so long ; but now a sense of utter desolation saLjc upon her soul, and her brain reeled with the terrible thought that oppressed it. CHAPTEK LTL ST. GERMAIN. And it was a' for our richtfu' king, We ere left Scotia's strand, my dear -, And it was a' for our richtl'u' king, We saw another land, my dear. OLP SONG. AGITATED by feelings such as few have experienced, on an evening in the summer of 1690, "Walter Fenton found himseJ pursuing the dusty highway from Paris to St. G-ermain, the place where the hopes and the fears, the loyalty and the sor- rows of the Jacobites were centred. He wore a plain suit of unlaced grey cloth, very much worn, a hat without a feather, and a plain walking- sword. He carried under his arm a smau. bundle, with particular care, for it contained a few necessaries and all he possessed in the world his commission, the long- treasured letter of Dundee, and the Dutch standard he had taken at Killycrankie. These were now his whole fortune. That day he had walked from Senlis without tasting food, and was quite exhausted. After spending his last sou on a glass of sour vin ordinaire at a small cottage, near the Wood of Treason (where Ganelon in 780 formed his plot which betrayed the house of Ardennes, the peers of Charlemagne, and occa- sioned the defeat of Roncesvalles), he grasped his bundle, and pushed on with renewed energy. His handsome features were impressed by an air of sadness and deep abstraction, for the acute achings of present sorrow struggled with the gentler whisperings of hope, and though his feet traversed the hard flinty roadway from Paris, his thoughts were far away in the land of his childhood, and his wandering fancy luxuriated on the memory of many a much-loved scene he might be fated to behold no more, and many an episode of tenderness and love that would never be reacted again. How vividly he recalled every glance and graceful action of Lilian, as he had last beheld her. Nearest and dearest to his THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 385 heart, she rendered the memory of his native land still more beloved, for she yet trod its soil and breathed its air, and Ke knew that daily she could gaze on those blue hills which are tli> first landmarks of the child in youth, and the last of the mac in age, and to the recollection of which the emigrant and the exile cling with the tenacity of life. The current of his thoughts was interrupted, and his cheek flushed. The great and striking brick facade of the old castle of St. Germain, with its turrets shining in the setting sun, arose before him. There dwelt lie on whom the hopes of half a nation rested, and Walter drew breath more freely as he progressed ; his eye sparkled, and his cheek flushed with animation, for now other and less painful thoughts were oc- curring to his fancy. With the buoyancy natural to youth, sorrow gave way as hope spread its rainbow before him ; and bright visions of the king's triumphant return and restoration by the swords of the cavaliers or Jacobites, mingled with his own dreams of love and honour. Fired with ardour, he often grasped his sword, and springing forward, longed to throw himself at the foot of James VII., and pour forth in transport that singularly deep and burning passion of loyalty which animated every member of his faction. "And this is the palace of our king !" he exclaimed, with enthusiasm. " Heaven grant I may yet greet him in his old ancestral dome of Holyrood !" But the fever of his naturally excitable spirits subsided when, approaching the edifice, for the air of silence and gloom that pervaded it struck a chill on his anxious heart. " Ah," thought he, " if James should be dead !" At the distance of twelve miles from Paris, this ancient brick chateau or palace is beautifully situated on the slope of a verdant hill, at the base of which flows the Seine, and oppo- site lies an immense forest. From the earliest ages, St. Ger- main-en-laye had been a hunting-seat of the French kings ; but in compliment to his mistress, whose name was Diana, Francis I. (a monarch unequalled in gallantry, generosity, and magnificence), built the present palace in form of the let- ter D, with five towers, theva^es of which were gleaming like gold in the setting sun as Walter approached. A dry fosse crossed by drawbridges surrounded this noble chateau, which had on one side a range of beautiful arcades, built by Henry IV. and Louis XIII., and a magnificent terrace, 2,700 yards long and 50 broad, extending by the side of the dark-green forest, and from which, as our exile traversed it, he had a full view of the Seine winding through a beautiful country, bor- ii. 2c 3S6 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. dered on each side by waving meadows, vineyards of the deepest green, and cornfields of the brightest yellow, villages of white cottages thatched with light-coloured straw, that clustered round the turreted chateaux, or the ramparted chatelets of a noblesse that were then the most aristocratic in Europe. But Walter saw only the home of the exiled Stuarts. On the ruddy brick-walls, the latticed casements, and gothic towers, the setting sun was pouring a flood of light as it set at the cloundless horizon. From the summit of the edifice, tne royal standard of Britain hung down listlessly and still, and the same absence of life seemed to pervade all beneath it. The ditch was overgrown with luxuriant weecfo, and long tufts of pendant grass waved in the joints of the masonry ; great branches of vine and ivy had clambered up the walls of the palace, and flourished in masses on its terraced roofs and bal- conies. There was no one visible at any of the windows ; the gateway , which was surmountedbya stone salamandre (the cog- nizance of Francis I.), was shut, and save two sentinels of the French guards, who stood motionless as statues on each side, and an old Jacobite gentleman or two, in full-bottomed wigs and laced coats, promenading slowly and thoughtfully on the terrace, the old chateau seemed lifeless and uninhabited. As Walter crossed the bridge, and approached the gate with a beating heart, one of the sentinels, after giving a haughty glance at his faded and travel- stained attire, his weary aspect, and bundle, ported his musket across, and said politely, but firmly " Pardonnez, monsieur." Walter's heart swelled: had he travelled thus far, and reached the palace of his king, only to be repulsed from its gates ? His colour came and went, as, with a painful mixture of pride and humility, he replied " Mon camarade, I am a poor Scots officer, exiled from his native country, and who has come here to take service in France." The face of the Frenchman flushed, and his eye glistened, as he drew himself up, and presented arms. "Behold my commission," continued Walter; "I would speak with my noble lord and colonel the earl of Dun- barton.'* "Aha," replied the sentinel, "il est bon soldat, Monsieur Dunbartong. Passez, monsieur officier ; un gentilhomme est toujours un gentilhomme, et les braves officiers Ecossais eont radmiration de la France !" Walter bowed at this compliment, the gate was ojened by the porters, and, with a heart full of thoughts too deep for THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE. 387 words, lie found himself within the gloomy quadrangle of the palace of St. Germain-en-laye. Left for some minutes to himself, he stood, bundle in hand, irresolutely surveying, with a dejected and crest-fallen air, the great and silent court. A gentleman in very plain attire, with a short wig, a well-worn beaver, and steel-hilted sword, who was slowly promenading under the arcade, suddenly turned, and the wanderer was greeted by his old friend Finland. "Welcome to the poor cheer of St. Germain-en-laye!" cried this merry soldier (whom no fall of fortune could daunt), grasping Walter's hand. " My bon camarade, welcome to France. By all the devils, I was often grieved for thee, poor lad, and deemed thou wert doing penance in some rascally Tolbooth for our brave camisade in the north." Walter was so much oppressed in spirit, and so weak in mind and body, that the tears rushed into his eyes, and he could only press his hand in silence. " What the devil my poor lad, thou seemest very faint and exhausted ! " " I have travelled on foot from Boulogne-sur-mer. I spent my last franc at St. Juste, my last sou an hour ago for a glass of vin ordinaire, and for three days no food has passed my lips." "My God!" exclaimed Finland, striking his flushed fore- head, " and my last tester went for dinner to-day ! how shall I assist you ? Travelling for three days without food ! Surely the fortunes of the cavaliers are now at the lowest ebb." " Then the tide must flow again." " I now begin to fear it will flow no more for us. What says the player ? ' There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.' Once at least in life, every man's fortune will be at the flood, and if he misses the tide his bark is stranded on the shore for ever. But thee, poor lad ! how shall I get thee food ? we are all as poor as kirk rats here. There are not less than two hundred officers of Dundee's army, and other loyal gen- tlemen of the life guards and Scottish brigade, subsisting here on the small bounty of our gracious king, (whom Heaven in its mercy bless !) until some turn of fortune again draws forth their swords. We have each but fourpence a-day, and are in great misery from lack of the most common necessaries of life. Yet we never forget that we are Scottish gentlemen, 2o 2 388 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. and daily attend the king's levee, with as gallant an air as if we trod the long gallery of Holyrood in our feathers and lace as of old. His grace of Gordon, my lords of Maitland, Dun- barton, Abercorn, and others dine daily at a poor restaurateur's, on plain stew and cabbage broth, while I have to content myself with bread and o nions, and a keen appetite for sauce ; while it affords me no consolation to reflect that my old ancestral tower of Finland the gift of the Black Douglas to his favourite son and all the fertile lands that spread around it, are now possessed by some vile, canting crop-ear. The* ?arl of Dunbarton " " Whilom our gallant colonel how I long for an interview !" " He is gone to Versailles to visit Le Mareschal Noailles, anent the unfortunate gentlemen who are starving here around us. He will be back to-morrow. Oh, Walter, when I see how might can triumph over right, and wickedness over more than Spartan virtue, I am almost tempted to believe there is no governing power in this wretched world ; that all this is the effect of chance or fate." " Chance and fate are the reverse of each other, and this sentiment agrees not with your previous idea of ' the tide in the affairs of men.' " ." Tush ! I am in a dozen minds in an hour. Let us leave these topics to such men as Mr. Ichabod Bummel. You remember that apostle of the covenant ? ha, ha ! A word in your ear. You saw our fair ones ere you left Scotland, I doubt not?" " Alas, no." " The deuce ! how came that to pass P But you must dine, and where ? for I have not a brass bodle, as we say at home in poor old Scotland, (God bless her, with all her errors !) I have it ! the officer of the guard will lend me or give 'tis all one ; they are fine fellows, these French, and share their poor pay with us, in a spirit of charity that the apostles could not have surpassed. The gentleman and the soldier seldom seek a boon from each other in vain." Finland calculated rightly ; the French chevalier command- ing the guard, on learning the cause of his present necessity, at once divided the contents of his purse, and enabled the happy borrower to lead his wearied friend to a tavern, where dinner was ordered and discussed with wonderful celerity. " Now, Walter, I shall be glad to hear thy adventures," said Finland, when the waiting girl had cleared the dinner board and laid a decanter of wine, from which he filled their glasses. "Frontiniac dashed with brandy you remember THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 389 how often we have drank a bottle of it at Hughie Blair's, and the White Horse hostel. How the times are changed since then ! I was not at the Haughs o' Cromdale, being en route for Ireland, to crave succour from James " " After the dispersion consequent to that ill-managed affair., I wandered from place to place, enduring such miseries as few can conceive, and was a thousand times in danger of being captured by Mackay's dragoons, who were riding down the country in every direction. Assisted by the kind and beautiful countess of Dunbarton (who is yet intriguing in England), I procured some money, and, disguised as a Norlan drover, reached the western borders, for escape by sea from Scotland was impossible, the whole coast being watched by the English and Dutch fleet. In England my money was soon spent, and I despaired of ever reaching the port of Col- chester, where I heard there lay a ship that in secret frequently transported our persecuted people to France. My bonnet and grey plaid, though they ensured my safety in the Low- lands, caused me to be viewed with hatred, jealousy, and mistrust, as soon as the Cheviot hills were left behind me, and I had not money wherewith to procure a change of costume, I travelled principally by night, and slept in ditches or thickets by day, for the villagers assailed me with stones and abuse whenever they saw me, using every bitter epithet that national animosity could inspire, while every country boor that had a couple of beagles at hand, uncoupled them to track and hunt me." " Would to heaven I had been with thee, lad ! Well." " I remember with what bitterness I changed mv last penny for a poor roll at Bippon, and eat it by the side of a ditch, near the princely castle of one who had gained a coronet by his political apostacy. I had still many miles before me, but trusting to Providence, continued my journey. Travelling by night and lying perdu by day, I found myself in a waste moorland near Cawood, in the West Eiding of Yorkshire. The moon was rising ; but I found that hunger, fatigue, and humiliation, had done their worst upon me, and that I could achieve no more. Despair entered my heart, and I threw myself down in that bleak spot to die, cursing the rebellion of our countrymen, the inhospitality of the English, and my own bad fortune. From a stupor that for some time weighed down every sense, I was roused by the trampling of a horse, and a deep bass voice, crying, " ' Hollo Gaffer, art dead, or dead drunk only ? Get up with a murrain, for my nag will neither stand or pass ; steadj so so gently, zounds ! gently/ 890 THE SCOTTISH CAYALIEB. " I started, and instinr tively grasped my staff, on perceiT- ing a tall stout fellow muffled in a dark rocquelaure, with his face masked, and a hat napped over his eyes. He rode a strong, fleet, and active horse, and carried long holsters. " * Crush me, if it isn't a Scotch jockey a pedlar, I war- rant ! ' said he, drawing a pistol from his saddlebow ; * they never travel without the ready; so hand over the bright Jacobuses or William's guilders, or else I may pop this bullet through your brain.' " I was desperate, and replied, ' Fire ! and rid me of an existence that is worthless. I have nothing to give but my life, and it is no longer of value to me.' " ' A gentleman, by this light ! ' replied the other, withdraw- ing his pistol, * some cavalier in disguise, I warrant.' " ' You have guessed rightly ; so now lead me to the nearest justice of the peace for a reward, if you will.' " ' For what do you take me P ' said he, angrily. ' God bless King James, and may the great devil choke his son-in-law ! Ah, had the good Dundee (a Scot though he was) survived that brave day's work, in your infernal pass of what d' ye call it? 'twould have been another case with us both to-day, perhaps. So thou art a Scottish cavalier ? ' " ' Once I was so to-night I am a beggar, perishing by want, and without a roof to shelter me.' ' Hast thou no money, lad?' ' Not a penny, and have two hundred miles to travel. * Hast thou no friends among the English here ?' ' Have I not said that I am poor?' ' Bight ! I have learned in my time that the poor have no friends.' ' Save God and their own hands.' * Eight again, say I ; though a highwayman, I love thee, lad, for we have suffered in common from this accursed usurper, who sits in the throne of our king. Here are thirty guineas; 'tis the half of all I have in the world, but to- morrow night may bring me better luck; take them with welcome, and spend them without scruple ; but two hours ago they were in the purse of that rascally whig, Marmaduke Langstone, of Langstone-hall. Keep to the right, and an hour's brisk walking will bring you to a hedge alehouse. Whisper my name to the wench at the bar (kiss her for me), and she will put thee on the right road for Colchester ; the girl is true as steel to the good old cause.' " ' Whom shall I thank whom remember ? ' " c They call me " Highflying Tom" now, eastward of THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 391 Temple-V-ar,' said lie in a tone of bitterness ; ' but when King James sat in his own chair, I was Thomas Butler, Esquire, of a long pedigree and an empty purse devil else but a gen- tleman every inch, sir ; one that has shot his man, played at cavagnole with King Charles, and ombre with the queen ; drank many a bout with Rochester, ruffled it with Bucking- ham, and handed the fair Castlemaine and fairer Cleveland through a crowded cotillon. But it's all over now ; and, d n me ! I am plain Bully Butler the highwayman. So, sir, your servant ;' and dashing spurs into his horse, he galloped away over the heath." " Thomas Butler, of the princely house of Ormond and 'twas he !" said Finland ; " a braver spark old Ireland never sent forth to glory or disgrace. His father was a stout old Boy ali st, and shed his blood for King James on the banks oi the Boyne. And so he hath taken to the road, the madcap ! That is riding at the gallows full tilt with a vengeance ! " " But for that rencontre, I must have expired. The meeting gave me renewed energy ; and (to be brief) I reached not Colchester, but the seaport of Saltfleet, where, in the disguise of a poor Scottish mariner, I embarked on board a smuggling craft, which landed me at Boulogne ; and so I am here." CHAPTER LII1. THE CAVALIERS OF DUNDEE. In the cause of right engaged, Wrongs injurious to redress ; Honour's war we strongly waged, But the heavens denied success. Ruin's wheel has driven o'er us, Not a hope that dare attend ; The world wide is all before us, But a world without a friend. STRATHALLAN'S LAMENT. THE magnanimity of those unfortunate officers of the Scottish army who remained loyal to James VII., and had shared his misfortunes and exile, was equally worthy of an- cient Caledonia and of the most glorious ages of Athens and of Sparta. They were about one hundred and fifty in num- ber, all men of noble spirit, unblemished honour, and high birth, for they were the representatives of some of the first Samilies in Scotland. Enthusiastically attached to the king, 892 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE. they gloried in the sufferings their principles had brought upon them. On their first arrival in France, small pensions were assigned them by Louis XIV. ; but these were shortly afterwards withdrawn, on the paltry pretext of public expedience ; and the whole of those unfortunate gentlemen, who by their in- corruptible loyalty and indomitable patriotism had forfeited their commissions, when they might have purchased new honours in the ranks of the invader, and many of whom had lost titles and estates by their expatriation, were thus thrown destitute in a foreign land. It is related that, with a noble spirit of generosity, they shared their little funds for the benefit of those who were in greater destitution ; and those who had raised money by the sale of their gilt corslets, jewels, laced uniforms, rings, &c., readily shared it with others who were penniless. But these occasional funds soon became exhausted ; the king soon found it impossible, from the pittance allowed him, to maintain the numerous exiles and ruined dependants who made his court of St. Germain their rallying point. The poor Scottish offi- cers, finding the horrors of starvation before them, petitioned James for leave to form themselves into a company of private soldiers for the service of the French king, asking no other favour than permission to choose their own leaders ; their former general, Dunbarton, to be their captain ; their ser- jeants to be lieutenant-colonels ; and so forth. The king reluctantly consented. Those high-spirited cavaliers were immediately furnished with the clothing and arms of French soldiers ; and previously to their incorporation with the army of Mareschal Noailles, repaired to St. Germain, to be reviewed by the king, and to take a long to many a last adieu of him. It was the day after Walter's arrival ; and the summer morning rose beautifully on the Gothic towers of St. Germain, the crystal windings of the Seine, and on the dense dark woodlands that, interspered with blooming vineyards and waving fields, imparted such charms to the landscape. James VII. had become passionately fond of the chase since the loss of his kingdom ; for his brave and restless spirit always sought excitement when not absorbed in the austere duties of religion, in the course of which he often subjected himself to the most severe penances. Kind, affable, and easy to all around him, religion improved the virtues of his heart, subdued the fire of his spirit, and by imparting a monk-like gentleness to his demeanour, endeared him to his THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 393 enthusiastic followers. The butcheries of Kirke and Claver- house, and the tyrannies of Jefieries and Hosehaugh, were forgotten. Though his uncompromising bigotry remained, all his arbitrary spirit had vanished ; and when he laid aside his visions of worldly grandeur and kingly power, nothing could be more blameless and amiable than the life he led. He frequently visited the poor monks of La Trappe, whom he surprised by the piety and humility of his deportment ; but there were times when the sparkling eye, the flushed cheek, the forward stride, and the clanked sword, showed how regal a spirit and bold a heart misfortune had crushed and fanaticism clouded. He was an enthusiast in the plea- sures of the chase, which he enjoyed after the good old English fashion ; and on the morning in question, the baying of dogs, the neighing of horses, and the merry ringing of the clear bugle-horn, awoke the echoes of the woods, the gloomy arcades, and quadrangle of St. Germain. On each side of the archway were drawn up a guard of honour of Les Gardes Franpais, in their white hoquetons laced with gold, powdered wigs, little hats looped on three sides, and surmounted with plumes of feathers, and having the white banner of Bourbon displayed. The porters unclosed the heavy folding-doors, and a merry troop of huntsmen in green galloped forth, with their dogs barking and straining in the leashes, as the blasts of the shrill horns were poured to the morning wind, and roused their English blood. The heavy drawbridge clanked into its place across the grass- grown moat, the planks resounded to iron hoofs, the French guard presented arms, the oriflamme of St. Denis was low- ered, the drums beat a march, and James VII., raising his plumed hat, sallied forth at the head of his train, and advanced along the spacious and magnificent terrace. The earl of Dunbarton rode by his side ; and as they caracoled along the level terrace, by tne margin of the beautiful Seine, a body of soldiers in French uniform was seen in front, drawn up in steady array, with their fixed bayonets shining in the morning sun. They presented arms as the king approached, upon which he immediately reined up, and raised his hat. " My Lord Dunbarton," said he, " what troops are these ? " " They are your majesty's most faithful subjects and de- voted followers," replied Dunbarton hi a faltering voice " Yesterday they were Scottish gentlemen of coat-armour and bearers of your majesty's commission ; to-day they are but poor privates in the army of Louis of France." 394 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER *' My God ! " said the king ; " and, in the levity of the chase, am I so oblivious of the misfortunes of those unhappy gentlemen ? " Instantly leaping from his horse with a heart that swelled by its emotions, he approached them and raised his hat. Every heart was full in that silent line before him, and every eye glistened. Walter Fenton, who now for the first time beheld that king for whom he had suffered so much, felt his bosom glow with the most intense loyalty and ardour, a gush of sentiment that would have enabled him to hail with joy the terrors of a scaffold or the dangers of a battle- field. ' " Gentlemen," said the king, " bitter though my own mis- fortunes be, yours lie nearer my heart, which is grieved, beyond what language can express, to behold so many men of valour and worth, from being the officers of my Scottish army, reduced by their loyalty to the station >f private sol- diers. Nothing but this more than Spartan devotion on the part of the few, but gallant and leal, makes my life worth preserving. Deeply, deeply indeed is my heart impressed with the sense of all you have undergone for my sake ; and if it should ever please the blessed God" (removing his hat) " to restore me to the throne of my fathers, your sufferings, your services, and your devotion, shall not be forgotten, never, oh, never ! The prince my son, he shares vour northern blood. Oh, may he likewise inherit your spirit of bravery and truth ! " At your own desire, gentlemen, you are now going on a long and perilous march, far distant from me, to encounter privation, danger, and death. To the utmost of my small means, I have provided you with money, shoes, and stockings. Heaven kn Wha daur meddle wi' me ? My name it's Judt-n Stenton, And wha daur meddle wi' me ? " And, light-hearted by the success of his lord's scheme, he sang and laughed as he trudged back to the city. On rejoining Lilian, Annie was in a flutter of extreme agitation ; and, after great reluctance, in which sK.ime and curiosity struggled with some remnant of her former love, and after bursting into tears and then laughing hysterically, she broke the seal and read in a quavering voice as follows : ^08 THE SCOTTISH CAYALIEH. "Trenches before Mons, penult June, 1 602. " Mine own sweet Annie, " God knoweth whether the words I am now in- diting will ever be seen by your own dear blue eyes. Never, theless I write (on a drumhead for a desk), and in great haste, for the bearer of this starts for Versailles in an hour. A trench where the dead and dying he among the blood-stained earth, piled, yea, chin-deep, and where the cannon-balls are re- bounding every instant from the ramparts of Mons, is a very unpleasant place to compose love-speeches ; but, believe me that the heart of poor Dick Douglas, in suffering and danger, poverty and exile, is still unchanged, my beloved Annie, and as much thine as ever. Here are we, a company of gallant Scottish gentlemen, in such a plight as you never could con- ceive ; and the very appearance of our ragged attire, our emaciated forms, and our exceeding misery, would melt your gentle heart with the softest compassion. My ancient signet ring, the last relic of the house of Finland, I bartered yesterday for a loaf of bread, and now I have nothing left save the lock of thy hair, which shall go with me to the grave. But more glorious by far are our Jacobite rags than the gay bravery w r e might have worn under that accursed usurper against whom we have sworn to fight to the last gasp. " The mischances of war are fast reducing the faithful cavaliers of Dundee. Starvation or the bullet daily send some brave heart to its long repose, and the survivors are in such a plight that not even the Westland Whigs could wish them lower. From the frontiers of Spain we have travelled to Alsatia, and from thence to Mons. It was a march of horrors ! We were utterly without the necessaries of life, and in the depth of a severe winter, marched nine hundred miles over a country covered with snow. Many of us were barefooted. For many weeks our food was nuts in the woods, roots in the fields, horsebeans and garlic, and thus it is that Louis XI V. rewards our loyalty, our patience, our fatigues and achievements. "Our old friend Walter Fenton is well. Through all the campaigns under Monsieur le Mareschal Noailles and the noble Luxembourg, he hath showed himself worthy of the knighthood King James's sword bestowed. Yesterday he volunteered, with sixty of our unhappy cavaliers, to plant the banner of King Louis on the bastion de Sainte Wandree, and nobly did he redeem his word. Commend me to all our leal and right honourable friends, and to those who may THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 409 tliink kindly of the poor cavaliers for the happy days that have passed away for ever. A time may come adieu, dearest Annie the call to arms is sounding along the lines, and we are about to march for Steinkirke, a duty from which few will return. On my mind there weighs a heavy presentiment of what I cannot name to thee. Farewell, my gentle Annie, and may God bless thee ! for I fear we shall see the bonnie braes of Maxwelton together no more. " FINLAND, " Late Lieut, in the Royall Scotts Ffoot/' There was a tone of sorrowful resignation to a hard and hopeless fate pervading this letter that struck a pang of deep remorse through the heart of Annie but a pang for one moment only ; the volatility of her sex aided her, and smiling through her tears, she said, " My poor dear lighthearted Dick, would to Heaven I could lessen the miseries you endure !" " Oh, Annie," said Lilian reproachfully, clasping her hands and weeping, " poor Walter and poor Finland !" "Tush!" said Annie pettishly, her dark-blue eyes sparkling between shame and sorrow. " Gossip, tease me not." " Stay, there is something more oh, read it." " A postcriptum " " It will grieve you much to hear that Walter Fenton hath broken his plighted troth to your fair friend Napier, and married a French woman, a mere camp follower, of evil repute. Eight heavy tidings this will be for the heiress of Bruntisfield, but I ever deemed her spark a fool ; again I kiss your hand adieu." The wicked expression of triumph that flashed in Annie's eyes quickly gave way to one of compassion and regret, on beholding the aspect of Lilian. Pale as death, with her eyes starting from their sockets, her silken curls seeming to twist like knots about her throbbing temples ; her nether lip turned from crimson to blue, and quivering convulsively, her bosom heaving with the terrible and sickening sensations that oppressed it. Her little hands were firmly clenched, and her dry hot eyes were full of fire. " Again, again, read it once more, Annie," she said, in a voice of strange but exquisite cadence. " Not for worlds !" exclaimed Annie ; " Oh, thou wicked letter, thus to mar our peace and hurl us into sorrow. Oh, if Craigdarroch should hear I have had a billet from my former lover, he will kindle up into such a fit of jealousy and ra,ge aa 410 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. the world never saw ; to the flames with it !" and she tossed into the fire the letter which poor Finland had so fondly and sorrowfully indited. It was consumed in a moment ; and thus all after examination of the postscript was precluded, otherwise the forgery might have been discovered before its effects became too fatal. " A camp follower of evil repute I It is false impossible ; Finland hath lied ! Yet yet a cup of water, for Heaven's sake my throat is parched and scorching !" Lilian sank into a chair and covered her face with her hands, but neither wept nor swooned, for her sense of injury was too acute for tears. How bitter was the palsying sickness of heart the agony she endured ! Not a tear fell, for the fire that burned in her breast seemed to have absorbed them. " This is the third 20th of September since he first left me. Oh, Walter, Walter, God may forgive thee this great ii-gratitude and cruelty, but I never can !" CHAPTER LY. THE EFFECT OF THE POSTSCEIPTUM. Women have died and the worms have eaten them, but not for love.'* LONG, long did poor Lilian grieve and weep, and mourn in the solitude of her gloomy home. She endured all the complicated agony of endeavouring to rend from her heart its dearest and most wonted thoughts the hopes and affection she had fostered and cherished for years. No woman ever died for love but the heroine of a romance : so Lilian of course survived it ; a month or two beheld her again tranquil and calm, though very sorrowful and subdued in spirit, for time cures every grief. The bitter sentiments of insulted pride and mortified self- esteem which often come so powerfully to the aid of the de serted, and enable them to triumph over the more tender and acute reflections, were kindled and fanned and fostered by the artful sophistry of Annie, who, with her real condolences, threw in such nice little soothing and flattering inuendos. mingled with condemnations of Walter, and pretended rumours of his marriage, the beauty and gallantries of hie THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 411 French wife, whom some called a countess and others a cour- tesan, that Lilian first learned to hear her patiently and then with indignation. With these were mingled occasional praises of Clermistonlee, managed wit? great tact, for Annie was cunning as a lynx, and never failed to flank all her arguments with the powerful one, how necessary it was for the restoration of her own honour, that she should receive the roue lord as her husband. Poor Lilian, though these advices stung her to the soul, learned at last to hear and to think of them with calmness, and (shall we acknowledge it ?) to say at last, " that it might be." With something of that fierce sentiment of desperation and revenge which, like a gage thrown down to fate, makes the ruined gamester place his last stake on the turn of a card, she began deliberately to school herself into thinking of Clermistonlee as her future husband ; and though in reality poverty was the real cause of it, Lady Craigdarroch failed not to impress upon Lilian how much he was reformed, how penitent he was, and for three years past had never been en- gaged in any piece of frolic or wickedness, and wound up by asserting that a reformed rake made the best husband. What love and perseverance could never accomplish, revenge achieved at last. " Alas ! the love of women, it is known, To be a lovely and a fearful thing- j For all of theirs upon the die is thrown, And if 'tis lost, life hath no more to bring " Long and assiduous were the exertions, the arguments and artifices of Annie, and long and fearful was the struggle that tortured the heart of Lilian, ere she would consent to receive Clermistonlee as her suitor. At last the fatal words were said. Annie flew to communicate the joyous tidings, and when next day he rode up the avenue to pay his devoirs, the miserable girl nearly swooned. The ring, the little embossed ring of antique gold, the last and only gift of Walter, and which he said contained the secret of his life, she had now laid aside, carefully locked up in a cabinet, because it brought too vividly before her the memories she had resolved to banish from her heart for ever. Gladly will we hurry over this chapter of pain and humi- liation. Clermistonlee had increased his great personal advantages 412 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. by all the aid of dress, and in defiance of the sad-coloured fashions of the time, wore a voluminous Monmouth wig, the long curls of which were puffed with aromatic powder, a suit of rose-coloured velvet, laced so thick with gold that the ground of the cloth was scarcely visible, a sword and belt sparkling with jewels. A medal of gold, bearing his coat of arms, was suspended by a chain of the same metal round his neck : it was his last venture in quest of fortune, and his lordship had resolved to spend all he possessed upon the stake. By the artful Annie he was led forward to the trembling and sinking Lilian, to whom he pleaded his cause, his con- stancy and perseverance, his raptures and agonies, his hopes and despair, with an ardour that confused, and perhaps flattered, if it did nothing more. These his lordship brought out all at a breath, as he had got the whole by rote, having said the same things to a hundred different women before ; but now his natural ardour and spirit of gallantry were greatly increased by the touching character which sorrow, vexation, and disappointment had imparted to the soft beauty of Lilian and also by the aspect of the comfortable old manor house and the acres of fine arable land that lay around it ; while she (shall we confess it ?) as bitter thoughts of Walter and his French wife rose up within her, stole glances from time to time at her noble and courtly suitor glances which he soon perceived, and fired with new animation, threw such an air of devotion into his addresses that he triumphed. Annie placed the hand of Lilian within that of Clenniston- lee ; he pressed it to his heart, and she did not withdraw it ; but burst into a passion of tears. He then threw his splendid chain, with its medal, around her bending neck, and pressed her to his breast, and so sudden was the revulsion of feeling, that Lilian fainted. An hour afterwards Clennistonlee, with all his embroidery glittering in the sun, was seen galloping back to the city like a madman; he dashed through the Portsburgh, and reined up near the Bowfoot, where, at the summit of a ten-storied edifice, dwelt Mr. Ichabod Bummel, minister of the gospel. " The father of confusion take your long stair ! Why, Mr. Bummel, 'tis like a rascally old steeple," said the lord, break- ing breathlessly in upon the lank-haired and long-visaged pastor, who was intent upon The Hind let loose of Alexan- der Sheills. " Yea, a tower of Babel but what hath procured me the honour of your lordship's visit?" THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 413 "By all the devils, don't think I am come to drnb thee for that lecture on the cutty stool ha, ha ! I am about to be married, man, and want you to proclaim, the banns and ac forth ; but my Lord Mersingtori will see after them for me." " As my Bombshell saith, marriage is an honourable and godly estate " " J3ut a deuced poor one, sometimes, Mr. Ichabod. I am about to be married to Lilian, of Bruntisfield, and thou shalfc espouse us, because the citizens hold thee to be their first preacher, and it will increase my influence among them." " But, my lord," began Mr. Ichabod, bowing. " But me nothing 'tis my non-attendance at kirk and my old tricks you aim at pho ! I am a thorough reformado but, Mr. Ichabod, hast never a drop of wine about thee ? 'tis a hot forenoon." " My dwelling contains nothing but water, and it is a plack the runlet in these dear years ; but, my lord," continued the divine, after sundry gasps and contortions of visage, " if I lend all my influence to render popular this intended espousal, whilk I perceive to be the main object of your visit, may I crave your lordship's favour in another particular?" " Command me in all things save my purse, for 'tis a mere vacuum, if thy philosophy will admit of such a thing. Say forth, my apostle ! " " I love the maiden called Meinie Elshender yea, I love her powerfully with the carnal love of this world, and the maiden is not altogether indisposed to view me favourably." "Zounds!" said Clermistonlee, while the minister looked complacently down on his long spindle shanks ; " in the name of mischief, who is Meinie Elshender?" " Handmaiden to the young Madam Lilian, who views me as an abomination." " By all the devils, thou shalt have her, bongr, malgre, and after I am fairly wedded, the best kirk in the Lothians to boot even should I make Juden shoot the present incumbent." " Heaven reward these generous promises," replied Ichabod, with a smile of incredulity. " Well it is that the maiden hath escaped the snares of her first lover, who was a soldier of antichrist a musketeer of the bluidy Dunbarton." " Say rather the most princely earl of the noble house of D/mglas ! Ha, ha by my faith ! we whigs are winning the false lemans of the cavaliers in glorious style." " And now, my lord, I have one other boon to crave," said Ichabod, producing a tattered and dog-eared MS. from a bunker " This is a book of which doubtless your lordship 414 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. hath heard 5 my Bombshell aimet at the taile of the Great Beast." " Oh, the devil take thy bombshell" " Shame, my lord. It proveth that Jonah " " Swallowed the whale ; eh, Master Ichabod P" said the gay lord, pirouetting about and laughing boisterously. " Oh, my lord, for a centiloquy " " Ha, ha! a what?" " A hundredfold discourse, to convince thee of the crime of this irreverence and irreligion." " I crave pardon ; but what do you want, eh?" " Your lordship's subscription ; 'tis to be published in the imprinting press in the Parliament-close, whenever new irons are brought over from Holland." " Oh, by all the devils, certainly ; send me a dozen of copies, Faith ! I must be quite pious henceforth. And now, bravo I see the kirk session about my little affairs, while I ride down the Lawnmarket to old Gideon Grasper, the clerk to the signet, for there will be a mountain of papers to sign and seal, and so forth ; but the banns, the banns, next Sunday, remem- ber ;" and chanting, " With a heylillelu and a how-lo-lan," his lordship danced away out, tripping down the long stair by three steps at a tune, and mounting, galloped into the upper part of the city. CHAPTER LYI. THE BATTLE OF STEINKIBKE. As torrents roll increased by numerous rills, With rage impetuous down their echoing hills ; Rush to the vales and pour'd along the plain, Roar through a thousand channels to the main ; The distant shepherd trembling hears the sound : So mix both hosts, and so their cries rebound. ILIAD, BOOK IV. IT was the night before the famous battle of Steinkirke, when the confederates under William III. encountered the gallant and brilliant army of the great Fra^ois Henri due de Luxembourg. In happy ignorance of what was being acted at home by those whose memory lay so near their hearts, Walter Fenton and Douglas of Finland were carousing with their brothers in THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 415 war and misfortune around a blazing fire, composed of rafters borrowed for the purpose from the roof of a neighbouring Flemish house. Intent on crushing the alarming confederation of the pro- testant powers against him, Louis XIV. had taken the field in person at the head of one hundred and twenty thousand men. This sensual, selfish, and weak-minded monarch was accompanied by all the effeminate pomp and tinsel splendour of an eastern emperor ; his women and paramours, numerous enough for a seraglio ; his dancers, players, musicians ; his kitchen, opera, household, and all the ministers of his luxury, his pleasures, and his tyranny, in themselves a host, crowded and encumbered the great camp of his splendid army, which, however, soon captured Nsmur, a strong city on the Meuse, though strengthened by all the skill of the great Coehorn, and defended by the valour of the prince de Brabazon and nine thousand chosen soldiers. King William, whose duty it was to have raised the siege of this important fortress, lay with one hundred thousand men within gunshot of Louis, but, embued with all the stolid and phlegmatic stupidity of a Hollander, permitted the place to be captured, by which his military reputation was as much injured as that of Louis was increased. The victor of Namur immediately returned to Versailles, surrounded by triumph and adulation, worshipped undeservedly as a hero, and ex- tolled as a conqueror, while William, whose inertness had at last given way to necessary activity, excited by shame and exasperation, having reviewed on the plain of Genappe a fresh quota of ten battalions of Scottish infantry, pushed forward against Mareschal Luxembourg, intent on retrieving his honour. After basely employing a spy named Millevoix, under pain of torture and death, to mislead the French commander by false intelligence of the confederates' movements, William advanced with his one hundred thousand bayonets to prevent him from taking up a position between the then obscure villages of Stemkirke and Enghien, a royal barony of the house of Bourbon. With his usual bad generalship William completely failed, for Luxembourg outflanked him, gained the position, and trusting to the communications of the per- fidious (or unfortunate) Millevoix, not anticipating any attack, confined himself to his tent, as he laboured under severe indisposition. Not expecting an alerte, the whole of his numerous and brilliant army lay entrenched among the fertile fields and 416 THE SCOTTISH CAVAlIEK- pastures of the Flemings, whose thick hedges, solid walls, anl comfortable houses, were cut down, torn up, and overthrown without ceremony, to render the position more secure. The post occupied by the Scottish officers was near the Senne, a slow and sluggish river. The sun had set, and far over the long perspective of the level landscape, that in some parts withdrew to the extreme horizon, shone the red depart- ing flush of the last evening many would behold on earth. In some places the river was reddened by the gleam of the distant fires, whose nickering chain marked out the camp of Luxembourg ; the higher eminences were covered by woods and orchards, from which the evening wind came laden with she rich perfume of the summer blossom. Save the hum of the extended camp all was still round Steinkirke, and where the exiled cavaliers were bivouacked there was little more Heard than the monotonous ripple of the Senne, as it flowed past its willow-shaded banks on its way to the northern sea. The Scottish exiles were always more merry than usual on the eve of a battle, for it freed many from a life of humiliation and hardship, to which they deemed an honourable death a thousand times preferable. At times an expression of stern joy, of ghastly merriment, at others of deep abstraction per- vaded the little group, as they clustered round the fire that blazed in a little alcove formed by an orchard on the river side. There their arms were piled, and they rolled from hand to hand a keg of Hollands, to which they had helped them- selves at the devastation of the Flandrian chateau de Senne. Afar off, above the village spire of Steinkirke, the silver moon rose broadly and resplendently to light the wide and fertile landscape with its glory. The Senne and Tender brightened like two floods of flowing crystal, and the willows that drooped over them seemed the work of magic, as their dewy leaves glittered in the rays of the summer moon. The stern hearts of that melancholy band were soothed by the beauty of the scenery, the seclusion of their tentless bivouac, the softness of the Flemish moonlight, and a song that Finland sang* completed the effect of the place and time. He reclined upon his knapsack, and his fine features, which long privation and toil had sharpened and attenuated, flushed and reddened as he sang of his love that was far away, and felt his brave heart expand with the dear and long-cherished hopes and memories her image stirred within it. " Maxweltoun Braes are bormie, Where early fa's the dew ; And blue-eyed Annie Laurie Gave me her promise true- THE SCOTTISH CAVALIES. 417 Gave me her promise true, That never forg-ot shall be j And for my bonnie Annie Laurie, I would lay me down and dee. " Her locks are like the pnnehine, Her breast is like the swan ; Her hand is like the ^.lawdrift, And mine her waist micht span. But oh ! that promise true ! Will ne'er be forgot by me, And for my blue-eyed Annie Laurie, I would lay me down and dee ! " This famous song, which, with its beautiful air, is so chaste and pleasing, and still so much admired in Scotland, poor Finland in his chivalric spirit had composed, to lighten the toil of many a long and arduous march, and now, inspired by the love and the fond recollections that trembled in his heart, he slowly sang the last verse with great tenderness and pathos. " Like dew on the gowan lying, Is the fa' of her fairy feet j And like wind in summer sighing, Her voice is low and sweet. But O that promise true ! Makes her all the world to me ; And for my bonnie Annie Laurie, I'd lay me down and dee." Every word seemed to come from his overcharged heart ; and as he sang the beautiful melody silence and sadness stole over the listening group. Softened by the dialect and the music of their fatherland, every heart was melted and every eye grew moist ; the red camp-fires and the shining waters of the Senne, the white tents of Luxembourg, the woodlands and orchards of Steinkirke passed away, and Scotland's hoary hills and pathless valleys rose before them, for their eyes and hearts were in the land from which they were expatriated for ever. It was the morning of the 24th of July, and in unclouded splendour the sun shone from the far horizon upon the tented camp of Luxembourg, on the standards waving and arms glittering within the rudely and hastily-constructed entrench- ments of the great and veteran engineer the Chevalier Antoine de Ville. Like bright snowy clouds the morning vapour curled upwards from the sedges of the Senne, and the dewy foliage of the woods, and rolling lazily along the plain, shrouded everything in a thick and gauze-like veil of white obscurity, which the rays of the sun edged with the hue of gold. Under cover of this, although the French knew it not, II. t *18 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEK. the entire force of the allied nations, led by William of Eng- land, were coming rapidly on in two dense columns, intent on avenging the disgraces they had endured at Namur. Luxem- bourg lay within his bannered pavilion on a bed of sickness, and neither he nor his soldiers were aware of the foe's ap- proach until the prince of Wirtemburg, at the head of ten battalions of English, Dutch, and Danes, drove back his out- posts on the right, making a furious attack on the camp, which instantly became a scene of greater confusion than king Agramont's, The patter of the musketry, the roll of the advancing drums, and the bullets whistling through his tent, roused the brave mareschal, who, leaping from his camp-bed, forgot his illness in the ardour and tumult of the moment. Hastily his pages attired and armed him, and throwing his magnificent surcoat above his gilded corslet, he seized his sword and baton, and rushed forth to repair what the artifices of Wil- liam, the treachery of Millevoix, and the bravery of Wirtem- burg had already achieved. To muster, to rally his immense force, and repel the prince of Wirtemburg, were but the work of a few seconds ; and the great leader, who five minutes before had lain inert on a couch of illness, was now spurring his caparisoned horse from column to column, with his plumes waving, his accoutrements glittering, and his baton brandished aloft; his features filled with animation, his soul with energy. The dukes of Bourbon and Vendome, the princes of Tu- renne and Conte, the due de Chartres, a youth of fifteen, whose almost girlish beauty made him the sport and the idol of the army, the marquis de Bellefonde, and several thousand chevaliers of noble birth and matchless spirit, by their pre- sence, their ardour, and example, restored perfect order, and in admirable battle array they stood prepared to encounter the host of the Protestant confederation. As the sun rose higher, the mist which shrouded the whole plain around the village of Steinkirke was gradually exhaled upwards, and as it rolled away the entire army of William III., a hundred thousand strong, were seen in order of battle, advancing as rapidly as the numerous thorn hedges, ditches, and dykes, which intersected the yellow cornfields, would permit. In defence of a place which it was expected William's bril liant cavalry would assail, the Scottish oincers were posted in an abbatis of apple-trees that had been cut down by the pioneers, and made an intricate breastwork all round ; and within it, with their arms loaded, they stood in close order, watching with lowering brows and kindling eyes the scarlet THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. 41V rankg of their countrymen, to whom thev now for th6 first time since their exile found themselves opposed in battle. The golden bloom of the ripe and waving cornfields, through which the lines were advancing in triple ranks, with their serried arms and embroidered standards glittering, threw iorward the bright scarlet costume in strong relief, and the hearts of the little band of exiles beat with increased excite- ment as the moment of a general encounter drew nigh. " Behold yonder fellows in our uniform ! " exclaimed one, as the Scottish infantry debouched in heavy column on the French left, with their twenty standards displayed, and their drums loading the air with the old march of the Covenanters. " God knoweth the sorrow, the bitterness, the hatred, and the fierce exultation that swell my heart by turns in this auspicious hour ! " said Finland, striking his breast. " You speak my very thoughts," responded Walter, with a deep sigh ; " yonder are the old Royals, but now another than Dunbarton wields his baton over them ; yonder are the standards we have carried but others bear them now. How hard to forget that these are our countrymen ! Do not our- selves seem to be marching against us ? " "Enough of this, gentlemen," said the veteran laird of Dunlugais. " In them I behold only the rebels of our king, and the sycophants of an usurper. This day let us remember only that we are fighting under the standard of the first cap- tain of the age, and about to win fresh glories for the most magnificent prince that ever occupied the throne of France ! " The battle was begun by Hugh Mackay of Scoury. Led by that brave and veteran general, a dense column of British cavalry, accoutred in voluminous red coats, great Dutch hats, looped up, and vast boots of black leather, with slung muskets and brandished swords, rushed at full gallop to the charge on one flank, while the prince of Wirtemburg assailed the other. The abbatis lay full in front of Mackay, who held aloft his long gilt baton, as he led on this heavy mass of troopers. On they came, horse to horse, and boot to boot, like a moving mountain ; but the deadly and deliberate volley poured upon them by the Scottish cavaliers threw them into immediate confusion ; the front squadrons, by becoming entangled among their falling horses and riders, recoiled suddenly on the rear, who were still spurring forward ; the furious shock produced an immediate and irredeemable confusion, and the whole gave way ere another volley of that leaden rain wa poured upon their dense arrav. 420 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. The rear of forty thousand muskets now burst like thunder on the ear, as the prince de Conte and the brave De Chartres, the boy-soldier, at the head of the superb household infantry, assailed the British, and volleying in platoons, continued to Eres'S upon them with increasing ardour until within pike's mgth of each other, when Conte led the whole to the charge. The shock was irresistible. Count Solmes failed to support the English and Scots, who immediately gave way, and a tremendous slaughter was made, especially among the latter. " Les Ecossais retreat ! " exclaimed Conte. " 'Tis a miracle. Tete Dieu ! 'tis surely a bad cause, when the hand of heaven is against them ! " The Scottish regiments of Coutts, Mackay, Angus, Gra- hame, and Leven, were cut to pieces, and the English Guards nearly shared the same fate. James earl of Angus, a brave youth in his twenty-first year, was shot dead at the head of nis Cameronians, William Stuart viscount of Mountjoy, Sii Hoberfc Douglas, Lieutenant- Gen eralJames Douglas, Sir John Lanier, Colonel Lauder, and many other brave Scottish gen- tlemen were slain, while the prince de Conte bore all before him. With the gallant prince of Wirtemburg it fared otherwise. Pressing onward at the head of his English, he carried off some of the French artillery, and after immense slaughter, stormed the entrenchment which covered their position ; but finding himseli ? in danger of being overpowered, he twice sent his aide-de-camp to crave succour from the phlegmatic William and from Count Solmes, a noble of the House of Nassau. Twice over a field that was strewn with thousands of dead and dyin, and swept by the fire of so many thousand muskets., cannon, and coehorns, the brave aide spurred his horse to beg succour for the prince his master ; but William neglected, and the Dutch noble derided his request. " Vivat Wirtemburg ! " cried Solmes, laughing ; " let us see what sport his English bull-dogs will make." At length William shook off the inertness that seemed to Eossess his faculties amid the storm of war that raged around im, and in person ordered Solmes to sustain the advance of the left wing which Wirtemburg had led on so successfully. Thus urged, the unwilling lord of Brunsveldt made an una- vailing movement with his cavalry, but left a few English and Danes to sustain the whole brunt of the battle. Amid the dense smoke that rolled in white clouds and con- cealed the adverse lines, their carnage and its horrors, again and again the brave old laird of Scoury led his squadrons to the charge, resolved to forc-e the passage, to turn the flank of THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 421 Luxembourg, or die ; and again they were repulsed from the abbatis by the courage of the desperate cavaliers. As yet, not one trooper had penetrated among them, though hundreds and their horses lay groaning and rolling in the agonies of death, entangled among the apple-laden branches of the pros- trate trees, grasping and rending them with their teeth in the tortures of dissolution. As yet* not one of the Scottish exiles had fallen ; but now Mackay ordered a body of his dragoons to dismount, to unsling their short fusees, and from behind the piles of dead and dying men and chargers, to fire upon the abbatis, which could afford no protection against bullets. A furious fusilade now ensued, and Fenton soon missed Finland from his side ; he turned, and his hot blood cooled for a moment to behold him lying on the bloody turf in the last agonies of death. A ball had pierced his breast ; his eyes were glazing, and he was beating the earth with his heels, as he blew from his quivering lips the bells of blood and foam. Unfortunate Douglas ! Something was clenched in his hand and pressed to his lips ; but as 'his dying energies relaxed, and his brave spirit fled to heaven, the relic fell on the turf; it was Annie Laurie's braid of bright brown hair. " Farewell, dear Finland," exclaimed Walter, kissing the dead man's hand. " Here end thy love and misfortunes together ! " Sorrow, rage, and ardour roused the fury of Fenton to the utmost, and with his clubbed weapon he sprang over the trees of the abbatis, exclaiming, " To the charge, gentlemen Scots ! to the charge ! Never let it be said that the cavaliers of Dundee played at long bowls with those false English churls. Victory and revenge ! " Fired by his example, and animated by national and poli* tical hatred against those who had deserted James VII., and wrought so many miseries to his few adherents, the little band sprang from the abbatis and threw themselves with incredible fury and determination on the dismounted troopers. Onward they pressed over piles of dead and wounded, while every instant the balls that new thick as drifting rain, thinned their narrow ranks, and added many another item to the vast amount of that day's carnage. None can be so brave as those for whom life has lost every charm ; and none so reckless as those who have a thousand real or imaginary wrongs to avenge. Thus, heedless alike of the number of their antagonists, who were again pressing up to the attack, the Scottish cavaliers came on pell mell, and a desperate conflict ensued with firelocks and fusils clubbed. As Walter, forgetful of everything else but to glut a fierce 422 THE SCOTTISH CAyALlEE. spirit of revenge, pressed onward, he encountered a tall and powerful officer. The nobility of his aspect and the richness of his attire (for his scarlet coat was so richly interlaced with Oars of gold as to be almost sword-proof), not less than the vigour with which he kept his soldiers to their duty, made him a marked man ; but Walter struck him from his horse emd flourished the butt of his musket over him. " Take these, you tattered villain," said the officer, offering a splendid watch and ring ; " take these, and spare my life." " Insult me not, sir," exclaimed Walter Fenton with un- disguised scorn. " I am one of the officers of Viscount Dun- dee of Dundee, the brave and loyal." " The vilest minion of hell and tyranny that ever disgraced his country then doubly are you traitor ! " said the other, starting from the ground and flashing a pistol in Walter's face. Blinded by fury and the smoke of the discharge, he drove his bayonet through the breast of the officer, and fairly pinned him to the turf. " Curse on the hour that I die by the hand of a base and renegade clown like thee ! " exclaimed the dying man, half- choked in his welling blood. "Traitor!" cried his destroyer furiously; "you die by the hand of Sir Walter Fenton, knight banneret of Scot- land ! " " So falls Hugh Mackay, of Scoury ! " moaned the other as he sank backward and expired. " Scoury ! " reiterated Walter ; " hah ! then this hour avenges Dundee the slaughter of Hillycrankie and of Crom- dale." At that moment he was hurled to the earth by a wounded charger as it rushed madly from the conflict. He fell against n tree, and lay stunned and insensible to all that passed around him. The sun was setting, and still the doubtful battle continued to be waged with undiminished ardour, until Mareschal Bouf- flers, at the head of a powerful body of cavalry, the French and Scottish gendarmerie, and the royal regiment De Bousil- lon, swept like a torrent over the corpse-strewn plains, with the orinamme displayed, and decided the fortune of the WPT } ust as the sun's broad disc dipped behind the far horizon. "William, instead of restoring his tarnished honour, was com- pelled to retreat in renewed disgrace, leaving many officers of valour and distinction, and three thousand soldiers, slain ; while the French, though they had to regret the fall of an equal number, with the prince de Turenne, the marquis de Bellefonde, Tiiiadete, Fernacon, and many other chevaliers of THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. 423 noble blood, remained masters of the field, over which they suspended from a lofty gibbet King William's luckless confi- dant, the spy and intriguer Millevoix. Paris resounded with joy and acclamation on the tidings of this great victory arriving ; the princes and soldiers who had served there were idolized as superior beings by the ladies and women of every rank, whose transports amounted to a species of frenzy ; and from that hour, for many a year, every ornament and piece of dress was known by the name of Steinkirke. CHAPTEE LYIL A. DISCLOSURE. 'Ti* night; and glittering o'er the trampled heath, Pale gleams the moonlight on the field of death ; Lights up each well-known spot, where late in blood, The vanquished yielded, and the victor stood ; When red in clouds the sun of battle rode, And poured on Britain's front its favouring flood. LORD GRKNVILLB. AGAIN the summer moon rose brightly over the secluded village of Steinkirke, and poured its cold and steady lustre on cornfields drenched in blood, and trod to gory mire by the charge of the spurred squadrons, the closer movements of the compact squares of infantry, or the artillery's track ; on the pale and upturned faces of the dying, the distorted and ghastlier lineaments of the dead, on a wide battle-field strewn with all the trophies of war and destruction, misery and agony. Save where illumined by the gleams of moonlight, by the red flashes of a few distant fire-arms, and the redder glare from a convent burned by the retreating British, the ruddy conflagration of which mingled with the last faint glow of the departed sun, the field seemed gloomy and dark. A narrow lurid streak at the distant horizon showed where the sun had set. The roar of that great battle had now died away, but it had sent forth an echo over France and Britain, denoting joy to one and sorrow to the other. Where, then, was AVilLiani of Orange, and where his mighty host ? The contest was now over, and, save the distant popping of a few skirmishers or plunderers, every sound of strife had ceased ; but the cool night-wind was laden with a sad and wailing murmur, a sound which it is seldom the lot of man to hear k the mingled moans of many thousands of men enduring 424 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. all the complicated torture of sabre and gunshot wounds and the most excruciating thirst. Many a solemn prayer and pious ejaculation of deep contrition, uttered in many a varied tongue, were then ascending from that moonlit battle-field to the throne of Grod, while others in their ravings called only />n death to ease them of their torments ; and long ere sun- rise, the stern king of terrors attended the summons of many. A great cannon royal, drawn by eight horses, and escortd by the artillerists of the brigade de Dauphine, passed near the corpse-heaped abbatis where Walter Fenton lay, and he implored them to remove him from the field. They wero passing him unheeded, when one exclaimed " II est un officier JEccossais ! " upon which the drivers reined up : the soldiers sprang from the tumbril, and placing him beside them, galloped across the field of battle towards the redoubts on the left of Luxembourg's position. The jolting occasioned "Walter exquisite agony, and he could not repress a shudder -when the cannon-wheels passed over the crackling body of some dead or wounded soldier who lay prostrate in their path. After riding a mile or two he fell from his seat with vio- lence, and once more became insensible. " II est mort," said the Frenchmen, as they whipped up their horses, and thought no more about him. After lying long in a dreamy state, tormented by a burning thirst, and feeling prickly and shooting pains over his whole body as the blood flowed back into its old channels, Walter made an attempt to rise, but the motion occasioned him ex- quisite pain, and the whole landscape swam around him. He thought he was mortally wounded ; a cold perspiration burst over his temples ; a stupor again stole upon his senses, and, believing he was dying, he piously recommended himself to God, closed his eyes, and lay down resigned to his fate. But the mind was active though the frame remained inert, and he thought of Lilian, of Finland and Annie, and how the hand of death had thrown a cold blight over all their fondest hopes and prospects ; and so weak had he become that audible sobs burst from him. The heavy dew was falling fast, and its moisture refreshed him ; he raised his head, and near him saw the figure of a female in a sombre and peculiar garb ; she was completely attired in black ; a thick veil of the same colour, with a little hood of white linen, were drawn closely round her face, which seemed pale and colourless as that of death in the un- certain rays of a cruise which she carried ; but though aged, THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE. 425 she was marked by a serenity and air of repose singularly winning and prepossessing. She bent tenderly over him with a face expressive of the deepest commiseration. " Tis a vision ! " was Walter's first thought ; " 'tis an Ursuline nun ! " was his second. " Poor youth unhappy youth ! " said the stranger ten- derly, and burst into tears. "Heaven's blessing on you, gentle lady/' said Walter, as he endeavoured to rise ; "no tears can be more precious ia the sight of Heaven than those shed by compassion. God save great Luxembourg ! We have this day gained a glorious victory ; but at what a price to me ! " he continued, in his own language. " Alake ! my brave and noble friends, the best blood of Scotland has mingled yonder with the waters of the Senne." " Scotland !" replied the venerable Ursuline, and her mild eyes became filled with animation and sadness. " I acknow- ledge with sorrow and pride that your country is also mine ; but, alas ! I can only remember it with horror and humilia- tion. Your voice takes me back to the pleasant clays of other and happier years, and stirs an echo in the deepest recesses of my heart. Oh, my God ! what is this that I feel within me ? Intercede for me. blessed Ursula, and save me from my own thoughts ! Oh, let not the contentment in which I have dwelt these many years be disturbed by worldly regrets and old unhappiness !" There was a deep pathos in her voice, an air of subdued sorrow, mildness, and melancholy in her features, and a soffc expression in her eye that was very winning, and Walter kissed her hand with a sentiment of affection and respect, and, strange to say, she did not withdraw it. " I belonged to the convent of Ursulines at Steinkirke. At vesper-time the Count Solmes sacked it with his troopers ; (God forgive him and them the sacrilege !) they expelled us with savage violence, and I found shelter in a cottage close by. Your groans drew me forth. Permit me to lead you, my poor son, for indeed you seem very weak. There is one poor fugitive there already, a countrywoman of our own, to whom I hope you will bring pleasant tidings ; let us go." They entered the humble Flemish cottage, the wide kitchen of which was brilliantly illuminated by a blazing fire of turf, that lit the furthest recesses of the great but rude apartment, that strongly resembled those represented by Bembrandt and Teniers, where every imaginable implement and article, gar- den and household utensil, hang from the beams of the open roof, load the walls, or encumber every available nook and 426 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. corner ; a heavy Flemish boor, in voluminous brown breeches, arose and doffed his fur cap, and with his wife made way for the sister of St. Ursula, who led Walter to a seat. Thankfully he drained to the last drop a pewter flagon of water that the housewife gave him, and was about to speak, when his attention was arrested by the sudden appearance of a young lady. She was very beautiful, and had an exquisitely fair complexion, the natural paleness of which grief and fear had very much increased : her blue eyes sparkled with ani- mation, and her half-dishevelled hair was of the brightest and glossiest but palest flaxen. Running to Walter Fenton she took both his hands in hers, and said, with a touching earnest- ness of manner, " Ah, sir ! come you from the field of battle P" " This moment, madam." " Oh, you are Scottish by your voice, but alas ! you wear the garb of Louis," " My dear madam, it is the garb of loyalty and exile ; of great suffering, and of much endurance." " Unhappy sir, you are " " One of the cavaliers of Dundee." " Oh, tell me if you know aught of the fate of General Mackay in this day's carnage ; Mackay, the laird of Scoury ?" she added a little proudly. " Lady," faltered Walter, quite overcome by the question and the aspect of the speaker, "the brave champion of Presbyterianism is no more. I I saw him slain." "My father! oh, my father!" cried Margaret Mackay, in a voice that pierced the conscience-stricken Fenton to the heart ; "I shall never see thee more never behold thy kind old face and silver hair. Oh, my God ! I am quite alone in the world, and what will become of me now P Oh, Lady Cler- mistonlee !" she exclaimed, and pressing against her heart the hand of the nun, sank into a chair and swooned. " Clermistonlee /" reiterated Walter, starting ; but the helpless condition of his young countrywoman demanded im- mediate attention, and he was compelled to smother his curiosity for a time, until she had partially recovered, and then the good Ursuline, after attending her with the most motherly care, left her engaged in prayer in another apartment, and turned all her attention to the wound on Walter's head. With an adroit neatness of hand, a soft insinuating manner which drew the heart of Walter towards her as to a mother, the compassionate nun, assisted by the silent Flemish house- wife, bathed the wound, cut away the long clotted locks, and bound it up, while the round-visaged boor, whose mind was THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 427 wholly absorbed by the loss of a field of corn, which had been cut down by Boufflers' foraging dragoons, sat with his eyes intently fixed on the smoke that curled from his pipe. Walter had been so little accustomed to kindness, that all the strong feelings of his warm heart now gushed forth. "A thousand thanks, dear madam!" he exclaimed. "1 know not whether it is your kindness, the mere ardour of my heart, or some mysterious influence that heaven alone can see, which calls forth all my fondest and most reverential senti- ments towards you." The Ursuline smiled sadly, and retired a pace. " Oh, what is this new feeling that stirs within me P" con- tinued Walter, in a half- musing voice. " It seems as if your face bore the long remembered features of some kind friend or dear relative. Like a gleam of sunshine through a mist, they come back to me from the obscurity of the past like those of one whom but, ah ! whither is my enthusiasm carrying me ? Dear madam, once more a thousand thanks, for now I must leave, and shall never see you more, but your kindness will ever be remembered by Walter Fenton with gratitude and love." " Fenton !" said the Ursuline, putting back his hair, and tenderly surveying his emaciated features, " I once had a dear though humble friend of that name, and my heart yearns to thee for her sake. But wherefore this hurry to depart P Your wound P " " I know not where I am, lady, and should any of the Stadt- holder's people come this way I should assuredly be shot." " Then, in the name of all that is blessed, away ! The fires of the French camp are still visible, and you may gain it ere daybreak." This passed in French, but the boor understood it ; his eyes twinkled, and knocking the ashes from his pipe, he slowly stuck it in his leathern cap, and stole out unperceived. " And what will be the fate of this poor daughter of the brave Mackay, for everywhere the French are swarming around us ?" " Through a lady of the house of Nassau, who belongs to our now, alas ! ruined convent, I will see her consigned to the care of her father's best friend, William of Orange." " 'Tis fortunate. It reminds me of what I scarcely dare to ask. She called you by the name of my bitterest enemy Clermistonlee," said Walter, biting his lip ; '* Clermistonlee, who has been my rival and the bane of my existence. Oh, madam, what terrible mystery is concealed under this Ursu- line habit !" As Walter spoke, the blood came and went in the faded 428 THE SCOTTISH CA^ ALIEE. face of i-he trembling recluse. One moment, when fired by animation, her features seemed almost beautiful, and the next they were withered, rigid, and aged. " Mr. Fenton," faltered the nun " Mr. Fentun, for so I presume you are named ?" " I am Sir Walter Fenton, lady, by the king's grace." The nun bowed slightly. " My heart warms, Sir Walter, to that dear native land which I shall never behold again, and in a moment of such weakness I revealed myself to that poor fugitive girl, whom fate so happily threw under my protection, when the confede- rates were defeated and dispersed . You know him then, this wicked man, to whom fate in an evil hour gave me as a wife. Oh, Randal ! Randal ! . Let me not recall in bitterness the burning thoughts of years long passed and gone thoughts which I have long since learned to suppress, or endure with calmness and resignation." " Enough, dear madam, I am animated by no vulgar curiosity, and time presses. Oh, learn rather to forget your earlier griefs than to remember them. Too well do I know the Lord Clermistonlee, and can easily conceive a long and painful history of domestic woe and suffering. You are the unfortunate Alison Gifford ?" " Of the house of Gifford of that ilk in Lothian," continued the recluse, with tearless composure. " In his earlier days, when young, gallant, and winsome, with an honoured name and spotless scutcheon, Randal Clermont became my lover and my husband. Oh, how happy I was for a time ; how loving and beloved ! But a change came over the unstable heart of my husband. His political intrigues and private ex- cesses soon ruined our fortune, deprived me of his love and him of my esteem. We were driven into exile, and retired to Paris. There he plunged madly into a vortex of the lowest dissipation, and spent the last of my dowry, my jewels, and everything. He became a drunkard, a bully, and a gamester, if not worse. Long, long I endured without a murmur or reproach his pitiless cruelty and cutting contempt, uniil he eloped with one who in better days had been my companion and attendant, an artful wretch, named Beatrix (3-ilruth. He joined the army of Mareschal Crecquy as a volunteer, and I saw him no more. Hearing afterwards that he was in Scot- land fighting under the standard of the covenant, and being driven to despair by the miseries into which he had plunged me, by leaving me a prey to destitution in a foreign land, I resolved to quit the world for ever ; I have come of an old Catholic family, and a convent was my first thought. THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. 429 " Our child, for we had one, our child was alternately a source of torment and delight," continued the poor nun, weep- ing bitterly " my torment from the resemblance it bore to its perfidious father, and my delight as the only tie that bound me to earth ; I resolved to see it no more, and sent the poor infant to Scotland in charge of a faithful female servitor, to whom I gave a letter for my husband, purporting to be written on my deathbed, and a ring he had given me in happier days. In an agony of grief I saw the woman depart, and gave her all I possessed, a few louis d'ors I had acquired at Paris, where I had supported myself as a Jteuriste, and was patro- nized by the Scottish archers, who were ever very kind to me. I considered myself as dead to the world from that hour, and immediately commenced my noviciate in the licensed convent of St. Ursula, in French Flanders. " Here again all the wounds of my heart were torn open by tidings that the ship in which my loved little boy and his nurse embarked had perished at sea ; whether they pe- rished too God alone knoweth, for I heard of them no more. And now the fierce stings of remorse increased the sadness of my sorrow, and I upbraided myself with cruelty, with lack . of fortitude and such resignation as became a Christian. J accused myself of infanticide, and in my thoughts by day and my dreams by night I had ever before me che sunny eyes and golden hair of my little child, and its lisping accents in my dreaming ear awoke me to tears and unavailing sorrow." Here the poor nun again paused and wept bitterly. " Time never fails to soften the memory of the most acute sorrow, and in the convent to which I had fled for refuge from my own thoughts, the soothing consolations of the sister- hood, the calm, the pious and blameless tenor of their way, charmed me as much as their holy meekness of spirit sub- dued my bitter regrets. After a time I tasted the sweets of the most perfect contentment, if not of happiness. In the duties of religion, of industry and charity, I soon learned to forget Clermistonlee, or to remember him only in my prayers to forget that I had been a wife, to forget that I had been oh, no ! not a mother never could I forget that." *' Villain that he is ! and with the consciousness of your ladyship's existence, he has, since he was ennobled, wooed many another to be his bride ; but Heaven's hand or his own vices have always foiled him." The eyes of " the recluse sparkled beneath her veil; but folding her white hands meekly on her bosom, she said with exceeding gentleness " What have 1 to do with it now ? besides, youth, I am 430 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. sure lie believes me dead, for some of the Scottish archers told him so and dead I am to him and to the world." "It is a very sad history, madam." " But God has comforted me." Her tears fell fast never- theless, and a long pause ensued. Walter felt himself moved to tears, and he often sighed deeply, yet knew not why. The sound of a trumpet roused him ; it seemed close by, and came in varying cadence on the passing wind. " 'Tis the trumpet of a Dutch patrole. I must begone, lady, or remain only to die. Farewell ; a thousand blessings on you and a thousand more for we shall never meet again ;." and half kneeling he kissed her hand, and, slipping from the cottage, favoured by the darkened moon, hurried away towards the fires of Luxembourg's camp, just as a party of Dutch Huyters led bv the boor halted at the cottage door. * "* * p, ;. * * With fifty thousand men the mareschal duke of Luxembourg was posted at Courtray on the Lys ; while William, with twice that number, lay at Grammont, inactive, phlegmatic, and afraid to attack him ; an inertness which increased the growing ill-humour of Britain against him. Without a dinnei and without a sou, abandoned to solitude and dejection, Walter Fenton one evening paced slowly to and fro on the ramparts of Courtray, watching the bright sunset as it lin- gered long on the level scenery. A page approached, who acquainted him that Monseigneur le Mareschal required his presence in the citadel, whither he immediately repaired, and found the great Henri of Luxembourg, the youthful dukes of Chartres and Vendome, with other chevaliers of distinction, carousing after a sumptuous repast. As he entered, De Chartres was singing the merry old ditty of Jean de Nivelle, while the rest chorused. " Jean de Nivelle has three flails j Three palfreys with long manes and tails Three blades of a terrible brand, Which he never takes into his hand. Ah ! out vruiment! Jean de Nivelle est bon enfant I" The magnificence of their attire, the happy nonchalance and graceful ease of their manner, contrasted with his own tat- tered and humble uniform, fallen fortune, and jaded spirit, made Walter's heart sick as he entered ; but, assuming some- what of the old air of a cavalier officer, he bowed to the noble company, and awaited in silence the commands of the mareschal. " Approach, monsieur," said the handsome young Duo de THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. 431 Chartres. " Tete Dieu ! but you look very pale ! You were wounded, I believe ? " " It is nearly healed, isonseigneur." "Ah, it is deuced unpleasant work this fighting and beleaguering." " De Chartres would rather be at Chantilly," said the Due de Vendome, laughing. " Or at Versailles, said a chevalier of St. Louis. He is thinking of little Mariette Gondalaurier." " Or St. Dennis and adorable Isabeau Lagrange." " Say Paris at once, messieurs," said the boyish rout, smiling. " I have beauties everywhere." " The Scottish officer will drink with us here, boy, assist our friend to wine," said Luxembourg to his page. " 'Tis only Frontiniac, monsieur ; but an hour ago it was Dutch William's, and we drink it out of pure spite." Walter drank the fragrant wine from a massively-embossed cup, and his head swam as he imbibed it, and waited to hear for what desperate duty these noble peers designed him. " Chevalier," said Luxembourg with his most bland smile, " it is pleasant to reward the brave. Aware that the repulse of the confederate cavalry on my right flank, and consequently the whole success of that glorious day at Steinkirke, was mainly owing to the valour of the Scottish cavaliers animated by your example, King Louis sends you this." And taking from his own neck the sparkling cross of the recently-created order of St. Louis, the duke placed it around the neck of Walter Fenton, who bowed his thanks in silence. "Go, chevalier you are a gallant soldier! The Scots were ever brave, and the friends of France. Wear that cross with honour to the most Christian king, to your native country " '* And to the most sublime Madame Maintenon," said the young duke, and his gay companions laughed. " Monseigneur ! " said Luxembourg warningly. "Tete Dieu, Mareschal ! dost think I fear her? Faith, madame, 'tis known, never gives a favour without a most usurious per-centage. She is quite a Jewess in the intrigues of love and politics, ha ! ha ! " "Attached to this cross, chevalier, is a pension of four hundred livres yearly, which I doubt not will be acceptable in your present reduced circumstances." " Oh, believe me, monseigneur le mareschal, and you most noble dukes, it is indeed most acceptable ; for with it I may in some sort alleviate the miseries of those gallant gentlemen, my comrades, who share your fortunes in the field." 432 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. " By St. Denis, you are a gallant fellow ! " cried Luxem- bourg with kindling eyes. " Your generosity equals you/ courage. But this must not be. Messieurs your comrades must take the will for the deed. This night you must depart for the court of St. Grermain-en-laye, where King James requires your immediate attendance. My secretary will supply you with money, and my master of the horse with a charger adieu, sir, and God be with you !" Walter retired. That night he bade a sad adieu to his comrades, and mounted on one of the mareschal's horses, departed from Courtray. His brave companions in glory and exile he saw no more. After all their services and their sufferings, their achieve- ments and their chivalry, the few survivors of the war, sixteen in number, were, by a striking example of French ingratitude, disbanded at the peace of Kyswick, on the upper part of the Rhine, far from their native land without money or any provision to save them from starvation and death. Of these sixteen only four survived to return to Scotland in extreme old age, when all fears of the Jacobites had passed away for ever. Again the unclouded moon was shining over Steinkirke when Walter passed it, and vividly on his mind came back the fierce memories of that impetuous hour. The great plain was deserted, the full-eared corn was waving heavily, and not a sound disturbed the silence of the moonlit scenery save the deep bay of a household dog or the croak of a passing stork. Thickly on every hand lay the graves of the faithful dead. In some instances he saw great burial mounds ; in others there was but one solitary grave secluded among the long grass and reeds, and his horse started instinctively as he passed them. Fragments of clothing, accoutrements, and other relics, lay among the rank weeds by the side of the fields, under the green hedge-rows, in the wet ditches ; and even fleshlesg bones, bare scalps, fingers and toes, protruded from the soil, imparting an aspect of horror to the moonlighted plain where the battle had been fought. The abbatis still lay there, but the foliage of the trees that formed it had long since faded and decayed. A great tumulus, on which the young grass was sprouting, lay within it. "Poor Finland!" muttered Walter, and with a moistened eye and heavy heart he plunged his horse into the Senne and swam to the opposite bank. The cottage where he had found shelter had now disappeared ; its foundations, scorched and THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 433 blackened by fire, alone marked the place where it stood. He thought of the poor Ursuline and her story, and sighed that he could learn nothing more of her fate ; he sighed, too, at the memory of the beautiful Margaret Mackay, and felt the keenest remorse for having slain her father. Of the recluse he never heard more ; but the daughter of Mackay reached the camp of William in safety, and in after years became the wife of her kinsman and chief, George, third Lord Heay of Farre. CHAPTER LVIIL WALTER FENTON AND THE KINGK To daunton me, and me sae young, * And guid King James's auldest son ! Oh, that's the thing that never can be, For the man is unborn that'll daunton me O set me once upon Scottish land, With my guid braid- sword into my hand, My bannet blue aboon my bree, Then shew me the man that'll daunton me ! JACOBITE RELIQUKS. His confessor had just withdrawn, and King James was sitting in his closet involved in gloomy and distracting reverie immersed in thoughts which even the mild exhortations of the priest had failed to soothe, and with his eyes intently fixed on the morning sun as it rose red and unclouded in the east, he gave way to the sadness that oppressed him. Alternately he was a prey to a storm of revengeful and bitter political reflections, or to a gloomy fanaticism, which impaired the courage and lessened the magnanimity for which he had once been distinguished. On discovering that he was constantly conferring with the Jesuits upon abstruse theology, the ribald Louis spoke of him in terms of pity mingled with contempt. The French ridiculed, the Eomans lampooned him, and, while the sovereign pontiff supplied him liberally with indulgences, the archbishop of Eheims said ironically " There is a pious man who hath sacrificed three crowns for a mass ! " And this was all the unfortunate and mistaken James had gained, by his steady and devoted adherence to a falling faith. Bestowing a glance of undisguised hostility, not unmingled with contempt, at the follower of St. Ignatius Loyola as he withdrew, the earl of Dunbarton, clad in his old uniform as a Scottish general, entered the apartment of the king. The u. 2? 434 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIJSB. green riband of St. Andrew was worn over his left shoulder, the star with its four silver points sparkled on his left breast, and around his neck hung the red riband of the Bath, and the magnificent collar of the Garter. " Good morning, my Lord Dunbarton; you look as if you txad something to communicate. Any news from Flanders ? Is my dutiful son-in-law still playing at long bowles with Luxembourg P Has Sir Walter Fenton arrived ? " "He awaits your majesty's pleasure in the ante- chamber." "Let him be introduced at once ! Why all this etiquette P " "Because, please your majesty, it is all that is left to remind me of other days." " True," said the king, thoughtfully. " Welcome, my brave and faithful soldier ! " he exclaimed,, its Walter was introduced by the gentlemen in waiting, and Kneeled to kiss his hand. " Welcome from Flanders, that land of fighting and fertility. My poor Sir Walter, you look very pale and emaciated." ' " I was wounded at Steinkirke, please your majesty ; and with those unfortunate gentlemen, my comrades, have under- gone such hardships and humiliations as no imagination can conceive." Walter's eyes suffused with tears ; his voice and his heart trembled. He felt a gush of loyalty and ardour swelling within his breast, that would have enabled him cheerfully to ay his life at the feet of the king. The remark of a celebrated modern writer is indeed a true one. "Unfortunate and unwise as were the Stuart family, there must have been some charm about them, for they had instances of attachment and fidelity shown them of which no other line of kings could boast" " You have indeed undergone sufferings which God only can reward," said the king, laying a hand kindly on his shoulder ; " and your ill-requited valour is a striking example of the falsehood and flattery of the court of Versailles." " When I consider our achievements," replied Walter, " my soul fires with pride and ardour ; but when I think of the friends that have fallen, my heart dies away within me. To the last of my blood and breath I will serve your majesty ; but, notwithstanding this gift of the cross of St. Louis, I will follow the banner of the donor no more." "Louis is a noble prince," said the earl of Dunbarton, " and one who hath raised his realm to the greatest pitch of human grandeur." " Oh, say not so, my lord ! When I remember the cruel THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. 435 persecution ol liis subjects after tlie treaty of Nimguen, his repealing the edict of Nantes, his tyranny over the noblesse and the parliament, his unjust wars and usurpations, in which he pours forth so prodigally the blood and the treasurer of hi 9 people ; his blasphemous titles and lewd life ; I can only remember with shame that I liave served in his army, and from this hour renounce his service for ever. And were it not that this cross hung once on the breast of the gallant Luxembourg, I would hurl it into the Seine." " The remembrance of your sufferings doubtless animates this unwise train of thought, Sir Walter," said the king, slightly piqued. " But permit me to remark, that to indulge your opinions thus in France, is to run your head into the lion's mouth. How goes the war in Flanders ? " " Still doubtfully, please your majesty ; but the recent arrival of the duke of Leinster at Ostencl, with fresh troops for William, may turn the fortune of the war against Henri of Luxembourg, and consequently please the people of England, who are not very favourably disposed towards this expensive and unnecessary war for the Dutch interests of the usurper." " The best proof of this new sentiment is the discontent of the Cameronians in the western districts of Scotland. What dost think, Sir Walter ? They have engaged to muster five thousand horse and twenty thousand infantry for my complete restoration, provided Louis will give them only one month's subsidy, beside other supplies, and these he hath solemnly promised me." " From my soul I thank Heaven that again it is turning the hearts of your subjects towards you. If such is the spirit of the Cameronians, oh, what will be the energy and the ardour of the cavaliers ! But trust not in Louis ; he has ruined every prince with whom he has been allied, in war or in politics, and assuredly he will shipwreck the interests of your majesty, as he has done those of others." " Still judging hardly of his most Christian majesty," said James, smiling. " But I have the pledged words of better men. From the noble Drummonds, the gallant Keiths, the Hays, from the Lord Stormont and the Murrays, the gay Gordons and Grahames, I have received the most solemn promises of adherence and loyalty; and I know that the glorious clans of the northern shires will all rush to my standard the moment it is unfurled upon the Highland hills. Oh, yes ! " continued the king, while his dark eyes flashed with joyous enthusiasm ; " once again as in my father's days the war-cry of the Gael will ring from Lochness to Lochaber." 436 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE. " But where is now Montrose, and where Dundee ? " said Lord Dunbarton in a low voice. " God will raise up other champions for those who have suffered so much in his service as the princes of the House of Stuart," replied the king with catholic fervour and con- fidence. "Meantime, Sir Walter, I vrould have you to set out for Scotland forthwith, to negotiate with those distinguished cavaliers, while the minds of my people are still inflamed by the memory of that fiend-like massacre at Glencoe, the defeat of Steinkirke, the slaughter of their soldiers, and all the disgusts incident to the Flemish cam- paign abroad and William's administration at home. My Lord Dunbarton avers that he will pledge his honour for the loyalty of his old regiment and the Scottish Guards, both horse and foot, for his countess has questioned every man of them. You will not fail to visit Drummond of Hawthorndon ; he comes of a leal and true race, and his house, with its deep caverns and secret outlets, is a noble place of rendezvous and security. You will be liberally sup- plied with money and letters of credit and compliment. You may promise, in my name, everything that seems requisite titles, honours, pensions, I will trust to your discretion, from %vhat the Lord Dunbarton has told me of you. Flatter the vain, conciliate the stubborn, secure the wavering, and fire the loyal. Leave nothing undone, and remember that, perhaps on the success of your mission depend the fortune of the prince, my son, the ancient liberties of Scotland, the honour of her people, and the fate of her regal line." The king ceased, and Walter was so overwhelmed by the magnitude of the diplomacy entrusted to him, and the joy at returning to Scotland, that he remained silent for some moments. " Oh, with what a mission does your majesty honour me ! " he exclaimed, glowing with ambition, gratitude, and joy. "How can I express my thanks for this great confidence reposed in one so poor, so friendless ? " " These are good qualities, Sir Walter, for a Jacobite agent ; you may (being friendless and unknown) make your way through Scotland in safety, when a coroneted baron, or the chief of a powerful sept, would soon be discovered and committed to the Castle of Edinburgh or the Tower of London. Go, Sir Walter ; Lord Dunbarton and my secretary will arrange the matters you require, and in addition to my holograph letters to the Lowland lords and Highland chiefs, will give you others to Mr. Brown, my English agent, and Father Innes, president of the Scots' college at Paris, who THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 437 acts for me in Scotland. Go, Sir Walter, and prosper ! If ever we meet again, let us hope it will be under very different circumstances. May Grod and his thrice-blessed mother keep their hands over you, and inspire you for the sake of my de?t* little son and the people over whom he is to rule ! Farewell I have in some sort rewarded your courage in the field, but if your talent in diplomacy equals it, I swear by the sceptre that my sires have borne for ages, you shall be earl of Dalrulion in the north, and cock your beaver with the best peer in all broad Scotland. Farewell ! may we meet again at the head of a loyal and faithful army, or part to meet no more." Again Walter Fenton kneeled, and after kissing the hand of James, was hurried away by the earl of Dunbarton. Furnished with a great number of letters addressed to the principal nobles and chiefs in Scotland, Walter artfully sewed " them into the lining of his hat and the stiff buckram skirts of his coat, after which, without an hour's delay, he departed on his arduous and dangerous mission to overturn the es- tablished governments of two kingdoms to hurl down one dynasty and restore another. Already he had gained a title which formerly he had possessed only in his day-dreams of success and glory ; but now decorated by Louis with his new and famous military order, promised a peerage by his king, fired by loyalty, ardour, and love, he seemed to occupy a giddy eminence, from which he viewed distinctly a long and happy future. It was a far-stretching and glorious vista of triumph and success ; the restoration of the king by his means, and oh, far above all, the exultation of placing a countess's coronet on the bright tresses of Lilian Napier. CHAPTEE LIX. THE BETUBNED EXILE. Then, Mary, turn awa' That bonnie face o' thine 5 Oh, dinna show the breast That never can be mine. Wi' love's severest pangs My heart is laden sair ; And owre my breast the grass maun grow, Ere I am free from care. IN the gloaming of an evening in the autumn of 1693, a man left the western gate of Edinburgh, and, skirting tLe 438 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. suburb of the Highriggs, struck into the roadway between the fields. The sickly rays of a yellow sun shining faintly through the mist after throwing the shadows of the gigantic castle far to the eastward, had died away, and a deeper gloom succeeding, denoted the close of the day as the fall of the fluttering leaves did that of the dreary year. The stranger was "Walter Fenton; but how changed in aspect and attire! His form was thin and emaciated, his cheek pale, his eyes sunken from the pain of his wound and the toil of campaigning ; but his step was as free, and his bearing erect as ever. His attire was of the plainest grey freize, with great horn buttons ; a brown scratch wig and a plain beaver hat concealed the dark locks that curled beneath them ; he earned a walking staff in lieu of a sword, and appeared to lean on it a little at times. He was now in the character of a Low Country merchant, and, favoured by a passport from the conservator of Scottish privileges at Campvere, had an hour before landed from the good ship Fame of Queensferry, at the ancient wooden pier of Leith. Often he made brief pauses to view the desolate scene around him ; for in that year a heavy curse seemed to have fallen upon the desolate kingdom of Scotland. On an evening in the preceding summer, when everything was blooming and smiling when the land was rich with verdure and the woods were heavy with foliage, a cold wind came from the eastward, and. accompanied by a dense and sulphureous mist, swept over the lace of the country, blighting whatsoever was touched by its pestilential breath. The fields seemed to whiten under its baleful influence ; the ripening corn withered, and the land was struck with a barrenness. Dense, opaque, and palpable, like a chain of hills, this strange and horrid vapour lay floating in the valleys for many successive months, and there its effects were more disastrous. The heat of the sun seemed to diminish, the insects disappeared from the air and the birds from the withered woods, which, long ere the last month of summer, became divested of their faded foliage. The cattle became dwarfish and meagre, and the flocks perished bv scores on the decaying heather of the blasted mountains. ^Fhe people became sickly, ghastly, and prostrated in spirit ; for a curse seemed to have fallen upon the land and all that was in it. This terrible visitation continued until the year 1701, and the dear years were long remembered with horror in Scotland. In some places, January and February became the months THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEK. 430 of harvest, and, amid ice and snow, and the sleet that drizzled through that everlasting and sulphureous mist, the half famished people reaped in grief and misery a small part of their scanfv produce, while the other was left to rot in the ground Famine, the lord of all, stalked grimly over the land, and strong men and wailing women, yea, and feeble children, fought like wild beasts for a handful of meal in the desolate market places. " There was many a blank and pale face in Scotland," says Walker, the famous Presbyterian pedlar, " and as the famine waxed sore, wives thought not of their husbands, nor husbands of their wives," and the gloomy superstition and fanatica intolerance of the time added fresh horrors to this ghastly scourge. The famine was not yet at its height ; but there was a desolation in the aspect of the land that deeply impressed the mind of the returned exile, and he sighed in unison with the dreary wind as it swept over the blasted muir, shaking down the crisped leaves and acorns of stately old oaks of Drumsheugh. Save the solitary heron, wading as of old IT the lake, not a bird was to be seen, not an insect buzzing about the leafless hedges. The air was dense and cold, and all was very still. The country seemed to be wasting like a beautiful woman decaying in consumption. Walter felt that the manners of the people were changed ; intense gravity and moroseness, real or affected, were visible in every face, while sad- coloured garments, Geneva cloaks, and Dutch fashions were all the rage. Every trace of the smart moustache had disappeared, and with it the slashed doublets, the waving feathers and dashing airs of the gallant cavaliers. Even the sentinels at the palace gates and the portes of the city, might have passed for those before the Town House or Rasp Haus at Amsterdam. The smart steel cap of the old Scottish infantry had now given place to a vast over- shadowing beaver looped up on three sides, and the scarlet doublet slashed with blue, and the jacket of spotless buff, to square tailed and voluminous coats of brick -red, with yellow breeches and belts worn saltier-wise. Bitterly the reflection came home to the heart of the poor cavalier, that " The times were changed, old manners gone, And a stranger filled the Stuart's throne ! " Though confident of succeeding in his diplomacy with the yal lords and chieftains of the Jacobite faction, he was well aware how arduous and difficult was the task to overthrow 440 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE. two governments so well arranged, ably constituted and sup- ported, as those of England and Scotland. It had long been the policy of William III. to conciliate domestic enemies, and, in pursuance of it, he had bestowed several lucrative offices on the leaders of the discontented and kirk-party. The Scottish parliament, which had recently met, received from him an able and cunning letter, replete with flattering and cajoling expressions, which put all the Presbyterian lords in such excellent humour, that they returned a most dutiful and affectionate address granted him a supply of six new bat- talions of infantry, a body of seamen, and one hundred and fifty thousand pounds, to enable him to carry on his useless wars with new vigour ; but though the parliament was thus obsequious, the people were far from being pleased ; and the Jacobites, numerous, enthusiastic, and determined, every- where fanned the flames of discord and dissension. The institution of fines and oaths of assurance upon absentees from parliament, which had direct reference to certain cavalier lords and lesser barons, exasperated them as much as the horrible massacre of Glencoe did the commonalty, who raised throughout the land a cry for vengeance on William and his government. Walter Fenton reflected on these things as he walked onward, and knew that he had come at a critical time. Other thoughts soon succeeded, and, grasping his staff as he had often done his sword, he pushed forward with a sparkling eye and reddening cheek. Without impairing his nobler sentiments, suffering and misfortune had powerfully strengthened his loyalty and virtue, as much as campaigning had improved his bearing and lent a firmness and manly determination to his aspect ; but often his brow saddened and the fire of his eye died away, when he thought of Finland and those he had beem permitted to survive and to mourn. Glowing with sensations of rapture, and eagerly antici- pating the flush of joy that awaited him, he passed the rhinna of the beautiful loch, the curious gable-ended old house where once the Regent Murray dwelt, and approached the gate of Bruntisfield. His heart beat painfully ; he was deeply agitated. Five weary years had elapsed since he had stood on that spot, and it seemed only as yesterday. Through all the hurry of events that had swept over him., his memory went back to that memorable eve of September (of which this was now the anniversary) and to the glorious ardour that animated his heart on the day he marched for England, when the THlr SCOTTISH long line of the Scottish host wound over yonder hill before him. Oh, for one hour more of those fierce longings and brave impulses ! But alas ! the spirit seemed to have passed away for ever. He approached the avenue. The old gate with its massive arch, its mossy carvings and loopholed wall, had given place to a handsome new erection of more modern architecture, surmounted by a rich coat of arms ; and Walter felt every pulse grow still, and every fibre tremble as he surveyed the sculptured blazon. It bore the saltire of Napier, engrailed between four roses, but quartered, collared, and coroneted with other bearings. His heart became sick and palsied. Oh, it was a horrible sensation that came over him ; he stood long irresolute and apprehensive. " Of what am I afraid ? " he suddenly exclaimed with the enthusiasm of a true and impassioned lover. " There is some mistake here ; the house has been sold or gifted away like many another noble patrimony to the slaves of the Stadt- holder. Lilian, dear Lilian, when shall I hold thee in my arms ? " He was about to rush forward, when a horseman, the glit- tering lace on whose bright-coloured suit of triple velvet, and waving ostrich feathers that fluttered in his diamond hatband, formed a strong contrast to the sombre fashions of the time, dashed down the leaf-strewn avenue on a beautiful charger, with the perfumed ringlets of his white peruke dancing in the wind for white perukes, from a spirit of opposition, were all the rage then, as black had been under the three last princes of the old hereditary line. It was Lord Clermistonlee. " Hollo, fellow," he cried imperiously, "keep out of my horse's way dost want thy bones broken ? " and giving a keen, but casual glance at the dejected wanderer, he spurred on- frard to the city. Suddenly he reined up so sharply as almost to pull his paw- ing steed back upon its strained and bending haunches. " 'Tis he ! " exclaimed the proud lord, as he thought aloud. " By the great father of confusion, 'tfs he ! How could I mis- take, though truly, poor devil, these fast five years have sadly changed him. But on what fool'fl errand comes he here ? By all the furies, I knew his lachrymose visage in a moment, though the despatches of Dalrymple of Stair, to our lords of council, had in some sort prepared me for his return ; and for what ? to organize a plot for James's restoration. Poor fool ! infatuated in love as in politics. He believes in the faith of 442 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. women and the word of kings j let us see how they will avail him to-night. He smiled scornfully, and twisted the heavy dark mous- taches, which he still cherished with more than Mahom- medan veneration. Alternately sad and bitter thoughts swelled within him as he remembered the joyous revelry of King Charles's days, and the tyranny he could then exercise over all nonconformists, and the hunting and hosting, dra- gooning and drinking of the Covenanting wars ; then came feelings of jealousy and revenge that, as they blazed up in his proud breast, bore all before them. " How dares he now to prowl before my own gates Gadso ! if my Lady Lilian sees him once, there will be a pretty disturbance. A shipload of devils will be nothing to it. The girl will die, and my own house will become too hot to hold me. D nation! too well have I seen the secret passion that has preyed upon her gentle and affectionate heart the grief the deep consuming grief, that all my magnificent presents and gentle blandishments have failed to soothe. A thousand curses on this upstart beggar, and a thousand more on the mother of mischief, who has raised him up again to cross my path. By what power hath he escaped war and woe, and storm and every danger, again to thwart and come in the way of Clermistonlee, whose purposes were never yet foiled by man, or woman either ? 'Sdeath ! the time has come when the cord of the doomster, or the axe of the maiden, must rid me for ever of this old source of dark forebodings and secret inquietude. Ho, for a guard and a warrant of council, and then Sir Walter Fenton, knight banneret, the Jacobite spy, chevalier of St. Louis, ex-private soldier, and soi-disant ensign to the Lord Dunbarton, may look to himself. Ha, ha ! " and dashing spurs into his horse, he galloped madly into the city. CHAPTER LX. THE BUBBLE BUEST. To linger when the sun of life, The beam that gilt its path is gone- To feel the aching bosom's strife, When Hope is dead, but Love lives on. ANONYMOUS. MEANWHILE, without recognising Clermistonlee, and not aware that he had been recognised by him, poor Walter, who ras of that temperament which is easily raised and depressed, THE SCOTTISH CAVALIES. 443 turned away from the gate, crushed beneath the load of a thousand fears at the sight of so gay a cavalier caracoling down the avenue of Bruntisfield. His heart was overcharged with melancholy reflections. " I have been away for five years in all that time we have never heard of each other. Oh, what if she should have deemed me dead ! " Drawing his last shilling from his pocket, the unfortunate cavalier entered a poor change-house by the wayside, where a great signboard creaking on an iron rod, and representing a portrait in a red coat and white wig, and having a tremen- dously hooked nose, imported that it was the " King William's head," kept by Lucky Elshender, who promised good enter- tainment for " man and beast." The small clay-floored apartment, with its well-scrubbed bunkers, and rack of shining plates and tin trenchers, kirn- babies on the mantel-piece, and blazing ingle, where turf and wood blazed cheerfully in a clumsy iron basket, supported by four massive legs, looked very snug and comfortable. A personage evidently a divine, long visaged and dark featured, with his lanky sable hair falling on his Geneva bands and coat of rusty black, sat warming his spindle ^legs at the warm hearth, and smoking a long pipe, on the bowl of which he fixed his great black lustre eyes with an expression of the deepest abstraction. It was the Reverend Mr. Ichabod Bum- mel, who came every evening as regularly as six o'clock struck, to smoke a pipe, and hear the passing news at the change-house kept by his aunt-in-law old Elsie, and to bore every traveller who was disposed to hear the abstruse theology and ponderous arguments advanced in his Bombshell, for that immortal work had been printed at last, in thick quarto, and a copy of it now lay under his elbow all ready for action against the first good-natured listener or foolhardy disputant. In person, this redoubtable champion of toleration was as lean as ever, though the goods and chattels of this world had flowed amply upon him of late, notwithstanding the oppres- sion and famine of the time. He had cautiously purchased various tofts and pendicles on the banks of the Powburn, and to these he gave hard and unusual scriptural names, which they bear unto this day, and which the curious may find by consulting the City Directory. One he named the land of Canaan, another the land of G-oshen, the land of Egypt, Hebron, and so forth, while the little runnel that traverses them was exalted into the waters of Jordan. Meinie, whom he had espoused, had " proved," as he said, " ane fruitful! Tine," for she had brought him four sons, all long-visaged, hollow- 444 THE SCOTTISH. CAVALIER. eyed, and sepulchral counterparts of himself* and lie named them Shem, Ham, Japhet, and Ichabod. On the opposite side of the ingle, and far back in a corner, a miserable-looking woman crouched on the stone bench for warmth. A tartan plaid was muffled about her shoulders, and half concealed her hollow cheeks and ghastly visage. She seemed a personification of the famine and misery that reigned so triumphantly in Scotland. Her eyes were full of unnatural lustre ; they flashed like diamonds in the light of the fire, but had a scrutinizing and stern expression in them that startled W alter, and he felt uneasy in her vicinity. " It's only puir Beatrix G-ilruth, my winsome gentleman," said Elsie in a low voice ; " she is a gomeral a natural body that bides about the doors, sir ; just a puir, harmless, dalt creature. She'll no harm you, sir." In the tumult of his mind Walter did not at first recognise either Elsie or Ichabod, but assuming an air of as much un- concern as he could muster, he called for a bicker of French wine, and took possession of a cutty stool which the slipshod Elsie placed for him hurriedly and officiously opposite the divine, who regarded him with a keen scrutinizing glance, to ascertain his probable station in life, his errand, and objects in coming hither. He saw that he was a traveller, and being on foot must be a poor one. " Good e'en to your reverence, for, I presume, I have the honour of addressing a clergyman," said Walter, politely. " Hum humph ! " answered Ichabod, with a short cough,, nodding his head, and never once moving his eyes from Walter's face. Every man was then doubtful and suspicious of strangers (the Scots are so to the present hour), and conse- quently Ichabod was singularly dry and reserved. But Elsie drew near Walter, and looked at him attentively. The grief that preyed upon his heart had imparted a singularly prepos- sessing mildness to his features, and a winning cadence to the tone of his voice, but the stark preacher neither saw one nor felt the influence of the other. " A cold night, your reverence." " Yea," gasped Ichabod ; and there was another pause. " My service to you, sir ; wilt taste my wine ? 'tis right Gascony, and I should be a judge." " Yea, having been in those parts where it was produced, probably," observed Ichabod, becoming more curious and communicative as he imbibed the lion's share of Walter's wine pot, and waited for an answer; but there was none given. " Verily, sir," began Mr. Bummell, " these are times to THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE. 445 chill the souls and bodies of the afflicted. Thou seest how sore the famine waxeth in the land, especially in these our once fertile Lothians, which whilome were wont to be overflow- ing with milk and honey." ^ " Ay," chimed in Elsie, " but I ve seen them in mair fearfu* times, when they were overflowing wi' blude and soldiers." " 'Tis for that red harvest, woman, that we are visited by this lamentable scourge ; plagued even as Egypt was of old. In these three fertile shires of Lothian I have seen a woful change since the last harvest, and my heart grows heavy when I think upon it ; but I am about to arise and go forth from them for ever." " Indeed, sir," said Walter. " I have gotten a pleasant call from the Lord to another kirk " " Wi' a letter stipend, sir," added the gleeful Elsie. " Indubitably," said Mr. Bummel. " Twa hunder pound Scots, a braw glebe, four bolls o' beir," replied Elsie, counting on her crooked and wrinkled fingers, " aucht chalders " " Peace, woman Elsie, for this enumeration of thine savours of a love for the things of this life." " And a braw pulpit. O, but it's grand you'll be, Ichabod, when in full birr under your sounding board. But alake, sir," she added, turning to "Walter, " arena' these fearfu' times?" " Sad indeed, gudewife." " I was in the mealmarket this morning, and oh, sirs, it was a sight to rend the heart of a nether millstane to see the hungry bairns and wailing mothers worrying about the half- filled pokes. God help them ! the puir folk are deeing fast the west country we hear." " 'Tis a scourge on the land for its former sins," said the preacher in his most sepulchral tone ; " but let us hope that the faith of its people will save it ! " " You'll hae come from some far awa' country I'm thinking, sir?" said Elsie, inquisitively, for the extreme sadness of Walter interested her extremely. " True, I have, good woman." " France, I fancy ? that land o' priests and persecution." " From Holland last. I am a merchant, and deal in broad- cloths and cart saddles. From Holland last," he repeated, for their inquisitiveness made him uneasy. " A blessed land, good youth," said Mr. Bummel. " I sojourned there long when* there was a flaming sword over the children of righteousness." " Reverend sir, canst tell me what are the news among you 446 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. here ?" asked Walter, who was in an agony of mind to lead the conversation to what lay nearest his heart. " Yerily, sir, nought but the famine the famine. The west winds hath detained the Flanders mail these two months, and we have heard nothing from London these many weeks, save anent plots of the Jacobites and Papists, of whilk we have ever enough and to spare." " What have you heard of them of late P" " 'Tis said that one Walter Fenton, formerly an officer in the regiment of Dunbarton (that bloody oppressor of Israel) is now tarrying among us, plotting in James's cause, or on Borne such errand of hell." " The rascal," said Walter, drinking to conceal the confu- sion that overspread his face. " Yea," continued Ichabod, puffing vigorously, and luckily involving himself in a cloud of smoke. " This morning the heralds, in their vainglorious trumpery, were proclaiming at the Cross the reward of a thousand merks to any that will bring his head to the y>rivy council ; and the Lord Clermis- tonlee, from the good will and affection he bears his majesty, offers five hundred more !" " Do you think he will be found ?" "Indubitably. The ports are closed, the guards on the alert ; the messengers-at-arms, macers, and halberdiers are all in full chase. He must perish, and so may all who would restore the abominations of idolatry ! Here in my Bombshell (a work whilk I have lately imprinted with mickle care and toil), if I do not prove, from the epistles to the Thessalonians, that the great master of popery, the bishop of Rome, is the grand antichrist therein referred to, I will be well content to kiss the bloody maiden that stands under the shadow of the Tolbooth gable." " Hear till him !" cried the delighted Elsie. " Hear till him ! O wow, but my Meinie's man is a grand minister he rides on the rigging of the kirk !" " I am a stranger here," said Walter, no longer able to repress the torture of his mind ; "I know nothing of the vile plot you speak of, having been long in the industrious Low Countries and and canst tell me, your reverence, whose mansion is approached by yonder stately avenue of oaks and sycamores ?" " The house of Bruntisfield called of old the Wrytes." "Aich ay," added Elsie, shaking her head mournfully; u but a house o' wrongs now." " Wherefore, gudewife P" "It is a lang story, honoured sir," replied Elsie, drawing THE SCOTTISH CATALIEE. 447 her stool nearer Walter, and knitting very fast to hide her emotion. " The auld line o' the Napiers ended in a lassie, as bonnic a doo as the Lowdens three could boast o', and mony came frae baith far and near to the wooing and winning o' her ; but nane cam speed save a neer-do-weel loon o' a cavalier officer, to whom she plighted heart and troth and the plight- ing pledge was a deid woman's ring. As might be expected, the hellicate cavalier gaed awa' to the wars and plundering in the Lowlands of Holland, and sair my young lady sorrowed for him ; I ken that weel, for I was her nurse, and mony a lang hour she grat in my arms for her love that was far awa'. At last word came frae Low Germanie that the fause villain had married some unco' papistical woman, and, in a mad fit o' black despair, my lady accepted the most determined, if no the best o' her suitors " " "Who?" asked Walter, in an unearthly voice, and feeling for the sword he wore no longer. " Who ?" " Randal Lord Clermistonlee, and ehow ! but sair hath been the change in our gude auld barony since then. Her braw lands and farmsteadings, her auld patrimony, baith haugh and holme, loch and lea, brae and burn, are a' melting and fleeing awa' by the wasterfu' extravagance o' the wildest loon in a' braid Scotland. Hawks and hounds, revellers and roisterers, and ill women, thrang the great ha' house frae een to morn, and morn till eenin' ; and sae, between the freaks and follies, the pride and caprice o' her lord, my puir doo Lilian leads the life o' a blessed martyr. When mad wi' wine and ill luck at the dice tables, he rampages ower her like a bull o' Bashan ; while, at other times, he just doats on her as a faither would on a favourite bairn. But, alake ! doating can never remove the misery that has closed over her for the short time she'll likely be amang us for her heart is breaking fast it is it is !" Here Elsie wept bitterly, and then resumed. " Her marriage-day was ane o' the darkest dool to a' the barony, for on that miserable day our auld lady died ; and a* the leal servitors were soon after expelled to mak' room for the broken horse-coupers, ill women, and vagabonds, that were ever and aye in the train o' the new lord." While Elsie ran on thus, Walter heard her not. His mind was a perfect chaos of distraction. Oh, what a shock were these tidings to one whose head was so full of romance and enthusiasm, and whose heart was brimming with sensibility and love ! He felt an utter prostration of every faculty, and a deailv coldness seemed to pass over the pulses of his heart. Efe arose, and laying on the table the last coin he possessed in 448 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. the world, hurried forth without waiting for change, and, bent on some desperate deed, blind and reckless, with anger, agony, and despair in his soul, he entered the dark shadowy avenue, and approached the old castellated mansion the place of so many tender memories. CHAPTEE LXI. LOVE AND MARRIAGE ARE TWO. Oh, these were only marks of joy, forsooth, For his return in safety ! Were they so ? And so ye may believe, and so my words May fall unheeded ! Be it so ; what comes Will nevertheless come. AGAMEMNON OF AESCHYLUS. THE shadows of the gloomy evening had deepened as he approached the ancient place of BruntisfLeld, and its dark facade, its heavy projecting turrets and barred casements, impressed him with additional sadness. The wind sighed down the lonely avenue, and whirled the fallen leaves as it passed. Many a raven napped its wings and screamed discordantly above his head, and all such sounds had a powerful effect on him at the time. Confused, despairing, and feeling a sentiment of profound contempt and anger, struggling for mastery with his old and passionate love, his heart seemed about to rend with its con- flicting emotions. One sensation was ever present it was one of desolation and loneliness that he had nothing more to live for ; that the world was all a blank. The light that had long led him on through so many miseries and dangers had vanished from his view : his idol was shattered for ever. He felt that it was impossible to think with calmness ; to tear from his breast the dear image and the cherished hopes he had fostered there so long to exchange admiration for contempt love for indifference. Oh, no ! it could never be. Ages seemed to have elapsed since the sun had set that even- ing; while his parting with Lilian, the triumph of Ejlly- crankie, the carnage of Steinkirke, and his mission from the king, seemed all the events of yesterday. He felt sick and palsied at heart. Irresistibly impelled to see her, heedless alike of the dan- gerous charm of her presence and the risk he ran if discovered, his whole soul was bent upon an interview, that he might upbraid her with her perfidy hurl upon her a mountain of THE SCOTTISH CAVALIES. 443 reprobation and bitterness, of obloquy and scorn, and then leave her presence for ever. " I am alone in the world," thought he. " This is my native land the land where I had garnered up my heart, my hopes, and my wishes, though not one foot of it is mine save" the sod that must cover me. Of all the tens of thousands that tread its soil, there is not one now with whom I can claim kindred, who would welcome me in coming, or bless me in departing-^ not one to shed a tear on the grave where I shall lie. Oh ! it is very sad to feel one's self so desolate. Where now are all those brave companions with whom I was once so daring, so joyous, and so gay ? Alas ! on a hundred fields their bones lie scattered, and I alone survive to mourn the glory of the days that are gone for ever ! Oh, never more shall the drum beat or trumpet sound for me ! Oh, never more shall love or glory fire my heart again! Oh, never more, for the hour is passed and never can return" and he almost wept, so intensely bitter were his thoughts of sorrow and regret. The barbican gate stood ajar, and the old and well-remem- bered doorway at the foot of the tower was also open ; they seemed to invite his entrance, and, careless of the conse- quences, he went mechanically forward. The old portrait on horseback, the trophy of arms, and the wooden Flemish clock, with its monotonous tick-tack, still occupied the vaulted lobby. Everything seemed as he had seen them last. He turned to the left and entered the cham- ber-of-dais, breathless and trembling, for he seemed instinct- ively to know that she was there. He entered softly, and overpowered by the violence of his conflicting emotions, stood rooted to the spot. The old cham- ber, with its massive panelling and rich decorations of the Scoto-French school, was partially lighted by the ruddy glow from the great fireplace, and by the last deep red flush of the departed sun that streamed through its grated windows. The dark furniture, the grotesque cabinets with their twisted columns, the stark chairs, with their knobby backs and worsted bobs, the grim full-length of Sir Archibald Napier, cap-a-pie a la cuirassier, the dormant beam, with its load of lances, swords, and daggers, were all as Walter had last seen them ; but the old lady's well-cushioned chair, her long walking cane and ivory virreled spinning-wheel had long since disappeared ; and hawk's-hv/ods, hunting horns, spurs, whips, and stray tobacco-pipes lay in various places, while i lieu of Lady Grizel's sleek and pampered torn cat, a great wiry, red-eyed, sleuth hound slept on the warm heart h-rug. ii 2 a 4,50 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEK. On all this Walter bestowed not a glance, for liis eyes and his soul became immediately rivetted on the figure of Lilian. With her head leaning on her hand, she sat within the deep recess of a western window, and the faint light of the setting sun lit up her features and edged her ringlets with gold. She was absorbed in deep thought. Lilian, who for days, and months, and years, in health and in sickness, in danger and in safety, in sorrow and in joy, had never for a moment been absent from his thoughts, was now before him, and yet he had not one word of greeting to bestow. He seemed to be in a trance to be oppressed by some hor- rible dream. He observed her anxiously and narrowly. Nothing could be more tender than the love that was expressed in his eyes, and nothing more acute than the agony expressed by his con- tracted features. Lapse of years, change of circumstances and of thought, had considerably altered the appearance of Lilian. The light- hearted, slender, and joyous girl had expanded into a stately, i^rave, and melancholy matron. Oh, what a change those live sad years had wrought ! Her dress -was magnificent, as became the wife of a Scottish noble ; her figure, though still slight, was fuller and rounder than of old ; her face, though still dignified and beautiful, was paler even sickly. Her blue eyes seemed to have lost much of their former brilliancy, and to have gained only in softness of expression. Her dark lashes were cast down, and her aspect /ras sad and touching, The bloom of her lip and her cheek had faded away together, for heavily on her affectionate heart had the hand of suffering weighed. She wept, and the heart of Walter was melted within him. Had all the universe been his he would have given it to have embraced her. He sighed bitterly, but dared not to approach. " He is gone," said Lilian, " gone to spend another night in riot and debauchery, while I am left ever alone. Perhaps 'tis well, for often his presence is intolerable. Woe is me ! Oh, how different was the future I once pictured to my imagination !" The sound of that dear voice, which had so often come to him through his dreams in many a far and foreign camp and city, made Walter tremble. He was deeply moved. The fire in the arched chimney, which had been smouldering, now sud- denly shot up into a broad and ruddy blaze that lighted the Avhole chamber. Lilian turned her head, and instantly grew pale as death, for full on the image of him who occupied her thoughts of Walter Fenton, hollow eyed, emaciated, and THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 451 (supported on a walking-staff fell the bright stream of that fitful light. He looked so unearthly, so motionless and spectral, that Lilian's blood ran cold. She would have screamed, but the cry died away upon her Jips. After a moment or two her spirit rallied; her respira- tion, though hurried, became more free ; her face blushed scarlet up to the very temples, and then became ashy pale, as before, and her glazed eyes resumed their wild and inquiring expression. She arose, but neither advanced nor spoke. All power seemed to have left her. " Oh, Lilian ! Lilian !" said the poor wanderer, in a voice of great pathos ; " after the lapse of five long years of exile and suffering, what a meeting is this for us ! Under what a course of perils have the hope of my return and your truth not sus- tained me ? My God ! that I should find you thus. Is this the welcome I expected P" Summoning all her courage and that self-possession which women have in so great a degree, Lilian (though her eyes were full of tears), averted her face, and recalled the fatal letter of Finland, on which had turned the whole of her future fate. " Look at me, adorable Lilian !" said Walter, kneeling, and stretching his arms towards her. Lilian dared not to look ; but she trembled violently, and sobbed heavily. " Look at me, beloved one " said Walter, wildly and passionately. " Changed though I am, and though another holds your heart, you cannot have forgotten me, or learned to ?iew me with aversion and contempt. If this lord has won your affection " " Oh, say not that, Walter," sobbed Lilian, " do not say my affection/' " Oh, horror ! what misery can equal such an avowal ? My fatal absence has undone us both." " Say, rather, your fatal inconstancy." " Mine P" reiterated Walter. " Oh, yes, yes ; upbraid me not," said Lilian, in a piercing voice. " I was faithful and true until you forsook me for another. To God I appeal," she cried, raising her clasped hands and weeping eyes to heaven, " kneeling I appeal if ever in word, or thought, or hope, I swerved in truth from thee, dear Walter, until tidings of your marriage reached me ; when, stung by jealousy, by pride, by disappointment and despair, and urged by the unmerited contumely that had fallen upon me, I yielded to the exhortations of my friends, 2e2 452 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB and in an evil hour ." She covered her face with he." hands, and could say no more. " Heaven preserve my senses !" ejaculated Walter Fenton, '* for here the wiles of hell have been at work. "We have been deceived, cruelly deceived, dear Lilian, by some deep-laid plot of villany which this right hand shall yet unravel and revenge. And you are the wife of Clermistonlee ? Hear me, unfor tunate ! You are less than ah, how shall I say it ? Yoi are not and cannot be his wife !" " You rave, poor Walter. Our doom is irrevocably sealed Our paths in life must be for ever separate. Oh, for the lov: of gentle mercy begone, and let us meet no more, for at thi ; moment I feel my brain whirling, and I am trembling on th^ very verge of madness." " Lilian, this is the 20th of September," said Walter. " Cruel, cruel; do not speak of it," said she, wringing her hands. " For heaven's sake leave me, and take back tlu: pledge the ring, for to retain it longer were a sin, and too long have I sinned in treasuring it as I have done." Unlocking a cabinet, she drew from a secret drawer a rinj/ to which a riband was attached, and offered it to Walter, bui he never approached. " We have been cruelly duped, dear Lilian ; but oh, hov could you doubt me, for never did I mistrust you ? But hea* me, though mv words should crush your heart as mine just now is crushed. Alison Gifford, the first wife of Lord Cler- mistonlee yet lives, though (as she told me) dead to him and to the world for ever !" " What new horror is this P" said Lilian, pressing her hands upon her temples. In a few words her unhappy lover explained how he had become acquainted with the existence of Lady Clermistonlee. " Oh, this is indeed to bruise the bruised to heap brands upon a burning heart," said Lilian, as she sank into a chair and covered her face with her hands. A long pause ensued, till Walter said in a low and trembling voice, " Lilian, do you really love this man this Clermistonlee ?" " He is my husband." " It is impossible you can love him !" " Love him ! oh, no ! custom has in part overcome the : aversion with which I once regarded him, and by his able flattery he has succeeded in soothing me into a temper of kind i Indifference and quiet resignation but oh, this interview " Walter, who had never dared to diminish the distance be* tween them, gazed wistfully and tenderly upon her; but at' t&at moment an infant that was sleeping in its cradle aw-ifc THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 453 nnd cried aloud. Its voice seemed to sting; him to the heart, imd he turned abruptly to withdraw. "Farewell, Lilian," said he ; " I will go. and my presence shall disturb your serenity no more. May you be happy, and may (rod bless and forgive you for the agony I now endure ! Cler- mistonlee, like the matchless villain he has been through life, ]-as wronged us both ; but let him tremble in the midst of hia ^ access and his treason, for the hour is coming when our king giiall enjoy his own again, and remember that in that hour the same hand which rends the baron's coronet from the brow oi your betrayer, bestows on me the earldom of Dalrulion! i^arewell," said he through his clenched teeth; "to me the |-aths of ambition and revenge are open still, though those of happiness and love are closed, alas, for ever!" He gave her one long glance of agony, and turned to depart ; but at that moment strong hands were laid upon 'him violently the room s* r as filled with soldiers and the beagles of justice ; he was dragged down and bound with cords, ere he could make the slightest effort in his own defence. "An out-and-out Jacobite, Papist, and a' the rest o' it J ken by the look o' him ! " cried Maclutchy, the macer, Nourishing his badge of office. " Here will be some grand I .-lots brought to light, that will bring half the country under doom o' forfeiture and fine. Kittle times, lads ! kittle i imes ! " " Away with him ! " cried Clermistonlee, spurning the manacled unfortunate with his foot ; " away with him. The lords of the privy council meet in an hour. Lose no time for by all the devils ! the corbies of the Burghmuir shall pick his bones ere the morrow's sun be set." As Walter was roughly dragged away, Lilian threw her 1 lands above her head, uttered one wild shriek, and fell for- ward on her face, motionless as if dead. CHAPTEE LXIL THE KING AND THE SECRET. See the cypress wreath of saddest hue, The twining destiny threading through j And the serpent coil is twisting there While regardless of the victim's prayer, The fiend laughs out o'er the mischief done, And the canker-worm makes the heart his throne. THE PROPHECY. TWELVE o'clock tolled heavily and sadly from the steeple of St. Giles. It was a bleak and cold night. The lords of tbe privy 454 THE SCOTTISH CAYALIBR. council, muffled up in their well-furred rocquelaures, with their hats napped over their periwigs, ascended from the sub- terranean vaults under the Parliament House, where they held their dreaded conclaves, and hurried away to their resi- dences in the various deep and steep wynds of the ancieiit city. Mersington, who, overcome by sleep and wine, had re- mained at the table until roused by macer Maclutchy, ww the last to come forth, and he stoo\ rubbing his eyes in the Parliament- square, and watching the black gigantic statue of King Charles with steady gravity, for he could have sworn at that moment that it seemed to be trotting hard towards him. His rallying faculties were scattered again by a stranger violently jostling him. " Hand, ye dyvour loon ! " exclaimed the incensed senator $ " I am the Lord Mersington." " And what art doing here, pumpkinhead P " asked Cler- mistonlee, who was quite breathless by having rushed up the Back Stairs, as those flights of steps which ascended from the Cowgate to the Parliament-square were named. " Arc the proceedings over P Hath the villain confessed ? Is he to die ? " " They are over, and he shall die conform to the act." " And how went the proceedings P " " Deil kens ; I sleepit the haul time." " Driveller ! " cried.^ Clermistonlee in a towering passion j " 'tis like thee ; your head is as empty as my purse - " " Hee, hee, ye seem a bonnie temper to-night. But what detained you frae the board, when ye knew you were principal witness P " " The sudden indisposition of Lady Clermistonlee made jt impossible for me to leave Bruntisfield, but I have this " galloped in from the Place." " You are a kind and considerate gudeman," said Mersing- ton drily. " And what did this fellow confess P " " His abhorrence of you - " " Ha ! ha ! " " His hatred of the present government, and his werrinesa o' this life. He spoke unco dreich and sadly, puir callant, and sae I fell fast asleep and dozed like a top." "And did not that goosecap, the king's advocate, give hir a twinge or two of the torture P " " We brought some braw things to light without the hel] o' rack or screw. The tails o' his coat were as fu' o' treasoi as an egg's fu' o' meat. There were five-and-twenty auto- graph letters frae the bluidy and papistical Duke James-' THE SCOTTISH CAVAL1ES. 455 " Stuff ! But lately he was styled His most Sacred Majesty, by the grace of God, and so forth." " I speak as we wrote it in the council minutes. Five-and- twcnty letters to the cut-throat Hieland chiefs, to the Murraya of Stormont, the Drummonds, and others, some slee tod iowries we have long had our een on. But maist of a' was a notable plot of that d ned jaud Madame Maintenon to assassinate King William." " Hah ! " " From a paper found, it appears that a certain Monsieur Dumont is now disguised as a soldier in our confederate army in Flanders, watching an opportunity to shoot the king and escape." " .By St. George, I hope the aforesaid Monsieur Dumont is a good shot a regular candle-snuffer ! " " Our culprit, Fenton, knew not of Maintenon's plot, or of her papers being among those on his person. He looked black dumbfoundered when Maclutchy drew them frae a neuk in his coat-tail." " And to whom were they directed P " " To one Widow Douglas, whilk the king's advocate avers to be no other than the Lady Dunbarton. Fenton grew red with anger on their being read, and smote his forehead, say- ing, ' Dupe that I have been! the noble Due de Chartres warned me to beware of De Maintenon ; but let it pass : ' and here, as I said, I fell fast asleep, until a minute ago. But come, let us have a pint of sack ; I am clean brainbraised wi' drouth, and I warrant Lucky Dreep, in the Kirk-o'-field- wynd, keeps open-door yet." " And he dies P " said Clermistonlee, who could think cf nothing but glutting his revenge. " Early to-morrow morning, by the bullet." " I would rather it had been by the cord. How came our considerate councillors to shoot instead of hang him P " " Soldiers, ye ken, are often soft-hearted when other men ore in stern mood ; so auld General Livingstone, after plead- iijff hard for Fenton's life, and failing, procured what he railed an honourable commutation of the senterce, for which the puir gomeral cavalier thanked him as if it had been a reprieve." " Cord or bullet, it matters not. So perish all who would cross the purposes of Kandal of Clermistonlee." His lordship for once resisted the importunities of his friend, and instead of adjourning to a tavern, rode slowly and reluctantly back to his own house. He felt a strange and unaccountable presentiment of impending evil, for wkLli he 456 THE SCOTTISH CAVAL1ES. ould not account, but endeavoured to throw it from him. The effort was vain. He felt himself a villain. A load of long-accumulated wickedness oppressed his proud heart ; it was not without its better traits, and writlied as he reflected on some events in his past life. " Alison ! Alison ! " he exclaimed, turning his dark eyes upwards to the star-studded firmament, " now thy curse is coming heavily upon me." His principal dread was the death of Lilian, for he had learned to love her with tolerable sincerity, but he knew not the secret which Walter had revealed to her, and the conse- Sient intensity of her horror, aversion, shame, and anger, e knew not the tempest it had raised in her sensitive breast against him. When he entered the chamber-of-dais, she was seated near a tall silver lamp. The glare of the untrimmed light fell full upon her face, and its ghastly and altered expression struck a mortal dullness on the heart of her husband. He said not a word, but walking straight to a buffet, tilled a large silver cup several times with wine, and always drained it to the bottom. The liquor mounted rapidly to his brain ; he threw himself into a chair opposite Lilian, and heedless of the perfect scorn that quivered in her beautiful nostrils, and sparkled in her brilliant eyes, began leisurely to unbutton his riding gambadoes of red stamped maroquin, whistling a merry hunting-tune while he did so. It was easier for him to requite scorn with scorn than give tenderness for love. " Confusion on the buttons ! " he exclaimed. " Juden ! Juden ! Tush ! I forgot : poor Juden hath been with the devil these three years. There is none now of all my rascally household who will share with me the morrow's glut of ven- geance as thou wouldst have done, my faithful Juden." Lilian wrung her attenuated hands ; Clermistonlee regarded her sternly, and then bursting into a loud laugh, as he threw away his boots and spurs, chanted a verse from the old black- letter ballad of Gilderoy : " Beneath the left ear so fit for a cord A rope so charming a zone is ; Thy youth in his cart hath air of a lord, And we cry there dies an Adonis ! " " Ha ! ha ! I shall see his head on the Bow-port to-morrow, madam." *' Infamous and wicked ! " exclaimed Lilian, feeling all her old love revived with double ardour, and no longer able to THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 457 restrain her sentiments of grief and indignation. " Walter, iear and beloved Walter, how cruelly have I been deceived !" ajid drawing from her bosom the ring, his mother's ring, fclj j^dge of his betrothal, she pressed it to her lips with fervour. The brow of the proud Clermistonlee grew black as thunder, and he grasped her slender arm with the tenacity of a falcon. " Surrender this bauble, that I may commit it to the flames. Surrender it, madam, lest I dash thee to the eart ; for it this moment I feel, by all the devils ! my brain spinning like a jenny." " Give him the ring, Lady Lilian ; give it, for the sight of it will arrest his vision, even as the letters of fire arrested the ?yes of Belshazzar and smote him with dismay. Sweet lady, let him look upon it," said the voice of a woman. They turned, and beheld the pale, emaciated, and haggard visage of Beatrix Gilruth, half shaded by a tattered tartan plaid. Taking advantage of Lilian's momentary surprise, her husband snatched the ring from her, and was about to hurl it into the fire, when, incited by the woman's words, and impelled by some mysterious and irresistible curiosity, he looked upon it, and the effect of his single glance acted > like rnagic upon him. He quitted his clutch of Lilian's arm, trembled, grew pale, and turning the ring again and again, surveyed it with intense curiosity. " How came he to have this ring ? " he muttered ; " what Grange mystery is here ? If it should be so O, im- possible ! " He pressed a spring that must have been known only to himself, for Lilian had never discovered it in all the myriad times she had surveyed it, and Walter himself was ignorant of the secret when he bestowed the trinket upon her. The lapse of years had stiffened the spring ; but after a moment's pressure from the finger of Clermistonlee, a little shield of gold unclosed, revealing a minute and beautiful little minia- ture of himself, which in earlier days had been one of the happiest efforts of the young Medina's pencil. k< 'Twas my bridal gift to Alison," he exclaimed in a voice of confusion and remorse. " Oh, Alison, Alison ! many have I loved, but never one like thee. Never again did my heart feel the same ardour that fired it when I placed this ring on your adorable hand. Unfortunate Alison ! " " This ring was tied by a riband around the neck of Walter Fenton, when a little child he was found by the side of his dead mother in the Grey friars churchyard," said Lilian in a breathless voice* 463 THE SCOTTISH CAVALiEU. " Confusion and misery ! 'tis impossible this can be true ; there is some diabolical mistake here. Woman, say forth." Beatrix gave Clermistonlee a bitter and malicious smile and addressed Lilian. " Walter's mother, sweet lady, gave that ring to Elspal Fenton, who, next to myself, was the most trusted of hei attendants, and bade her travel from Paris to Scotland, and deliver the child and the bridal gift together to her husband to Randal of Clermistonlee." Lilian covered her face, and the fiery lord, whose first emotions were generally those of anger, surveyed Beatrix as if she had been a coiled-up snake. She spoke slowly, and made long pauses, for aware that her words were as daggers she dealt them sparingly. " After long suffering and great peril by sea and land, this poor woman reached Edinburgh, but failed to meet the father of the infant committed to her care ; for then he was in arms with the men of the Covenant, hoping by any civil broil or commotion to repair the splendid patrimony his excesses had dissipated. Elspat being unable to give a very coherent account of herself, was declared a nonconformist by the authorities, and thrown with thousands of others into the Greyfriars kirkyard, where, in that inclement season, she perished ; but the child was found and protected by the soldiers of Dunbarton. That child is Walter Fenton ; he is your son, Lord Clermistonlee ! the child of your once-loved Alison Gifford. I call upon Heaven to witness the truth of my assertion ! His own name was Walter (ah ! can you have forgotten that P) his nurse's Fenton. I saw her die, and ] alone knew the secret, and have treasured it till this hour this hour of vengeance upon thee, thou false and wicked lord 1 In my wicked spirit of revenge too long have I kept the secret ; but now this blameless and noble youth is doomed to death, and fain would I save him, for he is innocent, and good, and generous; in all things, oh, how much the reverse o( thee ! " " Maniac, thou liest ! " exclaimed Clermistonlee, whose heart beat wildly. " I cannot believe this tale of a tub, whici is told to affright me. And yet, how dare I reject it? the ring Walter my God ! " " Ha ! has Beatrix the wronged, the scorned, the despised, the neglected Beatrix, wrung your heart at last p Fool ! fool I Did'st thou never suspect the volcano that slumbered here ? K she exclaimed, laying her hand upon her heart. " Did'st thou never perceive the flame that smouldered in my breast the yearnings, the throbbings, the fierce longing to be adequately THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 459 reionged on thee who had brought me to ruin and madness, and had abandoned me to penury and privation P Wretch : 'tis twenty-five years since ye betrayed me. Time has rolled on time, that soothes all sorrows and softens every affliction, and teaches us to forget the wrongs of the living yea, and the virtues of the dead ; and perhaps to wonder why we hated one and loved the other, time, I say, has rolled on to many miserable years, until I have become the hideous thing I am, but it never lessened one tithe of my longing for vengeance for the thousand taunts and contumelies that succeeded my first sacrifice for thee. You say I am mad perhaps I am but mark me a woman's sorrow passes like a summer cloud, but her vengeance endurethfor ever ! " Clermistonlee smote his forehead, and Beatrix laughed like a hyaena. " My God unhappy Walter ! " said Lilian in a voice that pierced the heart of him she abhorred to deem her husband. " Then she who saved and nursed thee on the field of Stein- kirke was thy mother thy mother, and she knew it not P Oh, this was the secret sentiment, the heaven-born thought that spoke within her and made her heart so mysteriously yearn towards thee. Unfortunate Walter! how deeply have we been wronged how bitterly must we suffer ! " " And till now, thou accursed fiend, this terrible secret has been concealed from me ! " said Clermistonlee furiously, as he half drew his sword. Beatrix laughed and tossed her arms wildly. " Oh, horror upon horror ! woe upon woe ! " said Lilian in a voice of the deepest anguish as she wrung her hands, and, taking up her little infant from the cradle, kissed it tenderly on the forehead, and retired slowly from the room. "Lilian Lilian," cried her husband, "whither go ye, lady ? " " To solitude to solitude," she murmured. " Anywhere to save me from my own terrible thoughts anywhere to hide me from the deep disgrace you have brought upon me ; to any place where never again the light of day shall find me." Clermistonlee heard her light steps on the staircase, and they fell like a knell on his heart : impelled by some secret and mysterious impulse, he followed her to her own apart- ment, the door of which he had heard close behind her. There was no sound within it. He entered softly ; but she was not there ; and from that moment she was never beheld again ! Every ultimate search proved fruitless and unavailing. A veil of impenetrable mystery hung over her fate. . . 460 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIES. A sudden thought flashed on the mind of Clermistonlee. The day dawn was breaking as he descended the staircase, after fruitlessly calling on Lilian through, various apartments, " I may, I must save him yet unfortunate youth, a father's arms shall yet embrace him. Oh, my hapless and deeply- wronged Alison ; fortune may yet enable me in some sort to repair the atrocities of which I have been guilty. My horse ! iny horse ! " and, rushing to the stable, he saddled and. bridled a Heet steed, and in five minutes was galloping furiously back to the city, the walls and towers of which arose before him, red and sombre in the rays of the morning sun. CHAPTEE LXIII. THE IEON BOOM THE DEATH SHOT. Ay, I had planned full many a sanguine scheme Of earthly happiness romantic schemes, And fraught with loveliness : and it is hard To feel the hand of death arrest one's steps, Throw a chill blight o'er all one's budding prospects, And hurl one's soul untimely to the shades, Lost in the gaping gulf of blank oblivion. HENRY KIRKE WHITE. THE iron room of the ancient Tolbooth of Edinburgh was a dreary vault of massive stonework, and was named so in consequence of its strength and security. A low heavy arch roofed it, and the walls from which it sprung were composed of great blocks of roughly hewn stone elaborately built. Here and there a chain hung from them. The floor was paved, and the door was a complicated mass of iron bars, locks, bolts, and hinges. A single aperture, high up in the wall, admitted the cold midnight wind through its deep recess. An iron cruise burned on a clumsy wooden table, near which sat Walter Fenton, the condemned, with his face covered by his hands, and his mind buried in sad and melan- choly thoughts. One bright and solitary star shone down upon him through the grated window, flashing, dilating, and shrinking ; often lie gazed upon it wistfully for it was his only companion the partner or the witness of his solitude and his sorrow. Once he turned to look upon it -but it had passed away. He reflected that never again would he behold a star shining in the firmament. Sad, bitter, and solitary reflection for a few hours was all that was left him now ; and, though the sands of life were ebbing fast, one absorbing thought occupied his mind that THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER 461 Lilian was false and his rival triumphant ; that all his long- cherished schemes and dreams of love and happiness, glory and ambition, were frustrated and blasted irredeemably and for ever. He was to die ! The infliction of punishment immediately after trial was anciently practised in all criminal cases, and the victim was usually led from the presence of the judge to the scaffold. Walter had been doomed to death as a traitor, a raiser of sedition, and a deserter from the Scottish forces ; the last ac- cusation, in support of which his signed oath of fealty to the Estates of Scotland, had been produced in council by general Sir Thomas Livingstone, commander-in-chief of the army, saved him the dishonour of dying on the gibbet. The door of the iron room was opened stealthily, and the heavy bolts and swinging chains were again rattling into their places, when Walter slowly raised his head. His eye had become haggard, and his face was overspread with a deathly pallor. The tall spare form of the Keverend Mr. Ichabod Bummel stood before him, clad in his ample black coat, with its enormous cuffs and pocket-flaps, his deep waistcoat, and voluminous grey breeches. He removed his broad hat, and smoothed down the long lank hair which was parted in a seam over the top of his cranium, and fell straight upon each shoul- der. He did not advance, but continued to press his hat upon iii s breast with both hands, to turn up his eyes and groan mournfully. " Poor youth !" he began, after two or three hems ; " poor youth ! now truly thou lookest like an owl in the desert, yea . verily, even as one overtaken in the Slough of Despond. Now thou seest how atrocious is the crime of rebellion, and how bitter its meed. Now thou seest how wicked is the attempt to overturn our pure and blessed kirk as by law established, and to substitute anarchy and confusion tor peace and bro- therly love, and to involve the innocent with the guilty in one common destruction. Ewhow ! O guilty madness O miser- able infatuation, that for the phantom of kingly and hereditary right, would ruthlessly hurl back the land into the dark abyss of popery, restore the abomination of the mass, and substitute the vile and tyrannical James for that beloved prince of our own persuasion, now seated on Britain's triple throne, if not by that imaginary hereditary right, at least by the laws of the land, arid the Voice of those that are above it yea, mark me, youth, above it the ministers of the gospel. The pious and glorious William hath been our saviour from the devilish practices of popery, and the machinations of all those spurious 462 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. children of Luther and of Calvin, the Seekers, the Libertines and Independents, Brownists, Separatists and Familists, Antitrinitarians, Arians, Socinians, Anti-Scripturists, Ana- baptists, Antinomians, Arminians, and a myriad other teachers of heresy, and preachers of schism whilk, my brethren my' brother, I mean may Beelzebub confound ! Oh, youth, how wicked and ungracious it is in thee to reject the stately fig- tree with its sweetness and good fruit, and raise up the ancient thorn and prickly bramble to reign over us !" " My good sir," replied Walter, " it is but a poor specimen of Presbyterian charity this, to come hither to a dismal vault, to heap contumely on the head of the fallen, to humble one who is already humbled to bruise the bruised. G-ood sir, is it kind or charitable to rail at and exult over me in this my great distress ?" At this unexpected accusation, tears stated into the eyes of Ichabod Bummel, who was really a good man at heart, though his virtues were sadly obscured by the fanaticism of the times. " Do not misunderstand me, good youth," he replied hurriedly ; " and do me not this great injustice. I come in the most humble and Christian spirit, to cheer thy last hour in this gloomy hypogeum, and for that godly purpose have brought with me a copy of my Bombshell, a most sweet and savoury comforter to the afflicted mind." He drew that celebrated quarto from his voluminous pocket, laid it on the table, and opening it at certain places, turned down the corners of the leaves. He then produced a thick little black-letter psalm-book, the board of which bore the very decided impression of a Bothwell-brig bullet ; he adjusted a great pair of round horn spectacles on his long hooked nose, and in a shrill voice began his favourita chant : * I like an owle in desert am," &c. So much did he resemble the feathered type of wisdom, that Walter could scarcely repress a smile. "Young man, wherefore dost thou not join with me?" asked the divine, raising his black eyebrows and looking at Walter alternately under, over, and through his barnacles. " Reverend sir, I never sung a psalm in my life, and really cannot do so now." " I warrant thou canst sing ' Claver'se and his Cavaliers,' 'King James's March/ * Bub-a-Dub,' and other profane ditties and camp-songs of thy wicked faction and ungodly pro- fession," said Ichabod reproachfully. THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 463 At that moment the deep-mouthed bell of St. Giles, which seemed to swing immediately above their heads," gave one long a nd sonorous toll. " It is the first hour of the last morning I shall ever spend on earth !" exclaimed Walter, starting up and striking his fetters together in the bitterness of his soul. " Oh, Lilian, Lilian, liow little could we have foreseen of all this !" He wept. " Tis well no tears can be more precious than these," said Mr. Bummel, who thought his exhortations had begun j.o prove effectual. " Soon, good youth, shalt thou reach the ( nd of this vale f tears ! Lo ! thy bride already waiteth i.iiee, and these tears " " You deem those of contrition and remorse. They are trot. I have done nothing to repent of, or for which I ought to feel contrite. I never wronged man nor woman, though jnany have wronged me in more than a lifetime can repay. These tears spring only from bitterness and unavailing regret. Have I no hope of pardon ? I care not for life, but m f king ?--ad the son of my king require my services, and could my i.-lood restore them I would die happy. Where is old Sir Thomas Daly el ? " " Gone to a warmer climate than Scotland," said Ichabod ; pitefully. ' Sir George of llosehaugh?" * He is gone where he cannot assist thee." ' Where is old Colin of Balcarris ? " * Fled no one knows whither." * Where, then, is old Sir Eobert of GlenaeP" ' Gone to his last account with other persecutors." ' All then are dead or in exile, and none is left to be a friend to the poor cavalier." 1 Save one," said Ichabod, pointing upward. * True, true," replied Walter, and covering his face with his hands he stooped over the table and prayed intently. Two o'clock struck, three and four followed, but still he ramained, as Ichabod thought, absorbed in earnest prayer, and kneeling by his side, the worthy minister joined with true and pious fervour, till his patience became quite ex- hausted. He stirred him, and Walter, who had fallen asleep, started up. " Is it time?" he asked. " Thou hast slept well," said the divine, pettishly ; " out of seven hours that were allotted, three have already fled." " My dear and worthy sir, you see how calm my conscience is. Perhaps it is hard to die so young ; but for me life has 4iU THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. now lost every charm. Death newer has terrors to the bravn. He opens the gates to a fame and a life that are eternal, and when the coffin-lid is closed, sorrow and jealousy, envy and woe are excluded for ever. In four hours more mine will have closed over me. Kingdoms and cities, the trees of the forest, the lakes, the rocks, and the hills themselves, have all their allotted periods of existence, and man has his ; for every thing must perish all must die and all must pass away. Oh, why then this foolish and unavailing regret about a few years more or less ? Front to front and foot to foot I have often met death on the field of battle, and if without flinching I have faced the volley of a whole brigade, that hurled a thousand brave spirits into eternity at once, shall I shrink from the levelled muskets of twelve base hirelings of the Stadtholder? Will Lilian ever look on the grave where this heart moulders that loved her so long and so well? Oh, no, for now she is the wife of another oh, my God, another ! In all wide Scotland there is not one to regret me, to shed one tear for me. I disappear from the earth like a bubble on a tide of events, leaving not one being behind me to recall my memory in fondness or regret." >'*.*# ; .." * ; f* The great clock of St. Giles struck the hour of seven. Muskets rattled on the pavement of the echoing street ; the door of the iron room opened, and the gudeman of the Tolbooth presented his stern and sinister visage. " It is time," he announced briefly. " I am ready," replied Walter, cheerfully, and, with a soldier on each side of him, and followed by the clergyman, he descended the narrow circular staircase of the prison, and, issuing from an arched doorway at the foot, found himself at the end of the edifice. Here he paused and gazed calmly around him. An early hour was chosen for his execution, that few might witness it, for there existed in Scotland a strong feeling against William's policy ; the massacre of Glencoe, the successive defeats and heavy expenses of the Dutch wars, rankled bitterly in the minds of the people. The lofty streets were silent and shadowy ; scarcely a foot- fall was heard in them, and the dun sunlight of the September morning had not sufficient heat to exhale the haze of the autumnal night. A company of Argyle's regiment the perpetrators of the Glencoe atrocity clad in coarse brick-coloured uniform of the Dutch fashion, were drawn up in double ranks facing inwards on ench side of the doorway. Thev stood with their THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 4f>5 arms reversed, and each stooped his head on his hands, which rested Dn the butt of his musket. At the head of this lane were four drummers with their drums muffled anc craped, and a. plain deal coffin carried upon the shoulders a, soldiers. Waiter, as he gazed steadily along these hostile jtenks, saw only the sourest fanaticism visible in every face, and in none more so than that of their commander, a hard- featured and square-shouldered personage, with a black corslet under his ample red coat, and wearing a red feather in his broad hat. He introduced himself as " Major Duncannon, of the godly regiment of my noble lord Argyle." Walter bowed. " Duncannon!" he replied; " your name is familiar to me as being the man who issued the orders for the massacre of Glencoe." Duncannon gave Walter a steady frown in reply to his glance of undisguised hostility and contempt, and said, " I obeyed the royal orders of King William III., to whom I say be long life and, like thee, may all his enemies perish from Dan to Beersheba ! " " I do not acknowledge him ; he hath never been crowned among us, nor sworn the oath a Scottish king should swear. Shame on you, sir, to rank this false-hearted Dutchman with our brave King William the Lion. Shame be on you, sir, and all your faction ! " cried Walter, holding up his fettered hands, while his cheek flushed and his eyes kindled with energy. "Let our people recollect that the last man whose limbs were crushed to a jelly by the accursed steel-boots and grinding thumbscrews, was subjected to their agonizing tor- ture by the * merciful' William of Orange by the same wise prince by whose express orders the bravest of the northern tribes was massacred in their sleep and in cold blood ! Let our brave soldiers, when the lash that drips with their blood is flaying them alive, remember that, like scourging round the fleet and keelhauling the hapless mariner, it is an introduction of the same pious and magnanimous monarch who planned, signed, and countersigned the mandate for the ruthless atro- city of Glencoe ! Oh, Scotland, Scotland ! disloyal and un- true to the line of your ancient kings, how long will you waste your treasure and pour forth your gallant sons to the Dutch and German wars of a brutal tyrant, who at once fears, and hates, and dreads, though he dare not despise you ? But the hour is coming," and he shook his clenched hand and clanked his fetters like a fierce prophet " when war, oppression, ex- action, and devastation, will be the meed of the actions of to-day ! " n. * 466 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEE. " Silence, traitor ! " exclaimed Duncannon, striking him with the hilt of his sword so severely that blood flowed from his mouth. " Major Duncannon, thou art a coward ! " said Walter, turning his eyes of fire upon him. " The brave are ever compassionate and gentle ; but thou ! away, man for on thy brow is written the dark curse which the unavenged blood of Glencoe called down from the blessed God ! " Duncannon turned pale. " Away with him ! " he cried. " Drummers, flam off musketeers, march ! " and the procession began. The dull rolling of the muffled drums, the regulated tap of the burial-march, and the wailing of the fifes, now shrill and high, and anon sweet and low, found a deep echo in Walter's melancholy breast. Sorrowful and solemn was the measure of the psalm, and he felt his beating heart soothed and sad- dened ; but he could only mentally accompany the clergyman who walked bareheaded by his side, and chanted aloud while the soldiers marched. Walter's cheek reddened, for his fearless heart beat high, and he stepped firmly behind his coffin, the most stately in all that sad procession, though marching to that dread strain which a soldier seldom hears, his own death- march. The Fast recesses of the great cathedral, and the distant echoes of the central street of the city, with all its diverging wynds, replied mournfully to the roll of the funeral drums. He whose knell they rung seemed the proudest there among two hundred soldiers. Life now had nearly lost every charm, while religion, courage, and resignation had fully robbed death of all its terrors. Roused by the unusual sound, many a nightcapped citizen peered fearfully forth from his lofty dwelling ; but their looks of wonder or of pity were unheeded or unseen by Walter Fenton. He saw only his own coffin borne before him, and the weapons and the hands by which he was to die ; but his bold spirit never quailed, and he resolved, with true Jacobite enthusiasm, to fall with honour to the cause for which he suffered. "Halt!" cried Duncannon, and the coffin rang hollowly as it was placed beside the square stone pedestal of King Charles's statue, and Walter immediately kneeled down within it, confronting the stern Presbyterians of Argyle's regiment with an aspect of coolness and bravery that did not fail to excite their admiration and pity. A sergeant approached to bind up his eyes. "Nay, nay, my good fellow," said Walter, waving him sway ; " I have faced death too often to flinch now. Major THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEB. 467 Duncannon, draw up your musketeers, and I will show you how fearlessly a cavalier of honour can die." While twelve soldiers were drawn up before him and loaded \ their muskets, Walter turned his eyes for the last time to the glorious autumnal sun, whose red morning rays were shot aslant between two lofty piles of building into the shadowy and gloomy quadrangle formed by the ancient Parliament House, the Goldsmith's Hall, the grotesque piazzas, and the grand cathedral. He gave one rapid glance of adieu around him, and then turned towards his destroyers. " Farewell, good youth," said Mr. Bummell, as the tears of true and heartfelt sorrow trickled over his long hooked nose. " Farewell ! When He from whose hand light went forth over the land, even as the rays of yonder sun when He, I say, returns in His glory, we will meet again. Till then, fare- well/' Covering his face with his handkerchief, he withdrew a few paces and prayed with kind and sincere devotion. At that moment the hoofs of a galloping horse, spurred madly down the adjacent street, rang through the vaults and aisles of the great church. Walter's colour changed. A reprieve ! Alas ! it was only Lord Clermistonlee, who, pale, panting, and breathless, dashed into the square to stay the execution ; but the cry he would have uttered died away on his parched lips. " He comes to exult over me," said Walter bitterly. " Be- hold, ignoble lord," he exclaimed, "how a true cavalier can die ! Musketeers," he added, in his old voice of authority, " ready blow your matches present God save King James the Seventh give fire ! " The death volley rang like thunder in the still quadrangle. Four bullets flattened against the statue, eight were mortal ; and with the last convulsive energy of death Walter Fenton threw his hat into the air, and fell forward prostrate into hib coffin a bleeding corpse. Here ends our tale. From that hour Clermistonlee was a changed man. Though given up to dark, corroding care and moody thoughts, he fived to a great old age, and was one of those who sold his country at the union. Soon after that event he died, unre- gretted and unrespected, and a defaced monument in the east wall of the Greyfriars churchyard still marks the place where he lies. His gossip, Mersington, would no doubt have obtained a comfortable sharo of "the compensations " in 1707, had he 468 THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. not (as appears from a passage in Carstairs* State Papers) unluckily been found dead one night in the severe winter of 1700, with a half-drained mu^ of burnt sack clutched in his tenacious grasp. A few words more of Lilian, and then we part. From the moment in which, with her child in her arms, ehe ascended the great staircase of Bruntisfield, she was never again seen. Every place within the mansion and without, the woods, the lake, the fields, the muir, were searched, but the lady and her child were seen no more. An impenetrable mystery cast a veil of horror over their fate ; but Mr. Ichabod Bummel, and the most learned divines of a kirk that was then in the zenith of its wisdom and power, gave it as their decided opinion that they had been spirited away by the fairies, an idea that was unanimously adopted by the people ; nevertheless, a pale spectre, wailing and pressing a ghastly babe to its attenuated breast, was ofteD visible on moonlight nights, among the old oak-trees, the rocky heronshaws of the Burghmuir, or the reedy rhinns of its beautiful loch ; and this terrible fact was solemnly averred and duly sworn to by various decent and sponsible men, such as elders and deacons of the kirk, who chanced to journey that way after nightfall. In latter years it was to the long gloomy avenue or imme- diate precincts of the ancient house, that this terrible tenant confined her midnight promenades. Many sceptical persons, notwithstanding the assertions of the aforesaid elders and deacons, declared the story of the apparition to be downright nonsense. Many more may be disposed to do so at the present day ; but we would beg them to withold their decision until they have consulted as carefully as we have done, the MSS. Session Records of Mr. Bummers kirk, entered in his own hand, and attested by the said elders and deacons at full length. In the year 1800, when the stately and venerable mansion of Bruntisfield was demolished, to make way for the hospital of Gillespie, within a deep alcove, or labyrinth of stone, in the heart of its massive walls, the skeletons of a female and child were discovered ; some fragments of velvet, brocade, and a gold ring were found with them. On touching them, they crumbled into undistinguishable dust. THE END. YA P877