JANE SETON:

OR,

THE KING'S ADVOCATE.

A Scottish Historical Romance.

BY JAMES GRANT,

AUTHOR OF
"THE ROMANCE OF WAR," "THE AIDE-DE-CAMP," ETC. ETC.

NEW EDITION.

LONDON:
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS,
BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL.
NEW YORK: 129, GRAND STREET.
1865.

LONDON:
SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS,
CHANDOS-STREET.

PREFACE.

The genius of a monarch is said to stamp a character upon his time; but this can scarcely be said to have been the good fortune of the sovereign in whose reign I have laid the following romance.

Like all the princes of his house, James V. was far in advance of the age in which he lived; for to all his forefathers' valour and passionate love of their native Scotland (for whose soil so many of them had shed their blood in battle), to their elegant taste in all the arts, their patronage of science and commerce, he united a love for romantic adventure, which, like James IV., made him the idol of the people. But the Scottish nobles, though affording us many bright and glorious examples of high valour and pure patriotism, have generally been a race of men too ready to sacrifice the dearest interests of their country for lucre or ambition; and were really, in all ages, a curse alike to our kings and the nation.

In the following pages I have endeavoured to portray something of their savage pride and unscrupulous spirit; and to give a picture of those dark days of violence when danger was the pastime and arms the occupation of our people; when it was sadly but truly said, that grey hairs were seldom seen under a Scotsman's bonnet, and that a Scottish mother had seldom a son left to lay her head in the grave, for in civil strife or foreign war they had all gone before her to the land of the leal.

There is much that is veritable history, and much that is old tradition, woven up with my fiction; and though the reader may be able to distinguish these passages, I shall mention, that the king's adventure in the cavern, the three trees of Dysart, and John of Clatto, are ancient legends of Fife; while the point on which the whole story turns—the strange and frantic love of Otterburn—is taken partly from an incident which is mentioned in the annals of the House of Angus, and bears a conspicuous place in the early criminal records of Scotland. It will be found related at further length in the notes.

The King's Advocate was so named, to distinguish him from the Crown Prince's Advocate, an office which existed before the abolition of many of those more important public institutions of which Scotland has permitted herself to be deprived.

The King's Advocate, with whose name I have made so free in these volumes, was the son of Thomas Otterburn of Edinburgh, who was slain at the battle of Flodden, and of Katharine Brown. He was Lord Provost of Edinburgh from 1524 to 1535, and was our ambassador to England between the same years. He was knighted in 1534, but was imprisoned in the castle of Dumbarton for being too partial to Englishmen. He was highly esteemed by Buchanan, who has embalmed his memory in beautiful Latin verse.

Vipont, the hero, bears an old Scottish surname, which was famous in the middle ages, though it has now almost disappeared. Andro Wyntown, the Prior of St. Serf, mentions that Alan ye Vipownt was keeper of Lochlevin, and defended that fortress valiantly in the wars of the Scottish succession. Another, Sir William Vipont, was one of the two Scottish knights slain on the glorious 24th of June, 1314. They were barons of Aberdour on the northern shore of the Forth, where their ruined castle, a massive pile indicative of great strength and ancient grandeur, is yet to be seen. Roland Vipont is meant to represent the last of that old race, whose arms are still recorded to have been six annulets or, with a swan's head rising from a coronet.

Let it not be thought that I have made James V. or his minister speak too harshly of Henry VIII.'s moral character, when we bear in mind that Dr. Bayley, in his "Life of Bishop Fisher," has plainly asserted and proved, that the English king married Anne Boleyn, knowing her to be his own daughter. So much for the "Bluff King Hal" of romance.

If, on one hand, I have omitted to portray the Cardinal Primate as the monster we have been taught to believe him, I do not, on the other, wish it to be thought that I consider the good Father St. Bernard as a type of the Scottish clergy in 1537. Very far from it; they were the reverse of all I have made that meek old priest. But, doubtless, there must have been exceptions; and it must be remembered, that all our accounts of them and the Cardinal have come down to us from their enemies.

A Scottish novelist labours under a great disadvantage, when endeavouring to introduce effectively for English readers old national characters who speak their own language, which, to a modern Englishman, would be as unintelligible as Choctaw; hence the conventional half-dialect usually adopted. It is a curious fact, that in the days of Alexander I. or Robert I., the dialects of the two nations were more alike than they are to-day. Since then, the language of South Britain has gradually been changing, and becoming what is strictly termed English; while the Gothic dialect of the North has remained pretty much the same; hence the Scot can read with ease, and fully understand, the obsolete phrases and idioms of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, &c., many parts of the old editions of whose works are now almost unintelligible to the mass of their own countrymen.

EDINBURGH,
1st January, 1853.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER

I. [JANE SETON]
II. [MAGDALENE OF FRANCE]
III. [THE MASTER OF THE ORDNANCE]
IV. [REDHALL]
V. [THE WITCH-PRICKER]
VI. [THE ILLUMINATED SPIRE]
VII. [TWO OFFICIALS]
VIII. [THE QUEEN'S MASQUE]
IX. [LA VOLTA]
X. [LOVE AND ABHORRENCE]
XI. [SWORDBLADES AND SALVE]
XII. [EDINBURGH IN 1537]
XIII. [SAINT GILES]
XIV. [THE CHANCELLOR OF SCOTLAND]
XV. [THE NOON OF LOVE]
XVI. [VIPONT'S HOUSEHOLD]
XVII. [A LORD ADVOCATE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY]
XVIII. [THE CASTLE OF INCHKEITH]
XIX. [THE FORTUNATE SWORD-THRUST]
XX. [THE BLACK PAGE]
XXI. [JOHN OF THE SILVERMILLS]
XXII. [TEN RED GRAINS]
XXIII. [THE FIRST VISIT]
XXIV. [THE KNIFE]
XXV. [DOUGLASDALE]
XXVI. [THE BARMKYN OF CAIRNTABLE]
XXVII. [THE POMMEL OF THE POINARD]
XXVIII. [A DRAUGHT OF WATER]
XXIX. [THE SECOND VISIT]
XXX. [SANCTUARY! SANCTUARY!]
XXXI. [THE PORTE OF THE SPUR]
XXXII. [THE THREE TREES OF DYSART]
XXXIII. [THE WEEM]
XXXIV. [THE DEATH OF MAGDALENE]
XXXV. [THE COLLEGE OF JUSTICE]
XXXVI. [THE RACK—THE DEVIL'S MARK]
XXXVII. [THE GAGE OF BATTLE]
XXXVIII. [THE EARL'S DARING]
XXXIX. [THE EARL'S SUCCESS]
XL. [SYBIL]
XLI. [A HAMILTON! A HAMILTON!]
XLII. [DAVID'S TOWER—THE PHYSICIAN]
XLIII. [DAVID'S TOWER—THE PRIEST]
XLIV. [DAVID'S TOWER—THE LOVER]
XLV. [THE BOON]
XLVI. [THIRST!]
XLVII. [WHAT THE PAPER CONTAINED]
XLVIII. [THE CROSS AND GILLSTOUP]
XLIX. [THE CASTAWAYS]
L. [FALKLAND]
LI. [THE KING AND THE CARDINAL]
LII. [THE LAIRD OF CLATTO]
LIII. [THE FIGHT AT INVERTEIL]
LIV. [THE KING'S HORN]
LV. [THE BLUEGOWN]
LVI. [THE TEMPTATION]
LVII. [THE LOCH]
LVIII. [THE LAW OF THE SWORD]
LIX. [THE PLACE OF DOOM]
LX. [CONCLUSION]
[NOTES]

JANE SETON:

OR,

THE KING'S ADVOCATE.

CHAPTER I.
JANE SETON.

"I prithee mark
His countenance; unlike bold calumny,
Which sometime dare not speak the thing it looks,
He dare not look the thing he speaks, but bends
His gaze on the blind earth."—The Cenci.

On the 19th of May, 1537, the bells of Edinburgh rang joyously. It was a day of loyalty and merriment such as never more may gladden Scotland's ancient capital.

After a nine months' absence, James V.—"the good king James, the commons' king, the father of the poor," the patron of the infant arts and sciences, the mirror of chivalry and romance, as he was affectionately named by a people who idolized him—had arrived in the Firth of Forth with his young queen Magdalene of Valois, whom for her dazzling beauty he had chosen from among three princesses, all possessed of unusual charms, and whom he had espoused in the great cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, in presence of her father, the magnificent and magnanimous Francis I., seven cardinals, and all the noblesse and beauty of France. After spending the honeymoon at the Hôtel de Cluny, a beautiful old gothic house belonging to the family of Lorraine, they had sailed for Scotland.

All the capital was on tiptoe, and its streets were crowded to excess by the retinues of the nobles and lesser barons, who had come thither to gratify their curiosity and evince their loyalty on the auspicious occasion.

The day was one of the most beautiful of all that sunny month; and the summer air was laden with the perfume of flowers, for garlands and bouquets were festooned from window to window across the main street leading to the palace, a thoroughfare six-and-twenty yards in breadth; while the stone columns of the girth-cross of the holy sanctuary, the Jerusalem-cross of St. John, the great market-cross of the city, bearing aloft the unicorn rearing on a tressured shield, and the famous stone statue of Our Lady which then stood at the east end of St. Giles's church, were all wreathed and hidden under the spoil of a hundred blooming gardens.

Scaffolds and balconies hung with tapestry and rare carpets of foreign manufacture, or painted with azure, starred with shining gold, occupied the sides of the streets in many places, and were crowded with the families of the surrounding land-holders, the better classes of citizens, and the baronial dwellers of the Blackfriars' Wynd and the Canongate; a great part of the latter street consisted then of turreted villas and strongly-built but detached mansion-houses surrounded by spacious gardens. Banners innumerable, bearing the heraldic cognizances of the proud, the noble, and the brave of Scotland's ancient days, waved from window, turret, and bartizan; the city fountains poured forth purple wine and nut-brown ale alternately (for the Scots had the former duty-free before the Union), and the stalwart deacon convener of the gallant craftsmen, sheathed in complete armour, with the famous Blue Blanket, or banner of the Holy Ghost, displayed, mustered the Baxters, the Websters, Cordiners, Dagger and Bonnet makers, and other ancient corporations, each under their several standards, to line the High-street, on either side, from the Butter Tron to the Netherbow, keeping clear a lane of some forty feet in breadth. These stout craftsmen, who mustered to the number of several thousands, were all arrayed in green gaberdines, red hose, and blue bonnets, and were armed as archers, with a steel gorget, a short but strong Scottish bow, a sheaf of arrows, a battle-axe, and long dagger.

With the city sword and mace, and his own helmet and banner borne before him, the Lord Provost, Sir James Lawson, of the Highrigs, with all the baillies and burgesses clad in gowns of scarlet, furred with miniver, and wearing chains of gold; the heralds and pursuivants in their plumed bonnets and gorgeous tabards, with standards and trumpets, musicians, minstrels, and macers, waited at the western entrance of the city to receive the king and queen with all due loyalty and splendour of pageantry; while the priests of rank, the knights, nobles, and senators of the College of Justice, had all ridden to Leith to conduct the royal pair in procession to Holyrood.

It is said that the beautiful Magdalene, on landing from the high-pooped and gaily-bannered ship of Sir Robert Barton, the king's admiral, knelt gracefully down on the sands of Leith, and lifting a handful to her lips, kissed it ere she threw it away crosswise, and raising her large dark eyes to heaven, prayed with deep pathos "to God, the blessed Virgin, and all the saints, for the happiness of Scotland, the land of her adoption, and its people."

The bright sunshine of the glorious May morning poured aslant its flaky radiance between the breaks and openings in those irregular masses of building, that tower up to such a giddy height on both sides of the central street of the ancient city; the south was sombre and grey, but the north was glowing in warmth, as the sunlight played along its far-stretching vista. Many of these houses were flat-roofed, flagged with large stones, like ancient towers, or covered with thatch; but few that overlooked the pageant about to be described are standing now, as the city was fired by the English in eight places seven years after, in the war with Henry VIII.

By the skill of a certain cunning craftsman, the High-street, even at that early period, was well paved; and the monks of Holyrood kept the Canongate (which is but a further continuation of the same thoroughfare) well causewayed, for which the reverend Lord Abbot levied a duty upon every cart, laden or unladen, which entered the eastern barrier of the burgh. All the open windows of that great street, the tall edifices of which rise to the height of eight and ten stories, exciting still the astonishment of every traveller, were filled with glad faces; every bartizan, outshot, and projection bore its load of shouting urchins; even the leads and parapets of the great cathedral, with its hideously grotesque stone-gutters, carved into devils and dragons, wyverns and other monsters, bore a freight of spectators, the buzz of whose voices, above and below, imparted a liveliness to the scene, and relieved the tedium of long expectation and waiting for the approach of the royal party.

The utmost good-humour pervaded these expectant crowds, though sometimes a brawl seemed likely to ensue, when a gentleman of pride and pedigree, with velvet cloak, a long rapier, and tall feather, despising the authority of the convener and his bands of mechanical craftsmen, marched down the centre of the street, with a few well-armed serving-men following doggedly at his heels, with brows bent, their swords girt up, and that expression on their faces which seemed so much as to say, "We are Humes, Douglases, or Scotts, or Setons, and who will dare to meddle with us!"

With these, such was the patent of gentle blood, the burgher archers dared not interfere; but their unstrung bows and gauntleted hands pommelled without mercy any luckless countryman or denizen of Leith or St. Ninian's Row who encroached on the causeway, which by order of the knightly provost was to be kept clear by all. Such incidental brawls were generally quelled by the interference of some passing grey friar or Dominican.

Those cavaliers who assumed the right of perambulating the open street were, as I have said, almost invariably attended by bands of followers, armed with swords and round targets, steel caps and corslets. Several of these were invariably greeted by a yell of hostility and epithets of opprobrium from those who occupied the windows, and who found this a more safe experiment than it could have proved to those who stood in the street below.

These obnoxious personages were generally lesser barons and gentlemen of the house of Douglas, a clan which, from its numerical force, pride, power, and turbulence, had long been inimical to the house of Stuart, and more especially to James V., who after many efforts had completely broken its strength, reduced its numerous strongholds, and driven the chief, Archibald sixth Earl of Angus, and Knight of St. Michael, from his high offices of Lord Chancellor and Lieutenant of the East and Middle Marches, with all the noblesse of his surname and faction, to exile in England; where, like all Scottish rebels and malcontents, according to the ancient line of southern policy, they were fostered and protected by Henry VIII.

By the knights and gentlemen of the proscribed name those marks of hostility from the vulgar herd were treated with silent scorn; but their followers scowled about them with clenched weapons and kindling eyes, that showed how intensely they longed to react the great High-street conflict of 1520, and revenge on the rabble of Edinburgh the insults they now endured. These evidences of hostility and political disgust were soon lost amid the general spirit of rejoicing that pervaded the entire body of the people; for loyalty and devotion to their old hereditary line of princes was then an inborn sentiment in the Scots, who were devout believers in the divine right of kings, and had not yet been taught by their preachers to view their old regal race as tyrants and oppressors.

Among all this mirth and festivity there were two persons whose sobriety and staidness of demeanour were very remarkable.

One was a young man about six-and-twenty, who had, apparently, just entered the city, for his boots and leathern gambadoes were covered with dust. He wore a plain gaberdine, or frock, of white Galloway frieze, with horn buttons; but beneath it appeared a doublet of escaupil to protect him from sword thrusts, an unusual garment for one of his class, for his grey maud, or plaid, blue bonnet, backsword, and hunting-knife announced him a yeomen or agriculturist. He carried a great knotty walking-staff, recently cut from some wayside thicket; but to a close observer it would have seemed perfectly evident that the profusion of his beard and moustache was worn rather for disguise than adornment. He was reading a paper affixed to the cross of St. John of Jerusalem which stood in the centre of the Canongate, immediately opposite the arch which now gives admittance to St. John's-street, the ground of which was then closely built upon.

It was a proclamation, issued by the nobles who governed in the king's absence, offering a thousand merks of Scottish money for "ye heid of Archibald Seton, umquhile Earle of Ashkirk," accused of leaguing with that false traitor, Archibald Douglas, sometime Earl of Angus, who had recently been on the borders, at the head of some English moss-troopers, infesting the bounds of the knight, Sir Mark Kerr, of Cessford.

With a brow that loured, and fierce eye that kindled, the young man read, from beginning to end, this proclamation (which was obnoxious to so many), and his hand gradually tightened on the handle of his poniard as he proceeded. Suddenly remembering that he might be observed, a smile of scorn, such a lordly smile as never clown could have given, spread over his dark features; he gave a glance of peculiar import at a group of ladies who occupied a balcony immediately opposite St. John's Cross, and, drawing his bonnet well over his brows, looked round for some obscure nook from whence to see, in security, the progress of the royal pageant.

"How little can they imagine that I am so near them," said the Earl of Ashkirk (for the stranger was no other than he), as he dived among the crowd and disappeared.

The other personage to whom reference has been made, was a tall and finely-formed man, of a noble presence and commanding stature, possessing a remarkably handsome face, with a loftiness of bearing that never failed to strike the beholder with interest. His complexion was dark, his nose slightly aquiline, his eyes black, and sparkling beneath two brows that were almost joined together. At times, a fierce and restless expression lit up these fiery and penetrating eyes, and knit his smooth expansive forehead, while his moustached lip curled with pride and severity; and then a languor and sadness stole over them, as other and softer emotions subdued the bitter thoughts some passing incidents had roused. He was dressed in a doublet and trunk hose of black velvet, laced and buttoned with silver, and trimmed with miniver: a black velvet bonnet, adorned by a single diamond and one tail white ostrich feather, shaded his dark, short, curly hair. He wore a short poniard and long rapier in an embroidered belt, and had spurs, heavily gilded and embossed, on the heels of his maroquin boots.

This man was Sir Adam Otterburn, of Redhall, the King's Advocate in the recently-instituted College of Justice, a great favourite with his royal master, and one who, for his learning, probity, courage, and office, was loved by some, respected by many, and feared by all. His features were pale and hollow, for he was recovering from a late illness, brought on by a wound received in a conflict with the Douglases, a circumstance which alone, on this auspicious day, confined him to a cushioned chair at the window of his house, which overlooked the High-street, where all the beauty and bravery of Edinburgh had thronged to welcome home King James.

Oblivious of the bustle pervading that long and stately thoroughfare, the streaming pennons, the waving banners, the gaudy tapestries and garlands that festooned every balcony and decorated every window, the Knight of Redhall continued to gaze upon the fair occupants of the temporary gallery which we have before mentioned as standing near St. John's Cross.

It was hung and canopied with scarlet cloth and festoons of flowers; the front was painted with gold and azure, and thereon lay a banner, bearing under an earl's coronet, and within a widow's lozenge, the three crescents of Seton, within a double tressure, flowered and counter-flowered with golden fleurs-de-lis, quartered with "the bloody heart," the dreaded cognizance of the obnoxious Douglases—a badge which, though it seldom gained love, never failed to inspire fear. An old lady and several fair young belles, whose beauty alone saved them from the insults which popular hatred levelled at all in alliance with the exiled Earl of Angus, occupied this balcony, and reclined beneath its shady canopy, chatting gaily, and expectant of the royal approach.

The elder lady was Margaret Douglas, of the house of Kilspindie, dowager of John Earl of Ashkirk, and mother of Archibald, the present earl, who was then under doom of exile with Lord Angus, his kinsman and ally. The younger ladies were Jane Seton, her daughter, Marion Logan of Restalrig, Alison Hume of Fastcastle, and Sybil Douglas of Kilspindie, all noble damsels, who had come to Edinburgh to witness the splendid entrée of Queen Magdalene.

Tall in stature and dark in complexion, with deep black eyes, and a hauteur of brow which the sweet expression of her mouth alone relieved, the Countess Dowager of Ashkirk, though all but unable to read or write (for letters were then held in low repute), was a woman of a shrewd and masculine turn of mind; for the inborn dignity of noble birth, the martial spirit of her race, the stormy life she had led since childhood among feudal brawls and intestine battles, had imparted an emphatic decision, if not a fierceness, at times, to her manner and modes of expression. A stiff suit of the richest Genoese brocade lent additional stateliness to her figure, while the diamond-shaped head-dress, then in fashion for noble matrons, added greatly to her stature, which was far above the middle height. The inner folds of this angular coif were of white linen, the outer of purple silk edged with yellow fringe, and it formed a corner at each ear with an apex at the top, while the folds lay close to her cheeks, scarcely permitting her hair to be visible, and where it was so its raven hue seemed turning fast to silver-grey.

A little negro boy, black as Lucifer, but dressed entirely in a rich suit of white satin, puffed and slashed at the trunks and shoulders, held up her train. Ugly as a fiend, with a broad nose, capacious mouth, and long pendent ears adorned with massive silver rings, Master Sabrino, being the first or the second person of his colour ever seen in Scotland, was an object of fear to some, disgust to others, and wonder to all. The vulgar viewed him as an imp or devil incarnate, and studiously avoided the glance of his shining black eyeballs; but the creature, as they termed him, was affectionately devoted to his mistress, and to all who used him kindly. Though the fashion of being attended by a black page or dwarf was not uncommon at continental courts, and had been first introduced into Scotland by Anne de la Tour of Vendôme, Duchess of Albany, it did not tend to increase the popularity of the proud and distant Dowager of Ashkirk, whom, as a Douglas, the people were generally disposed to view with hostility and mistrust.

Lady Jane Seton was, in many respects, the reverse of her mother; for she had neither her lofty stature, her keenness of eye, nor her haughty decision of manner; for her figure, though full and round, was, by turns, light, graceful, and yielding. Neither her youth, for she was barely twenty, nor her beauty, though it was of the first class, were her chief characteristics. There was a depth of expression in her dark blue eye, which, by turns, was dreamy and thoughtful, or bright and laughing, a charm in her radiant complexion and a fascination in her manner, which drew all instinctively towards her. When silent, she seemed full of intense thought; when speaking, all vivacity and animation. Her hair was of the darkest and glossiest brown, and her neck arched and slender. Simple and pleasing, sinless in soul and pure in heart, her goodness and gentleness were her greatest charms; and though she appeared petite beside her towering mother, there was a grace in all her movements, and a bewitching piquancy in every expression, that made Jane Seton adorable to her lovers, and she had many.

Her companions were worthy the association, all fair and handsome girls.

Alison of Fastcastle was a beautiful blonde; she carried a falcon on her wrist, and from time to time pressed its smooth pinions against her dimpled cheek. Marion of Restalrig was a tall, flaxen-haired, and blue-eyed beauty, ever laughing and ever gay; while Sybil Douglas of Kilspindie was a brunette, like all the beauties of her house. Her deep black eyes and sable tresses would have lost nothing by comparison with those of Andaluçia; and though generally quiet, and, as some deemed her, insipid, her silence concealed a world of sentiment and thoughts that were exquisitely feminine: but, though silent and retiring, there were times when this fair daughter of the house of Douglas could manifest a fire and spirit becoming Black Liddlesdale himself.

They were all dressed nearly alike, in white satin, slashed at the breast and shoulders with variously coloured silk, and all had coifs of velvet squared above their temples, and falling in lappets on their cheeks. They were all talking at once, laughing at everything, like Sabrino the page, whose wide mouth was expanded in an endless grin; but the old countess was buried in thought, and with her forehead resting on her hand, and her elbow on the edge of the balcony, continued to gaze abstractedly on the long and bustling vista of the sunlit Canongate.

CHAPTER II.
MAGDALENE OF FRANCE.

"Saw'st thou not the great preparatives
Of Edinburgh, that famous noble town;
Thou saw'st the people labouring for their lives,
To make triumph with trump and clarion:
Thou saw'st full well many a fresh galland,
Well ordered for receiving of their queen,
Each craftsman with his bent bow in his hand,
Right gallantlie in clothing short of green."
LlNDESAY OF THE MOUNT.

"Their graces tarry long," said the countess, glancing impatiently up the street; "it is almost midday by the sun. Jane, child, hast got thy pocket-dial about thee?"

Lady Jane took from her embroidered girdle a little silver dial, and placing it duly east and west, found the hour to be twelve by the shadow of the gnomon, for the sun shone brightly.

"I warrant me," said the countess, "that his eminence the cardinal will be relieving himself of some prosy oration at the foot of the Broad Wynd, for the benefit of the king's grace."

"Of the queen's, you mean, Lady Ashkirk," said Alison Home, "for his lordship is a great admirer of beauty. Thou knowest, cousin Jane, how often he hath admired thee."

Jane coloured with something of displeasure at this remark, for, by the rumour of his gallantries, to be admired by this great prelate was no high honour.

"I would the king were come, for my patience is wearing fast away," said she, raising her bright eyes from the silver index to her mother's thoughtful face.

"Is it for the king alone thou art so impatient, child?" said the old lady, with a keen but smiling glance.

"Nay, for one who accompanies him for the queen," said Jane, growing pale, for she always turned pale where others grew red. "Is not James the avowed enemy of our house?"

"But is there no other for whom ye long, silly lassie?" asked Marion Logan, throwing an arm round Jane.

"My sweet friend—yes; for one who is dearer to me almost than thee; he who sent me this dial from Paris. Oh, Marion! to think that he hath been there for nine weary months!"

"Marry come up, bairn, what matters it?" said the countess, who overheard them, though the two fair friends spoke in low tones; "he will be so changed, and improved in gallantry and grace, that you will scarcely recognise him."

"I cry you mercy, mother," said Jane, pouting; "I knew not that he required improvement in either."

"By my troth, lady countess," said Alison Home, "if you mean Sir Rowland Vipont, the Master of the King's Ordnance, I think him so finished a cavalier that no court in Europe could improve him more."

"Save the court of King Cupid," said Marion.

"And where does he reign?" asked Jane.

"In thine own heart, cousin," said little Sybil, quietly; and then all the girls laughed aloud.

"I thank you, sweet Alison," said Jane, in a low voice, kissing her friend, for her heart danced lightly to hear her lover praised; "but dost thou know that, though I am full of joy, I would give the world to shed a shower of quiet tears just now."

"Heaven give thee happiness to-day, dear Jane," replied her friend, in the same soft, earnest voice, "and may it send thy lover back to thee in love and truth, and health and comeliness, as when he left thee these nine long months ago."

"Sabrino," said the countess, suddenly; "prick up those long ears of thine! dost thou not hear the sound of trumpets?"

"Ees, madame—me tink so," grinned the sable page, whose efforts at articulation cost him a fearful grimace.

"Then, James must be ascending the West Bow," replied the countess, as a commotion and murmur became apparent among the mighty masses that crowded the whole street.

At that moment the roar of the castle artillery pealed over the city, and announced the entrance of the king by its western barrier, along the Highrigs, past the tilting-ground and the chapel of the Virgin Mary. Deeply and hoarsely carthoun and culverin thundered from the towers of St. Margaret and King David, and a deafening shout of welcome and acclamation resounded from the crowded streets.

"Though the enemy and oppressor of the Douglases and the Homes," continued the countess, standing up in front of the balcony, "I cannot forget that he is our anointed king—that he has long been absent, and has endured great perils by sea and land; and so this day I bid him hail and welcome home in the name of Heaven."

"'Tis said the queen will ride behind him on a pillion," said Alison Home.

"Nay, child," replied the countess; "the Master of the Horse passed up street with a beautiful palfrey of spotless white, having a golden footcloth that swept the ground, for her grace's especial behoof. Ha! bairns, the mention of pillions remindeth me of the days of our good King James IV. I was but a lassie then, in my teens, like yourselves; and when James espoused the younger sister of Henry Tudor, though liking not the English match, I was appointed a lady of honour to Queen Margaret, for then—(and the countess spoke bitterly)—then to be a Douglas was different from what it is to-day! Like his son, James IV. was then a winsome youth, and fair to look upon. Few matched him for courage and hardiment in the field, and none surpassed him in grace and courtly devoir. Amid a gallant band of spears, with ladies, lords and knights, all clad in silk and taffety, laced and furred with miniver, with many a waving plume, and many a golden chain, they issued forth from Saint Mary of Newbattle, beneath the old oak trees, and James had his fair young English bride behind him on a pillion, riding just like any douce farmer and his gudewife, and, certes! a bonnie young pair they were as ever had holy water sprinkled on their bended heads! James was bravely attired—a doublet of velvet bordered with cloth-of-gold, and his bride was blazing with diamonds. As we rode townward, by the wayside, near Our Lady's Well at Kirk Liberton, we saw a fair pavilion pitched on the green brae side, and at the door thereof stood a lance fixed in the earth, with a shield hung upon it. A lady, holding a siller bugle horn, came forth to greet the royal pair, when suddenly, a savage knight, mounted, and clad in a lion's skin, dashed out of a neighbouring coppice and bore her away. Then, lo! another knight, armed at all points, spurred his fleet horse from the gay pavilion, and assailed him with uplifted sword. Bravely they fell on, with the captive dame between them, and the keen-edged blades made ilka tempered casque and corselet ring like kirk bells on a festival. The rescuer struck the sword from the hand of his enemy, the king cried, 'Redd ye, sirs!' and so the combat was closed, and the lady released."

"And who was this fair dame?" asked Alison, with assumed curiosity, for she had heard the same story, in the same words, a hundred times before.

"Whom think ye, but I; and my leal Lord Archibald was the errant knight who saved me from the savage warrior, and he was no other than thy father, dear Alison, Sir Cuthbert Home of Fastcastle, who died by King James's side at Flodden; for you must know, maidens, that it was all a fair masque prepared to suit the warlike taste of the king, who loved well to see his knights under harness, and proving their hardiment on each other's coats of mail. All that and mickle mair I remember as if 'twere yesterday, and now 'tis three and thirty years ago. Three and thirty!" continued the garrulous old lady, "how the false traitors Death and Time have changed my cheer since then."

"True, madam," said little Sybil, thoughtfully; "the best part of our life is made up of the anticipations of hope, and the pleasures, the sad pleasures, of memory."

"Thy thoughts are running on my son, Lord Archibald," said the countess, with a fond smile, as she smoothed the thick tresses of Sybil. "The first is for the young like you, and the last to solace the auld like me. St. Mary keep us! how year runs after year. My fair bairns, I hope a time may come when ye will all look back to this day as I do to that; but not with a sigh, to think such things have been, but can never be again!"

The countess sighed, and a tear stole into her eye; but a cry from the girls of—

"Oh! here they come—the king and queen!" followed by a clapping of hands, and a burst of acclamation from the populace, amid which the old cry, which the Scots had lately borrowed from their allies, the French—"Vive la Royne! Vive la Royne!" was conspicuous. It was a shout that rang from the crowded streets below, the windows and bartizans above, loud enough to rend the summer welkin, and heralded the approach of James and his French bride.

The occasional flourish of trumpets, mingled with the sound of the drum, the shalm, the cymbal, the clarion, and the clang of hoofs, rang in the lofty street. Spears glittered, banners waved, and silken pennons streamed in the sunlight at a distance, above the sea of heads; while armour flashed, and embroidery sparkled, as the superb procession, conveying the royal pair to Holyrood, approached.

Under the high sheriff of Lothian and Sir Andrew Preston of Gourtoun, a strong body of mounted spearmen, sheathed in dark armour, cleared and lined the streets, while the provost, Sir James Lawson of the Highrigs, chequered them with several thousands of the burgher archers and craftsmen, for each armed corporation was arrayed under its own pennon; and the great consecrated standard of the city, bearing the image of Saint Giles, floated near the battlements of the Cross—as tradition avers it floated over Salem. A volume would be required to describe the magnificence of the romantic pageant that now approached; for James, as I have said, was the idol of his people, and a nine months' absence had endeared him to them more; and all their loyalty and enthusiasm now blazed forth at his return. First came three hundred of his royal guard, clad in blue bonnets and scarlet doublets, armed with long partizans and poniards. These were all men of Edinburgh, given by the city to attend James "on all occasions, especially against his auld and auncient enemies of England." Then came a long train of that fierce and proud nobility whose turbulence and intrigues ultimately broke the good king's heart. They wore robes of state over their rich armour; their jewelled coronets were borne before, and their gallant banners behind them; each was attended by a knight, a page, an esquire, or other gentleman, in accordance with his rank. Then came the lesser barons, each riding with his pennon displayed; and then the honourable commissioners of burghs, clad in gowns of scarlet, with gold chains; the twelve heralds and pursuivants, with six bannered trumpets, sounding before them a triumphal march, to which the kettle-drums and cymbals of the horsemen lent additional animation.

But the shouts which greeted this part of the procession became subdued; for now came a single horseman, riding alone, with a page on each side supporting his footcloth, which was composed entirely of cloth-of-gold. He was a man of a singularly noble presence and commanding stature; his deep dark eyes were full of fire and expression, yet his face was calm and placid, and his gaze was fixed on the flowing mane of his beautiful roan horse; and though every head bowed at his approach, he seemed abstracted and oblivious of all; his cope and stockings were scarlet, and a very broad hat of the same sanguine hue cast a pleasant shadow over his sombre features.

"Rise, my bairns," said the Countess of Ashkirk; "it is his eminence the cardinal!"

And chancing to raise his head at that moment, he waved a benediction towards the balcony. He was David Beaton, cardinal of St. Stephen, the lord high chancellor of Scotland, legate of Paul III., and the terror of those who, in their secret hearts, had begun to nourish the doctrines of the reformed church. A young cavalier, in a half suit of magnificently gilded armour, attended him, and spent his time between caressing a falcon which sat upon his dexter wrist, and bowing to the ladies on either side of the street. He was Sir Norman Leslie of Rothes, who, a few years after, slew the cardinal in his archiepiscopal palace. Immediately behind him came a crowd of ecclesiastics, and the eight bishops—Stewart of Aberdeen, Hepburn of Brechin, Chisholm, the worthless holder of the see of Dunblane, Dunkeld, Moray, Ross, Orkney, and Ferquhard of the Isles, all riding on led horses, with their mitres, crosiers, and magnificent vestments, glittering in the sunlight.

Then came the black abbot of Cambus Kenneth (the lord president of the New College of Justice), attended by his fourteen senators, the ten sworn advocates, the clerks to the signet, notaries and macers of court, all of whom were greeted with lowering brows and murmurs of ill-repressed hatred and dislike; for the introduction of the courts of session and justiciary had been a very unpalateable measure to the factious and turbulent Scots.

Surrounded by the chief ladies of the kingdom, and by the damsels of honour all richly attired in hoods of velvet tied with strings of pearl, with kirtles of brocade and cloth-of-gold, Magdalene of France approached on a palfrey white as the new fallen snow, with six young knights (each the son of an earl) supporting on their lances a silken canopy above her head. The splendour of her dress, which was shining with costly jewels, enhanced the greatness of her beauty, which outshone the charms of all around her, even the fair girls to whom the reader has been so lately introduced. Sprung from a royal line long famous for the charms of its princesses, Magdalene was only in her sixteenth year; but over her girlish loveliness the pallor of consumption was then spreading a veil more tender and enchanting. The novelty and excitement of the scene around lent additional animation to her lively French features, and heightened the brilliancy of her complexion, which was exquisitely fair; her eyes were light blue, and her braided hair was of the most beautiful blonde. She was rather small in stature, but beautifully formed; and the sweetness of her happy smile, and the grace with which she bowed and kissed both her hands alternately to the subjects of her husband, filled them with a storm of enthusiasm; and the respectful silence which had greeted her at first, expanded into a burst of rapture and congratulation. The ambassadors of England, Spain, France, and Savoy, wearing the collars of various knightly orders, rode near her.

With the sword, sceptre, and crown, borne, each by an earl, before him, James appeared, attended by the leading nobles of the realm. A cuirass of steel, polished like a mirror and inlaid with gold, showed to advantage his bold breast and taper waist. His doublet and trunk breeches were of white satin slashed with yellow and buttoned with diamonds, and his short mantle of azure velvet was tied over his breast with golden tassels. The collars of the Thistle, the Garter, the Golden Fleece, and the escallops of St. Michael, were hanging on his breast, and flashed in one broad blaze to the noon-day sun. His dark eyes were full of animation, and the ringlets of his rich brown hair fluttered in the breeze as he waved his plumed cap to the people who loved him well, for he was better pleased to be thought the king of the poor than king of the peers of Scotland. He was surrounded by all the great officers of state and household; Robert, abbot of Holyrood, bearing his high treasurer's mace with its beryl ball, rode beside Colville of Culross, the great chamberlain of Scotland. Then came the lord high constable and the great marischal, the former with a naked sword, and the latter with an axe, borne before him; Colville of Ochiltrie, the comptroller; the dean of Glasgow, the secretary of state; Argyle, the lord justice-general, and Colinton, the lord clerk registrar; Lord Evandale, director of the chancery, the preceptor of the Knights of St. John, the high admiral, the royal standard-bearer, the grand carver, the great cup-bearer, the masters of the horse, the hounds, and the falcons, the marshal of the household, and though last, not least, Jock Macilree, the king's jester, who has been immortalized by the Knight of the Mount; and though ignobly bestriding a sleek donkey, his parti-coloured garb, his longeared cap, jingling bells, hanging bladder, and resounding laugh, attracted more attention than the mailed chivalry and sumptuously-attired noblesse who encircled the king.

James, who bowed affably to the people on every side, was scrupulous in recognising all ladies, especially if handsome, and consequently the bright group clustered round the Countess of Ashkirk could not escape his observation. Waving his bonnet, he was about to bow to his horse's mane, when his eye caught the quarterings of Douglas, and an ominous flash of undisguised anger immediately crimsoned his fine features; he was turning away, when a rose was thrown upon his breast, and a pleasant voice cried,

"Heaven save your grace, and bless our fair lady the queen!"

It was Jane Seton's voice, and the richness of its tone with the sweetness of her smile subdued James at once; and placing the rose in the diamond George that hung from the splendid collar of the garter, this gallant young king bowed low, and kissed his hand.

"Hark you, Vipont," said he, to a handsome young man about his own age, who rode by his side; "what dame and damoiselles are these? You vailed your bonnet with more than usual reverence to them."

The cavalier hesitated.

"Faith," continued James, "there was a most undeniable scowl in the dark eyes of the elder lady in that outrageous English coif. Who is she, and why, i' the devil's name, does she wear that?"

"I trust your majesty is mistaken," replied the young man, hurriedly, and with confusion; "she is the countess dowager of Ashkirk, with her daughter the Lady Jane."

"Ashkirk!" reiterated James, knitting his brows; "is she not a daughter of old Greysteel, and hath more than a spark of old Bell-the-cat in her spirit? By St. Anne, this accounts for her English coif, when, out of compliment to our royal consort, the French fashions are all in vogue!"

"Please your majesty," urged Vipont——

"I remember the dame of old, in the days of the Douglases' tyranny, when they kept me a close captive in the old tower of Falkland. God's malison on the whole tribe; I would it had but one neck, and that it lay under my heel!"

"Amen, say I;" "and I," "and I," added several courtiers, who enjoyed gifts from the forfeited estates of the banished barons.

The young man sighed and bit his lips as he checked his horse a little, and permitted Sir David Lindesay of the Mount, another favourite, to assume his place by the side of the king.

Tall, and finely formed, with an erect bearing and athletic figure, Sir Roland Vipont was the very model of a graceful cavalier. His features, though not strictly handsome, were pleasing, manly, and expressive of health, good humour, and the utmost frankness. His heavy moustaches were pointed sharply upwards, and his hair was shorn close (à la Philip II.), to permit his wearing a helmet with ease, for, as master of the royal ordnance, a week seldom passed in those turbulent times without his being engaged on the king's service. A smart bonnet of blue velvet, adorned by a single feather, by its elegant slouch gave a grace to the contour of his head; while a short mantle of the same material, lined with white satin, and furred, as usual, with miniver, waved from his left shoulder. His trunk breeches were also of white satin, and slashed with red; his doublet was cloth-of-gold, and, blazing in the sunlight, rivalled his magnificent baldrick, which, like his bugle-horn, sword, and dagger, was studded with precious stones. No knight present, not even the king himself, surpassed the master of the ordnance in the splendour of attire, the caparisons of his horse, or the grace with which he managed it; and yet poor Sir Roland, though the last representative of the Viponts of Fifeshire (the Scoto-Norman barons of Aberdour), possessed not one acre of land, and, soldier-like, carried all his riches about him.

His whole features beamed with joy and ardour, as he raised his eyes to the Ashkirk balcony; his sunburned cheek grew crimson, and his heart bounded with delight. Jane trembled as she smiled, and grew pale (for, as I have said elsewhere, she grew pale when other girls would have blushed). Many months had elapsed since they had looked on each other's beaming faces, and a volume of happiness and recognition was exchanged in their mutual glances.

"Brave Vipont!" exclaimed the old countess, with something of a mother's ardour, as she looked after him, "of a verity, there are few more noble among our Scottish knights. How unfortunate that he is such a minion to the will of a pampered king!"

"Minion, good mother!" said Jane, faintly.

"I said minion, child; and I now say slave! Didst thou not see how covertly he bowed to us, and then only when the king looked another way? A proper squire, by our Lady! and didst thou not mark how James frowned when first he saw us, nor bowed——"

"Until I smiled on him," said Jane, playfully.

"Naughty little varlet, methought 'twas when I smiled," said Alison Home, gaily, as she kissed her beautiful friend.

"Poor Vipont!" continued the countess, "he dreads the loss of thy love, Jane, on one hand, and of the king's favour on the other. But for this paltry manoeuvring, child, thou hadst been the lady of his heart a year ago."

"Mother, I have been the lady of his heart these three years; but poor Roland hath no more to give me than a heart in return. His estate——"

"Consists of old Mons Meg and her marrows," said Marion Logan.

"A lucrative estate he hath found them sometimes," said the countess, coldly, "when he bent their cannon-balls against the castles of the Douglases. But for this paltry fear, I repeat, thou hadst been his wedded wife a year ago, and he had been now a true man to the Earls of Ashkirk and Angus, instead of being the silken slave of James Stuart, whose poor ambition is to grind beneath his heel that Red Heart which my husband hath often bore, amid crashing spears, in the van of Scotland's battles—and ever bore victoriously!" And as she spoke, the countess struck her clenched hand upon the banner which was spread over the balcony before her.

"Thou sayest well, dearest madam!" said little Sybil Douglas, whose dark eyes sparkled as she imbibed some of the countess's fiery spirit; "and again that Red Heart shall be a terror to the Lowlands, and a scourge for past injuries."

At that moment Lady Jane Seton raised her eyes to a window opposite, and encountered the fixed gaze of a sickly and ghastly face; the features were rigid, the lips firmly compressed, the dark eyes were fiery and red. There was a basilisk or rattlesnake expression in them that riveted her attention. They were those of Sir Adam Otterburn of Redhall, who had been attentively observing the greeting which passed between her and Vipont—a greeting that wrung his heart with agony and jealousy; but he bowed with studied politeness, and hurriedly withdrew.

Jane felt relieved by his absence, and again drew breath more freely; but her colour came and went, and her heart for a moment became filled (she knew not why) with vague apprehensions. She knew all Sir Adam's glance conveyed, and trembled for her lover; for the King's Advocate of the New Court was then vested with such powers and terrors as a romancer would alone endow a grand inquisitor.

The pageant passed on to Holyrood accompanied by loud and incessant bursts of acclamation; by songs and carols of welcome and of triumph; for the people, already predisposed to loyalty and jollity, were enraptured by the return of the king, by the gallantry of his bearing, and the beauty of his young French bride. Thus the wells continued to pour forth wine and ale alternately, the castle to fire its ordnance, and the people to shout until St. Marie (a great bell with a very sweet tone, which then hung in the rood tower of St. Giles) rung the citizens to vespers and to rest.

CHAPTER III.
THE MASTER OF THE ORDNANCE.

"The bride into her bower is sent,
The ribald rhyme and jesting spent;
The lover's whispered words and few,
Have bade the bashful maid adieu;
The dancing floor is silent quite,
No foot bounds there—Good night! good night!"
JOANNA BAILLIE.

Evening was closing, when a brilliantly-attired cavalier caracoled his horse from the palace porch, past the high Flemish gables of an ancient edifice, which was then the Mint of Scotland, past the strong round archway known as the Water Gate, because it led to the great horsepond of the palace, and throwing a handful of groats (twenty to king James's golden penny) among the poor dyvours who clustered round the girth cross of the Holy Sanctuary, rode up the Canongate. It was Sir Roland Vipont, the master of the king's ordnance.

Compared to the bustle it had exhibited at noon, the street, though many still thronged it, seemed lifeless and empty. The windows were closed, the balconies deserted, the banners, pennons, and tapestry hung pendant and motionless, and the gay garlands were withering on the stone cross of St. John of Jerusalem. Casting a hasty glance around him to discover whether he was observed (for the political, feudal, and court intrigues of the time made it necessary that his visit to the family of Ashkirk should be as little noted as possible), he dismounted.

A low-browed pend, or archway, opening from the street, and surmounted by a massive coat of arms within a deep square panel, gave admittance to the paved court of the mansion. He led his horse through, and was buckling the bridle to one of the numerous rings with which, for the convenience of mounted visitors, the walls of the court were furnished, when a man, who for some time before had been standing in the shadow of the archway, roughly jostled him.

"How now, sirrah?" exclaimed Vipont, feeling for hie poniard, "what mean you by this?"

"Pardon me—my foot tripped," replied the other, in a husky voice.

"Who are you," asked Vipont, suspiciously, "and what make you here, sir?"

"In the first place, I am no friend of yours; in the second, my purpose matters nothing to any man—so, keep your way, in Heaven's name, and let me keep mine, or it may fare the worse with you."

"This is language rarely addressed to me."

"Thou!" said the other, scornfully, "and who art thou?"

"Devil choke thee, rascal!" exclaimed the soldier, angrily; "I am master of the king's ordnance."

"To be master of your own temper would be better; but, like your brass culverins, it seems apt to go off upon occasions."

"Hark you, sir; if you deem this witty, you are labouring under a delusion; and, had I not matters of more importance in hand, by the holy mass! I would break every bone in your body."

The other made no immediate reply, but his eyes gleamed like two red coals beneath the black bonnet, which he wore drawn over his brows; but he was so well muffled up by the cape of his large mantle, that Sir Roland strove in vain to discover some clue as to whom he might be, that was prowling by night near the mansion of the Setons; and there was something so startling and cat-like in the aspect of his eyes, that the soldier recoiled a pace.

"Sir Roland," continued the stranger, sarcastically, "you had acted a wiser part in staying by James's side at Holyrood to-night, than in forfeiting his fickle favour by visiting those who are his avowed enemies."

"Thou liest, sirrah!" said Vipont, striking him on the shoulder with his clenched hand. "The Setons of Ashkirk are loyal as any in the land, and I will meet hand to hand, and body for body, any false traitor that gainsays me. But keep your own way, in the devil's name, and trouble me no more—so, a good even, sir."

"I bid thee joy of thy wooing, fair sir," replied the other, scornfully, as the master of the ordnance entered, and closed the gate behind him. It was Redhall who spoke, and a sigh of rage and bitterness escaped him as Vipont approached the turnpike tower of the mansion. "Painted wasp!" he exclaimed, as he walked hurriedly away, "by Him who died upon the rood, that blow shall cost thee dear!"

Within an apartment which was completely hung with the richest arras, though the floor was bare, the Countess of Ashkirk, her daughter, and the ladies, were seated at various occupations. The old lady was slowly and laboriously endeavouring to decipher, word by word, one of those curious old tomes which, at times, issued from the shop of Chepman and Millar, two ancient bibliopoles, who established, in the Cowgate, the first printing-press in Scotland, in the time of James IV., who granted them the privilege of "imprenting all bukes" within the realm.

Alison Hume and the black page were playing at chess, the fair young girl looking almost like a divinity when contrasted with the frightful African boy; while Jane Seton and her dark-eyed kinswoman, Sybil Douglas, influenced by that spirit of industry which then pervaded all ranks, were plying their busy hands in embroidering a velvet cover for a large vellum missal, which they were working in flowers of gold and silk, and which was to be a donation from Jane to her friend Josina Henrison, the lady superior of St. Catherine's Convent, near the Burghloch.

The light of the setting sun streamed through the windows, and fell upon their dark hair, as it mingled together, and edged their white necks and nimble fingers with dazzling whiteness. A bell tolled at a distance; they paused, and looked up.

"Eight o'clock," said the countess; "the bell is ringing for the compline, at St. Marie of Placentia."

"And he tarries yet," said Jane, in a low voice, to Sybil.

"Do not speak reproachfully, cousin," replied Sybil, gently; "he is not always master of his own actions, and thou knowest well——"

The black page touched her arm, laid a finger on his great nether lip, and pointed towards the street.

"Dear Sabrino," said Jane, "what dost thou hear?"

"Horse!" replied the page, briefly.

"Sabrino, thou hast the very ears of a bratch hound," said the countess. "Now spurs are jingling under the pend—'tis he," continued the old lady, whose cheek flushed, and eyes filled with joyous expectation. A manly step, and the clear ringing of silver spurs, were heard ascending the stone staircase of the mansion; a hand covered with a steel gauntlet drew back the heavy arras, and the lights flashed on the glittering doublet and jewelled baldrick of Sir Roland Vipont as he sprang blithely in.

"Heaven keep you, Lady Ashkirk, and you, my dear Jane, and all fair ladies!" said he, bowing, and kissing all their hands. "Hail to thee, merry Alison, and thou, my sad little Sybil! why, I have not been long absent, and yet thou seemest quite a woman, now!"

"Welcome home—a thousand welcomes to thee, Roland, and a thousand more!" said the countess, forgetting her starched dignity in her native kindliness of heart, and kissing him on the forehead—for though he was tall, they were nearly of a height—while Jane grew pale with excitement, and then blushed with pleasure to see her suitor looking so handsome in his rich attire—browned by nine months' exposure to a continental sun, and appearing, if possible, more graceful and athletic than ever. "Welcome, Roland," continued the countess, passing her hand fondly over his broad, clear, open forehead, his arched eyebrows, and his thick glossy hair; "we have all heard how thou hast been proving thy prowess on the crests of King Francis and his knights, and letting the gay tilters of Paris and Versailles feel the weight of a tough Lowland spear in a true Scottish hand."

"True, madam," replied the young man, laughing, and showing a set of teeth which any of the fair belles present might have envied; "it would have gladdened your haughty Douglas spirit, Lady Ashkirk, to have seen King Francis with twenty Scottish knights keeping the old wooden bridge of St. Michael at Paris for three days against our own King James, with the best chivalry of Burgundy, Brabant, and Alsace, and with all comers who chose to try their hardiment against us. By my faith, sweet Jane, the knot of ribbands your dear hands wove in my helmet were the mark of many a sword and many a spear during these three brawling days; but they seemed to possess a charm, for thrust of lance and blow of blade were levelled at them in vain. But what think ye of the new queen we have brought you home? Is not the fair Magdalene a mirror of beauty? and may not France and Scotland too be proud of her? Jane, what sayest thou?"

"Hum!" said Jane, a little piqued at her lover's excessive admiration for the queen; "methinks she is very passable."

"Passable! Ah, surely you can afford to praise her more than that. I think she is like la belle Isonde, in Sir Thomas Malory's 'Romance of King Arthur,'" replied Vipont, drawing near Jane, while, as if instinctively, the other persons present withdrew to the extreme end of the apartment, and conversed with the countess. "Now tell me, thou merry wag, thy opinion of her."

"I do not think her by one half so charming as my own little self," replied Jane, archly; "and thou, who oughtest to have only eyes for me, should see in her an exceedingly plain woman. When thou seemest so much pleased with her, what surety have I that I was not forgotten by her admirer, amid all the gaieties, the fêtes, and splendour of King Francis' court?"

"Forgotten, Jane!" responded the young man, tenderly, while his dark eyes filled with a soft expression. "Those who see and love thee will never forget! Have not our hearts been entwined for years, and am I not thy gallant brother's oldest and earliest friend? Have we not grown together from infancy to childhood, from childhood to maturity? and now, in the full flush of our love and joy, you hint that I might forget you!"

"I cry you mercy! what an exordium; I spoke but in pure raillery and jest, dear Roland."

"But why jest thus? Ah no, my gentle Jane, never for an instant were your fair face and sunny smiles absent from my mind, and their memory spurred me on to encounter a thousand difficulties, and enabled me to surmount a thousand dire temptations that beset the path of others; and thus I am come back to you more loving if possible, more true, and more impassioned than ever!"

"Oh, Roland, I can believe it well!" sighed the girl, as her lover, borne away by the depth of his passion (though speaking in a low voice), pressed both her hands to his heart, regardless that the eyes of others saw them.

"Behold what I have brought you from this far-famed city of Paris," said he, as he clasped around her delicate throat a circlet of magnificent diamonds.

"Ah! my poor Vipont," exclaimed Jane; "you must have ruined yourself to bring me this. What a sum it must have cost!"

"Eleonora of Austria, the Queen of France and sister of the great Charles V., took it from her own fair neck and bestowed it on me as a gift for my Scottish bride; and joyously I thought of you, Jane, when I knelt to receive it from her hands. It was at a passage of arms held near the Porte Papale, just without the walls of Paris, and on the festival of St. Denis, when with a single lance I kept the barrier for an hour, successively prostrating in the dust six Italian knights who had come to France in the train of the Milanese ambassador. By my faith, sweet flower, I covered myself with glory and popularity that day; for it so happened that Sforza, duke of Milan, is the sworn foe of Francis I., and the hearts of the people were all with the victorious Scottish knight."

"And did King James see thee, Sir Roland?" asked the young ladies, who crowded round the delighted girl to observe her splendid gift.

"He sat by the side of Queen Eleonora, and when the sixth cavalier was unhorsed, sprang up from his seat, and throwing his blue bonnet into the air, exclaimed, 'Now, God be with thee, my valiant Vipont, thou hast well sustained our Scottish name to-day, and I will never forget it.' But his rewards are yet to come, fair ladies," added Vipont, as he sighed secretly and glanced at Jane Seton.

"Roland," said the countess, who was beginning to reflect that she had been too long silent; "believe me, those who put their trust in princes are ever deceived. I heard our good King James IV say so when I was but a girl."

"He referred then to his brother-in-law of England, whom the laws of neither God nor man could bind; but judge not so of James V., lady. As yet I am but the captain of his ordnance, with the pittance doled out to me monthly by the clerk of his exchequer. Many a fair promise he hath made me of some small portion of those solid gifts—the towers and acres of wold and woodland, which he lavishes on Hamilton the Inquisitor, on Abbot Robert the Treasurer, his eminence the cardinal, and others, but, to our sad experience, Jane, we find them as yet unperformed."

"Better it is that they are so," said the countess, "for then, as Beaton and the abbot do, ye should brook the patrimonies of the proscribed and banished knights and nobles of my father's name."

"True, lady countess; but James is so winning and courteous in manner, so generous and heroic in disposition, that no true Scottish man can behold him without feeling a glow of admiration and loyalty, and at times methinks I could lay down my life for him (ah! I see thou holdest up thy finger), were it not, Jane, dedicated to thee. I could cheerfully battle to the death against all that are his enemies."

"Even the Douglases and the Setons of Ashkirk," said the countess, coldly. "Oh, thou hast become an apt bravo of this commons' king, I fear me!"

"Noble lady," replied Roland, bitterly, "there, as I take God to witness, thou tasketh me sorely. I could not bend a weapon against the house of Douglas, for this dear being," and he took Jane's hand in his, "is the inheritor of their blood; and yet to fail the king even in that particular would be to prove me a mansworn knight and false traitor!"

"Thou art ever by his side, Roland," said Jane, "and can say how he is affected towards us—the Setons of Ashkirk."

"Implacable as ever! Thou rememberest, mine own ladyekin, of the solemn vow he swore, when, by the troopers of Angus, Sir David Falconer was slain by his side, under the ramparts of Tantallon—that solemn vow made above a crucifix and dagger, never while he lived to forgive a Douglas, or one of the Douglas' blood. There is no hope, for that oath I know the king will keep, even though his holiness Paul III. should offer to absolve him from it."

"And let him keep it!" said the countess, with bitterness and scorn; "it matters little. There are spears by the Liddle and archers in Douglasdale who may one day absolve him, as his grandsire was absolved on the field of Sauchieburn. Let us remember the deeds of that day, and the old prophecy that a lion should be killed by its whelps. The Master of Angus, the knights of Glenbernie, Drumlanrig, Lochlevin, and Kinross," continued the countess, reckoning them on her fingers, "with two hundred gentlemen of the surname of Douglas, all died at Flodden, beneath the banner of King James IV., and thus it is his son rewards us!"

"Oh, lady countess, hush! and pardon me, but there seems something hateful in your hostility to James V."

"By the Holy Rood, and the blessed St. Bryde to boot! I have no patience with thee, friend Roland. I warrant thee in secret a sworn foe to Angus."

"On my honour, no!"

"And my mind misgives me sorely anent ye and my daughter, having both had the misfortune to be born on a Friday."

"I pray you hear me," said Roland, with a secret smile. "So happy was James on beholding the Scottish shore, that, in a burst of gratitude to heaven and love for his people, he was not disinclined to relax those severe statutes under which the exiled peers and barons of the house of Douglas writhe and languish——"

"Say writhe, Sir Roland, for I warrant me they will never languish!" said the tall countess, folding her hands, sitting very upright, and looking disdainfully.

"Something might have been achieved by his eminence the Cardinal Beaton, whom I know to be my friend—for I am come, like himself, of an old Fifeshire family—when lo! the first barge from the shore brought a packet from Sir Adam Otterburn of Redhall, containing a woeful relation of raid, hership, and hamesucken, committed on the Knight of Cessford by the Earl of Ashkirk and a band of Northumbrian troopers whom he has taken into pay. Alas! lady, is this the verity?"

"Not less so than just!" responded the countess, who shook every fold of her lofty head-dress with hauteur. "Is not Cessford the hereditary foe of my son; and God's blood! Rowland Vipont, why should his sword rest? Nay, my gallant Archibald, the moths will never eat the silk of that banner which these old hands wove thee!"

Roland made no immediate reply to this outburst of the old Scottish spirit, but pressed the hand of Jane, and sighed.

"This event, however, is most unfortunate, Lady Ashkirk," he said, after a pause, addressing the countess, and looking with a sad smile at Jane. "It will have a most serious effect upon our fortunes and our happiness. On reading the letter of his advocate, James never spoke, but struck his sword upon the deck and turned sharply away from us. His look was dark as midnight."

"Redhall was over-officious," said the ladies.

"The unmitigated fool!" exclaimed the countess, shaking her clenched hand. "I would my son were here."

"Mother of God—nay, at such a time as this?" said little Sybil, with her dark eyes full of tears. "And think you, Sir Roland, that James is really so much incensed?"

"So much, that I came this night to visit you by—by stealth."

"Stealth!" reiterated the fiery countess, rising to the full height of her five feet ten inches, exclusive of red-heeled shoes. "Now, marry, come up and away with us! Sir Roland Vipont, what will you have the assurance to tell me next?"

"Forgive me, dear and nobly lady; thou knowest well how poor I am—how dependent on my sword and the precarious favour of a king, surrounded by a host of needy and rival competitors. Had I lands and vassals, as I have not; were I the son of a lord or baron instead of a poor gentleman archer of the Scottish Guard, it might have been otherwise with me—and thou, Jane, had long ere this"—he paused and pressed her hand. "Oh, lady countess, my fate is not in my own keeping; and too often have I felt bitterly how abject a thing it is to be dependent on the will of another, even though that other be a prince."

"Thou hast thy rapier, Roland, and with the blood of that brave Vipont who brooked the appanage of Aberdour in the days of King David, dost inherit the spirit thy gallant father gave up to God from the battle field of Ravenno, when the Scottish Guard stood like a rampart around Gaston de Foix. Thou hast thy sword, Roland, and all the realms of Europe are before thee."

"Yes," replied Roland, mournfully; "but then Jane Seton would be left behind."

"Gallant Vipont, thou art indeed my other son!" said the countess, as she kissed his cheek and became quite pacified, while Jane's bright face became radiant with pleasure.

The countess and her niece, Sybil, with Alison Home and Marian Logan, knowing that they could now be spared, retired to prepare for that early supper of which our late dinners have now usurped the place, and the lovers were left alone, seated together hand in hand, for the first time during nine long months.

They were all eye and ear for each other, as they conversed in voices that were soft and low, and love carried them back to those days of gaiety and simplicity before the cold hand of etiquette had interposed between them. Little Sybil closed the arras as she went out, and we have no wish, by raising it, to break the spell that love and pleasure threw around them.

CHAPTER IV.
REDHALL.

"The will is free; why must it then be curbed
I would be happy, gain what I desire,
Or feel each pulse throb pleasure in the chase—
Yet this new teacher tells such pleasure is
A fruit I must untasted shun."—Nimrod. Act III.

The apartment, which was half darkened, was partly tapestried and partly wainscoted. A stone fireplace, on grotesque columns covered with carved roses, destitute of grate (for grates were not then in fashion) and of fire, for the season was summer, by its emptiness lent a somewhat dreary aspect to the chamber. The floor was without carpet, for carpets were almost unknown in Scotland till 1560 (three and twenty years after); the furniture was of massive oak. The well-grated windows, which looked to the Friar Wynd, were concealed by thick curtains, and gaudily-flowered tapestries, framed in richly-carved oak, covered most part of the walls. A brilliant suit of armour, hanging upon a nail or steel hook, and a few shelves of gigantic folios bound in vellum, edged with red, and clasped with brass, were the leading features in this chamber. A sandglass stood upon the table, for one was usually carried by fellows of colleges and other learned men about this period in lieu of a watch, as we may read in Aubrey's Memoirs.

A folio lay on the black oak table, and on its closely-written leaves the light fell from a great iron lamp of grotesque form, covered by a circular shade. With his head reclined on one hand, and the other thrust into the breast of his black velvet doublet, the King's Advocate sat dreamily and moodily immersed in deep thought. His grave and classic face was of a clear olive complexion. His nose was perfectly straight, his eyes large, black, and sparkling, and his knit eyebrows now formed one complete arch above them. His smooth and lofty brow was expressive of deep thought, of watching and study, and even of tranquillity, though there were times when, it could assume a terrible expression, and his keen dark orbs would fill with fire, and every hair of his short moustaches bristle with passion. His mouth was decidedly his worst feature; but his short beard concealed those thin lips which Lavater considered the infallible sign of a mind pregnant with evil. His aspect was lofty and severe, and his eye was so penetrating that few could sustain the fire and inquiry of its glance.

The pages of the Forest Laws, written by King William the Lion, lay before him, but his eyes were fixed on his jewelled poniard that lay on the table close by, showing how his mind wandered from the subject he had sat down to study to the irate promptings of jealousy and revenge.

For Jane Seton, Sir Adam Otterburn and Ronald Vipont had long been rivals; at least so the former had viewed the latter, who had neither dreaded him nor feared his attentions, for such was his confidence in the love and truth of Jane; yet he had nothing to rely on but his sword and the somewhat precarious favour of James V., while Redhall was the proprietor of a strong baronial fortalice, a noble domain situated a few miles south of the city, and as lord advocate of Scotland was a powerful officer of state, then armed with more powers and terrors than any ten inquisitors of the Holy Office. His position was most honourable, and in virtue of it he was always addressed "My Lord." His knowledge of law was little, but his privileges were great; he was permitted to sit covered within the bar of the Court of Session like a peer of the realm, and he had the power of issuing warrants for searching, apprehending, imprisoning and putting to the torture any person in Scotland—his warrants being valid as those of the king. Such was Roland's formidable competitor for the hand of Jane Seton, to whom the young cavalier would have been wedded fully two years before the time in which this history opens, but for the fear of forfeiting king James's favour, and the implacable hostility of that prince to the house of Douglas, which formed an insuperable barrier to any of the court favourites who might be disposed (which few of them were) to form alliances with any noble family of that obnoxious surname.

Aware of this, Otterburn, whose landed possessions rendered him happily independent of James's frowns or favour, had redoubled his assiduity and attentions, never once permitting the hope to die, that Jane might ultimately regard him with favour. During the nine months' absence of the master of the ordnance in France with King James, the addresses of Otterburn had been as unmistakeable as they were obnoxious to the young lady; who seeing in him only the great public prosecutor of her own and her mother's family, viewed him with horror and hostility, though she dismissed him with a cold but cautious politeness, that, strange to say, while it eclipsed his hopes, in no way extinguished his ardour.

From that time forward he could visit her no more; but his inborn obstinacy of spirit and indomitable vanity would not admit of his totally resigning her—especially during the absence of Vipont, against whose safe return there were many chances, during the escapades and broils, the midnight rambles and madcap adventures, in which he and the king were constantly involved. For a time, Otterburn had again given way to the illusions of hope and the impulses of his heart; but now the safe and sudden return of his brilliant rival had swept them all away, together with a thousand bright daydreams, as a breeze does the gossamer webs; and the strong mind of the statesman and judge became a prey to anxious jealousy and furious hatred.

"As a rainbow fades from the sky, so has this bright vision passed from before me!" he exclaimed, as he struck his hands together, and looked upward with something of despair. In his better moments he felt only grief, when his more generous impulses would prompt him to resign Jane Seton in peace to her more favoured lover.

"Were she mine," he mused, with a face that became alternately sad and mournful, or dark and saturnine, "her happiness would be my only object; then why should I seek to mar it because she is not? By what glamour can this mere girl, who never once thought of me otherwise than as the persecutor of the Douglases, fascinate me thus, swaying my heart, my soul, my every purpose—being the object of every effort—the inspirer of every thought? How cometh it that her coldness, her disdain, her hate (nay, she is too gentle for that), all serve but to increase my love? Oh! 'tis sorcery! 'tis sorcery! .... Oh! in how many a long and weary night I have pressed a pillow sleeplessly, and courted slumber, but in vain? How often have I tried to rend her image from my heart, to supplant it by another, and in vain? I have recoiled from that other with disgust, as the more winning image of Jane came before me; and yet she loves me not. How often have I fruitlessly striven to crush this mad and besotting passion, and to nourish only hatred, indifference, or revenge? ..... God help me! I am very miserable. And shall I resign her to the arms of this upstart favourite, this cutthroat cannoneer, and gilded hireling of King James—resign, her without a struggle—I, who am so immeasurably his superior in fortune, mind, and purpose?—Never! ... How strong this passion of love is! How noble, and for how glorious a purpose has God implanted it in our hearts; but oh, may few endure like me to love an object that loves another, and yieldeth no return! Let dotard monks and deceived misanthropes, let stoics and philosophers say what they will, there is more magic and power in the single smile of a woman than in all the impulses of the human heart put together. Ambition dazzles, hatred sways, and revenge impels us—they are powerful incentives, and their triumph is delicious—but love is greater than all. Generosity urges me to leave her to the fool she loves—to avoid her path, her presence, and her spells for ever; but passion, obstinacy, and infatuation, lead me on, and, overwhelming every gentler sentiment, impel me to the pursuit. Shall I, then, be baffled and foiled by this poor caterpillar, whose wings have expanded in the brief sunshine of royal favour—this silken slave—this Roland Vipont, who, not six years since, wore an iron hongreline and brass plate, as a mere French cannoneer, under Vaudmont and Marshal Lautreque? Never! And, by the holy arm of St. Giles! this night shall end our rivalry for ever!"

Thus said, or rather thought, Redhall; and, suddenly pausing, he snatched up a long metal whistle, that lay always at hand, and blew a shrill call.

Almost immediately afterwards the arras was lifted, a man entered, and, making a respectful obeisance, stood at a little distance.

CHAPTER V.
THE WITCH-PRICKER.

"Flam. Malicious fortune!
Ænob. Now thou seest my meaning!"—Boadicea.

The personage who appeared was a short, thickset, and bandy-legged man, whose malformation his chocolate-coloured stockings and white cloth breeches displayed to the utmost advantage. He had a neck and chest like a bullock, with the sinister visage of a thorough-paced ruffian. In size, his head and hands were altogether disproportioned to his body; his hair, beard, and moustaches, which appeared to have been preserved sacred from comb and scissors, were all woven into one matted mass, which was of the deepest black; while drinking and exposure to the weather had bronzed his skin to an almost oriental blackness. He wore a plain frock or gaberdine of white Galloway cloth, confined at the girdle by a broad calfskin belt and steel buckle, in which he carried a long dirk or knife. He wore rough brogues of brown leather on his broad splay feet, and a small rosary of oak beads which dangled at his left wrist evinced his wish to be deemed a respectable member of society; but arrogance, cunning, and brutality, were powerfully depicted on his otherwise stolid visage, which had a very repulsive squareness of aspect, two enormous ears, and a great mastiff mouth.

This worthy was Nichol Birrel, the brodder or witch-pricker of the newly-established high court of justiciary, one of the most unscrupulous and atrocious ruffians that ever occupied this important, and, in after years, lucrative situation.

Born and bred a vassal on the estate of the lord advocate, to whom he was intensely devoted, he had obtained the place of prover or witchfinder, as it peculiarly suited his ruffianly and sanguinary disposition. Several other minor officials of the new court were, like him, the immediate and devoted dependents of Redhall, for whom they acted as bravos on a hundred occasions. Nichol, though cruel, false, bitter, and treacherous to all the rest of mankind, was true, faithful, and sincerely a friend to his lord and benefactor; for he seemed to be possessed by the same instinct which attaches a ferocious hound to the hand that feeds him.

"Od save us, my lord, ye look ill! Is there aught the matter wi' ye?" he asked, gruffly.

"Nichol, is there none in attendance on me but thee?" asked the advocate, without regarding his inquiry; "where are all the servitors?"

"At the palace, seeing the merry masquers."

"Mass! where I should have been but for this accursed sickness, which, to-night, hath fallen so heavily upon me. It matters not; I am invited by the lord chamberlain to the fête to-morrow."

"Ye look worse to-night, Redhall, than I have seen ye since Lententime."

"I am sick at heart, Nichol."

"I have been so at the stomach many a time and oft, when I mixed my ale with usquebaugh, but as for the heart——"

"Psha!" exclaimed the advocate, starting abruptly, "either my brain is under the influence of insanity, or there is a spell of sorcery upon me."

"Dost suspect any ill-woman of being the cause thereof, Sir Adam?" asked the brodder, whose eyes began to twinkle in anticipation of a pricking fee, while his square mouth expanded into a grin.

"No, no; I spoke but in metaphor, and suspect none." He paused. "Thou sawest the procession to-day?"

Nichol nodded his vast head affirmatively.

"Didst mark any man there whom ye knew to be my enemy?"

"I marked his eminence the cardinal, who confined a damosel of yours, among his other ladies, in the auld tower of Creich."

"Tush!"

"I observed the lord abbot of the Holy Cross, who won his plea against thee anent the duty on every cart entering the barriers of the town."

"Thou triflest! didst mark no one else?"

"Well, then, I marked the master of the king's ordnance, shining in cloth of gold and crammasie."

"Good!—anything more?"

"I saw him smile as he curveted, in his bravery, past the ladies of Ashkirk," replied Nichol, with a cunning leer, while the advocate gnashed his teeth; "and sweetly the lady Jane smiled on him again. It was a braw sight and a brave; and a gude ransom the master's doublet and foot-cloth would have been to any bold fellow that met him in the gloaming by Leith Loan or the Burghmuir; for they were pure cloth-of-gold, and champit with pearls, so that I marvel not the Lady Seton smiled so brightly; for, if love maketh a woman's eye bright, gold will make it brighter."

"Thou art a mercenary slave!" said the advocate, bitterly; "and never felt the passion of which thou talkest so glibly. Nichol, have I not been to thee ever a friend rather than a lord and master—kind, indulgent, and liberal——"

"When service was to be performed," said Nichol, parenthetically, closing one of his yellow eyes with another hideous leer.

"At all times, Nichol," continued the king's advocate, striking his heel sharply on the ground. "Thou knowest that the master of the ordnance and I have long been at deadly feud about—but it recks not thee about what."

"Say Jane Seton of Ashkirk, my lord, and you will shoot near the mark."

Redhall's eyes flashed, and he made a fierce gesture of impatience, for he disliked to hear her name in the mouth of this ruffian, whom he despised while he fed and fostered him.

"It is enough, Nichol Birrel—thou understandest me—the master of the ordnance bars my way; this must not be, and shall not be."

There was a pause.

"Well, Sir Adam?" growled the pricker.

"Thou hast thy poniard," said the knight, hoarsely.

"Ay," replied the ruffian, as a broad grin expanded his mastiff mouth, and his great teeth appeared like a row of fangs through his matted beard; "ay, the same gude knife with which I slew Maclellan, the Knight of Bombie, at the north door of St. Giles's kirk. By one backhanded stroke I dashed it into his heart, and he fell with his rosary in his uplifted hand, the name of God on his lips, and the half-signed cross on his brow, yet they saved him not."

There was a pause, for Birrel, who had commenced, in a tone of ruffian irony, ended in a dismal quaver, and grew pale.

"Wretch and fool!" cried the lord advocate, "why remind me of that?"

He gave his dependent a terrible glance.

"I crave pardon, Sir Adam; but when I bethink me that this Sir Thomas of Bombie had the lairds of Achlane, Glenshannoch, and Bourg, with nine other knights of his surname to avenge him, I surely ran some risk."

"The Lords of Drumlanrig and Lochinvar were said, by common rumour, to have slain him, and so let it be; he was a foe of the house of Otterburn," hissed the advocate through his teeth, "and of the faction to which that house adhered; a foe to me in particular, and as such must Vipont, the accursed Vipont, die."

Nichol uttered a sound between a growl and a laugh.

"Are Dobbie the doomster, and Sanders the torturer below? I warrant they will be snoring, like gorged hounds, by the kitchen ingle."

"No, they are birling their cans in the buttery."

"Then see to this affair; but dost think we can rely on them?"

"Like myself, Sir Adam, they and their forbears have been leal men and true to the house of Redhall, and wherefore would they fail it now? We are the servants of the law, and what matters it whether we string this soldier of the king in a tow at the cross, or pink him in the dark? 'tis death, any way;" and here the fellow uttered a ferocious laugh again.

"For your own sakes and mine be secret, sincere, and sure."

The pricker touched his knife, bowed, and raising the arras, dropped it again, and shaking his matted head, paused irresolutely.

"What is it now?" asked Redhall, taking the purse from his girdle. "Money?"

"No, no, Sir Adam, I never served ye for siller, but as my bounden duty; so I crave leave to remind ye that the place of forester up at Kinleith and Bonallie is vacant, and my sister's son, Tom Trotter, a deadly shot with bow and hackbut——"

"Enough; thy sister's son shall have the place of forester; and, for thee, methinks that the master's cloth-of-gold and diamond baldrick might serve for that, and to procure absolution to boot for the three of ye."

"We care not for that, Sir Adam," replied the pricker, "for we are among those who have seen the new light."

"And believe not in the delegated power of the priesthood; eh, is it so?"

Birrel nodded.

"Then why carriest thou that great rosary. I vow it looks like a fetter on thy wrist."

"As a blind."

"Lollards, Wickliffites—ha! ha! these new preachers of schism and heresy have made three creditable proselytes; yet, for thy soul's sake, Nichol (and there was a very perceptible sneer in the advocate's face as he said this), I hope thou art a true Catholic at heart; but away to thy comrades, for the night wears on, and Vipont hath not yet left the house of the Setons, for I have not heard the hoofs of his horse. To-morrow," continued Redhall, with a ghastly expression of ferocity, "to-morrow——"

"He shall be either in Catholic purgatory or Protestant hell," grinned the pricker, as he raised the arras and retired.

The ghastly smile yet played upon the thin lips of Redhall.

"To-morrow I shall be freed of these fears, and for ever," he mused; "but at no distant period I must rid me of those three bloodhounds, who have stuck like burs to my skirts since first I took upon me this unhappy office of advocate to the king. Ha, and so they are heretics! Let them serve my purpose in this, and ere another week hath passed the cardinal shall have them under his inquisitorial eyes, and the stake will rid me and society of them for ever. Vipont, beware thee, now, for this night shall be the darkest in the calendar for thee and for thine!"

CHAPTER VI.
THE ILLUMINATED SPIRE.

"Our pathway leads but to a precipice;
And all must follow, fearful as it is!
From the first step 'tis known; but—no delay!
On, 'tis decreed. We tremble and obey."
ROGERS, Human Life.

Twelve had tolled from the spire of the Netherbow Port, ere Vipont came forth from the Ashkirk Lodging, as the mansion was named (like other hotels of the Scottish noblesse), and taking his horse, rode through the archway. His heart was beating lightly, for the gentle pressure of a soft hand yet seemed to linger in his, and the kiss of a warm little lip was on his cheek. His breast was filled with joy, and his mind with the happiest anticipations of the future.

There was to be a grand masque or fête given by Queen Magdalene to the ladies of the nobility on the night of the morrow, and Roland had resolved that an invitation should be sent to the ladies of Ashkirk, even should he beg it in person of the fair young sovereign; and full of pleasure at the contemplation of how his beautiful Jane would outshine all her compeers, and how surely James, when he saw her, would recal all his edicts against the Setons of Ashkirk, he put spurs to his horse, and, stooping low, made him clear the archway with one bound.

The moon was up, and it rolled through a clear and starry sky. A few light and fleecy clouds that slept afar off in the bright radiance, seemed to float above the grim dark summits of the city, whose clusters of close-piled mansions, turreted, gableted and crow-stepped, tall and fantastic, stark and strong, started up ghost-like out of the depths of street and wynd, and stood in bold outline against the clear cold blue of the midnight sky.

As Roland left the archway, three dark figures, which he had not observed, shrunk close together; and when he issued forth, followed him with stealthy steps. They wore short black mantles, and had their bonnets pulled well over their faces; but though they lurked on the shadowy side of the street (which the bright light above rendered yet darker), the haft of a poniard, or knife, glittered at times under their upper garments, as they followed the master of the ordnance cautiously and softly, like cats about to spring on a mouse, and as noiselessly, for they were shod with felt, or some such material, that muffled their footsteps.

Vipont was about to descend towards the palace, near which he lived, in St. Anne's-yard, when a column of light in the west made him pause, and turn towards the centre of the town. A ball of fire was burning on the summit of St. Giles's steeple, and having heard that it was to be illuminated in honour of the queen's arrival and king's return, he resolved to see this unusual display; and riding up the Canongate to the strong barrier which separated the greater from the lesser burgh, he gave his horse to the care of the under-warder of the porte, and from thence walked up the High-street with his long rapier under his arm.

The hour was late, but many persons were abroad, and the windows were so full of faces, all gazing at the great tower of St. Giles's, that even had Vipont known that three assassins were on his track and only seeking an opportunity to plunge their poniards in his heart, he would not have felt much alarm.

The airy lantern of this magnificent church is formed by eight ribs of stone that spring from beautiful corbels, and meeting far above the bartizan of the great rood-spire, support a spacious gallery and lofty pinnacle, forming altogether an architectural feature of remarkable beauty, and which (save the church of St. Nicholas at Newcastle) is entirely peculiar to Scotland. It is a complete Gothic diadem of stone. The rich crockets on the arches rise tier above tier, and represent the pearls; the parapets from which they spring, with their row of quatrefoils, being in place of the circlet. The whole of this structure had been covered with variegated lamps, which had been brought from Italy, and were hung by the taste and skill of Father St. Bernard, one of the prebendaries, to the wonder and astonishment of the simple-minded citizens. As yet they were unlit, but a single light, we have said, was burning on the upper pinnacle, like a large red star, and to this every face was turned.

The stone crown of the cathedral was all in dark outline; a faint light shone through the large stained window at the east end, and the tapers flickered at the shrine of Our Lady that stood close by. Save these, all the vast church, with its rows of massive buttresses and pointed windows, was immersed in gloom, though the moonlight silvered the edges of the crocketed pinnacles. Suddenly a volume of light burst over the whole; the ball of fire which had been burning steadily, threw out a million of sparkles which fell like a haze of brilliance over the arches of the spire, lighting up the diminutive lamps in rapid succession, until the whole structure seemed bathed in one broad sheet of coloured flame. The groined arches, the carved pinnacles, and all the airy tracery of the spire, were as plainly visible in their beautiful and grotesque detail as if the beholders had been close to them, instead of being a hundred and sixty feet below; while the lamps of variegated glass produced the most extraordinary variety of light and shadow.

The devils, dragons, and other stone chimeras that projected from the battlements of the clerestory were all tipped with fiery red or ghastly blue light, and seemed to be vomiting flames; every pinnacle and tower of the cathedral stood forth in strong outline, one half being bathed in brilliant light, and the other sunk in black shadow, while a myriad prismatic hues were thrown upon the upturned and countless faces of the gaping crowds who occupied the streets below and the windows around. Into the far depths of many a close and wynd, on the square tower of St. Mary-in-the-Field, on the clustered Bastelhouses of the castle, on the spire of the Netherbow, and square belfreys of the Holy Cross, on all the countless roofs and chimneys of the town, the light fell full and redly, scaring even the coot and the swan among the sedges of the Burghloch, and the eagle and the osprey on the lofty craigs of Salisbury.

Cries of astonishment and delight were heard from time to time, mingled with the murmurs of the wondering and the fearful, who, in accordance with the taste and superstition of the age, were, as usual, inclined to attribute the taste and skill which dictated this illumination to sorcery, simply because it was beyond their comprehension.

"Ye say true, my lord abbot," said a voice near Roland; "I have had mine own suspicions anent the fact."

"I have always secretly suspected this Father St. Bernard was a sorcerer; he studied at Padua and Salamanca, where there is more kenned of develrie than theologie."

"He is confessor of the Countess of Ashkirk."

"Who hath a familiar, in the shape of a black page, anent whilk my lord advocate and I have had several conferences—but hush!"

Roland did not hear these last observations, which passed between the Abbot of Kinloss and one of the ten advocates of the new court.

Intent on the beauty of the illumination, Roland Vipont saw not the three muffled men who still dogged him, and from behind the grotesque columns of a stone arcade, which still stands opposite the old church (but is completely obscured by modern shops), were intently observing his motions while keeping their own concealed in shadow.

Having been long absent from his native capital, he gazed with admiration on the beautiful effect produced upon its picturesque and fantastic architecture, and he was just wishing that the ladies he had left were with him, to see this new and magnificent spectacle (which in their happiness he and Jane had completely forgotten), when several strong hands were laid violently upon his cloak and belt; he was suddenly dragged from the street, and hurried backwards nearly to the foot of one of those dark, narrow, and then solitary closes that descended abruptly towards the artificial lake, enclosing the city on the north.

So steep was the descent, and so sudden the impetus he received, that before Sir Roland could offer the least resistance, he was beaten to the earth, and the blow of more than one poniard struck sparks of fire from his tempered corslet.

Now deadly was the struggle that ensued; but the three ruffians, in their very eagerness to destroy him, impeded and wounded each other; and though prostrate on the pavement, with his poniard under him, the knees of one bent on his breast, and the hands of another pressing on his throat, which, happily, was encircled with a thick ruff, Roland resisted manfully, his great natural strength and activity being increased by despair and rage. Grasping one by the ruff, he twisted it so as nearly to strangle him, and paralyze the efforts of his right hand, which brandished a long and double-edged poniard, that gleamed ominously in the dim light of the alley.

"God defend me!" he panted; "must I perish here like a child, or a woman? Release me, villains, or I will spit you all like rabbits. Ho, armour! armour! treason and rescue!"

"No help is nigh thee!" answered Nichol Birrel, with his hyæna-like laugh; "but curses choke thee, take thy hand from my throat!" and he raised his arm for the death-stroke, but Roland caught his descending hand by the wrist, while with a blow of his foot he hurled the third assailant, Sanders Screw, to the very bottom of the close. A howl from Birrel, at the same moment, announced that his companion had wounded him again, a mistake which raised his demon-spirit to a frightful pitch; and furiously he strove to free his wrist, and stab Roland between the joint of his corslet and gorget. His eyes filled with a yellow light; he panted rather than breathed; he seemed no longer a man, but a devil!

Suddenly Roland found this maddened assailant had become too strong for him; and once again, but more feebly (for he had received a wound in the shoulder), he cried—

"Armour and rescue!"

"Knight and gentleman though ye be," panted Birrel—"by hell! I will have thy blood for mine! Strike again, Dobbie, thou coward and dog! Ho, my gay cannonier, ye are as a dead man now!"

"Thou liest, villain! take that!" cried a voice; and he received a blow from a staff which hurled him to the earth. Roland sprang up with a heart full of fury and his sword unsheathed; but his two remaining assailants rushed down the close, and disappeared along the rough bank of the loch before his confusion and giddiness would admit of his following them.

"By St. John, my good friend," said he, adjusting his mantle and ruff, "thou comest at a critical time; a moment later had seen my corslet riddled."

"Ay, and your doublet slashed after the comely Douglas fashion," replied his preserver, whose plain coarse garb, as well as the knotty cudgel he carried, announced him a countryman or peasant.

"Good fellow, I owe thee my life," said Roland, taking his purse from his girdle, "and would gladly yield some adequate recompense. Here, I fear me, there are but few Flemish ryders, and still fewer golden lions."

"Tush!" replied the other with a laugh, as he drew himself haughtily up; "dost offer money to me? Roland Vipont, hast thou quite forgotten me? I am Archibald, Earl of Ashkirk."

"Ashkirk!" reiterated Roland, in a faint whisper, as if he feared the very stones of the street would hear him. "My rash lord and friend," he added, taking the earl's hands within his own, "you know the risk of entering the gates of Edinburgh?"

"Bah!—my head; but who will venture to take it?"

"There is a price set upon it, nevertheless."

"A thousand merks of Scottish money?"

"True: might I not be false enough to win this sum, so tempting to a soldier?"

"Nay, friend Roland, for then thou wouldst lose my sister Jane."

"Lord earl, if discovered by any other than myself thou art lost."

"Perhaps so; but I shall take particular care to prevent all discovery. In fact, I mean to live for awhile in King James's own palace, where I do not think my enemies will ever dream of looking for me. The king's lances, and the riders of the east, west, and middle Marches, have scoured the whole land for me, from Tweedmouth to Solway sands. Besides, I am resolved to see my mother the countess, and my sister Jane, and endeavour to persuade my dear little Sybil to sojourn with me awhile at the court of England; for though it boasts of dames as fair as the world can show, I long ever for the black eyes and gentle voice of my quiet little cousin. Dost comprehend?"

"Rejoiced as I am to see you, Lord Ashkirk, for the memory of our old friendship, I would rather you were a thousand miles hence than standing to-night in the streets of Edinburgh."

The young noble laughed heartily.

"Methinks, Sir Captain of the Ordnance, it was fortunate for thee that I was not even one mile from this when those ruffians had thee at such vantage; but dost know wherefore they beset thee so?"

"Nay, not I; they were some villanous cutpurses, doubtless. Mass! I gave one a rough kick in the belt that will cure him of cloak-snatching for a time!"

"Nay, I opine more shrewdly thou art indebted to the third man in Scotland for this affair."

"The third, say you? How?—the first is the king."

"The second?" said the earl.

"His eminence the cardinal; but the third—who is he?"

"Who but Redhall, whom I would have sworn I heard one of those rogues cursing for sending them on such a devil's errand."

"Redhall!"

"Ay, doubtless; the great archpriest of judicial tyranny, the very spirit of oppression, who sits brooding over the people and the peers of Scotland—he whose villanous panders are gorged and overgorged with gifts of escheat from our forfeited possessions, and are ever needy and inexorable."

"Sayest thou so? then by Heavens I will have a sure assythement of him for this."

"What other assythement is requisite than a sword-thrust?"

"But, 'fore God! I am in no way this man's enemy," replied Roland.

"All whom the king loves are his enemies."

"Still more so are those whom the king hates; witness his severe prosecution of the Douglases. But we all know, my lord, that the friendship of a Scottish king is too often a fatal gift to his subjects."

"Redhall's ambition is inordinate as that of Beaton; blood-guilty as that of Finnart; and his hatred is as that of the coiled-up snake. By St. Bride! I know not which I hate most," exclaimed the rebellious earl, "James Stuart or his minion advocate."

"Hush, hush! lord earl," said Roland, as they slowly ascended the dark street, "for these words, if ever heard, would bring you to the scaffold ere the sun sets to-morrow."

"I crave pardon," replied the earl, with angry scorn, "I forgot that I spoke to a staunch adherent of this crowned oppressor of the Douglases, and their ally, the house of Ashkirk."

"Noble earl, in this devotion to your mother's princely house you wrong our generous king, who, on his happy return to the capital of his ancestors, intended to have recalled all the lords now banished for the rebellion of Angus, and would, ere this late hour, have done so but for your recent inroad from the south, which has closed and steeled his heart against you and against them; and I know well that his able adviser, the stern Cardinal Beaton, devoted as he is to his country, and ever hostile to the grasping and aggressive spirit of England, will leave nothing unsaid to fan the king's vengeance and prompt his retaliation."

"I need not to be told what all Europe says; that James of Scotland allows himself to be led by the nose just as Redlegs and the old ruffs of his council please."

"Redlegs! soh! a ceremonious title for his eminence; I pray God, you have not become tainted by the damning heresies of this English Henry, who has so long been your patron. But where did your lordship intend to dispose of yourself to-night?"

"Faith, I had not made up my mind; for in every change-house I entered, a copy of that proclamation for my apprehension was pasted over the chimneypiece; so, fearing recognition, as the summer night was short and warm, I had resolved to sleep like a mosstrooper on the green brae yonder by the loch, when your cry summoned me to the rescue, and I am here."

"'Twas a bright thought, that of yours, about Holyrood," said Vipont, "so, come with me to my apartment, for I know no place where you could be safer than in the very palace. None but the devil himself would dream of looking for you there, under the king's very nose."

"But my disguise is somewhat unlike the finery of your court gallants."

"Come with me to-night, and to-morrow we will think of something else."

"That will be necessary, for I am going to the queen's masque."

"What, thou?"

"Yes, I," replied the madcap earl. "What seest thou in that?"

"Thy discovery, arrest, condemnation, and execution; for God's sake, my lord, be not so criminally rash."

"Fear not, I will never compromise thee."

"I have no fear of that, but——"

"Fear nought else, then, for I have resolved to go, and words are useless."

They had talked so long in the dark alley, that when they issued from its archway into the street opposite the church of St. Giles, the lights on the spire were all extinguished, and the crowd had dispersed. The whole façade of the edifice rose before them in dark outline, and the only light that tipped its pinnacles was the slanting lustre of the brilliant moon, as she seemed to sail to the westward through the pure blue of the star-studded sky.

One o'clock rang from the Netherbow spire as Roland and the earl passed it, so that the events of this chapter occupied exactly an hour.

CHAPTER VII.
TWO OFFICIALS.

"Pedro. Would to God it might be so!
Thou twin to Satan, beautiful deceit!
I almost wish I'd never met with thee.
Yet the scheme's good—the scheme's exceeding good."
Edward the Black Prince.

The lord advocate was sitting in his library or study, which we have already described to the reader. Reclined in a softly-cushioned easy chair, he was gazing listlessly at the mass of papers that covered his writing table, which was of grotesquely-carved oak, and all of which he had to examine; but thoughts, to him of a more vital interest, occupied his mind, and he recoiled with disgust from the every-day task of public business. More than an hour passed away, and the advocate still sat dreamily, with his docquets of inhibitions and arrestments, letters of law-burrowes, indictments, and other criminal papers, lying pell-mell among secret information sent him from his correspondents on the English borders and the Highland frontier, among the turbulent islesmen of the west, and the intriguing Douglases nearer the capital. All these he had to peruse, to consider and consign to different portfolios, making comments and memorandums thereon, so as to have them all ready for service at a moment's notice, whenever the suspected noble, baron, or burgess should be arrested and indicted before the new and obnoxious court.

The information lodged by enemies against each other was of the most diverse description.

One baron lodged a secret complaint that another was meditating an inroad into England in time of peace; that another had been selling cattle to the English contrary to law; while a third complained that for three weeks he had been besieged in his own castle, and battered by the cannon of a neighbouring feudatory.

One burgess reported another for "girnelling mair victual than was required for his own sustenance," against which there was then a wise law, that in these our days would have pressed heavily upon corn-factors and other oppressors of the poor; one had lost his horses, another his cattle, another his corn, and another his wife, all by dint of sword and spear; and there were innumerable complaints anent Highland sorners, border hamesuckers, and landless Egyptians, who forcibly quartered themselves in houses and villages, and dwelt there until everything was eaten up in girnel, byre, and barn. Among other papers were numerous informations against and warrants required for the arrest of Englishmen who had come into Scotland without the safeconduct demanded and rendered necessary by the twelfth parliament of James II.; for the prosecution of those who slew the king's lieges in street and roadway, and against others who slew hares in time of snow. Warrants against lairds for storming each other's castles, and thieves who broke into farm dovecots; and countless accusations of sorcery brought by the ignorant against those whose little discoveries and inventions would now, perhaps, have won for them patents from the crown and fellowships of the Royal Society.

The whole of the last night and half of the next day had passed without his bravos having returned.

The advocate began to fear that Vipont had proved victorious, and either killed or captured his assailants. In either case Redhall knew well suspicions would fall heavily upon himself, for ever since the murder of the Knight of Bombie, at the north door of St. Giles's, he had borne a somewhat evil repute in the minds of many. He glared impatiently at a large dialstone on a house opposite; it indicated the meridian, and he was about to buckle on his sword and poniard, preparatory to issuing forth in search of news, when heavy and irregular steps were heard ascending the stair; a coarse and muscular hand made several ineffectual attempts to raise the arras, a movement which nearly caused the owner to topple over on his nose, and half scrambling in, Nichol Birrel, balancing himself on each leg alternately, and looking rather discomposed from the potations and encounter of the past night, stood before his feudal lord and judicial patron.

"How now, thou presumptuous villain!" said Redhall, looking round for his cane, "is it thus thou appearest before me?"

"Ay, ay—just as you see," hiccupped Nichol.

"Drunk?"

"Rather so, Sir Adam—that is—my lord."

"Sot! I verily believe thou wert born drunk. And where, then, is this Vipont now?"

"I neither ken nor care, for he escaped us."

"Am I then to believe, sot and slug-a-bed, that with all thy boasting thou hast failed?"

"Even so, in part."

"Dog! I will have your ears cut off for this."

"Bide ye there, Sir Adam," said the ruffian, deprecatingly, while he ground his teeth at his master's anger, "I have gien him a wound that he will carry to his grave; but God's plague on your feuds, Redhall, for in your service I have gotten a slash o' the knuckles that shall gar me rue lang the last night."

"Here is a pretty rascal;" exclaimed the advocate, almost beside himself with anger.

"I would some douce damsel said as muckle," said this overgrown gnome, contemplating his visage with one of his frightful leers, in a mirror opposite.

"Peace, fellow! And thou livest to tell me that he actually escaped from three of ye? He must be the very devil himself, this Roland Vipont! Have you all returned alive?"

"All: Nichol, Dobbie, and Sanders Screw—safe and sound, like the three kings of Cologne in the Black Friary up bye there."

"Silence! 'tis blasphemy, this."

"Murder at night, and blasphemy in the morning! Ewhow, sirs, but that d—d mum-beer was strong yesternight."

"Thou gavest him a wound, thou sayest?" resumed Redhall, whose strong and relentless mind was of that description which, when once it conceived an idea, would pursue its accomplishment to the very verge of the earth; and, moreover, feeling confident that those laws which he meted out so severely to others, could never recoil upon or entangle himself, he did whatever he pleased. "Was this wound a deep one?"

"So Dobbie swears, but he's a gomeral body in these respects. Yet, if ye will it, Sir Adam, as monk or apothegar, or something else, I may find my way to his chamber ere he is awake some morning, and probe the scar anew wi' my poniard. Even gif I were ta'en in his chamber 'twouldna matter muckle, as no new scar would be seen, and blood flowing would be attributed to the auld gash."

"'Tis not a bad scheme, then see to it as you please; but now I mistrust ye all, and think that, were I to fight him with my own more legal weapons, the pen and the parchment, he would assuredly be vanquished. We shall see," mused the advocate; "I may have him one day before the lords on some desperate charge (he loves a lady of the Douglas faction). Proofs of conspiracy could soon be foisted up, and if we once had him under the hands of Sanders Screw——"

Birrel mechanically felt for his steel needle.

"Nay," said Redhall, with a grim smile, as he observed this motion, "Vipont is a mere soldier, and thou knowest that a soldier is seldom deep or designing enough to be a conjuror. Now prythee, rascal, act soberly, and assist me to dress and truss my points with care; for I am to dine with his eminence the cardinal and the lord bishop of Limoges to-day, and thereafter we are all going to the queen's masque at Holyrood. Bring me the last taffety dress that was sent me from that French stallanger at the Tron, with my silver walking-sword—and the little poniard—hath Hew the dalmascar sent it from his booth in the Bow? Oh, here it is," added Redhall, stepping into an apartment that opened off the library, and to which (as we may still see in old houses) there was an ascent of two or three steps. This was his dressing-room, and formed a square turret which projected on heavy stone corbels over the pavement of the Canongate.

An antique mirror, imbedded in an oak frame, stood on one side; a basin stand furnished with a pewter basin and ewer (such as the Leith traders then brought out of Flanders) stood on the other; and between them was a large cabinet, one door of which was open, showing the various laced dresses, doublets, gowns, ruffs and collars, mantles, tags, tassels and aiguilettes, which made up the wardrobe of this official, whose ample judicial robe was carelessly thrown over a large high-backed chair, against which and on which were piled pieces of armour, swords, gloves, gauntlets, files, poniards, and wheelock-pistols; showing that, though a civil officer of state, Redhall could assume the offensive as well as any swashbuckler or cavalier of his day; and not many weeks had elapsed since, at the head of three hundred men-at-arms, he had been severely repulsed in an attempt to sack and burn the tower of his neighbour, Sir James Poulis of Colinton, the lord clerk register.

A jerkin of black velvet, with open sleeves of dark purple satin, embroidered all over with silver, black trunk breeches slashed with purple silk, and black hose, with shoes round-toed and slashed, formed his principal attire. Over the close jerkin he threw a loose "cassock coate" of black silk, the collar of which was tied by silver cords under his thick close ruff, and from thence it was open, though furnished with twenty-four buttons of Bruges silver.

Over this he hung his shoulder-belt, which sustained a long and slender walking-sword, having a hilt of curiously-cut steel and silver net-work; thus, everything about him was either black or silver, save the solitary white feather which adorned his black velvet bonnet, and gave a smart and lofty bearing to his noble head, which a grave dark visage, piercing eyes, and fierce moustache completed.

His ruffian dependent, who to his public official duties limited the private one of valet, had scarcely given the last finishing-touch to his elaborate costume when the clatter of hoofs drew Redhall to the window, and he saw the master of the ordnance, with his plumes waving, his polished corselet, his embroidered dress, and rich gold aiguilettes glittering in the sunshine, ride up the street. A tall, stout serving-man, clad in a half suit of ribbed armour, wearing that kind of close helmet which was then called a coursing-hat, and carrying over his shoulder a mighty two-handed wall-sword, nearly as long as himself, followed close at his heels, running as if for his life.

(This armed valet was no other than the Earl of Ashkirk.)

Almost at the same moment, as if she had been watching for the sound of the hoofs, Jane Seton appeared at an opposite window, which she threw open. There was a radiant smile on her bright face as she kissed her hand to the handsome cavalier, who uncovered and bowed to his horse's mane; and there was a happy expression in his eyes, a gallant and adventurous air about him, that, with the splendour of his attire, failed not to impress even Redhall; for, as Vipont saluted his charming mistress, the spirited animal he rode approached her sideways, keeping his front to the windows, curveting, prancing, and shaking his flowing mane and the silver ornaments of the embossed bridle.

"St. Mary!" muttered the advocate, while he bit his thin lips, and a fierce smile twinkled in his eyes, "how she welcomes him!—an empty fool, who hath no thought beyond his ruffs and his aiguilettes, and who, though he hath scarcely a cross in his pouch, is doubtless ready to cut the throat of any man who doubts him rich as Croesus, and able to purchase the three Lothians."

Charged with an invitation, secretly obtained from the queen, for the ladies of Ashkirk, Roland was in high spirits, for he had procured it through the influence of Madame de Montreuil, the governess of Magdalene; and, with his face all smiles, he sprung from his horse and entered the mansion.

Lady Jane disappeared from the window.

Then Redhall ground his teeth, and turned furiously away, for then he knew the happy lovers had met, and were together.

He hurriedly left his house, and descending the Blackfriars Wynd to the Archiepiscopal Palace, a fragment of which is still prominent by its large octagon tower which overhangs the Cowgate, he was admitted by the cardinal's armed vassals, or guards, at a low-browed doorway, surmounted by the coat armorial of Bethune and Balfour, over which was the broad-tasselled hat, which indicates a prince of the holy Roman empire.

There, at dinner, Redhall heard from his friend, the Abbot of Kinloss, the rumour which was then current in the city, that "the master of the king's ordnance had been most malapertly beset upon the Hiegait by a party of the Douglas traitors," from whom he had been only saved by a miraculous exertion of valour; for (as Buchanan relates) whatever happened in those days was invariably placed to the score of the Douglases.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE QUEEN'S MASQUE.

"Old Holyrood rung merrily
That night with wassail, mirth, and glee:
King James, within her princely towers,
Feasted the chiefs of Scotland's powers."—Marmion.

Attended by Ashkirk, who carried the tremendous sword before mentioned, and was arrayed in clothes somewhat sad-coloured, but in fashion between those of a valet and esquire, Roland, agitated by no ordinary fear and exultation, approached the illuminated hall of the palace—fear, because, despite every warning, the madcap noble insisted on accompanying him—and exultation, because Jane Seton and her companions were all to be there; though the haughty old countess had coldly declined, on the plea of age and ill health, which, in reality, was caused by dread of the risk so foolishly run by her son, whom she had implored, with tears, to seek shelter among his own vassals in Forfarshire, if he could not regain the court of England; for the frontiers were said to be closely watched.

With his doublet of cloth-of-gold, all dotted with seed pearls, a short purple velvet mantle, lined with yellow satin, dangling from his left shoulder, his gold aiguilettes, ruff, and sword, Roland had donned his best bravery, curled his dark locks, and pointed his moustaches with particular care on this auspicious evening. He carried his bonnet in his hand, as they traversed the crowded courts of the palace; and every minute he turned to look anxiously at Ashkirk; but his peculiar helmet, with its low peak, and the thick beard, which he had permitted to grow long for disguise, together with his bombastic doublet, completely transformed him, and he marched behind, bearing his six-foot rapier with imperturbable gravity.

The gloomy and antique courts, overlooked by grated windows and heavy roofs of stone, the cloistered passages and vast stone stairs of this ancient palace (which was burnt by the English), were lighted with numerous coloured lamps. The king's guard, wearing their blue bonnets, stockings and doublets of scarlet, slashed and faced with black, and armed with pike, poniard, and arquebuse, formed two glittering lines from the palace gate to the main entrance, and from thence along the passages to the head of the grand staircase, where stood their captain, Sir John Forrester of Corstorphine, a handsome and reckless-looking young gallant, clad in the uniform colours of the guard (a jerkin of scarlet velvet, richly lined with Venetian gold), and having twelve short aiguilettes on each shoulder of his trunk sleeves, which terminated in steel gauntlets, for he wore his gorget, and, being on duty, had an esquire near him, who carried his helmet.

His lieutenant, Louis Leslie of Balquhan, in the Garioch, was similarly arrayed; and both were remarkably elegant and military-looking young men.

"Holy mass!" said Forrester, looking down the long staircase, "here cometh Vipont, and his new valet with the outrageous sword!"

"'Fore God! he looks like one of the twelve peers of Charlemagne," said Leslie, with a loud laugh.

"Ho! Vipont, where the devil didst steal that ancient paladine?"

"'Tis the excalibur of King Arthur he carries," said Leslie.

"'Tis the lance of Urganda the Unknown!"

And the young men laughed aloud as their friend ascended the stair with his tall valet three paces behind. When he drew near, Forrester playfully made a pass with his sword at Roland's face, a second at his breast, and a third at his ruff, keeping him down the stair. The cannonier immediately unsheathed his rapier, and simply saying—

"Guard!" attacked his assailant in the same playful manner; and they fenced for more than a minute, while Louis Leslie held his sides, and laughed boisterously on seeing that Vipont found the impossibility of ascending, and was beginning to lose his temper.

The approach of Cardinal Beaton, who was surrounded by a large body of vassals wearing his own livery, put an end to this dangerous frolic; and though openly saluted by the king's soldiers, the cardinal's guards were secretly greeted with haughty and supercilious glances as they marched between the double ranks that led to the foot of the grand staircase, jostling as they ascended the train of Sir Thomas Clifford, the ambassador of England—a country which the cardinal abhorred, politically and religiously.

"Harkee, Forrester," said Roland, as he passed; "have the ladies of Ashkirk arrived yet?"

"Yes, some ten minutes ago. I was thunderstruck to see them!"

"Wherefore?"

"Hast thou not heard the rumour?"

"Of what?"

"That the Earl of Ashkirk is among us here, in the good town of Edinburgh."

"Twenty devils! dost thou say so?"

"'Tis a fact—on some treasonable mission from English Henry—at least, so sayeth my lord advocate."

Roland's blood ran alternately hot and cold.

"This demon advocate hears of everything!" said he to the earl, as they passed along the corridor. "My God! lord earl, if discovered——"

"Thou canst save me, perhaps," said the earl, who was himself a little alarmed.

"If not?"

"I can die then, with my sword in my hand," replied the earl, through his teeth. "But art thou not rich in the favour of this holiday king?"

"In that alone; otherwise I am poor enough, God wot."

"Thy father left thee——"

"His sword, his arms, and motto—nothing more. The first is here at my side—the second, I know by heart, having nought else whereon to grave them—gules, six annulets or."

"Tush! thou wilt build thee a castle some day, and put the crest above the gate."

"A swan'shead winged, rising from a ducal coronet—ha! ha! my father was a soldier, and poor, as we soldiers always are."

"'Tis a madcap adventure, this, I know right well," said the earl; "but I have armed me (sans leave) with your best corslet; and as I have a strong affection for my poor head (which is, in fact, of no use to any one save myself), they shall never possess it if my hands can keep it. If I am beset to-night—fiends! I would mow them all down with this long blade, like death with his scythe."

"St. Mary! use it warily," said Roland, laughing; "thou wilt punch a hole in the roof else."

"Thou lovest this King James well?"

"Love him—yes. I am ready to be cut in pieces for him to-morrow."

"Still thou art poor!"

"I have quite made up my mind to be rich at some future day, but when that day shall come, the Lord alone knows," replied Roland, without perceiving that the earl was covertly ridiculing his loyalty to James.

Notwithstanding his disguise, the whole air and bearing of Ashkirk were eminently noble. Though brave and passionate, he veiled a promptitude to anger under an outwardly impassible equanimity of temper; thus, while he could be at one time rash to excess, at another he could affect to be doggedly cool. He had innumerable excellent qualities of head and heart, which would have rendered him of inestimable value to such a prince as James V.; but his blind devotion to the faction of Angus (a faction of which we will treat more at large elsewhere) rendered them nugatory. Though considerably above the middle height, he was strong, elegant, and graceful. His nose was almost aquiline; his eyes were dark and piercing; his mouth was like that of a Cæsar; and his well-defined chin was indicative of that obstinacy of purpose, which is a leading feature of the Scottish character; and, like every gentleman of his time, he rode, fenced, and danced to perfection.

Roland sighed when he thought on all these lost good qualities, and bestowing a parting glance on the earl, who, as his valet, was obliged to leave him at the large gothic door of the hall, he passed through with the guests, who were ushered between a double line of pages and liverymen. The chamberlain of the household waved his wand, and announced—

"Sir Roland Vipont of that ilk, master of the king's ordnance."

In one little heart only, amid all the gay throng in that magnificent hall, did the name of the king's first favourite find an echo.

Two hundred wax-lights, in branching chandeliers, illuminated the high arched roof and lofty walls of the vast apartment, which was decorated with all that florid ornament and grandeur which we find in the palaces of James V. It was one of his new additions to the regal mansion which his uncle Albany, and his father, James IV., had first engrafted on the old monastic edifice of the Holy Cross. In honour of the queen, the walls were hung with arras composed of resplendent cloth-of-gold and silver, impaled with velvet, and the floors were covered with Persian carpets, which were among the gifts received by James V. from Francis I.*

* "Item. Foure suitts of rich arras hangings of 8 pices a suitt, wroght with gold and silke.

"Item. Foure suitts of hangings of cloth-of-gold-silver, impaled with velvett.

"Item. 20 Persian carpets, faire and large,"—See list of "gifts and propynes," Balfour's Annales, vol. i. pp. 266-7.

On one side the arras was festooned to reveal the refreshment-rooms which lay beyond, and the long tables, whereon lay every continental delicacy, with the richest wines of France and Italy, all of which the poorest Scottish artizan could procure duty free before the union. There, too, lay one of the queen's cupboards of silver plate, which was valued at more than a hundred thousand crowns, and watched by four of the royal guard, with their arquebuses loaded. Chairs covered with white velvet, brocaded with gold, and surmounted by imperial crowns, with sofas or settles of purple velvet, were ranged along the sides of these rooms; but the great hall was cleared of all obstruction for the dancers. The king's musicians, among whom were the four drummers, the four trumpeters, and three flute-players of the queen's French band, all clad in yellow satin, occupied the music gallery, and were just striking up king James's favourite march, The Battle of Harlaw, which was then very popular in Scotland, and remained so down to the time of Drummond of Hawthornden.

Amid the crowd of ladies, nobles, and splendidly-attired cavaliers, who thronged the vast length of that great apartment, seeming as one mass of velvet, silk, satin, and waving plumage of every hue, mingled with jewels that sparkled and lace that glittered, aiguilettes, swords and mantles, poniards and spurs, trains, ruffs, and knightly orders—surrounded by a sea of light, for the gleaming cloth-of-gold that covered the walls seemed nothing else—Roland looked anxiously, but in vain, for Lady Seton, as he walked straight towards the upper end, to present himself to the king and queen.

James leaned on the side of Magdalene's chair, conversing with her and the six privileged ladies of honour, who sat near her, three being on each side, occupying little stools, which were covered with blue velvet, and called tabourettes. Among this group were Madame de Montreuil, Mademoiselle de Brissac, and several noble Frenchwomen, who had known Vipont in France, and greeted with a smile of welcome.

James was magnificently clad in his favourite dress of white brocaded satin, slashed with rose-coloured silk. His four orders (the first in Europe) sparkled on his neck, and the band of his slouched blue bonnet shone like a zone with diamonds. His rich brown hair fell in ringlets on his ruff, and his dark hazel eyes were bright with gaiety and pride. He wore a short mantle, a long sword, sheathed in blue velvet, buff boots, and gold spurs. His white silk stockings were the first seen in Scotland, and the motto of the Garter encircled his left leg.

With that frankness which made him so charming to all, this handsome young monarch immediately approached Sir Roland, and met him half way.

"Here comes my Vipont!" said he; "ah! thou art a fine fellow, Roland. I would know thee for a noble, or a soldier, at a league's distance, by that inimitable bearing of thine."

Roland bowed profoundly; but the king took his hand, while many a fierce glance was exchanged between the various nobles who beheld the warm reception of this rising favourite.

"And so, my poor Vipont, thou wert attacked last night?"

"A mere joke, your majesty."

"Three daggers are no joke; but you were wounded?"

"Oh, a mere scratch with a pin."

"Dost suspect any one as having caused it?"

"Your majesty alone," replied Roland, with a peculiar smile at the group around the king; "for your favour is ever fatal to your friends."

"Doubtless," said James, with a darkening brow, "it hath been some of those accursed——" (Douglases he was about to say, but on seeing how quickly the colour mounted to Vipont's brow he said) "cloak-snatchers and cutpurses, who make their lair in the Burghmuir-woods, and elsewhere; but this must be looked to, sirs! such doings cannot be permitted in our burghs and landward towns."

They conversed in the old-court Scots, then "the language of a whole country" (says Lord Jeffrey in one of his able essays), "an independent kingdom, still separate in laws, character, and manners; a language by no means common to the vulgar, but the common speech of the whole nation in early life, and connected in their imagination, not only with that olden time which is uniformly conceived as being more simple, pure, and lofty than the present, but also with all the soft bright colours of remembered childhood and domestic affection."

Roland advanced at once towards the young queen, who gave him her hand to kiss, and received him with her brightest smile; for his face had become familiar to her in the king's train at her father's court.

"Ah! Monsieur le Maître d'Artillerie," she said, in a very sweet voice, "thou seemest quite like an old friend, and remindest me so much of my father's house at St. Germain-en-Laye—that pretty little hunting-lodge, near the Seine, where I was so happy—though not so happy as I am here—O Dieu me pardonne, no," she added, with covert glance at the king full of the utmost affection.

"My dear Madame de Montreuil," said Roland, in a low voice; "express for me to her majesty the thousand thanks I owe you and her for the favour shown to my friends."

This charming daughter of Queen Claud the Good was (as we have elsewhere said) only in her sixteenth year. Her fair brown hair, of which she had a great profusion, was most becomingly arranged in plaits and curls; her eyes were of the most beautiful blue; her small velvet cap, squared at the temples, and falling straight down each cheek, was blue, lined with satin, and edged with little pearls; her skirt was all of frosted cloth-of-gold, with a body of violet-coloured satin, embroidered also with gold, and having hanging sleeves of the richest lace lined with latticed ribbons; her gloves were highly perfumed; and around her neck was a gift of the Countess of Arran—a string of those large and snow-white pearls, that in the olden time were found in the burn of Cluny. She frequently sighed, as if with pain and weariness, and pressed a hand at times upon her breast.

Having now paid his devoirs to the young queen, Roland scrutinized the glittering throng for the fair form of her who, though perhaps less beautiful than the gentle Magdalene, was to him the queen indeed of all the ladies there.

"Vipond," said the king, coldly, as he drew Roland aside, "I know for whom thou art looking—for one whose brother is under sentence of forfeiture, the price of his head being at this moment written on the palace gates; for one who, I can assure thee, Sir Roland, should not have been under the roof-tree of Holyrood to-night, but for the kind wishes of her majesty and Madame de Montreuil, whose weak side I see thou hast attained, as any handsome gallant may easily do."

Roland's heart sank at these words.

"Alas! your majesty," he replied, in the same low voice, "are the houses of Douglas and Seton fallen so low, that a fair young being, who unites the blood of both in her pure and sinless heart is merely tolerated in Holyrood? Your royal sire, around whom so many brave men of both these names fell on that dark day at Flodden, foresaw not a time like this."

"There is truth in this, though I have the deepest cause for enmity to these families that ever king had to a subject," replied James, frankly. "The mere rebellion of Earl John of Ashkirk I might have forgotten, and that of his son I could have forgiven, but his leaguing with Englishmen never! And yonder stands my little rebel, Jane of Ashkirk; faith, she is beautiful—yea, as love herself!"

"I think her inferior to the queen."

"With all thy partiality? Rogue, thou flatterest me! A true lover should deem his lady-love inferior to none under God!"

"I have heard that she is as much famed for her beauty as her mother is for her salves and recipes," said a Hamilton, with a very unmistakeable sneer.

"Nay, Sir John of Kincavil," said the king, "thou art too severe to be gallant. I will swear that her hair is the finest I ever saw."

"And her teeth," said young Leslie of Balquhan.

"And her skin, which is like the finest velvet!" said Roland, simply.

"Ah, the devil! thou hast discovered that!" said the king—and several courtiers and soldiers laughed. "I must really see this fair one," he whispered; "she looks at Sir Roland. Ah! I see—'tis the unmistakeable glance of a woman at the man she loves. I find I am about to lose my master of the ordnance."

"Sir John of Kincavil," said Roland, in a low voice, as he passed that tall and brilliantly attired knight; "at noon to-morrow I will be waiting you at the Water Gate."

"I shall bring my best rapier," replied the other, with a bow.

"And a pot of the countess's salve," said Roland, with a dark smile, as they mutually bit their gloves in defiance, and passed on.

During the presentation of Roland to the queen and this colloquy with the king, Lady Jane Seton, who had not yet been presented to Magdalene, felt herself somewhat unpleasantly situated. Her companions, Marion Logan, and Alison Hume, had both disappeared in the crowd, the first with the well-known Norman Leslie, Master of Rothes, and the second with Sir John Forrester, of the king's guard; while, quite oblivious of the many hostile eyes around, the beautiful Sybil, with a large fan outspread before her, had thrown aside her usual sadness, and, exhilirated with the gaiety of the scene, was coquetting and smiling to a gay crowd of young cavaliers, to whose jests and gallantries she was replying, however, with the words alone, for her thoughts were concentrated on the tall valet, whom she had seen more than once at the opposite doorway, armed with his portentous rapier.

The hostile eyes were those of the Hamilton faction, which was always in the ascendant when the power of the Douglases were at a low ebb; and thus, marvelling how the sister of the exiled earl had found her way into their privileged and exclusive circle, cold, haughty, and inquiring glances met those of the timid Jane, whose cheeks began to crimson with anger. She had now lost the thoughtless Sybil; she saw not her lover; and amid that vast crowd found herself utterly alone. Margaret Countess of Arran, the ladies of Barncleugh and Evandale, Dalserf, and Drumrye, of Raploch, and others, all wives and daughters of knights and gentlemen of the hostile surname, were gazing stolidly upon her.

Cardinal Beaton, clad in his scarlet cope and baretta, with a gold cross upon his breast, was standing near her, conversing with a prelate in purple. This was the French Bishop of Limoges, in the Vienne, to whom, with his right forefinger laid on the palm of his left hand, he was impressively holding forth on "the damnable persuasions of the English heretics, whose perverse doctrines were spreading schisms and scandals in the holy church in Scotland." His large, dark, and thoughtful eyes, which were (inadvertently however) fixed on Jane, completed her confusion. The great and terrible cardinal was evidently speaking of her; she felt almost sinking when the crowd around fell back, and the king, with her lover, approached to her relief.

CHAPTER IX.
LA VOLTA.

"Yet is there one, the most delightful kind,
A lofty jumping, or a leaping round,
Where, arm in arm, two dancers are entwined,
And whirl themselves, with strict embracements bound,
And still their feet an anapest do sound:
An anapest is all their music's song,
Whose first two feet are short, and third is long."
Orchestra, by Sir J. DAVIES, 1596.

"May I present to your majesty," said Roland, "the Lady Jane Seton, the only daughter of brave Earl John of Ashkirk——"

"Who thrice saved my father's banner at Flodden—a right royal welcome to Holyrood, madame," said James, bowing gracefully and low, while all his hostility vanished as he gazed on the pure open brow and clear eyes of Jane; "but how is this, Sir Roland? thou oughtest to have introduced me to the lady, not the lady to me—the knight to the dame—the inferior to the superior. But hark! the music is striking 'Kinge Willyiam's Notte;' 'tis a round we are to dance—Lady Jane, wilt favour me—your hand for this measure; see, my Lord Arran is leading forth the queen."

And thus, almost before she had time for reflection, Jane found herself led to the head of that shining hall, the partner of King James, who had seen the hostile eyes that were bent upon her, had seen how their cold glances thawed into smiles at his approach, and resolved, by a striking example, to rebuke the malicious spirit he despised.

Roland finding himself anticipated, had now no desire to dance, and wishing to follow Jane with his eyes, retired among the spectators, whose hostile remarks more than once made him bite his glove and grasp the pommel of his poniard.

The dancers were performing the round, a species of country-dance, which continued in fashion while quadrilles were in futurity, and until the time of Charles I.

The king's principal favourite, James Hamilton, Earl of Arran (afterwards the Regent Duke of Chatelherault, knight of St. Michael), a stately noble, arrayed in dark violet-coloured velvet, becoming his years and grave diplomatic character, led forth the bright young queen. There were about thirty couples on the floor, all the gentlemen wearing high ruffs, short mantles, and immense long swords. The captain of the guards, and Leslie, his lieutenant, were with Alison Hume and Marion Logan. At a given signal, a burst of music came from the balcony, and the dancers began with that spirit and grace which belonged to the olden time, and then the whole hall vibrated with joy and happiness, brilliancy and praise; for if the king was the most finished cavalier in Scotland, Magdalene was assuredly the fairest young being that had ever worn its diadem.

The great Earl of Arran acquitted himself, however, very much to the queen's dissatisfaction; for this thoughtful statesman and favourite minister was confounded to find Lady Seton dancing with the king, and knew not what to think of this sudden and dangerous change in his sentiments towards the Douglas party.

Above the well-bred hum of modulated voices in the hall, a loud uproar of tongues in one of the courts below drew Roland to the windows more than once.

"By Heaven, they have discovered Ashkirk!" was his first thought. But the noise was occasioned by the king's jester, Jock Macilree, frolicking among the pages, lacqueys, and yeomen of the guard, with his cap-and-bells, bladder, and fantastic dress, exercising on the poor black page, Sabrino, that wit which, for the present, was excluded from the royal circle, as his rough jests, boisterous laughter, and grotesque aspect terrified and agitated the timid young queen.

"God keep you, Sir Roland Vipont," said a flute-like voice (with the usual greeting for which our more homely "How are you?" is now substituted). Roland turned, and bowed on encountering the grave face and keen dark eyes of the lord advocate.

"God keep you, Sir Adam," he replied, rather coldly, as may be easily supposed. "Understanding that you laboured under a severe illness, I did not expect the pleasure of meeting you here."

"As little did I expect the honour of meeting you, having heard that you had received an unfortunate wound."

"Ah! a scratch, as your lordship heard me tell the king," replied Roland, colouring with indignation; but the face of Redhall was impassible as that of a statue.

"Courtiers must expect such scratches at times."

"Under favour, my lord, I am no courtier."

"No, excuse me—better than a thousand courtiers—thou art a brave soldier."

Roland bowed.

"He flatters me for some end," thought he. There was a mixture of politeness and disdain in the manner of Redhall that was fast provoking Roland, for they had never spoken before, save once, more than a year ago, on the king's service. "Can this really be the villain who attempted to slay me," he reflected, "or hath the hostility of Ashkirk led his ears into error? I think not; for, strange to say, my wound smarted the moment he addressed me. Doubtless, had I been dead, it would have bled at his touch."

"You know, Sir Roland, 'tis my peculiar province to have the laws enforced. Have you any suspicions of who your assailant was?"

"Yes, the instigator of the assault is here to-night—yea, in this very hall!"

"His name?"

"Is written on the blade of my sword, where I am wont to keep such memorandums," replied Roland, with a glance which made the official start, change colour, and raise his eyebrows with an expression of surprise, as he turned away; for at that moment the king came up, the dance having ended, and the blood mounted to the temples of Redhall, for Lady Jane Seton was leaning on his arm.

"How now, lord advocate?" said the frank monarch, "why so grave and so grim? Thou art a sorely changed man now! Dost thou remember when we two were but halfling callants at our tasks together, in the barred chambers of David's tower, trembling under terror of old Gavin's ferrule—Gavin Dunbar; the poor prisoner of my uncle Albany?"

"And how oft we played truanderie together," replied the advocate, with a faint smile.

"To seek birds'-nests in the woods of Coates, throw kail-castocks down the wide lums of the Grassmarket, and fish for powowets in the Nor'loch, By St. Paul! those were indeed the happy days of guileless hearts; for, if we quarreled, we beat each other until we were weary, and thenceforward became better friends than ever. But how cometh it that thou, my gay cannonier, hast not had a measure to-night, and when no dance seems perfect without thee? Madame de Montreuil and some of our French demoiselles are anxious to dance la volta, which was all the rage at the fêtes of King Francis; but not one of our Scottish gallants knoweth the least about it save thyself."

"I am sure the Lady Jane does, and if she will favour me with her hand, and your majesty will spare her——"

"To thee only will I, for I long now to speak with mine own true love," and, with a graceful smile, James retired to the group that remained around the young queen and her dames of the tabourette.

The feeble health of Magdalene was apparent to all by the languor and alternate flushing and pallor of her face, after the trifling exercise of la ronde.

As Vipont led away Lady Jane, Redhall turned to conceal his sudden emotion. He faced a mirror and was startled at his own expression. Swollen like cords, the veins rose on his forehead like lines painted there. Jane had gone off without even bestowing on him a smile or a bow. She had quite forgotten his presence. He felt painfully that in her mind there would, doubtless, be a mighty gulf between himself and this gay young soldier, whose light spirit and chivalric heart were so entirely strangers to that burning jealousy and passionate desire of vengeance that struggled for supremacy with love. He passed a hand over his pale brow, as if to efface the emotion written there, and turned again with his wonted smile of coldness and placidity to address the person nearest him. This chanced to be no other than his gossip, the abbot of Kinloss, a peep-eyed little churchman, whose head and face, as they peered from his ample cope, so strongly resembled those of a rat looking forth from a hole, that no other description is required.

The ambassador of the great Charles V., a richly-dressed cavalier in black, on whose breast shone the gold cross of Calatrava and the silver dove of Castile, and whose scarf of scarlet and gold sustained a long spada of the pure Toledo steel, now appeared on the Persian-carpeted floor, leading Madame de Montreuil, a gay little Frenchwoman in white brocade, which stuck out all round her nearly six feet in diameter; Roland and Lady Seton were their vis-à-vis. All eyes were upon them, for the dance was so completely new, that none in Scotland had ever seen it, and the expectations were great as the music which floated through the oak-carved screen of the gallery seemed divine. The right arm of each cavalier was placed round the waist of his lady, while her right hand rested in his left, and was pressed against his heart; in short, la volta, which had thus made its appearance in old Holyrood on the night of the 20th May, in the year of grace 1537, was nothing more than the vault step, now known, in modern times, as the waltz.

There was a pause; the music again burst forth, rising and falling in regular time, and away went the dancers, round and round, in a succession of whirls, the little red-heeled and white velvet shoes of the ladies seeming to chase the buff boots and gold spurs of the gentlemen; round and round they went, rapidly, lightly, and gracefully. The tall Spanish ambassador and little Madame de Montreuil acquitted themselves to perfection; but Roland and Jane, to whom he had only given a few lessons during the preceding forenoon, perhaps less so; but none there observed it, and a burst of acclamation welcomed this graceful dance, which was now for the first time seen in Scotland, but which the prejudices of after years abolished till the beginning of the present century.

"What thinkest thou of this new spring, father abbot?" said Redhall, with a cold smile in his keen eyes.

"There is sorcery in it, by my faith there is!" whispered the abbot, lowering his voice and his bushy eyebrows; "there is sorcery in it, my lord advocate, or my name is not Robin Reid, abbot of Kinloss."

"Ha! dost thou think so?"

"Think so? Ken ye not that it hath been partly condemned by the parliament of Paris (whom we take for our model in all matters of justiciary), for it originated in Italy, from whence it was taken into France by the witches, who dance it with the devil on the Sabbath. Ah, 'tis well worth making a memorandum of," continued this meagre little senator, perceiving that Redhall was writing something in his note-book or tablets, behind the shadow of a window-curtain.

"But the Spaniard is a knight of a religious order," urged Redhall, pausing.

"A religious order!" repeated the testy abbot; "'tis such a cloister of religieux as our knights of Torphichen, who spend night and day in drinking and dicing, fighting anent their prerogatives, and debauching the country maidens on their fiefs and baronies. Were he not ambassador of Charles V., I would vote for having him under the nippers of Nichol Birrel; for if ever a sorcerer trod on Scottish ground, 'tis he. He dabbles in charms and philtres, and every night 'tis said his chimney in St. John's Close emitteth blue sparks, which are those of hell, as sure as I am Robin Reid, abbot of Kinloss. He and father St. Bernard are ever searching among the baser minerals for the spirit of the gold; at least so say the prebendaries of St. Giles's."

"Um! he is confessor of the Lady Ashkirk," muttered Redhall, making another memorandum.

"As we were talking of sorcery, what hath the high sheriff of Lothian done with your vassal, the forester of Kinleith, who buried a living cat under his hearthstone, as a charm against evil?"

"Ah," said Redhall, with a smile, "Birrel soon found such proofs against him, that he is sent to the justiciary court."

"Ho! ho!" said the little abbot, rubbing his hands; "Sanders Screw and his concurrents will bring mickle to light, or my name is not Robin——"

But here the advocate hurried abruptly away, for at that moment the dance ended; and flushed, heated, and fatigued, the two ladies were led away—De Montreuil, by her cavalier, into the adjoining apartment, and Lady Jane towards a staircase which descended from the hall to the level and grassy lawn, that lay between the palace and the foot of the craigs of Salisbury.

The green sides of the silent hills and rocky brows of those basaltic cliffs, which seem but the half of some vast mountain which volcanic throes have rent and torn asunder, were bathed in the splendour of the broad and cloudless moon; the palace towers and vanes stood forth in strong white light, while the curtain walls and cloistered courts were steeped in sable shadow. On the right were a cluster of small antique houses where some of the royal retainers dwelt, and where Roland had his temporary domicile. This was called St. Anne's Yard; on the left, apparently among the hills, two red lights were shining. One was from an ancient mansion at the foot of Salisbury craigs, where Robert, abbot of the Holy Cross, dwelt; the other was from the illuminated shrine of St. Antony's Hermitage.

Several revellers were lounging on the green sward in the moonlight, or sitting on the carved stone benches that were placed against the palace wall, and the lovers took possession of the most remote, where the south garden of the king bordered the burial-ground of the abbey.

"Jane," said Roland, as he gazed fondly on her pure brow and snowy skin, which seemed so dazzlingly white in the clear moonlight; "your smiles to-night have done more to raise the Douglas cause than twenty thousand lances. How my heart leaps! I seem to tread on air! I knew well that James had but to see you, to appreciate your worth and beauty. He has done so; and now old dame Margaret of Arran, and all the Hamiltons of Cadyow and Clydesdale, will be ready to burst their boddices and die of sheer vexation."

"But if Archibald should be discovered——"

"Chut! dost think that James would dance with the sister over-night and decapitate the brother in the morning?"

"The king never once referred to the frightful position in which he is placed."

"He is much too courtly to do so. But say, art thou not happy, dearest?"

"Happy? with a proclamation on this palace-gate offering a thousand merks for my brother's head! Oh, Roland, Roland! I would justly merit contempt to be so. I came not hither to rejoice, or with any other intention than to beg his life and pardon from the king. The figures of a dance were certainly not the place to prefer such a solemn request—Mother of God! no; and, as my mother says, but with a different meaning, I am yet biding my time. My heart sickens at the splendour of that glittering hall, when I bethink me that the gallant earl, my brother, whose plume should have waved among the loftiest there, is now the companion of lacqueys and liverymen—the retainers of our actual enemies and oppressors—the butt, perhaps, of their coarse mirth and ribald jests, and fearing to repel them with the spirit he possesses, lest he should be discovered and unmasked by those whose innate hatred of the Seton and the Douglas require not the additional incentive of King James's gold."

"It was, I own, a madcap adventure, his coming here to-night; but thou knowest that he is headstrong as a Highland bull. However, Lintstock, my servant, a wary old gunner of King James IV., is with him, and will see he is neither insulted nor discovered."

"Anything is better than suspense," said Jane, sobbing. "Would that the king were here."

"I will bring him if you wish it," said Roland, rising and taking both her hands in his; "he would come in a moment, for to him a lady's message is paramount to one from the parliament. But would you say that the earl is in Scotland—here among us in Edinburgh?"

"I would, Roland—yes, for such is my confidence in the honour and generosity of the king."

"'Tis not misplaced, for James is alike good and merciful; but 'twere better to ask his French bride, whom he loves too well to refuse her anything—even to become the ally of his uncle, English Henry; and certes! the pardon of a gallant Scottish noble is no great boon to crave of a generous Scottish king."

Roland started, for at that moment the voice of James was heard at one of the open windows of the hall just above them.

"Vipont! Sir Roland Vipont!" he said.

"I am here, at your grace's service," replied Sir Roland, raising his bonnet.

"Wilt thon favour us a moment? here, my lord the bishop of Limoges and I have a dispute as to whether our old gun of Galloway, Mollance Meg, or the Devil of Bois le Duc, carry the largest ball. I say Meg; the bishop says the Devil; and as 'tis thy office to know all points of gunner-craft, come hither, if that fair dame will do us the honour to spare thee for one moment, for we have laid a hundred lions Scots on the matter."

Loth to leave Jane, and anxious to please the king, Roland hesitated, till she said—

"Obey the king, and I will wait your return; luckily, yonder is my cousin Sybil and Louis Leslie of the king's guard."

Roland pressed her hand, sprang up the flight of steps, and the moment he was gone Lady Jane found some one standing at her side.

She turned, and encountered the sombre figure of Redhall, the sad glance of whose piercing eyes ran like lightning through her veins; and she trembled at the double reflection that she was almost alone, and that he might have overheard their dangerous conversation concerning her brother.

CHAPTER X.
LOVE AND ABHORRENCE.

"Ah! who can e'er forget so fair a being?
Who can forget her half retiring sweets?
God! she is like a milk-white lamb that bleats
For man's protection."

When Jane thought for a moment of how long this great political inquisitor and public prosecutor had been the feudal foe and legal oppressor of her mother's kinsman and her father's house, and that he had but recently (as she had gathered from her brother) meditated or attempted the assassination of her lover,—as he had previously done the chief of the Maclellans,—she felt her whole heart recoil from him as from a serpent, with terror and abhorrence. Nevertheless, finding that Sybil and her cavalier had disappeared among the groups of revellers who dotted the moonlit lawn, she had sufficient tact to veil her inward repugnance and suspicions under an outward politeness, and to incline her head slightly when he bowed and assumed a position for conversing by leaning his handsome and stately figure against the stone arm of the sofa, which was formed of a wyvern with its wings outspread.

He was dazzled by the splendour of her beauty, which the unwonted magnificence of her attire had so much enhanced; and remained silent and embarrassed, till Jane said—

"I did not imagine that so grave a man as Sir Adam Otterburn would have much to amuse him among these gay frivolities."

"Nor have I, madam, for my mind is usually filled with thoughts of deeper and more vital import than the comely fashion of a ruff or mantle, or the curling of a pretty ringlet. I came but to steal a few moments from my unhappy destiny; and I swear by my faith, that to see you dancing with the king was the only tranquil joy I have had for many a day. Ah! madame, you excelled yourself; you outshone them all, as yonder moon outshines the stars around it!"

Lady Jane bowed again, and glanced uneasily at the staircase; there was no appearance of Roland, and knowing intuitively the dangerous topic to which the speaker was inclining, she trembled for what he might say next, for Redhall was not a man to dally much when he had any end in view.

He had seen her dancing with Roland Vipont; he had heard those whispers by which the whole court linked their names together as lovers, yet an incontrollable folly or fatality led him blindly on.

"Notwithstanding that we were such good friends when last we met," said he, in his soft and flute-like voice, while bending his fine dark eyes on the green sward, "you have shunned me so much of late, Lady Jane, that I have had no opportunity of begging your permission to renew that conversation in which I presumed first to say—that—that——"

"What?——"

"That I loved you"—his voice sank to a whisper at the abruptness of the declaration.

"Oh! Sir Adam; thou followest a phantom."

Redhall sighed sadly and bitterly.

"There was a time, dearest madam, when I did not think so," he continued slowly and earnestly—"a time when I almost flattered myself that you loved me in return."

"I!" said Jane, faintly.

"Thou," he replied, impressively, fixing upon her his piercing eyes with an expression which fascinated her. "It was in the garden of my lord the abbot of Holyrood, at his mansion near yonder craigs, some nine or ten months ago, about the vesper time; it was a glorious evening, and a broad yellow harvest-moon was shining in the blue heavens, among golden-coloured clouds; the air was pure, and laden with perfume and with the fragrance of yonder orchards, and these fields covered with the grain of a ripe harvest. Abbot Robert had given a supper to Henrico Godscallo, the ambassador who came to offer as a bride Mary of Austria or Mary of Portugal to King James. Oh! thou canst not have forgotten it. We walked together in the garden, and you did me the honour to lean upon my arm. I bent my head towards you, and your beautiful hair touched my forehead. My heart beat like lightning—every vein trembled! Oh! I have never forgotten that night—that hour—the place—the time! You seemed good and kind, merry and gentle with me. I was on the point of declaring myself then—of saying how I loved you—how I worshipped you; and your charming embarrassment seemed to expect the avowal; when the countess's page—yonder black devil with the rings in his ears—approached, and the spell was broken. My God! the same moment, the same soft influences and adorable opportunity have never come again!"

"My lord advocate, you can plead ably for yourself," replied Jane, coldly.

"My soul is in the cause at issue," said he, looking at her anxiously; "'tis very true, I am very miserable. I am as one in a dream. I love the air she breathes—the ground she treads on." He was speaking to himself. In the very depth of his thoughts he forgot that she was beside him.

"My lord, my lord, 'tis the rhapsody, this, of Sir David Lindesay, or some such balladier."

"Nay, nay; oh! do not mock me. It seemeth as if my love for you is not the common love of this cold and utilitarian world; for if ten ages rolled over our heads, I feel sure that my love would be the same; nor time, nor circumstance, not even despair, can overcome it. Oh! lady, believe me, there is no other man loves thee as I do."

Jane thought of Roland, but either the fury or the profundity of the speaker's passion awed her into silence, for she made no reply; and thereby encouraged, he continued—

"Pride and ambition are strong within me; but, believe me, my breast never had a passion so deep, so pure, as my love for thee. There is a silent strength in it that grows out of its very hopelessness. Canst thou conceive this? Every glance, and smile, and word of thine I have treasured up for years, and in solitude I gloat over them, even as a miser would over his gold and silver."

Covered with confusion, and trembling excessively, Jane made an effort to withdraw.

"Beautiful tyrant!" said he, haughtily and firmly, as he stepped before her, "thou knowest thy power, and findest a cruel pleasure in its exercise; thy lips are full of pride as thine eyes are full of light, and with the very smile of a goddess thou repayest the homage of all but me. Yet with all these charms I can conceive that no passion can dwell within thee, for thou art cold and impassible as the marble of that fountain which sparkles in the moonlight—vain as vanity herself, and selfish as Circe. While weaving thy spells thou thinkest not of me, or the fatal power of thy beauty, which is destroying me."

"Holy Mary!" said Jane, in terror at his growing excitement; "did I tell thee to love me? Am I to blame for this unruly frenzy?"

"Oh! my passion is very deep," he continued, clasping his hands, and fixing his dark eyes on the stars. "My God! my God! It besets me—it transfixes and transforms me into the object I love—our existence seems the same."

"What!" cried Jane, laughing, "hast thou transformed thyself into me?"

Redhall did not anticipate having his high-sounding sophistry so acutely criticized; he started as if a viper was beside him, and fixing upon her his eyes, which were fired with a strange mixture of sternness and ardour, he said in his slow calm voice—

"Strong and serene in thy boasted purity and pride, thou laughest at me; and by that laugh," he continued, in a hoarse and bitter voice, "I know that all is over with me; but beware thee, proud woman—for love and illusion may die fast together."

"Sir Adam Otterburn," replied Jane, haughtily, attempting again to retire, "for the last time I tell thee, that death were a thousand times preferable to thy love! Art thou not the sworn foe of my brother?"

"But not thine," replied the advocate, with a lowering brow; "make me not that, I pray thee." His heart glowed alternately with love and fury at her unmoved aspect. His self-importance was wounded by her apathy; and his galled pride was fast kindling a sentiment of hatred in his heart—a hate that grew side by side with his love—if such a state of heart can be conceived. "Thy brother's enemy?" he repeated, with a bitter laugh; "if I were indeed so much his enemy, I might astonish the Lord Arran and his Hamiltons to-night."

"My God!" thought Jane, as her heart sank within her; "he has overheard us, and learned our terrible secret!"

Alarmed by the ghastly expression of his face, which was white as marble, all save the jetty moustaches and the eyebrows that met over his finely-formed nose, Jane glanced anxiously towards the stair which ascended to the hall, and Sir Adam observed it. A smile curled his pale lips, but the fire of the most ferocious jealousy kindled in his dark and deep-set eyes.

"I know for whom thou art looking," said he, grasping her by the arm; "for yonder brainless fop, who thinks of nothing but his ruff and his plume and the glory of being master of the king's ordnance—a wretched worm, whom the heat of our Scottish wars hath nourished into a gilded butterfly, and who dares to cock his bonnet in our faces with the bearing of a landed baron."

"Gramercy!" said Jane, waggishly; "I knew not that a butterfly wore a bonnet."

"Hah!" he muttered, fiercely, "the lover who is once laughed at is lost!"

The grasp of his strong hand compressed her slender arm like a vice; there was an oath trembling on his lips, and fury flashing in his eye, for love and hatred, as they struggled in his heart, made him both selfish and savage.

"Oh Mother of Mercy!" murmured Jane; "away ruffian! or I will shriek that thou art a vampire!"

At that moment the shadow of a tall figure, armed with a prodigious sword, was thrown by the moon along the velvet sward; and Redhall was prostrated by a blow on the ear, dealt by a ponderous and unsparing hand. Jane turned with terror, and saw her brother, the earl, spring back and disappear under the cloister arches of the abbey; while, at the same moment, Roland Vipont leaped down stairs from the hall, taking four steps at once.

"A thousand pardons, dearest Jane, and a thousand more," he exclaimed, drawing her arm through his, and leading her away; "but this tiresome argument concerning old Mollance Meg and the Devil of Bois le Duc (plague take them both!) occupied more time than I had the least idea of; and my lord the bishop of Limoges hath lost on the matter a hundred silver livres, which the king means to give the Franciscans to-morrow. But thou art not angry with me?"

"Angry? oh, no! I know thou art sufficiently punished, minutes being ages when absent from me."

"Ah, thou art right, for my sojourn in Paris was a very eternity."

"Then let us join the dancers, and be merry while we may," said she, with a gaiety which was scarcely assumed, for she was but too happy to hurry him into the hall, without observing the lord advocate, who, stunned by the effects of the blow, lay for a second or two unseen, and somewhat ignominiously, upon a parterre of rose-bushes, from whence he arose with fury in his heart, and his sword in his hand, but to find himself alone—a fortunate circumstance, as he would infallibly have slain the first man near him. He adjusted his ruff and doublet, brushed a speck or two from his trunk breeches, and shaking his clenched hand, said hoarsely, under his moustaches—

"Either Roland Vipont or the Earl of Ashkirk dishonoured me by that blow. Be it so—I have them all in my grasp! Revenge is a joy for gods and demons, and, by the Holy Rood, I will be avenged, and fearfully, too!"

By this time the ball was nearly over, for the good people of those days had not yet conceived the idea of turning day into night; and as the king and court were to depart on a grand hawking expedition on the morrow, and, as usual, had to be all up with the lark and the eagle, the bell-clock of the neighbouring abbey church had barely tolled twelve when the dancing concluded, and the guests began to retire in rapid succession, each paying their adieux to the king and queen as they departed, and paying them with a solemnity and parade such as one may see nowhere now, save in Old Castile.

"Take courage, my sweet flower, Jane, for now is your most fortunate time to prefer to Magdalene your request that Ashkirk may be pardoned. She will never, by refusal, send away her principal guest ungraciously," said Roland, as, hurrying through the festooned arras from the refreshment-room, where they had been tarrying for a time, they joined the stream of departing revellers who promenaded round the hall, and approached their royal host and hostess somewhat like a glittering procession. James and Magdalene were standing at the head of the hall, just as when the entertainment began. His bonnet was in his right hand, his left rested on his sword, and was hidden by his short mantle; the queen leant on his arm, and he bowed low to each of the nobles, and lower still to their brocaded ladies. The Scottish and French ladies of honour were grouped a little behind, all beautiful, young, nobly born, and brilliantly attired.

"If she procures me this boon," said Jane, "I will say nine prayers for her at the altar of St. Magdalene to-morrow, when we go to St. Giles's. Of course you go with us to hear father St. Bernard's oration on the patron saint of the city?"

"Wherever you go I shall go; but the hour?"

"One o'clock; but you will come at noon and see me?"

"Plague on it, I have a meeting."

"A meeting?" said Jane, anxiously.

"Oh, a duty, dearest—an indispensable duty to perform," said Roland, remembering his brief challenge to Kincavil.

"What duty is this, of which I hear now for the first time?"

"To see those fifty-six pieces of cannon which King Francis hath sent to King James; they are to be landed from Sir Robert Barton's ships, and conveyed to the Gun-house to-morrow. A most important duty, Jane; they are all beautiful brass culverins, royal and demi; 'twould do your heart good to see them!"

"Ah, if James and the queen should refuse me this!—we are close to them now."

"Refuse you? they will refuse nothing that is asked in a voice so soft and so gentle."

As they drew near the royal group, Jane felt her heart almost failing her; she clung to Roland's arm, and watched the expression in the face of Magdalene. She seemed now very pale; her eyes were humid and downcast; gentleness and languor pervaded her beautiful features; she was overcome with lassitude and sinking with fatigue—the weakness incident to that hereditary disease which fast and surely was preying upon her fragile form. The proud nobles, to whom the king spoke occasionally as he bade them adieu, received his courtly attentions as a tribute due to their patriotic and lofty ancestry, and their proud bearing seemed to say, plainly, "I am George Earl of Errol, Constable of Scotland," or "I am William Earl of Montrose, and come of that Graeme whom King David knighted when the Stuarts were but thanes of Kyle and Strathgryfe;" for it was an age when the king was only a great baron, and every baron or laird was a king and a kaiser to boot.

As they approached, Roland could perceive that cold glances welcomed Jane Seton from the ladies of honour, who were all enemies of her house, and whose fathers and brothers enjoyed many fiefs of the Douglas lands and fortresses, defacing the crowned heart on their battlements and substituting the three cinque-foils of Hamilton; but, to crown all and increase the poor girl's perturbation, she perceived Redhall standing near the king, seeming, with his dark figure and pallid visage, like her evil genius, cold, impassible, and dignified as if the startling episode we have just related had never taken place.

"Ah ma bonne!" they heard Magdalene say to Mademoiselle de Brissac, "how tired I am, and excessively sick of all this parade!"

"Now be of good heart, my sweet Jane," said Roland, pressing her arm, "and prefer your request firmly; for Madame de Montreuil has explained to the queen all that we wish."

When she drew near the beautiful young girl that leaned on James's arm, instead of bowing and passing on, Jane sunk on one knee, and said—

"I beseech your grace to crave my brother's pardon from our sovereign lord."

"I know that he cannot refuse me anything," said the young queen, with girlish simplicity, as she looked up lovingly and trustingly in the king's face, while stretching out her hand to Jane. The latter pressed to her beautiful lips that fair little hand which was dimpled like that of a child, and the king was about to speak (and benignly, too, for every feature of his fine face said so), when Magdalene, overcome by her recent illness, by the close atmosphere of the hall, which was perfumed to excess, and by the glitter of innumerable wax-lights, uttered a faint cry, and fell backwards into the arms of Mademoiselle de Brissac.

Consternation and concern were visible in every face; the queen was borne away senseless, and James hastily followed her almost inanimate figure; the crowd behind pressed on, and Roland and Jane were carried before it. Redhall smiled, and said to the abbot of Kinloss, in James's hearing—

"Did I not tell you, my lord, how rash it was to have the Lady Seton here?"

"Agnus Dei! yea, verily, for her mother deals in salves and philtres; and there was sorcery at work just now, Sir Adam, or my name is not Robin Reid."

These words made a deep impression on the few who were meant to hear them, but chiefly on the king, who darted an angry glance after Jane Seton, and turned on his heel.

At the palace gate the discomfited pair met Marion Logan, Alison Hume, and Sybil Douglas, who were all muffled in their hoods and mantles, and surrounded by an escort of serving-men, armed with steel caps and bucklers, swords, and wheel-lock dagues, and who bore lighted links. A few cavaliers with whom they had danced (Roland among them, of course) accompanied them, and in this order they hurried home on foot, for wheeled vehicles were as yet unknown in the kingdom.

Terrified by the practical jokes of the king's jester and the din of his bladder and bells, Sabrino had long since fled the precincts of the court, and taken refuge in his usual sleeping-place (a small alcove near the door of the countess's apartment), which he shared in common with a large black stag-hound.

"Come early to-morrow, dear Roland, and we will talk over the adventures of the last few hours," whispered Jane, as she bade adieu to her lover; "alas! father St. Bernard warned me against going to-night; but I have gone, and what has been the result?"

CHAPTER XI.
SWORDBLADES AND SALVE.

"Quhen Marche with variand windis wes past,
And Apryll had with her silver shouris
Tane leif of Nature with an orient blast;
And lusty May, that mother is of flouris.
Had maid the birdis to begyn their houris,
Amang the tender odouris red and quhyt,
Quhais harmony to heir it was delyt."
DUNBAR'S Thrissal and the Rois, 1503.

The next morning was bright and beautiful; the birds sang merrily in the old orchards of the palace and the older oak trees of the abbey of Sancte Crucis. The sunlight, as it poured over the dark craigs of Salisbury, and through chasms and fissures in their rocks, shone upon the green valleys below like a golden haze, and tipped with yellow light the grey masses of the strong old city. The fresh grass and the open flowers loaded the soft west wind perfume, and gladdened the hearts of the happy hawking party, which left the palace an hour after sunrise, and all gaily mounted, with bugles sounding, horses prancing, plumes waving, and accompanied by a dozen of falconers in the royal livery, running on foot, with perches of hawks slung on their shoulders.

As they rode eastward, by the base of Arthur's Seat, and past the green and mossy bank where, among the clambering wild roses, stood the little pillared well, dedicated in the old time "to the good Saint Margaret, queen of Scotland, and mother of the poor," and pursued thence their merry route towards the Loch of Restalrig, which lay amongst its rocks and sedges, like a lake of blue and gold, Roland was compelled, by the cold manner of the king, to retire from his side. He saw with pain that the clear and benevolent eye of the monarch was clouded—that anger, unmistakeable anger, lowered upon his open brow. The inquiries of Roland for the health of the queen were received so haughtily, and replied to so briefly, that, with a heart full of wrath and pride, before the first heron had been raised from among the rushes and water-lilies to do battle in the air, he turned abruptly away, and resigned his place to Sir Adam Otterburn of Redhall, whose face was lighted with an indescribable smile, as he pressed forward to the side of the young king.

The bells of the Carmelites, on the north side of the city, of the Dominicans on the south, of the Franciscans in the Grassmarket, and other large establishments, were all ringing for morning mass, when the cavalcade returned; and Roland, sick at heart, and dispirited, without bidding adieu to the king (who with his company passed on to prayer in the abbey church), dismounted at the door of his own lodgings, and throwing the bridle of his horse to his servant, demanded breakfast, for he was in too furious a mood to attend mass. He was anxious to see Lord Ashkirk, but, encouraged by his disguise, and trusting implicitly in the old domestics of the house, that rash noble had gone to visit his family.

Breakfast was prepared and laid on the table by Roland's servant, Linton Stock, whose name had been professionally shortened into Lintstock. He was an old, iron-visaged culvernier, of King James IV.'s days (as the countess would say), hard-featured, wiry-haired, weather-beaten, and empurpled with hard drinking. It was his constant boast that he had levelled one of Borthwick's Brass Sisters on the field of Flodden, and thrawn Mow at the siege of Tantallan. Like Hannibal, this veteran had only one eye, for Mow (a famous cannon of Scottish antiquity) lost a piece of her muzzle every time she was discharged; and one of the said pieces deprived Lintstock of his dexter eye, which, as he said, ever after saved him the trouble of closing it when taking aim, or adjusting the quoins under the breach of a culverin. For wages he had all his master's cast cloaks, doublets, and breeches; and being borne on the muster-roll of the king's gunners, his pay, which was somewhere about three-halfpence Scots per diem made him independent of all mankind.

On the anniversary of a Scottish victory this one-eyed patriot invariably got himself uproariously drunk, and broke the windows of the English ambassador: on the anniversary of any of our defeats he was invariably ditto from vexation; and as these alternate sources of joy and grief occurred pretty often, the ancient warrior was seldom long sober.

Neither Roland's auger at the king, nor his intended combat with Kincavil, prevented him from making an excellent breakfast on broiled fish, cold meat, and bright brown ale. Before setting down he selected the strongest and longest of some half-dozen swords that hung in a corner. It was a large double-edged weapon, with an ample hilt of steel; the blade, being inlaid, was one of those called damasquinêe, from the Asiatic art just then introduced into Europe by the famous Benvenuto Cellini. It was a beautiful rapier, which he had taken in battle from an Italian cavalier when serving under John Stuart Duke of Albany, when, at the head of ten thousand French men-at-arms, that gallant prince invaded the kingdom of Naples. Roland never used it save on important and desperate occasions, and remembering that Kincavil was an able swordsman, he took it down and handed it to Lintstock to polish; a duty which he performed in silent precision, with the aid of an old buff belt. Thereafter, with true military coolness, he tore a shirt into bandages, and prepared some lint against his master's return.

"How many pots hast thou of that rubbish Lady Ashkirk sent me?—the salve, I mean," asked Roland, with his moustaches whitened over by ale froth.

"Three, sir."

"Dost thou know the laird of Kincavil's lodging?"

"Aboon the Tron—yes."

"Then leave the pots there to-day, with my best commendations; for, by my faith, he will need them all."

Lintstock continued to rub, and watched the polish of the sword.

"Thou knowest I expect two friends to supper, and must trust to thy ingenuity, for, 'fore God! I have not a testoon in the world."

"Be easy, Sir Roland, I'll provide supper for the king himself, if he come, and plenty Bordeaux to boot, forbye and attour the Rochelle," replied Lintstock, with a nod and a knowing wink of his solitary eye.

The moment breakfast was over, Roland crossed himself and wiped his moustaches. Receiving his sword, he placed it in his belt on the left side, hung a long armpit dagger on the right, stuck his bonnet rather over the right eye, clasped his doublet carefully to the throat, and giving his curls a last adjust, for he was somewhat of a beau, whistled the "March to Harlaw," as he issued forth, with the fullest intention of perforating the laird of Kincavil like a pepperbox.

He passed the long and irregular façade of the palace, the strongly-grated windows of which were glittering in the bright sunshine that bathed the varied architecture of its courts and towers. Clad in their red doublets slashed with black, and wearing caps and gorgets of steel, the sentinels of the king's guard were leaning on their heavy arquebuses, the rests or forks of which were slung in their sword-belts; and they stood in the bright blaze of the sun, as listlessly and still as the banner of the red lion that waved above the gate. Beyond the precincts of the palace, the street, which is overlooked by gable-ended houses, in the old Flemish taste, becomes much wider. He turned to the right, and passed through the Watergate, the most eastern barrier of Edinburgh. This strong and venerable porte obtained its name because the king's horses were led out that way every morning to water, in a large pond near it. On quitting this ivied and grass-tufted archway, Roland found the open space allotted for tennis-players lying on his right hand, the horsepond lay on his left, and before him the verdant Calton reared up its lonely ridge.

The whole place was then quite solitary enough for such a meeting, though now the site of the pond, the tennis court, and even the hill itself, are covered with houses.

Roland's anger was somewhat increased by perceiving that his adversary was already on the ground, and whiling away the time by skimming flat stones across the pond.

"Ah! thou villanous Hamilton," thought he, "how I long to be at thee! My sword is like a razor, my wrist is like steel, this morning, and I will curry thee in such fashion, that thou shalt tremble at the name of Jane Seton or a salve-pot ever after."

"God be with you, Sir Roland; you have not kept me waiting long," said Kincavil, bowing with cold politeness.

"I am glad of it."

"You have been at mass this morning with the king, I think?"

"No, faith!" said Roland, knitting his brows as he thought of the hawking party. "I feared there would be no room for me among so many Hamiltons, panders, and parasites."

"Then I hope you said prayers at home," replied Kincavil, whose eyes flashed as he unsheathed his sword.

"As usual; but I forgot to bring for your use a pot of that notable salve of which you made a jest last night."

"Keep it for yourself, Sir Roland—guard."

"Come on, then—you will have it."

They saluted each other, the bright blades clashed, and they both engaged with great address and skill. Clad in blue velvet and gold, Kincavil was both strong and handsome; but as a swordsman considerably inferior to Roland, who had studied his thrusts at the court of Francis I.; and thus, three passes had scarcely been exchanged on the right, when he made a sudden appel on the left, and quickly disengaging to the right again, passed his sword completely through the body of his adversary, who bent forward over it, and sank upon his knees. He made a futile effort to rise, but the moment Roland's blade was withdrawn, sank prostrate on the grass, with the blood gushing from his wound.

"Ask me not to beg my life, Sir Roland," said Hamilton in a broken voice, "for I will rather die than condescend so far."

"Thou art a gallant man, Sir John Hamilton; and may the devil take me if I make any such request; but methinks I have taught you the danger of jesting with the names of noble ladies."

"My Heaven! yes. I am bleeding fast; and yet, if the Lady Ashkirk doth really make that precious salve," said Kincavil, with true Scottish obstinacy, "tell her, for God's love to send me a pot thereof, for I am enduring the torments of hell!" and he reclined against a stone, pale and motionless, with his beautiful doublet of blue velvet drenched in blood.

Roland carefully wiped and sheathed his favourite Italian sword with the air of a man who was used to such encounters; and after vainly endeavouring to staunch the crimson torrent, he hastened to the Watergate, from whence he sent the under-warders to look after the wounded man, and then walked up the street towards the house of the countess, as if nothing had happened.

A thrust or so through the body was a mere nothing in those days.

CHAPTER XII.
EDINBURGH IN 1537

"Installed on hills, her head near starry bowers,
Edina shines amid protecting powers;
Religious temples guard her on the east.
And Mar's strong towers defend her on the west;
For sceptres nowhere stands a town more fit,
Nor where a queen of all the world might sit;
Be this thy praise, above all be most brave,
No man did e'er defame thee but a slave."
ARTHUR JOHNSTONE, 1680.

The Countess Margaret was attired in her great capuchon of James the Fourth's days; it was turned back above the apex of her stupendous coif, and flowed over her shoulders. Her lofty figure and towering head-dress completely dwarfed Jane and her companions, whose triangular velvet hoods were of a less imposing form. The whole family and household were about to set forth for St. Giles's, and Ronald met the procession in the archway. The old lady was looking unusually grave, for that morning she had put on her stockings with the wrong side outwards—an infallible omen of misfortune. We have said the whole household, for in addition to several female attendants and the black page, there were Gilzean Seton, the countess's esquire, or seneschal, and six or eight tall fellows in steel bonnets or corslets, armed with Jedwood axes and wheel-lock pistols—a new weapon, which had just been introduced from Italy, and was esteemed one of the wonders of mechanism. These were all of iron, butted like the pommel of a poniard, and were fired by the rapid revolution of a wheel against a piece of sulphuret of iron, which was secured like the flint of a modern musket, but had the cock on that side where of late we have seen the pan.

Gilzean and his companions were all clad in the countess's livery (rather worn-looking certainly), but all having on their sleeves the coronet and the green dragon of the Setons, spouting fire.

The earl, still disguised, and bearing his long sword, marched among them; but by their whispers and subdued manner in his presence, it was evident to Roland that the secret identity of his new valet was known to them all.

"Rash lord!" thought he; "if one of these should prove a traitor."

"I see reproach in your eye," said the earl, in a low tone, and with an acuteness that somewhat startled Roland. "But think you that my father's roof ever sheltered a slipper-helmet so pitiful that he would betray his son? I trow not. Nay, nay, Sir Roland, the vassals of our house are all good men and true."

"And such my husband ever found them," said the countess, looking with a proud smile from her tall son to his stately followers; "for the fathers of mair than one of these my buirdly lads died by his bridle-rein under King James the Fourth, of gude and gallant memorie."

"Now, Sir Roland," said Lady Jane, as she took his proffered arm, with a smile on her coral lip; "you come not by stealth to visit us to-day. The king and his displeasure——"

"May go to the——"

"Fie! I hope thy debarcation of cannon is over, and that thou art free to bask in my smiles for the rest of the day?"

"It is over," replied Roland, avoiding the eye of the earl, who perceived a sword-thrust in his doublet, and a rent in his velvet mantle, where none had been visible the day before; "and to-morrow I am to show them all to the queen, and must, with my own hands, fire off the great gun Meg for her behoof. By Jove! I will carry off the cock from St. Anthony's spire at Leith!"

"And what of this dainty dame," said the Countess, as they proceeded up the street; "hast heard how her health is this morning?"

"I have not; but if I am to judge from the unwonted reserve of the king, I should deem her poorly enough."

"His reserve?" said the earl, scornfully; "and thus he vents his petulance on a gallant knight, as he would upon his pimps of the house of Arran—those rascally Hamiltons," he added, with eyes flashing fire, "who, gorged to their full with the plunder of our kinsmen, and building unto themselves strengths from which even our valour can never drive them—castles and towers, to which the palaces of Lochmaben and Linlithgow are but huts and sheilings."

"Oh! hush, ye unwise bairn," said the countess; "hush, and take your place among the serving-men, lest we be seen conversing, and so excite suspicion. Let us not talk harshly of this puir French stranger, whom, father St. Bernard tells me, hath a deadly disease, which preyeth upon her vitals, and will, ere long, bear her to the grave."

"Disease!" exclaimed Jane and her companions, with surprise; "and what is this disease?"

"'Tis a catarrh, which descendeth daily into her stomach, and must, sooner or later, cause death, for it hath defied the most skilful physicians and apothegars of France and Italy. Yet, were she mine ain bairn, or had I the place o' that fashionless body, Madame de Montreuil, I would soon make her whole and well."

"How, how, Lady Ashkirk?" asked Sybil and the others, who put great faith in the countess's skill as a leech; and really, at salving a slash from a sword, or staunching a thrust from a poniard, few in Edinburgh equalled her; and it was a time when she found plenty of patients.

"'Tis a great secret, and yet withal a simple one; for with it my mother, the Lady Jane Gordon of Glenbucket (quhom God assoilzie), made a whole man of her sister's son, the abbot of Pluscardine, who hath now departed to the company of the saints. 'Tis the first egg that a pullet hath laid (and mark, ye damsels, it must be laid upon a Friday), beat up widdershins with the first dew of the morning, and with thirteen drops of holy water, for ye ken there is a charm in that number; and this simple, if taken as the first food for nine successive mornings, would cure her. Gif it failed, there is one other mode—by applying a stone called a magnet, of potent and miraculous power, to the pit of the stomach, and repeating the word Abrodœtia three times; whilk failing, we must trust to God, for then it can be no other than the demon Archeus, who, at times, takes possession of the stomach, as the learned Paracelsus told father St. Bernard, when he dwelt with him at the Scottish cloister of Wurtzburg, in the year 1528."

"Mother of God!" exclaimed all the girls, looking at each other with fear, for the countess's manner was so serious, and she quoted such imposing names, that even Roland put his hand to his waist-belt, as if to assure himself that there was no such tenant as the said Archeus under it.

"I shall die with fear if ever I feel ill after this," said Sybil; "I shall be sure to think I am possessed of a demon. Wouldst thou not, cousin Archibald?"

"Mass!" replied the earl, "I would drown the demon in good wine, and if that failed, should exorcise him in warm usquebaugh."

Roland could not restrain a sensation of uneasiness during this conversation; for though deeply imbued with superstition, like every man at that time, and as a soldier believing a little in suits of charmed mail, that rendered the wearer invulnerable, he knew that the vulgar regarded the countess (like the lady of Buccleugh in the next age) with some terror for her abstruse knowledge; and at the present crisis he had no wish, certainly, that this suspicion should be increased.

The High-street, which had just been paved for the first time, was gay and crowded, for all the élite of the court and city, with their attendants, were thronging towards the church of St. Giles. All the balconies erected for the queen's entrance had been taken down, the banners were long since removed, but the garlands yet displayed their faded flowers around the various crosses which then encumbered the central street—though less so, certainly, than the innumerable out-shots and projections, outside stairs, turnpike towers, round, square, and octagon; wooden balconies and stone arcades, which imparted an aspect so picturesque to the High-street and Canongate. The total absence of all manner of vehicles, or other obstruction (save watermen with their barrels, or a few equestrians), made the middle of the street—or, as it was popularly named, "the crown of the causeway," the most convenient place for walking, as well as the most honourable. Thus the possession of it was frequently disputed at point of sword, for in these good old times no man of equal rank would yield to another the breadth of a hair unless he was of the same name—for clanship was the great bond of brotherhood—the second religion of the Scottish people, by which the humblest in the land can yet count kindred with their nobles.

As a lady, there was little chance of the countess being obstructed, unless some noble dame of the opposite faction was descending with her train towards the palace; and now, as she had reached the more crowded thoroughfare, she took the arm of Sir Roland Vipont; her daughter, with the ladies Alison, Logan, and Sybil, followed; while the armed servants marched before and behind, with axes shouldered.

Crowds attired in velvet cloaks and plumed bonnets, satin hoods and silk mantles; Dominicans in black robes, and Carmelites in white; Hospitallers of St. Anthony, and Franciscans in grey, were seen pouring like a living flood into the various doors of St. Giles; and, though it was then apparently destitute of shops, the vast High-street seemed to glitter with gaudy dresses in the gay sunshine. The places where the merchants sold their wares were mere dens, to which stairs descended abruptly from the pavement; the goods were thus exposed for sale in those stone vaults which formed the superstructure of every Scottish edifice. All the principal markets were kept in other parts of the town, for, in the year of grace 1477, when the potent and valiant knight Sir James Crichton of Ruthven was lord provost of our good city, it had been ordained that hay and corn should be sold in the Cowgate, and salt in Niddry's Wynd; that the craimes, or booths, for the retail of goods, should be ranged from the Bellhouse to the Tron; that wood and timber should be sold westward of the Grey Friary. The shoemakers' stalls stood between Forrester's Wynd and the dyke of Dalrymple's yard; and the nolt-market, where also "partrickes, pluvars, capones, and conyngs" were sold, occupied Blackfriars Wynd; the cloth-merchants and bonnet-makers dwelt in the Upper Bow; while the dealers in all manner of irongraith, dagger, and bow-makers, dalmascars of swords, armourers, lorimers, and lock-makers, were domiciled under the shadow of that strong and stately barrier, the Netherbow.

There, immediately below the arcades of a tenement bearing the arms of the Lord Abbot of Kinloss, stood a shop, the small deep windows of which were secured by gratings, that were each like an iron harrow, built into the ponderous masonry. In the good town, we still build our walls three feet thick; but in the days of James V., they built them six, and even seven feet thick. A board over the door announced it to be the shop of John Mossman, Jeweller, and Makkar of Silverwork to ye King's Majestie; and here the countess and her party tarried a moment to see the new crown of Queen Magdalene, whose coronation was to take place in a month or so.

Master Mossman, a short and pursy, but well-fed burgess, clad in a cassocke-coat of Galloway cloth, was just in the act of giving the finishing touches to a silver maizer, or drinking-cup. He rose up with all his workmen and apprentices on the entrance of the countess, and welcomed her to his shop with studious politeness, though his chief patrons were the Hamiltons. His premises were vaulted with stone, and painted with various ornamental designs between the glazed cupboards of oak, which contained chased and elaborate vessels of silver, sword and dagger-hilts, buckles, and falcon-bells of every pattern and device. A small statue of St. Eloi, the patron of his craft, occupied a gothic niche above the fireplace, so that the silversmith might warm himself when saying his prayers in winter, which was a saving of time; and on each side thereof hung the steel bonnets, swords, and axes with which he and his men armed them for weekly duty, as municipal guards within the eight Fortes of the city.

"Good Master Mossman," said Roland, on seeing that the wealthy artificer looked somewhat uneasily at the jackmen, whose swords and axes made such a terrible clatter on his stone floor, "our lady the Countess of Ashkirk would be favoured with a view of the queen's new crown, that she may judge of thy handiwork, anent which we hear so much daily."

The jeweller, who had feared that the countess (whose circumstances he knew were the reverse of flourishing) had come to order a quantity of plate, breathed more freely, and bowed almost to his red garters; whereupon the countess curtseyed, for he was known to be one of the richest burgesses and freeholders in Edinburgh, and his voice bore all before it at the council-board. From a round box, strongly bound with brass and lined with purple velvet, he drew forth the glittering diadem for the queen consort—the same crown which James VI. took to London in 1603, and which the government ought in honour to restore to the Castle of Edinburgh. It is composed of pure gold from Crawfordmuir, and is enriched with many precious stones and curious embossings.

"It is a fair gaud," said the countess, sighing; "but my mind misgives me sorely that the puir bairn for whom it is intended may never live to wear it."

"Poor little queen!" said Jane, with moistened eyes, "if all be as thou sayest, her days are indeed numbered."

The silversmith seemed surprised, and his men raised their heads to listen; but the delight expressed by the ladies at the jewels and workmanship of this new addition to the regalia gratified the artificer, a smile spread over his jovial visage, and he gallantly held it over the head of Lady Jane, saying—

"My fair lady, it would become thee as well as her for whom it is intended."

"By my soul, Master Mossman, thou hast more the air of a gallant than a mere worker of metals," said Vipont, pleased with the compliments of the silversmith, but, like every soldier, unable to conceal how lightly he valued the mere mechanic; "and I marvel much that thou didst not in thy youth renounce the hammer and pincers for the helmet and partisan, as being better suited to one who could so compliment a fair demoiselle."

"You wrong me, noble sir," said the silversmith, calmly; "I have borne arms in my youth——"

"Under our gude King James IV.?" interposed the countess.

"Yea, madame," replied the burgess, with a kindling eye; "three hundred of us marched to Flodden under the banner of Provost Lauder; but few, unco few, ever again heard the ding o' the Tron-bell. But, as deacon of the honourable corporation of hammermen, I deem myself nowise inferior, Sir Roland, to what I was in my youth."

"Assuredly not, good Master Mossman," said the countess, "for I have ever esteemed thee an honest and worthy citizen; and we may remember how, at the last feast of St. Eloi, our good father St. Bernard illustrated the great honour which God hath bestowed on artisans in all ages."

"True, madame; Tubal Cain was a cunning artificer in all manner of brass and iron work; Porus, king of the Indies, was the son of a shaver, and worked himself as a puir tinkler-body and mender of kail-pots; Agathocles, king of Sicily, was a potter and maker of crocks, cans, and milk-luggies; Zeno of Constantia was a puir wabster, that clothed the naked from his ain loom; and Artagorus, lord of Cyconia, was the son of a cook; nor must we forget Joseph the carpenter, the spouse of the blessed Virgin, whilk, as my neighbour Deacon Plane sayeth, will ever redound to the immortal honour of his craft, the wrichts."

Sir Roland, who did not expect such a volley of hard names to be opened upon him, had nothing more to urge, but bowed with a pleasant smile as they retired, leaving the king's jeweller master of the field.

At the same moment Nichol Birrel, who had been inquisitively peering through the grated window, hastened away and mingled with the crowd.

CHAPTER XIII.
SAINT GILES.

"You might have heard a pebble fall,
A beetle hum, a cricket sing,
An owlet flap his boding wing,
On Giles's steeple tall.
The antique buildings climbing high,
Whose gothic frontlets sought the sky."
Marmion, Canto V.

At the great entrance of St. Giles's church (a deep and lofty gothic doorway) the steps of which were yet stained with the gallant blood of M'Clellan of Bombie, among the gaily-attired crowd that was pressing up the flight and into that magnificent fane, the countess, with her friends and followers, encountered Redhall, with his friend (Kinloss), and his followers, Nichol Birrel, Dobbie, and Sanders Screw, whose official capacities did not prevent their appearance among his retinue, like whom, they wore steel bonnets, and were barbed to the teeth.

The king's advocate bowed profoundly, and, with all respect, fell back a pace or so, while the countess and her ladies swept into the church like a frigate followed by four cutters. A true gallant of the day, Roland dipped his hand into the font, and assisted Jane to holy water, scattering the rest over the poor people who knelt at the doorway, looking for alms in silence.

All the windows of this great edifice were then filled with stained glass; thus the prismatic hues of many a martyr's robe, many a blood-red cross, many a glorious halo and gaudy armorial blazon were thrown on the silent throng who crowded the choir, the nave, and the transepts of this majestic church. Now it is divided into three; then it was open, and unincumbered by galleries, stood in all the pristine glory of its gothic architecture, two hundred feet in length by one hundred and twenty in breadth, the four arms of the vast cross being open under the stupendous central arches which sprung away aloft, upholding the square tower and mural crown of its spire. There stood the great altar, the splendid canopy of which uprose from columns of burnished brass. Underneath was the pix of gold, where the host was kept; above this stood a gigantic crucifix of silver, and the solid candlesticks of the same metal, which were of great size and weight. At the Reformation, these and all other sacred utensils were seized by the provost, who ordered the brazen pillars to be cast into cannon for the ramparts of the city.

The pulpit was yet unoccupied; but round the four sides of the great altar were many persons kneeling in prayer. Five streams of brilliantly-coloured sunlight fell from the south aslant the great church, from the five vaulted chapels which Johne Skayer and Johne of Stone, two cunning masons, built during the provostry of that "good man and noble," the Laird of Netherliberton. Then the church was without other seats than those cushions and stools which were borne by servants, or by cavaliers for the use of the ladies they accompanied. Many a group in velvet cloaks and high ruffs, with satin trains and hoods of crammasie; many a moustachioed and belted man, half noble and wholly soldier, many a shaven friar, and many a sweet young girl with that fair hair so famed in Scottish song (the golden hair which Raphael loved so well), were kneeling before the lesser altars, of which that great temple, "our mother kirk of old St. Giles," boasted not less than forty.

The most magnificent were those of the Holy Blood, the Holy Cross de Lucano, Nostre Domine, St. Michael de Monte Tomba, Our Lady of Piety, and St. Eloi, the most eastern shrine, which belonged to the gallant craftsmen, as being that of their peculiar patron. Behind it they had placed a window, whereon were painted the elephant and crowned hammer of the principal corporation; and before it hung a beautiful lamp of silver, which was said to have been brought by them from the sack of Jerusalem, and the light of which was never extinguished. The most beautifully-decorated columns of the church are four, where this altar stood. Like the branches of a forest, the ribs of the groined roof sprung away aloft into the dusky clerestory, through the deep windows of which fell many a flake of light of every rainbow hue, revealing many a grotesque carving and many a grim old head.

"Many a scutcheon and banner riven"

decorated the side chapels, and many a sword and helmet were rusting above the tombs of departed valour. Many marble statues of saints and warriors, of mitred abbots and good old citizens, were standing there in niches, with their hands clasped in one eternal prayer; for there now lie the dead of more than seven hundred years, with the wise Moray, and Montrose the loyal; for many a proud peer and valiant warrior, the faithful and the false, the just and the unjust, the impious and the true, the beautiful and the deformed, all blent in one common and undistinguishable dust, have mouldered beneath the pavement of its deep vaults and solemn aisles.

Bowing to the great altar, the countess, with all her train, passed down the church towards the north-east pillar, which is called the king's, as it bears the arms of James II., where she usually sat, for her husband, Earl John, lay near it, before the altar of St. John the Baptist. The servants arranged the kneeling cushions, and the countess received her velvet-bound missal from Sabrino, who sat down behind her, not on his knees, but à la turque, which made the people, who viewed the poor negro with fear and hostility, mutter among themselves.

"Gudesake! she bringeth her black devil into the very kirk wi' her!" said Deacon Plane, under his thick beard, to his better half.

"I could have sworn upon the gospels, gudeman, that the holy water hissed when she dipped her hand in the font."

"Her finger, ye mean, neibour," said another, behind his bonnet; "think ye a wizard-body would dip in mair than they could help?"

"Wheesht, Elsie—Losh keep us, the thing is looking at ye!"

"Weel, I carena a bodle—let it look!" replied the woman confidently, while feeling for a blessed relique of St. Roque, which she carried in her bosom; but Sabrino grinned, and showed all his white teeth, and, what was still more appalling, an almost total absence of tongue—the poor being was a mute, or nearly so—upon which the woman shrunk close to her husband, and began to cross herself with great energy; while at the same moment the Provost of St. Giles and the sixteen prebendaries, preceded by their curate and cross-bearer, the sacristan ringing a bell, the beadle, the minister of the choir bearing a standard, four choristers, and eight tapers, passed through the church, in procession, to their stalls within the sanctuary, softly and noiselessly, while all the vast congregation knelt, and when again they rose, Father St. Bernard was in the pulpit, which projected from one of the four great columns sustaining the spire.

He was a mild and benevolent-looking old priest, whom all the citizens loved for his piety, goodness, and attention to the sick and poor during the frightful pestilence of 1520. His hair was white as snow, his grey eyes were bright and gentle. Father St. Bernard was now in his sixtieth year; and, when accompanying the Scottish army as a confessor, had seen the battles of Sauchie, of Flodden, and Linlithgow.

On this day he had elaborately decorated and lighted the shrine of St. Giles, and his statue, the same which the reformers threw into the North Loch, was encircled by a wreath of roses, made by Jane Seton and her companions; around it was hung a piece of red cloth, then known as "Sanct Geiles' coat," and before it, in a casket of chased silver, lay his skeleton arm—a relique which the Knight of Gourtoun had received from Louis XI. of France, and bequeathed to the church.

Oblivious of the oration he had come to hear, of the magnificent manner in which the church was decorated, and of the attentive crowds that filled it, Redhall leaned against a column not far from the king's, and watched attentively the group which knelt beside the countess. When Father St. Bernard prayed, Jane and Vipont read from the same missal, and their heads were so close that her forehead touched his ear. Redhall ground his teeth; and when they turned to each other and smiled (for they could sympathize without speaking), he felt his heart swell with suppressed passion. His attention, however, soon became divided between Jane and her lover's attendant, who had placed his long sword against the king's pillar, and while affecting to be listening to the panegyric on St. Giles, was in reality studying intently the vast assemblage, and dealing covert glances of hostility, for everywhere he recognised the colours, the crests, and badges of the Hamiltons.

"Despite that voluminous beard, and these painted eyebrows, yonder fellow is either the Earl of Ashkirk or the devil!" thought Redhall; "but let me be wary, for he is slippery as an eel. So, so! our good Sir Roland Vipont, the king's favourite minion, is a resetter of rebels—hah! I have it now."

He almost said this aloud, so bright, or rather so dark and so devilish, was the thought that flashed upon his mind. Beckoning to his henchman and factotum—

"Nichol," said he, "thou seest that valet in the livery of Sir Roland Vipont?"

"He wi' that beard like a colt's tail?"

"The same. I would fain have him committed to sure ward—privately though; not in the castle, for there every one would hear of it an hour after, but quietly, in the vault of my own house here. Dost thou understand me?"

"Wi' ease can we do so, my lord," replied Nichol, with a grin on his mastiff mouth, "for by the use o' my long lugs I have just learned that he is to attend the Lady Seton on a visit to St. Katherine's convent to-night."

"'Slife! dost thou say so? And that captain of the ordnance, doth he go too?"

"No."

"Ah! and wherefore?"

"Because it seems that the captain of the king's guard and that gay buckie, Leslie of Balquhan, are to sup with him to-night."

"Thou art sure of this?" said Redhall, whose heart glowed, and whose eyes sparkled.

"Sure as I am a born man."

"Watch well, then, and learn more, if you can. Oh, Nichol Birrel, thou art worth thy weight in gold to me—yea, gold trebly refined! Continue to watch them strictly while I go to his eminence the cardinal concerning a raid against the Douglases; for, mark me, both the Lady Seton and yonder valet of her squire must be safe within our bolts and bars to-night. I have suspected that long beard concealed something for these some days past."

"And so have I, your lordship."

"Indeed—remarkable! and you think——"

"As your lordship doth."

"That he is no other than the Earl of Ashkirk?"

The brodder—who, in fact, had never bestowed a thought upon the matter—now opened his eyes wide with astonishment.

"Deil gae owre us! he is worth a bushel o' silver merks."

"Which I will pay thee privately, for thy secrecy and assistance."

"And by-and-bye, I may get the other thousand from the council—eh?"

"Of course."

"And Sir Roland?"

"Is about to be sent on a fool's errand into Douglasdale."

"Disguised as a black friar, I sought admittance to his lodging at St. Anne's-yard while he was yet a-bed; for I was bent on probing his wound anew," whispered this bloodhound, with a terrible smile; "but his servitor, a wary auld birkie, that hath served in the border wars, said, 'Na, na, my master needs na ghostly counsel, gude father; indeed he seldom confesses, save now and then to Father St. Bernard.' 'But I am a notable apothgar,' said I, under my cowl, 'and cure a' manner o' sword wounds, forbye and attour shot-holes.' 'Ouaye,' he replied, 'but my master hath got from the Lady Ashkirk a notable red salve, that cures a' thing, frae a prick wi' a pin to a slash wi' a Jethart axe. He had but a clean stab frae a poniard, and the salve hath made him whole:' and so, my lord, I came away like a hound that loses the scent."

"Good!" muttered the advocate, opening his note-book. "Vipont seldom goes to confession (that will be information for the cardinal and Fynnard the grand inquisitor), save to the Father St. Bernard (that looketh like conspiracy); and he hath actually received a pot of salve from the Countess of Ashkirk, which savoureth of sorcery and working by damnable charms. By my soul, Nichol Birrel," said he, closing his tablets, "thou art an invaluable fellow. The cardinal would give his best benefice for such a spy. I will find military service for the master of the ordnance, and can also dispose of the countess. I have them all in my grasp! Oh, how subtly the web is weaving, and how tangled are the meshes of the plot that will lay them all at my mercy!"

Redhall unwittingly thought aloud, and his fierce whisper was heard by Birrel. Under the tufted masses of his shock-head, the ruffian gave a leer of delight and intelligence, at least so much as his yellow bilious visage could express, and drew nearer the countess, while Redhall, softly and on tiptoe, lest the jingle of his silver spurs might be heard, hastened from the church, to seek the lord chancellor (to whom James intrusted everything) concerning the proposed raid to Douglasdale and other projects, of which the reader will soon learn more.

During this conversation, Father St. Bernard had proceeded far with his oration on St. Giles, the abbot and confessor, with a pathos and power of oratory that enchained the attention of his hearers while it fired and enchanted them. Unacquainted with care, and long separated from the world, the aspect of this venerable prebendary was singularly saintly and winning; his eye was alternately mild and penetrating, and his voice was soft and persuasive. All were irresistibly drawn towards him; and while he spoke, the most profound silence reigned throughout the long dim aisles and misty perspective of that vast and crowded church. With all that filial love and respect which of old a Catholic girl felt for her confessor, Lady Jane Seton kept her bright eyes fixed on St. Bernard's face. She was proud of his oratory, his clear and beautiful language, his fervid enthusiasm, and deep research into abstruse writing and the lore of ancient days.

We can give but an outline of how the good father traced the earthly pilgrimage of the city's patron saint, from the day when his eyes first opened to the light in ancient Athens. "It was towards the close of the seventh century," he continued, "and his birth was noble as any in old Cecropia. The dwelling of his father stood near the temple of the Eumenides, and under the brow of that very platform from whence the blessed apostle Paul had preached to the Athenians."

He described his extraordinary learning, his deep and solemn piety, which won for him the admiration of Greece, and other countries far beyond his native province of Achaia; so much so that it soon became impossible for him to enjoy in his splendid home the retirement and meditation for which he longed. Shrinking alike from the applause of men and the dangerous temptations of wealth and prosperity, he gave all he possessed to the poor, and bade farewell for ever to Athens and Achaia the beautiful. Sailing towards France, he landed on the open and desert shore near the Rhone, from whence, with a cross on his staff, he travelled into wild places, teaching the blessed gospels to the pagan Gauls, until he reached a forest in the district of Nismes, where then stood a city built by the Roman warriors of Augustus; and there still men and beasts fought like demons in the amphitheatre of Arennes, and the poor pagans worshipped their graven idols in the temple of Diana—for the savage Goths then held the city and all the land around it.

"There, in the vast forest which had been growing since the deluge, St. Giles built him a hermitage, and there," continued the preacher, "subsisting on the berries and other wild fruits of the desert, with water only for his drink, he passed many years in the voiceless solitude, till, purified by prayer, disengaged from earth, and filled with the ardour of his holy meditations, he became as an angel rather than a man." He related, too, how the saint planted his cross-staff before the door of his hermitage, and watered it daily, until it took root, sprouted, and grew into a stately orange-tree; and how (like the holy St. Aicard), having once in forgetfulness shaved his bald crown so late on a Saturday night that he encroached on the Sunday morning, when turning about he saw the devil—and here every one crossed themselves—yea, the devil, busily picking up every atom of hair, to produce the whole against him at the divine tribunal: and how severely he was punished thereafter; for a savage Gothic chief had him seized, scourged, and thrown into one of the Roman towers of Nismes, where he prayed to his Maker in great agony of spirit.

Lo! in the night a halo shone around him, his fetters fell off, the doors of his dungeon revolved, and the clear light of the stars beamed upon him. A deep slumber fell upon his guards, and St. Giles walked forth in peace, to seek once more the shade of his miraculous orange-tree and his beloved hermitage near the dark green woods and bright blue waters of the Rhone.

Now, spreading fast in Gaul, the Goths had made themselves lords of the two Narbonensis and the three Acquitani: in their wild ravages they destroyed even the forests, and by these and their cruelty brought so sore a famine upon the land, that even the saint, in his extreme old age, would have perished, but for the fruit of his orange-tree, and the milk of a doe, which visited him daily, sent doubtless by the Lord, and which became his sole companion and sustenance; and it chanced that when Wamba, king of the Goths, was hunting one day in the forest of Nismes, he was about to slay the doe, but spared her at the saint's intercession; upon which Ionie, his queen, who was almost dying of a grievous sickness, became straightway restored to her former strength and beauty.

St. Giles outlived the famine, and by the miracles he wrought became famous throughout all the land of Gaul, and died at a wondrous old age in that year when the infidel Saracens sacked Nismes; the recapture of which by Charles Martel, mayor of the palace, and the great victory of the Christian knights between Tours and Poictiers, in the year of our redemption 728, he foretold, with his last breath; and so, in the full odour of sanctity, he passed away to heaven.

"The doe, the companion of his solitude, was found lying dead by his side; but to this day," continued the venerable priest, in conclusion, "in memory of the saint, we may yet see her retained in the banner of this good city, upon which the blessed St. Giles is now looking down, as upon that of his chosen children, through the dim vista of eight long centuries!"*

* St. Giles was the crest of Edinburgh until 1560, when an anchor was substituted by the Reformers; but the doe still remains as a supporter.

He then blessed the people, and descending into one of the side aisles, disappeared.

The vast multitudes who thronged the church now poured from all its doorways like a flood upon the streets, and down the steep old burial-ground that descended on the south towards the Cowgate (a place of interment coeval with the first huts of the city), and where a little doorway in the wall, at the bottom, gave egress to that thoroughfare, then so fashionable. It stood just beside the little chapel of the Holyrood, which survived till the end of the sixteenth century.

As closely as they dared, Nichol Birrel and his friend Dobbie, with their poniards in their belts and wooden rosaries dangling at their better wrists, followed the countess and her party home to her residence, near the court end of the town; and thereafter stationed themselves at the Cross and Gillstoup, a small change-house, the low grated windows of which commanded a view of the archway, whereon were carved the coronet and arms of the Setons of Ashkirk; and there the two worthy followers of Redhall sat down to drink and watch for the remainder of the afternoon.

At six o'clock, Sir Roland Vipont, with his bonnet on one side, his feather erect, and his rapier tilting up a corner of his mantle, like a true dandy of the sixteenth century, came forth alone, and descended the street towards Holyrood.

"Brawly!" muttered Dobbie, rubbing his large misshapen paws with exultation; "the dare-devil's awa, but the valet is yet there."

"Yea; and the visit to the sister of the Sheens yet holdeth gude. But have ye any money?" asked the pricker.

"Nocht but a Flemish rydar, and three of old King James's gowden pennies."

"Ho there, gudewife!" cried Birrel, with a grin of delight on his mastiff mouth, while he clattered on the hard table with his rosary; "fetch us twa mair mutchkins of your wine—that red wine, which I ken right well ye get smuggled contrary to the act, straight frae the Flemmings o' the Dam—quick!"

And while their slipshod attendant was bringing the fresh supply, these worthies proceeded to examine their poniards, in case they should be required, and tried whether the guards were true, the points sharp, the hilts fitting well to the blades, and the blades to the hilts; for to them deeds of outrage and cruelty were the business of life; and we may add that, by the loose lives of the clergy prior to the Reformation—a measure which that very laxity of discipline brought about—religion and morality were fast sinking to a low ebb in Scotland.

CHAPTER XIV.
THE CHANCELLOR OF SCOTLAND.

"I made such service to our Sovereign King,
He did promote me still to high estate;
A prince above all priestis for to reign,
Archbishop of St. Andrew's consecrate.
To that honour when I was elevate,
My prideful heart was not content withal,
Till that I was created cardinal."
Sir D. LINDESAY'S Tragedie of the Cardinal.

With his long rapier under his arm, and his bonnet drawn well over his face, the lord advocate, with all the air of a man who has found a clue to something, or is mentally pursuing a distant object, hurried, as we have said, from the church, and threaded his way between the fleshers' stalls, which encumbered both sides of the street about the Nether-bow and arch of the Blackfriars Wynd.

Descending the latter, he reached the residence of Cardinal Beaton, where, through the medium of several pages, esquires, and pikemen, he sent up his name, requesting an audience, and was immediately admitted.

David Beaton was then in the prime of life; his stature was commanding, his air was dignified, his bearing noble. As we may see by the portraits of him, still preserved at Edinburgh, his face was grave, dark, and eminently handsome; his eyes were bright and piercing, and he wore his beard and moustaches pointed à la cavalier, rather than shaven off like a priest. He was seated in an easy-chair, and wore his red baretta, black cassock, and gold cross. His large scarlet hat lay upon a side table, near the two-handed sword of his grandfather, old Sir David of Pitmilly.

Our Scottish Wolsey was seated near a table covered with books and papers; there were several portfolios marked with the fleur-de-lys, the rose, the eagle, &c., containing the memorandums of correspondence with France, England, the Empire, and so forth. The apartment, which was little and elegant, was hung with green damask flowered with leaves of red and gold; his patrimonial arms, the blazon of "Bethune's line of Picardie," appeared above the mantelpiece. There was no fire, for the season was summer, and the andirons were burnished bright as silver. A book was half open in his hand, but his eyes were thoughtfully fixed on a window, through which he saw the antique buildings of the opposite street, a steep wynd, that led towards the Dominican monastery, the square tower and slated spire of which shone in the light of the western sun, and terminated the view. His daughter, the Lady Margaret Beaton, a charming young girl with blue eyes and dark brown hair—the same who, five years after, became the bride of the young Lord Lindesay—was sitting on a little tabourette by his side, decorating a little kitten with ribbons.

As she had been born prior to his taking vows of celibacy, the cardinal had no reason to conceal her; but as soon as Sir Adam Otterburn entered, at a sign from her father, she kissed his hand, snatched the kitten, which she considered her peculiar property, placed a chair for the visitor, and withdrew.

"God be with your eminence!" said Redhall, half kneeling, as he saluted the cardinal.

"And peace with you," replied Beaton, with a gracious wave of the hand, which, while it pointed to a seat, passed also for a priestly benediction. He closed his book "La Legende de Monseigneur Saint Dominique," &c., an old black-letter quarto, "Imprimé à Paris, 1495," and continued—"Have I the pleasure of seeing Sir Adam as a friend, or in his official capacity?"

"I trust your eminence will never consider my visits the less friendly because I come so frequently on the service of the state; but now mine errand closely concerns the latter."

"I think that thou, as lord advocate, and I, as lord chancellor, ought to be collared together, like a couple of questing dogs. Well, what in God's name is astir now?"

"Treason!"

"That is nothing new."

"Trafficking with the English—and it may be sorcery!"

"My God! dost thou say so? Those accursed Douglases, I warrant me?"

Redhall gave an emphatic nod, and put one leg over the other. The cardinal let fall his book, grasped the knobs of his chair, and reclined his head back as if he expected to hear something momentous. "Well, my lord, and what now of this turbulent tribe?"

"I seek a carte blanche warrant of arrest and committal to ward—or rather, concurrence with it—does your eminence understand?"

"Agnus Dei!" said the cardinal, crossing, and speaking with great bitterness and energy; "how sad it is that, from being the bulwark and buckler of Scotland, the house of Angus and its allies have become her sworn foes! Too blindly the enemies of Arran, they never rest while a Hamilton lives, and are too much in Henry's interest ever again to be true to Scotland. How was it when James assumed the government, and, by the intercession of Wolsey and myself, so unwisely permitted the ambitious Earls of Ashkirk and of Angus to return home? No sooner were their feet on Scottish ground, than, ever restless, they raised a faction to expel the queen-mother and the minister Arran, and came at once to blows about where the Parliament should meet. 'I will hold it here,' said the determined Arran. 'Thou shalt hold it there,' said the imperious Angus. Then were banners displayed and lances lifted; and Angus and Ashkirk feared not to bend their cannon against the royal castle of Edinburgh, where the young king, the queen-mother, and their prime minister were residing. Then came trooping and hosting, and castles were stormed, and garrisoned, and stormed again; towns were burned and tenants plundered. The high-sheriff of Ayr slew the Earl of Cassilis; the islesmen of Orkney expelled and slew the Lord Caithness; the knight of Tulliallan slew the Abbot of Culrosse; and some ruffian of hell murdered my steadfast friend and true, Sir Thomas Maclellan of Bombie, at the door of St. Giles. (Redhall felt himself grow pale.) The Douglases pillaged the castle of St. Andrews and the abbey of Dunfermline; they fought the battles of Melrose and Linlithgow, where the good Earl of Lennox was so cruelly run through the body after he had surrendered. The whole country seemed to be hastening to destruction, for the swords of the Douglases bore all before them, and every post, place, and perquisite under the crown, every royal castle and office of state, was held by a Douglas. The royal guards were all Douglases; and the young king was their prisoner, while his people were reduced to slavery. Well! I then thought the time had come to bestir me," continued the cardinal, with a smile of satisfaction. "I did so; and the king escaped from the tower of Falkland. He summoned the nobles in arms at Stirling; the wheel of fate revolved again, and, deprived of place and power, the Douglases were proscribed, forfeited, and driven into England—England, whose kings have ever rejoiced in fanning the flame of Scottish civil war—the policy of hell, which none have adopted more than the present atrocious tyrant, their eighth Henry."

"All this I know well," said Redhall, endeavouring to repress his impatience at this retrospective reverie.

"There, fostered by this heretic prince, they have become the enemies of their fatherland, the believers of a false doctrine, the rebels of their king and the accursed of their God. None has done more than the Lord Ashkirk to further a marriage between King James and a daughter of the mansworn Tudor; but happily, I have ever been victorious; for the honour and policy of Scotland and France require that they must league together against the grasping ambition and centralizing greed of England. Thou knowest that I have ever been for France, and bear about as much love for England as a tiger doth to a panther. When Henry offered his daughter to James, with the office of lieutenant-general of all England and Ireland, happily, I warned him of the gilded snare, and dismissed the ambassador, Howard, with a remembrance of how England had treated the shipwrecked James I. When Godscallo came from the Emperor Charles to offer his sister Mary of Austria as a queen for Scotland, who defeated him, and turned his dangerous eloquence against himself?"

"Your eminence," said Redhall, putting the left leg over the right.

"When he offered Donna Maria of Portugal, the daughter of Eleonora of Austria," resumed Beaton, with a smile of gratified vanity, "and boasted of her beauty and the sixty battles of her victorious uncle, who waived all his sophistry by a word?"

"Your eminence of course," sighed Redhall.

"When Christian II. of Denmark offered his daughter, the Princess Dorothea, though she was already contracted to the beggarly Elector Frederick, I dismissed him, and briefly too; for my whole soul was bent on preserving the ancient league of amity, that together the banners of Scotland and France might be turned against their common enemy; and by my own energy, assisted by God and our Blessed Lady, I had the young Queen Magdalene espoused to James; and NOW let the Douglases do their worst, for, ratified before the holy altar of Notre Dame de Paris, that alliance can never be broken!"

"Death will break it," said the advocate, revengefully, for he was somewhat irritated by this long preamble. "Magdalene is dying by inches, and there are abroad such rumours of sorcery in the matter that I crave a warrant to seize——"

"Whom?" asked Beaton, with a terrible glance.

"The Countess of Ashkirk and her daughter, the Lady Jane Seton," said Redhall, with a sinking heart.

"Margaret of Ashkirk?" said the cardinal, with a look of blank astonishment, "the widow of the good Earl John? Beware thee, my lord, lest zeal outrun discretion. Her husband was a stout knight and true to Scotland."

"As I tell your eminence that his widow is an ill-woman and false! Her son, the outlawed earl, hath again re-entered Scotland by the Middle Marches."

"Thou dost not say so?"

"Sure as I live and breathe."

"On what errand?"

"Can you ask?" said Redhall, with a smile; "treason, civil war, and the destruction of the Hamiltons, no doubt. And with the knowledge that he is an outlawed traitor, the countess hath reset him."

"Natural enough, he is the poor woman's son."

"But the master of the ordnance hath likewise done so."

"Natural enough, too, for he is said to love the earl's sister."

"Your eminence is strangely cool in this matter," said Redhall, grinding his teeth; "but you know not all that common rumour sayeth."

"Ah! what the devil says it now?"

"That the young queen is dying," replied the advocate, drawing near, sinking his voice impressively, and presuming even to grasp his arm; "sorcery is at work; every man who looks upon her reads death in her face, and the hopes of Henry that James may yet marry his daughter are rising again."

"Hah!" There was a brief pause.

"And what wouldst thou have?" asked Beaton.

"Permission to seize and commit to sure ward the Countess of Ashkirk and her daughter—a measure demanded by the safety of the nation."

Beaton shook his head.

"Rumour is busy, and avers that the earl is concealed within the ports of Edinburgh," continued the wily advocate, who, for his own ends, did not choose to say where; "my spies inform me that he has been heard to boast of being, ere long, at Stirling bridge with an army of English borderers, for he hath made a vow to sup——"

"Where?"

"In thy tower of Creich."

The dark eyes of Beaton flashed fire; for in the tower of Creich, rumour (which in those days supplied, somewhat indifferently, however, the place of the public press) asserted that the cardinal kept quite a seraglio. It touched him in the quick.

"The earl said so—ha!" he muttered, opening his portfolio; "indeed—um—um—and where dost thou wish the countess committed to ward?"

"Your eminence's castle of St. Andrew is a sure place."

"I send none there but heretics; the tower of Inchkeith is a stronger fortlet."

"The Knight of Barncleugh is captain there—a Hamilton too."

"Very suitable," continued the cardinal, writing on a slip of paper a warrant to arrest and imprison, 'during the king's pleasure, Margaret Countess Dowager, and the Lady Jane, daughter of the umquhile John Earl of Ashkirk, together with Archibald Seton, sometyme designated of Ashkirk, but now under sentence of forfeiture.' "Send the Albany herald to the countess, and let him take some fifteen pikes of my guard; one of Sir Robert Barton's boats will convey the ladies to the Inch. Of late, James has shown over much favour to this family, whose besetting sin has been their leaguing with England; and I hope that, ere long," continued Beaton, thinking of the tower of Creich, "this troublesome young lord will pay the penalty of his insolence to me and his crimes against the state——"

"My lord the Bishop of Limoges," announced the young Lord Lindesay, the cardinal's favourite page, ushering in that reverend prelate.

"Your eminence will not omit to send the requisite troops and cannon towards Douglasdale to-morrow, for Ashkirk may be there," said the lord advocate, rising.

"Before vespers, Sir Roland Vipont shall hear from me," replied Beaton, as Redhall sank on one knee, kissed the ruby ring on his finger, and hurried away with a hasty step and a beating heart.

CHAPTER XV.
THE NOON OF LOVE.

"He looked upon her, and her humid gaze
Was at his look dropped instant on the ground:
But o'er her cheek of beauty rushed a blaze,
Her bosom heaved within its silken bound—
And though her voice is trembling as I sigh,
Love triumphs in her smile and fond delicious eye."
CROLY'S Angel of the World.

The sun was in the west, and threw the long shadow of the Netherbow so far down the vista of the Canongate that it almost reached to the Girth-cross of the Holyrood. Save when the summer wind made strange sounds among the peaked roofs and enormous chimneys of the narrow closes, the streets were still and quiet. A hoof rang occasionally, just as if to remind one that they were recently paved for the first time; or the distant cries were heard of those who sold curds and milk at the cross, or cockles and whelks at the Tron, as we may learn from William Dunbar's poem in the year 1500.

The countess and her family had just adjourned from the dining hull to that tapestried chamber in which we had the honour of first introducing them to the reader. With no foreboding of the mischief that was then brewing against them at that moment in the little turret-room of the cardinal's mansion, the good old Lady Margaret and all around her were very happy.

Roland instinctively drew to the side of Jane, who approached her embroidery frame, for ladies were never idle in those industrious days; Earl Archibald seated himself by the side of Sybil, where he could very well have spared the additional company of her companions, Marion and Alison, who seated themselves near, to hear her perform on the virginals; and the countess assumed her accustomed and well-cushioned bench, in the sunny corner of a window, where the shadows of the thick basket grating were thrown upon her face. Drawing her spinning-wheel towards her with one hand, she made a motion with the other to Father St. Bernard to sit near; for the confessor had that day been invited to dinner the moment his oration concluded.

"I pray Heaven I may not hear some evil tidings," said the countess, "for the wind is so high."

"Nay, fear not, madam, for this is Friday," replied the old priest, "and the festival of Queen Ellen to boot."

"And yet I remind me, father, that in the days of King James IV., I heard the wind soughing just so, and in two hours thereafter news came frae the west countrie that my kinsman, Sir John Colquhoun of Luss, who was lord chamberlain and ambassador to England in 1487, was killed at the siege of Dumbarton, by a ball from a culverin."

"In 1489—yea, madam, I mind that leaguer well, as if twere yesterday."

"Eight-and-forty years ago," said the counters. "St. Mary! I was but a wee tot at my mother's knee in the auld tower of Kilspindie then!"

"Udsdagger!" whispered the earl to Sybil, "the old lady my mother is full tilt again at her musty recollections of James IV."

"She will soon dose poor Father St. Bernard with her salves, her charms against witchcraft, and prosy reminiscences of Flodden and Queen Margaret."

"And he will reply with scriptural texts and astounding miracles. On my honour, they are a pair of the most veritable prosers between the tower of Creich and the tower of Babel!"

"Hush! to mention that tower of Creich in the cardinal's hearing makes one his enemy for life."

"Fiend take the cardinal and his red hat to boot!" whispered the earl, "for in England I have learned to laugh both at red legs and shaven crowns. But now, my own fair cousin, sing me, I pray, the old song of Duke Albany's days, that song my father loved so well. In Holyrood it might be treason to sing of a French minion's fall, but none are here save friends; and oh, my dear Sybil, thou knowest not how blythe I am to hear thy soft low voice again. Do not refuse me," he added, seeing that she was about to object; "for in a day or two I go to exile again, and we may meet no more."

The young noble gallantly kissed a handful of Sybil's long dark hair; and in the desire to please her handsome lover, she at once commenced one of those old songs, to which something of a melancholy interest will ever cling, when we consider that they cheered or soothed our Scottish sires three hundred years ago—

"God send that the duke had byded in France,
And the Sieur de la Beaute had never come hame,
With his tall men-at-arms, by banner and lance,
The Douglas, the Home, and the Seton to tame."*

* See VEDDERBURNE'S Complainte of Scotland, printed at St. Andrew'*, A.D. 1549.

The voice of Sybil was worthy of her name; it was bewitchingly soft and low and sweet; but the sharp, wiry, and somewhat unmusical accompaniment of the virginal, rather injured than improved the effect of her performance, which was admirable; for the frank girl was at no pains to conceal the amiable wish to please her kinsman and lover. Seated very erectly upon a high-backed chair, her white hands tinkled over the keys of this old-fashioned instrument, which, perhaps, obtained its name from being played upon almost solely by young ladies. Though externally not unlike our modern pianoforte, the virginal was internally more like the spinet of the succeeding age, which formed, in fact, the link between the two.

That on which Sybil played had been presented to Jane Seton by Anne de la Tour, the late Duchess of Albany. The case was of cedar, covered with blue Genoese velvet, and clasped by four large gilded locks finely engraven with the arms of Scotland and France. The whole of the front was magnificently enamelled, and had forty keys provided with jacks and quills, twenty being of ebony tipped with silver, and twenty of ivory tipped with gold, to mark the semitones. Supported by two dragons of oak, it was only five feet long by twenty inches deep; but as there were but few virginals in Scotland, its splendour formed one of the topics of the day; and those evil minds were not wanting who affirmed that it was merely a box of devils who played at the command of the black page.

Thus, while singing and soft glances were the entertainment in one corner of that tall tapestried room, miracles and omens in another, a quiet little flirtation was proceeding in a third, where Lady Jane was sitting, to all appearance very intent upon her embroidery, while her lover leant over the back of her chair, conversing in low tones, looking kisses and all manner of soft things, and contriving to say a good many too, under cover of Sybil's musical performance, notwithstanding the presence of Father St. Bernard, whose apostolical aspect was sufficiently imposing.

"And so, my gentle Jeanie, thou art still bent on visiting this convent of Sienna to-night?"

"Have I not told you ten times that I have promised this book as a birthday gift to the reverend mother ever since the martyrdom of St. Victor—more than a month ago," said Jane, reckoning the time on her pretty fingers; "and she has never yet received it. By-the-bye, sir—of all the world, I think thou oughtest to accompany me to-night."

"Impossible, my own sweetheart."

"What would you say if I were to be carried off?"

"Carried off! Bah! I should like to see any one carry you off."

"It would be very unpleasant," said Jane, shrugging her shoulders; "and within a month of our marriage, too."

"Adorable Jane!"

"Hush! Father St. Bernard—you forget."

"You know well how gladly I would go; but as I have said, both the captain and lieutenant of the king's guard have sent to say, they will do themselves the pleasure of supping with me to-night, and hospitality requires that I should not decline, for we are three bon camarados, and have made a compact to dine and sup with each other alternately whenever our cash was low."

"Then the cash of these wild gallants is gone?"

"Sunk to the lowest ebb, Jane. I met them this morning, swearing like Turks, for they had lost all they possessed, even to their rings, at the French ambassador's. With the earl and his enormous Tizona, and these tall trenchermen, who are always lounging about the kitchen-fire and stable-yard, none will dare to molest you to-night."

"Be not too certain. Oh, I have so many lovers, that I dare scarcely look from under my hood, lest I add one to the number. Abduction is not so uncommon, surely. Did not King James carry off the lady of Lochlevin on her bridal night? Is not the Knight of Casche now a prisoner in the castle for carrying off the wife of Sir David Scott, whom he slew in the kirk of Strathmiglo? And 'tis only six days since Kincaid of Coates forcibly abducted the poor wife of master Quentin Smebard, when she was cheapening her a new hood at the Tron—yea, in the High-street, and at noon-day."

"Tush! a pitiful clerk of the chancery," said Roland, playing with her curls. "Believe me, my little ladykin, that none will dare meddle with thee who see the livery of thy followers, and remember thou art the affianced bride of Sir Roland Vipont. So in vain, cunning fairy, thou wouldest frighten me from performing what friendship and hospitality require. But what is this book, for which madam the prioress of St. Katherine is so anxious?"

"See, it is The Lyf of St. Katherin of Sienna," said Jane, opening a little volume of Wynkyn de Worde's, the velvet cover of which she had embroidered beautifully with gold upon crimson. "Thou canst read this black letter, of course?"

"Why, thanks to fortune and my good friend the father here, I learned the Grace Buke and Prymar, at the principal grammar school of this good burgh, when it was first opened by Provost Logan of Coatfield."

"In the year of grace 1519," said the countess, "just six years after the death of the good King James, whose munificence founded it—woe's me!"

"And why doth this prioress not embroider her own books? How, i' the devil's name, do they spend the long dull day in yonder convent; for I vow 'tis a fortress all walled round like the city of Lisle—and I suppose the fair sisters are never beyond it."

"Save when sickness or sorrow, want or misery, call them into the world; for they are of inestimable service to the poor. Ah! had you seen them in time of the plague. The Prioress Josina—thou rememberest the beautiful Josina Henrison, who with me was a damoiselle of honour to madam the Duchess Anne of Albany? Ah! she is a very angel of goodness. Now, do not look in that way, as if you were just about to laugh at me?"

"Who—I? Mass! I would almost have fallen sick on purpose, to have had such a nurse as the pretty Josina—had I not——"

"What, sir?"

"Loved thee, and consequently been sure of another."

"'Tis well you say so," replied Jane, playfully, pinching his ear. "Ah! my mother is watching us!"

"God bless ye, bairns!" said the old countess, kindly and fondly; "for ye were born under the same star, ilk being destined for the other."

"Pax Domini sit semper voliscum," said Father St. Bernard, with closed eyes, and waving his right hand towards them.

"Plague take thy Latin," muttered the earl.

"Which meaneth, the peace of the Lord be about you," continued the priest.

"I never tried Latin but once, good father, and then it was to curse roundly when my Scottish failed—in nomine patris et filii, and so forth."

"And when was this, my sou?"

"Retreating up Yarrow-braes from Cessford's spearmen, with two bullets and three arrows sticking in my body."

The old priest crossed himself, and turned up his eyes; but those of the countess kindled as her son spoke, and some fiery remark was hovering on her lips, when her bower-woman, a demure looking abigail, clad in solemn black taffety, raised the arras, glided in on tiptoe, and whispered something in her ear.

Lady Ashkirk turned very pale.

"Mother dear," said Lady Jane, tenderly, "what has happened?"

"That hen hath crowed again, as Janet tells me."

"Hen—what hen?" said the earl.

"An ill-omened hen in the poultry-yard, whilk hath now crown thrice since you came amongst us. Oh! my doo Archibald! my doo Archibald!—it's a sad boding of evil, whilk the Mother o' God avert."

"Amen!" said the old priest, "pax domini——"

"Friend Roland," said the earl, with a smile, "did you ever know any one who dwelt in such an atmosphere of omens and predictions, salves and recipes, as the good lady my mother? 'Tis very perplexing, to say the least of it."

"Hush, lord earl!" said the countess, with some asperity; "every bairn kens that the crowing of a hen bodeth evil, and that no house can thrive where the hens are addicted to sic an ungodly and unnatural amusement. Harkee, Janet, let its neck be drawn, and bestow it as an almous on the first Franciscan who comes hither wi' his begging box."

This episode was rather "a damper" to the ladies; but Roland endeavoured to divert them, by engaging and vanquishing them all successively at the old French military game of passe dix, which was played with three dice, at which (as we learn from the Complete Gamester, 1680) "the caster throws continually till he hath thrown doublets under ten, and then he is out, and loseth, or doublets above ten, and then he passeth, and wins." At this simple game fortune favoured Roland, and he swept off the entire passbank, which was composed of little bon-bons of honey and flour, for sugar was then growing in the mist of futurity—at least, it was unknown in Scotland. The time stole swiftly on; at last the ringing of vespers warned him that he must retire, as his friends, who had so annoyingly invited themselves, would be awaiting him.

"Say a prayer for me at St. Katherine's to-night, my dear Jane," said Roland, as he buckled on his rapier. "I fear me I am a sad rogue, and often omit to pray for myself in these stirring times, when one's armour is so rarely off: and of all things forget not to give my very best commendations to the fair Josina."

"Sirrah! thou wantest thine other ear well pinched."

"And you return?"

"To-morrow, at noon."

"Ah—the devil! and shall I not see thee till then?" said Roland, scared at the prospect of an eighteen hours' separation.

"Thou wilt not die of despair in that time, surely?" replied Jane, archly.

"Then to-morrow, at noon, I will be at the convent gate, or under the old lime-trees that border its pathway, near the loch; and so till then, my sweet flower, farewell."

After paying his adieux to all with that grave formality which French intercourse had impressed upon the manners of the Scottish noblesse, he retired; whereupon the messieurs Birrel and Dobbie ordered in the additional stoup of Flemish wine, as we have related in the thirteenth chapter of this history.

CHAPTER XVI.
VIPONT'S HOUSEHOLD.

"At length they to the house retreated,
And round the supper soon were seated;
When the time quickly passed away,
And gay good humour closed the day."
Dr. Syntax, Canto XIV.

Having lost all their money at play with the French and Spaniards, Roland's two comrades, the captain of the arquebusiers, and Leslie, his lieutenant, had both invited themselves to sup with him on that evening, according (as he has already stated) to an arrangement the three friends had made—that he whose exchequer was low should dine or sup with the others. But now it chanced that Roland's purse was drained too; and though hospitality and the manners of the time forbade the least evasion of this visit, or rather visitation, old Lintstock had fully participated in the consternation it occasioned his master. Lintstock, however, with the coolness of an old soldier who was well used to foraging, begged Sir Roland to keep his mind at ease, as he would provide an adequate supper by the hour of the cavaliers' arrival.

Roland knew not what to make of this; but he was aware of the fertility of his valet's resources, and that the cunning old vender of projectiles had made love to an inn (as he said), or rather an innkeeper's widow, whom he had been intending to espouse for the last live years; thus he doubted not Lintstock would provide the viands if Heaven did not.

Roland lodged with the widow of one of the king's falconers; but the pittance he received per month from the exchequer (for although styled master of the ordnance, he was in reality only captain of a few hundred cannoniers, who were scattered throughout the royal castles) afforded little more than what soldiers usually term comforts—i.e., plain bed, board, and quarters. He was never so much in camp or garrison as to lose the polish of the courtier or relish for the society of ladies. The "rough and round" of a soldier's life never discomposed him; he wore his heavy armour as easily as Jane Seton did her gloves of Blois; and his love for her threw a poetry around all that plainness and positive discomfort which generally surrounded him, but of which she was totally ignorant. Soldiering had, of course, considerably sharpened his faculties; but Roland never forgot the gentle bearing of the perfect cavalier; and though perhaps inferior in head to such a man as Sir Adam Otterburn, he was immensely superior in heart and straightforwardness of purpose.

Roland's windows overlooked the Abbey Close, and the setting sun shone partly through them. They were strongly grated, and lighted a room which was wainscoted with Scottish fir, and furnished with six hardwood chairs and a table of oak. An almerie or corner cupboard, a boxed bed within a recess, a suit of bright armour, and a quantity of other harness for horse and man, with various weapons, hung upon pegs; a few books of old romances, and a French Manuel de l'Artilleur, made up its furniture.

"What the devil shall I do, if Lintstock has failed?" thought Roland, as he entered his domicile. "Hallo, old Ironhead, how goeth the supper?" (People supped then at seven o'clock.)

"Right weel, Sir Roland, as ye may see for yoursel," replied the old fellow, over whose broad visage and solitary eye there spread a brilliant smile of self-satisfaction.

A snow-white cloth covered the old oak-table; a knife, a drinking-horn, and platter were laid for each of the friends; a silver salt-cellar occupied the centre; a plate, with four roasted ducks, stood on one side thereof, a tart and stewed pigeons on the other, with a joint of veal daintily roasted; while an eel-pie and two large manchets of white flour, with other et cetera, appeared on the side buffet, with a row of wine flasks in fair battaglia, side by side, telling by their gaudy badges that they were from France, and such wine as was then sold by the retailers at sixpence Scots (one half-penny sterling) the pint, under penalty of having the head of the cask beaten out, as an edict of the provost and baillies in 1520 remains to show.

"By Jove, thou art the very fiend himself!" said Roland, lost in astonishment at the sight of all these good things; "how else couldst thou get these gallant bottles of Rochelle and Bourdeaux from that old curmudgeon of the Cross and Gillstoup—for I see they bear his mark. On my honour, I am mightily tickled by thine ingenuity!"

"I said we would pay——"

"We?"

"That is, your worship would pay them at even tide, the morn."

"Why, Lintstock, I have not had a cross for these three days."

"But there is a rumour about the palace," said Lintstock, closing his remaining eye, "that we march by daylight, the morn, for Douglasdale, or thereawa; and sae the auld screw of an hosteller may whistle on his thumb for the money till we come back again."

"March! oh, impossible—for I have not heard a word of it; and how then shouldst thou? I warrant me the old cullion grumbled."

"Like a boar in a high wind. 'Thou false knave and loon,' said I, with a hand on my dirk, just so; 'these twelve flasks are for the captain, my master.' 'He owes me thirty crowns and mair,' replied the dour carle. 'If he owed thee ten times as muckle, 'tis all right, for he will pay thee some day, and nobly too; so hand me over the flasks, or I will set the house on fire, and flay thee like St. Bartholomew!'"

"But the veal and the ducks?"

"I fished for one, and borrowed the other—but here come our gentlemen."

Roland gave Lintstock one of the flasks to rejoice over, and laughed. He knew well what the old forager meant, for the royal poultry-yard was close by, and Lintstock, with a piece of meat tied to a string, as a lure for King James's full-fed ducks, had many a time and oft towed them in at the back-windows, with outspread wings; and more than one dozen of fowls had disappeared thus, to the astonishment of the royal poulterer.

"But the pigeons?"

"I shot with my arblast at Redhall's dovecot."

"And the eels?"

"I borrowed them frae the abbot's eel-arks, at the Canonmills loch."

"Mass! thou'st had a busy day on't. Never mind; when I have the mains of Ashkirk with—tush, I will repay all these debts and borrowings with usury."

With a towel under his arm, the old gunner drew himself up like a post, as the two cavaliers entered, attired in velvets richly laced and slashed, and looking very gay and smiling.

"Welcome, Sir John Forrester!—and thou too, my gay Leslie! Ah! where didst get that scratch on thy nose?"

"From the fan of little Sybil Douglas, at the queen's masque yesterday."

"The little firefly! Seats, gentlemen, seats! By my faith, you are in ill-luck. 'Tis quite a fast-day with me, this, and you will sup like starveling Franciscans."

"Fast!" said tall Forrester, as he threw aside his cloak and plume: "by St. Roque! if this is a fast-day, what are thy festivals? But who is thy provant master—thy fourrier de campement?"

"My servitor—my trusty Lintstock."

"Mass! would that I had such a valet as thou, and such noble credit with my wine-merchant. Thou seest, Leslie, what it is to be the king's favourite. Verily, Sir Roland Vipont carries a coronet on the point of his sword. Rogue! thou must pray well to have all these good things."

"Nay, nay," said young Leslie, with a burst of reckless laughter, "he pays old Father St. Bernard to do all that for him."

"Hast heard the news?"

"Nay, what news, Sir John?"

"Thou art to boune thee for the borders; for the king swore in my hearing he would find other work for thy sword than killing his most favourite courtiers."

"These rascally Hamiltons? But Kincavil is not dead, I hope?"

"Far from it," said Leslie; "but the apothegar, from whom I was purchasing some perfumes for little Sybil Douglas, averred to me that he is in a perilous bad way."

"When did these knaves of leeches ever aver a man was otherwise?" said Roland, seating himself. "To table, gentlemen, and pray do justice to the industry of my fourrier, and the comforts of my poor den, or hermitage, which you will; but prayer or no prayer, take care the cardinal heareth not of your jesting, Leslie—about prayers, I mean."

"The cardinal, that scarlet bugbear of the heretics? Oh, I don't fear the cardinal; he is the steadfast friend and true of my kinsman Norman, the Master of Rothes."

"A slice of this veal, Leslie?"

"Nay, I thank you; this roasted duck is quite admirable."

"'Tis from my estates in the country somewhere."

"Rochelle—or Bourdeaux?"

"Thank you—what news are abroad?"

"Nothing," said Forrester, "but of the queen having fainted twice to-day—poor little woman—to the consternation of Madame de Montreuil, De Brissac, the king, and all his court."

"How pure this Bourdeaux is—spiced, too!" said Vipont. "His eminence the cardinal (whom God long preserve!)——"

"Save us, friend Roland!" said Leslie; "thou art turning very religious."

"Is about to take such measures as shall assuredly exterminate the followers of those heretics, Resby, the Englishman, and the abbot of Fearn. Master Buchanan is now in the oubliette of St. Andrew's, where he will likely pay dearly for his satire Franciscanus."

"His eminence should confine himself to the pretty little amusements afforded by his country-house at Creich," said Forrester.

"Didst thou see that poor devil drowned to-day?"

"Who, Leslie?"

"He whom the king's advocate discovered burying a cat alive."

"Nay, I was hawking with the king on the Figgate-muir—the more fool I! Lintstock, thou knave!" cried Vipont to that functionary—who stood erect as a pike behind his chair—"uncork me half-a-dozen of these flasks. Drain, gentlemen, and replenish again; wine is a specific for care—worth a thousand homilies!"

"Lucky dog!" said Forrester; "thou drinkest out of horns hooped with silver, while I, who am lord of Corstorphine and Uchtertyre, must content me with plain beech luggies."

"Lintstock found them during our last raid into Westmoreland. Nevertheless, Sir John, thank Heaven that you were not, like me, born with a most portentous wooden spoon in your mouth. I was an unlucky brat, and cried, it seems, like a pagan at my baptism; a bad omen, as the Lady Ashkirk told me. Fill again; but excuse me—my wound, you know."

"Ah! that dainty dagger-thrust; but it is healing fast?"

"By the total absence of an apothegar—yes. Hah! yonder is a gay dame, followed by an esquire with the argent and gules in his bonnet, crossing the Abbey Close. My faith! 'tis Lady Anne of Arran, whom rumour says thou lovest, Leslie."

"How! that muirland-meg, Anne Hamilton? Ah! what a taste I must have!" replied Leslie.

"Nay, thou wrongest him, Vipont," said Sir John of Corstorphine; "'tis Marion Logan of Restalrig, who hath thy heart; is it not, lieutenant of mine?"

Leslie laughed, and coloured as he replied—

"'Tis Marion whom we see, and not the Lord Arran's daughter." The three gallants hastened to the window, as a lady, holding up her brocaded skirt in that fashion which the witty Knight of the Mount reprehended in his satires, passed into a door of the palace.

"Hast thou seen what Lindesay's new poem says of yonder fashion of skirt-bearing?" said Forrester:—

"I trow St. Bernard, nor St. Blaise,
Caused never man bear up their claise;
Nor Peter, Paul, nor St. Andrew,
Bore up their tails like these, I trow;
But I laugh most to see a nun
Cause bear her tail——

"The rest is vile ribaldry," said Vipont.

"And by St. Bernard, and St. Blaise to boot, Sir David deserves to be run through the body for so severely satirizing the ladies of Holyrood. Ha! who cometh next?—the cardinal!"

As he spoke, Beaton, with a cavalcade of horsemen, passed through the Abbey Close on an evening ride.

"He sits on his horse like a true cavalier," said Vipont, withdrawing a pace, as he observed the cardinal scrutinizing his windows.

"But observe the Abbot of Kinloss; he always rides faster than his horse, and hangs on the bridle like a drowning man."

"His roan nag is covered with foam, while those of the cardinal and his gentlemen are fresh as when they left their stalls."

"The daughter of his eminence and the young Lord Lindesay are riding together," said Vipont; "a love case that, I think."

Amid jesting and laughing—for their light hearts and the somewhat reckless manners of the time, when the sword was rarely out of men's hands, imparted an almost boisterous gaiety to the supper—the evening closed in, cloudy and grey; darkness approached, and candles were lighted. The clock struck half-past eight; but there were still four flasks uncorked, when Lintstock entered, with a portentous expression in his remaining eye, and laid before his master a square packet, tied with blue ribands, which, like the edicts of council, were officially sealed with green wax.

"The devil! now what doth this portend?" muttered his friends.

"If the king knows that I have harboured a rebel lord!" thought Roland, breathlessly, "my commission would be worth about as much as my head. By the faith of Vipont! 'tis in the name of the king, and countersigned by the cardinal too!"

"To our trusty friend, Sir Roland Vipont, of that Ilk.
"JAMES REX.

"Right trusty friend, we greet you well and heartillie.

"It is our royal will and pleasure, that with one hundred arquebussiers of our guard, under Louis Leslie of Balquhan, and two brass culverins, with their powder, shot, and cannoneers conform, you do march to-morrow at daybreak unto Douglasdale, for the capture, dead or alive, of Archibald Seton, sometime Earl of Archkirk, our rebel and traitor, who is rumoured to be resett in that district; where, without fail, you will give all to fire and sword, be it castle or be it cottage, wherein the said lord findeth shelter; for which you have this our warrant. Hoping that you will do your devoire truly and valiantly, according to the custom observit of auld, we commit you to the protection of God.

"DAVID,

"Cardinal, Sancti Andrea, Commendator de Arbroath,
Chancellor of Scotland.*

"From our Palace of Holyrood,
the 20th day of May, 1537."

* It is thus the Cardinal signed his name to more than one document in the author's possession.

"There, now, was not rumour right for once?" said Forrester.

"Still the same enmity to my unfortunate friend!" said Roland, whose face became pale, and whose teeth were clenched with anger.

"So we are to search for Lord Ashkirk among the Douglases," laughed Leslie; "a right perilous expedition. Take thy tall valet with thee, Vipont. 'Fore Heaven! that fellow, with his prodigious sword, were worth a troop of lances on such a service."

Roland glanced keenly at the speaker. Had he penetrated the earl's disguise? but there was nothing to be read but pure honesty and candour in Leslie's handsome features. He suspected not that the dictators of the order he had just received knew well that the earl was much nearer than Douglasdale.

"Ha! do you not hear something?" said Roland, rising up and listening.

"The cry of a woman, as I live!" replied Leslie; "shrill and deathly, too, as of one in sore distress; and there, now, is the patter of pistolettes!"

"Look out, Lintstock—thy one eye is worth a dozen—at the back window—what seest thou?"

"Torches moving about on St. John's Hill, the gleam of steel, and I hear the cries of a woman; eh, sirs, but she scraighs dreichly and eerilie!" was the reply of Lintstock, as he snatched up a partisan.

"To your swords, and away, gentlemen!" cried Roland, unhooking his rapier from the wall; "'tis a woman in distress! Meanwhile, Lintstock, away thou to the castle, seek my firemaster and his matrosses, and desire that two pieces of cannon and sixteen men in their armour, with horses and all in fighting order, be before the palace by daybreak to-morrow; look well to my own horses and new coat of mail too. And now, sirs, let us go, in God's name!" and with their mantles rolled round their left arms, and swords unsheathed, they sprang down stairs, and dashed up the south back of the Canongate, towards the base of St. John's Hill.

They saw no one: the place was desolate, and perfectly silent.

The moon, which had been partially obscured, shone forth for a moment, and revealed a pool of blood on the dusty road which skirted the base of the hill. Near it lay a lady's glove, and a man's bonnet of coarse blue cloth, but no traces of a fray.

On the bonnet was a pewter badge.

"'Tis the cognisance of Redhall," said Roland, tossing the bonnet away, and placing the glove in his belt.

After frequently hallooing, and searching long and fruitlessly, the three friends again sought St. Ann's Yard, but not to finish the remaining flasks; for Roland and Leslie had to prepare for their march by daybreak on the morrow, and now the hour was late.

CHAPTER XVII.
A LORD ADVOCATE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

"Camilla. Thou execrable man, beware!—
"Cenci. Of thee?
Nay this is idle:—We should know each other.
As to my character for what men call crime,
Seeing I please my senses as I list,
And vindicate that right with force of guile,
It is a public matter, and I care not
If I discuss it with you."—The Cenci.

The young earl and Lady Sybil were loth to part, for they had met but recently; and after a long and painful separation—painful by its danger and uncertainty—and full of themselves and their plans for the future, the hours stole swiftly past them. Thus the earl delayed so long in accompanying his impatient sister, that the dusk had almost set in before they left the house, on their promised visit to her friend at St. Katherine's, where Jane proposed remaining until the noon of the next day.

The night was cloudy, and the streets were dark and misty, so that two men, who emerged half tipsy from the Cross and Gillstoup, following them softly and warily, and at the gate of Redhall's house were joined by five others, were quite unobserved.

The earl was still disguised and liveried as Vipont's valet. He wore a cuirass below his doublet, and carried the conspicuous long rapier over his shoulder. Jane was muffled in a close hood, so as to be completely unknown to the few persons who were abroad in the dusk; and thus with security she accompanied him, and leant upon his arm. Two servants of their own name, from the earl's barony in Forfarshire, marched before them with lighted links. Both these men were tall, athletic and well armed, with jacks and caps of iron, swords, daggers and hacques, or small handguns, about three-quarters of a yard long. In those dangerous times every trifling visit and affair had quite the aspect of a conspiracy.

The brother and sister were chatting merrily, and each was speaking of the person whose image and interest lay nearest their hearts: thus Jane spoke of Roland, his courage and sincerity, his truth and hope; and of King James's ingratitude in neglecting to reward his valour and loyal service.

The earl spoke of his dark-eyed Sybil, and how he would one day place his father's coronet on her brow; and would do so on the morrow, if she would but fly with him to England, where they might wed without that dispensation which was yet required in Catholic Scotland, as they were both within the prohibited degrees—a dispensation which the cardinal's hostility, he feared, would withhold for ever, for Beaton was legate of Paul III., north of the English frontier.

Rendered wary by necessity, and from the nature of the times instinctively cautious, the earl looked back more than once to observe whether they were followed. The streets were almost deserted, and echoed to no other footsteps than their own. They descended the Canongate, which was then more open and less regular as a street than now; and passing down a narrow loan between hedges, having a barnyard on one side and a large "Berne-Kilne and Kobill" (the appurtenances of an ancient distillery) on the other, they found themselves on the solitary horseway which skirted the city on the south, and led straight from the Cowgate Porte to the Palace and St. Anne's Yard.

On one side the craigs heaved up their tremendous front; on the other rose a lofty ridge, at the north end of which stood a chapel of St. John, at the south end a chapel dedicated to St. Leonard, the Hermit of Orleans, and midway between, the sharp ridgy roof of a large convent—St. Mary's of Placentia—cut the sky. About its walls grew a number of willows, planted by the fair recluses, in the spirit of that beautiful old tradition which tells that our Saviour had been scourged by willow rods, for which offence the trees had drooped or wept in sorrow ever after. And there the migrating crossbills built their nests—a bird, said by another old legend to have taken its name from the circumstance of having striven with its little bill to draw forth the nails from the feet and hands of the dead Christ.

A faint and pale light in the east brought the ridge and its triple edifices forward in strong outline, and the gigantic willows were seen waving their graceful branches mournfully in the rising wind. The darkness of utter obscurity veiled the front of the craigs, and the deep hollow at their base, then a rough and savage gorge, round the edge of which lay the road the earl and his sister were to pursue.

A bell rang.

"Oh, Archibald, let us hasten," said Lady Jane; "the nuns are already saying the compline at St. Mary's yonder; see how the chapel is lighted up!"

"Faith! my good sister, I have dwelt so long under English Henry's roof, that I have well-nigh forgotten these small items of our ancient faith. I have seen church lands turned into fair lay baronies, and more than one stately priory become an earl's fief, its chapel a dining-hall, its cloisters a stableyard, its refectory a dog's kennel. But omit not to ask the fair Josina* to say one prayer for me, though I am such a reprobate pagan. By all the furies! it seems very droll to think that my little friend Josina hath become a prioress! I cannot realize it! She will have quite forgotten me."

* Josina Henrison was prioress of the Dominicans, at the Siennes, near Edinburgh, in the time of James V.

"Do not think so, for she still uses the missal you gave her before——"

"My kinswoman Sybil came home from the convent at Northberwick," said the earl, quickly. "Poor Josina!—and I shall see her once more."

"To-morrow at noon, when you and Roland come for me—and yet perhaps it were better not."

"Thou art right, sister of mine. Poor Josina!" and, with a sigh that told its own little story, the earl paused.

"A religious life certainly never seemed to be her vocation; and yet I pray God that she is happy. How now?" he added, on hearing his followers wind up the wheels of their hacques by the spanners (as they were named) which were attached to the locks by small chains; "what dost thou hear, Gilzean?"

"Footsteps, my lord."

"The echoes of our own, perhaps; but where?"