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Then came furious surmises and angry oaths as a dozen or more moss-troopers galloped down to the bank of the stream, and rode in an excited manner hither and thither, seeking to put the dogs upon a track or trail. Through the leafy screen of his hiding-place, Gray could see their fierce and sun-burned faces, their rusty helmets and battered trappings, their long reed-like lances that glittered in the moonshine; for those moss-troopers, in their well-worn and half-barbaric accoutrements, were the very Cossacks of the Scottish borders.
James Achanna now came up and spurred his horse across to examine the ford, and uttered a shout of exultation on discovering the trace of horses' hoofs recently impressed in the soft mud.
Gray drew a long breath, and felt the edge of his sword, for he thought the critical moment was at hand! But now a trooper, with an oath expressive of disappointment, drew the attention of all to the circumstance that the marks were those of a horse which had gone towards the ford and must have crossed it for the south, and that, if they were made by the hoofs of the fugitive's nag, he must have doubled like a hare. On hearing this, Gray blessed his own foresight in having backed his horse upward from the stream.
The moment this hint was given to the rest, who had no particular views of their own on the subject, they put spur to their horses and galloped away, almost in the direction from whence they had come. As soon as they were gone, Gray came forth from his lurking-place, mounted, and rode off towards the north leisurely and at an easy pace.
He was soon on the border of the fertile Lothians; the far-stretching range of the Pentlands rose upon his left, with their heathy summits tipped by the rising sun; the long ridge where the trenches of Agricola's camp overlooked the woods of Dalhousie, the Dalkeith of the Douglases, and the vale of the two Esks, was soon surmounted, and afar off, "piled deep and massy, close and high," he could see old grey Edinburgh rising in the distance.
Haggard, wan, and wild in aspect, weary and torn, – minus a helmet and with his dark hair streaming behind him; his armour rusted with perspiration, and by frequent immersion in the rivers he had forded or swam; his spurs dripping with blood, and his sinking horse covered with foam and quivering in every fibre; his embroidered surcoat frittered by brambles and thorns – the Captain of the King's Guard passed through the streets of Edinburgh, and reached the castle, thus actually returning, as the old gate-ward had shrewdly predicted, "faster than he gaed awa."
The Master of Crichton (the chancellor's eldest son), the favourite page of James, conducted him at once to the latter, who was in the same apartment of David's Tower, and occupied with the same translated romance of Sir Gilbert the Haye.
"What of MacLellan?" said he, starting up.
"MacLellan is dead, sire," replied Gray in a scarcely audible voice, and in a burst of grief and excitement "My kinsman – my friend – he has gone to heaven; but he was foully murdered, and in cold blood, by the base Lord Douglas, and I shall avenge him – yea, fearfully, I swear it by Him at whose throne he is now perhaps kneeling!"
"And I will aid your vengeance, Gray," added the king, pressing his hand.
Then, when Sir Patrick had related his story, James vowed deeply in his heart, if he could not conciliate Douglas, to CRUSH him and break his terrible bond, or let himself be crushed in the contest.
CHAPTER LI
STIRLING
Ye towers within whose circuit dread,
A Douglas by his sovereign bled;
And thou, oh sad and fatal mound,
That oft has heard the death-axe sound. —
Scott.To Gray it seemed as if Heaven or fate had conspired with Douglas to keep him and Murielle separate for the period of their natural lives; though King James assured him that his day of retribution, if not of happiness, must soon come now.
The king of Scotland was most anxious to avoid the horrors of a civil war with those obnoxious peers, who openly boasted, that on a day's notice, by the Fiery Cross, they could array forty thousand men against his throne and authority. He was really, and naturally so, alarmed by the bond or league of the Douglases and their confederates; but the summer passed, and the spring of the next year drew on, before the haughty earl would agree to meet his sovereign in solemn conference at Stirling. Then James promised Gray that all disputes would be ended, and that the wish which lay nearest his heart – the surrender of his wife to him – would be granted.
How vain were the hopes of the good young king; and how little could he or any one foresee the terrible sequel to that long-wished-for interview!
An ample letter of safe conduct was sent to the earl of Douglas, in custody of Sir William Lauder of Hatton, a knight of Lothian, one of his chief friends and followers; and thus armed and, as he deemed, protected, he entered the quaint and beautiful old town of Stirling, where James was then residing; for then, and for five generations after, Stirling was the Aranjuez, or Versailles of the Scottish kings, and on its decorations they were unsparing of treasure and of care.
It was on the morning of Shrove Tuesday, the 20th of February, 1451, that the earl arrived, accompanied by Hugh Douglas, earl of Ormond; Dunbar, earl of Murray; James, Lord Hamilton of Cadzow; Sir Alan Lauder; the lairds of Pompherston, Glendoning, Cairnglas, and, of course, James Achanna, – in all they were many hundred horsemen. They made no parade or show, save of war; for all these nobles, knights, and their followers, were mounted, mailed, and armed to perfection, so as to be in readiness for any emergency; and they were all men of approved and even reckless valour.
The early winter was past; the vast valley or plain, through which the wondrous links of Forth wind like a silver snake towards the German Sea, was assuming that brilliance of green which is the first indication of reviving nature.
The notes of the woodlark and throstle-cock were heard in the woods of Craigforth; the moles were busy on the fallow uplands, and the gnats swarmed in the sunshine about the budding hedgerows; in the park below the castle walls of Stirling, the bare-legged urchins of the town were busy "throwing at cocks" tied to stakes – a barbarous custom by which Shrovetide was always celebrated in Scotland, as well as in south Britain; others were playing at foot-ball, or shooting at the butts with little arblasts; and the shouts of their merriment rang upward in the clear and almost frosty air, to where Mary of Gueldres and her ladies were seated at the windows of the royal dwelling, many hundred feet above the grassy glen. But all left their sports, and hastened to the gate which opened towards the old Druid oaks of the Torwood, when the brass bombardes of the fortress rolled their thunder on the still atmosphere, and made the Ochil mountains echo in salute to the doughty earl of Douglas, while the clarions and trumpets of his train rang before the barrier-porte of the ancient burgh.
His family banner, twelve trumpets, with a royal herald and pursuivant, preceded him; and as he passed up the quaint streets, where the burghers at their windows, galleries, turrets, and forestairs, hung out pennons, tapestry, and garlands, and received him with acclamations, he deemed it all a tribute to his rank, and to his mighty feudal and mightier political power; although this display was merely the joyous outpouring of their hearts at the prospect of an amicable end being put to the jealousy and hate which had separated the chief of the Douglases – that line of glorious old historic memory – from a brave and high-spirited monarch whom they loved. It was all in the spirit of the old ballad —
God save the king, and bless the landIn plenty, joy, and peace;And grant henceforth that foul debate'Twixt noblemen may cease.The earl's cuirass was of Milan steel, magnificently damascened, studded with gilt nails, and furnished at the armpits with little espalettes of gold. From under his open helmet, which was surrounded by a coronet, he looked around him with a smile of surly satisfaction; but his most powerful friend, Sir James, the lord Hamilton of Cadzow, said, solemnly and sternly,
"Let not all this delude you, Douglas, to forget on this day the wrongs of your race."
"Forget?" reiterated the other, grimly; "forget, said ye, Cadzow? If I forget my father and my kinsmen, so may God, his blessed Mother, and St. Bryde of Douglas, forget me! No, Hamilton, never shall I forget the good and doughty Douglases who have gone before me, for their lives were lives of danger, and their mail-clad breasts were Scotland's best bulwarks in the stormy days of old."
"I know all that; but our bond – and the king" – said Hamilton, hesitatingly.
"Well, he is neither priest, philosopher, nor exorcist, like that old knave of Tongland, who has left me to my own sins and devices; so what can he make of the matter?"
"When we are within yonder castle on the rock, he may perhaps term it treason."
"He dare not!" was the bold reply.
"I beseech you to beware, my lord earl," said Lord Hamilton; "I have a strange foreboding in my heart, and I warn you now – even as the good Sir Malcolm Fleming warned Earl William – to remember that before the gate of Stirling lies a mound, on which have rolled the heads of Murdoch of Albany, of his two sons, of Duncan, earl of Lennox, and many others."
"What of that?" asked the earl impatiently, as if he disliked the subject.
"In one minute more, you will be at the mercy of the king," said Hamilton, who was alike bold and wary.
But the earl laughed scornfully and rode on, while the majority of his vast retinue separated to seek quarters in the town, as the castle could not have held them.
"There is yet time to pause – even to return," resumed Hamilton, as he all but seized the earl's rein.
"I know not what you mean, Cadzow; but I care not, and he dare not," said Douglas, as he reined up his horse and dismounted at the gate of the castle.
Before it was a strong palisade, within which the soldiers of the king's guard were under arms, with their helmets, corslets, plate sleeves, and partisans glittering in the sun. At their head were Sir Patrick Gray, and his kinsman, Gray of Balgarno, clad, not in state dresses, but complete armour, as if for battle.
Sir Patrick and the earl exchanged angry and hostile glances as they passed each other. There was a considerable pressure about the gate, as the chief followers of Douglas crushed after him through the narrow outer wicket; and there a strange fracas took place between Cadzow and the grim old Sir Alexander Livingstone of Callender, who, after he had relinquished the regency, had been appointed justice-general of Scotland, with a peerage in perspective.
Sir Alexander snatched a partisan from the hands of his son, Sir James Livingstone, who was captain of the castle of Stirling, and when Hamilton (his own kinsman and friend) attempted to enter, he placed the shaft across the wicket, and roughly thrust him back.
Inspired by a sudden fury, Hamilton shut down the visor of his helmet, and, sword in hand, was rushing upon Livingstone; but the strong and determined old knight resolutely held him back till the gates were shut, and thus he, with many more of the earl's train who might have proved troublesome from their number and disposition, were excluded.
"Sir James Hamilton," says history, "was very angry at this usage at the time; but afterwards learned that Livingstone acted a friendly part in excluding him from the probable danger into which Douglas was throwing himself." It was a conference the end of which none could foresee.
It is somewhat remarkable that, after a brawl which seemed so significant of perils yet to come, Douglas (unless he was ignorant of its occurrence) should have passed through the embattled porch of the fortress; but now all the barriers were closed, and no course was open but to dree his weird– to follow his destiny!
CHAPTER LII
HOW THE KING BROKE THE BOND
Little honour it won thee
For smooth was thy greeting;
Thou wast bid to the feast,
In the hall was your meeting.
In the hall was your meeting,
But thou stained it with slaughter;
When there's blood on the hearth,
Who can wash it with water?
From the Gaelic.Veiling his just indignation under a bland exterior, King James II. received the turbulent earl kindly and with condescension; and after some amicable expostulations on the subject of the men he had so lawlessly put to death in Thrave and elsewhere – the ravages he had committed upon the lands of his enemies – the towns he had burned and the castles he had stormed, all seemed to become cordiality between him and his much-too-powerful subject.
Of these startling acts they conversed as quietly and easily as modern men may do of an election, a bill before parliament, or any ordinary and everyday affair; yet they were dangerous topics to comment upon at such a time, for by the king's side were still the Lord Chancellor Crichton, Sir Alexander Livingstone of Callender, the Lord Glammis, Sir Patrick Gray, and others; while near Douglas were the Earls of Crawford, Murray, and Ormond, with Pompherston, Glendoning, and others, all, more or less, involved personally; but now, on looking round, the earl missed the powerful chief of the house of Hamilton.
"Is not Cadzow here?" he asked, changing colour.
"He remains in the town," said Sir Alexander Livingstone with a smile which there was no analyzing; "but if it please you, lord earl, I shall send him a message."
"Do so, Laird of Callender," replied the earl, "and for the first time in my life I shall thank you."
"We shall see," replied Livingstone as he withdrew to an antechamber, where he disengaged the gold spur from his right heel, and giving it to James's page, the Master of Crichton bade him "see the Lord Hamilton, of Cadzow, and give him this spur, with a kinsman's best wishes for its speedy use."
The spur was duly delivered – the hint was accepted, and the brawl at the gate seemed explained; for within an hour, Hamilton and his followers were far on the road to Clydesdale and the castle of Cadzow.
At the hour of seven, the king, Douglas, and their retinue sat down to a banquet, or rere-supper, in the castle-hall. It was sumptuous, and what it lacked in genuine hilarity was made up in rude and antique splendour. At that banquet friends and foes seemed united for the time – though like Scotsmen in general, the moment it was over, and while the hall yet echoed with the flourish of trumpets as the king rose, they drew into cliques and coteries, who talked and scowled at each other. The king, Crichton, and Livingstone earnestly desired a compromise and coalition with Douglas.
On one hand the latter wished to scare them by a display of his power, and on the other to fathom their ulterior plans without revealing his own; thus during the banquet he carefully avoided the perilous subject of his rebellious bond.
Gray, as he leaned on his partizan, at the back of the king's chair, kept the visor of his helmet half closed, to conceal the emotions of his heart, which his face might have betrayed. Not even the image of Murielle, pale, gentle, and sad-eyed, could soften at that time the bitterness that burned within him. His long separation from her; his wounds inflicted by the hands of the earl and his followers; his many wrongs; the snares of Achanna; the long captivity in the Flemish castle of Bommel; his kinsman's murder, and the terrors of that desperate flight from Thrave, all swelled up like a flood of fiery thoughts within him, and he actually conceived the idea of smiting Douglas on the face with his iron glove in the king's presence, and challenging him to mortal combat in the hall.
Night had set in – a dark and gusty night of February, when the wind howled loudly and drearily round the towers of Stirling, and when the moon cast its fitful gleams with the shadows of the fast-flying clouds, on the wide vale of Forth, and the mighty masses of the Ochil Mountains. The pages were lighting the sconces and chandeliers in the great hall, while the yeomen of the cellars were supplying the guests with more wine, when James, impatient to broach the subject of the bond, privately invited the earl to accompany him into a closet, which is still shown in the north-western corner of the castle – the same quarter of the royal residence in which he first saw the light. In golden letters, on its cornice, may yet be seen his name:
Jacobus II. Rex ScottorumIts walls were then covered with gilded Spanish leather; a fire of perfumed wood burned cheerfully on the hearth; but the poker and tongs, though each surmounted by an imperial crown, were chained to the jambs, as if in the house of a simple citizen.
After trimming the lights, the pages, on a sign from the king, withdrew backwards, bowing at every step, and he was left with the earl, who found himself alone, or unattended, and in the closet were the Lords Crichton, Glammis, Sir Patrick Gray, a gentleman of the bedchamber, named Sir Simon Glendinning, and one or two others, who were the chosen friends of James.
Aware that their sovereign was about to take the earl calmly but severely to task, they all drew somewhat apart, and Gray, with soldier-like instinct, leaned in silence on his partizan near the door. On perceiving these little movements, a smile of disdain crossed the earl's swarthy face, and he played significantly with his jewelled dagger.
James resumed the subject of his general conduct, and if Master David Hume of Godscroft, the historian of the house of Douglas, can be credited, the earl answered submissively enough, and craved the royal pardon, often alleging that the slaughter of Sir Herbert Herries of Teregles, Sir Thomas MacLellan of Bombie, and others, were not acts against the crown, but lawful raids against his own personal enemies.
"But how came you to slay the Gudeman of my mills at Carluke?" asked the king." – Carluke – ha! ha!"
"The death of a good man is no laughing matter," said James, with a frown on his handsome face.
"He was accused of having weeds on his land."
"Weeds!" was the perplexed rejoinder.
"Yes, your highness – weeds. It was statute and ordained by Alexander II., that he who poisoneth the king's lands with weeds, especially the corn marigold, was a traitor."
"By my faith! that should make clean garden-work in the realm of Scotland," said the old chancellor, bitterly; "but the law says, that he who hath a plant of this kind found on his lands may be fined a sheep, or the value thereof, at the goul-court of the baron; whereas the miller died, or was found murdered – hewn to pieces by Jethart axes, within the Holy Gyrth of Lesmahago – a crime against the Church as well as State."
"I came not here to talk of peasant carles and their modes of dying," said Douglas, with a terrible frown at Crichton, his hatred for whom he cared not to conceal; "and since when, my lord chancellor, has a slaughter, committed in the form of Raid, been termed a murder in Scotland?"
"Enough about the poor miller," resumed the king, with growing severity; "my lord, I have another complaint; you have lawlessly separated a faithful subject, the captain of our guard, from his wedded wife, and thus have torn asunder, for many long years, those whom your own father-confessor united before the altar with every due solemnity."
"I hope to separate them yet more surely," replied the earl, with a glance of unutterable hate at Gray.
"This, in my presence?" exclaimed the king; "thou heart of iron!"
"In any man's presence, and to any man who mars or meddles with my domestic affairs; but I beseech your majesty to change the ungracious subject."
"Be it so," replied the king, with a gentleness he was very far from feeling, as his temper was fiery in the extreme. "All these are matters for after consideration; but what say you to that most treasonable confederation, into which you have entered with the earls of Crawford, Ormond, Ross, the lords Hamilton, Balvenie, and many others? By that bond you seek to array one half my kingdom against me – a kingdom over which my dynasty has ruled in strength for so many generations."
"So much the worse," sneered the insolent peer; "for all dynasties begin in strength and end in weakness."
"I pledge my royal word," continued the king, trembling with suppressed passion, "that when I first heard of your league, and of its terrible tenor, I could scarcely give it credence." – "Possibly, your grace – but what then?"
"Simply, that bond must be broken."
"Must!" reiterated the earl, incredulously.
"Yes must, and shall, by the soul of St. Andrew! No such leagues can be tolerated in a realm, without the express sanction of its sovereign; and by abandoning this confederacy, Douglas, you will remove every suspicion from my mind." – "Suspicion! – of what?"
"Secret motives, whose aim we cannot see."
"Sire!" began Douglas, loftily, but paused.
"Notwithstanding all that has passed, I am unwilling to believe the evil which men impute to you," said James, with a most conciliating manner; "but you must expect neither favour nor mercy from me if you continue to show such examples to my people, and teach them to live as if there were neither law nor justice in the kingdom."
Douglas heard this bold remonstrance (in which we follow the words of history) with surprise; but recovering himself, replied plausibly; and in the pauses of this conference the sounds of laughter, hilarity, and the clinking of cups and goblets came from the adjoining hall, with the notes of the harps in the gallery.
"Your Majesty's favour I shall certainly endeavour to preserve," said the earl. "You are aware that I have the honour to command many who obey me faithfully and fearlessly, and I trust you are also aware that I know well how to render dutiful obedience to you. None of your subjects in Scotland possess higher rank or greater power than I, the Earl of Douglas, do; nor is there one who will more freely peril life and fortune in defence of your majesty's throne and honour. But," he added, suddenly relinquishing his adopted suavity, and glancing malignantly at Crichton, Gray, and others; "those who lay snares for my life – even as they snared my kinsmen in 1440 – are now your majesty's constant attendants, friends, and advisers, so that I dare not trust myself in your royal presence, without a letter of safe conduct, as if I were an Englishman, or any other subject of a foreign king."
"And without an army of followers," added the chancellor, who, remembering the ambush in which he had so nearly perished before his own gate, was confounded by the stolid effrontery of his enemy.
"But the bond," said the king; "the bond, my lord!"
"As for that league of mutual friendship, formed by certain nobles and myself, I can assure your majesty, that, for any purpose which pleased us, we should adhere together quite well without its existence."
"Did friendship alone produce the bond?" asked James with an eagle glance in his keen hazel eyes.
"No – we were driven to seal and sign it, – not with intent to attack our enemies, but to defend ourselves against them."
"Lord Earl," said the king, gravely, "deeds, not words, evince the affection and submission of a subject; and there can be no greater security for him, than the justly administered laws of the realm. Such men as you, my lord of Douglas, have ever raised those factions which have subverted the authority of your kings and the laws of your country; and now I am resolved to tolerate no subjects of any rank or condition who dare to form leagues, offensive and defensive, against all persons."
"My ancestors – " began the earl furiously.
"Oh, my lord," said James; "what is all your mad pride of ancestry, when compared – "
"With yours, your majesty would say!"
"No," replied the king, with a bitter smile, while growing pale with rage.
"What then?" – "With personal worth."
The daring Douglas gave his young monarch a glance of profound disdain; and during this species of altercation, it was with difficulty that Crichton, Gray, Glammis, and Sir Simon Glendinning restrained the desire for falling on the earl sword in hand. "Proceed," said the latter with a sigh of mock resignation.