The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Scottish Cavalier, Vol. I, by James Grant

AUTHOR OF
"THE ROMANCE OF WAR, OR THE GORDON HIGHLANDERS,"
"MEMOIRS OF KIRKALDY OF GRANGE," &C.

Dost thou admit his right,
Thus to transfer our ancient Scottish crown?
Ay, Scotland was a kingdom once,
And, by the might of God, a kingdom still shall be!
ROBERT THE BRUCE, ACT II.

PREFACE.

From the historical and descriptive nature of the following tale, the Author intended that certain passages should be illustrated with notes, containing the local traditions and authorities from which it has been derived; but on second thoughts he has preferred confining these explanations to the preface.

History will have rendered familiar to the reader the names of many who bear a prominent part in the career of Walter Fenton; but there are other characters of minor importance, who, though less known to fame than Dundee and Dunbarton, were beings who really lived and breathed, and acted a part in the great drama of those days. Among these, we may particularise Douglas, of Finland, and Annie Laurie.

This lady was one of the four daughters of Sir Robert Laurie, the first Baronet of Maxwelton, and it was to her that Finland inscribed those well-known verses, and that little air which now bear her name, and are so wonderfully plaintive and chaste for the time; but it is painful to record that, notwithstanding all the ardour and devotion of her lover, the fair Annie was wedded as described in the romance. Her father, Sir Robert, was created a baronet in 1685.

The Old Halberdier and Hugh Blair (mentioned so frequently) are also real characters. The former distinguished himself at the battle of Sedgemoor, and by a Royal Order, dated 26th February, 1686, received "forty pounds for his good service in firing the great guns against the rebells" who were opposed to Sir James Halkett's Royal Scots. The tavern of Hugh Blair was long celebrated in Edinburgh. His name will be found in Blackadder's Memoirs, and frequently among the Decisions of Lord Fountainhall, in disputes concerning various runlets of Frontiniac, &c.

Lord Mersington was exactly the personage he is described in the following pages—an unprincipled sot. From Cruickshank's History it appears that his lady was banished the liberties of Edinburgh in 1674, for being engaged in the female assembly which insulted Archbishop Sharpe.

Of Thomas Butler, an unfortunate Irish gentleman connected with the ducal house of Ormond, who bears a prominent part in Volume III., an account will be found in the London Papers of 1720, in which year he was executed at Tyburn as a highwayman.

The song mentioned so frequently, and the burden of which is Lillibulero bullen a la! was a favorite whig ditty, and the chorus was formed by the pass-words used during the Irish massacre of 1641.

The principal locality of the story is the Wrightshouse or Castle of Bruntisfield, which stood near the Burghmuir of Edinburgh, and was unwisely removed in 1800, to make way for that hideous erection—the hospital of Gillespie. As described in the romance, it was a magnificent chateau in the old Scoto-French style of architecture, and was completely encrusted with legends, devices, armorial bearings, and quaint bassi relievi.

It was of great antiquity, and over the central door were the arms of Britain, with the initials J. VI. M. B. F. E. H. R.

Amid a singular profusion of sculptured figures representing Hope, Faith, Charity, &c., was a bas-relief of Adam and Eve in Eden, bearing the following legend:—

Between them was a female representing Taste, and inscribed Gustus. "On the eastern front of the castle was sculptured a head of Julius Cæsar, and under it Caius Jul. Cæsar, primus Rom. Imp. On the eastern wing were figures of Temperentia, Prudentia, and Justitia, which it is remarkable were among the first stones thrown down." (Scots Mag., 1800.) On the west wing was a Roman head of Octavius II., and five representations of the Virtues, beautifully sculptured. Sicut oliva fructifera 1376, In Domino Confido, 1400, Patriæ et Posteris, and many other valuable carvings, which are now preserved at Woodhouselee, adorned the walls and windows.

The east wing was said to have been built by Robert III.; Arnot informs us, that the centre was erected by James IV. for one of his mistresses, and about the close of the last century, Hamilton of Barganie made many additions to it. How the edifice obtained the name of Wright's or Wryte's-house is now unknown, as no proprietor of it who bore that name can now be traced; but the Napiers appear to have possessed the barony from an early period, and their names frequently occur in local records.

Alexander Napier de Wrichtyshouse appears as one of an inquest in 1488. His coat-armorial was a bend charged with a crescent, between two mullets. He married Margaret Napier of Merchiston, whose father was slain at the battle of Flodden. In 1581, among the commissioners appointed by James VI., "anent the cuinze," we find William Napier of the Wrightshouse, (Acta Parliamentorum) and in 1590, Barbara Napier, his sister, was convicted of sorcery, for which on the llth of May she was sentenced to be burnt at a "stake sett on the Castellhill, with barrels, coales, heather, and powder;" but when the torch was about to be applied, pregnancy was alleged, and the execution delayed. (Calderwood's Historic.)

In 1632, William of the Wrightshouse was a commissioner at Holyrood, anent the valuation of Tiends ; and two years after we find him retoured heir to his father William in certain lands in Berwickshire; but in 1626, "terrarum de Brounisfield, infra parochiam de Sanct. Cuthbert" belonged to Sir William Fairlie of Braid. In 1649 he obtained a crown charter of his lands (MS. Mag. Sigilli), and in 1680, the last notice of this old family will be found in the Inquisitionum Retornatarum, where it ends in a female.

Thus about the close of the 17th century, the Napiers had passed away, and their barony was possessed by the Laird of Pennicuick. All that now remains of them is their burial place on the north side of St. Giles' Cathedral, where may still be seen their mouldering coat-armorial, with this inscription:—

CHAPTER I.

THE PLACE OF BRUNTISFIELD.

There is nae Covenant noo, Lassie,
    There is nae covenant, noo;
The solemn league and covenant,
    Are a' broken through.
                                                OLD SONG.

One evening in the month of March, 1688, a party of thirty soldiers mustered rapidly and silently under the arches of the White Horse Hostel, an old and well-known inn on the north side of the Canongate of Edinburgh. The night was dark and cold, and a high wind swept in gusts down the narrow way between the picturesque houses of that venerable street and the steep side of the bare and rocky Calton-hill.

Gathering in cautious silence, the soldiers scarcely permitted the butts of their heavy matchlocks to touch the pavement: in a loud whisper the officer gave the order to march, and they moved off with the same air of quietness and rapidity which characterized their muster, and showed that a very secret or important duty was about to be executed.

In those days the ranks were drawn up three deep, and such was the mode until a later period; so, by simply facing a body of men to the right or left, they found themselves three abreast without confusion or delay.

"Fenton," said the officer to a young man who carried a pike beside him, "keep rearward. You are wont to have the eye of a hawk; and if any impertinent citizen appears to watch us, lay thy truncheon across his pate."

This injunction was unnecessary; for those belated citizens who saw them, hurried past, glad to escape unquestioned. In those days, when every corporal of horse or foot, was vested with more judicial powers than the Lord Justice General, the night march of a band of soldiers was studiously to be avoided. Aware that some "deed of persecution" was about to be acted, the occasional wayfarers hurried on, or turned altogether aside, when forewarned that soldiers appeared, by the measured tread of feet, by the gleam of a gun-barrel, or cone of a helmet glinting in the rays of light that shot from half-closed windows into the palpable darkness.

These soldiers belonged to the regiment of George Earl of Dunbarton, the oldest in the Scottish army, and a body of such antiquity, that they were jocularly known in France as Pontius Pilate's Guards. With red coats, they wore morions of black unpolished iron; breast-plates of the same metal, crossed by buff belts which sustained their swords, fixing-daggers and collars of bandoleers, as the twelve little wooden cases, each containing a charge of powder, were named. Their breeches and stockings were of bright scarlet, and each had a long musket sloped on his shoulder, with its lighted match gleaming like a glowworm in the dark. The officer was distinguished by a plume that waved from a tube on his gilded helmet, which, like his gorget, was of polished steel, while to denote his rank he carried a half-pike, in addition to his rapier and dagger, and wore a black corslet richly engraved and studded with nails of gold, conform to the Royal Order of 1686. He was a handsome fellow, tall, and well set up, with a heavy dark mustache, and a face like each of his soldiers, well bronzed by the sun of France and Tangiers.

In that age, the closes and wynds of the Scottish capital were like those of ancient Paris or modern Lisbon, narrow, smoky, and crowded, unpaved, unlighted, and encumbered with heaps of rubbish and mud, which obstructed the gutters and lay in fœtid piles, until heavy rains swept all the debris of the city down from its lofty ridge into the Loch on the north, or the ancient communis ma, on the south. At night the careful citizen carried a lantern—the bold one his sword; for men generally walked abroad well armed, and none ever rode without a pair of long iron pistols at his saddle-bow.

The late king had made every kind of dissipation fashionable; and after night-fall the gallants of the city swaggered about the Craimes or the Abbey-Close, muffled in their cloaks like conspirators; and despite the axes of the city guard, and the halberds of the provost, excesses were committed hourly; and seldom a night passed without the clash of rapiers and the shouts of cavalier brawlers being heard ringing in the dark thoroughfares of the city. Thieves were hanged, coiners were quartered, covenanters beheaded, and witches burned, until executions failed to excite either interest or horror; but with the plumed and buff-booted Ruffler of the day, who brawled and fought from a sheer love of mischief and wine, what plebeian baillie or pumpkin-headed city-guard would have dared to find fault? Of this more anon.

Stumbling through the dark streets, the party of soldiers marched past the Pleasance Porte, above the arch of which grinned a white row of five bare skulls, which had been bleaching there since 1681. Every barrier of Edinburgh was garnished with these terrible trophies of maladministration.

Leaving behind them the ancient suburb, they diverged upon the road near the old ruined convent of St. Mary of Placentia, which, from the hill of St. Leonard, reared up its ivied walls in shattered outline. Beyond, and towering up abruptly from the lonely glen below, frowned the tremendous front of Salisbury craigs. The rising moon showed its broad and shining disc, red and fiery above their black rocks, and fitfully between the hurrying clouds, its rays streamed down the Hauze, a deep and ghastly defile, formed by some mighty convulsion of nature, when these vast craigs had been rent from that ridgy mountain, where King Arthur sat of old, and watched his distant gallies on the waters of the Roman Bodoria.

For a moment the moonlight streamed down the defile, on the hill of St. Leonard, with its thatched cottages and ruined convent, on the glancing armour of the soldiers, and the bare trees bordering the highway; again the passing clouds enveloped it in opaque masses, and all was darkness.

"Sergeant Wemyss," cried the cavalier officer, breaking the silence which had till then been observed.

"Where tarries that loitering abbeylubber, who was to have joined us on the march?"

"Yonder he stands, I believe, your honour, by the ruins of the mass-monging days," replied the sergeant, pointing to a figure which a passing gleam of the moon revealed emerging from the ruins.

"Mean you that tall spunger in the red Rocquelaure? To judge by his rapier and feather, he is a gentleman, but one that seems to watch us. So, ho, sir! a good even; you are late abroad to-night."

"At your service, Sir," responded the other gruffly behind the cape of his cloak, which, in the fashion of an intriguing gallant of the day, he wore so high up as completely to conceal his face.

"For King or for Covenant, Sir?" asked the lieutenant, who was Richard Douglas, of Finland.

"Tush!" laughed the stranger; "this is an old-fashioned test; you should have asked," he added, in a lower voice, "For James VII., or William of Orange! ha, hah!"

"Body o' me! it ill beseems one of His Majesty's Privy Councillors to be roving abroad thus like a night hawk."

"I am the best judge of my own actions, Mr. Douglas," replied the lord haughtily; but added in a whisper, "you are bound for the Wrytes-house?"

"You will take particular care that the young lady—tush, I mean the old one—they must not escape, as you shall answer to the Council. Dost comprehend me—the young lady of Bruntisfield, eh?"

"Too well, my Lord," replied the cavalier, drawing himself up, and shaking his lofty plume with undisguised hauteur. "Curse on the libertine fool!" he exclaimed to the young pikeman, as he hurried after his party; "would he make me his pimp? By Heaven! he well deserves a slash in the doublet for casting his eyes upon noble ladies, as he would on the bona-robas of Merlin's Wynd."

"What said he, Finland?" he asked, with a kindling eye and a reddening cheek. "He spoke of the Napiers, did he not?"

"Only to this purpose, that on peril of our beards the ladies do not escape, especially the younger one. Hah! they say this ruffling libertine hath long looked unutterable things at Lilian Napier. He is a deep intriguer, and the devil only knows what plots he may be hatching now against her."

"S'death! Finland, assure me of this, and by Heaven I will brain him with my partisan!"

"Hush, lad! these words are dangerous. You are but a young soldier yet, Walter," continued the officer, laughing; "had you trailed a pike under Henry de la Tour of Auvergne, and the old Mareschal Crecqy, like me, you would ere this have learned to value a girl's tears and a grandam's groans at the same ransom, perhaps. But, egad, I had rather than my burganet full of broad pieces, that this night's duty had fallen on any other than myself; and I think, Major, the Chevalier Drumquhazel (as we call him) might have selected some of those old fellows whose iron faces and iron hearts will bear them through anything."

"Never when bullets or blades are to be encountered; but to worry an old preacher, and harry the house and barony of an ancient and noble matron, by all the devils! 'tis not work for men of honour. The Napiers of Bruntisfield are soothfast friends of the Lauries of Maxwelton—and my dear little Annie—thou knowest, Walter, that her wicked waggery will never let me hear the end of it, if we march the Napiers to the Tolbooth to-night."

"You see the advantage of being alone in this bad and hollow-hearted world," said Fenton, in a tone of bitterness, "of being uncaring and utterly uncared for."

"True—since Sedgemoor-field was fought and lost by Monmouth; but cheer up, my gallant. If this rascal, William of Orange, unfurls his banner among us, we will have battles and leaguers enough; ay, faith! to which the Race of Dunbar, and the Sack of Dundee, will be deemed but child's-play. And hark! for thy further contentment, I trailed a partisan for four long years under Turenne ere I obtained a pair of colours; and then I thought my fortune made; but thou see'st, Walter, I am only a poor lieutenant still. Uncaring and uncared for! Bravo! 'tis the frame of mind to make an unscrupulous lad do his devoire as becomes a soldier. And yet I assure thee, friend Walter, if aught in Scotland will make a man swerve from his duty—ay, even old Thomas Dalzel, that heart of steel—'tis the blue eyes of Lilian Napier, of Bruntisfield. The beauty of her person is equalled only by the winning grace of her manner; and I swear to thee, that not even Mary of Charteris, or my own merry Annie, have brighter charms—a redder lip, or a whiter hand. Hast seen her, lad?"

There was a sadness in his voice, which, with the sigh accompanying his words, conveyed a great deal—but only to the wind—for the gayer cavalier marked it not.

"If we start the game—I mean these Dutch renegades on the Napiers' barony—it will go hard with them in these times, when every day brings to light some new plot against the Government. Napier of the Wrytes—'tis an old and honourable line, and loth will I be to see it humbled."

"The great father of confusion who usually presides at the head of our Scottish affairs. True, Walter, the rock, the cod, and the bobbins become them better; but I shall be sorry to exact marching-money and free quarters from old Lady Grizel. Clermistonlee is the source of this accusation, which alleges that her ladyship knows of an intended invasion from Holland, and that she hath reset two emissaries of the House of Orange. But a word in thine ear, Fenton; there are villains at our Council-board who more richly merit the cord of the Provost Marshal; and Randal Clermont, of Clermistonlee, is not the least undeserving of such exaltation."

"God save King James and sain King Charles, say I! but to old Mahoud with the Council, which is driving the realm to ruin at full gallop. Hah! here comes, at last, this loitering villain, the macer," added Finland, as the moonlight revealed a man running after them. "Fellow! why the deuce did you not meet us at the White Horse Cellar?"

"Troth, Sir, just to tell ye the truth," replied the panting functionary, drawing his gilt baton from the pocket of his voluminous skirt, "it is a kittle job this, and likely to get a puir man like me unco ill will in such uncanny times—but I stayed a wee while owre late may be, biding the ale cogue, at Lucky Dreep's change-house in the Kirk-o'-field Wynd. However, Sir, follow me, and we'll catch these traitors where the reiver fand the tangs—at Madam's fire-side."

"Follow thee!" reiterated the cavalier officer, contemptuously; "malediction on the hour when a Douglas of Finland and a band of the old Scottish Musqueteers are bent on the same errand with a knave like thee! Step out, my lads, and, Walter Fenton, do thou fall rearward again, and see that we are neither followed nor watched; for, egad! these are times to sharpen one's wits."

Thus ordered, our hero (for such is the handsome pikeman) fell gradually to the rear, and stopped at times to bend his ear to the ground and his eyes on the changing shadows of the moonlit scenery; but he heard nothing save the blustering wind of March, which swept through the hollow dells, and saw only the shadows of the flying clouds cast by the bright moon on the fields through which the soldiers marched.

They had now passed all the houses of the city, and were moving westward, by the banks of the Burghloch, a broad and beautiful sheet of water, upwards of a mile in length, shaded on one side by the broken woods of Warrender and the old orchards of the convent of Sienna; on the other, open fields extended from its margin to the embattled walls of the city. One moment it shone like a sheet of polished silver; the next it lay like a lake of ink, as the passing clouds revealed or obscured the full-orbed moon.

"What lights are those twinkling in the woods yonder?" asked Finland, pointing northward with his pike, on his party reaching the rhinns, or flat at the end of the lake.

"Harkee, macer, and the dark pile rising on the height, further to the westward."

"The Place of Drumsheugh, Sir, pertaining of auld to my Lord Clermistonlee. He was just the gudeman thereof before these kittle times. A dark and eerie place it is, where neither light has burned nor fire bleezed—a joke been cracked nor a runlet broached these mony lang years. He is a dour cheild that Clermistonlee, and one that would—"

"Twist thy hause, fellow," said the pikeman, sternly, "for speaking of your betters otherwise than with the reverence that becomes your station."

"Ye craw brawly for the spawn o' an auld covenanter," muttered the macer between his teeth, as they entered the dark avenue that led to the place of their destination; "brawly indeed! but may-be I'll hae ye under my hands yet, for a' your iron bravery and gay gauds."

CHAPTER II.

THE PREACHER.

A stranger, and a slave, unknown like him,
Proposing much means little;—talks and vows,
Delighted with the prospect of a change,
He promised to redeem ten Christians more,
And free us all from slavery.
ZARA.

On the succession of James VII. to the throne, the persecution of the covenanters by the civil authorities, and by the troops under Dalzel, Claverhouse, Lag, and officers of their selection, was waged without pity or remorse, and the mad rage which had disgraced the government of the preceding reign, was still poured forth on the poor peasantry, who were hunted from hill to wood, and from moss to cavern, by the cavalry employed in riding down the country, until by banishment, imprisonment, famine, torture, the sword, and the scaffold, presbyterianism was likely to be crushed altogether; but an odium was raised, and a hatred fostered, against the Scottish ministry of the House of Stuart, which is yet felt keenly in the pastoral districts, where the deeds of those days are still spoken of with bitterness and reprehension.

The parliament of Scotland was presided over by the Duke of Queensbury, a base time-server: it appeared devoted to the new sovereign, and declared him vested with solid and absolute authority, in which none could participate, and had promised him the whole array of the realm, between the ages of sixteen and sixty, whenever he should require their services. Notwithstanding these and similar loyal and liberal offers, there existed a strong faction intensely averse to the rule of a Catholic king; and though only three years before Archibald, Earl of Argyle, and the equally unfortunate Duke of Monmouth, had both perished in a futile attempt to preserve the civil and religious liberties of the land, the unsubdued Presbyterians were still intriguing with Holland, and concerting measures with William Prince of Orange, for a descent on the British shores, the expulsion of James by force of arms, and thus breaking the legitimate succession of the Crown. Suspicion of these plots, and the intended invasion, had called forth all the fury and tyranny of the Scottish ministry against those whom they supposed to be inimical to the then existing state of things.

A certain covenanting preacher of some celebrity, the Reverend Mr. Ichabod Bummel, and a man of a very different stamp, Captain Quentin Napier, (an officer of the Scottish Brigade in the service of the States-General,) both supposed to be emissaries of the Prince of Orange, were known to be concealed in the house of Bruntisfield, the residence of Lady Grizel Napier, widow of Sir Archibald of the Wrytes, a brave commander of cavalier troops, who had fallen in the Battle of Inverkeithing. Unluckily for herself the old lady was a kinswoman of the intercommuned traitor, Patrick Hume, "umquhile designate of Polworth," to use the legal and malevolent phraseology of the day; and consequently, notwithstanding the loyalty of her husband, the eyes of that stern tribunal, which ruled the Scottish Lowlands with a rod of iron, had been long upon her. And now, attended by a macer of Council, bearing a warrant of search and arrest, a party of soldiers were approaching her mansion.

An archway, the piers of which were surmounted by two great stone eagles in full flight, each bearing a lance aloft, gave admittance to the long avenue that curved round the eminence on which the mansion stood. As the soldiers entered, the measured tap of a distant drum was borne from the city on the passing night-wind, and announced the hour of ten.

Thick dark beeches and darker oaks waved over them; the gigantic reliques of the great forest of Drumsheugh, beneath whose shade in the days of other years, the savage wolf, the stately elk, the bristly boar, and the magnificent white bull of ancient Caledonia, had roamed in all the glory of unbounded freedom, on the site now occupied by the Scottish capital.

The blustering wind of March swept through their leafless branches, and whirled the last year's leaves along the lonely and grass-grown avenue, a turn of which brought the detachment at once in front of the mansion.

The Wrytes-house, or Castle of Bruntisfield, was a high and narrow edifice, built in that striking and peculiar style of architecture which has again become so common—the old Scottish. It was several stories in height, and had steep corbie-stoned gables with little round turrets at every angle, a lofty circular tower terminating in a slated spire, numerous dormer windows, the acute gablets of which were surmounted by thistles, rosettes, crescents, and stars. Every casement was strongly grated, and the tall fantastic outline of the mansion rose from the old woodlands against the murky sky in a dark opaque mass, as the soldiers passed the barbican gate, and found themselves close to the oak-door, which closed the central tower.

The night was still and dark; at times a red star gleamed tremulously amid the flying vapour, or a ray of moonlight cast a long and silvery line of radiance across the beautiful sheet of water to the eastward. The turret-vanes, and old ancestral oaks creaked mournfully in the rising wind, and the venerable rooks that occupied their summits croaked and screamed in concert.

"A noble old mansion!" said Walter Fenton; "and if tradition says truly, was built by our gallant James IV. for one of his frail fair ones."

"It dates as far back as the days of the first Stuart, and men say, Walter, that its founder was William de Napier, a stark warrior of King Robert II.; but fair though the mansion, and broad the lands around it, the greedy gleds of our council-board will soon rend all piecemeal. Soldiers, blow your matches, and give all who attempt to escape a prick of the hog's-bristle."

The musqueteers cautiously surrounded the lofty edifice, resistance to the death being an every-day occurrence—but the windows remained dark, and the vast old manor-house exhibited no sign of life, save where between the half-parted shutters of a thickly-grated window a ray of flaky light streamed into the obscurity without. To this opening the curious macer immediately applied his legal eye, and cried in a loud whisper,

"Look ye here, Sirs, and behauld the godly Maister Ichabod himsel' sitting in the cosiest neuk o' the ingle between the auld lady and her kinswoman. Hech! a gallows'-looking buckie he is as ever skirled a psalm in the muirlands, or testified at the Bowfoot, wi' a St. Johnstoun cravat round his whaislin craig."

"Silence!" said Fenton in an agitated voice, as, clutching the haft of his poniard, he applied his face to the barred window; "silence, wretch, or I will trounce thee!" and the scowling macer could perceive that his colour came and went, and that his eye sparkled with vivacity as he took a rapid survey of the apartment. "Fool, fool!" he muttered, as a cracked voice was heard singing

"I like ane owle in desart am,
That nichtlie there doth moan;
I like unto ane sparrow am,
On the house-top alone."

"The true sough o' the auld conventicle," said the bluff old sergeant, merrily. "Hark your honours, the game's afoot."

According to the rank of the house and the fashion of the present time, the room which Fenton surveyed would be deemed small for a principal or state apartment; but it was richly decorated with a stuccoed ceiling, divided into deep compartments, as the walls were by wainscotting, but in the pannels of the latter were numerous anomalous paintings of scenery, scripture pieces, armorial bearings, and the quaint devices of the Scoto-Italian school. An old ebony buffet laden with glittering crystal and shining plate massively embossed. The furniture was ancient, richly carved, and dark with time; stark, high-backed chairs with red leather cushions, and tables supported by lions legs and wyverns heads. The floor was richly carpeted around the arched fire-place, where a bright fire of coals and roots burned cheerily, while the grotesque iron fire-dogs around which the fuel was piled, were glowing almost red-hot, and the blue ware of Delft that lined the recess, reflected the kindly warmth on all sides. The ponderous fire-irons were chained to the stone jambs—a necessary precaution in such an age; and on a stone shield appeared the blazon of the Napiers: argent, a saltire, engrailed, between four roses, gules, and an eagle in full flight, with the lance and motto, "Aye ready." A tall portrait of Sir Archibald Napier in the dark armour of Charles the First's age, appeared above it.

A young lady sat near the fire-place, and on her the attention of the handsome eavesdropper became immediately rivetted. Her face was of a very delicate cast of beauty; her bright blue eyes were expressive of the utmost vivacity, as her short upper lip and dimpled chin were of archness and wit. The fairness, the purity of her complexion was dazzling, and her glittering hair of the brightest auburn, fell in massive locks on her white neck and stiff collar of starched lace. A string of Scottish pearls alone confined them, and they rolled over her shoulders in soft profusion, adding to the grace of her round and beautiful figure, which the hideous length of her long stomacher, and the volume of her ample skirt could not destroy. She was Lilian Napier.

Opposite sat her grand-aunt, Lady Grizel, a tall, stately, and at first sight, grim old dame, as stiff as a tremendous boddice, a skirt of the heaviest brocade, the hauteur of the age, and an inborn sense of much real and more imaginary dignity, could make her. Frizzled with the nicest care, her lint-white locks were all drawn upwards, thus adding to the dignity of her noble features, though withered by care and blanched by time; and the healthy bloom of the young girl near her made the contrast between them greater: it was the summer and the winter of life contrasted. Lady Grizel's forehead was high, her nose decidedly aquiline, her eyes grey and keen, her brows a perfect arch. Though less in stature, and softer in feature, her kinswoman strongly resembled her; and though one was barely eighteen, and the other bordering on eighty, their dresses were quite the same; their gorgeously flowered brocades, their vandyked cuffs, high collars, and red-heeled shoes, were all similar.

As was natural in so young a man, Walter Fenton remarked only the younger lady, whose quick, small hands toyed with a flageolet, and a few leaves of music, while her more industrious grand-aunt was busily urging a handsome spinning-wheel, the silver and ivory mountings of which flashed in the light of the fire, as it sped round and round. Close at her feet lay an aged staghound, that raised its head and erected its bristles at times, as if aware that foes were nigh.

There was such an air of happiness and domestic comfort in that noble old chamber-of-dais, that the young volunteer felt extremely loth to be one of those who should disturb it; but fairly opposite the glowing fire, in the most easy chair in the room, (a great cushioned one, valanced round with silken bobs,) sat he of whom they were in search, and whom the macer had pronounced so worthy of martyrdom.

He was a spare but athletic man, above the middle height; his blue bonnet hung on a knob of his chair, and his straight dark hair hung in dishevelled masses around his lean, lank visage, and sallow neck. His face was gaunt, with red and prominent cheek-bones; his eyes intensely keen, penetrating, and generally unsettled in expression. He wore clerical bands falling over that part of his heavily skirted and wide-cuffed coat, where lapelles would have been had such been the fashion of the day; his breeches and spatterdashes were of rusty grey cloth; his large eyes seemed fixed on vacancy, and his hands were clasped on his left knee. When he spoke his whole face seemed to be convulsed by a spasm.

"Maiden," said he, reproachfully, "and ye will not accompany me in the godly words of Andro Hart's Scottish metre?"

"Think of the danger of being overheard, Mr. Bummel," urged the young lady. "I will sing you my new song, the Norlan' Harp."

"Fair as thou art to look upon, maiden, and innocent withal, the fear grieves me that ye are one of the backsliders of this sinful generation. Thy 'Norlan' Harp' quotha? Know that there is no harp save that of Zion, whilk is a lyre of treble refined gold. What saith the sacred writ,—'Is any among ye afflicted, let him pray. Is any merrie, let him sing psalmes.'"

"Peace, Lilian," said grand-aunt Grizel, while the solemn divine fidgetted in his chair, and hemmed gruffly, preparatory to returning to the charge.

"Maiden, when thou hast perused my forthcoming discourse, whilk is entitled, 'A Bombshell aimed at the tail of the Great Beast,' and whilk, please God, shall be imprinted when I can procure ink and irons from Holland (that happy Elysium of the faithful), thou shalt there see in words of fire the straight and narrow path, contrasted with the broad but dangerous way that leadeth to the sea of flame: and therein will I shew thee, and all that are yet in darkness, that the four animals in the Vision of Daniel hieroglyphically represent four empires, Rome, Persia, Grecia, and Babylonia, and that the man of sin, the antichrist, and the scarlet harlot of Babylon——"

At that moment the stag-hound barked and howled furiously, upon which the preacher's voice died away in a quaver, and his upraised hand sank powerless by his side.

"The dog howls eerily," said the old lady, "Gude sain us! that foretells death—and far-seen folk say that dumb brutes can see him enter the house when a departure is about to happen."

"—And further," continued the preacher incoherently, when his confusion had somewhat subsided: "I will show thee that the blessing of Heaven will descend upon the men of the Covenant—"

"My honoured husband was as true a cavalier as ever wore buff," said Lady Grizel, striking her cane emphatically on the floor; "but some of my dearest kinsmen have shed bluid for the other side, and I can think kindly o' baith."

"Maiden!" cried Mr. Bummel, in a shrill and stern voice; "mean ye the bloody and papistical Duke James, who, contrary to religion and to law, hath usurped the throne of this unhappy land—that throne from which (as I show in my Bombshell) justice hath debarred him—that throne from the steps of which the blood of God's children, the blessed sancts of our oppressed and martyred Kirk, rolls down on every hand! But the hour cometh, Lilian, when it is written, that he shall perish, and a new religious and political millenium will dawn on these persecuted kingdoms. On one hand we have the power of the horned beast that sitteth upon seven hills, and her best beloved son James, with his thumbscrews, the iron boots and gory maiden,—the savage Amorites of the Highland hills—who go bare-legged to battle—yea, maiden, naked as the heretical Adamites of Bohemia—those birds of Belial, the soldiers of Dunbarton—those kine of Bashan, the troopers of Claverse, of Lag and Dalyel, the fierce Muscovite cannibal—in England the lambs of Kirke, and the gallows of the Butcher Jeffreys—a sea of blood, of darkness, death, and horror! But lo! on the other hand, behold ye the dawn of a new morn of peace, of love, and mercy; when the exile shall be restored to his hearth, and the doomed shall be snatched from the scaffold—for he cometh, at whose approach the doors of a thousand dungeons shall fly open, the torch of rapine be extinguished, the sword of the persecutor sheathed, and when the flowers shall bloom, and the grass grow green on the lonely graves of our ten thousand martyrs. Yea—he, the Saviour—William of Orange!"

The eyes of Ichabod Bummel filled with fire and enthusiasm as he spoke; the crimson glowed in his sallow cheek—the intonations of his voice alternated between a whistle and a growl, and with his hands clenched above his head, he concluded this outburst, which gave great uneasiness and even terror to the old lady, though Lilian smiled with ill-concealed merriment.

"You have all heard this tirade of treason and folly?" said Douglas to his soldiers.

"Hech me!" ejaculated the macer, drawing a long breath; "it is enough to hang, draw, and quarter a haill parochin, I think."

"The Dutch rebel!" exclaimed Douglas, whose loyalty was fired. "Soldiers! look well that none escape by the windows; close up, my 'birds of Belial;' and, harkee, Sergeant Wemyss, tirl at the pin there."

The risp rung, and the door resounded beneath the blows of the halberdier. Lilian shrieked, Lady Grizel grew pale, and all the blood left the cheeks of the poor preacher, save the two scarlet spots on his cheek-bones.

"The Guards of Pontius Pilate, he means," said the soldiers, as they gave a reckless laugh.

A shutter flew open, and the fair face of Lilian Napier, with all her bright hair waving around it, appeared for a moment gazing into the obscurity without.

"Soldiers! soldiers!" she screamed, as the light fell on corslets and accoutrements. "O! Aunt Grizel, we are ruined, disgraced, and undone for ever!"

CHAPTER III.

THE OLD CLOCKCASE.

In the meanwhile
The King doth ill to throw his royal sceptre
In the accuser's scale, ere he can know
How justice shall incline it.
THE AYRSHIRE TRAGEDY.

The entrance to the mansion was by the narrow tower already described, and which contained what is called in Scotland the Turnpike, a spiral stair, turning sharply round on its axis. The small doorway was heavily moulded, and ornamented above by a mossy coat armorial, the saltire and four roses. The door was of massive oak, covered with a profusion of iron studs, and furnished with two eyelet holes, through which visitors could be reconnoitred, or, if necessary, favoured with a dose of musketry.

"What graceless runions are you, that knock in this way, and sae near the deid hour of the nicht, too?" asked the querulous voice of old John Leekie, the gardener, while two rays of streaming light through the eylets imparted to the doorway the aspect of some gigantic visage, of which the immense risp was the nose.

"Gae wa' in peace," added the venerable butler, in a very blustering voice, "or bide to face the waur!"

"Open, rascals!" cried the sergeant, "or we will set the four corners of the house on fire."

"Doubtless, my bauld buckie," chuckled the old serving-man; "but the wa's are thick, and the winnocks weel grated, and we gaed a stronger band o' the English Puritans their kail through the reek in the year saxteen-hunderd-and-fifty." The over-night potations of the aged vassals had endued them with a courage unusual at that time, when a whole village trembled at the sight of a soldier.

"Those who are empowered to storm the house if its barriers are not opened forthwith!" replied the sonorous voice of Douglas; "so, up! varlets! and be doing, for the soldiers of the King cannot bide your time."

The only reply to this was a smothered exclamation of fear from various female voices within, and the clank of one or two additional heavy bolts being shot into their places; and then succeeded the clatter of various slippers and high-heeled shoes, as the household retreated up the steep turnpike in great dismay.

"Now, ye dyvour loons!" cried the old butler, from a shot-hole, "we'll gie ye a taste o' the Cromwell days, if ye dinna mak' toom the barbican in five minutes. Lads," he continued, as if speaking to men behind, although, save the old and equally intoxicated gardener, the whole household were women; "lads, tak' the plugs frae the loop-holes. John Leekie, burn a light in the north turret, and in a crack we'll hae our chields frae the grange wi' pitchfork, pike, and caliver. Awa' to the vaults and bartizan—blaw your coals, and fire cannily when I tout my old hunting horn."

These orders caused a muttering among the soldiers, who were quite unprepared to find the house garrisoned and ready for resistance. An additional puffing of gun-matches ensued, and all eyes were bent to the turrets and those parts which were battlemented; but no man appeared therein or thereon, and the thundering was renewed at the door with great energy. Suddenly the bolts were withdrawn, the door revolved slowly on its hinges, and the musqueteers who were about to rush in, hung back with mingled indecision and respect.

In the doorway stood Lady Grizel Napier, leaning on her long walking-cane; her dark-grey eyes lit up with indignation, and her forehead, though marked by the furrows of eighty years, still expressive of dignity and determination; nearly six feet in height, erect and stately as lace and brocade could make her, she was the belle ideal of an old Scottish matron. She wore on the summit of her frizzled hair a little coif of widow-hood, which she had never laid aside since her husband was slain at Inverkeithing; and the circumstance of his having died by a Puritan's hand alone made her somewhat cold in the cause of the Covenant. Her retinue of female servitors crowded fearfully behind her, and by her side appeared the silver-haired butler, armed with a huge partisan, while a battered morion covered his head, as it often had done in many a tough day's work; and behind him staggered the old gardener, armed with a watering-pan, and a steel cap with the peak behind.

"Gentlemen," said the old lady, in a tone of great asperity, while striking her long cane thrice on the doorstep, and all her frills seemed to ruffle with indignation like the feathers of a swan; "Gentlemen, what want ye at this untimeous hour? Know ye not that this is a house whilk we are entitled by Crown charter to fortify and defend, as well against domestic enemies as foreign! and methinks it is a daring act, and a graceless to boot, to march with cocked matches, and bodin in array of war on the bounds of a lone auld woman like me. By my faith, in the days of my honoured Sir Archibald, ye had gone off our barony faster than ye came, king's soldiers though ye be."

"Excuse us, madam," replied Douglas, lowering his rapier, and bowing with a peculiar grace which then was only to be acquired by service in France: "we have a warrant from the Lords of his Majesty's Privy Council, to arrest the persons of a certain Captain Napier, of a Scots Dutch regiment, and the Reverend Mr. Ichabod Bummel, who are accused of being treasonable emissaries of the States-General—intercommuned traitors, and now concealed in your mansion. Your Ladyship must be aware that implicit obedience is the soldier's first duty: surrender unto us these guilty men, otherwise your house must be ransacked by my soldiers,—a severe humiliation, which I would willingly spare the baronial mansion of a dame of honour, more especially when I remember the rank and loyal service of her husband."

"Gude keep us, Laird of Finland," replied the old lady, trembling violently and leaning on her cane. "O what dool is this that hath come upon us at last? My dream—my dream—it forewarned me of this: as the rhyme saith—

"A Friday nicht's grue
On the Saturday tauld,
Is sure to come true,
Be it never sae auld."

"Enough, Lady Grizel," replied Douglas, with a little hauteur; "positively we must spare you the trouble, if not the shame, of making those unavailing but humiliating assertions, which the laws of humanity and hospitality require. The sooner this affair is over the better—we crave your pardon, madam, but the king's service is paramount. Serjeant Wemyss, guard the door—follow me, Walter—forward, soldiers, and I will unearth this clerical fox!"

Rushing past Lady Grizel, while the startled household fled before them, the musqueteers pressed forward into the chamber-of-dais; but the Reverend Mr. Bummel had vanished, and no trace remained of him, save his ample blue bonnet, with its red cherry or tuft, and Walter Fenton was certainly not the last to perceive that the young lady had disappeared also.

"Search the whole house, from roof-tree to foundations," exclaimed Douglas; "cut down all who make the least resistance; but on your lives beware of plunder or destruction—away!"

A violent and unscrupulous search was made forthwith; every curtain, every bed and pannel were pierced by swords and daggers; every press, bunker, and girnel—the turrets and all the innumerable nooks and corners of the old house were searched. Every lockfast place was blown open by musket-balls, and thirty stentorian voices summoned the miserable preacher "to come forth;" but he was nowhere to be found. Pale and trembling between terror and indignation, propped on her long cane, the old lady stood under her baronial canopy on the dais of the dining-hall, listening to the uproar that rang through all the stone-vaults, wainscotted chambers, and long corridors of her mansion, and regarding Richard Douglas and his friend the young volunteer, with glances of pride and hostility.

Walter Fenton coloured deeply, and appeared both agitated and confused; but Douglas coolly and collectedly leaned against the buffet, toying with the knot of his rapier, and drinking a cup of wine to Lady Bruntisfield's health, helping himself from the buffet uninvited.

"Lady Grizel," said he, "by surrendering up these foolish and guilty men, whom, contrary to law, you have harboured and resetted within your barony, you may considerably avert the wrath of the already incensed Council."

"Never, Sir! never will I be guilty of such a breach of hospitality and honour. Bethink ye, Sirs, the Captain Napier is my sister's son, and it would ill become a Scottish dame to prove false to her ain blude. The minister, though but a gomeral body, is his friend—one of those whom the people deem exiled and persecuted for Christ's sake—ye may hew me to pieces with your partisans, but never would I yield a fugitive to the tortures and executioners of that bluidy and infamous Council." And to give additional force to her words, Lady Grizel as usual struck the floor thrice with her cane.

"Lady Bruntisfield," said Walter Fenton, gently, "beware lest our soldiers, or that dog the macer overhear you."

"Glorious canary this!" muttered the Lieutenant, apostrophizing the silver mug—"hum—I believe your ladyship is a Presbyterian."

"Though unused to be catechised by soldiers," replied the dame, drawing herself up with great dignity, "I acknowledge what all my neighbours know. I am Presbyterian, thank God, and so are all my household, who never miss a sabbath at kirk or meeting; and our minister is one, who having complied with the government regulations, hath an indulgence to preach."

"This applies not to the spy of that rogue William of Orange—this pious Ichabod, whom we must hale forth by the lugs at every risk."

"Never before was I suspected of disloyalty to the Scottish Crown," said Lady Grizel, sobbing, "and now in my auld and donnart days, with ane foot in the grave, it's hard to thole, Sirs—it's hard to thole. How often hae these hands, wrinkled now, and withered though they be, laced steel cap, greave and corslet, on my buirdly husband and his three fair sons. Ehwhow, Sirs! how often hae my very heart pulses died away with the clang o' their horses' hoofs in yonder avenue. Ane fell at Dumbar—another in his stirrups at the sack of Dundee, and my fair-haired Archy, my youngest and my best beloved, the apple o' my e'e, was shot deid by the side of his dying father, on the field of Inverkeithing. Save my sister's grandchild, all I loved have gone before me to God—but though my heart be seared, and my bower desolate, O Laird of Finland, this disgrace is harder to thole than a' I hae tholed in my time."

Touched with her sorrow, Walter Fenton and Finland approached her; but ere they could speak, a dismal voice, that seemed to ascend from the profundity of some vast tun, was heard to sing, "I like an owle in desert am," &c., and the verse was scarcely concluded when the officer burst into a violent fit of laughter.

"O, ye fule man!" exclaimed the old lady, shaking her cane wrathfully: "ye have ruined yoursel' and the House of Bruntisfield too!"

"Where the devil is he?" said Douglas. "Ah, there must be some pannel here," he added, knocking on the wainscot with the pommel of his sword.

"He is not very far off, your honour," said the macer approaching, pushing his bonnet on one side, and scratching his head with an air of vulgar drollery and perplexity. "I'll wager ye a score o' broad pieces, Finland, that I howk out the tod in a moment."

"Then do so," said Douglas, haughtily, "but first, you irreverend knave, doff your bonnet in the Lady Bruntisfield's presence."

"There is something queer about this braw Flanders wag-at-the-wa'," said the macer, approaching a clock, the case of which formed part of the wainscotting. It was violently shaken, and emitted a hollow groan. The macer opened the narrow pannel, and revealed the poor preacher coiled up within, in great spiritual and bodily tribulation, and half stifled by want of air. His face was almost black, his eyes bloodshot, and his features sharpened by an expression of delirious terror bordering on the ludicrous.

"Dolt and fool!" exclaimed Walter, "what fiend tempted ye to rant thus within earshot of us?"

"Gadso, I think the varlet's mad," said Douglas, laughing. "Dost think we will eat thee, fellow?"

"Come awa, my man," said the macer, making him a mock bow; "use your shanks while the ungodly Philistines will let you. Ye'll no walk just sae weel after you have tried on the braw buits my Lord Chancellor keeps for such pious gentlemen as you."

"From these sons of blood and Belial, good Lord deliver me!" ejaculated the poor man, turning up his hollow eyes, as he was dragged forth; "ye devouring wolves, I demand your warrant for what ye do?"

Unfolding the slip of paper, the worthy official now reverentially took off his bonnet, and in a sing-song voice drawled forth—

"I, Michael Maclutchy, macer to the Privy Council of Scotland, by virtue of, and conform to, the principal letters raised at ye instance of Maister Roderick Mackenzie, Advocat-Depute to Sir David Dalrymple, His Majesty's Advocat, summon, warn, and charge you, the said Reverend Mr. Hugh—otherwise Ichabod Bummel—is that richt, friend?"

"Yea—I was so named by my parents Hugh, a heathenish name, whilk in a better hour I changit to Ichabod, signifying in the Hebrew tongue—'where is glory?'"

"Weel—weel, mind na the Hebrew—charge you to surrender peaceably—and sae forth; it's a' there in black and white: subscribitur Perth."

"Fie upon ye!" exclaimed Ichabod, "ye abjurers of the Lord, and persecutors of his covenanted kirk."

"On with the gyves, and away wi' him!" said the serjeant, and the poor crack-brained enthusiast was unceremoniously handcuffed and dragged away, pouring a torrent of hard scriptural epithets and invectives on his captors, and chanting suitable verses from Andro Hart's book of the Psalmes.

Lady Bruntisfield started as he was taken away, and was about to bestow on him some address of comfort and farewell; but the young volunteer interposed, saying with great gentleness,

"Pardon me, Lady Grizel—by addressing him you will only compromise your own safety and honour. O madam, I deeply regret your involvement in this matter! The Privy Council is not to be trifled with."

"Madam," observed Douglas, "I believe I have the honour of being not unknown to you?"

"In a duel in Flanders—O yes—ha! ha! we quarrelled about little Babette of the Hans-in-Kelder, or some folly of that kind. I acquaint you, madam, with regret, that in consequence of this trumpeter of rebellion being found resetted here—your whole family——"

"Your whole household must be considered prisoners until the pleasure of the Council is known. In the interim," he added in a low voice, "I hope your kinsman will escape; though he has been no friend of mine since that time we fought with sword and dagger on the ramparts of Tournay, I would wish him another fate than a felon's, for a braver fellow never marched under baton. Meanwhile, Lady Bruntisfield, I am your servant—adieu;" and bowing until his plume touched the floor, he withdrew.

Leaving his veteran serjeant, and Walter the volunteer, with twenty men to keep ward, he returned to the city with his prisoner, who was immediately consigned to the Iron Room of the Tolbooth.

For a few minutes after his departure Lady Grizel seemed quite stunned by the dilemma in which she so suddenly found herself. She had now been joined by Lilian, who hung upon her shoulder weeping; for the Privy Council of Scotland was a court of religious and political inquisition, whose name and satellites bore terror throughout the land.

Sergeant Wemyss posted seven of his musketeers within the barbican, with orders "to keep all in who were within, and all out who were so;" after which he withdrew with the remainder to the spacious and vaulted kitchen, where, as occupying free quarters, they made themselves quite at home, and crowded round the great wood-fire that was roaring in the vast archway which spanned one side of the apartment, joked and toyed with the half-pleased and half-frightened maids, and compelled the indignant housekeeper (who, with Lady Grizel's cast coifs and fardingales assumed many of her airs) to provide them with a substantial supper, the least items of which were a huge side of beef, a string of good fat capons, and an unmeasured quantity of ale and usquebaugh for the soldiers; while his honour the halberdier insisted on wine dashed with brandy, swearing "by the devil's horns," and other cavalier oaths, "he would drink nothing but the best Rhenish." There was an immense consumption of viands, and as the revellers became merrier, they made the whole house ring to their famous camp-song,

to the great envy of those luckless wights in the barbican, who heard only the bleak March wind sighing among the leafless woods, and witnessed through the windows all this hilarity and good cheer from which they were for a time debarred.

Mr. Drouthy the butler, and other old servitors, who had seen something of free quarters under the Duke of Hamilton in England, entered heartily into the spirit of entertaining their noisy visitors, to whom they detailed the fields of Inverkeithing, Dunbar, and Kerbeister, with great vociferation, and ever and anon voted the Reverend Mr. Bummel a most unqualified bore, and declared that "the house of Bruntisfield was weel rid of his grunting and skirling about owls and sparrows in the desert."

CHAPTER IV.

A PAIR OF BLUE EYES.

Thou tortur'st me. I hate all obligations
Which I can ne'er return—and who art thou,
That I should stoop to take them from your hand?
FATAL CURIOSITY.

The post of honour—that in the hall or lobby immediately outside the room occupied by the ladies—had been appropriated by the serjeant to Walter Fenton.

The young man placed his pike across the door of the chamber of dais (as the dining-hall was named in those Scottish houses, which, though to all intents baronial, were not castles) and then paced slowly to and fro.

A lamp, the chain of which was suspended from the mouth of a grotesque face carved on the wall, lighted the lobby or ambulatory, and dimly its flickering rays were reflected by a rusty trophy of ancient weapons opposite. An old head-piece and chain-jacket formed the centre, while crossbows, matchlocks, partisans, and two-handed swords, radiated round them. A deer's skull and antlers, riding gambadoes, heavy whips and spurs, a row of old knobby chairs, and a clumsy oaken clock, which (like many persons in the world) had two faces, one looking to the lobby, the other to the dining-hall, ticked sullenly in a corner, and made up the furniture of the place.

Save the monotonous vibrations of the clock, and an occasional murmur of voices from the chamber of dais, no other sound disturbed the solitary watch of Fenton, unless when a distant shout of hilarity burst from the vaulted kitchen, and reverberated through the winding staircases and stone corridors of the ancient mansion.

Absorbed in meditation, the young man walked slowly to and fro, turning with something of military briskness at each end of the half-darkened passage, by the indifferent light of which we must present a view of him to the reader.

"A young man, gentle-voiced and gentle-eyed,
Who looked and spake like one the world had frowned on."

He seemed to be about twenty years of age; of a rather tall and very handsome figure, which his scarlet sleeves, and corslet tapering to the waist, and tightly compressed by a broad buff belt sustaining a plainly-mounted sword and dagger, tended greatly to improve. The cheek-plates of his burgonet, or steel cap, were unclasped, and his dark-brown hair rolled over his polished gorget in the profuse fashion of the time; his pale forehead was thoughtful and intellectual in expression; but the gilt peak of his cap partly concealed it, and cast a shadow over a very prepossessing face of a dark complexion, and somewhat melancholy contour. His dark eye had a soft and pleasing expression, though at times it loured and overcast. The curve of his lips, though gentle, and haughty, and scornful, by turns, was ever indicative of firmness and decision. They were red and full as those of a girl; but short black mustaches, pointed smartly upward, imparted a military aspect to a face such as few could contemplate without interest—especially women. With the manner of one who has early learned to think, and hold communion with himself, his eye sparkled and his cheek flushed as certain ideas occurred to him: anon his animation died away, he sighed deeply, and thus immersed in his own thoughts, continued to pace to and fro, until at the half-opened door of the chamber of dais there appeared the fair face of Lilian Napier—a face so regular in its contour of eyebrow, lip, and nostril, that the brightness of her blue eyes, and the waving of her auburn ringlets, together with a decided piquancy of expression, alone prevented it from being insipid. She was looking cautiously out.

On recognizing her, Fenton bowed, and the girl blushed deeply, as she said hurriedly, and in a low voice,

"O joy! Walter Fenton, is it indeed you? how fortunate! but oh, what a night this has been for us all!"

"Mistress Lilian," said he (the prefix Miss as a title of honour did not become common until the beginning of the next century) "need I say that it has been a night of sorrow and mortification to me? Yet, God wot, what could I do but obey the orders of my superiors?"

"Hush!" she whispered; for at that moment Lady Bruntisfield came forth, pale and agitated, with eyes red from recent weeping.

Tall in form and majestic in bearing, Lady Grizel Napier, as I have said before, was one of those stately matrons who appear to have departed with their hoops and fardingales. In youth, her face had possessed more than ordinary beauty, and now, in extreme old age, it still retained its feminine softness and pleasing expression. Undecided in politics, she was intensely loyal to James; while condemning his government, she railed at the non-conformists and reprobated the severities of the council in the same breath. Like every dame of the olden time, she was a matchless mediciner, and maker of preserves, conserves, physics, and cordials, and, did a vassal's finger but ache, Lady Grizel was consulted forthwith. Like every woman of her time, she was intensely superstitious: she shook her purse when the pale crescent of the new moon rose above the Corstorphine woods; if the salt-foot was overturned, she remembered Judas, trembled, and threw a pinch over her left shoulder; she saw coffins in the fire, letters in the candles, and quaked at deidspales when they guttered in the wind. She listened in fear to the chakymill, or death-watch, which often ticked obstinately for a whole night in the massive posts of her canopied bed. Witches, of course, were a constant source of hatred and annoyance, and, notwithstanding her great faith in the Holy Kirk (and a little in Peden's Prophecies), she had such a wholesome dread of the Prince of darkness, that, according to the ancient usage, a piece of her lands adjoining the Harestane was dedicated to him, under the dubious name of the gudeman's croft, and, in defiance of all the acts against this old superstition (which still exists in remote parts of Scotland), it was allowed to remain a weedy waste, unsown and unemployed. With all this, her manners were high-bred and courtly; her information extensive; and there was in her air a certain indescribable loftiness, which then consciousness of noble birth and long descent inspired, and which failed not to enforce due respect from equals and inferiors.

On her approach, Walter Fenton bowed with an air in which politeness and commiseration were gracefully blended. Her bright-haired kinswoman leant upon her arm, and from time to time stole furtive and timid glances at the volunteer beneath her long eyelashes.

"Young man," said Lady Bruntisfield, "for a soldier, you seem good and gentle. Have you a mother" (her voice faltered) "who is dear to you—a sister whom you love?"

"Nor mother, nor sister, nor kindred have I, madam. Alas! Lady Grizel, I am alone in the world: the first, and perhaps it may be the last, of my race," he added bitterly. "But what would your ladyship with Walter Fenton?"

"Nay, lady, I am only Walter Fenton of the Scottish Musqueteers, and nothing more: but in what can I serve you?"

"How shall I speak it?—That you will sleep on your post, and permit this poor child—dost comprehend me?—oh! I will nobly reward you; and the deed will be registered elsewhere."

"Oh, no!—no! beg no such boon for me," said the blushing and trembling girl; while the brow of the young man became clouded.

"You would counsel me to my ruin, Lady Bruntisfield: is it generous, is it noble, when I am but a poor soldier? Seek not to corrupt me by gold," he said hurriedly, on the old lady drawing a purse from her girdle; "for all I possess is my honour, the poor man's best inheritance. And yet, for the sake of Lilian Napier, I would dare much."

The deep blush which suffused the soft cheek and white brow of Lilian as the pikeman spoke, was not unobserved by the elder lady; and she said, with undisguised hauteur,—

"How is this, sir sentinel?—ye know my kinswoman, and by that glance it would seem that ye have met before. Lilian, do thou speak."

"I have often had the honour of seeing Mistress Lilian at my Lord Dunbarton's," said the young man, hastening to her relief.

"By my father's bones!" said Lady Grizel, striking the floor angrily with her cane; "I little thought a time would come when I would sue a boon in vain, either from a lord's loon or a lady's foot-page!"

These words seemed to sting the young soldier deeply; fire sparkled in his eyes. But tears suffused those of Lilian.

"Madam," said he firmly, "I am the first private gentleman of Dunbarton's Foot, and am so unused to such hauteur, that had the best man in broad Scotland uttered words like these, my sword had assuredly taken the measure of his body."

"I admire your spirit, sir," said Lady Grizel gently; "but it might be shewn in a more honourable cause than the persecution of helpless women-folk."

"Lady Grizel, a soldier from my childhood, I have been inured to hardship and trained to face every danger. My conscience is my own; my soul belongs to God: and my sword to the King and Parliament of Scotland, whose orders I must obey."

"Then, gentle sir, be generous as your bearing is noble, and, in the name of God, permit my little kinswoman to escape. Alas! you know well what is in store for us, if we are dragged before that odious Privy Council—fine, imprisonment, torture——"

"God wot I pity you, Lady Bruntisfield, and would lay down my life to serve you. Retire—I will keep my post; your chamber has windows by which——"

"Birds' eggs aye bring ill luck; and oh! Lilian, ye thoughtless bairn, when ye strung up the pyets yesternight, I forewarned ye that something would happen. The thumbscrews and extortions of the Council, yea, and banishment even in my auld age, I might bear, though the thocht of being laid far frae the graves of my ain kindred is hard to thole; but thee, my dear doo, Lilian—it is for thee my heart bleeds."

"You know not what I mean," replied Lady Grizel, pressing her hands upon her breast, and speaking in an incoherent and bitter manner. "Lord Clermistonlee rules at the Council-board, and he hath seen Lilian. Wretch—wretch, too well do I know 'tis for worse than the thumb-screws he would reserve her!"

"Oh, whence were all my unreasonable scruples? Finland by his hints warned me of Clermistonlee, that roué and ruffian, whose name brings scandal on our peerage."

"Then let my dear aunt Grizel escape to some place of concealment, and, good Mr. Fenton, you shall have my prayers and gratitude for life."

It was the young girl who spoke; her accents were low and imploring; and her whole appearance was very fascinating, for her timidity and mortification added the utmost expression to her blue eyes, while her lips, half parted, shewed the whiteness of her teeth, and lent a sweetness and simplicity to her face. The tenor of her address made the heart of Walter flutter, for love was fast subduing his scrupulous sense of duty.

"Artless Lilian," said he with a faint smile, "Lord Clermistonlee aims neither at Lady Grizel's liberty or life. He is a villain of the deepest dye; and you have many things to fear. It ill beseems a lady of birth to sue a boon from a poor sworder such as I. Leave me to my fate, and the fury of the Council. I am, I hope, a gentleman, though an unfortunate one, and reduced to the necessity of trailing a pike under the noble Earl of Dunbarton; but in spirit I can be generous as a king, though my whole inheritance is to follow the drum."

"Lady Grizel," said Fenton, colouring again, "I hope that the poorest musqueteer who follows the banner of Dunbarton would have rejected it with scorn. Though soldiers, we are not like those rapacious wolves the troopers of Lag, of Dalzel, or Kirke the Englishman. By my faith, madam, for six shillings Scots per day I have often perilled life and limb in a worse cause than yours; and why should I scruple now? Escape while there is yet time. Lady Grizel, permit me to lead you forth."

And, drawing off his leather glove, he offered his hand to the old dame, who, struck by the gallantry of his manner, said—

"You have quite the air of a cavalier, such as I mind o' in my young days, when the first Charles was crowned in Holyrood."

"I pretend not to be a cavalier," said Walter, with a sad smile: "the camp is the school of gallantry."

"Fear for my Lilian makes me miserably selfish. I would rather die, good youth, than that a hair of your head should be injured; but that this delicate bairn should be dragged before that fierce Council, like some rude cottar's wife—'tis enough to make the dead bones in the West-kirk aisle to clatter in their coffins! Ere we go, say what will be your inevitable punishment for this dereliction of duty?"

"A few days' close ward in the Abbey-guard, with pease bannocks and sour beer to regale on, and mounting guard at the Palace porch in back-breast and headpieces, partisan, sword and dagger; in full marching harness, for four-and-twenty consecutive hours—that is all, madam," said he gaily; though the inward forebodings of his heart and his sad experience told him otherwise. "In serving you, fair Lilian," he added gently, and half attempting, but not daring to touch her hand, "I shall be more than a thousand times recompensed for any penance I may perform. Believe me, it will weigh as a featherweight against what the Council may inflict on Lady Bruntisfield. Now, then, away in God's name! Ye will surely find a secure shelter somewhere among your numerous friends and tenantry; but seek not the city, for Dunbraiken's guards are on the alert at every gate; and, above all, oh! beware of—of Lord Clermistonlee, who (if Finland suspects truly) has a deep project to accomplish."

"Heaven bless thee, good young man!" faltered the venerable Lady Grizel, laying her small but wrinkled hands upon his shoulders, and gazing on him with eyes that beamed with heartfelt gratitude. "Alack! alack! my mind gangs back to the time when three hearts as brave and as gentle as yours, grew up from heartsome youth to stately manhood under this auld roof-tree; but, oh, waly! waly! the cauld blast o' war laid my three fair flowers in the dust."

A noise in the kitchen, and the loud voice of the halberdier calling fresh sentinels, now caused them to hurry away. To conceal about their persons such jewels and money as they could collect from the cabinets in the chamber of dais, to muffle up in their hoods and mantles, to give one glance of adieu to the portrait of the dark cavalier above the fire-place, and another of gratitude to Walter Fenton, were all the work of a minute,—and they were led forth to the avenue. Grey morning was breaking in the east, and the black ridge of Arthur's Seat stood in strong relief against the brightening sky; the wind had died away, and the waning moon shone cold and dim in the west, while, far to the northward, the dark opaque clouds were piled in shadowy masses above the bold and striking outline of the capital. There the great spire of the Gothic cathedral, the ramparts of its rockbuilt fortress, the crenelated towers of the Flodden-wall, and the streets within "piled deep and massy, close and high," were all glimmering in the first pale rays of the dawn, though the valleys below, and the woods around, were still sunk in the gloom and obscurity of night. A sentinel challenged from the dark shadow of the barbican wall, and his voice made the fugitives tremble with fear.

"Dunbarton," answered Walter, and on receiving the password, the soldier stept back. "And now, ladies, whence go ye?"

"As God shall direct—to some of our faithful tenant bodies, for safety and concealment," sobbed Lady Bruntisfield.

"Poor Mr. Fenton!" murmured Lilian; "I tremble more for you than for ourselves."

"A long farewell to our gude auld barony of Bruntisfield and the Wrytes—to main and holm, and wood and water," said Lady Grizel, mournfully; "we stand under the shadow of its green sauchs and oak woods for the last time. Once before I fled frae them, but that was in the year fifty, when our natural enemies, the English, won that doolfu' day at Dunbar, and again our hail plenishing will be ruined and harried, as in the days o' the ruffianly and ungracious Puritans."

"Not by us, Lady Bruntisfield," replied the young man, slightly piqued; "we are the soldiers of the gallant Dunbarton, the old Royals of Turenne, les Gardes Ecossais of a thousand battles and a thousand glorious memories, and your mansion will be sacred as if in the hands of so many apostles. Farewell, and God speed ye! Would that I could accompany your desolate steps to some place of safety! but that would discover all." They parted.

"I have done," muttered Walter, striking his breast; "and from this hour I am a lost man!"

Hastily returning, he resumed his post, with his heart beating high with the conflicting emotions of pleasure and apprehension. Youth and beauty in suffering, danger, or humiliation, form naturally an object of interest and compassion; but Walter, though pleased by the conviction that he had done a good action, and one so fully involving the gratitude of Lilian Napier and her haughty relative, felt a dread of what was to ensue, weighing heavily on his mind; for the Scottish privy council was then composed of men with whom the proudest noble dared not to trifle, and before whom the pride and power of the great Argyle, lord of a vast territory, and chief of the most powerful of the western clans, bent like a reed beneath the storm. Poor Walter reflected, that he was but a friendless and nameless volunteer, and too well he knew that the council would not be cheated of their prey without a terrible vengeance.

Scarcely had he resumed his post in the corridor, when the serjeant, whose brown visage was flushed with carousing, and whose corslet braces were unclasped to give space for the quantity of viands he had imbibed, reeled up with a relief of sentinels, all more or less in the same condition.

"All right, an't please you, Master Walter. I warrant you will be tired of this post of honour, and longing for a leg of a devilled capon, and a horn of the old butler's Rhenish."

"I thought you had forgotten me, Wemyss. You will have a care, sir," said Walter, addressing the soldier who relieved him, with a glance that was not to be misunderstood, "that you do not disturb the ladies by entering the chamber of dais; dost hear me, thou pumpkin-head?"

"Rot me, Master Fenton, I have clanked my bandoleers before the tent of Monsieur of France, and I need nae be learned now, how to keep guard on king or knave, baron or boor. Dost think that I, who am the son of an auld vassal of her ladyship's, would dragoon her out of marching money?"

"'Tis well," replied the pikeman, briefly, as he retired, not to the kitchen, but to a solitary apartment prepared for him by the orders of his old patron, the halberdier.

CHAPTER V.

A PAIR OF RAPIERS.

If thou sleep alone in Urrard,
    Perchance in midnight gloom,
Thoul't hear behind the wainscot
    Of that old and darken'd room
A fleshless hand that knocketh——"
                                                    HIGHLAND MINSTRELSY.

In a dark old wainscotted apartment, in the small arched chimney of which a coal fire was glowing cheerily, supper and wine were sullenly laid for Walter by a sleepy and half-frightened servant; but the first remained untouched and the last untasted, at least for a time. Removing his burgonet and gloves, he sat with his elbow on the table and his forehead on his hand, with his fingers writhed among his thick dark locks. He was again sunk in one of his gloomy reveries; but at times a smile of pleasure and animation unbent his haughty lip and lit up his handsome face like sunlight through a cloud; and it was evident he thought more of Lilian Napier's bright blue eyes, her innocence, and her fears, than the dangers and ignominy to which coming day would assuredly expose him.

The mildness, modesty, and beauty of the young girl, with the touching artlessness of her manner, had awakened a nearer and more vivid interest in his heart, one to which it had hitherto been utterly a stranger. It was the dawn of passion; never before, he thought, had one so winning or so attractive crossed his path; he had found at last the well-known face that his fancy had conjured up in a thousand happy reveries, and he was predisposed to love it. Her tears and affliction for the last relative (save one) whom fate and war had left, had increased her natural attractions, and a keen sense of her unmerited humiliation, and the risk he ran for her, by knitting their names together, all tended to raise a glow in young Walter's solitary heart; for having no living thing in this wide world to cling to, it was peculiarly susceptible and open to impressions of kindness and generosity; now it expanded with a flush of happiness and delight to which since thoughtless childhood it had been a stranger; and in a burst of soldierlike enthusiasm, he uttered her name aloud, and drained the pewter flagon of Rhenish to the bottom.

As he set it down, a noise behind made him turn sharply round and listen; nothing was visible but the dark stains of the wainscotting, and its gilded pannels glistening ruddily in the glow of the fire. From an antique brass sconce on the wall, the light of three great candles burned steadily on the old discoloured floor, the massively jointed arch of the fire-place, which bore a legend in Saxon characters, on three old pictures by Jamieson, of cavaliers in barrelled doublets, high ruffs, and peaked beards, and one of the famous Barbara Napier of Bruntisfield, who so narrowly escaped the stake for her sorceries, on a spectral suit of mail, and six old heavily carved chairs, ranged against the wall like grotesque gnomes with their arms akimbo; but although nothing was visible to create alarm, the aspect of the chamber was so gloomy, that certain tales of a spectre cavalier who haunted the old house, began to flit through Walter's mind, and he could not resist listening intensely; still not a sound was heard, but the wind rumbling in the hollow vent, and the creaking of the turret vanes overhead.

"Tush!" said he, and whether it was the faint echo of his own voice or a sound again behind the wainscot, he knew not, but he palpably heard something that made him bring the hilt of his long rapier more readily to hand. The portraits, like all those of persons whom one knows to have been long dead, when viewed by the dim candle-light had a staring, desolate, and ghastly expression, and they really seemed to "frown" over their high ruffs on the intruder, who would probably have frowned in return, had he not, even in the harsh lines of the old Scottish artist traced a family likeness to the soft features of Lilian Napier. But there was a stern, keen and malignant expression in the features of the old sorceress, Lady Barbara, that made Walter often avert his eyes, for her sharp features seemed to start from the pannel instinct with life and mockery.

As sleep weighed down the eyelids of Walter, strange fancies pressed thick and fast, though obscurely, on his mind; and though once or twice the same faint hollow sound made him start and take another survey of the apartment by the dim light of the sconce and dying embers of the fire, his head bowed down on the table, and at last he slumbered soundly.

Scarcely had he sunk into this state when there was a sharp click heard; a jarring sound succeeded, and on the opposite side of the room, about three feet from the ground, a pannel in the wainscotting was opened slowly and cautiously, and the bright glare of a large oil cruise streamed into the darkened apartment. Beyond the aperture, receded a gloomy alcove or secret passage, into the obscurity of which the steps of a narrow stair ascended, and therein appeared the figure of a man, who gazed cautiously upon the unconscious sleeper. He was about thirty years of age, strongly formed, and possessing a handsome but very weatherbeaten countenance. He wore a plain buff coat and steel gorget; his waist was encircled by a broad belt, which sustained a pair of long iron pistols of the Scottish fashion, and a sharp narrow-bladed rapier glittered in his hand.

The stranger regarded him with a stern and louring visage, on which the lurid light of the upraised cruise fell strongly. It betokened some fell and deadly intention, and as the hostile ferocity of its aspect increased as slowly, softly, and ominously he descended into the apartment.

"Through which part of the iron shell shall I strike this papistical interloper?" he muttered; "I will teach thee, wretch, to think of Lilian Napier in thy cups!"

His right hand was withdrawn preparatory to making one furious and deadly thrust, which assuredly would have ended this history (ere it is well begun) had not the subject thereof started up suddenly, exclaiming,—

"Back, rebel dog! on thy life, stand back!" and striking up the thrust rapier, drew his own, and throwing a chair between him and his adversary, he stood at once upon his guard.

"Malediction!" cried the stranger, furiously, "dolt that I was not to have pistolled thee from the pannel!"

"Spare your breath, for you may need it all," said the other, putting down his lamp, and barring the door. "This chamber is vaulted and boxed, and long enough mayest thou bawl ere thy fellow-beagles hear thee. Defend thyself, foul minion of the bloodiest tyrant that ever disgraced a throne. Strike! for by the Heaven that is above, ere a sword is sheathed, this floor must smoke with the blood of one or both of us! Come on, Mr. Springald, and remember that you have the honour to cross blades with the best swordsman in the six battalions of the Scottish Brigade."

"Ha, scoundrel! Quentin Napier of Bruntisfield, by God's grace and King William's, a captain of the Scots-Dutch; so fall on, for I am determined to slay thee, were it but to keep my hand in practice for better work."

The blades crossed and struck fire as they clashed; each cavalier remained a moment with his head drawn back, the right leg thrown forward and his eyes glaring on his antagonist. Walter was ten years younger than his adversary, upon whom he rushed with more ardour than address, and consequently, in endeavouring to pass his point and close, received a slight wound on the hand, which kindled him into a terrible fury. Napier excelled him in temper, if not in skill; he parried all his thrusts with admirable coolness, until, perceiving that the youth's impetuosity began to flag, he pressed him in turn, the ferocity that sparkled in his eyes and blanched his nether lip revealing the bitterness of his intention; but in making one furious lunge, he overthrust himself, and was struck down with his sword-hand under him. Rage had deprived Walter of all government over himself; in an instant his knee was on Napier's breast, and his sword shortened in his hand with the intention of running him through the heart, for his blood was now up, and all "the devil" was stirred within him. He felt the deep broad chest of his powerful adversary heaving beneath him with suppressed passion and fury.

"Captain Napier," said Walter, "for the sake of her whose name and blood you share—though you disgrace them—I will spare your life if you will beg it at my hands."

"Strike!" and he panted rather than breathed as he spoke; "Strike! life would be less than worthless if given as a boon by Dunbarton's beggarly brat. O, a thousand devils!—is it come to this with me?"

"Peace, fool!" exclaimed Walter, "peace, lest your words tempt me to destroy you. Accept life at my hands; they spared the blood of a better man upon the field of Sedgemoor."

"Be it so," replied the discomfitted captain, sullenly receiving his rapier; "I accept it only that I may, at some future time, avenge in blood the stain thou hast this night cast upon the best cavalier of the Scottish Brigade." He ground his teeth. "D—nation! my throat is burning—any wine here?" He drank some Rhenish from a flask, and then continued, "Ho, ho, and now, since you know my hiding-place, doubtless for the sake of the thousand marks this poor brain-pan is worth, ye will deliver me unto our Scottish Phillistines—those Lords of Council, who are steeped to the lips in infamy and blood!"

"Perish the thought!" replied Walter, sheathing his rapier with a jerk. "You are safe for me—and here is my thumb on't."

"Gad so, young fellow, I love thy spirit, and at another's expense could admire your skill in the noble science of defence. You fought at Sedgemoor—so did I."

"I had been a glorious patriot, had we won that bloody field. Young fellow, you must have early cocked your feather to the tuck of the drum! Art a Papist?"

"And loyal to our Seventh James, the crowned Jesuit? Der tuyvel, as we say in Holland, 'tis a miracle!" and after drinking from the wine-flask, he resumed with greater urbanity, "When I remember how you permitted the Lady Bruntisfield and my kinswoman Lilian to escape, it shames me that I was not more generous; but the devil tempted me to blood in that infernal hole to which I must return."

"Nay, the whole household know of my concealment, and old Drouthy will not let me want for wine and vivres."

"O never! I am their lady's only kinsman—the last of the good old line, and they are staunch servitors; a few among those, whom the courtly villany of these times hath left uncorrupted. 'Tis well I know all the outlets of the mansion, for it will become quite too hot for me after to-night. No doubt a band of your soldiers will be here at free quarters until the whole barony, outfield and infield, are as bare as my hand."

"Henckers! then I must shift my camp among our whig friends in the west until——"

"Thou shalt learn anon, and so shall all thy faction with a vengeance!" replied the captain, while a deep smile spread over his features. "Meantime adieu, and may God keep us separate, friend! I trust to thine honour."

He sprang into the secret passage, closed the pannel, and Walter heard his footsteps dying away as he ascended into the hollow recesses of the thick wall, and sought some of those secret hiding-places with which this ancient mansion abounded more than any other edifice in or around Edinburgh.

Morning came, and with it came an order from the king's advocate to bring the prisoners before the privy council, and to secure the persons of their entire household for future examination and thumb-screwing, if necessary.

The multiplied lamentations and exclamations of fear and sorrow, which rang through the house of Bruntisfield on the arrival of Macer Maclutchy, with this terrible fiat (which he announced with all the jack-in-office insolence peculiar to himself), and the clank of musquets and din of high words in the corridor or ambulatory, roused Walter from a second short but sound sleep, and starting, he raised his head from the table on which he had reclined.

Redly and merrily the rays of the morning sun rising above the oak woods streamed through the grated window of the chamber, and threw a warm glow on its dark-brown wainscotting. It was a sunny March morning, and the old oaks were tossing their leafless branches on the balmy wind; the black corbies cawed on their summits, and the lesser birds twittered and chirped from spray to spray; the clear sky was flecked with fleecy clouds, and its pure azure was reflected in the still bosom of the long and beautiful loch, that stretched away between its wooded banks towards the east, where the old house of Gilford and the craigs of Salisbury closed the background.

Walter felt his bruises still smarting from the recent struggle; he examined the place of his fierce visitor's exit, but failed to discover the least trace of it; every pannel fitted close, and was immovable, for he knew not the secret. The whole combat appeared like a dream; but a scar on his hand, a notch or two on his sword, and several overturned chairs, still remained to attest the truth of it. Hastening to unfasten the door which Quentin Napier had secured with such deadly intentions, a little glove on the floor attracted his eye. He snatched it up. It was very small, and of richly worked lace, tied by a blue ribbon.

"She has worn this. Oh, 'tis quite a prize," said the young man as he kissed it, and laughing at himself for doing so, placed it within the top of his corslet.

"My certie, here is a braw bit o' wark and a bonnie!" exclaimed Macer Maclutchy, bustling into the room. "Here is an order from the king's advocat to bring the leddies o' Bruntisfield to the Laigh Council House instanter, and the chamber o' dais is empty, toom as a whistle,—the birds clean awa, and the gomeral that stood by the door kens nae mair about them than an unchristened wean. My word on't, lads," he continued flourishing his badge of office, "some here maun kiss the maiden or climb the gallows for last night's wark!"

After swearing an oath or two, which appeared to give him infinite relief in his perplexity,

"Master Walter," said the old halberdier, "here is a devilish piece of business—an overslagh, as we used to say in Flanders. Rot me! I have searched every place that would hold a mouse, but the prisoners are not to be found! I have pricked with my dagger every bed, board, and bunker, and so sure as the devil—make answer, Halbert Elshender," he cried, shaking the sentinel roughly by his bandoliers, "answer me, or I will truncheon thee in such wise, thou shalt never shoulder musket more. Fause knave! where are the prisoners over whom I posted ye?"

"A lang day's march on the road to hell, I hope—the old one, at least," responded the musqueteer, sullenly; "dost think I have them under my corslet?"

"Faith! General Dalyel will let ye ken, friend Hab, that a thrawn craig or six ounce bullets are the price Scottish of winking on duty. Ye'll be shot like a cock-patrick. I pity thee, Hab—d—mme if I don't; you've blawn your matches by my side on many a hot day's work, and bleezed away your bandoliers in the face o' English, Dutch, and German; but my heart granes for the punishment ye'll dree."

"You are all either donnart or drunk!" exclaimed the incensed soldier; "if the ladies were in the chamber when I first mounted guard, I swear by my father's soul, they are there yet for me. I neither slept nor stirred from the door; so they maun either have flown up the lum or whistled through the keyhole——"

"Didst ever hear of a noble lady playing cantrips o' witchcraft like a wife o' the Kailmercat, or that auld whaislin besom, your mother, down by St. Roque?"

"What for no?—it rins in the family, this same science o' witchcraft, gif a' tales be true."

"See if such a braw story will pass muster with Sir Thomas Dalyel. Cocknails! I think I see every hair o' his lang beard glistening and bristling with rage!"

"And he will mind that my father was a staunch vassal o' the Napiers!" added the poor musqueteer, in great consternation at the idea of confronting that ferocious commander. "What can I do or say?—O help me, Master Walter! Would to God I had been piked or shot at Sedgemoor!"

"Wemyss," said Walter, advancing at this juncture, just as the serjeant was unbuckling the soldier's collar of bandoliers. "The ladies are gone where I hope none, save friends, will find them. Elshender is innocent, for I freed them, and must bear the punishment for doing so; but next time, comarade Hab, you take over such a post, see that your wards are in it."

"I had your word, Mr. Fenton," replied the musqueteer in a voice between sorrow and joy; "your word at least in the sense, and we alway deemed you a gentleman of honour, though but a puir soldier-lad like mysel."

"True, true," replied Walter, colouring; "will not the generosity of my purpose excuse the deceit?"

"Why, Mr. Fenton, I wish weel to the auld house, for I was born and bred under its shadow, and mony o' my kin hae laid down their lives in its service, and I can excuse it——"

"D'ye think my Lord Chancellor will, though?" asked the Macer sharply, as he bustled forward, "or His Majesty's advocat for His Majesty's interest?"

"Or Sir Thomas Dalyel o' the Binns?" added the serjeant testily. "O! what is this o't noo—after I, from a skirling brat, had made a man and a soldier of thee? O! 'tis an unco scrape—a devilish coil of trouble, and I wish you weel out o't. Retain your sword, my puir child, but consider yourself under close ward until orders come anent ye. D—me! I once marched three hundred prisoners from Zutphen to French Flanders, among them the noble Count of Bronkhorst himsel, and never lost but one man whom I pistolled for calling me a hireling Scot, that sold my king for a groat, whilk I considered as a taunt appertaining to the Covenanters alone. Gowk and gomeral, boy, what devil tempted thee to——but why ask? Yon pawkie gipsey's blue een——"

"Hae thrown a glamour owre ye. Wherever women bide, there will mischief be. 'Tis a kittle job! What a pumpkin-head I was not to keep watch and ward mysel. Rot me! a young quean's skirling, or a carlin's greeting would hae little effect on me, for I have heard muckle o' baith in my time. Did no thought of our Council prevent ye running your head in the cannon's mouth?"

"Had they been two auld carlins with hairy chins, gobber teeth, wrinkled faces, and hands like corbies' claws, I doubt not your tender heart would have dictated otherwise. But when next I set a handsome young lad to watch a young lass, may the great de'il spit me, and mak my ain halbert his toasting fork!"

"Ay, ay," muttered Macer Maclutchy, whose jaws were busily devouring all the good things he could collect in buffet or almrie; "auld Hornie may do so in the end, whatever comes to pass."

"O Willie Wemyss, Willie Wemyss!" quoth the veteran halberdier apostrophizing himself; "dark dool be on the hour that brings this disgrace upon thee, after five and thirty years o' hard and faithful service, under La Tour d'Avergne, Crequy, Condé, and Dunbarton! The deil's in ye, Walter Fenton! You were aye a moody and melancholy cheild, and I ever thought ye were born under some ill star, as the spaewives say."

"Braw spark though he be," said the Macer, "he's come o' the true auld covenanting spawn, Mr. Wemyss—and birds o' a feather—here's luck, serjeant, and better times to us a'"; and so saying he buried his flushed visage in a vast flagon of foaming ale.

CHAPTER VI.

THE OLD TOLBOOTH.

Whether I was brought into this world by the usual human helps and means, or was a special creation, might admit of some controversy, as I have never known the name of parent or of kindred.—THE IMPROVISITORE.

Many of the citizens of Edinburgh may remember the old Bank close, and the edifice about to be described. On the west side of that narrow street, which descended abruptly on the southern side of the city's central hill, stood in former days a house of massive construction and sombre aspect. Its walls were enormously thick and elaborately jointed; its passages narrow, dark, and devious; its stairs ascended and descended in secret corners, and one led to the paved bartizan, which formed the roof. Many of its gloomy chambers were vaulted. Over its small and heavy doorway appeared the date 1569, encrusted by smoke and worn with time. The whole aspect of the edifice was peculiarly dismal; the walls were black as if coated over with soot, the windows were thickly grated with rusted iron stanchells, and sunk in massive frames, the little panes were obscured by the dust and cobwebs of years.

It was the ancient prison of the city. In older days it had been built by a rich citizen named Gourlay, and had held within its walls the ambassadors of England and France. From its strength it had been converted into a Tolbooth, and was used as such until the time of the Solemn League and Covenant, when the spacious and more famous prison was adopted for that purpose; but the older, darker, more obscure, and more horrid place of confinement was still used at this time.

A party of the ancient City Guard, armed with swords and Lochaber axes, buff coats, and steel bonnets, occupied one of the lower apartments entering from the turnpike stair, at the foot of which stood a sentinel with his axe, before the door, which though small, was a solid mass of iron-studded oak, bolts and long bars.

In a small but desolate chamber of this striking old edifice—the same in which the hapless Earl of Argyle passed the night of the 29th June, 1685, his last in the land of the living—Walter Fenton was confined a prisoner, while the Reverend Mr. Ichabod Bummel, Mr. Drouthy the butler, and other servitors of Lady Bruntisfield, were in close durance in the greater or upper Tolbooth. The roof, the walls, and the floor of this squalid apartment were all of squared stones, stained with damp and scrawled over with hideous visages, pious sentences, and reckless obscenity. Its only window was thickly grated within and without, and there in the sickly light the busy spiders spun their webs from bar to bar in undisturbed industry. It opened to a narrow, dark, and steep Close of dreary aspect; the opposite houses were only one yard distant, and ten stories high; the alley was like a chasm or fissure; a single ray of sunlight streamed down it, and penetrating the cobwebs and dust of the prison window, radiated through its deep embrasure, and threw the iron gratings in strong shadow on the paved floor. Though the day was a chill one, in March, there was no fire under the small archway, where one should have been, and the only articles of furniture were a coarse and heavy table like a carpenter's bench, a miserable palliasse on a truckle bedstead, and a water flagon of Flemish pewter. One or two rusty chains hung from enormous blocks in the dirty walls, for the more secure confinement of prisoners who might be more than usually dangerous or refractory, and the whole tout ensemble of the chamber when viewed by the dim and fast-fading light of the evening was cheerless, desolate, and disgusting.

The day had passed away, and now, divested of his gay accoutrements, and clad in a plain unlaced frock of grey cloth, the young prisoner awaited impatiently, perhaps apprehensively, the hour that would bring him before that terrible council whose lawless will was nevertheless the law of the land. Sunk in moody reverie, he remained with his arms folded, and his head sunk forward on his breast.

The shadow of the grating on the floor grew less and less distinct, for as the light faded, his vaulted prison became darker, until all became blackness around him. Anon the pallid moon rose slowly into its place, and from the blue southern sky poured a cold but steady flood of silver light into the cheerless room, and again, for a time, the shadow of the massive grating was thrown on the discoloured floor. All around it was involved in obscurity, from amid which the damp spots on the walls seemed like great and hideous visages, mocking and staring at the captive.

Bitter were the thoughts, and sad the memories that thronged fast upon the mind of Walter Fenton; his dark eyes were lit, his lip compressed, but there were none to behold the changes; his handsome features were alternately clouded by chagrin, contracted by anger, and softened by love. Though ever proud in spirit, and fired by an inborn nobility of soul, never until now did he feel so keenly the dependence of his situation, or so fierce a longing for an opportunity when by one brilliant act of heroism and courage, he might place himself for ever above his fortune, or—die. And Lilian! O it was the thought of her alone that raised these vivid aspirations to their utmost pitch; but his heart sank, and even hope—the lover's last rallying point—faded away when he pictured the difference of their fortunes and positions in life. Scotland was then a country where pride of birth was carried to excess; and a remnant of that feeling still exists among us. He reflected that he was poor and nameless, compelled from infancy to eat the bread of dependence and mortification, and now in manhood, having no other estate than his sword and a ring, which, as he had often told Lilian with a smile (and he knew not how prophetically he spoke) "contained the secret of his life:" she the representative of a long line of illustrious barons, whose shields had shewn their blazons on the fields of Bannockburn, Sark, and Arkinholme, the inheritrix of their honours, their pride, and their possessions. Poor Walter! but he was too thoroughly in love to lose courage altogether.

As a boy, he had sighed for Lilian, and he felt his enthusiasm kindled by her gentleness and infantile beauty, for then his heart knew not the great gulf which a few years would open up between them. The ardour of his temperament made him now feel alternately despair and hope—but the latter feeling predominated, for though the clergy railed at wealth and all the good things of this life, and took peculiar care to enjoy a good share thereof—the world was not so intensely selfish then as it is now, for a high spirit and a bold heart, when united to a gallant bearing, a velvet cloak, a tall feather, and a long sword, were valued more than an ample purse by the young ladies of that age, who were quite used to find in their ponderous folio romances, how beautiful and disinterested queens and princesses bestowed their hands, hearts, and kingdoms on those valiant knights-errant and penniless cavaliers, who alone, or by the aid of a single faithful squire, freed them from enchanted castles, and slew the wicked enchanters, giants, gnomes, and fire-vomiting dragons who had persecuted them from childhood.

To resume: poor Walter was intensely sad, for deeply at that moment he experienced the desolate feeling, that he was utterly alone in this wide world, and that within all its ample space there existed not one being with whom he could claim kindred. He felt that it was all a blank, a void to him; but his thoughts went back to those days when the suppression of the rising at Bothwell, struck terror and despair into the hearts of the Presbyterians, and filled the dungeons of the Scottish castles, and the Tolbooths of the cities with the much-enduring adherents of the Covenant, beneath the banner of which his father was supposed to have died with his sword in his hand—so with her dying lips had his mother told him, and his heart swelled and his eye moistened, as he recalled the time, the place, and her tremulous accents, with a vivid distinctness that wrung his breast with the tenderest sorrow, even after the lapse of so many years.

During the summer of 1679 those citizens of Edinburgh, whose mansions commanded a view of the Grey friars kirkyard, beheld from their windows a daily scene of suffering such as had never before been seen in Scotland.

This ancient burial-place lies to the south of the long ridge occupied by the ancient city; it is spacious, irregular, and surrounded by magnificent tombs, many of them being of great antiquity, and marking the last resting-places of those who were eminent for their virtues and talents, or distinguished by their birth. It is a melancholy place withal. For three hundred years never a day has passed without many persons being interred there; and the hideous clay, the yellow and many-coloured loam, that had once lived and breathed, and loved and spoken, has now risen several feet above the adjacent street, against the walls of the great old church in the centre, and has buried the basements of the quaint and dark monuments that surround it. The inscriptions and grotesque carving of the latter, have long since been encrusted and blackened by the smoke of the city, or worn and obliterated by the corroding and fetid atmosphere of the great grave-yard. There is not a spot in all the Lothians where the broad-leaved docken, the rank dog-grass, the long black nettle, and other weeds grow so luxuriantly, for terrible is the mass of human corruption, for ever festering and decaying beneath the verdant turf.

In the year before mentioned, this ancient city of the dead was crowded to excess with those unhappy non-conformists whom the prisons could not contain, for already were their gloomy dungeons and squalid chambers filled with the poor, the miserable, and devoted Covenanters. Strong guards and chains of sentinels watched by day and night the walls of the burial-ground; and then the buff-coated dragoon, with his broadsword and carbine, and the smart musqueteer, with his dagger and matchlock, were ever on the alert to deal instant death as the penalty of any attempt to escape. The rising at Bothwell had been quenched in blood; and these unhappy people had been collected—principally from Bathgate—by the cavalry employed in riding down the country, and being driven like a herd of cattle to the capital, were penned up in the old churchyard. And there, for months, they lay in hundreds, exposed to the scorching glare of the sun by day, and the chill dew by night—the rain and the wind and the storm! God's creatures, formed in his own image, reduced to the level of the hare and the fox, with no other canopy than the changing sky, and no other bed than the rank grass, reeds, and nettles, that sprung in such hideous luxuriance from the fetid graves beneath them.

It was a sorrowful sight; for there was the strong and athletic peasant, with his true Scottish heart of stubborn pride and rectitude, his weak and tender wife with her little infants, his aged and infirm parents. Their miseries increasing as day by day their numbers diminished, and other burial-mounds, fresh and earthy, rose amid the hollow-eyed survivors to mark the last homes of other martyrs in the cause of "the oppressed Kirk and broken Covenant." And all this terrible amount of mental misery and bodily suffering was accumulated within the walls of the capital, amid the noisy and busy streets of a densely peopled city—and for what? Religion—religion, under whose wide mantle so many thousand atrocities have been committed by men of every creed and age; and because these poor peasants had resolved to worship God after the spirit of their own hearts, and the fashion of their fathers.

When the Duke of Albany and York (afterwards James VII.) came to Edinburgh, the persecution was not continued with such rigour; but the progress of time never overcame the resolution of the covenanters, though many noble families were reduced to poverty, exile, and ruin, while their brave and moral tenantry suffered famine, torture, imprisonment, and every severity that tyrannical misgovernment could inflict, until the Presbyterians were driven to the verge of despair; intrigues with the Prince of Orange were set on foot, and for some years a storm had been gathering, which, in the shape of a Dutch invasion, was soon to burst over the whole of Britain.

Walter's memory went back to those days, when, amid the tombs and graves of that old kirk-yard, he had nestled, a little and wailing child, on the bosom of his mother, who, imprisoned there among the "common herd," had soon sunk under the combined effects of exposure, starvation, degradation, and sorrow; and he remembered when coiled up within her mantle and plaid, how he hid his little face in her fair neck, trembling with cold and fear in dreary nights, when the moon streamed its light between the flying clouds upon the vast and desolate church and its thick grave-mounds, with the long reedy grass waving on their solemn and melancholy ridges.

A mystery hung over the fortune of Walter Fenton. Of his family he knew nothing further than that his mother's name was Fenton, and his own was Walter, for so she had been wont to call him. Of his father he knew nothing, save that he had never been seen since the cavalry of Claverhouse swept over the Bridge of Bothwell, scattering its defenders in death and defeat. He had heard that his father there held high command, but was supposed to have perished either in the furious mêlée on the bridge, or in the stream beneath it. Concealing her rank in the disguise of a peasant, his mother had been found in the vicinity of the battle-field, was arrested as a suspected person, sent to Edinburgh, and imprisoned with other unfortunates in the old church-yard.

Poor Walter used to remember with pleasure that they had always remained aloof from the other prisoners, and were treated by them with marked respect. Their usual shelter was under the great mausoleum of the Barons of Coates, the quaint devices and antique sculpture of which had often raised his childish fear and wonder; he recalled through the struggling and misty perceptions of infancy, how day by day her fair features became paler and more attenuated, her eye more sunken and ghastly, her voice more tremulous and weak, and her strength even less than his own; for (he had heard the soldiers say) she had been a tenderly nurtured and fragile creature, unable to endure the hardships to which she was subjected; and so she perished among the first that died there.

One morning the little boy raised his head from the coarse plaid which on the previous night her feeble hands had wrapped around him, and called as usual for her daily kiss; he twisted his dimpled fingers in the masses of her silky hair, and laid his smiling face to hers—it was cold as the marble tomb beside them; he shrank back, and again called upon her, but her still lips gave no reply; he stirred her—she did not move. Then, struck by the peculiar, the terrible aspect of her pale and once beautiful face, the ghastly eyes and relaxed jaw, the child screamed aloud on the mother that heard him no more. He dreaded alike to remain or to fly; for, alas! there was no other in whose arms he could find a refuge.

A soldier approached. He was a white-haired veteran, who had looked on many a battle-field, and speaking kindly to the desolate child, he gently stirred the dead woman with his halberd.

"Come away with me, my little mannikin," continued the soldier, "for thy mother hath gone to a better and bonnier place than this."

"Take me there too," sobbed the child, clinging to the soldier's hand; "oh, take me there too."

"By my faith, little one, 'tis a march I am not prepared for yet—but our parson will tell you all about it. Tush! I know the flams of the drum better than how to expound the text; so come away, my puir bairn; thy mother, God rest her, is in good hands, I warrant. Come away; and rot me, if thou shalt want while old Willie Wemyss of the Scots' Musqueteers, hath a bodle in his pouch, or a bannock in his havresack."

By the good-hearted soldier he was carried away in a paroxysm of childish grief and terror; and he saw his mother no more.

By the beauty of her person, the exceeding whiteness of her hands, and a very valuable ring found with her, she was supposed to be of higher rank than her peasant's attire indicated; and those apparent proofs of a superior birth, the soldiers never omitted an opportunity of impressing upon Walter as he grew older; and cited innumerable Low Country legends and old Scottish traditions, wherein certain heroes just so circumstanced, had become great personages in the end; and Walter was taught to consider that there was no reason why he should be an exception. But who his mother was, had unfortunately remained locked in her own breast; whether from excessive debility and broken spirit she lacked strength to communicate with the other captives, or whether she feared to do so, could not be known now; her secret was buried with her, and thus a mystery was thrown over the fortune of the little boy, which through life caused him to be somewhat of a moody and reflective nature.

William Wemyss, a veteran serjeant of Dunbarton's musqueteers, became his patron and protector; and a love and friendship sprang up between them, for the orphan had none other to cling to. Wemyss often led him to the old churchyard, and showed him the grave where his mother lay—where the soldiers had interred her; and there little Walter, overcome by the mystery that involved his fate, and the loneliness of his heart, wept bitterly; for the soldier, though meaning well, was rather like one of Job's comforters, and painted his dependance in such strong colours, and reminded him how narrowly he had escaped being hanged or banished as "a covenanter's spawn," that the heart of the poor boy swelled at times almost to breaking. Then the soldier would desire him to pray for his mother, and made him repeat a curious but earnest prayer full of quaint military technicalities, in which the good old halberdier saw nothing either unusual or outré. Often little Fenton came alone to seek that well-known grave, to linger and to sit beside it, for it was the only part of all broad Scotland that his soul clung to. The weeds were now matted over it, and the waving nettles half hid the humble stone, which with his own hands the kind soldier had placed there. Walter always cleared away those luxuriant weeds, and though they stung his hands, he felt them not. It was a nameless grave too, for the real name of her who slept within it was unknown to him; and the desolate child often stretched himself down on the turf, burying his face in the long grass, and weeping, as he had done in infancy on the poor bosom that mouldered beneath, retraced in memory, days of wandering and misfortune, of danger and sorrow, which he could not comprehend. Time, and that lightness of heart which is incident to youth, enabled him at last to view the grave with composure; but he sought it not the less, until after his return from Sedgemoor; he hastened to the well-known place, but, alas! the grave had been violated, and the charm of grief was broken for ever. Another had been buried there; the earth was freshly heaped up; and he rushed away, to return no more.

From childhood to youth the old Serjeant was his only protector: though poor, he was a kind and sincere one; and the little boy became the pet of the musqueteers.

A child, a dog, or a monkey is always an object of regard to an old soldier or sailor; for the human heart must love something.

Little Walter carried the halberdier's can of egg-flip when he mounted guard, learned to make up bandoliers of powder, polish a corslet, to rattle dice on a drumhead, and to beat on the drum itself; to fight with rapier and dagger; to handle a case of falchions like any sword-player; and became an adept at every game of chance, from kingly chess, to homely touch-and-take. He learned to drink "Confusion to the Covenant," in potent usquebaugh without winking once, and swear a few cavalier-like oaths. Like all such pets, he was often boxed severely, and roundly cursed too, at the caprice of his numerous masters, until the poor boy would have been altogether lost, his ideas corrupted, and his manners tainted by the roughness of camp and garrison, had not his humble patron been ordered away on the Tangier expedition; and being unable to take his little protégé with him, bethought him of craving the bounty of his commander's wife, the Countess of Dunbarton, a beautiful young English woman, who was the belle of the capital and the idol of the Scottish cavaliers. Struck with the soldier's story, envying his generosity, pitying the little boy, and pleased with his candour and beauty, she immediately took him under protection, adopting him as her page; and never was there seen a handsomer youth than Walter Fenton, when his coarse attire (a cast doublet of the serjeant) was exchanged for a coat of white velvet slashed with red and laced with gold, breeches and stockings of silk, a sash, a velvet cloak, and silver-hilted poniard; and his dark-brown hair curled and perfumed by Master Peter Pouncet, the famous frizzeur in the Bow. He parted in a flood of tears from his old patron, who slipped into his pocket a purse the Countess had bestowed on himself, drew his leather glove across his eyes, and hurried away.

At Lady Dunbarton's he had often seen Lilian Napier; she was then a little girl, and always accompanied her tall and stately relative in the vast old rumbling coach, with its two footmen behind and outriders in front, armed with sword and carbine; for the noble dame set forth in great state on all visits of ceremony. Lady Grizel's majestic aspect and frigid stateliness scared and awed the little footpage; but the prattle of the fair-haired Lilian soothed and charmed him, and he soon learned to love the little girl, to call her his sister, to be joyous when she came, and to be sad when she departed.

Young Walter, from his well-knit figure, and a determined aspect which he had acquired by his camp education, was as great a favourite among the starched little damoiselles of the Countess's withdrawing-room, as his clenched fist and bent brows made him a terror at times to the little cavaliers whose jealousy he excited; and his military preceptors (the old Royals, then battling and broiling at Tangiers) had inculcated a pugnacity of disposition that sometimes was very troublesome; and he once proceeded so far as to d—n the old Dowager of Drumsturdy pretty roundly, and draw his poniard on the young lord her son, who, with his companions, had mocked him as "a covenanter's brat." The Countess made him crave pardon of the little noble, and they shook hands like two cut-and-thrust gallants of six feet high.

But when their companions, with childish malevolence, taunted poor Walter as "my lord's loon," "the soldier's varlet," or "the powder puggy," epithets which always kindled his rage and drew tears from his eyes, Lilian, ever gentle and kind, wept with him, espoused his cause, and told that "Walter's mother was a noble lady, for the Countess had her ring of gold;" and the influence of the little nymph, with her cheeks like glowing peaches, and her bright hair flowing in sunny ringlets around a face ever beaming with happiness—was never lost, or failed to maintain peace among them. And thus days passed swiftly into years, and the girl was twelve and the boy sixteen when they were separated. Walter followed his noble patron to the field, when the landing of Argyle in the west, and Monmouth in the south, threw Britain into a flame. Dunbarton, now a general officer, marched with the Scottish forces against the former; but Walter, as a volunteer, served under Colonel Halkett, with a battalion of Scottish musqueteers, at the battle of Sedgemoor, where he felt what it was to have lead bullets rebounding from his buff coat and headpiece. Since then he had been serving as a private gentleman; but in a country like Scotland, swarming with idle young men of good birth and high spirit, who despised every occupation save that of arms, preferment came not, and he had too often experienced the mortification of seeing others obtain what he justly deemed his due, the commission of King James VII.

His recent interview with Lilian had recalled in full force all the friendship of their childhood and the dawning love of older years; but the manner in which he was now involved with the supreme authorities seemed to destroy all his hopes for ever—in Scotland at least; and yet, though that reflection wrung his heart, so little did he regret the part he had acted, that for Lilian's sake he would willingly run again, a hundred-fold greater risk. The last three years of his life had been spent amid the stirring turmoil of military duty in a discontented country, where each succeeding day the spirit of insurrection grew riper. In the rough society with which he mingled, never had he been addressed by a female so fair in face and so winning in manner as Lilian of Bruntisfield; and thus the charm of her presence acted more powerfully upon him. Her accents of entreaty and distress—her affection for Lady Grizel struggling with anxiety for himself, had in one brief interview recalled all the soft and happy impressions of his earlier and more innocent days, and love obtained a sway over his heart, that made him for a time forget his own dangerous predicament, in pondering with pleasure on the mortifications from which he had saved the ladies of Bruntisfield, the risks he had run for their sake, and consequently the debt of gratitude they owed him.

From his breast he drew forth her glove a hundred times, to admire its delicate texture and diminutive form; but he could not repress a bitter sigh when contemplating how slight were the chances of his ever again beholding the gentle owner, now when both unhappily were under the ban of the law,—she a homeless fugitive, and he a close prisoner, with death, imprisonment, or distant service in the Scots' Brigade his only prospects. Even were it otherwise,—and, oh! this idea was more tormenting than the first,—her heart might be dedicated to another; and she might, with the true pride of a noble Scottish maiden, deem it an unpardonable presumption in the poor and unhonoured pikeman to raise his eyes to the heiress of Sir Archibald Napier of Bruntisfield and the Wrytes. And thus, having introduced to the reader the grand feature upon which our story must "hinge," we shall get on with renewed ardour.

CHAPTER VII.

THE LAIGH COUNCIL HOUSE.

Ye holy martyrs, who with wond'rous faith,
And constancy unshaken have sustained
The rage of cruel men and fiery persecutions;
Come to my aid and teach me to defy
The malice of this fiend!
TAMERLANE.

The moon had passed westward; the close was gloomy as a chasm; and Walter's prison became dark as a cave in the bowels of a mountain. The clank of chains and bars as the door was opened roused the prisoner from his waking dreams; a yellow light flashed along the heavily jointed stone walls, and the harsh unpleasant voice of Macer Maclutchy cried authoritatively—

"Maister Walter Fenton!—now, then, come forth instanter. Ye are required by the Lords of the Privy Council."

A thrill shot through Walter's heart: he endeavoured in vain to suppress it, and, taking up his plain beaver hat, which was looped with a ribbon and cockade à la Monmouth in the military fashion, he descended the narrow spiral stair, preceded by the macer carrying his symbol of office on his right shoulder, and attired in a long flowing black gown. Two of the Town-guard, with their pole-axes, and Dunbraiken their captain,—a portly citizen, whose vast paunch, cased in corslet and backpiece, made him resemble a mighty tortoise erect,—kept close behind; and thus escorted, Walter set out from his prison, to appear before a select committee of the dreaded Privy Council of Scotland.

Encumbered by his long official garb, Macer Maclutchy's step was none of the most steady. He was evidently after his evening potations at Lucky Dreeps; he wore his bonnet cocked well forward; and such a provoking smirk of vulgar importance pervaded his features when, from time to time, he surveyed his prisoner, that the latter was only restrained by the axes behind from knocking him down.

In those days the hour of dinner was about one or two o'clock; but as the Earl of Perth, the Lords Clermistonlee, Mersington, and others loved their wine too well to leave it soon for dry matters of state, and the thumbscrewing of witches and non-conformists, the evening was far advanced before Walter Fenton was summoned for examination in the Laigh Chamber, where the Council held their meetings under the Parliament Hall, in a dark and gloomy region, where lights are always burned even yet during the longest days of summer.

Passing a narrow pend or archway (where, in the following year, the Lord President Lockhart was shot by Chiesly of Dairy), Walter and his conductors issued into the dark and deserted Lawnmarket, passed the Heart of Midlothian, from the western platform of which, the black beam of the gibbet stretched its ghastly arm in the moonlight,—and reached the antique Parliament Square, a quadrangle of quaint architecture, which had recently been graced by a beautiful statue of Charles II. On one side rose the square tower and gigantic façade of St. Giles, with its traceried windows, its rich battlements and carved pinnacles all glittering in the moonlight, which poured aslant over several immense piles of building raised on Venetian arcades, and made all the windows of the Goldsmiths' Hall glitter with the same pale lustre that tipped the round towers of the Tolbooth, the square turrets and circular spire of the Parliament House, the whole front of which was involved in opaque and gloomy shadow, from which the grand equestrian statue of King Charles, edged by the glorious moonlight, stood vividly forth like a gigantic horseman of polished silver.

The square was silent and still, as it was black and gloomy. A faint chorus stole on the passing wind, and then died away. It came from the hostel, or coffee-house, of Hugh Blair, a famous vintner, whose premises were under the low-browed and massive piazza before mentioned. The deep ding-dong of the cathedral bell, vibrating sonorously from the great stone chambers of the tower, made Walter start. It struck the hour of nine, and, save its echoes dying away in the hollow aisles and deep vaults of the ancient church, no other sound broke the silence of the place; and Walter felt a palpable chill sinking heavily on his spirit, when, guided by the macer, they penetrated the cold shade of the quadrangle, and by a richly carved doorway were admitted into the lobby of the house, which was spacious and lofty enough to be the hall of a lordly castle. From thence another door gave admittance into that magnificent place of assembly where once the estates of Scotland met—

Its rich and intricate roof towered far away into dusky obscurity; its vast space and lofty walls of polished stone echoed hollowly to their footsteps; and the bright moon, streaming through the mullioned and painted windows, threw a thousand prismatic hues on the oaken floor, on the grotesque corbels, and innumerable knosps and gilded pendants of its beautiful roof,—on the crimson benches of the peers,—on the throne, with its festooned canopy,—on the dark banners and darker paintings, bringing a hundred objects into strong relief, sinking others in sombre shadow, and tipping with silver the square-bladed axes and conical helmets of the Town-guardsmen as they passed the great south oriel, with its triple mullions and heraldic blazonry.

From thence steep, narrow, and intricate stairs led them to the regions of the political Inquisition, and the wind that rushed upward felt cold and dewy as they descended. At the bottom there branched off a variety of stone passages, where flambeaux flared and cressets sputtered in the night wind, and cast their lurid light on the dusky walls. And now a confused murmur of voices announced to the anxious Fenton that he was close to this terrible conclave, whose presence few left but on the hurdle of the executioner.

In an anteroom a crowd of macers, city guardsmen, messengers-at-arms, and officials in the blue livery of the city, laced with yellow, and wearing the triple castle on their cuffs and collars, a number of persons cited as witnesses, &c., lounged about, or lolled on the wooden benches. The ceiling of the apartment was low, and the deep recesses of the doors and windows showed the vast solidity of the massively panelled walls. A huge fire blazed in a grate that resembled an iron basket on four sturdy legs, and its red light glinted on the varied costumes, the weather-beaten visages, polished headpieces and partisans of those who crowded round it. The entrance of Walter Fenton and his escort excited neither attention nor curiosity; and feeling acutely his degraded position, he sought a retired corner, and seated himself on a wooden bench. The groups around him conversed only in whispers. A murmur of voices came at intervals from the inner chamber; and Walter often gazed with deep interest at its antiquely fashioned doorway, the features of which remained long and vividly impressed on his memory; for he longed to behold, but dreaded to encounter, the stern conclave its carved panels concealed from his view.

Anon a cry—a shrill and fearful cry—announced that some dreadful work was being enacted within; every man looked gravely in his neighbour's face, (save Maclutchy, who smiled,) and the blood rushed back on Walter's heart tumultuously. Deep, hollow, and heart-harrowing groans succeeded; then were heard the sound of hammers and the creaking of a block as when a rope runs rapidly through the sheave; then a low murmur of voices again, and all was still; so still, that Walter heard the pulsations of his heart, and in spite of his natural courage, it quailed at the prospect of what he too might have to undergo.

Suddenly the door of the dreaded chamber flew open, and the common Doomster and his two assistants, with their muscular arms bared, and their leather aprons girt up for exertion, issued forth, bearing the half lifeless and wholly miserable Ichabod Bummel. His countenance was pale and ghastly; his teeth were clenched, and his eyes set; his limbs hanging pendant and powerless, bore terrible evidence of the agonies caused by the iron boots, as his fingers, covered with blood, did of the thumb-screws. He groaned heavily.

"Sae muckle, that the pyets will be pyking his head on the Netherbow-porte when the sun rises the morn," replied Mr. Patrick Pincer, the heartless finisher of the law, whose brawny arms and blood-stained apron, together with all the disgusting associations of his frightful occupation rendered him a revolting character. "He defied the haill council as a generation o' vipers; boasted o' being a naturalized Hollander, and denied his ain mother-country."

"Wretch!" muttered Bummel, "well might I deny the land that produces such as thee. But there is yet a time, and in Heaven is all my trust."

"Silence in court!" said the macer, imperiously thrusting the brass crown of his baton in the sufferer's mouth. "Ay, ay, denying his ain country, eh?"

"Till my Lord Clermistonlee recommended a touch o' the caspie-claws, and wow, Sirs, the loon stood them brawly, but when we gied him a twinge wi' the airn buits, my certie! they did mak' him skirl! Did ye no hear him confessing, lads?"

"Ou just onything they asked him. Treason, awfu' to hear; about a Dutch invasion and a rebellion among the Westland whigs, to whom he shewed letters from Flume o' Polwarth, Fagel the Pensioner o' Holland, Dyckvelt the Flemish spy, and a' hidden whar d'ye think?"

The poor fainting preacher had now the felicity of being stared at by a crowd who pitied him no more than the strong-armed torturers whose grasp sustained his supine and inert frame.

"Na, I am Habbie, the son o' my faither, auld John Elshender, a cottar body, at the Burghmuirend."

"Then, in the name of God," implored the poor man in a weak and wavering voice, "give me but a drop o' water to quench my thirst, for, oh youth, I suffer the torments of hell!"

The soldier who seemed to be a good-natured young fellow, readily brought a pitcher of water, from which Bummel drank greedily and convulsively, muttering at intervals,

"'Tis sweet—sweet as aqua-coelestis, whilk is thrice rectified wine. Heaven bless thee, soldier, and reward thee, for I cannot." He burst into tears.

"Hath he taken the test," asked Maclutchy, "and did he acknowledge the king's authority?"

"Ou onything, and so would you, Maclutchy, gif I had ye under my hand as I'll soon hae that young birkie in the corner."

"'Tis false!" cried Ichabod Bummel, through his clenched teeth, "and sooner than acknowledge that bloody and papistical duke, I would kiss, yea, and believe the book of the accursed Mohamet, whilk as I shew in my 'Bombshell aimit at the taile of the great Beast,' was written on auld spule banes, and kept by the gude wife of the impostor in a meal girnel. But fie! and out upon ye, fiends, for lo, the hour of our triumph and deliverance from tyrants and massemongers is at hand. O, why tarry the chariot wheels of our Deliverer?"

"What!" exclaimed Maclutchy, in legal horror, "would ye dare to skirl a psalm within earshot o' the very Lords o' Council, ye desperate cheat, the woodie! Awa wi' him by the lug and horn, or he'll bring the roof about us." He was hurried off.

Walter was deeply moved. Pity and indignation stirred his heart by turns, but he had not much time for reflection; at that moment the drawling voice of the crier was heard, calling with a cadence peculiar to the Scottish courts,

He became more alive to his own immediate danger, and ere he well knew what passed, found himself in another gloomy and pannelled apartment, one-half of which was hung with scarlet cloth. On a dais stood the vacant throne with the royal arms of Scotland glittering under a canopy of velvet, festooned and fringed with gold.

Scott has given us a graphic picture of this strange tribunal, when it was presided over by the odious Duke of Lauderdale. Let us take a view of it as it appeared six years after, when that scourge of the Presbyterians had departed to render at a greater bar an account of his tyranny and enormities.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE PRIVY COUNCIL.

'Tis noble pride withholds thee—thou disdain'st
Wrapt in thy sacred innocence—these mad
Outrageous charges to refute.
SCHILLER'S MAID OF ORLEANS.

A long table, covered with scarlet cloth, extended from the throne towards the end of the room where Walter stood. Large, red-edged, and massively gilded statute books, docquets of papers, inkstands, and the silver mace (now used by the Lords of Session), lay glittering on the table, while a large silver candelabrum, with twelve tall wax lights, shed a lustre on the striking figures of those personages who composed the select committee of council.

On a low wooden side-bench lay certain fearful things, which (in his present predicament) made the heart of Walter quail; though on the field he would have faced, without flinching, the rush of a thousand charging horse; they were the instruments of torture then authorised by law; the pilnie-winks, the caspie-claws, and the iron-boots—all diabolical engines, such as the most refined cruelty alone could have invented. With these, both sexes, even little children were sometimes tortured until the blood spouted from the bruised and crushed limbs.

The thumbikins were small steel screws like handvices, which, by compressing the thumb-joints, produced the most acute agony; and this amiable and favourite engine (which saved all trouble of cross-examining witnesses), was first introduced by one of the council, whose stern eyes were fixed on Walter Fenton, Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Dalyel of Binns, a cavalier baronet of great celebrity, whose name is still justly abhorred in Scotland. He had long borne a command under the Russian standard, where his humanity had not been improved by service among Tartars and Calmucks.

The boot was a strong box enclosed with iron hoops, between which and the victim's leg, the executioner, by gradual and successive blows, drove a wooden wedge with such violence, that blood, bone, and marrow were at last bruised into a hideous and pulpy mass.

Walter could scarcely repress a shudder when he surveyed those frightful engines, under the application of which, so many unfortunates had writhed; but he confronted with an undaunted air the various members of that stern tribunal, which had so long ruled Scotland by the sword, and many of whose acts and edicts might well vie with those of the Inquisition, the Star-chamber, or any other instrument of tyranny and misgovernment.

Two earls, Perth, the Lord Chancellor, and Balcarris, the High Treasurer, were present; they were both fine-looking men, in the prime of life, richly dressed, and wearing those preposterous black wigs (brought into fashion by Charles II.), the ends of which rolled in many curls over their broad collars of point lace. The Bishop of Edinburgh, the Lord Advocate, and his predecessor, the terrible Sir George Mackenzie, of Rosehaugh, "that persecutor of the saints of God;"—(he whose tomb was, till of late years, a place so full of terror to the schoolboy,) occupied one side of the council-board. Opposite sat John Grahame, of Claverhouse, colonel of the Scottish life-guards, the horror of the Covenanters, (and to this hour the accursed of the Cameronians,) but the handsomest man of his time. His face was singularly beautiful, and his black, magnificent eyes, were one moment languid and tender as those of a love-sick girl, and the next sparkling with dusky fire and animation. When excited, they actually seemed to blaze, and were quite characteristic of his superhuman daring and unmatched ferocity.

Cruel as the character of the Laird of Claverhouse has ever been held up to us, let us not forget the times in which he lived, and how much room there is for malevolent exaggeration. Even Wodrow allows that at times he showed compunction, mercy, and compassion. Mutual injuries, assassinations, and outrages heightened the hostility of spirit between the Scottish troops and the Scottish people to a frightful extent; but it is a curious fact, that the local militia and vassals of the landholders were, by far, the most severe tools of persecution. The real sentiments of the troops of the line, were powerfully evinced by their joining en masse the banner of the Protestant invader. In making these remarks, let it not be thought we are attempting to gloss over the atrocities of the persecution, the records of which are enough to make one's blood boil even at this distant period of time. The darkest days of our history are those of which the industrious Wodrow wrote; but glorious indeed was the ardour and constancy with which so many of Scotland's best and bravest men gave up their souls to God in the cause of the "oppressed kirk and the broken covenant."

Claverhouse was splendidly attired; his coat was of white velvet, pinked with scarlet silk and laced with gold; over his breast spread a cravat of the richest lace, and on that fell the heavy dark ringlets of his military wig. Near him sat Sir Thomas Dalyel, colonel of the Scots grey dragoons. This fierce soldier was in the eightieth year of his age; he was perfectly bald, and a lofty forehead towered above his keen grey eyes, that shone brighter than his polished gorget in the light of the candelabrum. To his stern features a noble and dignified aspect was imparted by a long white beard, that flowed over his plain buff coat, reaching to the buckle of his sword-belt. There was a very striking and antique expression in the fine face of the aged and detested 'persecutor,' that never failed to impress beholders with respect and awe.

There are but two others to describe, and these are of some importance to our history.

Swinton, of Mersington, a law lord, who was never known to have been perfectly sober since the Restoration, and whose meagre body, nutcracker jaws, bleared eyes, and fantastic visage, contrasted so strongly with the upright and square form of the venerable cavalier on his right, and the dignified Randal, Lord Clermistonlee, who sat on his left.

A renegade Covenanter, a profligate, and debauched roué, steeped to the lips in cruelty, tyranny, and vice, the latter, after having squandered away a noble patrimony and the dowry of his unfortunate wife, still maintained his career of excess by gifts from the fines, extortions, and confiscations, made by the Council on every pretence, or without pretence at all. He was forty years of age, possessing a noble form, and a face still eminently handsome, though marked by dissipation; it was slightly disfigured by a sword cut, and, notwithstanding its beauty of contour, when clouded by chagrin and ferocity, and flushed by wine, it seemed that of a very ruffian, and now was no way improved by his ample wig and cravat being quite awry. His dark vindictive eyes were sternly fixed on Walter, who, from that moment, knew him to be his enemy. Clermistonlee, who was not a man to have his purposes crossed by any mortal consideration, had long marked out fair Lilian Napier as a new victim to be run-down and captured. Her beauty had inflamed his senses, her ample possessions his cupidity—it was enough; his wrath, and perhaps his jealousy, were kindled against the young man by whose agency she had found concealment, after he thought all was en train by his accusing the Baroness of Bruntisfield to the Council, and procuring a warrant of search and arrest for inter-communed persons at her Manor of the Wrytes-house. His brows were contracted until they formed one dark arch across his forehead; one hand was clenched upon the table, and the other on the embossed hilt of his long rapier, which rested against his left shoulder, and there was no mistaking the glance of hostility and scrutiny he bent upon the prisoner. The other members of the Council were all highly excited by the revelations recently extracted from Mr. Ichabod Bummel (by dint of hammer and screw), concerning the intrigues of the whigs with the Prince of Orange. The letters of the exiled Baron of Polwarth, and of Mynheer Fagel, the Great Pensionary of Holland, were lying before the Lord Chancellor, who played thoughtfully with the tassels of his rapier, while his secretaries wrote furiously in certain closely-written folios. Several clerks, macers, and other underlings who loitered in the background, were now ordered to withdraw.

"Fenton," muttered General Dalyel, "'tis a name that smacks o' the auld covenant; I hanged a cottar loon that bore it, for skirling a psalm at the foot o' the Campsie Hills, no twa months ago."

"And of true valor, if we remember the old Fentons of that ilk, and the brave Sir John de Fenton of the Bruce's days," continued the chancellor. "Young man, you of course know for what you this night compear before us?"

"Prisoners charged with treason and leaguing with intercommuned enemies of the state!" added Clermistonlee, in a voice of thunder.

"A bonnie piece o' wark, young Springald!" said General Dalyel scornfully; "a braw beginning for a soldier—but ken ye the price o't?"

"My life, perhaps, Sir Thomas," replied Walter, gently; "yet may it please you and their Lordships to pardon this, my first offence, in consideration of my three years' faithful and, as yet, unrequited service. Heaven be my witness, noble sirs, I could not help it!"

"I was overcome by their terror and entreaties. Oh, my Lords, I seek not to extenuate my offence."

"Plague choke thee!" said Dalyel, with a grim look; "a braw birkie ye are, and a bonnie to wear a steel doublet—a fine chield to march to battle and leaguer, if ye canna hear a haveral woman greet, but your heart maun melt like snaw in the sunshine. By the head of the king, ye shall smart for this! Sic kittle times thole nae trifling."

"I doubt not the young fellow was well paid for his untimely gallantry," said Clermistonlee, with a provoking sneer.

"Any man who would insinuate so much, I deem a liar and coward!" said Walter, fearlessly: the eyes of the Privy Councillor shot fire; he started, but restrained himself, and the young man continued. "No, my Lord Clermistonlee! though poor, I have a soul above bribery, and would not for the most splendid coronet in Scotland change sides, as some among us have done, and may do again."

"Silence!" replied Clermistonlee, in a voice of rage, for he writhed under this pointed remark, having once been a staunch covenanter; "silence, rascal, and remember that on yonder bench there lieth a bodkin of steel, for boring the tongue that wags too freely."

"Enough of this," said the Chancellor, striking the table impatiently with his hand; "Mr. Secretary, attend, and note answers. Walter Fenton, you are doubtless well aware of where the ladies of Bruntisfield are concealed, and can enlighten us thereon."

"Ridiculous!" said his tormenter, Clermistonlee, who was under the influence of wine. "Say instantly, or by all the devils, if there is any marrow in your bones, we shall see it shortly:" with his gold-headed cane he significantly touched the iron boots that lay near.

"Hath he been searched according to the act of council, whilk ordains,—sae forth," said Mersington; "for some of Madam Napier's perfumed carolusses may be found in his pouch."

"Nothing was found on him, my Lord," replied Maclutchy, "save a sang or twa, a wheen gun matches, twa dice, a wine bill o' Hughie Blair's—the Council's orders to the Forces—and—and—"

"Whence got ye that ring, sirrah?" asked the imperious Clermistonlee, suddenly feeling a new qualm of jealousy.

"Yea knave, it flashed even now, and by this light seems a diamond of the purest water. A common pikeman seldom owns a trinket such as that."

"I cry-ye-mercy," said Dalyel; "had your Lordship seen my brigade of Red Cossacks retreating after the sack of Trebizond and Natolia, ye would have seen the humblest spearman with his boots and holsters crammed to the flaps with the richest jewels of Asiatic Turkey. I mysel borrowed a string of pearls from an auld Khanum, worth deil kens how mony thousand roubles. Gad! some pretty trinkets fall in a soldier's way at times."

"Sir Thomas," said Claverhouse, "I would we had a few troops of your Cossacks, to send among the wrest-land whigs for six months or so."

"S'death!" said the General, through his massy beard, "your guardsmen think themselves fine rufflers, and so they are, Clavers'e, but I doubt muckle if in a charge they would have come within o' spear's length of my Red Brigade. Puir chields! lang since hae they stuffed the craps of the wolves and vultures that hovered oure the bluidy plains of Smolensk."

"Well, my Lords, about this ring," observed Clermistonlee, with ill-disguised impatience, while endeavouring to waken His Majesty's advocate, who, oblivious of "His Majesty's interest," had fallen fast asleep. "We all know that the Lady Bruntisfield has a god-daughter, grand-niece, or something of that kind—a fair damsel, however; and 'tis very unlikely this young cock would run his neck under the gallows (whereon I doubt not his father dangled) for nothing. Fenton—harkee, sirrah, surrender the jewel forthwith, and say whence ye had it, or the thumbscrews may prove an awkward exchange for it."

"Do with me as you please, my Lords, but ah! spare me the ring. It is the secret of my life—it is all that I possess in the world—all that I can deem my own:" pausing with sudden emotion the young man covered his eyes. "It was found on the hand of my mother—my poor mother, when she lay dead among the graves of the Grey Friars."

"In the year of Bothwell, my Lords," continued Walter, in a thick voice; "that year of misery to so many. I have been told my father died in defence of the bridge; and my mother—she—spare to me, my Lords, what even the poor soldiers who found me respected! It was preserved and restored to me by the good and noble Countess of Dunbarton when, three years ago, I marched against James of Monmouth."

"The true pup of the crop-eared breed!" said Clermistonlee, scornfully; "false in blood as in name. Macer, hand up the ring! His mother (some trooper's trull) never owned a Jewell like that."

"Approach, wretch, and, by the God that beholds us, I will destroy thee!" cried Fenton, inflamed with sudden passion; and so resolute was his aspect, that Maclutchy retreated, and now Mersington and the king's advocate, who had been snoring melodiously, woke suddenly up.

"Halt, sirs!" added Claverhouse, who admired Walter's indomitable spirit; "I cannot permit this; let the lad retain his ring, but say, without parley, where those fugitives are concealed."

"On the honour of a soldier, I solemnly declare to you, Colonel Grahame, that I know not."

"It is enough," responded Claverhouse, whose deep dark eyes had gazed full upon Walter's with a searching expression which few men could endure. "Never saw I mortal man who could look me openly in the face, when affirming a falsehood."

"This is just havers," said Mersington; "jow the bell for Pate Pincer to gie him one touch of the boot."

"My Lords, you may tear me piecemeal, but I cannot tell ye; and, were it otherwise, I would rather die than betray them!"

"Hush!" whispered Claverhouse, who admired his spirited bearing; but Clermistonlee exclaimed in triumph,

"Heard ye that, my Lords, heard ye that? Gadso! a half acknowledgment that he can enlighten us anent the retreat of these traitresses, and I demand that he be put to the question!"

"Aye, the boot!" said Rosehaugh, Mersington, and one or two others. "Let him be remanded to the Water Hole—the caspie claws."

"Hoity toity!" said Mersington; "here's the Laird of Claverse' turned philanthropist! Since when did this miracle take place?"

"Since the cold-blooded atrocities this chamber has witnessed—" began Claverhouse, turning his eyes of fire on the law lord; but the entrance of Pincer and his two subaltern torturers, whom that little viper, Mersington, had summoned, cut short the observation. Walter's blood grew cold—his first thought was resistance—his second, scorn and despair.

"Had the noble Earl of Dunbarton, or all our blades, the old Royals, been in Edinburgh instead of being among the westland whigs, ye had not dared to degrade me thus!" he exclaimed, with fierce indignation. "I disclaim your authority, and appeal to a council of war—to a court of commissioned officers!"

"Uds daggers!" said Dalyel, "I love thee, lad. Thou art a brave fellow, and the first man that ever bearded this council board."

"But we will teach thee, braggart," said Sir George of Rosehaugh sternly, "that from this chamber there is no appeal, either to courts of peace or councils of war. There can be no appeal——"

"Save to his majesty," added the Chancellor, who, to please James VII., had recently embraced the Catholic faith.

"And of what value is the appeal, noble Earl, after one's bones have been ground to powder by your accursed irons?'

"We do not sit here to bandy words in this wise," replied the Chancellor; "Macer, lead the prisoner to the ante-room, while his sentence is deliberated on."

After a delay of some minutes, which to Walter seemed like so many ages, so great was his anxiety, he was again summoned before the haughty conclave. The first whose malignant glance he again encountered was Clermistonlee, whose voice he had often heard in loud declamation against him, and he felt a storm of wrath and hatred gathering in his breast against that vindictive peer. The monotonous voice of the clerk reading his sentence with a careless off-hand air now fell on his ear.

"Walter Fenton, private gentleman in the regiment of Dunbarton, commonly called the Royal Scots Musqueteers of Foot, for default and negligence of duty——"

"—And for your contumacy in presence of the Right Honourable the Lords of His Majesty's Privy Council, you are to be confined in the lowest dungeon of the common prison-house of Edinburgh, for the space of six calendar months from the date hereof, to have your tongue bored by the Doomster at the Tron-beam, to teach it the respect which is due to superiors; and thereafter to be sent as a felon, with ane collar of steel rivetted round your neck, to the coal heughs of the right worshipful the Laird of Craigha' for such a period as the Lords of the said Privy Council shall deem fitting—subscribitur Perth."

"Withdraw!" said Lord Clermistonlee, with a bitter smile of undisguised ferocity and malice. "Begone, and remember to thank Sir Thomas of Binns and the Laird of Claverhouse, that your tongue is not bored this instant, and thereafter given to feed the crows."

Walter bowed, and was led out by the macer, while the council proceeded to "worry" and terrify the remaining prisoners, Lady Bruntisfield's household, and, after nearly scaring them out of their senses, dismissed them all, (save two stout ploughmen, who were given to Sir Thomas Dalyel as troopers,) with warning to take care of themselves in all time coming, and with a promise of a thousand marks if they gave intimation of their lady's retreat.

CHAPTER IX.

DEJECTION.

A mournful one am I, above whose head,
    A day of perfect bliss hath never passed;
Whatever joys my soul have ravished,
    Soon was the radiance of those joys o'ercast.
                                                        LAYS OF THE MINNESINGERS.

Walter was conducted back to the prison-house in Gourlay's Close, the Heart of Mid Lothian being already filled with nonconforming culprits.

Preceded by Macer Maclutchy and the gudeman or governor of the establishment, who wore the city livery, blue, laced with yellow, and carried a bunch of ominous-like keys. Walter found himself before a little archway, closed by a strong iron door, which opened under the great turnpike stair of the edifice, and led to the lower regions—to a superstructure of vaults, which, from their low and massive aspect, might have been deemed coeval with the days of the Alexanders. The light of the iron cruise borne by the gudeman failed to penetrate the deep abyss which yawned before them on the door being opened, and the cold wind of the subterranean chambers rushed upward in their faces. Slowly descending the hollowed and time-worn steps of an ancient stair, accompanied by his guard and conductors, poor Walter moved mechanically: the lamp, as it flared in the chill atmosphere, shewed the dark arches and green slimy walls of massive stonework forming the basement story of the prison. He felt a horror creeping over his heart. A profound and dismal silence reigned there; for these earthy passages where the frog croaked, the shining beetle crawled, and the many-legged spider span in undisturbed security, gave back no echo to their footsteps. In the heart of a populous city, thought he, can such a place be? Is it not a dream?

"Adonai! Adonai!" cried a voice in the distance, so loud, so shrill, and unearthly, that the gudeman paused, and the macer started back. "How long, O Lord, wilt thou permit these dragons to devour thy people? Rejoice, ye bairns of the Covenant! Rejoice, O ye nations, for He will avenge the blood of his chosen, and render vengeance on his adversaries."

"Hoots! It's that fule-body Bummel blawing like a piper through the key-hole," said the macer, and knocking thrice on the cell door with his mace, added, "Gif your tongue had been bored with an elshin as it deserved, my braw buckie, ye wadna hae crawn sae crouse. However, gudeman, his rebellious yammering will not disturb you muckle."

"The vaults are gey far doon—we would be deeved wi' him else," replied the gudeman; "but he gangs to the Bass in the morning, and there he can sing psalmody to the roaring waves and the cauld east wind, wi' Trail, Bennet, Blackadder, and other brethren in tribulation."

"By my word, keeping thae chields on the auld craig is just feeding what ought to be hanged," responded the macer, for these underlings affected to acquire the cavalier sentiments of the day. A door was now opened, and Walter Fenton heard the voice of the gudeman saying,

"Kennel up there, my man. You will find the lodgings we gie to conventiclers and enemies of the king are no just as braw as Gibbie Runlet's, doon at the White Horse. There is a windlan o' gude straw in that corner to sleep on, gif the rottons, and speeders, and asps, will let ye, and a mouthfu' o' caller air can aye be got at the iron grate, and sae my service t'ye."

"And keep up your spirits, Mr. Fenton," added the macer with a mock bow, "for the toun smith, Deacon Macanvil, will be doun in the morning to rivet round your craig the collar o' thrall wi' Craighall's name on't, and sae my service t'ye too."

The sneers of these wretches stung Walter to the soul, and it was with difficulty he restrained an impulse to rush upon them and dash their heads together. But the door was instantly closed; he heard the jarring of the bolts as they were shot into the stonework, the clank of a chain as it was thrown across, and then the retreating footsteps of his jailors growing fainter as they ascended the circular staircase. A door closed in the distance, the echoes died away, and then all became intensely still. He was now left utterly to his own sad and mortifying reflections, amid silence, gloom, and misery.

The darkness was oppressive; not the faintest ray of light could be traced on any side, and he wondered how the chill March wind swept through the vault, until, on groping about, he discovered on a level with his face, a small barred aperture, which opened to the adjoining close. In that high and narrow alley there was but little light even during the day; consequently, by night, it was involved in the deepest obscurity.

The cold, damp wind blew freely upon Walter's flushed face and waving hair, as he moved cautiously round his prison, and feeling the dark slimy walls on every side, discovered that it was a vault about twelve feet square, faced with stone, destitute, damp, frightful, and furnished only by a bundle of straw in a corner. On this he threw himself, and endeavoured to reflect calmly upon the perils by which he was surrounded.

He was naturally of an ardent and impetuous temper, and consequently his reflections failed either to soothe or to console him. His sentiments of hostility to Lord Clermistonlee were equalled only by those of gratitude to the Laird of Claverhouse, by whose influence he had, for a time, been spared a cruel and degrading maltreatment; but that, alas! was yet to be endured, and the contemplation of it was maddening. To be given as a bondsman or serf, girt with a collar of thrall or slavery, to work in the pits and mines of certain landholders, was a mode of punishment not uncommon in those vindictive days.

When the Scottish troops, under Lieutenant-colonel Strachan, defeated the brave cavaliers of Montrose in battle at Kerbister, in Ross, on the 27th of April, 1650, hundreds who were taken captive were disposed of in that manner. Some were given in thrall to Lieutenant-general Lesly, many to the Marquis of Argyle, others to Sir James Hope, to work as slaves in his lead mines, and the residue were all sent to France, to recruit the Scottish regiments of the Lord Angus and Sir Robert Murray.

Had his sentence been banishment to a foreign service, though it would have wrung his heart to leave his native country, and forego for ever the bright hopes and visions that had (though afar off) begun to lighten the horizon of his fortunes, he would have hailed the doom with joy; but to be gifted as a slave to another, to drudge amid the filth, obscurity, and disgrace of a coal mine, O! he looked forward to that with a horror inconceivable......

His mind became filled with dismal forebodings for the future. Though he still remembered with sincere pleasure the services he had rendered to the Napiers of Bruntisfield, his dreams of Lilian's mild blue eyes and glossy ringlets were sadly clouded by the perils to which they had hurried him.

All these proud and high aspirations, those intense longings for fame and distinction, for happiness and power, in which the mind of an ardent and enthusiastic youth is so prone to luxuriate, and which had been for years the day dream of Walter Fenton, now suffered a chill and fatal blight. It is a hard and bitter conviction, that one's dearest prospects are blasted and withered for ever; and to the heart of the young and proud, there is no agony equal to that of unmerited disgrace and humiliation. Misery was Walter's companion, and further miseries and degradations awaited him; but happily, the dark future was involved in obscurity.

CHAPTER X.

HOPE.

Thou art most fair; but could thy lovely face
Make slavery look more comely? could the touch
Of thy soft hand convey delight to mine
With servile fetters on.
BOADICEA, ACT IV.

Three days passed away. Three, and still there was no appearance of the dreaded Deacon Macanvil with his hammer and rivets, and collar of thrall.

The monotony of the prison had been unbroken save, each morning, by the entrance of the gudeman of the Tolbooth and a soldier of the Townguard, bearing a wooden luggie of fresh water and a slice of coarse bread, or coarser oaten cake on a tin trencher, and to these poor viands, the gudewife of the keeper, moved with pity for "such a winsome young man," added a cutlet or two on the third day. For the first four-and-twenty hours this mean fare remained untouched, but anon, the cravings of a youthful appetite compelled him to regale on it.

In a retired, or rather, a darker corner of this miserable place, he reclined on his truss of damp straw, listening to the lively hum of the city without, and the deep ding-dong of the Cathedral bells as they marked the passing hours.

Shadows passed and repassed the wretched aperture which was level with the pavement, and served for a window. Feet cased in white funnel boots garnished with scarlet turnovers, gold spurs and red morocco spur leathers, in clumsy Cromwellian calf-skins, or in brogues of more humble pretensions, appeared and disappeared as the passengers strode up and down the close; and many pretty feet and taper ancles in tight stockings of green or scarlet silk set up on "cork-heeled shoon," tripped past, the fair owners thereof displaying, by their uplifted trains, rather more than they might have done, if aware that a pair of curious eyes were looking upward from the Cimmerian depth of that ghastly vault. Bare-footed children gambolled about in the spring sunshine; with ruddy and laughing faces they peeped fearfully into the dark hole, and on discerning a human face through the gloom, cried "a bogle, a ghaist!" and fled away with a shout.

Propped on his staff, the toiling water-carrier passed hourly, conveying limpid water from the public wells, even to the lofty "sixteenth story," for a bodle the measure. Lumbering sedans were borne past by liveried carriers at a Highland trot; and the voices that rang perpetually in the narrow alley, though enlivening the prison of Walter, only served to make his sense of degradation and captivity more acute.

Anon, all those sounds ceased one by one; the bells of evening tolled, the ten o'clock drum was beat around the ancient royalty, and died away in the depths of Close and Wynd, and night and silence stole together over the dense and lofty city. The last wayfarer had gone to his home, and a desolate sense of loneliness fell upon the heart of Walter Fenton.

"Alas, alas!" he exclaimed, "had my dear friend Lady Dunbarton been on this side of the border, I had not been thus persecuted and forgotten. And Finland, why tarries he? Friendship should bring him to me, for shame cannot withhold him; I have committed no crime."

Night came on again, and the poor lad felt an oppression of spirit, a longing for freedom, and abhorrence of his dungeon; so bitter and intense, that reflection became the most acute torment. He turned restlessly among the straw, its very rustle fretted him, and he started up to pace to and fro in the narrow compass of the vault. He muttered, moaned, and communing with himself, pressed his face against the rusty grating, while listening intently to catch a passing sound, and inhale the cool fresh breeze of the spring night.

Though so many thousand souls were densely packed within the fortifications of Edinburgh, and every house was like a beehive or a tower of Babel, at that hour the city was still as the grave. Walter heard only the throbbing of his heart. The last dweller in the close had long since traversed the lofty stair that ascended to his home; the heavy door at the foot of the Prison turnpike stair had long since been closed, and its sentinel had withdrawn to smoke a pipe or sip a can of twopenny by the gudeman's well-sanded ingle. From the hollow recesses of its great rood spire St. Giles's bell tolled eleven.

"Another night!—another—another!" exclaimed Walter, as he threw himself upon the straw, and wrung his hands in rage, in bitterness, and unavailing agony. "Another night!—Oh, to be taught patience, or to be free!"

From a sleepy stupor that had sunk upon him, the very torpidity of desperation, he was roused by a noise at the grating: a face appeared dimly without, and a well known voice said,

"Me voila—I am here!" he exclaimed, as he sprang to the grating and pressed the hand of his friend.

"You forget, Walter, that I am not calling the roll," laughed the officer; "but me voila is very old fashioned, my lad, and hath not been used by us these two hundred years, since the battle of Banje en Anjou. By all the devils, 'tis a deuced unpleasant malheur this!"

"You did me great injustice; but, lackaday, with Wemyss and my party I have been for these three days worrying all the old wives and bonnetted carles on the Bruntisfield barony, to take certain obnoxious tests under terror of thumbscrews and gunmatch. By my honour, I would rather that my lord, the Earl of Perth, would march with his mace on shoulder, anent such dirty work, for I aver that it is altogether unbecoming the dignity and profession of a soldier. And mark me, Walter, all this tyranny will end in a storm such as the land hath not seen, since our father's days, when the banner of the covenant was unfurled on the hill of Dunse."

"The deuce, no! there hath been no mail from London these fourteen days; the rascal who brought the bag had only one letter, and getting drunk, lost it in the neutral grounds, somewhere on the borders. The earl was to have taken horse at Whitehall for the north, on the first of this month; 'tis now the penult day only, and he cannot be here for a week yet, so patience, Walter." Walter sighed.

"There are others here who have not forgotten thee, my dear Mr. Fenton," said a soft voice, as a pretty female face, lighted by two bright eyes, stooped down to that hideous grating. "But, forsooth, our good friend the Laird of Finland, seems resolved to talk for us all, which is not to be borne. I think he has acquired all the loquacity of the French chevaliers, without an atom of their gallantry."

"A thousand moustaches!" stammered the officer; "my fair Annie, I had almost—"

"Forgotten me! you dare not say so; but O my poor boy Fenton, how sorry I am I see thee there."

"I thank you, Mistress Laurie, but the honour of this visit would gild the darkest prison in Scotland—even the whig-vault of Dunoter," said Walter, kissing the hand of the speaker, whom he knew to be the betrothed of his friend, a gay and lively girl of twenty, whose beauty was then the theme of a hundred songs, of which, unhappily, but one has survived to us—the effusion of Finland's love and poesy. Long had they loved each other; but the father of Annie, the old Whig Baronet of Maxwelton, had engendered a furious hostility to Douglas, in consequence of his soldiers having lived at free quarters on his estates in Dumfriesshire, where they made very free, indeed, burned down a few farms, shot and houghed the cattle, and extorted a month's marching money thrice over, with cocked matches and drawn rapiers.

"This visit is as unexpected as it is welcome," continued Walter; "and, for the honour it does me, I would not exchange—"

"Thy prison for a palace," interrupted Annie. "Now, Mr. Walter, I know to an atom the value of this compliment, which means exactly nothing. But we must not jest; I have to introduce a dear friend—one who has come to thank you personally for those favours of which you are now paying the price. Come, Lilian, love," continued the lively young lady, "approach and speak. My life on't! how the lassie trembles! Come, Finland, we understand this, and will keep guard while little Lilian speaks with her captive paladin."

"You are a mad wag, Annie," said the cavalier, as he gave her his ungloved hand; "but lower your voice, dear one, or, soft and sweet as it is, it may bring down the gudeman and all his rascals about us in a trice."

"How can I find words to thank you, Mr. Fenton?" said the tremulous voice of Lilian Napier, whose small but beautiful face appeared without the massive grating, peeping through a plaid of dark green tartan, a mode of disguise then very common in Scotland, and which continued to be so in the earlier part of the last century. Like a hooded mantilla, it floated over her graceful shoulders, and a silver brooch confined it beneath her dimpled chin.

"Lilian Napier here!" exclaimed Fenton with rapture; "ah, fool that I was to repine, while my miseries were remembered by thee!"

"Ah, sir, the Lady Bruntisfield has lamented them bitterly. Never can we repay you for the unmerited severity and humiliations to which you have been subjected in our cause. Oh, can I forget that but for you, Mr. Fenton, we might have become the occupants of that frightful place, the air of which chills me even here!"

"Thee—O no, Lilian Napier, they could not have the heart to immure thee here!"

"The idea is too horrible—but now," he continued, in a voice of delight, "you are speaking like my old companion and playfellow. 'Tis long—O, very, very long, Lilian, since last we conversed together alone. Do you remember when we gathered flowers, and rushes, and pebbles by the banks of the Loch, and berries at the Heronshaw, and gambolled in the parks in the summer sunshine?"

"In that cold dark pit—Oh, 'tis a place of horror. Would to Heaven I could free you, Mr. Walter!"

"Ah, Lilian, call me Walter, without the Mr. Your voice sounds then as it did in other days, ere cold conventionalities raised such a gulf between us."

"They can do so no longer," said the young lady, weeping; "we are landless and ruined now, and O! did not fear for my good aunt Grisel make me selfish, I would surrender myself to the council to-morrow."

"We both accuse ourselves of selfishness—of the very excess of cowardice, and of blotting our honour for ever, by meanly flying and transferring all our dangers to you."

"Do not permit yourself to think so," said Walter, moved to great tenderness by her tears. "Dear Lilian, (allow me so to call you, in memory of our happier days,) leave me now—to tarry here is full of danger. If you are discovered by the rascals who guard this place, the thought of what would ensue may drive me mad; threats, imprisonment, discovery, and disgrace—oh, leave me, for God's sake, Lilian!"

"Besides, I may be compromising the safety of those good friends who so kindly have accompanied me hither to-night. Ah! there is a terrible proclamation against us fixed to the city cross; they style us those intercommuned traitors, the Napiers, umquhile of Bruntisfield."

"From Lady Grisel," said Lilian, hastily, "to express her sincere thanks for your kindness, and her deep sorrow for its sad requital, which (from what you told us,) we could not have contemplated. Indeed, Mr. Walter, we have been very unhappy on your account, and so, impelled by a sense of gratitude, I came to—to—" and, pausing, she covered her face with her hands and wept, for the new and humiliating situation in which she found herself had deeply agitated her. She did not perceive a dark figure that approached her softly, unseen by her friends, who were gaily chatting under the gloomy shadow of a projecting house, and quite absorbed in themselves.

"Lilian, you were ever good and gentle," said Walter, altogether overcome by her tears, and pressing her hand between his own. "Deeply, deeply do I feel the mortification you must endure; but do not weep thus—it wrings my very heart!"

She permitted him to retain her hand, (there was no harm in that,) but his thoughts became tumultuous; he kissed it; and as his lips touched her for the first time, his whole soul seemed to rush to them.

"Oh, yes, Lilian—dear Lilian," said Walter, quite borne away by his passion, and greatly agitated; but his arm could not encircle her, for the envious grating intervened: "deeply do I feel at this moment how bitter, how hopeless, may be the love of the poor. But if I dared to tell you that the little page, Walter, who so often carried your mantle and led your horse's bridle—now, when a man, aspired so far——"

The girl trembled violently, and said, in a feeble voice of alarm, "Oh, hush—hush, some one approaches."

"Then away to Douglas, for he alone can protect you. One word ere you go: you have found a secure and secret shelter?"

"Oh, no, their house is already suspected. In the poor cottage of my nurse, old Elsie Elshender, at St. Rocque—there we bide our fate in poverty and obscurity."

"How can I forget?" she replied, naïvely, as she arose to withdraw; but lo! the person started forward, and her hand, which was yet glowing with Walter's kiss, was rudely seized in the rough grasp of the intruder. Fear utterly deprived the poor girl of power to cry out.

"Aunt Grisel—dear grand-aunt Grisel!" was all she could gasp, and she would have sunk on the pavement had not the eavesdropper supported her. He was a tall, stout gallant, and muffled, by having the skirt of his cloak drawn over his right shoulder, so as to conceal part of his face, then the fashionable mode of disguise for roués and intriguantes.

"Lilian Napier, by all the devils!" cried Lord Clermistonlee, in a tone of astonishment: he was considerably intoxicated, having just left the neighbouring house, where he had been drinking for the last six hours with the Lord President Lockhart. "Now I thought thee only some poor mud-lark, or errant bona-roba. This is truly glorious. Thou shalt come with me, my beauty. What, you will scream? Nay, minx, then you have but a choice between the stone vaults of the Tolbooth and the tapestried chambers of my poor old houses of Drumsheugh and Clermistonlee—ha, ha!" and he began to sing the old ditty:—

"Help, Finland, help, for the love of God!" cried Lilian, dreadfully agitated, but the Lord continued:—

"With a heylillelu and a how-lo-lan!
Her cheeks were rose red, and her eyne were sky-blue,
With a how-lo-lan and a heylillelu!
And this lassie was lo'ed by this canty old man,
With a heylillelu and a how-lo-lan!"

"By all the devils! I can sing as well as my Lord the President, though he hath three crown bowls of punch under his doublet."

"Douglas, Douglas, your sword—your sword!" cried Walter, grasping the massive grating, and swinging on the bars like a madman, essaying in vain to wrench them from their solid wrests; but ere the words had left his lips, Lord Clermistonlee was staggered by a blow from the clenched hand of the cavalier, and Lilian was free.

"Fly, Annie," he exclaimed to his love; "away with Lilian Napier to the coach at the close head. The devil, girl—art thou doited,—off and leave me to deal with this tavern brawler. Fore George! I will truss his points in first rate fashion." The girls retired in terror, and Douglas unsheathed his rapier.

"Beware thee, villain," exclaimed the other, drawing his long bilbo with prompt bravery, and wrapping his mantle round the left arm. "I am a Lord of the Privy Council—to draw on me is treason."

"Were you King James himself, I would run you through the heart, for applying such an epithet to a gentleman of the House of Douglas."

"You will have it then—come on, plated varlet, and look well to guard and parry, for I am a first-rate swordsman."

Finland's cuirass rang with a rapier thrust from his assailant, who fell furiously to work, lunging like a madman, and exclaiming every time the fire sparked from their clanging blades,

"Bravo, bilbo! Excellent—come on again, Mr. Malapert, and I will teach thee to measure swords with Randal of Clermistonlee. Gads-o, fellow, thou art no novice in the science of fencing—crush me, what a thrust! well parried—

The sword of Finland, by one lucky parry had broken the Lord's rapier off by the hilt, and ripped up the skin of his sword-hand with such force that he staggered against the wall.

"I hope your Lordship is not hurt!" exclaimed his antagonist, supporting him by the arm.

"Zounds, no! a little only," replied Clermistonlee, whom the shock had perfectly sobered. Full of rage, he tossed his embossed sword-hilt over the house-tops, exclaiming, "Accursed blade, may the hands that forged thee grill on the fires of eternity!"

It whistled through the air, and fell down the chimney of the dowager Lady Drumsturdy, where it stuck midway, and so terrified that ancient dame that, notwithstanding her hatred to "massemongers," she laid her poker and shovel crosswise; but the mysterious noise in her capacious "lum" formed a serious case for the investigation of ghost-seers and gossips next day.

"Harkee, Laird of Finland," said Clermistonlee haughtily, "we must enact this affair over again in daylight; meantime let us part, or the Town-Guard will be upon us with their partisans, and I have no wish that you should suffer for ripping up an inch or two of skin in fair fight—you will hear from me anon."

"Whenever your Lordship pleases, I am your most obedient," replied Douglas, bowing coldly as he hurried to join the terrified ladies, with whom he had barely time to get into the hackney-coach and drive off, when the door of the prison opened, and a few of the Town Guard, who had heard the clashing of the rapiers, rushed forth with lanterns and poleaxes; like modern police, exhibiting great alacrity when the danger was over, they seized Clermistonlee.

"Dare ye lay hands on a gentleman," he exclaimed, fiercely shaking them off. "Unhand me, villains, I am Randal Lord Clermistonlee! I was assaulted——"

"By whom, my Lord, by whom?" replied the guardians of the peace, cringing before this imperious noble.

"What is it to such rascals as thee?—oh, a knavish cloak snatcher, or cut-purse, or something of that kind. Retire—I have always hands to defend myself."

The guard with hurried and half audible apologies withdrew, and the brawling lord was left to his own confused reflections. He tied a handkerchief about his hand, and was about to withdraw, when a thought struck him: he approached the grating of the low dungeon, and placing close to it his face, which though unseen was pale with fury, while his dark eyes gleamed like two red sparks,

"Art there, thou spawn of the Covenant?" he asked in a husky voice: "Ah, dog of a Fenton, I will hang thee high as Haman for this night's misadventure!"

The prisoner replied by a scornful laugh, and the exasperated roué strode away.

CHAPTER XI.

CLERMISTONLEE AT HOME.

"Too long by love a wandering fire misled,
My latter days in vain delusion fled;
Day after day, year after year, withdrew,
And beauty blessed the minutes as they flew,
These hours consumed in joy, but lost to fame——"
HAMILTON OF BANGOUR.

The town residence of Lord Clermistonlee was a lofty and narrow mansion of antique aspect; it stood immediately within the Craig-end-gate, that low-browed archway in the eastern flank of the city wall, which, from the foot of Leith Wynd still faces the bluff rock of the Calton. With high pedimented windows and Flemish gables, Clermiston-lodging towered above the mossy, grass-tufted, and time-worn rampart of the city—the aforesaid portal of which gave entrance to it on one side, while the more immediate path from the great central street was a steep and narrow close, the mansions of which were as black as the smoke of four centuries could make them. Their huge façades, plastered over with rough lime and oyster shells, completely intercepted the view to the south, while that to the north was shut in by the black cliffs of the bare Calton and the Multrees-hill with the ancient suburb of St. Ninian, straggling through the narrow chasm that yawned between them, and afforded a glimpse of Leith and the far-off hills of Fife. At the base of the hill lay the last fragments of the monastery of Greenside, and opposite a thatched hamlet crept close to the margin of the Loch, the broad sluice of which the irrascible Baillies of Edinburgh invariably shut, when they quarrelled with a colony of sturdy and "contumacious" weavers and tanners who had located there, and whose communication with Halkerstoune Wynd they could cut off at pleasure by damming up the waters of the Loch. Immediately under the windows of the mansion lay the park, hospital, and venerable church of the Holy Trinity, founded by the Queen of James II. about two hundred years before.

On the night described in the last chapter, a large fire burned cheerily in the chamber of dais; and the walls of wainscot, varnished and gilded, glittered in its glow. Supper was laid; carved crystal, plate, and snow-white napery gleamed in the light of the ruddy fire, and of four large wax candles that towered aloft in massive square holders of French workmanship. Over the mantel-piece, in an oak frame amid the carving of which, grapes, nymphs, and bacchanals were all entwined together, hung a portrait painted by Jamieson, representing a pale young lady in a ruff and fardingale of James VI. days, and having the pale blue eyes, exquisitely fair complexion and lint-white locks, which were then so much admired. It was his Lordship's mother, a lady of the house of Spynie.

Silver plate, a goodly row of labelled flasks (bottling wine was not then the custom) and various substantial viands formed a corps-de-reserve on a grotesquely carved buffet of black oak, for everything was fashioned after the grotesque in those days. The knobs of the red leather chairs, and the ponderous fire-irons, were strange and open-mouthed visages; the brackets supporting the cornices of the doors and the mantel-piece, were also strange bacchanalian faces grinning from wreaths of vine-leaves, clusters of grapes and crowns of acanthus. Three long silver-hilted rapiers with immense pommels, shells, and guards, pistols, steel caps, masks, foils, and a buff coat richly laced with silver, lay all huddled in a corner, while the broad mantel-piece presented quite an epitome of the proprietor's character.

The massive stone lintel displayed in bold relief the legend carved thereon by his pious forefathers,

but above it lay Andro Hart's "Compendious Book of Godly Songs," beside the "Gaye Lady's Manuall," and the "Banqvet of Jests or change or cheare imprinted at the shoppe in Ivie Lane 1634," a book of ribbald ditties, another of farriery, another of falconry, obscene plays; Rosehaugh's "Disertations" sent by the author, and used by Clermistonlee to light his Dutch pipe; whistles, whips, hunting horns, and drinking flasks, cards, dice, hawks' hoods, an odd pistol, papers of council, warrants of search, arrest, and torture, mingled with challenges and frivolous billets-doux. A large wolfish dog, and a very frisky red-eyed Scottish terrier slept together on the warm hearth-rug.

Juden Stenton, the stout old butler, had stirred the fire and wiped the glasses for the tenth time, tasted the wine for the twentieth, and had made as many rounds of the table to snuff the candles, and re-examine everything; he was very impatient and sleepy, and listened intently with his head bent low, a practice which he had acquired in the great civil wars. The clock in the spire of the Netherbow-porte struck midnight.

"Cocksnails!" muttered Juden, "twelve o'clock and nae sign o' him yet. What's the world coming to? My certie, what would his farther the douce Laird o' Drumsheugh hae thocht o' this kind of work? He (honest man!) was aye in his nest at the first tuck o' the ten o'clock drum."

Juden was verging on sixty years of age; his figure was short and paunchy, his face full and florid; his twinkling grey eyes wore always a cunning expression, and had generally a sotted appearance about them, which made it extremely difficult to determine whether he was drunk or sober. His large round head was bald, and his chin close shaven, according to the fashion for the lower classes, few but nobles and cavaliers retaining the manly moustaches and imperial. A clean white cravat fell over his doublet of dark-green cloth, the red braiding of which was neatly curved to suit his ample paunch; breeches of dark plush, black cotton stockings and heavy shoes, the instep of each being covered by a large brass buckle, completed his attire. A scar still remained on his shining scalp to attest the dangers he had dared in his younger days.

The last of a once numerous and splendid but now diminished household, old Juden Stenton was a faithful follower of Lord Clermistonlee, for whom he would have laid down his life without a sigh of regret. He acted by turns butler and baillie, cook and valet, groom, farrier, trooper, and factotum, being the beau ideal of the staunch but unscrupulous serving-man of the day, who changed sides in religion, politics, and everything just as the Laird did, and who knew no will or law save those of his leader and master. When Clermistonlee (then Sir Randal Clermont of Drumsheugh), ruined by the mad excesses into which he had plunged at the dissipated court of Charles II., in a fit of despair joined the insurgent Covenanters at Bothwell Bridge, Juden put a blue cockade in his bonnet, "girded up his loins," as he said, "and went forth to battle for Scotland's oppressed kirk and broken covenant." But when Sir Randal's name (in consequence of mistake, or of some friendly influence in the Scottish cabinet) was omitted in the list of the attainted, and he changed sides, obtaining—none knew how or why—rank and riches under the persecutors, Juden changed too, and donning the buff coat and scarlet, became a bitter foe to "all crop-eared and psalmsinging rebels," and riding as a royalist trooper, suppressed many a harmless conventicle, and hunted and hounded, slashed and shot, or dragged to prison those who had been his former comrades, for in political matters Juden's mind was as facile and easy as that of a German.

He had too often less honourably acted the pander to his lord, in many a vile intrigue and cruel seduction; for of all the wild rakes of the time (Rochester excepted) none had rushed so furiously on the career of fashionable vice and dissipation as Clermistonlee; and even now, when forty years of age, he continued the same kind of life from mere habit, perhaps, rather than inclination.

But there was one chapter of his life which memory brought like a cloud on his gayest hours, and which riot and revel could never efface,—a sad episode of domestic mystery and unhappiness. Clermistonlee, in the prime of his youth, had been wedded to a lady of beauty and rank, of extreme gentleness of manner and softness of disposition. Like many others, the fancy passed away; repentance came, as his love cooled or changed to other objects. He took the lady to Paris, and there she died...... There were not wanting evil tongues, who said he had destroyed her. A kind of mystery enveloped her fate; and even in his most joyous moods, sad thoughts would suddenly cloud the lofty brow of Clermistonlee, a sign which his kind friends never failed to attribute to remorse. Many were the women who had trusted to his honour, and found they had believed in a phantom; until, at the era of our story, his name had become (like that of the Marquis de Laval) a bye-word in the mouths of the people for all that was wicked, irregular, and bad.

"Twelve o'clock," muttered Juden; "braw times—braw times, sirs! I warrant he'll be roistering in the change-house o' that runagate vintner, Hugh Blair, at the Pillars. A wanion on his sour Gascon and fushionless Hock! Waiting is sleepy work, and dry too. Gude claret this! My service to ye, Maister Juden Stenton," he continued, bowing to his reflection in an opposite mirror; "you're a gude and worthy servitor to ane that doesna ken your value. The members o' council maun a' be fu' as pipers by this time except Claverhouse, wha canna touch wine, and auld Binns, wham wine canna touch. Hech! here he comes; and now for a clamjamfray wi' the yett-wards."

A violent knocking at the city-gate close by announced the return of his master from a midnight ramble. The sentinel within opened the wicket of the barrier; and on demanding the usual toll required of belated citizens, a handful of pence, flung by the impatient lord, clattered about his steel cap. Clermistonlee entered, and, half dragging a little crooked man after him, rapidly ascended the flight of steps that led to the circular tower or staircase of his own house. In the low-pointed doorway, which was surmounted by an uncouth coronet, stood Juden with a candle flaring in each hand, bowing very low, though not in the best of humours.

"Od, that weary body Mersington is w' him!" he muttered. "The auld spunge—he'll drink the daylicht in!"

"Light the way there, Juden," cried his master. "My good Lord Mersington is generally short-sighted about this hour."

"Double-sighted, ye mean," chuckled the decrepit senator. "Sorrow tak' ye, Randal, ye maun aye hae your joke—he! he! A cauld nicht this, Juden," he added, while hobbling up the narrow stair, with an enormous wig and broad-brimmed beaver overshadowing his meagre figure.

"A cauld morning rather, please your lordship," replied Juden somewhat testily, as he ushered them into the chamber-of-dais, and stirred the fire as well as the chain which secured the poker to the jamb permitted him.

"Be seated, Mersington. This way, my Lord; take care of the table—devil! the man's blind," said Clermistonlee, as he somewhat unceremoniously pushed the half-intoxicated senator into one of the high-backed chairs of red maroquin.

Mersington was twenty years his senior, and never was there a pair of more ill-assorted gossips or friends. The one, a polished and fashionable cavalier roué; the other, a cranky and meagre compound of vulgarity, shrewdness, and ignorance, who was never sober, but had obtained a seat on the bench in consequence of his inflexible devotion to the Government, to please whom he would have sent the twelve apostles to "testify" at the Bow-foot, had it been required of him. Clermistonlee unbuckled his belt, and flung his empty scabbard to the one end of the room, his plumed beaver to the other, and drew his chair hastily forward to the table.

"What the devil is it to thee?—'Tis broken. I will wear the steel-hilted backsword to-morrow."

"I hope, knave, thou gavest her the warm mash, and bathed her nostrils and fetlocks."

"Without fail. We maun tak' gude care o' her—the last o' a braw stud of sixty, my faith! But when a mear hath baith the wheezlock and the yeuk——"

"Had ye, a month syne, tar-barrelled that auld carlin, Elshender, owre the muir at St. Rocque, Meg would hae been sound, wind and limb, frae that moment."

"'Sblood! Juden, dost think the cantrips of this old hag have really bedevilled my favourite nag?"

"I'm no just free to say, my Lord; but it is unco queer that Meg (puir beastie!) should fa' ill o' sae mony things just after Lucky Elshender flyted wi' ye for riding through her kail for a near cut to the Grange, the day ye dined wi' auld Fountainhall."

"By all the devils, Juden, if I thought this bearded hag had any hand in the mare's illness, I would have her under the hands of the pricker to-morrow," replied Clermistonlee, who was deeply imbued with the Scottish prejudice against old women. "We had before us to-day two hags, whom we consigned to the flames; one for confessing witchcraft, and the other for obstinately refusing to confess it."

"Ou aye—ou aye—he! he!" chuckled Mersington. "Hae her up before the fifteen—a full blawn case o' sorcery—on wi' the thumbikins! I have kent rack and screw bring mony a queer story to light:—riding to Banff on a besom-shank—sailing to the Inch in a milkbowie—bewitching wheels that ane minute flew round as if the mill was mad, and the next stood like the Bass rock—raising a storm o' wind in the lift by the damnable agency of a black beetle, 'ane golach,' as Rosehaugh called it in the indictment. We had a grand case o' that lately in the northern courts."

"But the gude auld fashion o' tar-barrelling is clean gaing out in thae fushionless days," said Juden, whom Mersington treated with considerable familiarity. "We havena had a respectable bleeze on the Castle-hill these aucht years and mair."

"You may chance to have one very shortly," replied his lord impatiently, "if Meg gets not the better of her ailings soon. But enough of this.—Let us to supper."

"Bluid, as I live! Foul fa' the loon that shed it!" exclaimed Juden, in accents of intense concern, as his master drew off his perfumed gloves, and revealed the scar on his right hand. "Whatna collyshangie has this been, noo—and your braw mantle o' drab de Berrie—oh laddie, when will you learn to tak' care o' yoursel?" added honest Juden, who from force of habit still styled his lord as he had done thirty years ago.

"Owre often, owre often," groaned the old man. "You'll hae been keeping the croon o' the causeway, I warrant, majoring rapier in hand, as your faither was wont in his young days."

"No, no; I merely measured swords in Gourlay's close with one of the Scots' musqueteers."

"Burn my beard, if ever I saw dochter o' Eve that tempted me to encounter a slashed hide!" said Juden, with a tone of thankfulness, while his master tied a handkerchief round the wounded limb, and applied himself to the viands before him, attending to his friend with hospitality and politeness, and doing the honours of the table with peculiar grace.

A roasted capon, mutton and cutlets, oysters fried and raw, a gigantic silver mug of brandy and burnt sugar, a tankard of sack, and several tall silver-mouthed decanters of claret, with manchets of the whitest flour, oaten cakes, and fruit, composed the supper, on sitting down to which, Lord Mersington, with an affected air and half-closed eyes, by way of grace mumbled a distich then common among the cavaliers—

"From Covenanters with uplifted hands,
From Remonstrators with associate bands,
From such Committees as governed these nations,
From Kirk Commissions and their protestations,
Good Lord, deliver us!'

"The last keepit a firm hand owre such gallants as you, before King Charles cam' hame," replied Mersington, who, like all meagre men, was a great gourmand, and was doing ample justice to all the good things before him. Clermistonlee, too, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, did his part fairly—but all times were alike to him, his irregular habits and debauched life had by long custom made them so, and he assailed the capon, the cutlets, the oysters, and sack tankard, in rapid succession, while Juden stood behind his chair, napkin in hand, with eyes half-closed, and nodding head.

"Mersington, some more of the cutlets? My Lord, you must permit me—do justice to my poor house, a bachelor's though it be. Juden, hand that dish of Crail capons from the buffet."

The butler hastily placed before his master an ample dish containing a pile of small haddocks prepared in a mode now disused and forgotten.

"Thank ye:—weel, then, Clermistonlee, anent this business of the Napiers," said Mersington, referring to a former conversation; "what mean ye to do now, eh?"

"Use every means to obtain their lands—and Lilian to boot," replied his friend, after a brief pause, and while a slight colour crossed his cheek. "I have taken a particular fancy for that old house of Bruntisfield—ha, ha! with the parks adjoining. Faith, the lands run from the Harestarie to my own gate at Drumsbeugh, and from the Links, where young Bruntisfield was slain long ago, to the house of the Chieslies, beside the devil only knows how many tofts and tenements within the walls of the city."

"It will form a seasonable subsidy to my exchequer, which is drained to its last plack at present. You know I have long loved this girl."

"So were those of the Mures of Caldwell, yet Sir Thomas of Binns now holds them as a free gift from the Council—and holds fast, too."

"Auld Dame Bruntisfield is but a life-rentrix; thou knowest, man, that Captain Napier, of Buchan's regiment of Scots'-Dutch, is the next and last heir of entail."

"Tush! I will have him under the nippers of the Lord Advocate ere long; when his head is on yonder battlements of the Nether Bow, the barony of Bruntisfield goes to Lilian Napier, and dost think, Mersington, that chitti-faced girl will stand in my way? I trow not. Maclutchy and some of our best-trained beagles are on the captain's track, and they will run him down somewhere in the west country, depend upon it. But 'tis neither hall nor holm, wood or water, that will satisfy me——"

"Odsfish, man! he, he! what mair would ye hae, Randal? There is the auld dame denounced a rebel, and in default of compearance, put to the horn; her moveable gudes and gear escheat to the King, conform to the acts thereanent, and sae are the heritable, but the Council will soon snap them up. What mair would ye hae?"

"The person of little Lilian," said Clermistonlee, with a sinister smile, as he winked over the top of his great silver tankard.

"Crush me! yes.——to discover where the young damsel is in hiding at this moment. Accustomed to subdue women from very habit, her piquant coldness and hauteur have inflamed, surprised, and offended me, and by all the devils, I will have her, though I should be tumbled down the precipice of hell for it!" he continued, in the cavalier phraseology. "And this fellow, Fenton, this silken slave, who crossed me on the very night I had hoped to have her arrested (he ground his teeth), and that braggart, Douglas of Finland, who was so ready with his rapier to-night, let them look to it; my path shall not be crossed with impunity by man or devil."

"Nor is that of any Lord of Council, while a warrant of arrest and ward may be had from Mackenzie for the asking, like the lettre-de-cachet o' our French friends."

"True, my Lord—our laws are severe; they are written in blood, like those of Draco, the Athenian. If this fellow, Finland, has the young lady concealed about Edinburgh, and if I thought he had a deeper aim in view, than merely crossing me, I vow to Heaven, I would make him a terrible example to all such rascally intermeddlers with the purposes of their betters."

His half-intoxicated companion looked slyly at him over his inverted tankard, and replied,

"Get a warrant of search, and send every macer, messenger-at-arms, and toun guardsman after your dearie—he, he! and proclaim at the cross by tuck of drum, that the Right Honourable the Lord Clermistonlee, Baron of Drumsheugh and Knight of the Thistle, will pay one thousand marks of our gude Scottish money to the discoverer, or producer——"

"Hush, Mersington, you jest too much on this matter. Withered be my tongue for speaking of this project to thee—but the deed is done, and I might as well have proclaimed it by sound of trumpet at the Tron."

"You have been a wild buckie in your day, Randal," said Lord Mersington; "and when I think o' all the braw queans, gentle as weel as simple, that you have loved and abandoned, gude-lackaday! I marvel that the whinger of some fierce brother or father hath not cut short your career o' gallantry. How about your fair one in Merlin's Wynd?"

"By all the devils, 'tis very droll to hear you speak of a noble lady and a poor bona-roba in the same breath. Mary is beautiful, magnificently so, but wary, proud, and poor—we would hate each other in a week. Now I really think little Lilian Napier is capable of fixing all my wandering fancies into one focus for life."

"He, he," chuckled Mersington, "I have heard you say the same o' twenty. But a peer of the realm, heir of—"

"The whole heraldic honours of the house of Clermont, which you see on yonder window-pane, or, three bars wavy embattled, surmounted by a lion sable—argent, a bend engrailed gules, and so forth. Ha, ha!"

"The coronet aboon them is a braw die, and ane that glitters weel in lassies' een."

"With Lilian Napier it has no more value than a peasant's bonnet. A thousand times I have endeavoured to gain her notice, by the most respectful attentions, which the little gipsy ever evaded, or affected to misunderstand, treating me with the most frigid coldness. The older lady, perhaps, is not indisposed towards me, but the memory of—Fury! always that thought!..... I never was crossed in my purpose, and now I mean to hang Quentin Napier, and marry his cousin forthwith. Ha, ha!"

"Ah—the devil! don't think of that. I would give a hundred French crowns to have the right scent after her."

"I could do sae for half the money, my lord," said Juden, suddenly waking up from his standing doze.

"The deuce! fellow, art thou there?" exclaimed his master with stern surprise.

"Fellow, indeed!" reiterated the ancient servitor, indignantly. "Troth, I was the best o' gude fallows when I received on my ain croon here, the cloure that Claverse meant for yours, in that braw tulzie on Bothwell Brigg."

"True, Juden—though I like not being overheard in some matters," replied the lord more kindly; "but as Colonel Grahame and I are now the best of friends, it would be better to recall the memory of bygone days as little as possible. Dost hear me?"

"And Alison Gifford—my lady that is dead and gone now, puir thing," continued Juden, spitefully and mournfully, knowing well that her name stung Clermistonlee to the soul. "Often, and often, she used to say, 'you are a gude and leal servitor, Juden, and the laird (ye were but a laird then), can never think enough, or mak' enough o' ye, Juden—for ye are one that, come weal, come woe, peace or war, victory or defeat, will stick to the house o' Clermont, Juden, like a burr on a new bannet. But losh me! he doesna ken the worth o' ye Juden!'" The pawkie butler raised his table napkin to hide "the tears he did not shed;" but the face of Lord Clermistonlee, which had gradually grown darker as he continued to speak, now wore a terrible expression. "Puir young Lady Alison! sae kind and sae gentle, sae sweet-tempered, blooming and bonnie. You were aye owre rough and haughty wi' her, my lord——"

"Ten thousand curses!—wretch and varlet! whence all this insolence, and why this maudlin grief?" cried Clermistonlee, in a voice of thunder. "Why speak of Alison? she sleeps in peace in the old aisles of St. Marcel, in Paris, and are her ashes to be ever thrown upon me thus? S'death! away, sirrah. Get thee gone, or the sack tankard may follow that!"

Without making any immediate reply, the latter picked up the ample wig, carefully brushed the flowing curls with his hand, and hung it upon the knob of a chair. He then turned to leave the room, but pausing, said slyly—

"Then, my Lord, ye dinna want to ken where this bonnie bird could be netted. I could cast your hawk to the perch in a minute."

"You are a pawkie auld carle, Juden," said his master, in an altered voice; "but tell with brevity what ye know of this matter."

"Lucky Elshender, a cottar body at St. Rocque, owre the Burghmuir yonder, was nurse to the Lady Lilian—yea, and to her mother before her. Though as wicked and cankered an auld carlin as ever tirled a spindle, or steered hell-kail, she was ane leal and faithful servitor to the house o' Bruntisfield, for her gudeman and his twa sons died in their stirrups by Sir Archibald's side, on that black day by the Keithing Burn. Sae, Clermistonlee, as she is a body mickle trusted by the family, if any woman or witch in a' braid Scotland can enlighten ye anent this matter, it is Lucky Elshender. And maybe my Lord Mersington (he's asleep, the gomeral body) will be sae gude as keep in memory, that there is not an auld wife in the three Lothians mair deserving o' a fat tar-barrel bleezing under her, in respect o' puir Meg's mischanter."

"Right, Juden," replied his master. "She may be brought to the stake yet, though the taste for such exhibitions is somewhat declining among our gentles. To-morrow I will have her dragged to the Laigh Chamber; and if there is any truth in her tongue, or blood in her fingers, I warrant Pate Pincer's screws will produce both. Take these, Juden, as earnest of the largess I will give if the scent holds good."

"If I am to serve ye, my Lord, as a leal vassal and servitor ought, and as I served your honoured faither before ye, and my forbears did yours in better and braver times, ye will hold me excused from touching a bodle o' this reward, or ony other beyond my yearly fee and livery coat. Keep your gowd, Clermistonlee, for faith ye need it mair than auld Juden Stenton; and sae, as my een are gathering straws, I will bid your Lordship a gude morning, and hie cannily away to my nest, for, by my sooth! there's the Norloch shining through the window shutters like silver in the braid day light." And so saying, Juden withdrew with a jaunty step, pleased with his own magnanimous refusal.

Though a good-hearted man in the main, and one, who (where his master's honour, interest, fancy, or aggrandizement were not concerned) would not have injured a fly, then how much less a human being, Juden Stenton had thus without the slightest scruple set fire to a train which might end in the ruin and misery of an already unfortunate family, and the dishonour and destruction of an amiable and gentle girl, in whose fortunes and misfortunes we hope to interest the reader still more anon.

CHAPTER XII.

THE COTTAGE OF ELSIE.

"Ha! honest nurse, where were my eyes before?
I know thy faithfulness and need no more."
ALLAN RAMSAY.

Several days elapsed without our tyrannical voluptuary being able to do anything personally in the discovery, or persecution of the Napiers. His wounded hand from neglect became extremely painful, and his late debauch with Mersington had thrown him into a state so feverish, that luckily he was compelled to keep within his own apartments; but obstacles only inflamed his passion and exasperated his obstinacy. It would be difficult to analyze the sentiments he entertained towards Lilian Napier. Love, in the purer, nobler, and more exalted idea of the passion he assuredly had not. His overweening pride had been bitterly piqued by her hauteur. The beauty of her person, and the inexpressible charm of her manner had first attracted him, and, notwithstanding the studied coldness with which he was treated, the passion of the roué got the better of judgment. Lilian's great expectations, too, had farther inflamed his ardour; but all the attentions which he proffered on every occasion with inimitable address, were utterly unavailing, and for the first time the gay Lord Clermistonlee found himself completely baffled by a girl. Surprised at her opposition, his pride and constitutional obstinacy became powerfully enlisted in the affair, and he determined by forcible abduction, or some such coup-de-main, to subdue the haughty little beauty to his purpose. Although he had been unable to prosecute his amour in person, Juden and others had narrowly watched the cottage of old Elshender, and brought from thence such reports as convinced his Lordship that she alone could enlighten him as to the retreat of Lilian and Lady Grizel, if they were not actually concealed within her dwelling.

Though a munificent reward had been offered for their discovery, trusting to the well-known faith and long-tried worth of their aged vassal, the ladies had found a shelter in her humble residence, correctly deeming that a house so poor and so near the city walls would escape unsearched, when one at a distance might not. There they dwelt in the strictest seclusion and disguise on the very marge of their ample estates, and almost within view of the turrets of their ancient manor-house.

Since the torture to which the unhappy Ichabod Bummel had been subjected, and his subsequent imprisonment on the Bass Rock (where Peden of Glenluce, Scott of Pitlochie, Bennett of Chesters, Gordon of Earlston, Campbell of Cesnock, and others endured a strict captivity as the price of sedition), Lady Grizel and Lilian hoped that their involvement with the Orange spies, and their flight, would soon be alike forgotten, especially now, when they were so utterly ruined and impoverished by proscription, that they were forced to share the bounty of their humblest vassal.

Near the old ruined chapel of St. Rocque, and close under the outspread branches of a clump of lofty beech trees, by the side of the ancient loan that led to Saint Giles' Grange, nestled the little thatched cottage of Elsie Elshender. It was low-roofed, and its thick heavy thatch was covered with grass and moss of emerald green. The white-washed walls were massive, and perforated by four small windows, each about a foot square, but crossed by an iron bar; two faced the loan in front, and two overlooked the kailyard and byre to the back. The cottage had one great clay-built chimney, at the back of which was a little eyelet hole, affording from the stone ingle-seats a view of the arid hills of Braid, and the solitary path that wound over their acclivities to the peel of Liberton, then the patrimony of the loyal Winrams. On one side of the door was a turf seat, on the other a daddingstone, where (in the ancient fashion) the barley was cleansed every morning, for the use of the family. This humble residence contained only a but and a ben, or inner and outer apartment, and both were furnished with box-beds opening in front with doors. The first chamber, though floored with hard beaten clay, was as clean as whitening and sprinkled sand could make it; a large fire of wood and peats blazed on the rude hearth; and in its ruddy light the various rows of Flemish ware, beechwood luggies, milk-bowies, horn-spoons, and polished pewter arrayed above the wooden buffet or dresser, were all glittering in that shiny splendour which a smart housewife loves. Within the wide fireplace on a pivet hung a glowing Culross girdle, on which a vast cake was baking.

It was night, but neither lamp nor candle were required; the fire's warm blaze gave ample light, and a more comfortable little cottage than old Elsie's when viewed by that hospitable glow, was not to be found in the three Lothians. Three oak chairs of ancient construction, a table similar, a great meal girnel in one corner, flanked by a peat bunker in the other, and an odd variety of stoups, pitchers, and three-legged stools made up the background. On the table lay an old quarto bible from which Lilian read aloud certain passages every night, Andro Hart's "Psalmes in Scot's meter," and the "Hynd let loose" of the "Godly Mr. Sheils," who was then in the hands of the Phillistines, and keeping the Reverend Ichabod Bummel company in the towers of the Bass. Two kirn-babies decorated with blue ribbons, a quaint woodcut of our first parents' joining hands under what resembled a great cabbage in the Garden of Eden appeared over the mantel-piece, together with a long rusty partisan with which the umquhile John Elshender had laid about him like a Trojan on the battle-field of Dunbar.

Close by the ingle sat his widow Elsie enjoying its warmth, and listening to the birr of her wheel. She was a hale old woman of seventy years, with a nose and chin somewhat prominent; her grey hair was neatly disposed under a snowwhite cap of that Flemish fashion which is still common in Scotland, and over which a simple black ribbon marks widowhood. Her upper attire consisted of a coarse skirt of dark blue stuff, over which fell a short linen gown, reaching a little below her girdle, which bristled with keys, knitting wires, pincushion, and scissors. Similarly attired in a short Scottish gown, which showed to the utmost advantage the full outline of her buxom figure, her niece Meinie, a rosy, hazel-eyed, and dark-haired girl of twenty, stood by the meal girnel baking (Anglicé kneading), and as the sleeves of her dress came but a little below the shoulder, her fair round arms and dimpled elbows did not belie the pretty and merry face, which now and then peeped round at the group near the fire. Two of these ought perhaps to have been described first.

Disguised as a peasant, Lady Grisel no longer wore her white hair puffed out by Monsieur Pouncet's skill, but smoothed under a plain starched bigonet, coif, or mutch (which you will), and very ill at ease the stately old dame appeared in her hostess's coarse attire. By way of pre-eminence she occupied the great leathern chair, in which no mortal had been seated since the decease of John Elshender, who for forty consecutive years had hung his bonnet on a knob thereof, while taking his evening doze therein, after a day's ploughing or harrowing on the rigs of Drumdryan.

Clad in one of the short gowns of Meinie, her foster-sister, Lilian looked more graceful and decidedly more piquant, than when at home rustling in lace, frizzled and perfumed; her fair hair was gathered up in a simple snood like that of a peasant girl; but never had peasant nor peeress more beautiful or more glossy tresses. The poor girl was very pale; constant watching and anxiety, a feeling of utter abandonment and helplessness should their retreat be traced, had quite robbed her of that soft bloom, the glow of perfect health and happiness, her cheeks had formerly worn.

The cottage contained a secret hiding place, constructed by that "pawkie auld carle," John Elshender, as an occasional retreat in time of peril, and therein the noble fugitives remained during the day, issuing forth only at night, when, the windows closed by shutters within and without, and a well-barred door, precluded all chance of a sudden discovery. These precautions were imperatively necessary: had the fugitives been seen by any one, the exceeding whiteness of their hands, the softness of their voices, and, above all, the decided superiority of their air, would have rendered all disguise unavailing. In silence and sadness Lady Bruntisfield sat gazing on the changing features of the glowing embers; but her mind was absorbed within itself. Lilian was sewing, or endeavouring to do so; her downcast eyes were suffused with tears, and from time to time she stole a glance at Aunt Grisel. Every sound startled and caused her to prick her delicate fingers, or snap the thread, until compelled to throw aside the work; she then drew near her grand-aunt, bowed her head on her shoulder, and wept aloud.

"Lilian, love!" exclaimed Lady Grisel, endeavouring to command her own feelings, though the quivering of her proud nether lip showed the depth of her emotion. "For my sake, if not for your own, do not thus, every night, give way to unavailing sorrow and regret."

Lilian's thoughts were wandering to poor Walter Fenton in his prison, and she still wept.

"Marry come up! it would ill suit this little one to become the wife of a Scottish baron or gentleman of name!" said the old lady, pettishly. "Lilian Napier, those tears become not your blood, whilk you inherit from a warrior, whom the bravest of our kings said had nae-peer in arms. Bethink ye, Lilian! Ere I was your age, I had seen my two brothers, Cuthbert and Ninian, cloven down under their own roof-tree by the Northumbrian Mosstroopers, and brave lads they were as ever levelled pike or petronel. O! yet in my ears I hear the clink of their harness as they fell dead on the flagstones of our hall; and never may ye hear such sounds, Lilian, for they are hard to thole. But I was a brave lassie then, and could bend a hackbut owre a rampart, or send a dag-shot through an English burgonet, without wincing or winking once; for my memory gangs back to the days of gentle King Jamie, ere the Scotsman had learned to give his ungauntled hand to the Southron."

"Fearfu' times, my leddy," said Elsie, "fearfu' times! waly, waly, I mind o' them weel."

"They tell us we are one people now," continued the Scottish dame, with kindling eyes. "Malediction on those who think so! I am a Hume of the Cowdenknowes, and cannot forget that my brothers, my husband, and his three fair boys poured their heart's blood forth upon English steel."

"Ill would it become your ladyship to do so," said Elsie, urging her wheel with increased velocity, and resolving not to be outdone in garrulity by Lady Grisel. "Weel mayest thou greet my bonnie bairn Lilian, for these are fearfu' times for helpless women bodies, when the strong hand and sharp sword can hardly make the brave man haud his ain; but they are as nothing to what I have seen, when the doolfu' persecution was hot in the land. I mind the time when, trussed up wi' a tow like a spitted chucky, I was harled away behind that neer-do-well trooper, Holsterlie, and dookit thrice in Bonnington-linn by Claverse' orders, and just as the water rose aboon my mutch, gif I hadna cried 'God save King Charles and curse the Covenant,' I hadna been spinning here to-night. Weary on't, I've aye had a doolfu' cramp since that hour."

"A piece of a coffin keepeth away the cramp, Elsie, but 'tis an unco charm, and one that I like not."

"Gude keep us! how many puir folk I have seen in my time hanged, or shot, or writhing in great bodily anguish in the iron buits, wi' lighted gun-matches bleezing between their birselled fingers, and expiring in agonies awfu' to see and fearfu' to remember, and a' rather than abjure the Holy Covenant and bless the King."

"And rightly were they served, false rebels!" said Lady Bruntisfield, striking her cane on the floor.

"But let the persecutors tak' heed," continued Elsie, heedless of the dame's Cavalier prejudices, "for their foot shall slide in due time (as the blessed word sayeth), the day of their calamity is at hand, and the sore things that are coming upon them make haste."

"True, Madame Lilian," continued the old woman, "and your words are a burning reproach against those who make it treason to whisper the word, unless to the sound o' drums and shawlms, and organs. These are fearfu' times."

"Aye, my Leddy, in the year fifty, when the army o' that accursed Cromwell came up by Lochend brawly in array o' battle, wi' the sun o' a summer morning glinting on their pike-heads and steel caps; marching they were, but neither to tuck of drum nor twang of horn, but to a fushionless English hymn, whilk they aye skirled on the eve o' battle. But our braw lads beat the auld Scots' march, and my heart warmed at the brattle o' their drums and the fanfare o' the trumpets. O, their thousands were a gallant sight to see, a' lodged in deep trenches by Leith Loan, and the green Calton braes covered wi' men-at-arms, and bristling wi' spears and brazen cannon! On the topmost rock waved the banner o' the godly Argyle, and a' the craigs were swarming wi' his wild Hielandmen in their chain jackets and waving tartans. An awfu' time it was for me and mony mair! My puir gudeman (whom God sain) rode in the Lowden Horse, under Sir Archibald's banner (Heaven rest him too). That morning I grat like a bairn when hooking the buff coat on his buirdly breiest, and clasping the steel helmet on his manly broo, (O, hinnie Lilian, ne'er may ye hae to do that for the man ye loe!) ere he gaed forth to battle for this puir cot, his little bairns, and me. But heigh! it was a brave sight, and a bonnie, to see our Lowden lads sweeping the English birds o' Belial before them like chaff on the autumn wind, though my heart was faint, and fluttered like a laverock in the hawk's grasp, and I trembled and prayed for my puir man Jock. My een were ever on Sir Archibald's red plume——"

"Red and blue, gules and argent, were his colours, Elsie," said Lady Grisel, whose tears fell fast. "O, nursie, my ain hand twined them in his helmet."

"True, my leddy," continued the old woman, whose strong feelings imparted a force to her language, "my een were ever on that waving plume, for well I kent where the Laird was, John Elshender was sure to be if in life. Aye, Lilian, hinnie, Sir Archibald's voice was as a trumpet in the hour of strife. 'Bruntisfield! Bruntisfield! bridle to bridle, lads!' We heard him shout on every sough o' wind, 'God and the King!' and ever an' anon his uplifted sword flashed among the English helmets like the levin brand on a winter night, and mony a gay feather, and mony a gay fellow fell before it."

"Peace, Elsie, enough!" said Lady Grisel, weeping freely at the mention of her husband, who had greatly distinguished himself in that cavalry encounter, where Cromwell's attack on Edinburgh was so signally repulsed. "If you love me, good nurse, I prythee cease these reminiscences!"

"Weel, my lady, but muckle mair could I tell doo Lilian o' these fearfu' times," continued the garrulous old woman, who loved (as the Scots all do) to speak of the dead and other days; "muckle indeed, for an auld carlin sees unco things in a lang lifetime. But, dearsake, your ladyship, dinna greet sae, for better times will come, and bethink ye they that thole overcome, for when things are at the warst, the're sure aye to mend; sae spake the godly Mr. Bummel to those who outlived that fearfu' night in the Whigs' vault at Dunottar."

"Ah!" said Lilian shuddering, for she thought of Walter Fenton. "That was a dark dungeon, nurse, was it not?"

"Deep, and dark, and vaulted, howkit in the whinrock, yet therein were ane hundred three score and seventeen o' God's persecuted creatures thrust, and there they expired in the agony and thirst, such as the rich man suffered in hell—where Lauderdale suffers noo. Ah, hinnie, it was a dowie place; the Water-hole of the town guard is a king's chamber in comparison; it is black, damp, and slimy as a tod's den."

"Oh, madam, it is just in such a place they have confined poor Walter—I mean this young man whom we have involved in our misfortunes," said Lilian, in tears and confusion. "It is ever before me, since the night you sent me to him. Dear Aunt Grisel, you cannot conceive all he endures at present, and is yet to endure."

"He is of low birth, Lilian, and therefore better able than we to endure indignity," said Lady Bruntisfield, somewhat coldly. "Yet I hope he shall not die—"

"Die!" reiterated Lilian, piqued at her kinswoman's coolness; "ah, why such a thought?"

"I sorrow for him as much as you, Lilian. The young man seemed good and gentle, with a bearing far above his humble fortune, and a comely youth withal."

Lilian made no reply, but a close observer would have perceived that her blue eyes sparkled and the colour of her cheek heightened with pleasure as Lady Grisel spoke,

"Clermistonlee," continued Lilian, shuddering, "would have had him torn limb from limb, but for the intercession of Claverhouse."

"Permitting me to escape, I presume," replied Lilian, raising her head with a little hauteur.

"Claverse'!" said Elsie, in a low voice; "then this is the first gude I have heard o' him. Folk say he is in league wi' the de'il (Heaven keep us!) and that when the satanic spirit is in him, his black een flash like wildfire in a moss-hagg. Certes! I'll no forget that fearfu' day when he would hae dookit me to death for a word or twa."

"Colonel Grahame was guilty of most abominable ungallantry, Elsie; and yet I do not think he would have ducked me."

"Ungallantry, Lilian!" said Lady Grisel, grasping her cane, "ye should say a breach of law, ye sillie lassie. Our barony hath power of pit and gallows by charter from Robert the Auld Farrand, and it was a daring act and a graceless, to drag a vassal from our bounds, when I could have hanged her myself on the dule-tree, by a word of my mouth!" (Elsie winced.) "But he stood the youth's friend, you say?"

"Marvellous! but mind ye the proverb, Hawks dinna pyke out hawks' een. The lad wears buff and steel, and eats his beef and bannock by tuck of drum; and sae baith Claverse' and Dalyel shewed him that mercy whilk a sanct o' God's oppressed kirk, would hae sued in vain wi' clasped hands and bended knees."

"Ah, nurse, you don't know this young man. He is so mild-eyed and gentle, that Dalyel—"

"Meinie, ye hizzie, the cakes are scouthering! Dalyel! folk say his mother was in love wi' the deil; and my son Hab (a black day it was too when he first mounted his bandoleers,) ance saw a kail-stock scorched to the very heart when the auld knicht spat on it—but fearfu' men are suited to fearfu' times."

"Hush, Elshender," said Lady Grisel; "they are indeed times when we must fear the corbies on the roof, and the swallow under the eaves. One might deem the council to have a familiar fiend at their command, (like that fell warlock Weir, whose staff went errands,) for nought passes in cot or castle on this side of the highland frontier, but straightway they are informed of it. From whence could they have tidings that our gallant kinsman Quentin, and that fule body Bummel were at Bruntisfield? Landed at midnight from the Dutch frigate near the mouth of the lonely Figget Burn, they were secretly admitted to our house, in presence only of my baillie and most familiar servitors, who would not betray me. I rejoice the captain hath escaped their barbarities—but Ichabod, poor man!—I suppose his earthly troubles are well nigh over."

"A dreich time he'll have o't on the lonely Bass," said Meinie, turning the savory cakes, and blowing her pretty fingers. "There is naething there but gulls flapping and skirling, the soughing wind and roaring waves; but it will be a braw place to preach in, gif the red-coats let him. Oh, it would be the death o' me to be among these red-coats."

"Unless Hab Elshender were one," said Lilian: and Meinie blushed, for the linking of two names together has a strange charm to a young heart.

"Ou' aye," laughed the light-hearted girl; "but Maister Ichabod may cool his lugs blawing gospel owre the craigs, to the north wind, or gieing the waves a screed o' that blessed "Bombshell," he aye havers o'. Better that than skirling a psalm at the Bowfoot, till the doomster's axe comes down wi' a bang, and sends his head chittering into a basket. Ugh!'"

"Meinie, peace wi' this discourse, whilk beseems not!" said Elsie with great asperity. "I heard the lips o' the godly Renwick pray audibly, after his head lay in Pate Pincer's basket. Eh, sirs! what a head it is now. Yet the Netherbow guard watch it wi' cocked matches day and night, for there is mony a bold plot made by the Cameronians to carry it awa."

"But our unfortunate friend the preacher—how dearly, by his crushed limbs, has he paid for his zeal in the cause of the Dutch prince! Yet, as Heaven knoweth, I knew not that letters of treason to our Scottish nobles were in his possession, or never would he have darkened the door of Bruntisfield. He deceived me; let it pass. Sir Archibald, thou rememberest well my husband, Elsie?—'tis well that he sleeps in his grave. Oh, judge what he would have thought of our downfal and degradation!"

"My mind misgives me, my lady, but Sir Archibald's kirk was the fushionless ane o' episcopacy, and, indeed, he just gaed wherever the troops marched, with trumpets blawing and kettle-drums beating waefu' to hear in the day o' the Lord."

This last speech somewhat displeased Lady Grisel, who struck her cane thrice on the clay floor, and there ensued a long pause, broken only by creaking of the beeches in the adjoining grove, and the birr of Elsie's wheel as it whirled by the ruddy fire.

"Come, your Leddyship," said Elsie, "let byegones be byegones, and we'll be canty while we may. Meinie can sing like a laverock in the summer morning; sae, lassie, gie forth your best sang to please our lady, and then we'll hae our luggies o' milk, and bit o' your bannocks, a screed o' the blessed gospel, and syne awa to our rest, for its waxing late."

Meinie of course was about to enter some bashful protest, when the soft voice of her foster-sister said,—

"Do, dearest Meinie, and I will join thee; 'twill raise the spirits of good aunt Grisel. Ah, if I had only my spinnet, the cittern, or even my flageolet here!"

"What is your pleasure, then, Madam Lilian?" asked Meinie, curtseying, "Lady Anne Bothwell's Lament, or The Broom of the Cowdenknowes?"

"Anything but the last," said Lady Bruntisfield. "The Knowes of Cowden hath passed away from the house of Hume, and bonnie though the golden broom may be, it blooms for us no more."

"Sing 'Dunbarton's drums,' Meinie," said Lilian, "you hum it from morning till evening."

"And so do you, Madam," said Meinie slyly and bluntly; "but I loe the merry measure."

"Ewhow, that's because o' my wild son Hab!" said Elsie, laughing. "Mak' speed, lassie—our lady waits."

Meinie made another low old-fashioned curtsey, and then, while continuing her task, sang the song and march composed for the Scots Royals, or Dunbarton's Musqueteers, and which had then been popular in Scotland for some years. Lilian at times added her softer notes to Meinie's, and their clear voices made the rough rafters, hollow box-beds, and deep bunkers of the old cottage ring to that merry old air:—

added Elsie, beating time with her feet to the mellow voices of the girls; but Lady Bruntisfield heard them not, for with her glistening eyes fixed on the glowing embers, she gradually sunk into a deep reverie. Animated each by her own secret thoughts, the girls sang with tenderness and enthusiasm, and all were so much engaged that none of the four perceived a fifth personage, who suddenly made his appearance among them.

In a corner of the cottage stood a great oak chest, apparently a meal girnel, but having a false floor, and being in reality the mouth of the subterranean place of concealment and escape, communicating with the grove behind the cottage. Such outlets were numerous in all large mansions; and the dangerous times of the Solemn League had caused the umquhile John Elshender to construct such a sallyport from his humble dwelling; and on several occasions of peril it had saved him from being hanged over his own door by Malignants, Covenanters, and English, or whoever had the upperhand for the time. Slowly the girnel lid was raised, and the glowing firelight shone on the steel breast-plate and bandoleers of a musqueteer. He was a ruddy-faced young man, with the prominent cheek-bones and shrewd expression of the Lowland peasantry: stout and athletic in figure, his keen grey eyes took a rapid survey of the cottage under the peak of his morion. His face expressed surprise and curiosity, but as the song proceeded he stepped slowly and softly out, and when it was concluded stood close to the rosy and buxom Meinie.

"Hurrah!" he exclaimed, and gave her a resounding kiss on each cheek. The wheel fell from the relaxed hand of Elsie, and a shriek burst from Lilian, who believed they were betrayed, and threw herself before her aged kinswoman.

"Hab, Hab, ye graceless loon," screamed Elsie, as her son now kissed her, "how dare ye gliff folk this gate?"

"Hoots, Hab, ye've toozled a' my tap-knot," said Meinie, affecting to pout; "ye came on me noo like a ghaist or a spunkie."

"Heyday, Meinie, my doo! ye want to be kissed again; do ye think I have trailed a pike these eight years under my Lord Dunbarton, without learning to tak' baith castles and kimmers by storm."

"Aye-aye, you are as bad as the warst o' them, I doubt not. Lasses, indeed—dinna come near me again."

"Haud, you wild loon," said his mother, in great glee; "do ye no see who are present?"

"An auld neighbour carlin, I think, and as bonnie a young lass as I ever saw on the longest day's march, d—n me."

Halbert suddenly paused, and became very much perplexed. The blood rushed into his swarthy face, as with an awkward but profound salute he said, in an altered voice,—

"I crave your pardon a thousand times, noble madam; and yours, sweet Mistress Lilian. My humble duty to ye both, though it is not long since I had the happiness to meet you. It goes to my heart to see you in attire so unbefitting your station. O, Lady Grisel, I ken oure well of all that has come to pass, for I was one of the thirty files of musqueteers, that were with Finland at the auld place on that sorrowful night last month. They are hard times these, my lady."

"True, Halbert," said the old lady. "Ruin and proscription now level the most noble with the mean, the most unoffending with the guilty, and blend all with the common herd. But, Halbert, I bid ye welcome, my man, and God bless ye!"

"And I too, Habbie," added Lilian; "for I cannot forget when we bird-nested in the wood yonder, and gathered gowans and flowers on the sunny braes in summer. Oh! Hab, in all your soldiering, I will warrant ye have never been so happy as we were then."

"True it is, madam," said he, as slightly and bashfully he raised to his lip the beautiful hand she extended towards him; "true, indeed. I have spent many a happy hour under the canvass tent, and birled many a wine horn merrily in the Flanders hostels and French cabarets; but never have I seen such happy hours as those we spent when we were bairns, amang the oakwoods of the auld place upbye yonder. Often hath brave Mr. Fenton, when tramping by my side on the long dusty march, recalled their memory in such wise that my heart swelled under its iron case. And truly, honoured madam, though the same heart is wrung to see you dressed in cousin Meinie's humble duds, never saw I lassie that looked sae winsome. Od rot it! how came your ladyship to let that ill-omened corbie to darken your door? when sure ye might have been that dool and mischief would meet thereafter on your hearthstane. This goose Bummel——"

"Oh, Hab, ye gomeral, wheesht!" said Elsie, interrupting this somewhat laboured address. "Your notions o' ministers are gathered frae your tearing, swearing, through-ganging, horse-racing, and hard-drinking Episcopal curates and chaplains, that swagger about wi' cockades in their bonnets and swords at their thighs, chucking every bonnie lass under chin, and gieing ilka sabbath a sleepy, fushionless, feckless, drouthie, cauldrifed discourse, whilk hath neither the due birr nor substantious, soul-feeding effect o' the true gospel, but savours rather o' the abomination——"

"Ahoi, mother, halt!—egad, or mind the iron gags, the fetterlocks, and thumbikins!" cried her son, with an alarm that was no way lessened by a violent knocking at the cottage door, where, at that moment, the iron ring of the risp was drawn sharply and repeatedly up and down.

The hearts of the poor fugitives forgot to beat! Insult, imprisonment, banishment, or worse, rushed upon the mind of Lady Bruntisfield; the dark, gloating eyes and terrible presence of Clermistonlee, upon that of Lilian: but Halbert Elshender snatched up his musquet and blew the match till it glowed on his sun-burned face, an action which made the women grow paler still.

"Beard of the devil! Get into the girnel, Lady Grizel; and you, madam Lilian—quick!" exclaimed the soldier in a vehement whisper.

"Halbert," faltered Lady Bruntisfield, "your father was a leal and faithful vassal——"

"And I, his only son, will stand by you and yours to the death, even as he would have done. In—in—away to the Beech-grove, ere worse come of it. Mother, ye donnart jaud, doun wi' the lid, and pouch the key. And now, may I run the gauntlet from right to left, if you (whoever you are) that tirl the risp so hard get not a taste of King Jamie's new sweyne-feather!" He screwed his dagger or bayonet to the muzzle of his matchlock, and then demanded in a loud voice—

"One who must speak with Lady Bruntisfield, whom I know to be concealed here. Open, and without a moment's delay."

"Lost—lost! Gude Lord, keep thy hand over them and us!" murmured Elsie, clinging to Meinie, as another loud and impatient blow shook the well-barred door, and found a terrible echo in the trembling hearts of the fugitives and their protectors.

CHAPTER XIII.

A REVERSE.

A fredome is a noble thing!
Fredome makes man to have liking;
Fredome al solace to man gives,
He lives at ease that frely lives.
BARBOUR'S BRUCE.

Walter was still where we left him in the eleventh chapter, an inmate of the city prison.

The gloom, monotony, and degradation affected his mind, not less than the confinement and noxious vapours of the place did his health, and he felt his strength and spirit failing fast. The longing for freedom became one moment almost too intense to be borne, and the next he sank into a listless apathy, careless alike of liberty and life. And as his health suffered, and his ardour died his aspect became (though he knew it not) more haggard and ghastly on each succeeding day.

The recollection of Lilian's midnight visit, alone threw a ray of light through the gloom of his clouded fortune; over that event he mused, at times, with unalloyed pleasure. Anxiously he watched every night, animated by a faint hope that she might come again; but Lilian came no more.

"She came merely to thank me for my service, and I shall soon be forgotten," he would say; and then came vividly on his mind, the blight and disgrace which had been heaped upon him, and the abyss into which he had been cast. Keenly and bitterly he now felt his loneliness in the world. All this he might have escaped, perhaps, but for the evil offices of the malevolent Clermistonlee; and when he contemplated how dim and distant was the prospect of ever again rising even to his former humble station, his heart was wrung; for, with the fetters of a coward and slave, he felt that he possessed the soul and the fire of a hero.

"Though poor and unpretending, I was a gentleman, so far as spirit, bearing, and manners could make me. I have done nothing that is vile or dishonourable; but now, after fetters have dishonoured these hands, and prison-walls enclosed me, can I ever again look my equals in the face? Yes! and may I perish, if Randal of Clermistonlee shall not learn that in time!"

He spoke fiercely; for he had now, from very solitude, acquired a habit of uttering his thoughts aloud. He could not suppress his dread that Lilian Napier, in the present proscribed and friendless state of her family, might too easily fall into the toils of that famous and powerful roué, whose crimes and excesses, in a country so rigidly moral, were regarded with a horror and detestation, that made women generally shun his touch as they passed him in the street, and his glance by the wayside. Remembering his parting words, the bitter threat, and the fierce aspect of his visage and polecat eyes when he last beheld him, Walter was justly under considerable apprehension, that he might again be summoned before the Council, and either have his sentence altered to one of greater severity, or have its most degrading clauses carried into immediate execution. In fact, Lord Clermistonlee's temporary indisposition alone deferred such a catastrophe. Consequently day after day passed; the weeks ran on, but he never saw another face than that of a grim old city-guardsman, who each morning brought him a coarse cake, a bowl of porridge, and a pitcher of water; and, acting strictly to the tenor of his orders, withdrew without a word of greeting or condolence.

Thus day and night rolled on in weary and intense monotony, and poor Walter by turns grew more fierce and impatient, or more listless and apathetic. Sometimes he dosed and dreamed away the day, on his bed of damp and fetid straw, and by night paced slowly the floor of that little vault, every stone and joint and feature of which, became indelibly impressed on his memory.

One night he was roused from a deeper and heavier slumber than usual by the unwonted light of a large lamp flashing on his eyes; he started, awoke, and the glare blinded him for a moment. Three persons were close beside him. One was the odious, sinister, and hard-featured Gudeman of the establishment; the second was the old soldier who acted as javelleur; and the third was a gentleman whose lofty bearing and rich attire caused Walter to spring at once to his feet. He was a dark-complexioned and very handsome man, bordering on forty years of age; he wore a coat of rose-coloured velvet, slashed at the breast and shoulders with white satin; his breeches and stockings were of spotless white silk; his boots of pale buff, and accoutred with massive gold spurs. His voluminous black wig was shaded by his plumed Spanish hat, the band of which sparkled with brilliants; while a long rapier, gold-headed cane and diamond ring showed he was quite a man of fashion. It was George Douglas, the gallant Earl of Dunbarton.

"'Sdeath! Walter, my boy, I little thought to find you here," said he. "Faugh! this place is like the old souterrains of Alsace or Brisgau; yet here it was that the great Argyle once sojourned!"

"My Lord—my Lord!" exclaimed Walter joyfully—"how unexpected is this honour!"

"A long journey and a perilous, my Lord. I congratulate you on your safe return."

"Thanks, my boy. The Countess suffered much, she is so delicate, and my private coach, though carrying only six inside and six without, (beside our baggage) rumbled so heavily—but we were only five weeks on the way—a very tolerable journey."

"Very; and still, my Lord, I have heard of it being done in three; but the roads——"

"O they are pretty good now, I assure you, till one reaches the debateable land and the old boundary road at Berwick. There are bridges over most of the rivers too; but the lonely places swarm with footpads and highwaymen. Wilt believe it? we had only one break down by the way, and two encounters with gentlemen of the post. Ah! I winged one varlet near the Rerecross of Stanmore one night, and to be a soldier's wife—egad how the Countess wept! Immediately upon my arrival at Bristo, I was waited on by the Laird of Finland, who told me your story, and, as Lady Dunbarton would not rest until her young protégée was at liberty, I had to bestir myself, and so—am here."

"I am deeply indebted to your dear Countess, my Lord Earl," replied Walter with glistening eyes; "I owe her a thousand favours, which I hope circumstances will never require me to repay."

"Thou art a fine fellow, Walter," replied the Earl, striking him familiarly on the shoulder; "and thine inborn goodness of heart gains and deserves the love of all who know thee. The Countess——"

"O would that I could thank her now for years of kindness and protection, when I was a poor and forlorn little boy!" exclaimed Walter with deep feeling.

"And why not, lad? a coach awaits us at the close-head, and you are a free man."

"My scutcheon," repeated Walter coldly. "Ah, my Lord, why jest with my nameless obscurity."

"Think not so ungenerously of me. The day shall come, Walter, when we may see the argent and bend azure of the old Fentounes of that ilk (I don't doubt the Lyon Herald will make thee a sprout of that ancient stock) quartered, collared, and mantled with your own personal achievements. Tush, lad! the wide world is all before you, and you have your sword. Think how many Scottish cavaliers of fortune have led the finest armies, and won the greatest battles, and the proudest titles in Europe! I have this moment come from the Council Chamber, where with half a dozen words, I have reversed all thy doom, and had it expunged from their black books."

"I would, noble Earl, that the same generosity had been extended to the Napiers of Bruntisfield."

"Nor was it withheld. What think you of that beautiful minx Annie Laurie of Maxwelton (I warrant thou knowest her—all our gay fellows do) waylaying me in her sedan. We met at the Cowgate Stairs, which ascend to the Parliament House, and there desiring her linkboys and liverymen to halt right in that narrow path, she vowed by every bone in her fan, I should never get to Council to-night—ha! ha! unless I pledged my word as a belted Earl to have her friends the Napiers pardoned as well as thee. A brave damsel, faith! and would do well to follow the drum. Zooks! I wish young Finland had her."

"Are pardoned; but they have fled, egad! nobody knows where. How exasperated Perth, Balcarris, and other high-flying cavaliers were by the influence I seemed to possess over the votes at the Board, having won alike the noble Claverhouse, the ferocious Dalyel, and that addlepated senator, Swinton of Mersington."

"Pshaw! in all this affair I see only the meanness of the despicable world. Deeming thee a poor and friendless lad, whose whole hope was the fortune of war, and whose only inheritance a poor half-pike, these blustering Lords of Council did not hesitate to misuse thee shamefully. Here thou art immured and forgotten, until one comes, on whom they reckoned not, but who, in addition to a coronet, writes himself Knight of the Thistle, Commander of the Scottish Forces, and Colonel of a devoted regiment of fifteen hundred brave hearts as ever marched to battle, and lo! his wish is law, his breath bears all before it. Walter Fenton, have a soul above the petty injuries of lordlings such as these, and cock thy feather not a whit the less for having endured their jack-in-office frowns."

Here the Gudeman rattled his keys, and awe alone kept his constitutional impatience in check.

"And how did your Lordship overcome the hatred of Clermistonlee, my most bitter persecutor?"

"O, he is quite a devil of a fellow that! Ha! ha! He got a rapier thrust a few nights ago, which has luckily confined him to his apartments, and deprived the Council of his pleasant company and amiable advice. Ah, he is a brave fellow, too, Clermistonlee; but though an expert swordsman and accomplished cavalier, he is, withal, too much of a roué and fanfaron for my taste. And, harkee, Walter, I have one request to make ere we leave this abominable souterrain; that you will have no recourse to arms, for the severity with which as a Privy Councillor he may have treated you."

"Zounds! then spare not to thrust and slash while hand and hilt will hold together," said the Earl, as they ascended the spiral stair of the prison, preceded by the gudeman thereof, who never ceased bowing until they issued into the dark and narrow alley then named Gourlay's or Mauchane's Close. Walters heart beat joyously, and his pulse quickened as the cool night wind blew upon his blanched but flushing cheek.

"He must have been a thoroughpaced tyrant, the constructor of this den of thine, gudeman," said the Earl, surveying the prison as he handed some silver to the governor; "but I suppose we must pay largess nevertheless;" and, taking the arm of his companion, they ascended the steep alley together. "You have followed my drums now, Walter; for, let me see——"

"Ever since you defeated Argyle's troops at the Muirdykes," said Walter with a sigh.

"Hah!—is it so? I have been somewhat forgetful of thee in these bustling times, but shall make immediate amends. I have promoted many a slashed and feathered ruffler when thy quiet merit was passed unheeded. You fought under Halkett at Sedgemoor: it was a well-ordered field that, and had Lord Gray's horse properly flanked Monmouth's infantry, their Lordships of Feversham and Churchill, might have had another tale to tell at St. James's. S'death! we are likely soon to have such scenes again, for there will be a convulsion in our politics that will make and unmake many a fair name and noble patrimony."

"So much the better—my suspicions would be called treason to King James by the Lords of the Laigh Chamber. Our Scottish troops are concentrating fast round Edinburgh from the West and Borders—even our frontier garrison at Greenlaw is withdrawn here, so perhaps the Northumbrian thieves will get out their horns again, as they did in Cromwell's time after that day of shame at Dunbar. You will come with me to Bristo, of course?" continued the Earl, as they issued into that main street which runs the whole length of the old city, and was long deemed for its bustle, breadth, height, and variety of architecture the most striking in Europe.

Then it was silent and empty, for the hour was late; the countless windows of the lofty mansions which shot up to a giant height on each side, in every variety of the Scottish and Flemish tastes, with fantastic fronts, of wood or stone, turreted, corbelled and corbie-stoned, gable-ended, balconied, and bartizanned, were dark and closed, or lighted only by the silver moon which bathed one side of the street in a flood of pale white lustre, while the other was immersed in obscure and murky shadow. The long vista of the Lawnmarket was closed by the gloomy and picturesque masses of the great gothic cathedral, the façade of the Tolbooth, and the high narrow edifices of the Craimes, a street wedged curiously between St. Giles and the place now occupied by the Exchange.

A hackney-coach like a clumsy herse, one of the few introduced into Edinburgh only fifteen years before, and consequently deemed a splendid and luxurious mode of locomotion, stood at the mouth of the Pend or archway. The driver, a tall, gaunt fellow, dressed in a plain gaberdine of that coarse stuff, with which a recent Act of the Scottish Parliament compelled the humbler classes to content themselves, stood bonnet in hand by the heavy flight of steps which enabled first the Earl and then Walter to ascend into the recesses of the vehicle. The door was closed with deliberation; the driver clambered into his place on the roof, and slowly and solemnly his two horses dragged the lumbering machine up the Lawn-market, over the rough and steep causeway of which it rumbled like a vast caravan.

"We make great advances in the art of luxury, we moderns," said the Earl; "Ah! twenty years ago there was nothing of this sort! And there is that new invention, the snaphaunce-lock, which is as likely to supersede the good old match, as the screw-hilted dagger of Bayonne is to eclipse the glories of the old sweynes-feather. Were you ever in one of these Dutch conveyances before, Walter?"

"Once only, my Lord, when I accompanied Lady Dunbarton to Her Grace of Lauderdale's levee at Holyrood."

"Though our preachers inveigh bitterly against them, as dark places wherein to cloak wickedness and knavery, and in opposition uphold the good old fashions of saddles, pillions, and sedans, I think this is a pleasant and a useful contrivance withal."

"But will you be pleased to remember that my present attire is a very unfitting one for the presence of the Countess?—soiled as it is by the contaminations of that noxious vault——"

"Right, Walter—and I had forgotten that my little Lætitia is somewhat fatigued with her journey. You can pay your devoirs in the morning, and tell Finland, Gavin of that Ilk, the Chevalier Drumquhasel, and such other of my cavaliers as have arrived in the city, that we shall be glad to see them at our morning déjeûné at Bristo. I have ordered a glorious bombarde of choice canary to be set abroach; so don't forget to tell them that. But anent the Napiers," continued the earl, "they are intimate friends of yours, I presume?"

"Friends!" stammered Walter; "alas, my lord, do you think that the proud and stately old Lady of Bruntisfield, would rank a poor and obscure lad like me among her friends? Save your noble self and the Countess, I have no friends on earth—none."

"Ungrateful rogue! thou forgettest thy fifteen hundred comrades, each of whom is a friend. But by all the devils, there is a mystery in this! 'Tis quite a romance. What tempted you to run tilt against the council in this matter? No answer. It will not pass muster with me, Mr. Fenton. A pretty damoiselle is enough, I know, to tempt any young gallant to swerve from his strict line of duty. I found it so in my bachelor days. There is old Mackay of Scoury, who now commands our Scots in the service of the States'-General, openly deserted from us in Holland (when we followed the banner of Condé), and joined the enemy—for what? ha, ha! the love of a rosy little Dutch housewife, who had gained his weak side, the Lord knows how; for we Scots musqueteers considered ourselves great connoisseurs in women, wine, and horse-flesh. Apropos! of Lilian Napier—I doubt not you know where this little one is concealed."

"Heydey! I am right, then," laughed the gay nobleman, "you got a kiss, I warrant. Point d'argent point de Suisses! as we used to say of the Swiss gendarmerie, ha, ha!"

"Very likely; but I'll leave the Countess to worm the secret out of thee. Ha, ha! 'tis very unlikely that a young spark would peril his life thus, and look only for a Carthusian's reward from a dazzling damoiselle of eighteen. Ho! I had served under Turrene, Luxembourg, and Condé, long ere I was thy age, and know well that a bright eye and ruddy lip—but here is the gate of the Upper Bow, and two fresh heads grinning on its battlement since I saw it last. Whose are they?"

"Holsterlee and some of his comrades dispersed a conventicle among the Braid hills lately."

"Poor rogues! If you do not mean to accompany me; we must part here; and in the course of to-morrow, if you know where the ladies of yonder old castle at Bruntisfield are in concealment, you will doubtless acquaint them with the decree I have obtained in their favour. But their kinsman, Quentin Napier, can neither be pardoned nor relaxed from the horn."

The Bow, a steep winding street that descended the southern side of the hill on which the old city stands, was then closed by a strong gate called the Upper Porte, under the shadow of which the coach stopped. On the right a heavy Flemish house projected over the street, on beams of carved wood; on the left, the house of Weir the wizard frowned its terrors across the narrow way. A sentinel opened the creaking barrier, received the nightly toll, and Walter, after bidding adieu to the generous Earl, was about to retire, when the latter called him back.

"Harkee, Fenton; you have far to go, and in these times, when soldiers are openly murdered in the streets, my rapier may be of some service should any quarrelsome ruffler cross your path; take it, for I have pistols."

"A thousand thanks, my lord," replied Walter, receiving from the Earl a long and richly chased rapier sheathed in crimson velvet.

He threw the embroidered belt over his shoulder, and strode away with a feeling of pride and elation, to find himself once more a free and armed man; while the great caravan occupied by the earl, rumbled down the windings of the narrow street with increased speed, waking all the echoes of its hollow stone staircases, and scaring those indwellers who heard them through their dreams; all sounds heard by night in the Bow being fraught with imaginary terrors, and attributed to the wandering spirit of that diabolical wizard, who a short time before had expiated his real and supposed enormities amid a blaze of tar barrels on the castle hill, and whose uninhabited mansion was then viewed with horror, as it is still with curiosity.

With a heart brimming with exultation, and glowing with anticipations of happiness, which for the time made the revolving world in all its features shine like a beautiful kaleidoscope, Walter pirouétted and danced down the Lawnmarket and through the narrow Craimes. Was it possible that but an hour ago he was so very wretched and degraded? Was it not all a dream, this new joy, a dream from which he feared to awake? Ah, thought he, one requires to have tasted the bitterness of captivity, to know the value and the glory of freedom.

Again he wore a sword, and the consciousness of bearing arms and having the spirit to use them, imparted to the cavaliers of other times a bearing, to which the gentlemen of the present age are strangers.

As the clanking wicket of the Netherbow closed behind him, the flap of a night-bird's wing caused an involuntary thrill of disgust; he looked up to the central tower of the Porte, and, faugh! a huge gled was winging away heavily from the iron spike whereon a hideous head scowled at the passers, and by the tangled locks that waved on the midnight wind around its sweltering features, Walter thought he recognised the face of the preacher, Ichabod Bummel, of whose fate he was still in ignorance. With pity and disgust he hurried on, and, without molestation or adventure, reached his quarters in the White Horse Cellar—the place where this eventful narrative commenced a few weeks before—a spacious and ancient but long-forgotten inn, situated at the bottom of a small court opening from the Canongate. Rising from a great arcade, which formed of old the Royal Mews, this edifice is now remarkable only for its antiquity and picturesque aspect, its gables of carved wood, perforated with pigeon-holes, its enormous stacks of chimneys, and curious windows on the roof. At the time of our tale, there was always a body of troops billetted there, greatly to the annoyance of Master Gibbie Runlet, the host thereof, who found them neither the most peaceful nor profitable occupants of his premises.

CHAPTER XIV.

WALTER AND LILIAN.

She's here! yet O! my tongue is at a loss;
Teach me, some power, that happy art of speech,
To dress my purpose up in gracious words,
Such as may softly steal upon her soul.

The whole of the next day passed ere Walter Fenton found time to visit the fugitives; he was anxious to be the first bearer of the good tidings confided to him by the Earl, and luckily intelligence did not travel very fast in those days. In Edinburgh there was but one occasional broadsheet or newspaper, "The Kingdoms Intelligencer," and a house situated a mile or two from the city wall, was deemed a day's journey, distant among wood, rocks, and water. Thus the rural residences of the Napiers, Lord Clermistonlee, Sir John Toweris of Inverleith, Sir Patrick Walker, of Coates, and others, were situated in places over which the busy streets and crowded squares of the extended city have spread like the work of magic.

Walter had some difficulty in discovering the exact locality of Elsie's cottage, which was situated among a labyrinth of haw and privet hedges, and consequently the evening was far advanced before he presented himself at her humble abode, and caused the consternation described in a preceding chapter.

"I must speak instantly with those who are concealed here," said he; "I am a friend of the Lady Bruntisfield—the bearer of most happy tidings."

"I think I should know your voice," said Hab, still deliberating, and puffing at his match.

"Welcome, Mr. Fenton!" exclaimed Hab, undoing the door briskly; "I wish you much joy of being out of yonder devilish scrape."

"How are you back so soon, Hab? By my faith, I thought you were browbeating the westland Whigs, and roystering at free quarters among the stiffnecked carles of Clydesdale."

"And so we were, sir, for three blessed weeks. Cocks' nails! ilka man was lord and master, and mair of the billet he had, loundering the gudeman, kissing the gudewife, and eating the best in cellar and ambrie, and then settling the lawing with a flash of a bare blade or a roll on the drum, as Finland and yourself have dune too. But hech! things are likely to be otherwise; it's a bad sign when the nonconformist bodies begin to cock their bonnets in face of the king's soldiers, as they are doing now."

"Ay, 'tis thought there will be the devil to pay between King James and the English, who were ever jealous of the Stuart rule. The Ladies of Bruntisfield are here, are they not?"

"Maybe sae, and maybe nae," replied Hab cunningly, still keeping his match cocked.

"To be plain, Mr. Fenton," asked Halbert bluntly, "came ye here as friend or foe?"

"A late question, when I am within arm's length of you. Halbert Elshender, I pledge my honour I am here in honest friendship."

"The deuce! Sirrah, I am as you see," responded Walter impatiently. "Mistress Lilian is here, and her noble kinswoman too, I doubt not."

Hab winked knowingly, and knocked on the panels of the vast girnel, the front of which he opened, and the two fugitives forth stepped, pale and agitated. The first sight of Walter's military garb startled them; but bowing profoundly, he said, in the formal fashion of the time,

"Lady Bruntisfield, your most obedient humble servant—Mistress Lilian, yours."

"Your servant, sir," muttered the ladies, and they all bowed to each other three several times. Lilian blushed deeply.

Lady Grisel, on adjusting her spectacles, immediately recognized him, and held out her hand with a smile, in which hauteur, kindness, and timidity were curiously blended.

"Welcome, young gentleman; though our fortunes are somewhat clouded now, I rejoice their shadow has not long blighted yours, and I congratulate you on your restoration to liberty."

"And I, in turn, wish you every joy at a sudden change of fortune. The decrees of Council are reversed; your lands, your liberty, your coat armorial, are restored, and you are free to return to the ancestral dwelling of your family whenever it pleases you; to cast aside for ever that humble attire, though, believe me, fair Lilian, it never appeared to me so graceful or charming as at this moment."

Again Lilian blushed deeply; her bright eyes were full of inquiry and expression; her cherry mouth, half open, displayed the whiteness of her firm little teeth, and she never appeared so fascinating to Walter as, when laying her hand gently on his arm, she said,

Of its truth the old lady appeared to have some doubts. She remained for a few moments silent and motionless. Her first thought was one of rapture; her second of surprise and distrust, for might not this be a wile of Clermistonlee? might not the price of the young man's liberty be their betrayal to the Council? But no! she suppressed the ungenerous thought, when, bending her keen eyes on Walter, she read the openness and candour expressed in his handsome face.

"This is indeed a reverse! O what joy!" she exclaimed; "and yet 'tis strange," she added, striking her cane with great energy on the clay floor; "very strange withal, that no macer, usher, herald, or deputation of Council hath come to me with intimation hereof. This is marvellous discourtesy in the Earl of Perth, to a dame of honour, who hath had the privilege of the tabouret before the Queens of France and Britain. Young man, were you specially commissioned to tell me this happy intelligence?"

"Not exactly," said Walter, colouring in turn; "but it is so pleasant to be the herald of joy, that I am glad another has not anticipated me. Indeed, as the reversal of your sentence was publicly proclaimed at the cross this forenoon, by the Albany Herald and Unicorn pursuivant, with tabard and trumpet, I am astonished you have not heard of it. But honest Hab's reluctance to admit me—"

"O teach me to be thankful," exclaimed Lady Grisel, raising her bright grey eyes and clasped hands to Heaven; "to be grateful for this great and singular mercy! Then all our persecution is over?"

Another burst of acclamation from Hab shook the cottage, and he kissed Meinie again in the excess of his exultation.

"O nurse Elsie, my dream is read," said Lady Grisel. "Last night I thought I saw Sir Archibald's favourite horse—ye mind his auld trooper, spotless Snawdrift. A white steed, ye know, Elsie, betokens intelligence; and his being spurgalled shewed it would be speedy. His saddle was girth uppermost—"

"Whilk boded luck, and never mair may it leave the house o' Bruntisfield, thanks to the battling Lord!" said Elsie, piously.

"I am unused to receive boons," said the stately dame; "but would be glad to know to what or to whom the house of Napier is indebted for this signal favour of fortune."

"To my generous Lord and Colonel, the princely Dunbarton, whom God long preserve! Here are the pardon and reversed decree of forfeiture; I received them from his countess, who desired me to bear them to you with her best regards."

"O, Mr. Fenton!" exclaimed Lady Grisel, whose artificial pride now quite gave way before the natural warmth and gratitude of her heart. And her broad silver barnacles became dim with tears as she received the documents which bore the well-flourished signature, "Perth, Cancellarius," and the seal of Council. "God knows, good youth," she continued, pressing Walter's hand in her's, "that if I repined much at the sad occurrences of the last few weeks, it was for the sake of this fair child alone. Alake! at her age to be thrown into poverty and obscurity were to die a living death—but now—" Lilian, in a transport of tears and joy, threw her arms around her aged relative and kissed her.

"Poverty and obscurity!" thought poor Walter; "How can I dare to love a being so far above me, when these are all I have to share with her?"

With her snood unbound and her bright hair flying in beautiful disorder, the lively girl rushed from Elsie to Meinie alternately kissing and embracing them, till honest Hab began to rub his mouth with his cuff in expectation of the favour going round; and in her girlish delight, she seemed a thousand times more charming than when clad in her long stomacher, and compelled to imitate Lady Grisel's starched decorum and old-fashioned stateliness of demeanour.

"Ah, good Heavens," she suddenly exclaimed, "we are quite forgetting poor cousin Quentin."

"The deuce take cousin Quentin!" thought Walter, and he hastened to inform her that the Council had resolved to cut the Captain into joints the moment they could lay hands on him.

Meinie, whose cakes had long since been scorched to a cinder, now gave Hab a box on the ear, and retreating from him with a pout of rustic coquetry, placed several three-legged stools near the fire, around which they seated themselves by desire of Lady Grisel, herself occupying the great elbow-chair, against which her tall walking-cane was placed by Elsie with great formality. The venerable cottager was very lavish in her praises of Walter, for whom, as the bearer of such good tidings, she felt a cordial admiration; and, heedless of Lilian's confusion, continued to whisper it in her ear.

"A handsome cavalier, hinny. Saw ye ever sic een?—they glint like a gosshawk's. His hair is like the corbie's wing wi' the dew on it; and his cheeks are like red rowan berries. He is indeed a winsome young gallant, my doo Lilian!—no ane o' our law-breakers, who spend the blessed Sabbath in ruffling through the streets in masks and mantles, or dicing, drinking, or playing at shovel-board in a vile change-house, or playing at pell-mell like the godless Charles; but a gospel-fearing and discreet youth, as gude as he's bonnie, I doubtna."

"I never said," whispered Lilian; "but it is Walter Fenton—a pretty one, is it not, nurse?"

"Fenton?—he'll be ane o' the auld Fentons owre the water; as gallant and stalwart a race as ever Fifeshire saw."

"I hope so," sighed Lilian; "but, oh Elsie! there is some sad mystery about this poor young man. When a very little child, he was found nestled in his dead mother's bosom in the kirk-yard of the Greyfriars, in that terrible time you will remember?"

"My bonnie bairn, it was indeed a fearfu' time; but, by his winsome face, I warrant him come o' gentle kin."

"Not Claver'se himsel has an eye that glints wi' mair pride, or a lip that curls mair haughtily. True gentle blood can aye be kent by the curl o' the lip. I warrant his blude's as gude as ony in braid Scotland."

"Oh; 'tis for that I pity and love him so much," said Lilian artlessly. As she spoke, Walter, who was conversing with Lady Grisel, unexpectedly looked full towards her; he had removed his steel cap, and the long black locks beneath it flowed in cavalier profusion over his scarlet doublet. He never looked so prepossessing; and, fearing that he had overheard her, the cheek of the timid girl grew scarlet and then deadly pale; and to hide her confusion, she bent her face towards the old nurse, requesting her to bind up her hair.

"In ringlets and heart-breakers such as never Maister Pouncet fashioned, shall I twine thy bonnie gowden hair to-morrow, hinny," said the old woman, kissing with fond respect the white forehead of Lilian; for those were days when the highest and the lowest classes in Scotland were bound together by such endearing ties as never will exist again. "And nae mair shall your dainty arms and jimpy waist be bound wi' aught but Naples silk and three-pile taffeta."

"Ah! nurse Elsie, if my heart is always as happy and light as Meinie's, it will matter little what I wear."

"Sae said your lady mother, that's dead and gane; yea, and your great-aunt Grisel too (but silk and damask are grand braws, hinny!): and, waes me! thae wrinkled auld hands hae braided the bonnie hair o' baith. And now the head o' ane is turned frae the hue o' the raven's wing to that o' the new-fa'n snaw; and the head o' the other, oh, waly! waly! lies low in the kirk vaults o' St. Rocque. I mind a time when the hair o' my lady there was as glossy as yours; yea, and her brow as smooth, and her cheek glowing like the red rowan berry. It is many a lang and weary year ago, and yet it seemeth but as yesterday, when your kinsman, umquhile Sir Archibald, first cam riding up the dykeside to Cowdenknowes, wi' my puir gudeman, John Elshender, astride his cloak-bags on a high trotting mear; and weel I mind the time when first he drew his chair in by the ingle, and lookit awfu' things at Lady Grisel. Certes, but she was ill to please at her toilet after that! Frae morning till e'enin' there was nought but busking wi' braws, frizzling and puffing and perfuming; tying and untying, and flaunting wi' breast-knots and fardingales, and working wi' essence o' daffodils and gilliflower water. That was mony a year before that vile limmer Cromwell led his ill-faured host on this side o' the English bounds. He was a braw and a buirdly man Sir Archibald, though when last he rode forth frae the aikwoods o' the auld Place owre the muir, his pow was lyart enough. Methink I see him yet, as I saw him first, our brave auld laird! His green doublet o' taffeta, stiff wi' buckram, bombast, and gowden lace—his lang buff boots and clanking spurs—his broadsword and dudgeon-knife—and a bonnie ger-falcon on his nether wrist, wi' a plume on its head and siller varvels on its legs. Mony a sair gloom he gaed that braw chield, the Laird o' Caickmuir; but Lady Grisel could never thole the Muirs, for they gained baith haugh and holm by pinglin' wi' base merchandise in Nungate o' Haddintoun, when the Humes were winning the broomy knowes o' Cowden by the sharp spur and the long spear——"

"Ay, indeed, hinny," continued the garrulous old woman. "Fearfu' times they were, when the Lord o' Crichton, wi' his fierce knights in their bright armour, on barbed horses, ravaged a' the West-kirk parochin to the castle-gate of Corstorphin, ruining lord, laird, and tenant body alike,—giving the cottar's home, the baron's tower, and the priest's kirk to torch and sack. Fearfu' times they ever are, hinny, when Scottish braves and Scottish blades are bent on ilk ither in the fell stoure o' battle."

"Elshender," said Lady Grisel—(interrupting these reminiscences, of which the reader is perhaps as tired as Lilian was)—"you have left the band on your wheel."

"Save us and sain us!" exclaimed the old woman, hobbling to her wheel. "The last time I did sae, the gude neighbours span on't the haill night, and ravelled a' my gude hawslock woo."

"Thou shouldst be more careful, Elshender," said Lady Grisel gravely. "It bodes ill luck; and a red thread should be tied to the rock.

I marvel, Lilian, that your friend and gossip, Annie Laurie, came not to visit us the moment she heard the proclamation of our innocence, and the Council's injustice."

"Dear Annie was the first to fly hither when our fortune was at the lowest ebb," said Lilian timidly. "Ah, Heaven, if she should be ill! She knows how welcome are the bearers of happy tidings."

"And most welcome is Mr. Fenton!" said the old lady, pressing his hand so kindly that Walter's heart leaped, and he scarcely dared to glance at Lilian. "Dear child, I tremble to think of all you have braved for our sake,—the torture, the bodkin, the dungeon! It was noble and generous. The hero of the old romance, Sir Roland of Roncesvalles, could not have done more."

"Spare me the shame of these thanks, madam. The honour of serving your ancient house is sufficient requital to one so—so nameless as I am. But, pray remember it is to my very good lord, the noble Dunbarton, you alone owe this happy change in fortune."

"And to-morrow, so early as decorum will permit, and when our servitors can attend in such state as befits our quality, shall he and his gentle Countess (English though she be) receive our best thanks. The Lady Lætitia is the first of her nation," she added, and down went the cane on the floor; "yea, the first that Grisel Hume could ever thole. Lilian, we will immediately set forth on our return to the Place of Bruntisfield."

"Thanks, Mr. Fenton. There is a troop of horse at free quarters on the barony; and if——"

"They belonged to Dalyel's Grey dragoons. They were withdrawn by the decree of Council; and I heard their kettledrums beating through the city this evening."

"'Tis well. Then we will return by coach, as it would be unseemly to do so on foot. We have long incommoded you, my poor Elshender."

"Gude, your ladyship, think not of it," replied Elsie; "all I hae is yours, and mair would be if I had it. I and mine ate of your bread and drank of your cup in prosperity, and may shame and dishonour fall on our grey hairs if in adversity we fail in our duty to the Napiers o' Bruntisfield!" Elsie wept: "and you especially, Hab, ye mickle gomeral, wi' the king's cockade in your bonnet!"

"Burganet, ye mean, Lucky; we soldiers of the king wear braw burganets of bright steel."

"But these are fearfu' times, my lady, when the superior is beholden to the vassal for a roof to cover them, and a mouthfu' o' meat; but think o't, madam; the auld house is dark and empty, and the auld survitors are scattered owre the barony among the tenantry, and the keys o' the barbican gate are owre the muir wi' the ground baillie, auld Sym o' the Greenhill."

"That loitering runnion should have been the first to present himself before us!" exclaimed Lady Grizel; "but I care not; let Hab and Meinie accompany us now, for our attire is too unseemly for appearance in daylight. I am impatient to return; for O, Elsie, thou knowest well this night is the old returning anniversary of my marriage and the laird's death, and dost think I will spend it under another roof than that of Bruntisfield, if I can avoid it?"

"Of course not, my lady—but ewhow! I'll be alone in this auld cot, to be scared by spunkies or gyre earlins, for there is no' a place in a' the Lowdens for deid-lichts, bodochs, and unco' things, like the auld massemongers' kirk doun the loan there."

"Peace, Elsie! and remember that there lie the bones of the Napiers for ten generations. Lay the bible on the table when we go," said Lady Grizel, with solemnity, "and place a four-leaved clover and rowan-tree sprig over the fireplace, and, dost hear me, Elshender, lay the poker and shovel crosswise above the gathering peat—"

"Crosswise?" muttered Elsie; "doth not that pertain to the auld papistical leaven o' idolatry?"

"It doth, I own, but the sign of the cross is a right good charm against the machinations of the evil one. You must have found that one made with red chalk on the bed-head, keepeth away both cramp and nightmare. My honoured mother used these marks, and by advice of Quentin, the abbot of Crossregal. O, Elshender, that is a long, long time ago, yet I mind it as yesterday."

"Cocksnails!" muttered Hab; "a jovial stoup of Barbadoes kill-devil were a far better charm, and I douot not the abbot would have thought so too, eh, Master Fenton?"

"Dear nurse," said Lilian, "surely one so harmless and so pious as thee need fear nothing."

"Had ye heard the bummel o' the fairy boy's drum amang the lang grass in the loan and the stocks o' the hairst fields, brave though your bluid be, Lilian, it would turn, even as water. But if Lady Grizel requireth service of Hab and Meinie, it beseems no' the wife o' auld John Elshender to grudge it. Mony a year I have dwelt here, lang before the mirk Monanday, and ne'er saw aught that was unco, but I canna get owre my fears, though there is a horseshoe on the door where my puir gudeman nailed it forty years ago; there is a sprig o' rowan-tree owre the lintel, and the heart o' an elfshotten nowte, birselled wi' wax, and stuck fu' o' pins under the door step."

"A grand charm, Elsie," said Lady Grizel gravely; "no evil thing can enter or prevail against it."

"And so with these notable allies, gudewife, you think you will face out the terrors of one night alone?" said Walter impatiently, for soldiering had rubbed off much of that superstition which still exists in Scotland.

"I have courage to do whatever my lady requires o' me as her bounden vassal," replied Elsie sharply; "courage! my certie! young sir, mony a lang year before you saw the light, I learned to look without blenching on steel flashing in my ain kailyard, and battle-smoke rowing owre holm and hollow. A Scottish wife, maun, needs hae courage in thae fearfu' times, when never a day passes without a son, a gudeman, or a brother having to buckle on steel cap and corslet whenever the laird cries, 'Mount and ride!' How mony a time and oft has the bale fire at Libberton-peel, and the cry o' 'Horse and spear!' made my douce gudeman crawl out frae his cosy nest in that bein boxbed, wi' a heavy curse on the English, the nonconformists, or malignants (or whaever kept the countryside astir for the time), then donning morion, jack and spear, he rode awa, de'il kens where, at Sir Archibald's bidding, for they were aye together in drumming and dirdum, trooping and travelling, hunting and hosting, sic as may we never see again! But alake! there is a whisper gaing owre the land, that waur is yet to come than the wildest persecutor could think o'."

"Beard o' Mahoun!" said Hab impatiently, "you are at your weary auld-world stories again. Let all bygones be forgotten, mother, and as for the trooping and tramping of those days, when my faither rode by laird's bridle, God send we may soon have the same again! But if our Lady means to return to the old place to-night, the sooner she sets out the better."

"True, Halbert," said Lady Grizel, "for the hour waxes late; but," she added, striking her cane on the floor, "we will require a coach, for, late or early, we must return in such state as befits us."

"Hab," said Walter, "hurry to the Portsburgh, and desire the master of the inn there immediately to send his hackney coach (I know he keeps one), with horses to drag it, and link-boys conform."

"He is a dour auld carl, I ken," replied Hab, throwing off his bandoleers, and preparing to start. "Our inquartering there a month ago, has neither improved his temper or gudewill. It will be the dead hour of night when I tirl his pin, and he may refuse to obey me."

"Then show him the blade of your sword," said Walter: "'tis the best badge of authority to an insolent boor."

"But the auld buckie, though round as a puncheon, of Rhenish, can handle backsword and dagger, double and single falchions like any French sword-player; and look ye, Mr. Fenton, though a bare blade passed well enough in the Low Countries under Condé, or in the west under Claver'se, it will not do at all within sound of the Iron Kirk bell."

"Right, Halbert; we have neither law nor reason for browbeating the poor vintner; but faith, our living so long at free quarters has imparted to us a somewhat imperious mode of requiring service at all hands. Get the coach as you may, Hab, but be speedy."

"And Hab, my son," cried Elsie with anxiety, "keep the middle o' the gate till ye come to the place o' the Highrigs; and gif ye hear aught like the bummel o' a wee drum amang the lang grass or fauld-dykes by the wayside, neither quicken nor slacken your pace."

"For remember," added Lady Grizel, "it is equally unlucky either to meet or to avoid fairies or evil spirits."

"This cowes the gowan!" exclaimed Hab with a laugh, which awe for the old dame failed to restrain. "Lady Bruntisfield, a lad that hath heard Dunbarton's drums beating the point of war in the face of the Imperialists, need not care a brass bodle for all the fairies and witches in braid Scotland, and Gude kens, but there is plenty o' them—young anes, at least—eh, cousin Meinie?" and suddenly kissing her red cheek, he made a sweeping salute to the others, and sprang from the cottage.

Elsie now remembered that in her alternate joy and anxiety, the usual hospitality had been quite forgotten. Her nappy stone jars of usquebaugh and brown ale, with their attendant quaighs—crystal being then a luxury for the great and wealthy alone—cheese and bannocks of barley-meal were produced, and each person drank the health of all the rest with an air of solemn formality. The strong waters were tasted first for form-sake, and then their horns were replenished with the dun beverage of October, while their stools were all drawn close to the blazing fire, Lady Grizel, in the leathern chair, occupying the centre. Every face beamed with the purest happiness, and none more than that of Walter Fenton, and his handsome dark features, shaded by his clustering hair, glowing in the light of the fire and radiant with joy, formed an agreeable contrast to the paler and more interesting Lilian, whose eyes beamed with vivacity and drollery. Even old Elsie's face became dimpled with smiles, and she whispered in Meinie's ear, that "her auld een had never seen a mair winsome pair" than Walter and Lilian. Low as the whisper was, it reached the ear of the latter, or she divined its meaning, and it covered her with the most beautiful confusion, for to a young girl, there is nothing so indescribably charming, as when first her name is linked with that of a lover.

Though very happy, they were very silent. Lady Grizel was sunk in reverie; Lilian was a little abashed, and Walter, who was turning over his thoughts for a subject to converse on, was becoming more perplexed, until relieved by Elsie's loquacity, which found an ample theme in the terrors of the famous gnome or fairy boy, whose appearance about that time had caused no small consternation in Edinburgh. On the summit of the Calton—as all the gossips of the city were at any time ready to aver on oath—he was heard at midnight beating the role to the fairies, who came forth from under the long dewy blades of glittering dog-grass or heavy docken-leaves, from crannies in the rocks, and mole-tracks in the turf, to dance merrily on the Martyr's rock, in the blaze of the silvery moon. And, worse still, this same devilish gnome, by the clatter of his infernal drum, summoned weekly from the four quarters of heaven, the gyre-carlins and witches to Satan's periodical levée, and often the benighted citizen as he wended up the long and dreary loan from Leith (to which the ruins of a monastery, and a gibbet hung with skeletons, lent additional terrors), paused in dismay, when the din of the enchanted drum rang from the dark rocks on the gusts of the midnight wind, and the troop of gathering hags astride broom-sticks and sprigs from a gallows-tree, swept like a storm through the air, bending strong trees to the earth, laying flat the ripening corn, and rumbling among chimney-heads, making the nervous indwellers cower under the bed-clothes, and tremble in the wooden recesses of their snug box-beds, while they murmured old charms against sorcery and the devil. Other witches of more aquatic propensities, were ferried across Firth and Bay in eggshells, sieves, and milk-bowies, to that damnable conclave, where plots were laid to blast their neighbours' kail or cattle, and work all manner of mischief, as the Records of Justiciary show. On all these appalling facts, Lady Grisel and Elsie descanted with such earnest seriousness, that Walter felt half inclined to shiver with the rest, when the wind rumbled in the chimney as if a flock of gyre-carlins were sweeping past it, to their levée on the Calton, about the bluff black rocks of which Lady Grisel averred emphatically, she had repeatedly seen them swarming in the bright moonlight, like gnats in the summer sunshine; and after evidence so conclusive, we hope nobody will doubt it.

CHAPTER XV.

LOVE AND BURNT-SACK.

HORATIO. 'Tis well, sir, you are pleasant.
LOTHARIO. By the joys
        Which my fond soul has uncontrolled pursued,
        I would not turn aside from my least pleasure,
        Though all thy force were armed to bar my way.
                                                                                        N. HOWE.

The evening of the night described in the preceding chapter had been a glorious one. The giant shadows of the rock-built city were falling from its central hill far to the eastward, and all its myriad casements were gleaming in the light of the western sky, where amid clouds of crimson, edged with gold, the sun's bright disc seemed to rest on the dark and wooded ridge of the Corstorphine hills, from whence it poured its dazzling flood of farewell radiance on all the undulations of the wide and varied scenery. On the vast and dusky mass of the hoary city which presented all the extremes of strong light, and deep retiring shadow, on the great stone crown of St. Giles, on the cordon of towers that girt the castled rock, and the stagnant lake that washed the city's base two hundred feet below, fell full the blood-red lustre of the setting sun.

The same warm tints glared along the western slopes of those bluff craigs and hills that rise to the westward, green, silent, stern, and pillared with basalt, rent by volcanic throes into chasms and gorges; where, though darkness was gathering, the slanting sunbeams shot through, and gilded objects far beyond. The loch, the city's northern barrier, usually so reedy and so stagnant, now swollen to its utmost marge by recent rains, was dotted by wild ducks and teals, that seemed floating in liquid gold, and like a polished mirror the water reflected its banks with singular distinctness. On one side appeared the inverted city, where gable, tower, and bartizan shot up so spectral, close, and dense, that it seemed like one vast fairy castle; on the other, a lonely and grassy bank dotted with whins, alder trees, weeping willows, and grazing sheep, while the old square tower of St. Cuthbert, rising above a clump of firs at one end of the loch, was balanced by the church of the Holy Trinity and its ancient orchard at the other.

On the northern bank of this artificial sheet of water flocks of crows were wheeling in circles among the furrows, and following the slow-drawn plough; and from the thatched cottages of St. Ninians, that nestled close to the ruins of an ancient convent, the smoke arose in long steady columns, and unbroken by the faintest puff of wind soared into the evening sky, and melted away into the blue atmosphere.

The last rays died away on the cathedral spire, and Arthur's round volcanic cone; the last wayfarer had been ferried across the loch, and had disappeared over the opposite hill; successively the seven barriers of the city were closed for the night, and then the evening bell from the old wooden spire of the Tron rang on the rising wind. Though this evening had been a beautiful one, and all the gayer denizens of the city had flocked to the Lawnmarket and Castle Hill (then the only and usual promenades), the tall feather and laced mantle of Lord Clermistonlee had not been seen there.

From the windows of his chamber-of-dais he had long been surveying the view before described, but in one feature of it alone he seemed most interested. It was, where to the westward above the open fields named Halkerstoun's Crofts, he saw the smokeless chimnies of his empty, dismantled, and deserted mansion of Drumsheugh, which for many a year had been abandoned to a venerable colony of rooks and owls. The broad acres of fertile land that spread around it were now no longer his. Successively haugh, holm, farm, and onsteading, mill, and field had passed away to the possession of others, and of the noble estate acquired by his ancestors, and which he had gained as a dower with his fair cousin Alison, nothing remained but the silent and dreary mansion, which was fated soon (by his pressing necessities) to pass into other hands. To Clermistonlee this was the leading feature of the landscape, and long and fixedly he surveyed its square stacks of dark old chimnies that rose above the bare and leafless woods.

The expression of his face was fierce and unsettled; his cheek was deeply flushed; but that might be attributed to the briskness with which he and his gossip Mersington had pushed the tankard between them since dinner. They were both deep drinkers, and in the old Edinburgh fashion it was no uncommon thing, for his Lordship (when he gave a dinner party) to lock the room door, and in presence of his guests send the key flying through the barred window into the Norloch, thereby intimating that there could be no egress until the last of a long array of flasks, which Juden mustered on the buffet, was drained to the bottom; after which the door was unhinged, and all the guests were carried home by their servants in chairs or shoulder high.

One hand was thrust under the ample skirt of his shag dressing-gown; the other drummed on the window panes; but a stern expression gathered on his broad and lofty brow, and sparkled in his deep-set hazel eyes.

Mersington sat near the cheerful fire. His weazel-like visage was radiant at times with a malicious smile, which briefly gave way for one of sincere pleasure, each time he applied to his thin and ever thirsty lips the tankard of burnt sack, which his affectionate hand never quitted for a moment. His mighty senatorial wig—the badge of his wisdom and power—hung on the chair-knob behind him, and his bald pate shone like a varnished ball in the evening twilight. His pale grey eyes wore their usual expression, by which it was impossible to detect whether he was drunk or sober; but they often wandered to a panel opposite, where the following was chalked in a bold irregular hand.

His honor the Laird of Holsterlee bets the Right Honourable Lord Clermistonlee £10,000 of gude Scots monie payable at Whitsuntide—his mear Meg against Fleur de Lysy or Royal Charles. To be run at Easter on the sandis of Leith, God willing.

"Forsooth! you are a proper man to start from the board, and turn your back on a guest thus," said Mersington. "Whistle a bar o' that oure again.

"There was a clocker, it dabbit at a man,
And he dee'd wi' fear,
And he dee'd wi' fear——"

"Perdition, man!" exclaimed the other, wheeling so briskly round, that he startled his guest in the act of taking another long deep draught. "How can you jest with my distress? I tell thee, friend Mersington, if the lands of Bruntisfield and the Wrytes, on which I have built my hopes, slip through my fingers thus, I may yet come to the husks and the swine-trough, like the prodigal of old. Behold my manor of Drumsheugh on the brae yonder; for these ten years a puff of smoke hath not curled from its chimneys; the moss is on its hearths, and cobwebs obscure the gilding of its galleries and chambers: the long grass waves in the avenue as it doth in the stable-court, where my good and careful father mustered eighty troopers in jack and plate the night before Dunbar was fought and won by Cromwell. My ancient tower of Clermiston is in the same condition, and both are mortgaged to that prince of scribes and scoundrels, Grasper, the Writer in Mauchin's Close. This match with Holsterlee, too! S'blood! Juden says the mare is elfshotten, and our best jockies opine that I can never win against Holster's racers, which have won the city purse these five years consecutively."

"As for the race—he, he! to be off wi' the Laird, swear your mare hath been bewitched, and burn some auld carlin in proof o't."

"That Clermistonlee can never come to want, as his friend the de'il has given him a braw purse, with moudieworts' feet on't, and sae lang as he preserves it, he shall never lack siller."

"I hope sae, for just sic a purse brought the learned Doctor Fian to stake in 1590. I've read the ditty against him—he, he! but to come to the swine-trough, that would be an unco pity, you have such a braw taste for getting up dinners and suppers, that his grace the gourmand o' Lauderdale was just naething to ye."

"Say rather Juden Stenton, my ground baillie, major domo, squire of the body, and everything."

"Then your burnt sack is just perfection; but alake! you now begin to see the end o' chambering, dicing, drinking, racing, and wantonness. And puir Alison Gifford—faith, you made her tocher flee fast enough!'

"This admonitory tone becomes thee well!" said Clermistonlee, with scornful emphasis; "and truly, thou art like one of Job's comforters."

"He, he!" chuckled the senator, who had a strange fancy for maliciously stinging his companion. "This is the end o' spending puir Alison's money among horse-coupers, vintners, panders, de'ils-buckies, and bona-robas——"

"Hold, Mersington! I beg you will hear me with gravity. My good cousin and gossip, at times I have found your advice of the first value. You know how immensely fond I am of Lilian Napier, and having been pretty fortunate with the sex in my time (crush me! like What-is-his-name, I might say, Veni, vidi, vici,) I made the little minx an offer of marriage, and, would'st believe it? she really had the impudence to reject me."

"Forsooth, only because I was a matter of some twenty years older than herself."

"Pshaw! I could soon have that broken. Lady Grisel hath the life-rent, and after her death (which cannot be far off), and failing the captain, the Lands go entire to Lilian. Now her cousin, this gay spark in the service of their Mightinesses, the States-General, by his leaguing and intriguing with that Dutch intromitter, Orange William and our rascally recusants, hath made the entail null—a dead letter—ha!"

"Faith, Randal, if you get your claws laid on the Bruntisfield barony, the rents thereof will puff your purse out brawly for a time. But alake! it's like a sieve that aye rins out—ever filling, but never full. Bethink ye, man, there is the auld mansion having the right of dungeon, pit and dule-tree, wi' the grange, mains, yards, orchards, stables, doo-cot, bake and brewhouses pertaining thereunto (o'd I've the haill inventory by heart). The four merk land o' auld extent named Nether Durdie bounded by the Burghloch—the fishings o' that water, the rigs, rowme and holm o' Drumdryan, wi' the farm-toun to the eastward thereof holden o' the city for ane crown-bowl o' punch yearly, and ane armed man's service, and whilk payeth 57 bolls o' wheat, twa firlots o' barley, forty and aught o' aitmeal, 64 gude fat capons, and sae forth—my certie! by twa women being relaxit frae the horn you have lost a' that, and deil kens how mickle mair."

"Fool—fool! this croaking maddens me!" exclaimed Clermistonlee, starting a second time from the table, and pacing about the room.

"Come—come, my Lord," said Mersington, putting on his wig; "he—he! ye may huff and hector at Juden as ye please, but these are hard words for a Swinton to swallow."

"I crave your pardon, gossip, but why torture me thus? I must have some signal and terrible revenge on Dunbarton for his interfering with me in this matter. Could we not bring him under suspicion of the Council?"

"It would be wiser to let him alone. You would have his chief, the Marquis of Douglas, and every one of the name on ye like a nest o' hornets, for they are a proud and thrawart race, that winna thole steering. Ye maun train your hawks at other lures. Od's fish, man! his mad musqueteers would sack and slaughter the haill city."

"And Fenton!" continued the Lord, grinding his teeth, "I would travel to Jericho to have him within reach of my rapier—I would, d—n me—to pull his nose off! What a ravelled hesp is my fortune! My wounded hand, too——"

"Hee, hee! how can you expect it to heal, when the haill blude in your body is turning into burnt sack and sugared brandy?"

"It has kept me from prosecuting this affair. But I am getting desperate, Mersington; between love of the girl, lack of her lands, and fear of poverty, nothing now can save me but a dash."

"Spoken like yoursel—like the wild Randal Clermont o' 1670. But what do ye propose?"

"Hee, hee! abduction, reif, and felony, anent whilk see the acts of the seventh parliament of James V. and James VI. Parliament twenty-first, chapter fourth—hee, hee! these would bear hard on your case, my birkie."

"Pshaw! am not I, too, a Lord of the Parliament? so, friend Mersington, reserve this musty jargon for the Hall of the Tolbooth. How often hath a Scottish baron with his band ridden to its threshold with jack and spear, and while his trumpets blew defiance at the Cross, laughed the fulminations of the three estates to scorn!"

"Ye mean mad Bothwell, with his thousand spears; but Clermistonlee, wi' his man Juden, would cut a sorry figure riding up the gate on the same errand."

"It canna be sae bad in law, as abducting that dour auld carle, Durie the Lord President, whom a mosstrooping loon, by orders o' Traquair, carried off bodily, across his saddlebow, frae the dreary Figget whins, and warded for sax calendar months in the vault o' a Border peel. For my part, I have hated the name o' womankind since my Lady Mersington had me fined a thousand merks Scots, for that damned conventicle whilk, in my absence, she held on my lands. But Gude be thanked, I had my vengeance, by having her banished the liberties of the city, for hearing that Recusant runion Ichabod Bummel preach, whilk rid me and a' Bess Wynd o' her eternal clack. Faith, Clermistonlee, ye are welcome to abduct her, gif ye please, he, he!"

"I thank you, gossip, but beg to decline," said Clermistonlee, draining his tankard of sack; "but to show thee, most learned senator, the value and veneration I bear those acts you have just cited, I shall this very night carry off Lilian Napier, whom, my spies inform me to be concealed somewhere to the south of the town. O, by all the devils, I'll easily find the place. My blood's up; I will make my fortune to-night, or mar it for ever."

His sallow cheek glowed, his dark eye flashed, and taking a very handsome pair of pistols from the mantelpiece, he began to load them with great deliberation having previously summoned his faithful rascal Juden, by furiously ringing a handbell.

"What's in the wind now, my Lord?" he asked, rubbing his eyes, having been abruptly summoned from an afternoon nap.

"You will learn ere long," said his lord with a sternness that made the bluff butler's eyes to dilate with surprise; "but see that you are as prompt to act as to ask questions. You must bear a message from me to the Place."

"Saddle a horse, ride round the loch, and tell her that the young lass she wots of will be there to-night, and that she must have some of the old rooms in the north wing, those that overlook the rocks, prepared for her reception."

"What, the wench whom Holsterlee took off my hands, the same. You stare oddly—dost hear me fellow—art thou sober?"

"Then hear me and obey. Desire this hag, Beatrix, to have all prepared for my fair one's reception—fires lit and tapestry brushed, and, on peril of thine own life, be speedy and secret. Tarry neither there nor by the way, as I will want thee when the town drum beats at ten o'clock."

"She's an uncanny body, Lucky Gilruth, though I mind the time when there was not a bonnier lass in a' the Lowdens," said Juden, scratching his rough chin with undisguised perplexity; "but now, the auld wrinkled hizzie, she deserves the tar barrel as weel as lucky Elshendder."

"It is a lonesome and eerie road across Halkerstoun's crofts by the lang gate, and on such an errand to such a woman, with the mirk night coming on——"

"Blockhead! thou hast been guzzling in the wine cellar. Begone, or I will beat thee; but first have the mare saddled as well as the horse, and procure a good link, and fail not when the drum beats. I will ride the Duke, 'tis a strong old trooper, and used to carrying double—hah! Away, away, and on peril of thy life, speak of this to no man."

"Ay, my Lord, a fidging mear should be weel girded—now then hoe! for the Place."

Juden drained a wine cup that his master handed him, and in five minutes more, the mare's hoofs rang on the causeway of the steep wynd, and died away as he descended into the deep gorge; under Neil's Craigs, wheeled through the Beggar's Row, and ascended the opposite bank.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE TEN O'CLOCK DRUM.

DU CHATEL. The gates stand open; no man shall molest you.
Count Dunois, follow me—you gain no honour in lingering
here.

RAIMOND. Seize on this moment! the streets are empty,—
Give me your hand.
SCHILLER'S MAID OF ORLEANS.

Clermistonlee was well aware that the forcible abduction of a young lady of family (or quality, according to the phraseology of the time), would create no small degree of indignation against him; but confiding in his rank, and in the influence of the powerful faction to which he belonged; aware that never could he otherwise obtain possession of Lilian's person, and ultimately her property, goaded by dread of poverty rather than avarice, inflamed by his own wild fancies and irregular passions rather than by love, and spurred on by the taunts and advices of the half cunning and wholly malicious Mersington, he sat longing with the utmost eagerness for the time of action, the tuck of the ten o'clock drum, after the beating of which, all within the city walls usually became so silent and still. He knew also that the family of Napier had experienced a severe shock by their recent forfeiture, and a squadron of Dalyel's dragoons being quartered on their estate for three weeks past, and being yet under hiding (as the term was), the abduction of Lilian could be more easily executed; and if once within the barred doors and grated windows of his desolate mansion on the rocks at Drumsheugh, or the massive chambers of his still more lonely tower on Clermiston Lee, Lilian might bid farewell equally to mercy and to hope.

Aware of the lonely situation of Elsie's cottage on the verge of the great Burghmuir, fully two Scottish miles from the city cross, and knowing that the locality was always deserted after dusk, in consequence of the unsettled nature of the times, and a horde of footpads who infested the remnants of its forest and the deep quarries and moss-haggs through which the roadway wound, and which, independent of a gibbet, a ruined church and graveyard, deterred all and sundry, after the city gates were closed, from travelling that way after dusk—considering all those things, the noble roué had no doubt of being able to fire the little cottage, and, in the confusion, to bear away Lilian across his saddle-bow. And to cast suspicion in another quarter, he had desired Juden to have a bonnet or two, a grey maud and a bible, to leave on the road close by, that the odium of the outrage might fall on the houseless Cameronians who lurked among the hills to the southward.

Tipsy as he was, when the time approached for Clermistonlee setting forth, Lord Mersington had still sense remaining to say,

"Tak' tent, Randal, my man—hee, hee!—bide ye a wee, ere worse come o't. You may bring king, council and parliament about your lugs for this, and the Foulis o' Ravelstone, Congaltoun o' that ilk, and Merchiston himsel will swarm like a hornet's nest, and 'Horse and spear!' will be the cry through half the country side—he, he!'

"Curses on thy everlasting chuckle!" muttered the other between his teeth, as with fierce impatience he thrust his brass-barrelled pistols into his embroidered girdle. "What the devil are Ravelstone or Congaltoun to me? If the worst comes, 'tis but flying to the west highlands till the affair blows over. I can count kindred with some of the best who bear the name of Campbell."

"Kindred that will truss ye wi' a tow, and hand ye over for twenty merks to the first macer or corporal of horse that the Chancellor sends after you. Remember how Assynt served Montrose thirty-eight years ago?"

"But true blue whigamores withal—hee, hee! and brawly you'll look coming up the Netherbow in a cart like Montrose, puir fellow! wi' the town halberds bristling round ye, and Pate Pincer wi' his axe maybe, and our noble friend Perth sitting in the Lower Chamber wi' his finger on the acts of James the Vth and VIth, anent wilful fire-raising—hee, hee! and as for the lassie——"

"My Lord, this is intolerable stuff!" said Clermistonlee, shrugging his shoulders; "you cannot be so young a politician as not to perceive that a storm is approaching, which will crush and confound together all the factions that now distract the land, and keep our swords for ever by our sides. All men see it—else whence this muster of troops and din of preparation on both sides of the Border."

"Yes, amid which, if we can hold our own bonnets on our heads, we will be clever fellows, Swinton."

"'The Lowlands of Holland,' as the song says," replied the cavalier lord, drawing himself up with a scornful smile.

"Wheesht!—hee, hee, hee!" chuckled the other, waving one hand warningly, while burying his rat-like visage in the sack tankard to hide the cunning smile of intelligence that spread over it. "Harkee, Randal, whare'er the de'il be laird, you'll be tenant—hee, hee!'

"I value a crash in politics at the worth of a brass tester, and bid hail to the days of hard blows and buff coats. Ha! ha! I may pick up a marquisate in the scramble," laughed Clermistonlee, flapping his hat over his eyes. "You will not accompany me to-night, being scarcely cavalier enough for this kind of work."

"Hoots, man, a double-gowned senator of the College of Justice, a Lord of Council and Session, aiding and abetting in wilful fire-raising! Doth not the act say, 'Quha cummis and burnis folk in their housis will be guilty o' treason and lese-majestie?' and as for running off wi' the lassie Lilian, that is clearly a kidnapping o' the lieges, whilk, according to Skene and Sir Thomas o' Glendoick——"

"Gossip Mersington, there are overmuch wine and law in thee to-night to leave room for common sense. Ha! there goes the ten o'clock drum, and that loitering villain has not yet returned!"

He threw open a window that faced the south, where the black mansions of the Netherbow towered up from the steep hill at the foot of which his house was situated. The sound of a distant drum, beat in slow, regular, and monotonous measure, was heard on the wind at intervals, as a drummer of the Civic Guard (an old corps of Scottish gensd'armes, which existed from the fatal day at Flodden until 1818,) ascended St. Mary's Wynd, his usual nightly round, after having descended the Bow, and beat along the once lordly and fashionable Cowgate, where kings have feasted royally, and where Scottish nobles and the ambassadors of foreign powers were wont to dwell—but now the hideous abode of misery and crime, and long since abandoned to the dregs of mankind. On strode the drummer, and the gates of the Netherbow revolved back at his approach: as he passed under its double towers, its picturesque spire and high embattled arch, the great street of the city, wide and lofty, but dark and deserted, rang to the same monotonous chamade and all its echoing closes, broad paved wynds and old arcades of wood or stone, its circular stairs and oaken outshots gave back a thousand reverberations as "the ten o'clock drummer" strode on, until reaching the Town Guard House, where he finished his perambulation of the ancient Royalty by a long and loud ruffle, which scared the vultures from the skulls that mouldered on the parapets of the prison, startled the rooks in the gothic diadem of St. Giles, and made all its hollow vaults and high arched aisles, where the dead of ages lie, give back the warlike sound.

The drum rang loudly as it passed the archway that led to the lodging of Clermistonlee, who threw down the window with a crash, exclaiming,

"Malediction on my messenger—I must mount and ride without him. Hah! here comes the loitering rascal in time to save his shoulders from a stout truncheoning."

A horse's hoofs rang in the courtyard; Juden's heavy boots clattered on the pavement as he dismounted and ascended to the chamber-of-dais, puffing, panting, and looking very pale and disconcerted.

"So-so, fellow," said the irritated lord, "it has pleased you to return at last."

"Fie, Juden!" said Mersington, "a fou-man' and a fasting horse, should hae come faster home hee, hee!"

"Then to be plain wi' your Lordship, I canna thole the auld Place after nightfa'? I aye think o'—think o'——"

"O' puir Leddy Alison," whined Juden, half in sorrow, and half in spite. "Eh, sirs! but the auld Place o' Drumsheugh is fu' o' her memory, and I seemed to hear her sweet low voice in every sough o' the auld aik trees, and to see her shadow in every glint their branches threw on the moonlighted avenue and auld grey house."

"Fool, fool," said Clermistonlee in a subdued voice, "you speak as if she had been murdered."

"Poor Alison!—so gentle and unreproaching," said the lord in a low musing voice, "Alison—once that name was ever on my lips—her presence was ever with me, and her idea raised a rapture in this hollow heart, to which it has since been a stranger. Yes, my love was a very true one."

"Of course," rejoined the other, recovering himself. "I loved her to distraction once; or thought so, and by all the devils, 'tis quite the same thing. She is dead now, and peace be with her; but peril of thy life, Juden Stenton, trouble me no more with such untimely elegies. And pray, Master Morality, how have you dared to loiter away these two hours past?"

"Ask that elfshotten Mear Meg?" said the butler, testily. "Either the cantrips o' Beatrix Gilruth, or Lucky Elshender (baith o' whom are weel deserving o' the branks and tar barrel, Mersington), hae clean bewitched that puir beast. May I never lay head on a pillow to-night, if I wasna' spell-bound on Halkerston's Crofts, where I continued to ride and spur, wi' the black Calton looming in front and St. Cuthbert's kirk behind! but I never neared the one, or got further from the other; and yet Meg was fleeing like the wind, or as fast as ever she did for city purse or king's plate on the sands o' Leith. The night was dark: a cauld wind swept owre the crofts, and soughed among the kirkyard yews and lang nettles by the drystane dykes; red lights gleamed in the runnels that bummel down the brae side, and redder stars were shooting in the lift. A cauld perspiration burst owre me, every hair bristled under my bannet——"

"Patience, my Lord," groaned poor Juden. "I kent there was a spell on me, and I tried to say some holy word or name; but, as the deil would hae'd, the sounds aye stuck in my throat; and there I sat, sweating and trembling, and spurring a galloping nag that never progressed; and there indubitably I must hae been until cockcrow, if I hadna——"

"Made a grasp at a rowan tree that grew near, and pu'ed a bunch o' the last year's berries, when lo! the charm was broken, and Meg shot awa like the wind—and I cleared the lang gate as if the Paip and the Deil were behind me."

"And dost think, rascal, that I believe one word of this precious Tale of a Tub, foisted up to deceive me, for time spent in the village change-house yonder! Ha, knave! remember the old saw—Good wine makes a bad head and a long story."

"My Lord, as I left the place, auld Gilruth cried, 'A safe ride to ye, Juden,' and her eldritch laugh is yet dingling in my lugs."

"That makes it a clear case o' withcraft," mumbled Mersington, who was now very tipsy. "He-he!—we'll hae the carlin before us in the morning, Juden. Ay, my Lords (macers, silence in court!), this is as clear a case o' witchcraft as ever came before us—and the Act under Queen Mary (puir woman) anent sorcery bears just upon it. Your Lordships will remember," continued the senator, who thought himself on the bench, "the cases o' Isabel Eliot and Marion Campbell, twa notorious witches, who, for renouncing their baptism, and dancing a jig wi' the deil, were burnt at the Cross wi' ten others in the September o' seventy-eight, for whilk see the Record o' Justiciary—hee-hee, a braw bleeze!"

"I will show a blaze on the Burghmuir to-night worth a dozen of it—ha, ha!" laughed Clermistonlee, as he drew on his voluminous boot-tops of stamped maroquin with silver bosses.

"O'd, Clermistonlee, do ye really mean to burn Elshender's cottage?" asked Juden with delight.

"If the auld witch is bed-ridden," said he, "it will save the Provost a bundle o' tar-barrels, forbye a pock o' peats."

"And perhaps cure those spells which you think the hag hath cast upon my best nag? And so, Mersington, you will not ride with us to-night?"

"Then your learned Lordship forgets one notable point of our old Scottish law, by which a guest becomes the bounden ally of his host."

"True; but only if loons come against him wi' harness on—boden in effeir o' weir, as the Acts have it."

"As the chase after Lilian may be a hot one, omit not to spread most industriously that I am gone to the west, to England, to the devil, or any where, to put them off the right scent—ha, ha! while I am luxuriating in the smiles of Venus in the recesses of my snug old house over the hill there. Dost hear me? By Jove, he's very drunk. Fetch me a tass of brandy and burnt sugar, Juden."

It was brought immediately, in one of those long glasses then made at the citadel of Leith. It set Clermistonlee's impatient blood on fire.

"Another for thyself, Juden, and then to horse, and away. Your servant, gossip Mersington: if unfortunate, you will see me in the course of to-morrow; if otherwise, the devil knows when. Marriage and hanging go by destiny—so do all other things—with a hey lilleu and a how lo lan."

"Aye-aye, awa ye neer-do-well—ye deil's buckie—I'll stay and keep the terrier company. The sack is glorious—the English port auld as the mirk Monanday a' sixteen hunder and fifty-twa—a-clear case o' sorcery, your Lordship—o' dark dealing wi' the great enemy o' mankind—hee-hee!—and woman kind baith."

His head sank forward on his wine-bespattered cravat, and the senior senator of the College of Justice fell fast asleep.

CHAPTER XVII.

CLERMISTONLEE MAKES A SAD MISTAKE.

But if this young lady will marry you, and relieve us, O my conscience! I'll turn friend to the sex, and rail no more at matrimony.—THE LYING VALET.

Issuing from a private gate in the northern flank of the city wall, at the foot of the court attached to his mansion, the Lord and his staunch follower mounted in a narrow lane, overhung on one side by gloomy trees, and on the other by the ancient hospital of the Holy Trinity. The great oriel, or triple window of its church was then faintly lighted by the beams of the rising moon, the silver disk of which seemed to rest on the sable ridge of Arthur's Seat. They passed through the Calton, then a straggling burgh, consisting of antique houses of Flemish aspect, but occupied by a very inferior class of citizens, and entered the long and solitary path called Leith Loan, which was formed by an ancient trench of the Great Civil Wars; hollowly rang their horses' hoofs between the black rocks of the Calton on one hand, and the steep bank of St. Ninian on the other, where the ivied and shattered walls of a convent presented in the bright moonlight a striking variety of light and shade.

To avoid every chance of recognition or surprise, Clermistonlee thus made a complete circuit of the city, leaving it on the side opposite to the scene of his operations. The night soon became as cloudy and dark as he could have wished it, for, as the fitful moon became involved in opaque masses of vapour, every object was rendered obscure and indistinct. On one side of the way lay the lake, like a sheet of ink, and beyond it rose up the stupendous cliffs and ramparts of the castle, and the gigantic outline of the city towering like a mighty bank of cloud, through which the lights of distant casements glimmered like far and fitful stars. On the other side spread open fields and solitary farms; the castles of the Touris of Inverleith, the Kincaids of Warriston, and two or three small and lonely hamlets.

"Clermistonlee," began Juden, closing up to his master as the Long Gate became darker and more lonely, for the cottages of St. Ninian were now far behind; "If the auld witch, Elshender, by kecking through a spule bane should divine our errand, our riding will be to little purpose I reckon. She is an unco uncanny body, Lucky Elsie, and though her gudeman was a trooper, and did richt leal service in King Charles' wars, I would fain see her brought to the tar-barrel, for, wow, but I hate an auld blench-lippit, long-chaffit, sunk-eyed carlin, as I do sour ale or the deil."

The Lord vouchsafed no reply to these sapient remarks, and Juden, feeling somewhat uneasy at his silence, the darkness, and their vicinity to the old Cross-kirk of St. Cuthbert, with its great square central tower and broad burial grounds, studded with mossy tombstones and slabs half sunk in the long reedy grass, spurred nearer and spoke again.

"And then to think o' Meg, puir beastie! to fa' ill o' the wheezlock, the malanders, and deil kens a' what, the very night ye trampled down that auld cummer's kailcastocks, and wi' this match wi' Holsterlee to come off at Easter! Troth, my Lord Mersington has thumbscrewed and tar-barrelled scores o' auld besoms on the half o' sic evidence o' malice, and ungodly ill will. And I would beg o' you to gie Mersington a hint, that she was the gossip of Helen of Peaston, who was burned ten years byegone. Od's fish! I saw the brodder o' the High Court run his steel pricker thrice into Belzeebub's mark on her bare back—a lang black teat whereat she suckled Hornie's imps, and she neither winced nor skirled. And for what I would like mickle to ken——"

"Doth not this auld deevil, Elshender, deserve the tar-barrel as weel as her neighbour cummer."

"What, if the coach with the skeleton Lady cam' rumbling up Leith loan after us! It is about her hour noo. Burn my beard, if I wadna die o' sheer fright."

"Ay, ay, but ye would sune find the want o' puir auld Juden. Wha would spice the Canary and Rochelle, mull the sack and sugar the brandy like me? Wha then would doctor your nags, break your hounds, and train your hawks wi' leash and lure, and do everything ye can think o', frae birselling a crail capon to backing a troop-horse, and frae brushing your spurleathers, to being your staunch henchman on sic a hillicate errand as this? Hech, Sir! I am picking up my thanks now for standing by ye wi' buff and bilbo on many a stormy day, fighting now for the kirk and then for the king—a bab o' blue ribbons in my bonnet to-day, a cavalier's white feather the morn, just as it suited you to uphold one banner because the other was like to be beaten down."

"Rascal! let these be the last of those impertinent reflections which you permit yourself to make on my conduct. Recollect that as my bounden vassal, my will is thine, my word thy law—enough—and seek not as usual, old Mr. pertinacity, to have the last word with me."

"I am mum, my Lord." Juden checked his horse and fell to the rear in high dudgeon.

Making a complete circuit of the suburbs, they crossed the Burghmuir, where the turrets of Bruntisfield rose above the dark oaks of the olden time. Clermistonlee took a long survey of the stately old mansion and its domain, and greatly refreshed with the noble aspect thereof, pushed on with increased speed.

When they approached the little cottage it was dark and silent as the ruined chapel beside it, and the beechen grove which overshadowed them both. The smoke of the rested night fire curled up pale and grey among the dark copsewood, from the massive clay-built chimney, but there was no other sign of life within. Concealing their horses behind a thick privet hedge, the conspirators approached the cottage, Clermistonlee unrolling an ample rocquelaure of scarlet cloth to throw over Lilian as a muffler, the moment she rushed forth to escape the conflagration.

"Impossible," responded Juden. "Jock, my sister's son, watched the place until mirk night came on. But hear me—one word, my Lord, ere we come to the onset?"

"Would it no be better to ding up the door and carry the lady off before I fire the bit placie, lest the flame bring those who might strike in to the rescue?"

"True, Juden, you speak sensibly for once," replied his master, who staggered a little in consequence of his recent potations, and felt no ordinary excitement as the moment approached, when he hoped to clasp Lilian Napier in his arms, and bear her off in triumph. Clermistonlee had long been the wildest gallant of his time, and in such a desperate affair as this he felt quite in his element.

Poising a large stone aloft, he hurled it against the door with all the impetus he could lend it; but the barrier yielded not. An exclamation, half smothered in the depths of a box-bed, showed that the inmates were sufficiently alarmed by the thundering shock, and poor Elsie lay quaking under the bed-clothes, in full conviction that the devil and his elvish drummer to boot, were about to force an entrance. Again and again Lord Clermistonlee hurled it against the cottage door; but it remained fast as a rock, for several strong bars of wood inserted in the massive wall, gave it all that security which was then as necessary to the hut as to the palace. Juden raised aloft the flaring link, and its light streamed by fits on the thatched roof and whitewashed walls, on the divot seat in front, with woodbine and wild rose-tree clambering above it; on the high beech trees that spread their arms to the night wind, scaring the rooks from their leafless nests, and the sparrows from the thick warm thatch which the blazing link menaced every instant.

"Reif and roist the obstinate yett!" exclaimed Juden, capering as the stone rolled back upon his shins, and Clermistonlee, exasperated by the unlooked-for delay, furiously thrust the link into the heavy thatch. The dense mass smouldered and smoked for an instant, while the dry straw below struggled with the thick stratum of green moss above, till the former prevailed, and a broad lurid flame shot upward, revealing the broad fields and pasture land, the rough dykes and budding hedgerows, the dreary road that wound over the adjacent hills, the far recesses of the beechen grove, bringing forward the knotted branches and gnarled and ivied trunks in strong relief, from the darkness and obscurity of the wooded vista behind. Full on the roofless walls and pointed windows of St. Rocque fell the fitful light, and on the spacious burial ground, where close and thick lay the headstones of those unfortunates who perished in the deadly pestilence of 1645. In a few minutes a mass of blazing thatch fell inwards through the bared and scorched rafters, and a terrific scream ascended from within. Fire now flashed through the little square windows of the cottage, and its whole interior became filled with yellow light; but the door still remained fast, while the shrieks that rang within made Clermistonlee tremble with apprehension.

"Fury and confusion!" he exclaimed, "she may be scorched to death by that flaming mass of thatch! Horror! aid me—fool and villain—to burst in the door! quick, or the accursed Baillie of the Portsburgh with his trainband of souters and wabsters will be on us."

While he was speaking, the cottage door flew open, and, amid a shower of sparks, which she threw from her attire, a female rushed forth in a slate of distraction.

"'Tis she, Juden!" cried Clermistonlee, "'tis she! I could know that purple hood among a thousand!" and rushing forward with a tipsy shout of triumph and rapture, he snatched up the the slight figure, over which his staunch bravo threw the ample and stifling rocquelaure in a manner that showed he had practised it on former occasions, as it effectually prevented her cries from being heard. Tall, strong, and muscular, Clermistonlee with perfect ease placed his fair captive on the croupe of his horse, and, springing into the saddle, gave it the spur so suddenly, that it bounded into the air, and he lost a stirrup.

"Courage, Juden!" he exclaimed, while his heart panted with love and exultation; "to horse and spur for the Place of Drumsheugh—but first assist me—confusion! I have lost a stirrup—quick, varlet, the curb-rein. So, now, look to thy petronel, for, by Jove! I hear a horn blowing somewhere."

Trembling with terror, and shaken furiously by the bounding of his restless horse, the muffled captive lay helpless in his bold embrace. One hand and arm were firmly clasped round her light and shrinking figure, the other held the reins of his powerful horse, which dashed along the road, clearing dyke and hedge at a bound, until gaining the summit of the Burghmuir, where the road was rendered dangerous by the ancient quarries, moss-haggs, and heron-shaws that bordered it.

"My dear Lilian, why will you struggle with me when I tell that your efforts are vain; but fear not, gentle one, I will slacken my horse's speed if you wish it." He spoke with the utmost deliberation and coolness; for he was too much used to such affairs to feel at all puzzled in making an apology; besides, he was very tipsy. "You have long rejected me, dear Lilian, and forced me to this act, for which I crave your pardon with the most abject humility—by all the devils I do! I am not one to stand on trifles, as thou knowest: no, sink me! and if it is in the power of man to bend a woman's will to his, thine shall bend to mine."

This address was in no way calculated to quiet the terrors of his prisoner: his lordship was becoming more and more confused and intoxicated, as every bound of his horse forced into his head the fumes of the wine of which he had partaken so freely; and so he continued in the same strain—

"What dost say, little one—my beloved Lilian I mean—you will struggle, you will scream? Permit me to insinuate, my dear Madam, that it will be worse than useless, for nothing can avail you now but pleasing me; a course I would advise you to pursue forthwith. I know some devilish fine women that would be proud to do it—crush me if I do not! My dearest Lilian, (what was I saying?) I will teach thee to love as I would wish to be loved. My heart and coronet are at your feet—will not sincere love beget love? By all the devils, I know it will! You will pardon all this to-morrow, for I know women forgive all that has love for an excuse; then how much more so you, that are ever so gentle and kind, when other dames are so haughty and cold; d—n them! amen. You think me a wicked ruffian, eh? Zounds! I am not at all so, but a very fine fellow in every respect, though an unfortunate victim of love to thee and fear of a few rascally creditors. My pretty Lilian, in fact I love thee so tremendously, that even the pen of Scuderi could never describe it; and I swear by this kiss, dear Lilian, and this—and this—a thousand furies! where am I?"

He became sobered in a moment, for, on removing the mantle to salute the soft cheek of the girl, instead of beholding, as he expected, the head of a seraph peeping forth from a mass of bright ringlets, lo! a ray of the sickly moon streamed on the hooked nose, peaked chin, grey haired, and smoke-begrimed visage of Elsie Elshender.

"Horror!" exclaimed Clermistonlee, whose rhapsody this terrible vision had cut short.

"Avaunt, hag of hell!" and, trembling in every fibre with rage and disgust, he flung the poor woman from his arms, and goading his horse with the sharp rowels, dashed up the dark and rough Kirk Brae at a break-neck pace; while Juden, totally unable to comprehend what had taken place in front, partly drew up as the female rolled by the way-side, near the gate of the Place of Bruntisfield.

"Awa wi' ye! fie and out upon ye, ye sons o' the scarlet woman!" exclaimed Elsie in great wrath and tribulation, for she soon recovered the use of her tongue. "May a' the plagues of Egypt fa' upon your ungodly heads! May the Lord send cursing vexation and rebuke! Out upon ye! fie, and a murrain upon ye!"

Juden was astonished; but no sooner did he hear her shrill voice, and behold by the moonlight her aged and withered visage, with long tangled hair falling grey around it, than he became seized with a superstitious terror, which the raising of her long skinny arm and crooked finger, as if to curse, completed; and he stayed not to hear the expected anathema.

"The first fuff o' a haggis is aye the hottest, but I'll not bide a second. Tak' that, ye accursed witch, until you are tarbarrelled!" he exclaimed, and fired his long horse pistol full in her face. Poor Elsie fell forward motionless, while Juden, without daring once to look behind him, dashed at full gallop after his lord, who had already crossed Halkerston's Crofts, and was nearing the village of St. Ninian.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE GROWTH OF LOVE AND HOPE.

The lady of my love resides
    Within a garden's bound;
There springs the rose, the lily there
    And hollyhock are found.
An instant on her form I gazed,
    So delicately white;
Mild as a tender lamb was she,
    And as the red rose bright.
                                    LAYS OF THE MINNESINGERS.

It is, perhaps, unnecessary to inform the reader that, thanks to the delay caused by Juden's cunning or superstition, Lord Clermistonlee's intended seizure of Lilian Napier had been attempted an hour too late. This was indeed fortunate. Had it been made earlier, blood and blows and loss of life must have undoubtedly ensued.

Exactly one hour before the unexpected visit which ended in the destruction of Elsie's cottage, and nearly terrifying the poor woman out of her senses, her late guests had all departed in one of those vast and solemn hackney equipages (before described) which crawled away over the Burgh muir like the mighty catafalco of a deceased hero, past the end of the still and waveless Burghloch, and up the dark and gloomy avenue of Bruntisfield, after being nearly an hour in traversing, a space which any modern cab will carry one over in three minutes. Like a true gallant of the day, Walter Fenton stood on the footboard behind, while Hab with his matchlock slung, shared the driver's ample hammer-cloth, so that the ladies and their attendant Meinie (whose delight and wonder at being in such a vehicle must be duly commemorated) were pretty safe from those bold lads of the post who prowled about after nightfall with sword and pistol, making every unarmed citizen who chanced to pass that way, stand and deliver cloak and purse with so cavalier an air, that it was almost impossible to refuse.

With as much formality as if she was entering a conquered city, Lady Grizel received the keys of the barbican gate from her ground-baillie Syme, of the Greenhill, who, bareheaded, with three stout sons, bearing torches, and several of the old servants who had found shelter in Syme's onsteading, and whose clamorous joy burst forth in loud pæans of triumph, as she was led by the baillie into the old baronial chamber of dais, the canopy of which, to the simple "tenant bodies" of those days, was fraught with more terrors than the chair of the Lord President Lockhart.

"A thousand welcomes to your Ladyship," said Symon, bowing profoundly for the twentieth time.

"Thanks, Symon," replied Lady Bruntisfield, giving him her hand to kiss. "I hope your gude wife is well, and that your youngest bairn got over its hooping cough by the means I prescribed."

"A barber-guse! did I not tell ye to pass that afflicted bairn three times through a blackberry bush, whilk is an infallible remedy—but I'll see after it mysel to-morrow."

Lilian wept and laughed, and gave her hands to the servants to kiss, for her heart beat as joyously to find herself under the old ancestral roof, as if she had doubled Cape Horn since she last saw it. She kissed grand-aunt Grizel, and rushed from one dark and silent apartment to another, as if to gladden them by her happy presence, and looked forth with beaming eyes on the waving woods and the long expanse of the placid lake, whose dark bosom gave back the light of a thousand stars, and anon she paused to listen to that old familiar sound, the cawing of the rooks amid those great hereditary oaks, the remnants of the vast forest of Drumsheugh, which, in the days of St. David, surrounded the city and its castle on every side.

Meantime, standing under the old velvet canopy, and leaning on her walking-cane, Lady Grizel was listening with a kindling eye and glowing cheek to her ground-baillie, who poured forth a dismal and exaggerated report of the extortions and outrages committed on her tenantry by Capt. Crichton's troop of the Grey Dragoons, who had carried off all the baillie's own grain, "whilk he had laid up for seed; they had taken the best cow, and a notable nowte from the gudeman of Netherdurdie, and nae less than three bonnie servitor lassies frae the farmtoun of Drumdryan; they had toomed every corn-ark, meal-girnel, and beer-barrel in the barony, forby and attour, extorting riding-money three times owre wi' cockit carbines!" It was a lamentable story, and three energetic taps from the Lady Grizel's cane closed the tale.

She, however, found her own mansion scatheless, save where several drawers and lock-fast places had been forced and damaged during the search of Macer Maclutchy and other underlings in authority, for treasonable papers (and more especially loose cash), while in the cellars an empty runlet or two, and empty flasks in such number that Drouthy the butler surveyed them in silence for ten minutes before he began to swear and count them—bore evidence of the strict search which Sergeant Wemyss and his musqueteers had prosecuted in the lower regions of the house. The news of their lady's return spread to the Home-grange and neighbouring cottages like wildfire, and, half dressed, the good people came crowding to the mansion testifying by repeated acclamations their joy at her return and restoration to rank; for, save the honoured, envied (and, from that moment, hated) Elsie Elshender, none knew where she had been concealed for the past month. It was generally thought that she had fled to England, to the "Lowlands of Holland," or some other "far awa place." The affection which the Scottish tenantry ever manifested for the old families on whose lands they dwelled, whose banner their ancestors had followed, with whose name and fame, and hope, and happiness, or misfortune, their own were so interwoven, and under the wing of whose protection so many generations of their race had lived and died, was a noble sentiment of the purest love peculiar to the nation. It knit together in a manner which we cannot now conceive, the interests of the highest and the lowest—a remnant of the good old patriarchal times, which strongly marked the character of the people, and, like the endearing ties of clanship, was very different from the feudal tyranny that existed in other lands.

Late though the hour, the old house was crowded with glad faces; casks of ale were set abroach by Mr. Drouthy, and every ruddy cheek became flushed with joy and the brown October beverage; every eye was bright and moist; a buzz of happiness pervaded the spacious mansion, and rang in the dark woods around it. But midnight passed; the morning waxed apace, and now the baillie rang the household bell, as a warning for all to retire, and, making an obeisance, bonnet in hand, he set the example by trotting away on his plump Galloway cob.

Walter Fenton, as he had no excuse, (though every wish,) to stay, would have retired with the rest; but this Lady Grizel's hospitality would by no means permit; he remained without much pressing, and after the parting or sleeping cup had been passed round, they separated for the night, and Walter, in the same apartment which had witnessed his combat with Captain Napier, lay down on his couch, not to sleep, but to brood over bright and joyous visions of the future that were never to be realised. One moment his heart glowed with unalloyed rapture and unclouded hope; and the next he was half despairing when he compared his humble fortune with that of Lilian. His whole inheritance was military service: of his family he knew nothing but their name. He was a child of war and misfortune; and these, more than he could foresee, were to be his companions through life. He was poor and obscure; while Lilian, with her artless beauty and girlish sweetness of manner, inherited the name and blood of one of the oldest and proudest houses in the Lowlands—barons to whom the Prestons of Gourton, the Kincaids of Warriston, and the Toweris of that ilk, were but mushroom citizens; and when he pictured the grey old mansion which sheltered him, so tall, so grim, and aristocratic in aspect and association, and the many acres of fertile field, of grassy pasture, and bosky wood that stretched around it, and weighed in the balance his half-pike......

Lovers are the most able of all self-tormentors. His horizon became fearfully overcast, and his bright visions seemed to end in smoke, till hope came again to his aid. Poor Walter! he was now fairly in love, and for the first time; his heart was unhackneyed in the ways of the world, and he knew not that the time might come when, with an inward smile, he would wonder that he ever thought so. But between his own anxious fears, the cawing of the rooks and creaking of the turret vanes, grey morning began to brighten the far off east before he slept.

With the first blush of dawn, old Elspat Elshender arrived with a confused but lamentable history of the disasters and terrors of the night—of how she had been carried away by the devil and Major Weir on a high trotting horse—how claps of thunder had rung around her cottage, and lightning consumed it—and that it was not until she was able to repeat the Lord's Prayer that they assumed the forms of Lord Clermistonlee and his hellicate butler, Juden Stenton, and thereafter vanished in a flash of fire, leaving Elsie among the nettles and whins at the avenue gate.

Lady Bruntisfield, who, seated in her arm-chair, cane in hand, had listened to this wonderful narrative with great gravity, was at no loss to attribute the enterprise to the proper personages, and though the indignation she felt was very great, her alarm and uneasiness were greater. She now saw to what lengths the passion and daring of this rash and profligate suitor might carry him. In consequence of his rank and power, (which the complaints of a hundred old women could never shake,) it was deemed expedient to commit the affair to silence, but to be on their guard, and in future never to go abroad without an armed escort—composed of old Syme the baillie and his sons, or some such stout fellows, with sword and pistol. Meantime, the burning of the cottage (a loss which Elsie deeply mourned, for there she had dwelt a wife and widow for more than forty years,) was attributed by some to the outcast Cameronians who lurked among the whins of Braid, and by others to certain malicious spunkies who then inhabited the morasses to the westward.

At a late hour next morning Walter awoke. It was now the month of April. The sun shone warmly from a bright blue sky streaked with fleecy clouds that gleamed like masses of gilded snow, as his radiance streamed aslant between them. The grass and the budding trees were heavy with dew, and the merry birds were chirruping and hopping from branch to branch, as if their little hearts rejoiced at the approach of summer. The ravenous gled and the ominous rook were soaring on their dark wings into the azure sky, and their light shadows floated over the still bosom of the loch, scaring the lonely heron that waded in its waters, till piercing up, and farther up they grew mere specks in the welkin, as they flew towards the rising sun. The old mansion, with its tall smoky chimneys and projecting turrets, gleamed cheerily in the red sunlight that streamed down the long shady avenue, where myriads of gad-flies wheeled and revolved in the golden beams as they pierced and shot through the thickening foliage—thickening and expanding under the warm showers and warmer sun of April, the balmy month of fresh leaves and opening flowers, of fleecy clouds and bright blue skies.

The beauty of the spring morning, and the passages of the preceding night, made Walter feel joyous and gay. At his toilet he took more than usual care in folding his cravat of point lace, hooking his coat, of tight and spotless buff, with its bars of silver lace, and in twisting his smart moustachios. His thick dark locks escaped from under a bonnet of blue velvet, adorned with the cross of St. Andrew and a single white feather. His breeches were of red regimental cloth, and his stockings of scarlet silk. A gorget of bright steel, and a long basket-hilted rapier, suspended by a buff shoulder-belt, were his only arms, and he was altogether a handsome and gallant-looking fellow. With a light step, and a lighter heart, he followed the servant, who ushered him into the chamber of dais, where Lilian arose from tinkling on the spinnet, and running towards him with that delightful frankness which made her so charming, bade him good morning.

For the first time since they were children, he found himself alone with her, and the young man felt seriously embarrassed. Lilian seemed so fresh, rosy, and beautiful, the touch of her hand was so gentle and graceful, and the purity of her complexion so dazzling, (exhibiting just enough of red to shew perfect health,) that she might have passed for the goddess of the season. The richness and neatness of her dress did full justice to her round and charming person; a well busked boddice and stomacher of black taffeta, edged round the fair and budding bosom with a deep tucker of rich lace, and short sleeves frilled with deep falls of the same revealed her round and spotless arm, from the dimpled elbow to the slender waist. Her bright glossy hair (Meinie had found her very difficult to please in its arrangement that morning) rolled over her shoulders in massive tresses, perfumed, and tied with a white ribbon, which drew them back from her delicate temples and beautiful ears. A carcanet of Scottish pearls—those found of old on the rocks of Orrock—encircled her neck, and a long sweeping skirt of black satin gave a stateliness to her air, which with the admirable contour of her nose and short upper lip, by their noble yet piquant expression, completed. Her blue eyes were beaming with delight, and a half blush played about her cheek as she glided towards Walter Fenton.

"My dear old friend," said she, after the usual compliments, "I hope you slept well in this poor house of ours, notwithstanding the ghosts that make it their special business to plague all visitors; but after the turmoil of last night, I can hardly doubt it."

"The redness of your cheek, gentle Lilian, shows me that you must have slumbered soundly, and have quite recovered the terrors of the last few weeks."

"O no, I scarcely slept at all, or did so only to dream I was still at poor Elsie's, hiding in the meal girnel. My head is buzzing still with the clamour of the tenantry (are they not all dear folks?) and old Syme of the Hill, with his doleful catalogue of enormities, stoutrief and hamesucken committed by the troopers; and then poor old Elsie with her mishaps! Ah, good Heavens! if it was really the devil that ran off with her! But were not the poor vassals happy last night? O I could have kissed every one of them; and I am so happy, Mr. Fenton, to find myself under this dear old roof again, that I could dance with glee if you would join me. But you, who were so kind when greater friends shunned and forgot us, you who have endured so much contumely for our sake, how can we ever recompense or thank you?"

"By ceasing to remember it as an obligation. O rather view it as a duty!" said Walter, in a low voice. "Madam Lilian, often ere this, I have by intentional remissness of duty, saved many an unfortunate from the dungeon and the cord. But they were poor Recusant Cameronians whose escape was valued as little as their lives.

"As nurse Elsie says, these are indeed fearful times," replied Lilian, laughing; "but truly, when I remember the kind and gentle little Walter I used to play with long ago, I think you must be much too tender hearted for soldiering."

"Under favour, Lilian," said Walter, feeling his heart flutter as she spoke, "a true soldier is ever compassionate; and the hand that strikes down a foe should be the first to succour and protect him when fallen. I am too well aware that in these days of religious persecution and political misrule, the Scottish soldier is often, too often indeed, the instrument——"

"Hush, friend Walter! art not afraid I will betray thee? Have you forgotten that horrid vault, the Tolbooth, and its grim Gudeman?"

"Ah, the rascally clown, I have a crow to pluck with him yet; but I was only about to say, that in these days of ours——"

"Ah, you are about to speak treason again," said she playfully. "I mean to be very loyal, and must not permit you, although there are none here who would betray you, unless it be the old corbies that croak on the chimney head. But come with me, and I will show you their nests in some strange places, I promise you; and I have flowers to visit, and my pigeons too, poor pets! I once thought never to behold them again. Come, Mr. Fenton, your hand; how beautiful the morning is!"

Charmed with her vivacity, Walter became every moment more delighted with Lilian Napier. With a very cavalier-like air which he had acquired among his Parisian comrades of the Musqueteers, who had returned from the French to the Scottish service only ten years before, he hastened to give her his ungloved hand, and they sallied forth into the garden, where the deep rows of Dutch boxwood that edged the walks, the leaden statues of satyrs, swains, and shepherdesses, the gravelled terraces and flights of steps, the old mossy sun and moon dial, and the fantastic arbours, were all in admirable keeping with the quaint old manor house that towered above them. Old John Leekie, the gardener, clad in his coarse sky-blue coat, and long ribbed galligaskins, reverently doffed his broad bonnet, and bowed his lyart head, as his young mistress passed, and patting his shoulder with her hand, bade him a "good morning." The old man's eye brightened as he surveyed the garb and bearing of Walter Fenton, and continued his occupation of hoeing up the early kail, with a sigh;

"For he thought of the days that were long since by,
When his limbs were strong, and his courage was high:"—

"Gentle Lilian," said Walter, colouring deeply as he gazed on the fine old mansion, the walls of which were quite encrusted with coats armorial and quaint legends, "it is when surveying so noble a dwelling as this that I feel most bitterly how hardly fortune has dealt with me."

"Tush, friend! hast never got the better of those old glooms and fancies yet? Read the motto over yonder window; ah! 'tis my dressing-room that," said the lively girl, pointing to a distich in Saxon characters, which was one of the many that adorned the edifice.

"It is very true; but I, who am a soldier, cannot think of those things like a philosopher."

"How numerous are the coats and quarterings here! there is the eagle of the Ramsays, the unicorns of the Prestons, and the saltier of Napier."

"But, Mr. Walter, do you know that Aunt Grizel asserts there is an ancient prophecy which says, that like the Scottish crown, the fortune of our house came with a lass, and will go with one."

"That is—you must understand—you know that," and here poor Lilian became seriously embarrassed, "that it came to the Napiers by marriage from the Wrytes, and by marriage it will go to others."

Walter's heart fluttered; he was about to say something, but the words died on his lips, and there ensued a silence of some minutes; Lilian, who sometimes became very reserved, being abashed by what she had said, and Walter stupidly pondering over it. Lilian was the first to speak.

"See you that old corbie on the branch of the dale tree, that horrid branch, all notched by the ropes of old executions?"

"The same: what think you Aunt Grizel says? He saw my great grandsire and his train in all their harness, ride down the avenue when they marched with brave King James to Flodden."

"By that reckoning he must be—let me see—one hundred and seventy-five years old."

"O, there are some older than that hereabouts; but come to the dovecot, and there we shall see birds of brighter plumes and better augury than these gloomy corbies."

As they approached the dovecot, a round edifice vaulted and domed with stone in the most ancient Scottish fashion, a tame pigeon winged its way from amid the scores that clustered on the roof, and after fluttering for a time over Lilian's head, alighted on her shoulder and nestled in her neck, rubbing its smooth and glossy head against her soft cheek, and even permitting Walter to stroke its shining pinions, which in the sunlight varied alternately from green to purple, and from purple to red and gold. On each leg it had a silver varvel with Lilian's cypher on it. As Walter caressed the beautiful bird, his hand often touched the soft cheek and softer tresses of the happy and thoughtless girl.

"How properly this gentle emblem of innocence and happiness greets you as its mistress."

"And am I not its proper mistress?" asked Lilian artlessly. "It is the bird of peace, too."

"Ah! you are beginning to be waggish now. It is just so that your friend Douglas of Finland—he with the flaunting feathers—addresses my gay gossip, Annie Laurie. You know Annie? She is considered the first beauty in the Lothians, and 'tis said (but that is a great secret, and you must not say I said so) that the young lairds of Craigdarroch and Finland are going to fight a solemn duel about her. She is much taller than me."

"Oh! but I am quite little; you used to call me little Madam Lily once. But her hair is the most beautiful brown."

"I prefer," said Walter, taking up one of Lilian's heavy tresses, "I prefer the colour that approaches to gold."

"Ha, ha!" laughed the merry girl: "harkee, Mr. Fenton, did I not know positively to the contrary, I would think you had been in France."

"Because," said she, roguishly, with half-closed eyes, "you twist all one's speeches into compliments so readily and bluntly, and so quite unlike our douce Scots' gallants (who always let slip the opportunity while they are making up their minds), that you quite remind me of Monsieur Minuette, who came here with the Duke of York. Ah, you remember him, with his long sword—how like a grasshopper on a pin he looked; and he tried stoutly with his frightful rigadoon and the bretagne, to put our good old Scottish dances into the shade, and so out of fashion. And yet Aunt Grizel says that, to see the Lady Anne (she that is now princess of Denmark), so tall and stately, and Claverhouse, so graceful and courtly, dancing the Italian vault-step, enraptured every body. O, it it was quite a sight.—But there jangles the house-bell, and now let us hie to breakfast."

Once more she placed her hand in Walter's, and they returned to the chamber of dais, where Lady Bruntisfield, no longer disguised in the humble attire of a cottar, but in all her pristine splendour of perfumed brocade, and starched magnificence of point lace and puffed locks frizzled up like a tower on her stately head, welcomed Walter with a courtesy of King Charles the First's days, and kissed her grandniece.

After a long and solemn grace, the repast began. The most substantial breakfast of these degenerate days would dwindle into insignificance when compared with that which loaded the long oaken table of Bruntisfield House. In the centre smoked a vast urn of coffee, surrounded by diminutive cups of dark-blue china, flanked on the right by a side of mutton roasted, on the left by a gigantic capon; a dish of wild ducks balanced another of trout, both being furnished by the adjacent loch; broiled haddocks, pickled salmon, kippered herrings, pyramids of eggs, and piles of oat and barley-cakes; wheaten loaves and crystal cups of honey were also there; but chief above all towered a vast tankard of spiced ale; beside it stood a long-necked bottle of strong waters to whet the appetite, lest through the eyes it should fairly become satisfied by the mere sight of so many edibles.

At the lower end of the board, the servants were accommodated with bickers and cogues of porridge and milk, which they supped with cutty-spoons of black horn, while two mighty trenchers of polished pewter held the magazines from which they drew their supplies. The custom of domestics sitting at the same table with their superiors was then almost obsolete; but Lady Grizel, whose memories and prejudices went back to the days of King James VI., still retained the ancient fashion, and consequently all her household sat down with her, save two old serving-men in green livery, with her crest on their sleeves: these were in attendance each as an écuyer tranchant, or cutting squire. On the party being joined by the ground bailie, Syme of the Greenhill, who, in consequence of his being a bonnet-laird, was permitted to sit above the salt, the important business of making breakfast proceeded with all the gravity and attention such a noble display deserved. Cheerful and good-humoured, though punctilious to excess, like every noble matron of her time, Lady Grizel Napier did the honours of the feast with that peculiar grace which makes a guest feel so much at home. She never once recurred to late events, but conversed affably on the topics of the day, like Lilian, investing little trifles with an air of interest that made them quite new and charming to Walter; for though aged and failing fast, she still possessed that art so agreeable in a well-bred woman, that even when she talked nonsense, one could scarcely have thought it so; and certainly, when witches, spells, and ghosts were the theme, the wise and gentle King James himself was nothing to her in credulity.

"Symon, I hope ye obeyed my injunctions to the letter, in the affair o' your bairn's hooping-cough," said the old lady, who took an active hand in all the family matters of her vassalage.

"Faith did I, my Lady, but found the wee thing no' a hair the better of it. It is an unco trouble, the cough, but Lucky Elshender says, gif I put my forefinger down the bairn's throat for fifteen minutes, it will never cough mair."

"I'll warrant it o' that," said the old lady, scornfully; "but how dare she prescribe for any bairn on the barony without consulting me? I'll gang o'er in the gloaming and see about it."

An air or two on the virginals, and Lady Anne Bothwell's touching Lament performed at full length by Lilian in her sweetest manner concluded the visit, and Walter reluctantly prepared to retire. Lady Bruntisfield and Lilian departed in their sedans with two armed servants before and two behind them, to pay a most ceremonious visit of thanks to Lord Dunbarton and his beautiful Countess, and Fenton, after accompanying them to the arch of the Bristo Port, left them to the care of their retinue, and receiving a warm invitation to visit them soon again, pursued his way in a maze of stirring thoughts through the steep wynds, narrow closes, and crowded streets of the city to his sombre quarters in the Canongate.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE OLD SCOTTISH SERVICE.

The soul which ne'er hath felt a genial ray
Glow to the drum's long roll or trumpet's bray;
Start to the bugle's distant blast, and hail
Its buxom greetings on the morning gale—
Such the muse courts not.
LORD GRENVILLE.

On the return of Walter Fenton to the White Horse Cellar, Douglas, who was lounging on the broad flight of steps in front of the edifice, and chatting gaily with a buxom damsel of the establishment, informed him that Holsterlee of the Life Guards had just been there, saying that the Earl of Dunbarton and the Lords of the Privy Council required his attendance at the Lower Chamber—immediate attendance.

His mind became troubled at this information: though unconscious of having done anything new to incur displeasure, it was with considerable anxiety he bent his steps to the precincts of that dreaded tribunal.

The Lairds of Craigdarroch and Holsterlee, (or as the latter was commonly called, Jack Holster,) two of Claverhouse's cavalier troopers lounged in the antechamber smoking their Dutch pipes, while the yeomen of the Scottish Guard in their blue bonnets and scarlet doublets, armed with long daggers and gilt partisans, thronged the Parliament Close and outer lobby of the house.

Their presence in some degree lessened his anxiety, as the absence of the military police of the city, and the viler menials of the law, announced that matters of state, and not of inquisitorial persecution were before that powerful and extraordinary conclave. He waited long in the well-known antechamber, whose features brought back a host of gloomy thoughts, amid which his mind wandered continually to the house of Bruntisfield; but he endeavoured to mingle in the gay conversation of the two guardsmen, who talked nonsense as glibly and laughed as loudly as if they had been in Hugh Blair's tavern on the opposite side of the square, instead of being within earshot of those whose names were a terror to the land. After all that was of importance to the state had been discussed and dismissed, Walter, on being summoned by the drawling and hated voice of Maclutchy found himself before the same bench of haughty councillors he had confronted a few weeks before; but now its aspect was different; the rays of the meridian sun streamed cheerfully into their dusky place of meeting, and hangings which appeared sable before were now seen to be of crimson velvet, fringed and tasselled with gold, gilded chairs, and the throne surmounted by the royal arms with the gallant Lion in defence; the rich and varied dresses of the Lords, massively laced and jewelled with precious stones, embroidered belts, and embossed sword-hilts, were all sparkling in the several flakes of light that gushed between the strong stanchells of the ancient windows into the gloomy and vaulted room.

The Lord High Treasurer, the Chancellor, and the sleepy Mersington, withdrew as our hero entered. Near the head of the table stood the Earl of Dunbarton in his rich military dress of scarlet, with the cuffs slashed and buttoned up to reveal the lawn sleeves below; his gallant breast was sheathed in a corslet of polished steel, beautifully inlaid with gold, and over it fell his lace cravat and the sable curls of his heavy peruke. His badge as Commander-in-chief of the Forces, an ivory baton with silver thistles twined round it was in one hand; the other rested on his plumed head piece. The magnificence of his attire formed a strong contrast to that of the stern Dalyel, who wore a plain suit of black armour like that of a curiassier of Charles I., but rusted by blood and perspiration, and defaced by sword cuts and musquet balls, it was a panoply with which his long silvery beard and iron, but dignified face corresponded well. Making a half military obeisance to these Lords of Council, Walter, felt not a little reassured by the presence of his patron the Earl and Sir Thomas Dalyel.

"Mr. Fenton," said the former, "we have much pleasure in presenting you with that to which your merits so much entitle you—a pair of colours in my ancient regiment of Royal Scots, vacant by the death of young Toweris of that ilk, who has been slain in a late camisadoe in the north, with some broken rascals of the Clan-Donald. You will therefore hear the king's commission read over, and thereafter sign your oath of fealty to us without delay, as the day is wearing apace." Taking up a small piece of parchment to which appeared the Great Seal of Scotland, the signatures of the King and Secretary of State, and his (Dunbarton's) own seal with the four quarters of Douglas, the Earl read the following, which we give verbatim:—

"I George, Earl of Dunbarton, Lord of Douglas, Knight, Baronet, and Knight of the Thistle, Lieutenant-General, and Commander-in-chief of the Scottish forces, by virtue of the power and authority given to me by His Most Sacred Majesty James VII., do hereby constitute you, Walter Fenton, Gentleman, an Ensign of the Royall Regiment of Ffoote in that companie wheroff his Honor the Laird of Drumquhazel, Chevalier of St. Michael, is captain. You are therefore to obey such orders as you may receive from His Majesty and your superiors, as you expect to be obeyed by your soldiers according to the Rules and Discipline of War.

Though astonished at all this unusual formality, Walter bowed in pleased and grateful silence, and then he heard the stern voice of Major-General Dalyel.

"Maister Fenton, you will please to repeat after me, and sign your oath of Fealty to this Council and the three estates of the realm."

"Oath of Fealty, Sir Thomas?" reiterated Walter, equally surprised and offended at this new proposal, which accompanied the long-wished-for gift. "My Lords, though deeply grateful for this mark of your favour, I deplore that you should suspect me——"

"Sir," interrupted Lord Clermistonlee, hastily and haughtily, "at present we suspect you of nothing; but the corruption of these times, when the very air seems infected with treason and disloyalty, have made an oath of fealty necessary from this time forth."

"No—to the Officers of State and the Parliament of Scotland—and woe unto those who shall break it! An Act of Council previous to one of the House, made it law an hour ago. Art satisfied, sirrah?"

"My Lords, I like it not, for it implies a suspicion a man of spirit cannot thole," replied Walter, in an under tone, as he advanced to the table; and Clermistonlee, seized by a sudden fit of passion, was about to pour forth some of his furious and abusive ebullitions, when Dunbarton said mildly:

"Walter, an edict of council hath (as his Lordship said) made this law, which will be more fully confirmed by the three estates. Mr. Secretary, read aloud the oath of fealty, and the young gentleman will sign it."

"By my beard, he had better, or prepare for his auld quarters again," added Dalyel, sharply, striking his heavy toledo on the floor.

Thus urged, Walter heard the oath of allegiance, which the approaching crisis in the affairs of those factions that then rent both Scotland and England, rendered necessary for the security of the Government—promising "faithfully to demean himself to the estates of Scotland presently met;" and affixed his name thereto, little foreseeing how dear that oath was yet to cost him, and how unfortunate in its influence it was, at a future time to prove to his fortunes. As if he foresaw it, a dark smile lit the sinister eyes of Clermistonlee; it was a peculiar scowl of deep and hidden meaning; and though Walter soon forgot it at the time, he remembered it in after years when the cold hand of misfortune was crushing him to the dust.

"I trust, young birkie," said the fierce Dalyel with a keen glance, "that you will never again waver in the execution of your duty or military devoir; but be stanch as a red Cossack, and ever ready to do his Majesty gude and leal service (whatever be his creed) against all false rebels and damned psalm-singers, whilk are the same."

"How readily my Lord defends his loon," whispered Clermistonlee to Dalyel, but not so low as to be unheard; and the Earl's cheek flushed—his brows knit; but he made no reply, save waving his hand to Walter, who withdrew.

The warm noonday sun streamed brightly down the High-street; the musical bells of Saint Giles jangled merrily in the pure breeze that swept through the stone-arched spire; and Walter Fenton never felt so happy and light of heart as when he issued from the sombre Parliament-close into the bustle of that grand thoroughfare; and giving full reins to his fancy, allowed it to career into regions fraught with the most brilliant visions of the future: fame, fortune, happiness, all were there in glowing colours, but were—never to be realized.

Poor Walter! That hour laid the foundation of the airy palace of love, glory, and renown, which every ardent young man builds unto himself, and which indeed is the only fabric that costs nothing but the bitter achings of a seared and disappointed heart. To Walter it was the dawn of joy; his foot, he thought, was now firmly planted on the first step of the dangerous ladder of honour; and with his thoughts divided between war, ambition, and Lilian Napier, and with his heart glowing with exultation, he pulled forth the little scrap of parchment to re-examine it again and again, as he skipped down the crowded street, and a severe concussion against a tower of the Netherbow first roused him from his dreams. He was in excellent humour with himself, pleased with everybody, and enraptured with the Lords of Council, whose orders he was ready to obey in everything, whether they were to storm a tower or fire a clachan, march to England, or duck an "auld wife" in the North Loch.

"My stars are propitious to me to-day," said he aloud, as he half-danced down the street towards the White Horse Cellar. "O, may Heaven give me but opportunities to win a name; and if the most unflinching perseverance—the most spotless loyalty—and a headlong valour, such as not even Claver'se can surpass, will bring me honour and renown, I feel that I shall win them. O Bravo for the roll of the drum! the rush of the charging horse! and the ranks of pikemen shoulder to shoulder! I am one of the Guards of St. Louis—King James's Scottish Musqueteers—the old Diehards of Dunbarton."

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Scottish Cavalier: An Historical Romance, Volume 1 (of 3)

THE
SCOTTISH CAVALIER.

PREFACE.

CHAPTER I.

THE PLACE OF BRUNTISFIELD.

CHAPTER II.

THE PREACHER.

CHAPTER III.

THE OLD CLOCKCASE.

CHAPTER IV.

A PAIR OF BLUE EYES.

CHAPTER V.

A PAIR OF RAPIERS.

CHAPTER VI.

THE OLD TOLBOOTH.

CHAPTER VII.

THE LAIGH COUNCIL HOUSE.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE PRIVY COUNCIL.

CHAPTER IX.

DEJECTION.

CHAPTER X.

HOPE.

CHAPTER XI.

CLERMISTONLEE AT HOME.

CHAPTER XII.

THE COTTAGE OF ELSIE.

CHAPTER XIII.

A REVERSE.

CHAPTER XIV.

WALTER AND LILIAN.

CHAPTER XV.

LOVE AND BURNT-SACK.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE TEN O'CLOCK DRUM.

CHAPTER XVII.

CLERMISTONLEE MAKES A SAD MISTAKE.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE GROWTH OF LOVE AND HOPE.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE OLD SCOTTISH SERVICE.

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Scottish Cavalier: An Historical Romance, Volume 1 (of 3)

THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER.

PREFACE.

CHAPTER I. THE PLACE OF BRUNTISFIELD.

CHAPTER II. THE PREACHER.

CHAPTER III. THE OLD CLOCKCASE.

CHAPTER IV. A PAIR OF BLUE EYES.

CHAPTER V. A PAIR OF RAPIERS.

CHAPTER VI. THE OLD TOLBOOTH.

CHAPTER VII. THE LAIGH COUNCIL HOUSE.

CHAPTER VIII. THE PRIVY COUNCIL.

CHAPTER IX. DEJECTION.

CHAPTER X. HOPE.

CHAPTER XI. CLERMISTONLEE AT HOME.

CHAPTER XII. THE COTTAGE OF ELSIE.

CHAPTER XIII. A REVERSE.

CHAPTER XIV. WALTER AND LILIAN.

CHAPTER XV. LOVE AND BURNT-SACK.

CHAPTER XVI. THE TEN O'CLOCK DRUM.

CHAPTER XVII. CLERMISTONLEE MAKES A SAD MISTAKE.

CHAPTER XVIII. THE GROWTH OF LOVE AND HOPE.

CHAPTER XIX. THE OLD SCOTTISH SERVICE.

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

THE
SCOTTISH CAVALIER.

CHAPTER I.

THE PLACE OF BRUNTISFIELD.

CHAPTER II.

THE PREACHER.

CHAPTER III.

THE OLD CLOCKCASE.

CHAPTER IV.

A PAIR OF BLUE EYES.

CHAPTER V.

A PAIR OF RAPIERS.

CHAPTER VI.

THE OLD TOLBOOTH.

CHAPTER VII.

THE LAIGH COUNCIL HOUSE.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE PRIVY COUNCIL.

CHAPTER IX.

DEJECTION.

CHAPTER X.

HOPE.

CHAPTER XI.

CLERMISTONLEE AT HOME.

CHAPTER XII.

THE COTTAGE OF ELSIE.

CHAPTER XIII.

A REVERSE.

CHAPTER XIV.

WALTER AND LILIAN.

CHAPTER XV.

LOVE AND BURNT-SACK.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE TEN O'CLOCK DRUM.

CHAPTER XVII.

CLERMISTONLEE MAKES A SAD MISTAKE.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE GROWTH OF LOVE AND HOPE.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE OLD SCOTTISH SERVICE.