Jane Seton; or, The King's Advocate: A Scottish Historical Romance
stone, and painted with various ornamental designs between the glazed
cupboards of oak, which contained chased and elaborate vessels of
silver, sword and dagger-hilts, buckles, and falcon-bells of every
pattern and device. A small statue of St. Eloi, the patron of his
craft, occupied a gothic niche above the fireplace, so that the
silversmith might warm himself when saying his prayers in winter,
which was a saving of time; and on each side thereof hung the steel
bonnets, swords, and axes with which he and his men armed them for
weekly duty, as municipal guards within the eight Fortes of the city.
"Good Master Mossman," said Roland, on seeing that the wealthy
artificer looked somewhat uneasily at the jackmen, whose swords and
axes made such a terrible clatter on his stone floor, "our lady the
Countess of Ashkirk would be favoured with a view of the queen's new
crown, that she may judge of thy handiwork, anent which we hear so
much daily."
The jeweller, who had feared that the countess (whose circumstances
he knew were the reverse of flourishing) had come to order a quantity
of plate, breathed more freely, and bowed almost to his red garters;
whereupon the countess curtseyed, for he was known to be one of the
richest burgesses and freeholders in Edinburgh, and his voice bore
all before it at the council-board. From a round box, strongly bound
with brass and lined with purple velvet, he drew forth the glittering
diadem for the queen consort--the same crown which James VI. took to
London in 1603, and which the government ought in honour to restore
to the Castle of Edinburgh. It is composed of pure gold from
Crawfordmuir, and is enriched with many precious stones and curious
embossings.
"It is a fair gaud," said the countess, sighing; "but my mind
misgives me sorely that the puir bairn for whom it is intended may
never live to wear it."
"Poor little queen!" said Jane, with moistened eyes, "if all be as
thou sayest, her days are indeed numbered."
The silversmith seemed surprised, and his men raised their heads to
listen; but the delight expressed by the ladies at the jewels and
workmanship of this new addition to the regalia gratified the
artificer, a smile spread over his jovial visage, and he gallantly
held it over the head of Lady Jane, saying--
"My fair lady, it would become thee as well as her for whom it is
intended."
"By my soul, Master Mossman, thou hast more the air of a gallant than
a mere worker of metals," said Vipont, pleased with the compliments
of the silversmith, but, like every soldier, unable to conceal how
lightly he valued the mere mechanic; "and I marvel much that thou
didst not in thy youth renounce the hammer and pincers for the helmet
and partisan, as being better suited to one who could so compliment a
fair demoiselle."
"You wrong me, noble sir," said the silversmith, calmly; "I _have_
borne arms in my youth----"
"Under our gude King James IV.?" interposed the countess.
"Yea, madame," replied the burgess, with a kindling eye; "three
hundred of us marched to Flodden under the banner of Provost Lauder;
but few, unco few, ever again heard the ding o' the Tron-bell. But,
as deacon of the honourable corporation of hammermen, I deem myself
nowise inferior, Sir Roland, to what I was in my youth."
"Assuredly not, good Master Mossman," said the countess, "for I have
ever esteemed thee an honest and worthy citizen; and we may remember
how, at the last feast of St. Eloi, our good father St. Bernard
illustrated the great honour which God hath bestowed on artisans in
all ages."
"True, madame; Tubal Cain was a cunning artificer in all manner of
brass and iron work; Porus, king of the Indies, was the son of a
shaver, and worked himself as a puir tinkler-body and mender of
kail-pots; Agathocles, king of Sicily, was a potter and maker of
crocks, cans, and milk-luggies; Zeno of Constantia was a puir
wabster, that clothed the naked from his ain loom; and Artagorus,
lord of Cyconia, was the son of a cook; nor must we forget Joseph the
carpenter, the spouse of the blessed Virgin, whilk, as my neighbour
Deacon Plane sayeth, will ever redound to the immortal honour of his
craft, the wrichts."
Sir Roland, who did not expect such a volley of hard names to be
opened upon him, had nothing more to urge, but bowed with a pleasant
smile as they retired, leaving the king's jeweller master of the
field.
At the same moment Nichol Birrel, who had been inquisitively peering
through the grated window, hastened away and mingled with the crowd.
CHAPTER XIII.
SAINT GILES.
"You might have heard a pebble fall,
A beetle hum, a cricket sing,
An owlet flap his boding wing,
On Giles's steeple tall.
The antique buildings climbing high,
Whose gothic frontlets sought the sky."
_Marmion_, Canto V.
At the great entrance of St. Giles's church (a deep and lofty gothic
doorway) the steps of which were yet stained with the gallant blood
of M'Clellan of Bombie, among the gaily-attired crowd that was
pressing up the flight and into that magnificent fane, the countess,
with her friends and followers, encountered Redhall, with _his_
friend (Kinloss), and his followers, Nichol Birrel, Dobbie, and
Sanders Screw, whose official capacities did not prevent their
appearance among his retinue, like whom, they wore steel bonnets, and
were barbed to the teeth.
The king's advocate bowed profoundly, and, with all respect, fell
back a pace or so, while the countess and her ladies swept into the
church like a frigate followed by four cutters. A true gallant of
the day, Roland dipped his hand into the font, and assisted Jane to
holy water, scattering the rest over the poor people who knelt at the
doorway, looking for alms in silence.
All the windows of this great edifice were then filled with stained
glass; thus the prismatic hues of many a martyr's robe, many a
blood-red cross, many a glorious halo and gaudy armorial blazon were
thrown on the silent throng who crowded the choir, the nave, and the
transepts of this majestic church. Now it is divided into three;
then it was open, and unincumbered by galleries, stood in all the
pristine glory of its gothic architecture, two hundred feet in length
by one hundred and twenty in breadth, the four arms of the vast cross
being open under the stupendous central arches which sprung away
aloft, upholding the square tower and mural crown of its spire.
There stood the great altar, the splendid canopy of which uprose from
columns of burnished brass. Underneath was the pix of gold, where
the host was kept; above this stood a gigantic crucifix of silver,
and the solid candlesticks of the same metal, which were of great
size and weight. At the Reformation, these and all other sacred
utensils were seized by the provost, who ordered the brazen pillars
to be cast into cannon for the ramparts of the city.
The pulpit was yet unoccupied; but round the four sides of the great
altar were many persons kneeling in prayer. Five streams of
brilliantly-coloured sunlight fell from the south aslant the great
church, from the five vaulted chapels which Johne Skayer and Johne of
Stone, two cunning masons, built during the provostry of that "good
man and noble," the Laird of Netherliberton. Then the church was
without other seats than those cushions and stools which were borne
by servants, or by cavaliers for the use of the ladies they
accompanied. Many a group in velvet cloaks and high ruffs, with
satin trains and hoods of crammasie; many a moustachioed and belted
man, half noble and wholly soldier, many a shaven friar, and many a
sweet young girl with that fair hair so famed in Scottish song (the
golden hair which Raphael loved so well), were kneeling before the
lesser altars, of which that great temple, "our mother kirk of old
St. Giles," boasted not less than forty.
The most magnificent were those of the Holy Blood, the Holy Cross de
Lucano, Nostre Domine, St. Michael de Monte Tomba, Our Lady of Piety,
and St. Eloi, the most eastern shrine, which belonged to the gallant
craftsmen, as being that of their peculiar patron. Behind it they
had placed a window, whereon were painted the elephant and crowned
hammer of the principal corporation; and before it hung a beautiful
lamp of silver, which was said to have been brought by them from the
sack of Jerusalem, and the light of which was never extinguished.
The most beautifully-decorated columns of the church are four, where
this altar stood. Like the branches of a forest, the ribs of the
groined roof sprung away aloft into the dusky clerestory, through the
deep windows of which fell many a flake of light of every rainbow
hue, revealing many a grotesque carving and many a grim old head.
"Many a scutcheon and banner riven"
decorated the side chapels, and many a sword and helmet were rusting
above the tombs of departed valour. Many marble statues of saints
and warriors, of mitred abbots and good old citizens, were standing
there in niches, with their hands clasped in one eternal prayer; for
there now lie the dead of more than seven hundred years, with the
wise Moray, and Montrose the loyal; for many a proud peer and valiant
warrior, the faithful and the false, the just and the unjust, the
impious and the true, the beautiful and the deformed, all blent in
one common and undistinguishable dust, have mouldered beneath the
pavement of its deep vaults and solemn aisles.
Bowing to the great altar, the countess, with all her train, passed
down the church towards the north-east pillar, which is called _the
king's_, as it bears the arms of James II., where she usually sat,
for her husband, Earl John, lay near it, before the altar of St. John
the Baptist. The servants arranged the kneeling cushions, and the
countess received her velvet-bound missal from Sabrino, who sat down
behind her, not on his knees, but _à la turque_, which made the
people, who viewed the poor negro with fear and hostility, mutter
among themselves.
"Gudesake! she bringeth her black devil into the very kirk wi' her!"
said Deacon Plane, under his thick beard, to his better half.
"I could have sworn upon the gospels, gudeman, that the holy water
hissed when she dipped her hand in the font."
"Her finger, ye mean, neibour," said another, behind his bonnet;
"think ye a wizard-body would dip in mair than they could help?"
"Wheesht, Elsie--Losh keep us, the thing is looking at ye!"
"Weel, I carena a bodle--let it look!" replied the woman confidently,
while feeling for a blessed relique of St. Roque, which she carried
in her bosom; but Sabrino grinned, and showed all his white teeth,
and, what was still more appalling, an almost total absence of
tongue--the poor being was a mute, or nearly so--upon which the woman
shrunk close to her husband, and began to cross herself with great
energy; while at the same moment the Provost of St. Giles and the
sixteen prebendaries, preceded by their curate and cross-bearer, the
sacristan ringing a bell, the beadle, the minister of the choir
bearing a standard, four choristers, and eight tapers, passed through
the church, in procession, to their stalls within the sanctuary,
softly and noiselessly, while all the vast congregation knelt, and
when again they rose, Father St. Bernard was in the pulpit, which
projected from one of the four great columns sustaining the spire.
He was a mild and benevolent-looking old priest, whom all the
citizens loved for his piety, goodness, and attention to the sick and
poor during the frightful pestilence of 1520. His hair was white as
snow, his grey eyes were bright and gentle. Father St. Bernard was
now in his sixtieth year; and, when accompanying the Scottish army as