Jane Seton; or, The King's Advocate: A Scottish Historical Romance

Notre Dame de Paris, that alliance can never be broken!" "Death will break it," said the advocate, revengefully, for he was somewhat irritated by this long preamble. "Magdalene is dying by inches, and there are abroad such rumours of sorcery in the matter that I crave a warrant to seize----" "Whom?" asked Beaton, with a terrible glance. "The Countess of Ashkirk and her daughter, the Lady Jane Seton," said Redhall, with a sinking heart. "Margaret of Ashkirk?" said the cardinal, with a look of blank astonishment, "the widow of the good Earl John? Beware thee, my lord, lest zeal outrun discretion. Her husband was a stout knight and true to Scotland." "As I tell your eminence that his widow is an ill-woman and false! Her son, the outlawed earl, hath again re-entered Scotland by the Middle Marches." "Thou dost not say so?" "Sure as I live and breathe." "On what errand?" "Can you ask?" said Redhall, with a smile; "treason, civil war, and the destruction of the Hamiltons, no doubt. And with the knowledge that he is an outlawed traitor, the countess hath reset him." "Natural enough, he is the poor woman's son." "But the master of the ordnance hath likewise done so." "Natural enough, too, for he is said to love the earl's sister." "Your eminence is strangely cool in this matter," said Redhall, grinding his teeth; "but you know not all that common rumour sayeth." "Ah! what the devil says it now?" "That the young queen is dying," replied the advocate, drawing near, sinking his voice impressively, and presuming even to grasp his arm; "sorcery is at work; every man who looks upon her reads death in her face, and the hopes of Henry that James may yet marry his daughter are rising again." "Hah!" There was a brief pause. "And what wouldst thou have?" asked Beaton. "Permission to seize and commit to sure ward the Countess of Ashkirk and her daughter--a measure demanded by the safety of the nation." Beaton shook his head. "Rumour is busy, and avers that the earl is concealed within the ports of Edinburgh," continued the wily advocate, who, for his own ends, did not choose to say _where_; "my spies inform me that he has been heard to boast of being, ere long, at Stirling bridge with an army of English borderers, for he hath made a vow to sup----" "Where?" "In thy tower of Creich." The dark eyes of Beaton flashed fire; for in the tower of Creich, rumour (which in those days supplied, somewhat indifferently, however, the place of the public press) asserted that the cardinal kept quite a seraglio. It touched him in the quick. "The earl said so--ha!" he muttered, opening his portfolio; "indeed--um--um--and where dost thou wish the countess committed to ward?" "Your eminence's castle of St. Andrew is a sure place." "I send none there but heretics; the tower of Inchkeith is a stronger fortlet." "The Knight of Barncleugh is captain there--a Hamilton too." "Very suitable," continued the cardinal, writing on a slip of paper a warrant to arrest and imprison, 'during the king's pleasure, Margaret Countess Dowager, and the Lady Jane, daughter of the umquhile John Earl of Ashkirk, together with Archibald Seton, sometyme designated of Ashkirk, but now under sentence of forfeiture.' "Send the Albany herald to the countess, and let him take some fifteen pikes of my guard; one of Sir Robert Barton's boats will convey the ladies to the Inch. Of late, James has shown over much favour to this family, whose besetting sin has been their leaguing with England; and I hope that, ere long," continued Beaton, thinking of the tower of Creich, "this troublesome young lord will pay the penalty of his insolence to me and his crimes against the state----" "My lord the Bishop of Limoges," announced the young Lord Lindesay, the cardinal's favourite page, ushering in that reverend prelate. "Your eminence will not omit to send the requisite troops and cannon towards Douglasdale to-morrow, for Ashkirk may be there," said the lord advocate, rising. "Before vespers, Sir Roland Vipont shall hear from me," replied Beaton, as Redhall sank on one knee, kissed the ruby ring on his finger, and hurried away with a hasty step and a beating heart. CHAPTER XV. THE NOON OF LOVE. "He looked upon her, and her humid gaze Was at his look dropped instant on the ground: But o'er her cheek of beauty rushed a blaze, Her bosom heaved within its silken bound-- And though her voice is trembling as I sigh, Love triumphs in her smile and fond delicious eye." CROLY'S _Angel of the World_. The sun was in the west, and threw the long shadow of the Netherbow so far down the vista of the Canongate that it almost reached to the Girth-cross of the Holyrood. Save when the summer wind made strange sounds among the peaked roofs and enormous chimneys of the narrow closes, the streets were still and quiet. A hoof rang occasionally, just as if to remind one that they were recently paved for the first time; or the distant cries were heard of those who sold curds and milk at the cross, or cockles and whelks at the Tron, as we may learn from William Dunbar's poem in the year 1500. The countess and her family had just adjourned from the dining hull to that tapestried chamber in which we had the honour of first introducing them to the reader. With no foreboding of the mischief that was then brewing against them at that moment in the little turret-room of the cardinal's mansion, the good old Lady Margaret and all around her were very happy. Roland instinctively drew to the side of Jane, who approached her embroidery frame, for ladies were never idle in those industrious days; Earl Archibald seated himself by the side of Sybil, where he could very well have spared the additional company of her companions, Marion and Alison, who seated themselves near, to hear her perform on the virginals; and the countess assumed her accustomed and well-cushioned bench, in the sunny corner of a window, where the shadows of the thick basket grating were thrown upon her face. Drawing her spinning-wheel towards her with one hand, she made a motion with the other to Father St. Bernard to sit near; for the confessor had that day been invited to dinner the moment his oration concluded. "I pray Heaven I may not hear some evil tidings," said the countess, "for the wind is so high." "Nay, fear not, madam, for this is Friday," replied the old priest, "and the festival of Queen Ellen to boot." "And yet I remind me, father, that in the days of King James IV., I heard the wind soughing just so, and in two hours thereafter news came frae the west countrie that my kinsman, Sir John Colquhoun of Luss, who was lord chamberlain and ambassador to England in 1487, was killed at the siege of Dumbarton, by a ball from a culverin." "In 1489--yea, madam, I mind that leaguer well, as if twere yesterday." "Eight-and-forty years ago," said the counters. "St. Mary! I was but a wee tot at my mother's knee in the auld tower of Kilspindie then!" "Udsdagger!" whispered the earl to Sybil, "the old lady my mother is full tilt again at her musty recollections of James IV." "She will soon dose poor Father St. Bernard with her salves, her charms against witchcraft, and prosy reminiscences of Flodden and Queen Margaret." "And he will reply with scriptural texts and astounding miracles. On my honour, they are a pair of the most veritable prosers between the tower of Creich and the tower of Babel!" "Hush! to mention that tower of Creich in the cardinal's hearing makes one his enemy for life." "Fiend take the cardinal and his red hat to boot!" whispered the earl, "for in England I have learned to laugh both at red legs and shaven crowns. But now, my own fair cousin, sing me, I pray, the old song of Duke Albany's days, that song my father loved so well. In Holyrood it might be treason to sing of a French minion's fall, but none are here save friends; and oh, my dear Sybil, thou knowest not how blythe I am to hear thy soft low voice again. Do not refuse me," he added, seeing that she was about to object; "for in a day or two I go to exile again, and we may meet no more." The young noble gallantly kissed a handful of Sybil's long dark hair; and in the desire to please her handsome lover, she at once commenced one of those old songs, to which something of a melancholy interest will ever cling, when we consider that they cheered or soothed our Scottish sires three hundred years ago-- "God send that the duke had byded in France, And the Sieur de la Beaute had never come hame, With his tall men-at-arms, by banner and lance, The Douglas, the Home, and the Seton to tame."* * See VEDDERBURNE'S _Complainte of Scotland_, printed at St. Andrew'*, A.D. 1549. The voice of Sybil was worthy of her name; it was bewitchingly soft and low and sweet; but the sharp, wiry, and somewhat unmusical accompaniment of the virginal, rather injured than improved the effect of her performance, which was admirable; for the frank girl was at no pains to conceal the amiable wish to please her kinsman and lover. Seated very erectly upon a high-backed chair, her white hands tinkled over the keys of this old-fashioned instrument, which, perhaps, obtained its name from being played upon almost solely by young ladies. Though externally not unlike our modern pianoforte, the virginal was internally more like the spinet of the succeeding age, which formed, in fact, the link between the two. That on which Sybil played had been presented to Jane Seton by Anne de la Tour, the late Duchess of Albany. The case was of cedar, covered with blue Genoese velvet, and clasped by four large gilded locks finely engraven with the arms of Scotland and France. The whole of the front was magnificently enamelled, and had forty keys provided with jacks and quills, twenty being of ebony tipped with silver, and twenty of ivory tipped with gold, to mark the semitones. Supported by two dragons of oak, it was only five feet long by twenty inches deep; but as there were but few virginals in Scotland, its splendour formed one of the topics of the day; and those evil minds were not wanting who affirmed that it was merely a box of devils who played at the command of the black page. Thus, while singing and soft glances were the entertainment in one corner of that tall tapestried room, miracles and omens in another, a quiet little flirtation was proceeding in a third, where Lady Jane was sitting, to all appearance very intent upon her embroidery, while her lover leant over the back of her chair, conversing in low tones, looking kisses and all manner of soft things, and contriving to say a good many too, under cover of Sybil's musical performance, notwithstanding the presence of Father St. Bernard, whose apostolical aspect was sufficiently imposing. "And so, my gentle Jeanie, thou art still bent on visiting this convent of Sienna to-night?" "Have I not told you ten times that I have promised this book as a birthday gift to the reverend mother ever since the martyrdom of St. Victor--more than a month ago," said Jane, reckoning the time on her pretty fingers; "and she has never yet received it. By-the-bye, sir--of all the world, I think thou oughtest to accompany me to-night." "Impossible, my own sweetheart." "What would you say if I were to be carried off?" "Carried off! Bah! I should like to see any one carry you off." "It would be very unpleasant," said Jane, shrugging her shoulders; "and within a month of our marriage, too." "Adorable Jane!" "Hush! Father St. Bernard--you forget." "You know well how gladly I would go; but as I have said, both the