Jane Seton; or, The King's Advocate: A Scottish Historical Romance
he endeavoured to throw them from him; but his vast strength failed;
for, fearing to let him free, eager to avenge the wounds he had
inflicted, and more passionately eager to serve their lord, whom
(lawless and savage as they were) they loved better than life, and
animated, no doubt, by the bribes which had purchased their secresy
and services, the followers of Redhall hung upon the hands and throat
of the furious earl like bloodhounds.
In a moment he was hurled to the earth, and pinioned hand and tongue,
for Nichol Birrel tore off his steel cap and forced over his head one
of those iron gags called in Scotland a pair of branks. Shaped not
unlike a royal crown, this ignominious fetter was composed of four
cross hoops, which enclosed the head by springing from an iron ring
that encircled the neck, and was furnished with a steel plate for
entering the mouth, and forcibly holding down the tongue. With his
strong and regular teeth set firm as a vice, the unfortunate noble
resisted long this last and deadly insult, but, unhappily, Sanders
Screw, the torturer of the High Court, was among his adversaries.
Being well practised in his profession, this daring ruffian thrust
his thumbs behind the ears of the earl, and thus brutally compelled
him to open his mouth. The gag was immediately forced in, and was
held there by a padlock at the back of his neck.
The moment this was accomplished, four men raised him by the legs and
arms, and bore him off towards the town; their wounded comrade
followed, while the sixth remained with Redhall.
"Assist me to sweep away these carrion," said he, pointing to the
bodies that lay on the road, with the blood yet oozing from their
wounds; "in that field the corn is high, and they will feed the crows
as well there as hanging on the gibbet at St. Giles's Grange."
The bodies of the two Setons were raised upon the fauld-dyke, but the
heart of Redhall was too fiercely excited to feel even a shudder as
he and Dobbie flung them far among the ripening grain, where they lay
concealed, until found reduced to skeletons by the terrified reapers
in the harvest of that year, as an old diary of the period informs us.
"Now, away, for we have not a moment to lose, and this traitor lord
and dame must bide with me! Quick--quick! for I hear shouts and
footsteps!"
Lady Jane, who had clung for support to the turf-wall of the road
during this furious conflict, which just terrified her (but only in
the same degree that a fisticuff battle might scare a lady of the
present day, who is all unused to see the flash of steel), uttered
shriek after shriek when her brother was beaten down, and she saw no
less than six armed men struggling above him. Believing that they
were busy with their poniards, she rushed wildly forward to
interpose, to save or to die with him; when suddenly she was seized
by one who sheathed his sword, and threw his arms around her.
"My brother! oh, my brother! Who are you that have dared to do this,
and who that dare to grasp me thus? Cowards--cowards! I am the Lady
Jane Seton! Oh, misery! misery! My brother! my brother! Oh, thou
who wert so good, so kind, so brave--my mother--oh, my mother--and
they have slain him!"
She uttered a shrill cry, and covered her face with her hands on
seeing him borne away; she muttered to herself faintly and
incoherently; for though she did not swoon, she was perfectly
passive, for horror and grief had prostrated all her faculties, and
she hung heavily in the arms of the tall masked man, who was no other
than Sir Adam Otterburn.
The fury which had animated him during the conflict now passed away
as he pressed her to his breast, where a glow of another kind began
to kindle. Though he deemed there was contamination in the ruffian's
touch, he was glad to crave the assistance of Dobbie, as he bore her
away towards the town; but they had barely reached the southern or
back gate of the Redhall Lodging (as his mansion was named), when the
steps of men were heard rapidly approaching from the direction of the
palace. Sunk deeply in the strong and fortified wall, which bounded
the Canongate on the south and was overshadowed by a group of
venerable chesnuts, this gate was very much concealed and secluded.
It was barely closed upon the whole party, when three men passed with
drawn swords.
They were Sir Roland Vipont and his two friends, the captain and
lieutenant of the King's Foot Guard.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE CASTLE OF INCHKEITH.
"_Prometheus_. The tyrant is but young in power, and deems
His palace inaccessible to sorrow,
But bear him this defiance: I have seen
Two hated despots hurled from the same throne,
And in him I shall soon behold a third,
Flung thence to an irreparable ruin.
"_Mercury_. It was thy proud rebellion brought thee here,
Else thou hadst from calamity been free."
Half-an-hour after the earl and Lady Jane had set out for the convent
of St. Katherine, old Father St. Bernard departed; and, after failing
to convince the countess that her belief in omens and predictions was
altogether at variance with the principles of their faith (arguments
which she always silenced by reminding him, that he was one of those
who had seen the spectre which appeared to James IV. in St.
Katherine's aisle at Linlithgow), he departed to his dwelling among
the houses of the prebendaries at St. Giles's, and bestowed his
solemn and usual benediction--"Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum"--on
Janet Seton, the sister of Gilzean, and all the kneeling household,
as he departed.
The dark-haired Sybil, the fair Marion Logan, and the stately figure
of Alison Hume, were all bent over a large embroidery frame, where
they pretended to be working (for the old-fashioned industry of the
countess kept all busy about her), but in reality they were
conversing intently on the late ball at the palace, and all their
white necks and glossy ringlets shone in the light of the
candelabrum, as they were grouped like the three Graces together.
Reclined in an easy chair, with her feet on a tabourette, and her
face so buried in her vast coif, that her nose (which was somewhat
prominent) alone was visible, the countess was spelling over the
pages of "The joyeuse Historie of the great Conqueror and excellent
Prince, King Arthur, sometyme King of the noble Realm of England,
with the Chivalry of the Round Table."
It was one of those old black-letter emanations from William Caxton's
press, which the abbot of Westminster erected for him, at the
Almonry, in the parish of St. Margaret, London. Her husband, Earl
John, found it when storming the English castle of Etal, and had
given it to his confessor, as a book of magic; for to the unlettered
warrior of the fifteenth century its strange black characters seemed
the very work of hell, and he had never touched the volume, save with
his gauntlets on.
However, Father St. Bernard had taught the countess that it was
merely the romance of an old Welsh monk, and, deeply immersed
therein, she had just reached the account of that dreadful battle
fought by Arthur against Nero and King Lot of Orkney, who was so
foully deceived by the wicked enchanter Merlin, and drawn into that
strife around the castle Terrible, where Sir Kaye the seneschal and
Sir Hervis de Revel performed such deeds as none ever achieved but
knights of the Round Table; and where twelve valiant kings were
slain, and buried in Stephen's church at Camelot. The countess, we
say, had just reached this interesting point, and believing it all
implicitly, was crossing herself at the contemplation of such a
slaughter, when her favourite tabby, which was seated on the table,
with its prodigious whiskers bristling, and its sleepy eyes winking
at the wax candles, sneezed violently, which made her cross herself
again three several times.
A dog howled mournfully in the yard.
The countess laid aside her book, took off her barnacles, and began
to think.
"All the dogs in Linlithgow howled on the day James IV. was killed at
Flodden!"
The good old lady was seriously discomposed, and she was just feeling
for an Agnus Dei, which Father St. Bernard had given her to keep away
the nightmare, when Janet her tire-woman, and Sabrino the page, with
his poniard unsheathed, rushed into the room. The former looked pale
as death, and was almost breathless; the visage of the latter was a
ghastly blue; his eyes were glaring with alarm; he held one finger on
his lips, and pointed downwards with another to the staircase, where
now a sudden uproar of voices mingling with the clash of swords was
heard.
"Oh! madam! madam! my puir dear lady! it's a' a' owre--it's a' owre
noo! They are coming! they are coming!" cried Janet, with a most
prolonged "Oh!" of grief.
"Then my four omens this day have not been for nocht!" said the
countess, rising up to the full extent of her great stature; while
the three young ladies rushed to her side like startled doves; "but
speak, ye foolish woman, speak! Who are coming?"
"They are coming to arrest you, and we are a' lost! lost! lost! Oh,
the hands of dule and death are spread this nicht owre the Setons o'
Ashkirk." And seizing the hands of her mistress, the woman kissed
them, and then throwing herself on her knees, buried her face in her
scarlet curtsey, rocking her body to and fro, and exclaiming with
that noisy grief so common to her class, "Oh Archibald--my
nurseling--my son, and mair than my son (for thou art the head of the
name)--thy curly pow will sune be on the Netherbow, wi' the gleds and
the corbies croaking owre it!"
The countess trembled and grew pale; but drawing herself proudly up
(and her height was as towering as her aspect was majestic), she said
calmly,
"Let them come! I have seen my father hewn down before my eyes, and
I have heard the clang of steel upon my hearth ere now. Let them
come--they are welcome; but more welcome would they be," she added,
with an almost savage flash in her eyes, "if I were among my father's
race in Douglasdale!"
While she spoke, the heavy arras concealing the doorway was raised,
and a number of sturdy legs cased in red stockings, shoes garnished
with enormous red rosettes, and the butt-ends of partisans, became
visible. Then the Albany herald, a dark and stately man, about forty
years of age, clad in his gorgeous tabard, carrying his plumed cap in
one hand and a paper in the other, entered the room, bowing almost to
the ribbons at his knees. The Bute pursuivant who accompanied him
held back the arras, and revealed four halberdiers of the provost
clad in the city livery, blue gaberdines laced upon the seams with
yellow, and ten men of the cardinal's guard, wearing the colours of
Bethune and the arms of the archbishopric of St. Andrew's worked upon
the sleeves and breasts of their doublets. They were armed with
steel caps, swords, and partisans, but remained respectfully without
the apartment. One was bleeding profusely from a wound on the cheek,
having had a tough encounter with the armed servants below.
"Herald," said the countess haughtily, "if you seek the earl, my son,
I swear to you that he is not here!"
The herald hesitated.
"By the forty blessed altars of St. Giles, I swear to you that he is
not!"
"Madam, I do not seek the earl," said the herald, with the utmost
respect; "but I have here an order from his eminence the cardinal as
lord chancellor, and in the name of the king, for your arrest."
"Mine!" rejoined the countess, thanking God in her inmost heart that
it was not her unwary son they sought; "for my arrest! on what
charge, herald!"
"Treason: the resetting of rebels, and----" he paused.
"What more wouldst thou dare to say?"
"Suspicion of sorcery, or teaching thy daughter sorcery."