Jane Seton; or, The King's Advocate: A Scottish Historical Romance
left along the strong walls, which were lined by so many tall fellows
in helmets and breast-plates.
"Away, away!" said he, waving his gauntleted hand; "what brings ye
frae Holyrood to this puir sheep country? It's a gay place, that
Holyrood! Ah, there are plenty of vacant priories, lay abbacies,
captainries of castles, and other braw perquisites to be picked up
there; so I marvel mickle that you left so pleasant a climate, to
come here among the spirit-broken and impoverished Douglases, and the
fogs o' the Cairntable, where there's nothing but rocks, whinstones,
and cold iron to be had."
"Then you will not lower your bridge, and afford free entrance to the
king's soldiers."
"If a' the fiends of hell came, I carena a brass bodle; so away wi'
ye, or ye may fare the worse. Tell thy captain my name is Baldwin
the Fleming--as good a man as he."
"Peasant hound, thou shalt rue this dearly!" replied Leslie, who was
about to turn away, when he perceived the rascal whom they had met at
St. Bryde's Well levelling an arquebuse full at him, from a loophole;
and he had just time to make his horse rear, so that the ball, which
would have pierced his own breast, entered that of the poor animal,
which snorted and plunged wildly. Escaping, however, several other
balls which whistled past him, Leslie forced it back at full speed to
the side of Roland, where it fell down, and was dead almost ere the
rider could disengage himself from the stirrups.
"To your arquebuses, Leslie," exclaimed Roland, "while I shall unbend
my cannon. Ah, white-livered cowards!" he added, shaking his
clenched hand towards the hostile grange, "I will maul you sorely for
this defiance! Soldiers! they are all traitors to the king, for they
have fired on his royal standard. To your guns my brave
cannoniers--to your linstocks, and unlimber! Quick! and make me good
service against this contumacious villain and his foolish knaves."
While the cannon were wheeled round, the tumbrils cast off, the
magazines opened, and powder and shot taken therefrom; and while the
cannoniers commenced pointing and charging them home, Leslie formed
his hundred arquebusiers behind a knoll, where they fixed their rests
into the turf, and opened a fire as close and rapid as it was
possible for soldiers to maintain with these cumbrous fire-arms,
which carried balls of two, and even three ounces; which were loaded
by means of a powder-horn; were levelled over forks, and were fired
by means of a matchlock. The reports were loud and deep, and the
rocks of the Cairntable repeated them with a thousand reverberations.
White as snow, the smoke of arquebuse and pistolette broke (but at
long intervals) from the strong dark walls of the grange, and their
balls tore up the soft turf, as they fell among the little band of
besiegers, or whistled over their heads; for so well were they
posted, that during two hours of incessant firing not one was ever
touched.
"Batter me down the entrance-gate!" cried Roland to his gunners;
"'Tis easier to punch holes in an oak plank than a stone rampart; so
down with it, my brave cannoniers--for this night we will carry the
place by assault or die in its ditches!"
"Art thou quite prepared for that?" asked Leslie.
"A true soldier is prepared for everything," replied the elated
Vipont; "let us only have yonder gate beaten down by daylight, and,
with my sword for a wand, I will act your gentleman usher when night
falls."
The cannon were carefully levelled and pointed; fire flashed from
their muzzles; smoke curled up in the sunshine; and their reports
rang like thunder among the windings of the Douglas. One shot
crashed through the massive gate, beating a large hole in it; the
other struck the battlements, and threw down a heap of masonry, which
fell, amid a cloud of dust, into the ditch below. Hereupon high
words ensued between old Lintstock and the lance-spesade, whose thumb
was placed upon the vent of the culverin, which he was reloading.
"It ill becomes a gle'ed gunner like you," Roland heard him say, "to
heed me less than an auld pair o' boots; but lang enough before you
saw the blessed light o' day I had levelled everything like a cannon,
frae a quarter Moyenne up to auld Monce Meg herself; and here now, I
will wager you a stoup o' Bourdeaux, that my next shot will go
straight to the keyhole."
"Done!" replied the lance-spesade; "twa stoups if you like--and here
is my thumb on't."
The lance-spesade levelled the culverin; applied his right eye to
three sides of the breech, carefully adjusted the quoins, and fired.
The ball struck a coat of arms above the gate, and threw a cloud of
splinters around it in every direction.
"She throws high," said the soldier, throwing down his match,
discomfited.
Lintstock grinned as he reloaded, and thereafter applied his single
orb to the breach and quoins, looking carefully along the polished
brass gun. At that moment the ball of a falconet came whizz from the
barmkyn, and was splintered on its muzzle; but the cool old soldier,
whose brains had so narrowly escaped being dashed out by it, neither
winced nor appeared the least disturbed in his aim; but took one pace
to the left, stretched out his right hand with the match, and in his
turn fired. Then, where the dark keyhole of the ponderous gate had
been but a moment before, a large round breach was visible, with the
sunshine streaming through it. Upon this, a shout arose within the
barmkyn, and the shrill cries of women and children were distinctly
heard.
"Well done, my true cannonier!" said Roland. "A few more of these
bitter almonds, and the gudeman of the Cairntable will be forced to
afford us open house, whether he will or not. To thy cannon again,
my old Lintstock: for thou hast but one eye--Saint Mary! 'tis the eye
of a gazehound. Aim well with your cannon and arquebuses, my gallant
comrades--aim well, and level low! There are many good things in
yonder walls, all of which are yours by the law of war. How now, my
bold Balquhan--art thou shot?" he asked, on seeing Leslie reel.
"As surely as if with an elf-arrow," replied the lieutenant, whose
left arm had been wounded by the ball of a hand-gun, which had beaten
his armour into the orifice, and caused him excessive pain; "but it
matters not--four of my best men are lying stiff enough, among the
broom, now."
"Zounds! this night's lodgings is likely to cost us dear!--but, 'fore
God, I will make it dearer to the rascal who holds yonder barmkyn
against us."
With his scarf, Roland bound up Leslie's arm; and having decided on
his tactics, commanded the arquebusiers to cease firing; to lie down
close under the brow of a knoll, and to reserve their arms and
matches for service at night. Meanwhile, the culverins incessantly
battered the barmkyn, the gate of which, by the time that the setting
sun reddened the wild summit of Cairntable, was beaten down, with a
great part of the wall, thus affording an open passage into the heart
of the place.
"Thank Heaven, the night will be cloudy and dark!" said Roland,
looking at the sky; "so, by day-dawn, I will show thee, Balquhan, the
Red Lion waving where the chevron of Fleming floats upon yonder
barmkyn. A thousand thanks, my brave cannoniers--and chiefly thou,
old Lintstock, for a troop of knights might ride abreast through
yonder breach."
"True; but thou forgettest the ditch," said Leslie.
"Nay; I have bethought me of that, too."
Black and gloomy the night came on; a high wind growled along the
valley; and with the deepening obscurity, it seemed as if the brawl
of the Douglas over its stony bed became louder, for its rush was
heard distinctly amid the dark and dewy hills, from which it
descended into that lonely and pastoral strath through which it winds.
Pale and sharp as a spear-head, a horn of the new moon appeared at
times above the black outline of the Craintable; and when old
Lintstock saw it, he carefully took out his purse (which, however,
contained only four of James the Third's black farthings), and having
turned it over thrice, wished himself good luck, according to a
Scottish superstition existing unto the present day.
When the gloom had deepened, so that nothing could be discerned of
the barmkyn but its bold outline and sable towers, standing on a
shoulder of the mountain, Roland ordered the arquebusiers to pile
their arms, and to tear down the roof and planking of an old barn
that stood near; and thereafter to bind some ten or fifteen of the
rafters together with ropes of straw, so that, being laid close
together, they should (with the assistance of a few planks) form a
temporary bridge, or passage, across the fosse of the barmkyn, the
breadth of which, with military exactness, he had measured with his
eye.
Two hours sufficed for this, and, about midnight, he prepared to
assault the place, resolving to chastise the gudeman severely for his
resistance. Notwithstanding his wound, the gallant Leslie insisted
on accompanying him, and, armed with a Jethart staff, Lintstock left
the cannoniers to follow his master.
As the arquebusiers approached in close order, the glow of their
lighted matches must have announced their approach, for although all
was still in the barmkyn (save the incessant lowing of the cattle in
their pens), the moment they were within range, a storm of missiles
was poured upon them. Arquebuse and pistolette, hacque, dague, and
iron-drake, flashed redly upon the darkness of the night, and many an
arrow, and many a bullet, whistled among the close ranks of the
Guard. Several fell, killed or wounded; but the rest pressed forward
bravely, and Roland, with his helmet closed, and sword in hand, led
them on.
Thick and fast fell bolt and bullet, and the hearty shouts of the
little band of stormers were soon lost in the roar of tumultuous
sounds that arose within the barmkyn; for the cries of Fleming's
followers and kinsmen, as they animated each other at loophole and
battlement, the shrieks of their wives and daughters, the lowing of
the cattle, the barking of dogs, and the ceaseless ringing of a large
alarum bell, added to the incessant explosion of fire-arms, made a
united din, that gave a strange horror to a scene which had no other
lamps to light its dangers than the flashes of those deadly weapons,
which shot forth their contents from every nook and angle of the
strong dark walls.
"Down with the posts and planks! Quick--Quick!" cried Roland,
through his helmet. "Close your ranks, and now again to your
arquebuses! Fire, and club them! Club them, and on--on, for Vipont
and the King!"
This rude substitute for a bridge was laid, and the ditch crossed, in
less time than we have taken to relate it. Shoulder to shoulder, in
the gap of the gate and drawbridge, stood a close array of pikemen;
but, being somewhat less accustomed to arms than the soldiers of the
Guard, they were thrown into immediate confusion by a volley from the
arquebuses, which were instantly clubbed against them for close
combat.
"Forward! forward!" cried Roland, hewing a passage with his sword,
and shredding down the pike heads like ears of wheat; his strength,
stature, weight of arm, and admirable coat of mail, rendering him
invulnerable, like a knight of romance.
In the court of the barmkyn, and just within the gate, a close and
terrible conflict ensued in the dark; for there the sturdy farmer met
the assailants in person, at the head of his hynds and followers, all
cased in iron, cuirassed and barbed to the teeth.
A powerful man, of vast bulk and height, Fleming was sufficiently
formidable, without his other accessories of a coat of mail of the
fifteenth century, jagged with twelve iron beaks, and one of those
enormous iron-studded mauls, which were used in Scotland until the