Jane Seton; or, The King's Advocate: A Scottish Historical Romance
battle of Pinkey, where they proved perfectly futile against the
Spanish and German hackbuttiers, who were the main means of winning
that battle for the English. The giant was giving all around him to
death and destruction; three soldiers, the best men of the Guard, had
fallen before him; for, by three separate blows, their brains and
casques had been crushed like ripe pumpkins, before Roland could
reach him through the press; and, with no other sentiments in his
heart than those of rage, the blind and clamorous longing to avenge
and to destroy that is sure to arise in one's heart at such a time,
he fell furiously upon him.
At this crisis, Roland could perceive a man in a close helmet, who,
armed with an arquebuse, kept close behind Fleming, and more than
once fired in the most cowardly manner over his shoulder. One ball
tore the cone of Roland's helmet, and another grazed his shoulder.
"Notch me the head of that rascal with thine axe, Lintstock," cried
he; "and leave me to deal alone with this rough tilter."
Swaying his enormous maul like a giant warrior of the dark ages,
Fleming made many a feint, before pouring forth all his strength and
fury, by swinging his club from the back of his head in one sheer
downward blow, that in a moment would have annihilated Vipont, had he
not sprung nimbly back, and escaped it as well as another shot from
the fellow with the arquebuse, who killed the lance-spesade, and so
deprived Lintstock of his stoup of Bordeaux. But ere Fleming could
recover his guard, Roland darted forward, and by one tremendous lunge
drove his long keen rapier through his body, just one inch below the
corselet. Fleming fell instantly to the ground, and the soldiers
pressed forward over him; but as Roland passed, the tremendous grasp
of the dying man was fastened on his foot, and he was dragged to the
earth, where a furious struggle ensued between them.
In the dark, Roland's fall was unseen by his soldiers, who advanced
fighting hand to hand into the heart of the barmkyn, driving before
them the retainers of Baldwin Fleming. Groaning with rage and pain,
and wallowing in his blood, the latter rolled over Roland, and
retained him in a grasp which gathered fresh energy from the pangs of
death, till it seemed to possess the power of an iron vice. One hand
encircled his throat; the other grasped a poniard, with which he made
many a fruitless effort to stab him to the heart. Five times he
struck, and, glancing from the tempered corselet, five times the
dagger sunk harmlessly into the ground.
During this struggle there suddenly burst upon the darkness a broad
and lurid gleam of light, that illuminated the whole arena of the
barmkyn, its battered gate and ruined wall, its corpse-strewn court
and striking architecture; and then Roland could perceive the ghastly
visage of that powerful foe who grasped him--powerful even in death,
for sight had all but left his glazed and sunken eyes; yet the
vengeance of a demon seemed to burn in his despairing heart, and to
add strength to his muscular gripe. In confusion and agony he had
dropped his poniard, and now with both hands he clutched Roland's
throat, and frantically endeavoured, by compressing his steel gorget,
to strangle, since he had failed to stab him; and with every futile
effort, the hot fierce blood welled forth from his gaping wound and
clammy mouth.
Tighter and tighter grew that deadly clutch; the yielding steel
compressed at last, and Roland felt his eyes starting and his brain
whirling, while a thousand lights began to dance before him. An icy
terror, such as never had been there before, now thrilled through his
heart; he thought of Jane; and made one superhuman effort to free
himself and to shout for succour; but both failed, and he thought
that all was now over and for ever, when the gleam of light which
shot through the barmkyn saved him. For a moment, attracted by this
strange glow that flashed upon his sightless orbs, strong Fleming
relaxed his iron grasp, and, fatally for himself, permitted Roland to
respire.
Bearing in mind his master's injunctions, Nichol Birrel had thrice
taken a deadly aim at Roland, and thrice had failed, for his bullets
slew other men, when his arquebuse was dashed aside by Lintstock's
Jethart axe. Then, finding that he was not likely to achieve much by
dint of arms, on observing the strange combat between Roland and
Fleming in the gateway--a struggle which he alone had observed, a new
idea occurred to him; and, rushing to the summit of the walls, he
cried:
"The kye! the kye! save your kye! or they will all become the prize
and spulzie of the soldiers!" From the parapets he threw down
several enormous bundles of blazing straw among the close-packed
herds: already excited and terrified by the din of the combat and the
report of the firearms, they were at once driven mad and furious by
the descent of this burning shower.
Like a living torrent they poured into the court and rushed through
the gateway, in their flight and terror plunging and galloping,
jostling, crushing, and goring each other with their horns, as they
irresistibly swept all before them, trampling the dead and the
wounded in the mire of their track.
"St. Mary's knot!" cried Lintstock, hewing at their heels with his
Jethart axe; "hough and hamstring! tie their legs with St. Mary's
knot!"
Five hundred head of infuriated cattle poured from the barmkyn into
the dark glen below, where they spread over the mountains in all
directions.
Practised to such tactics in the Border war, the blaze of the straw
and the wild lowing of the cattle instantly acquainted Roland with
what was to ensue; but unable to free himself from the Herculean
grasp of Fleming, he suddenly clasped him in his arms. Then by one
tremendous effort he dragged his body over himself, and there
retained it as a shield from the forest of legs and hoofs that,
rushing from the pen, like a living whirlwind swept over them in
hundreds for the space of five minutes; but long before the fifth of
these minutes had passed, the nervous grasp of Fleming had relaxed,
and his fierce spirit had fled. Breathless, panting, and infuriated
by the whole encounter, Roland Vipont rose from the gory mud and
mire, regained his sword, and with a tottering gait and swimming head
looked around him for his followers.
By this time the conflict was over, and his little band of brave
soldiers had gained complete possession of the barmkyn, the whole
surviving defenders of which had effected their escape by one of
those subterranean sally-ports with which every fortified house in
Scotland was furnished, as a means of secret egress in the last
extremity.
The lance-spesade of the cannoniers and fifteen soldiers of the Guard
are said to have been slain in the assault.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE POMMEL OF THE PONIARD.
"He gained--he gained (why stops my story?) then,
A deadly opiate from the convent men,
And bore it to his cave."--_Marcian Colonna_.
"Now, blessed be Heaven and our own stout hands, we have made our
quarters good here at last!" said Leslie, at that moment approaching
Vipont. "How is this? Zounds! thou cuttest a rare figure, all
smeared in mud and mire. Art thou wounded? No reply? Vipont,
Vipont, dost hear me? Why, thou art mute as a fish. But come with
me to the hall, for I have discovered my way there, and, what is
better, a gallant demi-john of Rochelle, that would gladden the
hearts of ten friars; one cup of it will set thee all right; so, come
along, my friend."
Confused and stunned by his protracted struggle with Fleming, and the
whirlwind that had swept over them, Roland could scarcely articulate
a word, and when he did speak, his voice was lost in the hollow of
his helmet.
Assisted by Leslie's arm, he ascended a stair to the hall of the
barmkyn, where their entrance stilled, for a moment, the uproar and
rejoicing of their plundering and half-famished soldiers.
Built in an age when the sole idea on which a Scottish house was
constructed was the resistance of armed assault, the walls of the
barmkyn were of enormous thickness, and, in the recesses of the
deeply-embayed windows were little square cupboards for holding
household utensils. The vast fireplace contained two tall andirons,
which, together with the great dinner-table, and a number of clumsy
chairs and buffet-stools, formed the sole furniture of the farmer's
hall. The strong and bare stone walls were as destitute of ornament
as the roof, which rested on twenty-four round stone corbels, and was
composed of twelve beams of oak, plainly boarded over, to form the
flooring of a vast hay-loft above.
A fox's face and horse-shoe were nailed above the door, to exclude
witches; while a cross of elder-tree twigs was fastened above the
lintel as a charm against fascination, for the age was full of the
wildest superstition.
Torches had been lighted in the tin sconces which hung on the walls;
bread, beef, cheese, and every edible on which the soldiers could lay
their hands, had been piled on the long table; and, with their
helmets off, some were crowding round the demi-john of Rochelle which
Leslie had mounted on a binn in the centre of the floor, while others
hewed down doors and window-shutters with their swords, and lighting
a fire, began to cook with all the eagerness of hungry men.
Meantime, a guard and sentinels had been posted on the walls without,
in case of a rally or surprise.
On removing his helmet, and imbibing a draught of wine, Sir Roland
was completely restored; but he was too much exasperated by the
resistance of Fleming and the loss of life he had occasioned, to care
a jot for the manner in which his goods and gear were going to rack
and ruin.
"Drink, my soldiers!" he exclaimed, as he seated himself on the
table, that he might the more easily overlook the frolics and
revelry, "to your hearts' content; drink deep, for this is the wine
of a false traitor; but let drunkards beware of the truncheon that
awaits them on the morrow. Lintstock! hallo, Lintstock! where are
you, old ironhead?"
"Here, Sir Roland," replied the veteran, who at that moment entered
the hall, dragging in a man whose head he was menacing at every step
with his Jethart axe, and at whom he darted such scowls of wrath as
he could concentrate into his solitary eye.
"A prisoner!"
"Whom I found skulking there without, and whom I am ready to vow on
the blessed Gospels, is the loon that thrice levelled his arquebuse
at you; and by shooting puir Laurie, our lance-spesade, hath cheated
me of a stoup of wine whilk I won lawfully," he added, savagely
shaking Nichol Birrel, who gave him a deep glance of hatred from his
sullen eyes.
"It would seem to me, fellow," said Roland, who still occupied his
elevated seat on the edge of the table, and before whom the soldiers
dragged Birrel, "that I have seen thy face before. In the streets of
Edinburgh, perhaps?" he added, sternly scrutinizing that worthy, who,
having been deprived of arms offensive and defensive, save a
small-sword, appeared before them in the attire of a peasant.
"Nay, I am but a puir sheep-farmer of Galloway, and you never set
eyes on me before, Sir Roland."
"A lying varlet!" said Lintstock: "we wasted a gude tass o' brandy on
ye at St. Bryde's Well."
"Oho! I remember thee, now," said Roland, with a terrible frown.
"And so thou art the villain who shot my poor horse," said Leslie.
"This is not the case," replied the dogged ruffian, in some
perturbation; "but even if it were so, should a brave soldier commit
such acts to memory, Laird of Balquhan?"
"Now, by the devil, my Galloway Scot, how camest thou to know my
name?"
Birrel saw his mistake, and remained silent.