Jane Seton; or, The King's Advocate: A Scottish Historical Romance
"Mother of Mercy, be praised!" she exclaimed, with a heart full of
thankfulness, as she raised her hand trembling with eagerness to the
bell-rope, when, lo! swift as light, a man sprang into the archway,
cut the cord, and seized her by the arm. Jane uttered a faint cry,
and sank against the wall, on seeing the hateful visage of Dobbie,
the doomster, and hearing his false and hollow laugh in her ear.
There was a savage leer in his eyes, and he lolled out a long red
tongue through his short wiry beard, as he arrested her.
On one side lay the porter-lodge of the abbey, where she would have
received a sanctuary; on the other lay the guardhouse of the
soldiers; and she knew that if discovered by them, after what Redhall
told her, she would indeed be lost. On one hand lay life--on the
other death!
"Sanctuary!" she cried with a despairing voice, as she clung to the
handle of the door; "sanctuary, father abbot--good master porter! In
the name of the blessed Trinity, sanctuary! For the love of God and
St. Mary, sanctuary! sanctuary! Oh, man, man!" she continued,
wildly, as the wretch threw his arms around her, and forcibly dragged
her away, "what wrong have I ever done thee? Oh, for my brother's
dagger now!--pity, pity! I am very weak and ill. Sweet Mother of
Compassion have mercy upon me, for others have none!"
Her voice failed and sense began to leave her.
"How now--what the devil!" cried a rough voice, "whose brittle ware
may this lass be?"
"By St. Girzy, a fair strapping dame!" cried another.
"Let go the lass, rascal, or I will brain thee with the boll of my
arquebuse!" exclaimed a third, as several soldiers of the guard came
hurriedly out of the porch with their swords drawn and matches
lighted.
Jane's eyes were closed, but she felt several hands laid roughly upon
her, as she was dragged into the court of guard.
"Ho! ho!--blood!" said one; "hath this squeeling mudlark committed a
murder? see, there are red spots on her crammasie kirtle."
"Yea, and worse," said Dobbie; "she is a sorceress of the house of
Seton; and here is my lord the cardinal's warrant for her committal
to ward, signed and sealed wi' his braid hat, tassels and a'."
"A sorceress!" muttered the soldiers; and Jane felt their hands
withdrawn as they shrunk back; and at that moment a deadly faintness
came over her.....
Meanwhile, passing under the dark brow of the Doocraig, a rock of the
Calton, and past the old street and chapel of St. Ninian, which lay
on the opposite eminence, the earl hurried down the long pathway then
known as the Loan, which led to Leith. St. Anthony's Gate, which
closed the seaport towards Edinburgh, was shut, but with the first
peep of dawn it was opened by the warders; and as the earl had
bestowed the interval in cleansing himself from several spots of
blood, and adjusting his toilet, he passed without question the
keepers of the barrier, and several of the old hospitallers of St.
Anthony, who, even at that early hour, were perambulating the
Kirkgate in their long black cassocks, which had a large T and a bell
shaped in blue cloth on the breasts thereof.
At the pier--an ancient erection of wood which was burned by the
English during Hertford's wanton invasion seven years after--the earl
found the Kinghorn sloop just about to sail, and sprang on board,
descending from the pier to the deck by one of those old-fashioned
_treenebrigges_, which, by an act of the legislature in 1425, all
ferriers were bound to have prepared for the safe shipment of horse
and man. Unchanged since the days of James I., the fare was then
only twopence Scots for a man or woman, and sixpence for a horse,
under pain of imprisonment in the Tolbooth, and the forfeiture of
forty shillings to the crown in case of extortion; thus the earl,
though his funds were low indeed, easily passed on board, among the
Fifeshire cottars and Burrowtown merchants of small wares, who
crowded the low waist of the little vessel, which in a short time was
running past the Mussel Cape and the Beacon Rock (whereon the
martello tower now stands), and bearing away for the quaint and
venerable town of Kinghorn, which lies on the opposite shore.
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE PORTE OF THE SPUR.
"What! no reprieve, no least indulgence given,
No beam of hope from any point of heaven?
Ah, mercy! mercy! art thou dead above?
Is love extinguished in the source of love?"
_The Last Day_, Book III.
Redhall's second wound was of the most dangerous kind. It was below
that inflicted by Roland, but nearer the region of the heart; it bled
profusely; and his blind passion and fury on discovering that Lady
Jane had really escaped, carried him beyond all bounds. While
Trotter sprang on horseback, and galloped off for John of the
Silvermills, and Dobbie, armed with the warrant, was despatched to
recapture the fugitive Jane and her brother the earl, and have them
secured in the castle of Edinburgh, Redhall, in a paroxysm of rage
and despair, so great that it rendered him supine and powerless, lay
on his bed as in a swoon, until the arrival of the physician, on
whom, as on all, he enjoined (under the most tremendous threats)
solemn silence concerning a wound, the inflicter of which he declined
to name.
The strong emotions of anger and revenge, which, with every fresh
interview, rejection, and defeat, had been gradually gathering in his
heart, had now indeed swollen, drop by drop, to the torrent he had
predicted; and, like the reed upon the current, she was about to be
swept away with it.
"Harkye, Dobbie!" said he, through his clenched teeth, between which
the blood was oozing, as he writhed in agony on his bed; "harkye!
give me thy thumb; silence on all this--as thou livest, my good man
and true--silence on this matter--I tell thee _silence_! Here is the
warrant--seek the Albany herald and captain of the guard--quick! have
this woman committed to ward, as it imports!"
"Should she say she has been our prisoner already?"
"Begone, fool! who would believe her? Hence--hence, my God!--go,
wretch," he added, in a low, hissing voice, as Dobbie hurried away;
"go, and accomplish this my work of vengeance; and, one day or other,
I shall brush thee, too, from my path, like the bloated spider thou
art!"
In half an hour the physician arrived; and the light of the dull grey
dawn presented a figure which certainly had something very appalling
in it, for, in his haste, he had come away wearing a mask which was
furnished with two large, green, globular glass eyes, to protect his
face from the poisonous air and scorching heats of his laboratory.
His high and wrinkled forehead lowered above it, and his long beard
flowed below.
The wound was speedily bathed and salved; and lint, with a bandage,
was applied.
"Thou seest, friend, that I find this new office of king's advocate
no sinecure," said Redhall, with a fierce smile. "A thousand
furies--how the wound smarts!"
"'Tis the _unguentum armarium_," replied the learned John, with
medical composure; "one touch is sufficient to make such a wound as
this shrink to the size of a pin-thrust, and two ought to efface it."
"I feel as if the dagger was still in my heart! Two touches cure,
sayest thou?"
"Yea, my lord."
"I pray they may do so."
"They must, Sir Adam, if thou followest rigidly my prescriptions,
which are here," and from his pouch he produced various phials marked
with those cabalistic figures which are still so much in vogue among
apothecaries. These he drew up in line, with their labels hanging
like shields before them. "Here is my Elixir of Life, which the care
of many a long year hath yet failed to perfect, for the lack of a
certain herb which groweth in Arabia Petræa, and is the real _arbor
vitæ_--the tree of life of the patriarchs; but still, its restorative
and strengthening properties are wondrous! Here are my mercurial
balm and the essence of acorns, which last giveth to the bones the
strength of the oak tree, and to the nerves and sinews the toughness
and tenacity of the ivy. A spoonful of each are taken night and
morning, dissolved in a little warm water; and doubt not, Sir Adam,
that this day week will behold you a strong man, and well--yea, with
redoubled energies, like those whom the Cassida of the pagan Romans
restored to life."
And with these words the physician retired, leaving Redhall to writhe
and struggle, in solitude, with his mental and bodily agonies--the
former outdoing the latter by a thousand-fold.
Our learned astrologer enjoyed a great reputation in Edinburgh, and
doubtless would have enjoyed a still greater in the present day, if
we may judge of the success of southern quacks and quackeries; as
they, like everything that is English, enjoy a vast popularity among
the Scottish vulgar.
At this time Lady Jane Seton was at the porch of the palace, from
whence Dobbie had dispatched one soldier for the Albany herald, and
another to Sir John Forrester. On reviving, she found herself
surrounded by arquebusiers in their steel caps, gorgets, and
bandoliers, gazing on her with bold and scrutinizing eyes.
"What manner o' lassie is this?" said they, crowding round her chair,
and winking to each other. "A dainty bird--i'faith!" said one.
"What hands;--how white!" said another.
"What ankles!" said a third connoisseur, stooping down. "Soul o' my
body! but a glisk o' these would damn St. Anthony and St. Andrew to
boot!"
"I am Jane Seton of Ashkirk," said she, suddenly opening her eyes,
and looking wildly and imploringly upon them; "oh, where is your
captain, my good soldiers--where is Sir John of Corstorphine?"
"He will be here immediately, madam," said one, while the rest fell
back respectfully and abashed, and several felt themselves
constrained to uncover before her, and remove their helmets. Though
every man in the ranks of the royal guard was a born vassal and
kinsman of the house of Hamilton, that inborn respect for gentle
blood which the Scots possess in a high degree, together with that
generous frankness which the camp always teaches, impressed with
silence the thirty soldiers who occupied the court-of-guard; and the
noisy jests and laughter, which first greeted and surrounded Lady
Jane, immediately became hushed.
Seeing that she was faint and pale, one, without being asked, filled
his drinking-horn with water, and brought it to her. Her fine eyes
gave him a look of thankfulness that sank deep into the honest
fellow's heart, and then she drank thirstily.
Pulling a ring from her finger, she offered it to him, but he shook
his head, and drew back, saying, with a smile:--
"Nay, lady; a die sae braw is useless to the like o' me, a puir
soldier-lad."
"But I owe thee something for thy kindness."
"You owe me nothing, Lady Jean; my mother was a Seton."
At that moment Sir John Forrester, who had been summoned from his
lodgings in the palace, and had come forth armed with soldier-like
alacrity, entered, with his visor up, displaying the sad and dark
cloud that hovered on his brow; for the watchful Dobbie had met him
in the palace-yard, and placed in his hand the warrant for Lady
Jane's arrest and "committal to ward," as they phrased it in those
days.
"To your arms!" said he, waving his hand to the soldiers, who
immediately took their arquebuses from the rack, where they stood in
a row, and leaving the guard-house, fell into their ranks before it.
"My dear Lady Jane," said the courtly knight, taking both her hands
in his, the moment they were left alone; "from what has all this
frightful affair arisen?"
Jane answered only with her tears.
"Lady--dear lady, of what are you guilty?"
"Ask the leaders of your faction, Sir John," she replied, bitterly;
"but ask not me."