Jane Seton; or, The King's Advocate: A Scottish Historical Romance
the iron cross-bar of the window. Then he waited breathlessly to
hear if the noise caused any alarm; for there was as much chance of a
moustached soldier appearing at the window as of Sybil Douglas
presenting her fair face and startled eyes. All remained still but
the screaming of the sea-birds around them, the dash of the breakers
below, and the dull hum of the rising wind as it swept along the
Firth. Then fearlessly the brave earl began his ascent. On the
strength of the rope, the hook, or the shaft, he never bestowed a
thought; but solely intent on seeing his mother and Sybil, clambered
eagerly but carefully up the rough wall, which was grey and
weatherbeaten by the saline atmosphere and ocean storms of many a
century, and against which the ladder swung frightfully to and fro,
until he reached the window, grasped its massive cross-bar, and
gained a comparatively secure seat on its deep, broad sill.
He peered in, and listened, as well as the thick panes of coarse and
encrusted glass, which filled the window, would permit, and between
the yellow damask curtains saw a plainly-furnished sleeping
apartment, in which Sybil and his mother were kneeling at prayer,
before retiring. Their rosaries were at their wrists, and they knelt
before one of those little altars which then formed a part of every
Scottish household; as they do in Catholic countries still. It was
somewhat like a cabinet, and had a figure of the Madonna, bearing in
her arms the little infant Jesus. Upon her head was a wreath of
freshly-gathered flowers, and before her burned two little
wax-tapers, which had been consecrated at the last candle-mass by the
abbot of Inchcolm.
The earl waited until their orisons were over; and while they prayed
his heart swelled within him at their unaffected piety; for his
memory went back to other days, when, in their secluded home at
Ashkirk, in Angus, he had knelt by his mother's side, and first
learned to lisp the very prayers she was now repeating. An emotion
of shame came over him, on reflecting that in the wandering life he
had led, and especially during his exile at the court of the
libertine Henry VIII. of England, he had neglected every office of
religion. He observed that his mother had become paler and thinner,
and that her hair seemed to be silvered with white; but that might
have been the effect of fancy, or of the dim light of the apartment.
Sybil had lost somewhat of her rich bloom; but her dark eyes were
bright as ever. Her black hair flowed from under her triangular cap,
and hung like a silky veil over her shoulders, the curve of which, as
she knelt with her head bent forward, was eminently beautiful. The
edge of each large ringlet, the pearls of her cap, and the top of her
smooth forehead, were all tipped with pale light by the tapers. She
wore a long dress of purple satin, with an open neck; and in the
light and shadow its folds seemed to glitter with many prismatic
hues. It is impossible to say whether it was the brilliant and
piquant expression, the noble features, and pure complexion of
Sybil's face that made her adorable, but, taken together, these
attributes of the old Douglas race made her singularly so.
The moment their orisons were over, the old countess arose to the
full extent of her great stature; and though aged, being unbent, her
figure was remarkably elegant, its height being increased by her
shoes--the "cork-heeled shoon" of our old national ballad--and after
solemnly crossing herself three several times, she extinguished the
tapers on the altar, and kissed Sybil with all the affection of a
mother.
The sole light in the chamber now came from two wax-candles, which
were held in the outstretched arms of a grotesque figure of
Florentine workmanship, placed on the dressing-table at the farther
end, and immediately opposite the window where the earl had perched
himself.
CHAPTER XL.
SYBIL.
"Come, my Antonia, come,
I'll lead thee to the blissful land of love,--
I'll lead thee to the pinnacle of joys,
Where round thy path the fairest flowers of earth
Shall bloom in radiant beauty to reward
Thy noble deed--come, dearest."--THEODORE KÖRNER.
A guttural laugh announced to the earl that Sabrino had also ascended
the ladder, and was rejoicing at the sight of his mistress.
"Hold fast! by my faith, thou hast the hands and feet of a marmoset.
Hush! I would hear them talk a little," said the noble, adjusting
himself upon his giddy perch. "By Jove! we are like a couple of
crows up here--thou like the black, and I like a white one."
"Ees," grinned Sabrino, whose whole vocabulary was nearly comprised
in that sound.
The moment their orisons were over, Sybil went to the opposite
window, and, withdrawing the curtains, gazed steadfastly towards the
eastern end of the little valley.
"Dost thou see it again, bairn--that ill-omened light?" asked the
countess, approaching.
"Yes; oh, yes!" replied Sybil, with a voice of surprise and fear;
"brighter to-night than ever before."
"Then it must be either a corpse-licht, that burneth on the grass, to
mark where a slain man sleeps, or a fairy-candle, at the rock where
the whin-bushes grow. Corpse-lichts burn blue, and fairy-candles are
siller white."
"But this burns redly, and it brightens fast!"
"By the Lord!" said the earl, with alarm, "in our hurry to-night thou
hast forgotten to extinguish our fire, master Sabrino; and we have
widened the aperture at the chasm. Mass! if the knaves of watchmen
see it, we shall be discovered and taken!"
Sabrino turned skyblue in the dark at this terrible suggestion.
"There is a knowe among the hazelwoods near our castle of Ashkirk,
where the gude neibours dwell; and ever and aye on St. John's night,
a light of siller white shines among the grass that grows beneath the
thick dark trees. Now it chanced that, on the eve of that blessed
festival, in 1510 (oh, waly! only three years before dreich
Flodden-field, and good King James's death), Hughie o' the Haugh, a
poor cottar-body, who dwelt at the glenfoot, was coming home from the
next burrow-toun with a bag of barley on his horse's back, and
trudging, staff in hand, behind, lamenting sorely at the tidings he
had that day heard at the market-cross; for brother Macgridius, of
the blessed Order of Redemption, had seen his son, a puir sailor lad,
taken prisoner by the cruel pagans at Barbary, who demanded a hundred
pieces of gold for his ransom. Hughie could as easily have raised
the Bass Rock as a hundred pieces of gold; and he went homewards,
with his bonnet owre his eyen, groaning in great anguish of mind.
Oblivious of all but the loss of his only son, poor old Hughie
followed his horse, which knew right well the drove-road that led to
his thatched stable, at the back of the auld farm toun; when
suddenly, at the fairy knowe, the animal pricked up its ears,
trembled, and stopped, as a wee diminutive mannie, not two feet high,
and wearing an enormous broad blue bonnet, and a long beard that
reached to his middle, rose off the stone dyke, and bade Hughie hail.
"'Gude e'en, Carle Hughie,' said he; 'how went the markets?' he
added, with an eldritch laugh.
"'Sorrowfully for me,' replied the other, wiping his eyes with the
neuk of his plaid.
"'Wherefore, Hughie, wherefore, ye silly auld carle?' quoth the
little man.
"'Because I come back with a light purse and a sorrowfu' and heavy
heart,' replied the poor cottar, peering under his bonnet, and
terrified at the wee figure; for he knew it was one of those unco
creatures whom it was dangerous to seek, and still more dangerous to
avoid or to offend.
"'I am sorely in want of barley, carle,' said the mannikin, stroking
his long white beard; 'ye must sell me that load, and at mine ain
price, too.'
"'I lack siller, gude sir, as sorely as ye can lack the barley,'
urged the poor crofter, who feared that the payment might be
fairy-pennies or pebble-stones.
"'I never was hard on a puir man yet,' replied the little mannie,
testily; 'and I have dealt wi' your race, Hughie, for many a
generation. When grain is plenty I buy it; for I tell ye, carle,
that a time of sad and sair scarcity for puir Scotland is fast
coming. So, here! I ken what ye are graning for, ye greedy body,'
quoth the creature, plunging each of his hands into the enormous
pockets of his doublet, 'here are a hundred pieces of good red gold;
ransom your son, and give me a help wi' the barley pock; my back hath
borne a load like that, and mair.'
"With fear and joy mingled, Hughie received the gold, and transferred
the bag of barley from the back of his horse to that of the little
man, of whom it left no part visible, save his bandy legs, his
walking staff, and the end of his long white beard.
"'Gude e'en to you, Carle Hughie; a safe voyage hame to you, son,'
said the awesome buyer, and manfully striking his staff into the
ground, he trudged up the steep knowe, and disappeared below the dark
trees.
"Hughie hastened back to brother Macgridius, and, with joy, paid him
the hundred pieces of gold for his son's redemption from slavery; and
not without many a fear that before his eyes the coins would turn
into birch leaves or cockleshells; but that was impossible, for they
were ilka ane our gude Scottish gold, but six hundred years old, for
they bore the name of king Constantine IV., who was slain at the
battle of Cramond."
"And Hughie's son was released?" said Sybil.
"Yea, child, and is now master gunner of Sir Robert Barton's ship at
Leith."
With his legs dangling over the surf, and being in imminent danger of
drowning, it may easily be supposed that the earl listened to this
fairy legend with the utmost impatience; but while his mother spoke,
and Sybil listened with the utmost good faith and reliance (for in
those days, as at this hour, in some parts of Scotland, one might as
well have doubted their own existence as that of fairies and other
spirits of good or evil), the earl had gently raised the heavy and
massive sash of the window, slid into the room, and concealed himself
behind the thick damask curtains, his heart beating the while with
the mingled desire of rushing forward to embrace his mother and
Sybil, and a fear that their alarm might be communicated to the
inhabitants of the tower, many of whom had not yet retired to rest.
"Look, look, Sybil!" exclaimed the countess, "the whins are on fire.
Surely that is no fairy light!"
As she spoke, a watchman on the tower-head sounded his horn.
"Hark! the castle is alarmed!" said Sybil.
The earl saw that not a moment was to be lost now. Their fire in the
cavern had by some means communicated itself to the whin-bushes at
the entrance; an alarm had thus been given, and immediate action
became necessary.
"Sybil," said he, "Sybil----"
"Just Heaven! my son's voice!" exclaimed the countess, becoming
deadly pale, and feeling in her bosom for her case of reliques. "It
is a spirit--a warning! It is a spirit!"
"Ten devils, lady mother! do not cry out!" implored the earl,
gradually emerging from his hiding-place; "I am not yet a spirit,
thank Heaven, and have no wish to be one."
"Then, oh, Archibald, how came you here?" she exclaimed, throwing her
arms around him.
"By the window," he replied, embracing Sybil in return; "by the
window, as you may see."
"And Sabrino, my poor Sabrino!"
The black sank upon his knees to kiss her hands, and then danced
about the room, performing the most extravagant capers to the sound
of his long clanking earrings.
"By my soul, mother, the times are sorely changed with the Setons,
when my father's son comes to visit thee and his betrothed wife like
a rascally stoutriever by the window instead of the door--in the
night instead of the day.