Jane Seton; or, The King's Advocate: A Scottish Historical Romance
but cannot be surprised, mine own sweet heart, when thou thinkest of
the myriad infernal deeds that are permitted by Heaven and brought
about by the instigation of Satan, to whom I have borne more than one
brood of imps. I saw that thou wert simple, guileless, good, and
brave; and thus were fitted to fall easily into my snares, where many
have fallen before thee; but Heaven, by revealing my sins, hath saved
thee in time. And I do further confess that I am a false traitor, a
dyvour heretic and renouncer of my baptism. Written for me, by a
learned clerk, at the Castle of Edinburgh, the 17th day of July, in
the year of God I^m V^c xxxvii.
"JANE SETON."
"My Jane! my Jane! oh, this is hell's own work!" exclaimed the
unhappy young man; who became stricken with terror at avowals which
were so startling and so well calculated to make a deep impression on
any man, and on any mind of his time, when a belief in the power of
the devil was so strong. "This agony, and not the love I bear thee,
is the work of sorcery. It is a forgery--I will never believe it;
and yet her signature is there! and after trial, when torture, shame,
and agony were past, what could bring forth an avowal such as this?
Oh, what but remorse for deceiving one who had loved thee so well!
The mother of fiends! she so good, so charitable, so religious, who
never missed a mass or festival. I shudder and laugh at the same
moment! A sorceress--Jane .... where is the Jane I loved--the good
and gentle? She confront the terrors of hell--the touch of
Satan?--impossible--frenzy and folly; and yet, and yet, and yet my
brain is turned, and I feel as if a serpent had thrust its head into
my heart."
Thus thought Roland, incoherently.
All the implicit trust of a lover, and the blind chivalric devotion
of a true gentleman of the year 1537, failed to bear up Vipont
against the chilling superstition which then overshadowed every mind
and everything, and which tinges the writings of the most subtle
casuists and philosophers of those days; and assuredly one could not
expect much deep casuistry or philosophy either to be exhibited by
Roland, whose school had been the camp, and whose playground in
boyhood had been the corpse-strewn battle-fields of France and Italy.
It was an age of fairy spells and magic charms, mysterious omens, and
gliding spectres--of ten thousand deadly and now forgotten terrors;
and we must enter fully into the feelings of the age to appreciate or
conceive the frightful effect this unsought for and unexpected avowal
of supernatural crime produced upon the mind of Roland Vipont.
His first impulse was to stigmatize the letter as the most deliberate
of forgeries, to rend it into a hundred fragments, and to scatter
them from the window on the waters of the loch below; but the memory
of the words those fragments contained, and their terrible import,
remained as if written with fire upon his soul, and wherever he
turned he saw them palpably before him; thus, at times, the most
cruel doubts were added to his former despair.
He felt that his mental agony was rapidly becoming too great for
endurance; and he shrunk, as it were, back within himself with terror
at the idea that he might become insane.
The pride of his strong and gallant heart--a heart that had never
quailed amid the boom of cannon and the shock of spears, the rush of
charging squadrons and the clang of descending swords--was now bowed
down; and covering his face with his hand, he wept like a child, and
with that deep and deathlike agony that can only be known by the
strong man when forced to find a refuge and relief in tears.
Redhall, that tiger-heart, had calculated well and deeply. The sight
of those tears, produced by the letter he had so cruelly and so
subtly contrived, would have been as balm to his heart, and as
"marrow to his bones;" for he laughed aloud when Nichol Birrel, by
dawn of day, related, in exaggerated terms, the agony of Vipont,
which he had neither the means of observing or ascertaining; for he
had simply, by the assistance of a ladder, dropped the letter into
his apartment, and hurried away.
"The measure of my vengeance against this man is now almost full!"
said he; "woe be to him who would lessen it! To have destroyed her
while this Vipont believed in her innocence would have left that
vengeance but half sated. Now have I fairly robbed her of her honour
and her very soul--at least, in the eyes of this gilded moth, who
loves her, as I know, even to adoration; but not more than I do--oh,
no!--not more than I, who am her destroyer, and on whose hands her
blood will lie. Oh, Jane!...."
His head fell forward on his breast.
"But harkye, Birrel," said he, suddenly recovering; "to-day the
cardinal goes to Falkland, to seek her pardon from the king; and this
pardon (if granted) young Leslie of Balquhan is to convey straight to
Sir James Riddel, at our castle here. Now mark me, Nichol Birrel,
and mark me well, this pardon must be brought to me, and to me alone.
'Tis an insult of this meddling cardinal to send it to
Cranstoun-Riddel, the castellan, while I am lord advocate. This very
day, after morning mass, his eminence and this holiday lieutenant of
the guards, set out for Falkland. Do thou, with Trotter and fifteen,
or as many good horsemen as you can muster, follow, and watch well
for Leslie's return. Be more wary than you were in Douglasdale, or
what avail your promises of service? Between this and Falkland there
is many a mile of lonely muirland, where blows may be struck, or
bones broken, and where a slain man may sleep undiscovered till the
judgment-day--see to it! This Leslie is in your hands, as Vipont was
before. A hundred French crowns if thou bringest me the pardon.
Stay!--there is the Laird of Chitto, who hath a plea before the
lords; tell him, that if he wishes well to his ease, a _certain
horseman_ must not pass the Lomond-hill; there are the Lindesays of
Kirkforthar and Bandon, who are the sworn foemen of the House of
Balquhan. I know thy skill and cunning--ride and rouse them! Ride
and raise all the Howe of Fife on the king's messenger; and here is
my thumb on't, Nichol Birrel, my three best crofts at Redhall shall
be thine of a free gift, heritably and irredeemably, to thee and
thine heirs for ever."
In one hour from that time this indefatigable ruffian had Tam Trotter
and fifteen other horsemen completely armed, with helmets and
cuirasses, gorgets, and gloves of steel, swords, lances, and
petronels, awaiting his orders (and the cardinal's departure) in the
stable yard of Redhall's lodging in the Canongate.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
THE CROSS AND GILLSTOUP.
"But the curtain of twilight o'ershadows the shore,
And deepens the tint on the blue Lammermuir;
The tints on Corstorphine have paled in their fire,
But sunset still lingers with gold on its spire;
The Roseberry forests are hooded in grey,
And night, like his heir, treads impatient on day--
And now, gentle stranger, if such be thy mood,
Go welcome the moonlight in sweet Holyrood."
On the night, with which our last chapters have been chiefly
occupied, at the identical time when Father St. Bernard was
concerting with the cardinal, anent procuring a pardon for Lady Jane,
two other kind friends were elsewhere concerting the escape of her
lover--but planning it like soldiers, by escalade and at point of the
sword.
In the course of the present history we have, more than once,
referred to a certain flourishing tavern, named _The Cross and
Gillstoup_, which, in those days, displayed its signboard to the
public eye on the south side of the then somewhat suburban street,
the Canongate.
Though the host of this establishment was vitally interested in the
freedom of the master of king James's ordnance, in so far that he
owed him the sum of thirty crowns for wine, it was not deemed
advisable to take him into the conspiracy. In a little chamber of
this tavern, vaulted, like all the first stories in old Edinburgh,
having a sanded floor, a plain wooden table, and fir chairs of
capacious dimensions, a little figure of the Madonna in a corner,
beneath which was a begging-box, belonging to the Franciscans,
inscribed, "Help ye puir, as ye wald God dit you," sat Sir John
Forrester, captain of the king's arquebusiers, and Leslie of
Balquhan, his lieutenant; though it was past the hour of nine, when,
by the laws of James I., no man was to be found in a tavern after
that hour rang from the burgh bell, under a penalty of warding in the
Tolbooth, or paying "the king's chamberlane fiyftie schillinges."
Being gentlemen, and moreover officers of the guard, these two
cavaliers considered themselves above such vulgar rules, and were
quietly sitting down to supper. Their bonnets and mantles, their
unbuckled swords and daggers, lay on a side bench; each had a knife
and platter of delft ware, with a silver-rimmed drinking-horn, before
him; and between them stood a savoury powt pie, with a great pewter
jug of wine, the said pewter jug being polished to the brightness of
a mirror; and Leslie used it as such, to point up his moustaches; for
the hostess of _The Cross and Gillstoup_ prided herself particularly
on the brightness of her pots and kettles--and then, be it
remembered, pewter was a luxury.
Seated at another table in the background, but helped liberally from
the before-mentioned powt pie and the gallant pewter jug, old
Lintstock, the ex-cannonier, with his steel cap and Jedwood axe laid
beside him, his white hair glistening in the light of three long
candles, and his eye looking very fierce and red, was eating his
supper with a stern and disconsolate but nevertheless very determined
aspect; for he had thoroughly resolved on doing something desperate,
though he had not exactly made up his mind as to what that desperate
thing should be. Ever since his master's arrest the forlorn old
soldier had been protected by Sir John Forrester, who remarked, as
they proceeded to supper--
"A whole day has passed, and yet, Leslie, we have resolved on
nothing; and now our resolutions must needs be sharp and sure, for
high and overstrained in their newfangled notions of civil authority,
the abbot Mylne and Redhall will come swoop down like a pair of
ravenous hawks on poor Vipont, for his escapade on that devilish day
of Lady Jane's trial."
"I am aware of that."
"Then why did you not come sooner?"
"Sooner? Why, Sir John, I have never had time to cross myself
to-day."
"Busy--thou?"
"Oh, I had a score of matters to attend to. First, I had to buy me a
pot of rouge at the Tron for Madame de Montreuil, who complains that
her complexion hath gone since the late queen's death; then I had to
escort the Countess of Glencairn and little Mademoiselle de Brissac,
who must needs go on a pilgrimage to the chapel of St. James; then I
had to get a pint of wine at Leith to refresh me; then I had to write
a song for Marion Logan, and to ride to John of the Silvermills,
anent some matters for bonny Alison Hume."
"I knew not that she was ailing."
"Nay, 'twas only to get some almond paste for her dainty hands, and
oil of roses for her hair."
"Plague on thee and them! Canst think of such cursed trifles when
our best friends are in such deadly peril?"
"Now really, Corstorphine," said Leslie, as he spread the white linen
serviette over his red satin trunk breeches; "is the whole world to
stand still because Roland Vipont is laid by the heels? Or dost thou
think that the king will bring to death, or even to trial, so brave a
fellow as our captain of his ordnance?"
"The devil! thou talkest as if brave fellows were scarce in Scotland.
But the Lady Seton, her chances of life----"
"Are small indeed; but let us only have our Vipont free of