Jane Seton; or, The King's Advocate: A Scottish Historical Romance
she kissed his cheek and became quite pacified, while Jane's bright
face became radiant with pleasure.
The countess and her niece, Sybil, with Alison Home and Marian Logan,
knowing that they could now be spared, retired to prepare for that
early supper of which our late dinners have now usurped the place,
and the lovers were left alone, seated together hand in hand, for the
first time during nine long months.
They were all eye and ear for each other, as they conversed in voices
that were soft and low, and love carried them back to those days of
gaiety and simplicity before the cold hand of etiquette had
interposed between them. Little Sybil closed the arras as she went
out, and we have no wish, by raising it, to break the spell that love
and pleasure threw around them.
CHAPTER IV.
REDHALL.
"The will is free; why must it then be curbed
I would be happy, gain what I desire,
Or feel each pulse throb pleasure in the chase--
Yet this new teacher tells such pleasure is
A fruit I must untasted shun."--_Nimrod. Act III._
The apartment, which was half darkened, was partly tapestried and
partly wainscoted. A stone fireplace, on grotesque columns covered
with carved roses, destitute of grate (for grates were not then in
fashion) and of fire, for the season was summer, by its emptiness
lent a somewhat dreary aspect to the chamber. The floor was without
carpet, for carpets were almost unknown in Scotland till 1560 (three
and twenty years after); the furniture was of massive oak. The
well-grated windows, which looked to the Friar Wynd, were concealed
by thick curtains, and gaudily-flowered tapestries, framed in
richly-carved oak, covered most part of the walls. A brilliant suit
of armour, hanging upon a nail or steel hook, and a few shelves of
gigantic folios bound in vellum, edged with red, and clasped with
brass, were the leading features in this chamber. A sandglass stood
upon the table, for one was usually carried by fellows of colleges
and other learned men about this period in lieu of a watch, as we may
read in Aubrey's Memoirs.
A folio lay on the black oak table, and on its closely-written leaves
the light fell from a great iron lamp of grotesque form, covered by a
circular shade. With his head reclined on one hand, and the other
thrust into the breast of his black velvet doublet, the King's
Advocate sat dreamily and moodily immersed in deep thought. His
grave and classic face was of a clear olive complexion. His nose was
perfectly straight, his eyes large, black, and sparkling, and his
knit eyebrows now formed one complete arch above them. His smooth
and lofty brow was expressive of deep thought, of watching and study,
and even of tranquillity, though there were times when, it could
assume a terrible expression, and his keen dark orbs would fill with
fire, and every hair of his short moustaches bristle with passion.
His mouth was decidedly his worst feature; but his short beard
concealed those thin lips which Lavater considered the infallible
sign of a mind pregnant with evil. His aspect was lofty and severe,
and his eye was so penetrating that few could sustain the fire and
inquiry of its glance.
The pages of the _Forest Laws_, written by King William the Lion, lay
before him, but his eyes were fixed on his jewelled poniard that lay
on the table close by, showing how his mind wandered from the subject
he had sat down to study to the irate promptings of jealousy and
revenge.
For Jane Seton, Sir Adam Otterburn and Ronald Vipont had long been
rivals; at least so the former had viewed the latter, who had neither
dreaded him nor feared his attentions, for such was his confidence in
the love and truth of Jane; yet he had nothing to rely on but his
sword and the somewhat precarious favour of James V., while Redhall
was the proprietor of a strong baronial fortalice, a noble domain
situated a few miles south of the city, and as lord advocate of
Scotland was a powerful officer of state, then armed with more powers
and terrors than any ten inquisitors of the Holy Office. His
position was most honourable, and in virtue of it he was always
addressed "My Lord." His knowledge of law was little, but his
privileges were great; he was permitted to sit covered within the bar
of the Court of Session like a peer of the realm, and he had the
power of issuing warrants for searching, apprehending, imprisoning
and putting to the torture any person in Scotland--his warrants being
valid as those of the king. Such was Roland's formidable competitor
for the hand of Jane Seton, to whom the young cavalier would have
been wedded fully two years before the time in which this history
opens, but for the fear of forfeiting king James's favour, and the
implacable hostility of that prince to the house of Douglas, which
formed an insuperable barrier to any of the court favourites who
might be disposed (which few of them were) to form alliances with any
noble family of that obnoxious surname.
Aware of this, Otterburn, whose landed possessions rendered him
happily independent of James's frowns or favour, had redoubled his
assiduity and attentions, never once permitting the hope to die, that
Jane might ultimately regard him with favour. During the nine
months' absence of the master of the ordnance in France with King
James, the addresses of Otterburn had been as unmistakeable as they
were obnoxious to the young lady; who seeing in him only the great
public prosecutor of her own and her mother's family, viewed him with
horror and hostility, though she dismissed him with a cold but
cautious politeness, that, strange to say, while it eclipsed his
hopes, in no way extinguished his ardour.
From that time forward he could visit her no more; but his inborn
obstinacy of spirit and indomitable vanity would not admit of his
totally resigning her--especially during the absence of Vipont,
against whose safe return there were many chances, during the
escapades and broils, the midnight rambles and madcap adventures, in
which he and the king were constantly involved. For a time,
Otterburn had again given way to the illusions of hope and the
impulses of his heart; but now the safe and sudden return of his
brilliant rival had swept them all away, together with a thousand
bright daydreams, as a breeze does the gossamer webs; and the strong
mind of the statesman and judge became a prey to anxious jealousy and
furious hatred.
"As a rainbow fades from the sky, so has this bright vision passed
from before me!" he exclaimed, as he struck his hands together, and
looked upward with something of despair. In his better moments he
felt only grief, when his more generous impulses would prompt him to
resign Jane Seton in peace to her more favoured lover.
"Were she mine," he mused, with a face that became alternately sad
and mournful, or dark and saturnine, "her happiness would be my only
object; then why should I seek to mar it because she is _not_? By
what glamour can this mere girl, who never once thought of me
otherwise than as the persecutor of the Douglases, fascinate me thus,
swaying my heart, my soul, my every purpose--being the object of
every effort--the inspirer of every thought? How cometh it that her
coldness, her disdain, her hate (nay, she is too gentle for _that_),
all serve but to increase my love? Oh! 'tis sorcery! 'tis sorcery!
.... Oh! in how many a long and weary night I have pressed a pillow
sleeplessly, and courted slumber, but in vain? How often have I
tried to rend her image from my heart, to supplant it by another, and
in vain? I have recoiled from that other with disgust, as the more
winning image of Jane came before me; and yet she loves me not. How
often have I fruitlessly striven to crush this mad and besotting
passion, and to nourish only hatred, indifference, or revenge? .....
God help me! I am very miserable. And shall I resign her to the
arms of this upstart favourite, this cutthroat cannoneer, and gilded
hireling of King James--resign, her without a struggle--I, who am so
immeasurably his superior in fortune, mind, and purpose?--Never! ...
How strong this passion of love is! How noble, and for how glorious
a purpose has God implanted it in our hearts; but oh, may few endure
like me to love an object that loves another, and yieldeth no return!
Let dotard monks and deceived misanthropes, let stoics and
philosophers say what they will, there is more magic and power in the
single smile of a woman than in all the impulses of the human heart
put together. Ambition dazzles, hatred sways, and revenge impels
us--they are powerful incentives, and their triumph is delicious--but
love is greater than all. Generosity urges me to leave her to the
fool she loves--to avoid her path, her presence, and her spells for
ever; but passion, obstinacy, and infatuation, lead me on, and,
overwhelming every gentler sentiment, impel me to the pursuit. Shall
I, then, be baffled and foiled by this poor caterpillar, whose wings
have expanded in the brief sunshine of royal favour--this silken
slave--this Roland Vipont, who, not six years since, wore an iron
hongreline and brass plate, as a mere French cannoneer, under
Vaudmont and Marshal Lautreque? Never! And, by the holy arm of St.
Giles! this night shall end our rivalry for ever!"
Thus said, or rather thought, Redhall; and, suddenly pausing, he
snatched up a long metal whistle, that lay always at hand, and blew a
shrill call.
Almost immediately afterwards the arras was lifted, a man entered,
and, making a respectful obeisance, stood at a little distance.
CHAPTER V.
THE WITCH-PRICKER.
"_Flam._ Malicious fortune!
_Ænob._ Now thou seest my meaning!"--_Boadicea._
The personage who appeared was a short, thickset, and bandy-legged
man, whose malformation his chocolate-coloured stockings and white
cloth breeches displayed to the utmost advantage. He had a neck and
chest like a bullock, with the sinister visage of a thorough-paced
ruffian. In size, his head and hands were altogether disproportioned
to his body; his hair, beard, and moustaches, which appeared to have
been preserved sacred from comb and scissors, were all woven into one
matted mass, which was of the deepest black; while drinking and
exposure to the weather had bronzed his skin to an almost oriental
blackness. He wore a plain frock or gaberdine of white Galloway
cloth, confined at the girdle by a broad calfskin belt and steel
buckle, in which he carried a long dirk or knife. He wore rough
brogues of brown leather on his broad splay feet, and a small rosary
of oak beads which dangled at his left wrist evinced his wish to be
deemed a respectable member of society; but arrogance, cunning, and
brutality, were powerfully depicted on his otherwise stolid visage,
which had a very repulsive squareness of aspect, two enormous ears,
and a great mastiff mouth.
This worthy was Nichol Birrel, the brodder or witch-pricker of the
newly-established high court of justiciary, one of the most
unscrupulous and atrocious ruffians that ever occupied this
important, and, in after years, lucrative situation.
Born and bred a vassal on the estate of the lord advocate, to whom he
was intensely devoted, he had obtained the place of prover or
witchfinder, as it peculiarly suited his ruffianly and sanguinary
disposition. Several other minor officials of the new court were,
like him, the immediate and devoted dependents of Redhall, for whom
they acted as bravos on a hundred occasions. Nichol, though cruel,
false, bitter, and treacherous to all the rest of mankind, was true,
faithful, and sincerely a friend to his lord and benefactor; for he
seemed to be possessed by the same instinct which attaches a
ferocious hound to the hand that feeds him.