Jane Seton; or, The King's Advocate: A Scottish Historical Romance

James's bright eyes flashed with fire, and he twisted his brown moustache with anger. "Now, by the Holy Communion, this is too much; a pardon for the destroyer of Magdalene of France--for this daughter of a Douglas, and sought in this tower of Falkland, the very chamber where her sire the Lord John of Ashkirk, and her grandsire Sir Archibald of Kilspindie, detained me once a prisoner, with a guard of some five hundred Douglases, from whose surveillance I had to fly like a thief in the night! Lord cardinal, it is impossible." It was seldom that James refused him a favour, and his eminence was piqued. "There is but one day now, and I beseech your majesty to consider well." "I have considered well. The Countess of Arran and I talked over the matter for three hours yesterday." "The Countess of Arran!" muttered the cardinal; "women--women! there is ever mischief where they are concerned. It would have been well had they been altogether omitted in the great plan of human society." "And to lessen this evil to the public thou keepest a dozen of them shut up in the tower at Creich, all fair and jolly damosels," said the king, with something of his old raillery; "truly, lord cardinal, my subjects of Fife are much indebted to thee." "I assure your majesty," said the cardinal, with increasing pique, "that to the best of my knowledge the whole trial and accusation hath been the prompting of revenge in Sir Adam Otterburn of Redhall." "Of my lord advocate? Impossible! why, the man is virtuous as Scipio, and upright as Brutus." "But in their excessive zeal, the judges have wrongly construed the depositions. I implore you to reflect; her death will make an irreparable breach between the races of Stuart and Douglas. War alone will not make a monarch illustrious. The splendour of valour and chivalry dazzles for a time; but a noble action lives in the memory of the people for ever." "True; but beware, lest I deem thee a follower of Angus." "I follow a Master who is greater than all the princes of the earth," replied the stately prelate, warming; "and the opinions of the poor worms that crawl on its surface are nothing to me." "Is this the fag-end of some old sermon?" "Sire, thou mockest me, and I have not deserved it of thee," said the cardinal, rising with dignity; "but let not the ambassadors of foreign princes see thy weakness, and how thou carriest thy vengeance even against a helpless woman. Was it for such an act as this, that Francis the Magnanimous sent thee the collar of St. Michael; that the great Emperor Charles, the victor of sixty battles, sent thee the Golden Fleece; and English Henry, his noble Order of the Garter? I trow not. Glory and virtue cannot exist without mercy--the first is but the shadow of the other two. In this case, close thy heart against hatred, and thou wilt soon become merciful, even to these hated Setons and Douglases. Sire, sire, to thy many good actions add but this one more." "Cardinal, thou pleadest well; but sayest nothing of my gallant Vipont, my comrade in many a hairbrained French adventure. I would have given my best horse and hound--even Bawtie, to have seen him confronting Abbot Mylne and his fourteen black caps! But the sorceries, the vile sorceries of his lady----" "Are about as true as the miracles of Mahomet." "How! Did she not confess them to the whole bench?" "True," replied the cardinal, with a smile; "when her tender limbs were being rent asunder by the rack." "The rack! the rack! Oh, was it only on the rack she confessed these things?" "As thou, sire, or I would have done, under similar circumstances." The king seemed thunderstruck. "A pen! a pen! though a Seton, and a Douglas's daughter, too, I forgive her--she is saved." A few hours after this, when the sun was setting on the East Lomond, Lewis Leslie of Balquhan, mounted on a fleet horse, with the pardon, signed, sealed, and secured in a pouch that hung at his waist-belt, was galloping through the parks of Falkland, on his way to the capital. CHAPTER LII. THE LAIRD OF CLATTO. "Farewell Falkland, the fortress of Fyfe, Thy polite park, under the Lawmound law; Sumtyme in thee I led a lusty lyfe, The fallow deer to see thaim raik on raw, Court men to cum to thee, they stand grait aw, Sayand thy burgh bene of all burrowis baill, Because in thee, they never gat gude aill." _Complaynt of the Papingo._ By the machinations of Redhall, and the subtle ability of Birrel, his messenger, there lay many a deadly barrier, and many a sharp sword, between the gallant Leslie and the city of Edinburgh. The last rays of the sun had vanished from the furzy sides and green summit of the East Lomond, once called the Hill of the Goats, in the language of the Celtic Scots, when he quitted the park of Falkland, and struck into an ancient horseway, which, under the shadow of many a venerable oak-tree, led him towards Kirkforthar; and soon the hill of Clatto became visible as it rose about five miles distant on his left. At that very time a party of horsemen, well armed with lances, two-handed swords, and daggers, and wearing steel caps, with jacks of mail, rode round by the edge of a great and dreary peat-moss, which then lay at the base of Clatto Hill; and passing the old chapel of Kirkforthar, concealed themselves in a thicket of beech-trees, near an ancient mill, some moss-grown fragments of which are still remaining in the highway. There two of their number dismounted, and borrowing a couple of shovels from a neighbouring cottage, with the utmost deliberation, after carefully removing the green turf, proceeded to dig a _grave_. Of these horsemen, fifteen were Redhall's own vassals, led, not by Birrel, for that arch-conspirator had reserved unto himself another part in this cruel and cowardly drama, but by Tam Trotter and Dobbie, both of whom felt their personal importance and dignity increased to an unlimited extent by this command; and Dobbie's cat-like visage wore a comical expression of martial ferocity, as it peeped out of the depths of a vast helmet of the sixteenth century. The other horsemen were led by John Seaton of Clatto, the representative of a family which had long been infamous for its lawless acts and readiness to perform any outrage. The ruins of their tower are still to be seen at the south-east end of Lathrisk, as the parish was then named. The old road from Cupar to Kinghorn passed through a gorge, called Clatto Den, and in the face of the mountain which overhung that narrow bridlepath there lay a cavern, the mouth of which was concealed, but whose recesses afforded a subterranean communication with the vaults of the strong tower above; and there the bandit family of Clatto were wont to rush out and butcher those unsuspecting persons who rashly passed through the den alone, either by night or by day. James IV., when travelling with two esquires, had narrowly escaped assassination there; but cutting a passage through, escaped, leaving one of his assailants minus a hand. In his ignorance of the owner's free propensities, the king took shelter in the tower, when finding that Seaton's sixth son was maimed, the guilt of the family came to light; the secret passage to the tower was discovered; the old ruffian laird and all his sons were hanged, save John the youngest, who, being then a child, escaped to figure on the present occasion. Justice was more severely administered under James V.; thus, the exchequer of the Laird of Clatto being somewhat low, the accoutrements of his fourteen horsemen were rather dilapidated and rusty; but, like their riders, the horses of his troop were fresh, strong, sinewy, and active. Having a plea anent meithes and marches with the Boswells of Dovan, the promise of a decision in his favour had drawn him from his lair on the dark errand of Redhall. The cavern that lay below his tower is now concealed, by the impending side of the den having fallen down a few years ago, and choked up the entrance; but the peasantry still point to the place with fear and abhorrence. Rendered thirsty by a six miles' trot from the tower of Clatto, John Seaton, while his men were coolly digging a grave, went boldly to the mill of Kirkforthar and demanded a cup of ale, upon which the miller gave it submissively, and without asking a question, for he knew that it was as much as the lives of his whole family were worth, to ask on what errand the Laird of Clatto was abroad in the gloaming. "Harkee, miller," said he, with a grin, exhibiting (between his bushy moustaches and beard, which almost concealed the cheek-plates of his open helmet) a set of those sharp white teeth, which bespeak a strong healthy fellow, who is often hungry but always happy: "Harkee, carle miller; haud fast your yett, steek close your een and lugs, and steek them ticht, for the next twa hoors; and tak' ye tent to hear nocht else, but ablins the splash o' your milnwheel, till the mune glints abune the moss." "Langer, gif it please ye, laird," replied the poor miller, trembling. "Ou, that will be lang enow; but tak' tent o' my words; hear ye nocht, and see ye nocht; or I may come doon by the Mossend some braw nicht, and the mill o' Kirkforthar will be toom o' a tenant in the morning; keep close by your ingle cheek, carle, for the chields o' Clatto winna thole steering." And carefully wiping a few drops of ale from his cuirass, which was magnificently cut, worked, and inlaid with the most rare damascene work, he left the low thatched mill, and sprang on horseback. Meanwhile Leslie was galloping by the northern base of the East Lomond. His horse was a strong and active roadster, which he had received from the king's master-stabler. Fortunately he had taken the precaution to retain his armour, which was a ribbed Italian suit, studded with gilded nails, and on the globose cuirass of which his coat of arms were engraved. His gauntlets were overlapping plates, without finger-scales, thus, with the ample steel hilt of the sword, forming a double protection for the right hand. His arms were a long straight rapier and dagger, and at the bow of his demipique saddle he had a pair of firelock dagues, or pistols. The latter every gentleman carried when travelling; and the former were as necessary to a cavalier of the time as his feather or spurs. His horse having lost a shoe, the delay caused by the necessity of having this loss repaired by a roadside Vulcan made the evening dusk before he approached the mill of Kirkforthar. The summer moon shone brightly in the blue sky, and clearly and strongly the outlines of wood and mountain rose against it. On Leslie's right rose the steep Lomond; and on his left extended the vast moss, amid the wilderness of which many a deep pool of water lay gleaming in the moonlight. The district was desolate and wild; but no idea of danger or of molestation occurred to the mind of the solitary horseman, who rapidly approached the mill of Kirkforthar, where the dark foliage of some old beech-trees overshadowed both sides of the way; and where, save the cry of the cushat-dove, all was still as death. A red spark that glimmered among the trees, alone indicated where the mill lay. Leslie checked the speed of his horse, as the road plunged down into this obscurity, which he had no sooner penetrated, than he found his course arrested by two bands of horsemen, who wheeled round their ranks from each side of the road, barring their passage by their levelled lances and uplifted swords. Well was it for Leslie that his fiery horse made a demi-volte, giving him time both to escape their weapons and unsheath his own.