Jane Seton; or, The King's Advocate: A Scottish Historical Romance
"Make ye way, sirs! I am on the king's service!" he exclaimed, still
backing his horse, but disdaining to fly. "Plague! the sheriff of
Fife has surely bad deputies! But, whoever you are, rascals, the
life of Balquhan for the best life among ye!"
And dashing spurs into his horse, he broke through the whole band
like a whirlwind, thrusting one through the body, bearing down
another, unhorsing a third with his foot; and passing unhurt through
the hedge of steel around him, left John of Clatto and his ruffians
to deposit one of their own number in the grave they had dug so
carefully in the thicket near the mill.
He heard behind a storm of oaths and outcries, mingled with the clash
of arms, and the rush of galloping hoofs, as the horsemen broke
tumultuously out of the wooded hollow, and poured along the highway,
in fierce pursuit of him. Heedless of their taunts and shouts,
Leslie spurred on: he had now been made aware that there were those
upon the road whose interest it was to intercept him. On, on he went
by the skirts of the desolate and moonlighted moss, and his anxiety
was not lessened by the reflection that he had to pass by the Tower
of Bandon, whose proprietor was his enemy; and in a few minutes he
saw the square outline of this fortalice, with its angular turrets
and grated windows, rising above the roadway, among a group of old
ash-trees.
The pursuers were close behind.
Leslie was almost tempted to turn towards the moss; but to one so
ignorant of its paths, such a measure might prove a certain death,
while the risk was scarcely less in keeping near the barony of
Bandon. Half-a-mile before him, on the open muirland, he saw several
men on horseback, and his practised eye soon discovered that they
were twelve in number, and armed, for the moonbeams were reflected
from twelve helmets. Then his heart became filled with rage; for
though he knew not why his path was thus beset, he knew that if he
were slain, and the pardon was not delivered by a certain hour in
Edinburgh, the unhappy Jane Seton, the promised bride of his friend,
would assuredly be led forth to perish by a shameful and frightful
death.
Many of the troop from which he had escaped, not less than twelve,
perhaps, were scarcely a hundred yards behind him; now he saw as many
more in front, and his forebodings told him they were the Lindesays
of Bandon. At Balbirnie there stood an ancient cross, erected by a
gentleman of the neighbourhood who had slain another at that place;
and this cross (which is still standing) Leslie knew would afford him
a sanctuary, if his pursuers were old Catholics; but he remembered
that the Reformation had made vast progress in Fife, and that its
proselytes would not hesitate to violate any sanctuary; so, instead
of pressing onward to gain this bourne, supposing that the direct
road might be beset still further on, he turned abruptly to the left,
and plunged down a narrow strath, which led, as he was aware, towards
the village of Markinch and the strong castle of the Lundies of
Balgonie.
A shout burst from the horsemen on the muir, on finding that he thus
avoided them; and, joining with those who came from Kirkforthar, they
all urged their horses to the utmost speed to intercept the gallant
messenger. Many a dague and petronel were fired after him, and he
heard the balls, as they whistled sharply past his ear, crash among
the branches of the wayside trees, or sink into the flinty road; but
after some twenty or thirty shots, the firing ceased, as the troopers
rode in such haste that they had not time to reload their firearms.
On, on came horses and men at headlong speed, rushing, a troop of
evil spirits, along the moon-lighted strath; now dashing through
coppice and underwood, then splashing through a brawling mountain
burn; now sweeping noiselessly over the yielding moss and heather
muirland, and anon breasting gallantly up the pasture braes: but
Leslie, being mounted on one of King James's best horses, fresh from
its stall at Falkland, though he did not leave his pursuers
altogether behind, was yet enabled to keep a considerable distance
between them and himself.
And now, upon a little eminence, the village of Markinch, with its
venerable square steeple of the eleventh century, arose before him,
and near it he fortunately left almost the half of his pursuers,
floundering up to their girths in the deep and dangerous marsh which
encircled the village on every side save one. Here to halt was vain;
for the unscrupulous Lairds of Clatto and Bandon had men enough to
sack and destroy the whole kirk-hamlet; so forward pressed the
fugitive, intent on reaching the castle of Balgonie, or the ancient
mansion of the Beatons of Balfour, where the archbishop of St.
Andrew's and his nephew, the great cardinal, were born. On, on yet!
and he soon found himself among the woods of the Leven; dark and
thick, old and stately, the beeches were in the full foliage of July,
and the dense old Scottish firs intertwined their wiry branches with
them: and now the river, broad, deep, and hoarse, in the full fury of
its summer flood, swollen by a night of rain, lay rolling in foam
before him; and upon its opposite bank rose, from a wooded eminence,
the strong and lofty donjon tower of that time-honoured, but now
extinct race, the brave old Lundies of Balgonie.
Glittering in the moonlight, like a silver torrent, the beautiful
Leven swept out of the far and dark obscurity of its foliaged dell,
and in its crystal depths (save where the foam-bells floated) the
sombre outline of the castle, with its turrets, and the steep knowe
on which it stood, with all its waving trees, were reflected in the
deep and downward shadows.
There were not less than twenty mounted spearmen still upon his
track, and, lo! a deep, fierce current lay foaming in his front. On
a level sward, Leslie paused with irresolution, and before plunging
into the stream, surveyed it, but surveyed in vain to find a ford.
He looked back. The hill he had descended was covered with whins and
scattered trees; and there, far in advance of their comrades, came
four horsemen, who were now close upon him. With a fervent, almost a
ferocious prayer to Heaven, he drew his sword and awaited them, for
at the first glance he discerned that one of the four was his enemy
Bandon, who, to breathe his panting horse, advanced leisurely at a
trot before his three immediate followers.
"Guid e'en to thee, my light-heeled Leslie," said he, with a sardonic
grin; "thou hast gien us a fast ride and a far one!"
"Beware, Bandon; I ride this night on the king's service."
"I ken that well."
"And still thou darest to molest me?"
"Yea, would I, though ye rode on the errand of the king of hell
instead of that of the King of Scotland. Have at thee--for thou art
a Leslie of Balquhan!"
"Beware, I tell thee, beware! My life is not my own to-night," cried
Leslie, guarding the impending stroke of Lindesay's uplifted sword;
"beware thee, till to-morrow only. I am the bearer of a royal pardon
to Edinburgh."
"To thy grave alone thou bearest it!" cried the other, furiously.
Leslie parried the blow, and then replying by a thrust at the throat
of his antagonist, before withdrawing his sword, bestowed a
backhanded stroke at another horseman, who had covered him with his
brass petronel, a stroke which rendered his better arm useless.
Another deadly thrust relieved him of a second enemy, and then he had
but two to deal with.
Round and round him they both rode in circles, but by point and edge
he met their cuts and thrusts; till observing that Bandon was close
to the edge of the stream, he suddenly put spurs to his horse, and
charging him with the utmost fury, by a blow of his foot forced him
right over the bank, where his horse fell upon him, and with its
rider sank into the river. There Lindesay became entangled beneath
the animal, which snorted, kicked, and plunged so violently, that he
was swept unresistingly away with the current and drowned. Next
morning the miller of Balgonie, on finding his machinery stopped and
the dam running over, was horrified to see a horse and its rider, in
armour, lying drowned and jammed under the great wooden wheel of his
mill.
A volley of petronels from the bank above Leslie left him no time for
further defence or reflection; and with a shout of defiance he leaped
his horse boldly into the stream, and, regardless of the bullets
which plunged into the water incessantly, exerted every energy to
gain the opposite bank, using his hands and knees, half swimming, to
relieve the animal of his burden (which was not a light one, the
rider being in armour): keeping its dilated nostrils above water, and
yielding a little to the current, he ultimately crossed, successfully
and securely.
With flattened ears and upraised head, the broad-chested steed
breasted gallantly the foaming water, and snorted with satisfaction
on feeling the firm ground at the opposite side, where Leslie uttered
a shout of triumph as he scrambled up the bank, and thus by one bold
effort found himself free.
Oaths and cries of rage resounded among the woods behind, and many a
trooper urged his horse towards the brink, but their hearts failed
them, and not one dared to cross the deep and rapid Leven, by which
their intended victim had been saved and their leader swept away
before their eyes. The lieutenant of the king's guard now leisurely
examined the knees of his horse and the girths of his saddle; looked
to his sword-belt and spur-leathers; recharged his petronels, and
glanced at the pouch which contained the pardon of Jane Seton. He
then wiped his sword and remounted.
Reflecting that the river was now between him and his enemies, that
he was several miles out of the direct road, and that (except the
ducking) he was not in the least the worse either of the ride or the
combat, he resolved, instead of seeking shelter either at the place
of Balfour or the castle of Balgonie, to push onwards to Kinghorn.
The ramparts of this stronghold, which are eighty feet in height,
were glimmering in the moonbeams, above the tossing foliage, as he
descended into the hollow which lies to the south of it, and then
turned westward, little thinking that the ferocious Laird of Clatto,
with Dobbie, Tam Trotter, and some fifteen horsemen, in anticipation
of such a measure, had long before wheeled off to the right, and were
pushing on the spur towards the Kinghorn road to intercept him.
CHAPTER LIII.
THE FIGHT AT INVERTEIL.
"Let us hasten to receive them,
Placing in the foremost ranks,
Those who bear the arquebuses;
Let the horsemen next advance,
With the customary splendour
Of the harness and the lance."--CALDERON.
With a heart divided between emotions of rage and exultation, the
fugitive messenger rode towards Kinghorn.
The aspect of the tract of country he crossed is very different now
from what it was in those days. Many places that are bare pasture
lands were then covered by dense thickets of natural wood; other
places, that are now fertile and arable, were covered with broom and
whins of such gigantic size that horsemen might have been concealed
among them; while all the straths and glens were filled with the
water which then flowed through innumerable mosses and marshes.
Streams, which were then impassable rivers, have now, by the drainage
of the land and other agricultural improvements, shrunk to mere burns
or mountain runnels; while those which were then burns and trouting
streams, have in many instances totally disappeared; and waters, such
as those of the Boathouse bridge in Linlithgowshire and the Eden in
Fifeshire, which had ferry-boats plying upon them, are now scarcely