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

dust rolled under the hoofs of his horse. "In harness," said one falconer. "He is not Sir Robert," muttered another. "St. Mary! how he drives his horse!" exclaimed Marion Logan. "It is Leslie of Balquhan!" growled Birrel, ferociously, as he grasped his dague. "Now, curse be on my folly, that sent not this butterfly, with her attendant wasps, hence on a fool's errand." The continual glitter of the rider's armour showed that he was richly accoutred, and the incredible speed at which he rode announced that he was nobly mounted. In three minutes he reined up his horse at the foot of the bank, where, with a glow of pleasure beaming in her beautiful face, Marion Logan recognised him. "Lewis Leslie!" she exclaimed, and kissed her hand frankly to him, for he was her favoured lover. "At your service, my dear madam," replied the officer of the arquebusiers, bowing to his very saddle. Birrel's eyes were starting from his head, as he strained his ears to listen. "From whence?" "Falkland." "Falkland! and why so fast?" "Oh, rejoice, my dear Lady Marion! I have here the king's gracious pardon for Jane Seton; she is saved; and one hour from this will see her free!" The brave young cavalier shook the pouch that hung at the girdle, which Marion had embroidered for him. "The _pouch!_ d--nation wither my tongue, for it alone hath made this woman and her varlets loiter, instead of hurrying them away," said Birrel, as he limped past, and posted himself a few hundred yards farther off. "Pardoned!--Jeanie pardoned!" said Marion, whose blue eyes sparkled with tears and joy. "Can it be? Lewis, Lewis, how much I love you at this moment! For this good news I would let you have a pretty kiss, but for all those eyes about us. Oh, what blessed tidings for us!" "Still more blessed for her, I think, and for my brave friend Vipont too! 'Tis all the cardinal's doing; his good offices have achieved this. "The cardinal!" "Faith, it is thought dangerous for a woman to accept a favour at his hand. But dost think, Marion, that such a gallant man will permit such an outrage upon youth and beauty as Abbot Mylnes' sentence to be carried into effect? No, no! Long live the cardinal, say I. But what a night I have had of it, Marion! nearly fifty scoundrel horsemen have tried to intercept and cut me off." "Hamiltons?" "Hamiltons or hell-hounds, I know not which," replied Leslie, angrily; "but I have given more than one the Leslie's lick, and have escaped them, blessed be Heaven!" "My brave friend! 'tis like thee." "Lady Marion," said Steenie, the falconer, approaching; "Sir Robert is in sicht; see yonder, by the bank o' the loch. Noo he flees his goshawk at a heron," he added, as the burly old knight was seen to rein up his horse, and let the bird slip from his wrist. "So--brawly cuisten off! See, the hawk is noo aboon, and noo it stoops to the quarry!" said the venerable servitor, as he waved his broad bonnet; "it's a true bird o' my ain training. See how the sly heron turns up her belly--ah, the lang leggit devil! she seeks to use baith claws and bill; but the hawk passes--noo the hawk tak's her at the sowse, and strikes doon. No; it's these Milan bells, they're owre full i' the sound, and spoil the bird i' the mounting. See, my brave bird plumes her--noo, doon for a croon, like a bow-shot!" The birds disappeared among the sedges. "Farewell, Leslie," said Marion; "on, on to the Castle, and delay not your errand of mercy. But come soon to see us; you know well how lonely we are on the Rig yonder, and how well my father loves you. How rejoiced he will be to hear these tidings of our poor Jeanie Seton; my faith, he will drink a deep tankard to-night, for it was but to shake off the dolours he rode forth to-day, and neither to hunt nor to hawk." "Then, my Marion, to-morrow, at noon, I will stable my horse at Restalrig." "We will expect you." "My dutiful commendations to the good knight your father, and meantime, adieu!" With eyes full of affection they kissed their hands to each other, and separated. Whipping up her tall and fiery horse, with her veil and her long tresses floating behind, Marion, by one flying leap, made it clear the roadway and gain the summit of the opposite bank, from whence her lover saw her (followed by her attendants) cantering across the fields towards the sheet of water which her father's old manor-house still overhangs. She went at a pace which put the poor falconers, who were on foot, to their mettle; and the young Laird of Balquhan, despite his anxiety to deliver the important paper, which had thrice nearly cost him his life, checked the speed of his charger to look after the retiring figure of her he loved. He little knew what that brief pause and that last glance after Marion Logan were to cost him. Birrel's heart danced with joy to see him loitering, while the young lady and her armed servants were fast retiring beyond ear-shot. The sun had now set, and the dun blaze of light it shed from the western hills across the muir of Wardie was dying away. The whole Loan, from the round arch of St. Anthony to where it disappeared under the brow of the Calton, was deserted. The Calton then was bare, bleak and desolate, or covered by waving furze, broad-leaved fern, or dark whin; so was the opposite bank, which sloped up to the height of eighty feet, and was crowned by the chapel and little hamlet of St. Ninian, the smoke of which was visible as it ascended into the calm air from the cottage chimneys. This knoll was named Moultrays Hill; and between it and the Calton the narrow road plunged down into the gorge, where the church of the Trinity lay, passing, on the left, the Carmelite Friary of the Holy Cross at Greenside. Standing forward in strong relief from the dark shoulder of the hill, and against the blue sky, the broad boundary, the stone cross and crow-stepped gables of this edifice, were visible from a group of old elm-trees, under which Birrel posted himself. As Leslie approached, the assassin shrank under their branches, drew his hood over his face, and gave a last glance to the wheel-lock of his dague. A leer of cruelty and malice shone in his eyes, and a horrible smile curled his square lips, as, with a limping step, he approached the centre of the path. "Gie a plack or a bodle, sir, to help a puir carle that hasna broken a bannock these three days and mair." "Try the Carmelites, my good friend," replied Leslie, riding hurriedly on. "The Virgin bless you, noble sir," continued Birrel, hobbling after him; "mind a puir soldier of Sanct John, that lost his arm fighting under the Preceptor at the battle o' Haddenrig?" "An old soldier?" said Leslie, checking his horse; "by the three kings of Cologne, an old soldier shall never in vain seek alms of me! Here, thou cunning carle, and say an _Ave_ for me to-night;" he stooped to feel for a coin in the purse which hung at his sword-belt; then Birrel drew forth the arm that appeared to be maimed, and levelled his dague full at the ear of the unsuspecting horseman; his glistening eye glared along the burnished barrel; the wheel revolved; a bright flash, the sharp report, and a low groan followed. Leslie rolled lifeless in the dust beneath his horse's hoofs, with the blood flowing from his mouth. The muzzle of the dague having been but three inches from his helmet, two brass balls had passed through his brain, and as the wretch turned him over, he saw in a moment that the hapless cavalier was far beyond the skill even of John of the Silvermills, the Scottish Galen and Avicenna of his age. Birrel gave one ferocious glance around him to see that none were near; he gave another at the glazing eyes turned back within their sockets, the relaxed jaw and noble features of Leslie, which in a moment had become livid and horrible, as in the pale twilight they stiffened into the rigidity of death. From the dead youth's glittering baldrick he tore away the leathern pouch, and rending it with his dog-like teeth (for he was in too great haste to undo the buckles), drew forth the pardon, and fled towards the city..... And there on the road the slain man lay, with the dew and the darkness descending upon him; and he felt not one and saw not the other. Near him, and under the dark shadow of the hill, his horse was grazing quietly, as if nothing had happened. An old and withered elm, with scarcely a leaf, but a sprout of one of those which lined the way, still remains in the middle of the street to mark the site of this catastrophe. Slowly the moon rose above the Calton; the long shadow of the hill grew less and less as the orb soared up, until its beams fell on the white visage of the murdered man, and on his polished armour. A black pool lay near, and mingled with the dry summer dust. The horse, with its bridle trailing, was still grazing placidly at a little distance. Some crows were beginning to perch on the elms, or flying round the body with screaming beaks and flapping wings. They came from an adjacent gallows on the Lea. CHAPTER LVI. THE TEMPTATION. "Oh! Harpalus (thus would he say), Unhappiest under sunne; The cause of thine unhappy day By love was first begunne; As easy 'twere for to convert The frost into a flame, As for to turn a froward heart, Whom thou so fain would'st frame." _Reliq. of English Poetry_, 1557. The clock struck in the steeple of St. Giles. Jane heard it distinctly in her prison. Each note was wafted towards her as with a solemn note of lamentation, from the vast and broad mouth of the great church bell. Every stroke vibrated painfully through her heart. It tolled _eleven_! She had but one hour to live. One hour! and then---- A loud and palpable murmur, as of many thousand voices, arose in the city; her heart for a moment died within her; she covered her face with her hand and burst out into a passionate prayer to Heaven--for she knew that, encompassed as she was by sorrow and despair, and engirdled by that strong tower, the eyes of God were upon her. The broad flame of a torch, which was stuck in a tin sconce that hung upon the wall, cast a livid glare on the bare masonry of the vaulted chamber, on her kneeling figure, on her dark and disordered hair, on her white hands, and her whiter forehead. "Roland, my Roland! thou believest these things of me? Oh, I could never have believed such of thee!" A shudder passed over her, and it seemed as if her heart would burst. She had received a reply to that paper so cunningly devised by Redhall, the letter signed and addressed to Roland, when suffering under the agony of an artificial thirst; and that answer, which showed that he believed in her guilt, as confessed to him under her own hand, had crushed her spirit more than all the tortures, inflictions, and insults she had so unmeritedly undergone. Signed by Roland, but written generally to his dictation by the chaplain of the fortress, an old Dominican friar, the reply was sad and sorrowful, full of regrets for her sore temptation to evil; her bitter humiliation, blended with expressions of satisfaction at her contrition; and closing with a pious hope that the sincerity of her repentance and the severity of her earthly punishments would save her from those of another life, solemnly committed her and her works to Heaven. This unlover-like epistle, the embodying of which poor Roland, in his sorrow and confusion of mind, had left entirely to the ingenuity of the friar, appeared to Jane Seton this crowning stroke of her misfortunes. It left her nothing more to wish for, to hope for, or to bind her to the earth. Her Roland had cast her off!