Part 8

But our four gallants had sallied forth prepared for every emergency. Bothwell was completely mailed in the fashion of the time, all save the head, on which he wore a blue bonnet, and his legs, which were defended by his bombasted trunks and quilted hosen. The Marquis d'Elboeuff was similarly accoutred, but wore one of those strong and plain salades, which had only one horizontal slit for the eyes, and he bore on his left arm a light French rondelle or buckler; but Ormiston and Coldinghame wore only pyne doublets, or undercoats of defence quilted with wire, and so called from having been first worn by _pions_, or foot-soldiers. They were all disguised by black velvet masks and dark mantles, under which they carried their swords and daggers.

"How goeth the night, Marquis?" asked Bothwell, as they stumbled along the dark street, breaking their shins against the outside stairs that then in hundreds encumbered the way.

"By St. Denis!" lisped the French noble in his broken dialect; "I know not, for I never was rich enough to buy me a horologue."

"How! is thine appanage of Elboeuff in the Rumois so poor?"

"'Tis past midnight," said Coldinghame; "I heard St. Giles toll twelve."

"A bonny hour and a merry for thee to be abroad, Lord Prior, when thou oughtest be saving thy nocturnal," said Bothwell.

"True; but belonging, as I do, to the Reformed kirk, I own no monastic law; no! by the most immaculate Jupiter!" bawled the lay prior as he swaggered along; "'Tis very long since I abjured the follies of the Church of Rome."

"She lost much by thy defection," said Bothwell, scornfully; "but devil take me, Prior, if thou art not very drunk."

"By the body o' Bacchus, thou art no better than a horned owl to say so! But keep your rapiers ready, sirs; for yonder is a tall fellow who seems disposed to bar the way."

"Where? _ventre bleu!_" exclaimed d'Elboeuff, drawing his sword.

"Where?--where?" asked the others.

"Why, right on the crown of the causeway; and, fore Heaven! he _doth_ seem a marvellously tall fellow."

"By cock and pie! 'tis the city cross, thou blind bat!"

"Right, Ormiston!" replied Bothwell; "but his reverence is so drunk that he knows not a cross from a cow. Past midnight? soh! a famous hour for such regular men as we to be strolling along the streets, like knights of the post; and thou, bully Hob, art without thine armour."

"I have a pyne doublet that would turn the bolt of an arblast--double quilted."

"The streets are dull, and I am very sleepy," stammered Coldinghame.

"Speak not of sleep, my Lord Privy Seal," said the Earl; "for we have a notable brawl to make yet. We must show these rascally bailies that their night-watch and captains of the thirty wards had no reference to us, who are lords and barons of Parliament."

"Thou hast ever some wicked thought in thy gomeral's costard. A brawl! with whom, pray?"

"With _thee_, Lord Prior, if thou talkest thus!" rejoined Bothwell, adjusting his mantle, angrily.

"_Vrai Dieu!_ chevaliers," said the Frenchman; "after so happy a night, don't quarrel, I pray you."

"I would give a score of bright bonnet-pieces to meet a few of Moray's or Morton's swashbucklers coming down the street just now! I am in the right mood for a fray," said Black Hob. "Suppose we ring the Tron bell, and shout fire, sack, and the English!"

"Or break into the house of some rascally bourgeoise, and carry off his pretty wife," said the Marquis d'Elboeuff. "Oh, _ventre bleu!_ de Brissac, de Vendome, and I, have played that prank many a night among the Hugonets in the Rue de Marmousets, and the dear rogues in the Rue de Glatigy"----

"At Paris, thou meanest," said Bothwell; "but our wooden-headed burghers set a value upon their conjugal ware different from your countrymen. The price French, is by francs and livres; the price Scottish, blows and steel blades. One might as well venture into a wasps' nest."

"_Nom d'un Pape!_ Bothwell is growing tame," retorted the Marquis. "I knew that being once regularly wedded would spoil him."

"_Once!_" laughed Ormiston. "I warrant him"----

"Peace, gomeral!" thundered the Earl, placing his gauntleted hand on Hob's mouth. "What wert thou about to say, i' the devil's name?"

"Only that I would wish to show some of these fanatical Protestants that, being doubly damned, they have no right to keep their wives and daughters, or handmaidens, all to themselves."

"_Tete Dieu!_" cried d'Elboeuff, brandishing his rapier; "ah, the selfish Hugonets!--we must teach them the new law. Who will follow me? for Bothwell seemeth white-livered."

"Dost thou gibe me, Marquis? God wot! I should like to see thee ettle at aught that I will not surpass."

"Then here is a house. Draw, chevaliers!--_vive la joie!_ let us beat up the door, knock down the bourgeoise, and carry off the first pretty woman to my hotel in the Cowgate!"

Lord Coldinghame grasped his cloak, saying--

"Beelzebub! Marquis, art thou mad? 'Tis the house of Master John Knox."

"A million of thunders!" grumbled the Frenchman, falling back abashed on hearing that formidable name; "we should have the whole city about our ears. But come--_allons_! I will show ye a place better suited for such merry rogues as we than the house of that arch-heretic. There is Madame Alisong Cragg--a notable lady of joy!"

"Bravo, Marquis! thou art right!" exclaimed Bothwell; "my rascal, French Paris, tells me there is a famous foreign beauty concealed there--brought, 'tis said, by Morton or Arran. And dost thou know that the ambassador of Duke Philibert of Savoy--what is his name?"

"The Count di Mezezzo."

"Ah! the same--saw her yesterday as he rode past, and hath raved about her ever since."

"Monsieur l'Ambassadeur has the eyes of Argus for a pretty woman; so _allons, messieurs!_" said the gay Frenchman, and they all staggered arm-in-arm down the wynd.

"Hark! listen!" said Bothwell.

They halted under the windows of Dame Craig's dwelling; some of these were partly open, and emitted into the misty street the odour of a close room and a luxurious supper--the fumes of wine and a night debauch. Through the thick gratings that defended them, flakes of light streamed into the dark and gloomy wynd, while a clear and manly voice was heard to sing one of those blasphemous ballads which were so obnoxious to Queen Mary--

"Ane cursed _fox_ hath lain in the rocks, Hidden this many a day, Devouring sheep; but a _hunter_ shall scare This cursed fox away.

"The hunter is Christ, that spurs in haste, His hounds are St. Peter and Paul; The Pope is the fox, and _Rome_ is the rocks, That rub us to the gall.

"Poor Pope! had to sell the Tantony bell, And pardons for ilka thing; Remission of sins in old sheep skins, Our souls from hell to bring.

"With bulls of lead, white wax and red, And other whiles of green; This cursed fox, enclosed in a box, Such devilry never was seen."

On hearing this doggerel ballad,[*] Bothwell and his friends drew their swords in deliberate anger, intent, less on a brawl, than on punishing the singer; for this ditty was one of those which, by the efforts of the more zealous clergy, had been set to the ancient music of the Catholic church, and were usually sung by the lowest rabble, "to ferment that wild spirit of fanaticism, which in the following age involved the nation in blood, and overturned the state of three kingdoms."

[*] For which see Andre Hart's _Godly Ballade Buik_.--NOTE by the Magister Absalom.

Neither Bothwell nor d'Elboeuff were very rigid Catholics, yet they burned to punish this irreligious ribaldry, coming as it did from a place which, in their younger days, had been appropriated to purposes so very different. Black Ormiston and John of Coldinghame cared not a bodle about the matter; but, nevertheless, they muffled their mantles about their left arms, adjusted their masks, and assailed the house with drawn swords.

*CHAPTER XIV.*

*THE GLEEWOMEN.*

Fiorello.--Hallo! house here! Hey, good people! Hallo! house here! Faith, you sleep ill! Bartolo.--Who can this be? Ugly fellow! Drunken rascal! thus to bellow! _The Barber of Seville._

Furiously they knocked, and immediately the lights were extinguished, the singing ceased, and the windows were closed. Again and again they thundered on the planking of the nail-studded door, till the solid walls of the house were shaken, but there was no attention paid.

"Ho, within there!" cried Bothwell; "Alison, devil take thee, art thou deaf or drunk?"

"_Ventre St. Gris!_" grumbled the Marquis, skipping aside, as a stoup of water was poured from the upper story upon his laced mantle. "I will spit them all like larks. _Tonnere!_ but I will."

"Hallo! 'ware your costards, sirs!" exclaimed Ormiston, as a large billet of wood came down next. "Cock and pie! the garrison shew mettle."

"Who are without there?" asked a man, through one of those reconnoitring holes with which all the doors in the city were then provided; but they could perceive the voice to be a feigned one. "What ribald cullions are ye?"

"The godly Earl of Arran, and his friend Master John Knox!" replied Bothwell, in a snuffling voice, amid a shout of laughter.

"Lewd varlet, thou liest! for the Lord Arran is here a-bed."

"Oho! then, tell him there are four tall fellows here, each of whom is better than he; so bid him take sword and cloak and come forth, lest we burn the house and Dame Alison to boot, for we have vowed a vow to make entrance."

"Help! help! Axes and staves! Armour! armour! Fie!" screamed the shrill voices of Alison Craig and several of her gleewomen and companions from the upper windows. "Thieves! stouthrief! and hamesucken! Help! help!"

"_Sacre bleu!_ what a devil of a noise thou makest, Madame Alisong!" cried d'Elboeuff. "_Ma belle coquette--ma chere madame_."

While Bothwell and Coldinghame were endeavouring to burst open the door (using as much energy as if the whole salvation of men depended upon their success), it was suddenly opened; a strong glare of light flashed into the gloomy wynd, and a tall cavalier, masked and muffled in a mantle of scarlet velvet, and wealing a very broad beaver flapped down over his eyes, appeared in the passage, armed with a long glittering sword and bowl-hilted dagger for parrying. He burst out, and commenced hewing right and left; but, finding his escape barred in every direction, he fell on desperately, bending all his energies to slay Bothwell, who encountered him hand to hand.

Daringly they fought for some twenty passes, the fire flashing from their swords, when the stranger suddenly broke away and escaped, leaving behind his rich mantle, of which the Earl immediately possessed himself.

"Scarlet taffeta--lined with white satin--laeed with gold, too! Now, whose ware may this be?"

"The King's!" said Ormiston and others.

"Darnley's--now, by Heaven!--"

"Send it to her Majesty," said Hob, "with Madame Craig's leal service."

"Nay, by St. Bothan! I will wear it under King Henry's nose at Court to-morrow," replied the madcap noble, as they all burst into the house with their drawn swords, and made a tremendous uproar by rushing from room to room, up the narrow wooden stairs, and through the pannelled corridors, pursuing the shrieking glee-girls with oaths and boisterous laughter. In one apartment they found the remains of the feast, and several flasks of good wine, which they immediately confiscated for their own use, and then made more noise than ever.

Alison Craig was dragged from her hiding-place in an oak almrie by the reformed Prior of Coldinghame, who placed his rapier at her throat, and threatened instant death if she did not produce the fair Ribaude, whom the Lord Morton had committed to her charge.

"Aroint thee, dame!" said Bothwell. "We will have thee ducked on the cuckstule as a scold, and pilloried for dancing round the summer-pole, which thou knowest to be alike contrary to the Bible and John Knox."

Pouring forth alternate threats of vengeance and entreaties to desist, Alison, whose well-rouged cheeks and painted brow were by turns blanched with terror and crimsoned with rage, led them reluctantly towards an apartment which, in former days, had been a little private oratory for the Lady Superior, or Reverend Mother. The pointed door was of oak, carved with the emblems of religion--the crown of thorns, and the hands and feet pierced by nails; the sacred heart and the cross were still there, but they ornamented what the change of manners had made the abode of a gleewoman.

Bothwell, whose whole spirit was now bent on mischief and frolic, with one kick of his heavy buff boot split the old door in two, and, as the falling fragments unfolded, to his consternation he beheld--Anna Rosenkrantz!

Pale, terrified, and motionless as a statue, she was standing about six paces from him, and near a little table, on which lay her crucifix and missal, in evidence that she had been praying devoutly. Her cheeks were blanched, her eyes were dilated, and her lip curled slightly with anger at the insults she anticipated; but with a serene brow, and aspect of modesty and dignity, she drew herself up to her full height, and with her stately train sweeping behind, and her high ruff bristling with starch and pride, confronted these violent intruders, the two principals of whom she failed to recognise under the black velvet masks--an article of wearing apparel which the residence of so many French, Spanish, and Italian ambassadors, had now made common among the Scottish noblesse.

"Death and confusion!" muttered the Earl, falling back a pace.

"Cock and pie!" said Ormiston, under his bushy mustaches; "we have started the wrong game."

"Aha, my _belle_ coquette!" said d'Elboeuff, advancing with his blandest smile, and kissing his hands as he bowed to the rosettes at his knees; "_ma jolie damoiselle--comment vous en va?_"

"Hold, Marquis! we are in error," said the Earl, in a deep and fierce whisper, as he grasped the arm of the French noble, and drew him back.

Though Anna did not hear the words, there was something in their accent and in the air of Bothwell that struck a chord in her memory; her colour heightened, and her eyes lit up. He saw in a moment that he would be recognised; and, pushing his friends before him by main strength down the narrow stair, he drove them into the street--an unexpected proceeding--which filled them with so much rage, that their swords would infallibly have been turned against him had other work not been prepared for them.

Now the blaze of torches filled the narrow wynd, glinting on its fantastic architecture, its grated windows, and carved outshots, on the steel caps, green doublets, and arrow-heads of a band of Mary's Archer Guard, which hurried to the scene of the uproar, led by their captain on horseback, in a handsome suit of light armour, to assist the two civic commanders of that district--a baxter and a dagger-maker--who, with twenty citizens in steel bonnets and jacks, and armed with partisan and whinger, had also sallied forth to maintain the peace of the burgh.

Dreading that, if taken, he would be unmasked, discovered, and brought before Mary, and, by being involved in an adventure so dishonourable, lose perhaps her favour for ever, Bothwell fought desperately up the street, and wounded several of the archers, shouting all the while, "A Hamilton! a Hamilton!" to mislead the assailants as to his identity, and make them suppose him to be the young Earl of Arran, who was known to be slightly deranged by his love for the queen.

On hearing the war-cry of his house, the clang of the swords and axes, and all the uproar excited by such a brawl, (where the parties engaged were well protected by defensive armour), Gavin Hamilton, abbot of Kilwinning, a younger son of the Duke of Chatelherault, with a few of his retinue, sallied forth in armour to aid the Earl and his three friends, who had gradually changed the scene of their conflict to the broad central street of the city, up which they were pressing with great vigour.

The arrival of the gallant abbot, caused a continuance of the brawl with renewed energy and fury, and the dense masses pressing to the centre, shouted on one side, "A Hamilton!" on the other, "A Darnley! a Darnley!" and swayed too and fro, from the turreted platform of the city cross to the Tron beam, where the merchandise was weighed; while the clangour of bells, and the clamour of the arming citizens, uniting with the fury of the fray, drowned the cries of the wounded, and the twanging of the bows, as the royal archers shot at random into the mist and gloom.

The deacons of the crafts were crying "Armour! armour! Axes and staves!" Craigmillar, the provost, was buckling on his harness in his strong dwelling at Peebles Wynd, and the council were mustering in their usual place of meeting, the Holy Blood Aisle in St. Giles' Church; but the arrival of the Earls of Huntly and Moray with a fresh band of archers, compelled the Abbot of Kilwinning to make a hasty retreat. Black Hob escaped with him, and reached in safety his own dwelling in the Netherbow, above Bassyndine the printer's establishment; but Bothwell and his two remaining friends were made prisoners, disarmed, deprived of their masks, and rather unceremoniously conducted to Holyrood.

"I thought, good-brother of mine, thou hadst got rid of thy follies, and become a very Carthusian," said the young Earl of Huntly, with some little scorn, to Bothwell, as he returned him his magnificent rapier.

"Ah--indeed!" said the other with a polite smile.

"My sister--Jane--thy countess," continued Huntly gravely; "from being quiet, silent, and dejected, since thou leftest Bothwell castle, hath become delirious--yea, frantic; and canst thou tell me aught of this Anna, of whom she raves incessantly?"

"By the holy Paul!" replied Bothwell, with admirable coolness, "I know no more than thou. 'Tis some phantom of her brain, and this horrible calamity hath so oppressed me, that"----

"Thou plungest into every mad extravagance and folly. Thou spendest thy days among dicemen and drinkers, thy nights among wantons and gleewomen, with such blockheads as Ormiston and d'Elboeuff, to bury all memory of my sister--ha! is it?"

"Exactly; 'tis the wisest mode and the merriest, by the mass! So a fair good-morning, my Lord--well-a-day, fair, noble Moray!" said the Earl, bowing to the nobles of his escort as he raised his plumed bonnet, and entered the little doorway of the Duke of Albany's tower. A dark frown knit the broad brow of the young Highland noble, as he watched the Earl's retreating figure, and he muttered in Gaelic between his teeth--

"Had not my sister vowed before the altar of God to love, obey, and cherish thee, by all that is sacred on earth and blessed in heaven, false Lord of Bothwell, this dagger had rung on thy breast-bone!"

Elboeuff and the Prior of Coldinghame were also conducted to separate chambers, where, just as daylight began to glint on the city vanes, and to lighten the gloomy courts and cloisters of the ancient palace, they were securely locked up, and left to their own confused reflections, and the occupation of nursing their bruises.

*CHAPTER XV.*

*A MOMENT LONG WISHED FOR.*

Bright queen! illustrious nymph, whose gentle sway Fair Caledonia's hardy sons obey; Whose sacred hand the royal sceptre bears--- The ancient sceptre of two thousand years. Oh, great descendant of a noble line! Thy rank superior, but thy worth divine; Beyond thy sex with every virtue bless'd; Beyond thy birth of dignity possess'd! _Buchanan to Mary Stuart, 1659._

The red October sun was gleaming on the casements of Holyrood, and filling the north and western sides of its courts (the palace then had five) with light and warmth, while the southern remained in shadow. The royal standard waved on the tower of James V., then the northern and most lofty part of this palace, which was burned by the fanatics of Cromwell, and was much more irregular in architectural design, and very different in aspect from the present stately edifice, which the skill of Sir William Bruce engrafted on the old remains.

The queen's archers were bustling about the gothic porch and outer gates, with their bows strung and belts bristling with arrows; the tramp of hoofs, the clatter of harness, the voices of pages, grooms, and yeomen, rang in the royal stables, and all the usual stir and business of the day were commencing, though somewhat earlier--for on that morning the Privy Council were to meet, and already the Lord Chancellor, Morton, Stewart the High Treasurer, the Secretary of the Kingdom, Macgill of Rankeillor, the Lord Clerk Register, and many other nobles and officers of state, were arriving, attended by their usual retinues of armed horsemen, and quarrelsome swashbucklers on foot, clad in half armour, with swords, targets, and pistolettes, and having the badges of their feudal lords fixed to their basinets.

Elbowing his way through the mass of pages, valets, and men-at-arms, that filled the outer court, and whistling merrily as he went, the handsome young lieutenant of the royal archers, Sir John Hepburn of Bolton, was seen clad in his gayest attire--a green velvet doublet trimmed with scarlet, and laced with gold, a purple mantle, and blue bonnet garnished with a white feather. He ascended the narrow and winding staircase of the Albany tower, where Konrad was confined, and into which he was admitted by an archer of his own band, who was posted as sentinel in the corridor.

By Bothwell's directions, Konrad had been treated like a knight or gentleman rather than an outlawed moss-trooper, or broken borderman, under which name he was charged with an attempt to slay the queen's lieutenant.

Calm and collected, but sad and thoughtful, he was leaning against the grated window, and watching the October sunrise, the warm light of which was rendering yet more red the faded foliage of the copsewood that lay to the eastward of the palace, and the old red walls of the Abbey church, where at that moment the queen was kneeling on St. David's grave, and praying at the same altar before which her sires had prayed four hundred years before.

Konrad's garments were now rather nondescript, and considerably worn; his beard and mustaches had been long untrimmed; his eyes were hollow, and his cheeks were becoming ghastly and wan.

"What manner of man art thou?" asked Bolton, who now saw Konrad for the first time, and remarked, with surprise, the contrast of his address and attire. "Thou lookest somewhat like a follower of the lord of little Egypt--perchance thou art the great Johnnie Faa himself? Mass! man, but thou art an odd specimen of the tatterdemalion!"

"Sir," replied Konrad, mildly, "I am a foreigner, and must be excused if I cannot decern the politeness of your queries."

"Foreigner--eh!" rejoined the young laird of Bolton, who, though far from being ill-natured, had a blunt manner; "a fiddler, I warrant! as if we had not enow and to spare, before David Rizzio was dirked in the next room. Mass! we have Jehan d'Amiot, the French conjurer, who foretold Davy's death; we have Sebastian, the violer; Francisco Rizzio; French Paris; and the devil knoweth how many more about us. Dost thou play the guitar, or the viol-de-gambo?"

"I play neither," replied Konrad, haughtily.

"Then in what dost thou excel? for all these foreign knaves excel us poor Scottish barbarians in some slight of hand."

"I can handle the bow, the arblast, the backsword and dagger, the morglay and ghisarma, with all of which, Sir Archer, I am very much at your service."