Part 3

A few yards further down the sunlit street, stood one of those very shavelings against whom he was pouring forth the vials and the vehemence of his wrath. At the Tron beam stood the aged Tarbet on a platform, a few feet above the pavement. By a cord that encircled his neck, his head was tied close to the wooden column supporting the tron, or great steel-yard where the merchants weighed their wares; and to that his ear was fixed by a long iron nail, from which the blood was trickling. Faint and exhausted, the old man clung with feeble hands to the pillar to avoid strangulation, as his knees were refusing their office. He was still in his vestments, with the cross embroidered on his stole; a rosary encircled his neck, and, to excite the mockery of the mob, a missal, a chalice, and censer were tied to it; and while enduring the greatest indignities to which the inborn cowardice, cruelty, and malevolence of the vulgar, can subject the unfortunate and the fallen, inspired by the memory of the greater martyr who had suffered for him, he blessed them repeatedly in return. The boys were yelling "Green Sleeves"--"John, cum kiss me now," and other songs, converted from Catholic hymns into profane ribaldry; ever and anon, as Knox tells us, serving him with "his Easter eggs," meaning every available missile, and under the shower that poured upon him the old man was sinking fast. At last a stone struck his forehead, the blood burst over his wrinkled face, and drenched his silver hair. He tottered, sank, and hung strangling by the neck; and then, but not till then, he was released and borne away to the nearest barrier, where he was again expelled the city, with the warning, that to say mass once more would involve the penalty of instant death.

The tide was now completely turned against the ancient clergy, and the sternest means were used by the new against them. Knox had declared that the toleration of a single mass was more dangerous to Scotland than 10,000 armed soldiers; and in the spirit of this precept, so long after the Reformation as 1615, a poor Jesuit was dragged from his altar in an obscure cellar, and hanged by King James's authority in the streets of Glasgow.

It was while the minds of the people were in the state we have described--excited by the terrible death of the king, inspired by the discourse of the firebrand on the cross, and only half glutted by the persecution of the poor old prebend of St. Giles, that, guarded by Morton's and Lindesay's band, Konrad of Saltzberg was led up Merlin's Wynd, and into the High Street, where the masses of men in a state of fury and ferment, swayed to and fro from side to side of that magnificent thoroughfare, like the waves of an angry sea. The moment he appeared, there was given a yell that rent the air; and a rush was made from all quarters towards the new victim, of whose participation in the deed at the Kirk-of-Field, a terrible account was instantly circulated.

*CHAPTER V.*

*THE PAPISTS' PILLAR.*

Oh! I will hail My hour when it approaches; life has been A source of sorrow, and it matters not How soon I quit the scene, for I have roved A friendless outcast in the thorny world, Upon it, but not of it; and my death Is but escape from bondage. _The Spell of St. Wilten._

We have likened the dense mass that filled the High Street to a sea, and so like the waves of a sea, when agitated by a stormy wind, was that mass urged in one direction towards this new victim, whom they demanded of both Morton and Lindesay to be given up to their summary vengeance. The windows were crowded to excess; and at the great square casement of his mansion, overlooking the Netherbow, was seen the grave and serious face of Knox the Reformer, with his portentous beard and Geneva cap, and beside him Master George Buchanan, with his stern visage and towering brow. They were observing the fray below, and making their caustic remarks on "yat terrible fact of yesternicht."

A deadly struggle seemed about to ensue; faces became flushed with passion, and eyes lit with energy--swords were drawn, bows bent, and matches blown.

"Truncheon me those knaves!" cried Lord Lindesay, as the people pressed upon his band and impeded their march; "use the bolls of your hackbutts! Back with these rascally burghers--how! dare they assail my banner in open day?"

"They are ripe for a fray, my lord," said Morton; "and in sooth, 'tis matter for consideration, whether by resistance we should shed the blood of our own countrymen, to lengthen by an hour the existence of a foreign knave, who must hang at all events."

"Right, Lord Earl--but to die thus! unhouselled and unprayed for--by the hands of a furious mob--to be torn piecemeal--to be hunted like an otter"----

Lindesay could not conclude, for the confusion increased every moment, and the dense and well-armed multitude demanded incessantly, and with stentorian clamour, that the regicide should be given up to their fury. Lindesay, who now became animated by a sentiment of compassion, on beholding one man in a situation so terrible, vainly endeavoured by the influence of his rank, his known determination and aspect, his stentorian voice and gigantic sword, to overawe the crowd, and convey his captive to King David's tower; but every where the craftsmen barred his way with levelled pikes and clubbed hackbutts. As yet, not a shot had been exchanged, or a blow struck; for the vassals who guarded Konrad, being quite indifferent as to the issue, behaved with admirable coolness. On seeing this, the populace demanded the prisoner more loudly than ever, and became more energetic and exasperated by the delay.

Gagged and bound, the unhappy Konrad found the impossibility alike of demanding either protection from his guards or mercy from their assailants--to fight or to escape; and a cold perspiration burst over him as the soldiers swayed to and fro, when the people pressed upon their iron ranks.

Ten thousand scowling faces were bent upon him, and twice that number of hands were raised against him. His heart never sank; but the mild precepts of Father Tarbet were forgotten, and, with an intensity amounting to agony, he longed to be free and armed, to indulge that momentary and tiger-like hatred of all mankind that swelled up within him, that he might sell his life as dearly as possible, and strike for vengeance ere he died! In that terrible moment of confusion and dread he never thought of prayer; but the image of Anna rose to his memory, and while he thanked Heaven that now she was probably safe at home in their native Norway, the recollection that he was desolate, and she was lost to him for ever, nerved him the more to encounter his terrible fate.

Lord Lindesay threatened them with summary vengeance from himself, and ultimately from the queen and lord provost; but he might as well have addressed the wind, for, by their nightly watches and constant brawling, the burghers were better trained to arms than were the vassals of the landowners, and his threats were unheeded.

"Come on, my bold callants!" cried a fat citizen in a vast globular corselet, a morion, and plate sleeves with gloves of steel, brandishing a ponderous jedwood axe with his right hand, while opposing with his left arm a light Scottish target to the levelled spears of Lindesay's band. "Come on, with a warrion! Are sae mony bearded men to be kept at play like bairns by these ox-goads o' the Byres?"

"Weel spoken, Adam!--Armour! armour!--Strike for the gude toun!" cried a thousand voices to the host of the _Red Lion_, who was looming about like a vast hogshead sheathed in iron; and thus encouraged, by sheer weight of body he burst through the ranks of Lindesay's vassalage, striking up their levelled lances. The mob followed in his wake, and the guards were immediately scattered, disarmed, and their prisoner dragged from his shelter.

Torn and whirled from hand to hand, Konrad was soon released from all his bonds; but still escape was impossible. Many a bow was drawn, and many a blade uplifted against him; but the very presence and blind fury of the people saved him; and madly he was hurled from man to man, till, alike bereft of sense of sight and sound, he sank breathless beneath their feet.

"Now, by the might of Heaven!" said old Lord Lindesay, "'tis a foul shame on us, Earl of Morton, to sit calmly here in our saddles, and see a Christian man used thus. Fie!--down with the traitors!" and he spurred his horse upon the people, only to be repelled by a steady stand of pikes.

Konrad was loaded with mud and filth; and every new assailant was more fierce than the last. Howls, yells, and execrations filled the air, and he was bandied about like a football, till one well-aimed blow from the boll of a hackbutt struck him down, and, covered with mud and bruises, and bathed in blood, he lay upon the pavement motionless, and to all appearance dead.

They deemed him so, and, consequently, a momentary cessation of their cruelty ensued, till a voice cried--

"Fie! away wi' him to the Papists' pillar! Gar douk him in the loch! Harl him awa'! Gar douk! gar douk and droun!"

A shout of assent greeted this new proposition. The inanimate form of Konrad was raised on the shoulders of a few sturdy fellows, who bore him along the street with as much speed as its crowded state would permit; and closing, like a parted sea, the mob collapsed behind, and followed in their train. They bore him up the Lawnmarket, then encumbered by innumerable sacks of grain and wooden girnels, farm horses, and rudely constructed carts; for at that time the meal, and flesh, and butter markets, were held there. Turning down Blyth's close, under the lofty windows of the palace of Mary of Lorraine, they hurried to the bank of that steep lake which formed the city's northern barrier, and the vast concourse followed; the arch of the narrow alley receiving them all, like a small bridge admitting a mighty river.

The rough and shelving bank descended abruptly from the ends of the lofty closes, which (when viewed from the east or west): resembled a line of narrow Scottish towers overhanging the margin of the water, which was reedy, partly stagnant, and so much swollen by the melted snows of the past winter, that, on the northern side, it reached an ancient quarry from which the Trinity Church was built, and on the southern to the Twin-tree, an old double-trunked thorn that overhung the loch, and had for centuries been famous as a trysting-place for lovers, as it was supposed to exercise a supernatural influence on the pair who sat between its gnarled stems.

"Fie! gar douk!" cried the vast concourse that debouched from all the adjoining wynds and closes along the sloping bank. "To the pillar--to the pillar! Truss him wi' a tow to the Papists' pillar, and leave him there to rot or row;" and this new proposal was received with renewed applause.

The Papists' pillar was a strong oak stake fixed in that part of the loch where the water was about five feet deep. It had been placed there by the wise bailies of Edinburgh at this time, when certain ablutions were much in vogue, and considered so necessary for witches, sorcerers, scolding wives, and "obstinate papists;" for in every part of Europe ducking was the favourite penance for offences, against morality; and nothing afforded such supreme delight and intense gratification to the worthy denizens of the Lawnmarket, and their kindly dames, as the sousing of an unfortunate witch, a "flyting wife" of the Calton, or a hapless Catholic, in the deep and execrable puddle that was named the North Loch--and so frequently were exhibitions of the latter made, that the stake was unanimously dubbed _the Papists' Pillar_.

To this the inanimate Konrad was fastened by a strong cord, encircling his neck and waist; and there he was left to perish, wounded, bleeding, and insensible--covered with bruises, and merged nearly to the neck in a liquid rendered fetid and horrible by all the slime and debris of the populous city that towered above it, being poured down hourly from its narrow streets, to increase the mass of corruption that grew and festered in its stagnant depths.

On accomplishing this, the mob retired; for the conveyance of the bodies of the murdered king and his attendants through the streets, excited all the morbid sympathy of the vulgar: the entire populace now rushed towards the other end of the city, and all became still as death where Konrad lay.

The coolness of the sudden immersion partially revived him, and the bleeding of the wound on his head ceased; but his senses were confused--his perception indistinct--and he hung against the column in a state bordering on insensibility.

There was a rushing sound in his ears; for still the roar of that vast multitude rang in them: there was a sense of pain and languor pervading his whole frame; a faint light shone before his half-closed eyes, and he was conscious of nothing more.

The noon passed away; evening came, and cold and pale the watery sun sank behind the summits of Corstorphine, involved in yellow haze. The clouds gathered in inky masses to the westward; a few large drops of rain plashed on the dark surface of the glassy water; there was a low wind rushing among the uplands; but Konrad neither saw nor heard these precursors of a coming storm.

And there he lay--helpless and dying!

A great and ravenous gled wheeled in circles round him. These circles diminished by degrees, until it had courage at last to alight on the top of the column, where it screamed and flapped its wings, while eyeing him with eager and wolfish impatience. So passed the evening.

Night--the cold and desolate night of February, came on, and the hungry gled was still sitting there. * * *

In the morning, the inexorable host of the _Red Lion_ and others, who had made themselves so active in his persecution, went to the place where they had bound him.

The water had ebbed several feet; the stake was still standing there among the dark slime and sedges--but the cords were cut, and the unfortunate had disappeared.

*CHAPTER VI.*

*REMORSE.*

All day and all the livelong night he pour'd, His soul in anguish, and his fate deplored; While every moment skimm'd before his sight, A thousand forms of horror and affright. _Tasso._

Bothwell was sitting alone in his apartments at Holyrood. The fire burned cheerfully in the sturdy iron grate, and threw a ruddy glow on the gigantic forms of Darius and Alexander, who seemed ready to start from the gobeline tapestry into life and action. The Earl's sword and dagger hung on one knob of his chair; his headpiece and a wheel-lock caliver on the other; for there were dangerous rumours abroad in the city, and he knew not the moment in which he might be required to use them.

Let us take a view of him as he sat gazing fixedly into the fire, that glowed so redly between the massive bars.

A change had come over his features since the preceding night. They had acquired a more severe style of manly beauty. His noble brow was more pale and thoughtful in expression, and was already marked by those lines which are indicative of sorrow and remorse. But there were times when his keen dark eye assumed a diabolical glitter, and the redness of the fire shed an infernal brightness on his face. His lip was curled by bitterness; his brows were knit; and then nothing could surpass the scorn and misanthropy pervading the aspect of the fierce and haughty regicide.

Yes! he knew himself a destroyer; though, strange to say, he felt his personal importance increased by the awful reflection that he was so. He had more than once slain men in mutual strife; but never till now did he feel himself a--murderer.

_Murderer!_ he repeated it in a low voice and then started, looking round fearfully as if he dreaded the figures might hear him. He frequently caught himself muttering it, coupled with his own name. They seemed synonymous. His mind was full of incoherence and dread, and a regret so intense, that at times he smote his breast and wrung his hands in agony, or turned to a flask of Burgundy to drown all recollection; and so much was he absorbed in the fierce current of his own corroding thoughts, that he heard not the rising storm that shook the turrets of the palace, howled through the arcades of its ancient courts, and tossed the branches of its venerable trees.

A step rung in the antechamber; the tapestry was lifted, and the slight figure of Hepburn of Bolton, still sheathed in armour, appeared. His helmet was open, and the paleness of his features was painful to look upon.

"Well!" said his chieftain; "what say they in the city?"

"Every where, that the Lord Moray has slain the king, in pursuance of his ancient feud with the house of Lennox."

"This is well! I hope thou and Hob Ormiston have been spreading the report with due industry!"

"We have lacked in nothing!" replied Bolton, gloomily, as he drank a deep draught of the Burgundy; "but there is noised abroad a counter-rumour, that thou art not unconcerned in the deed."

"Hah!" ejaculated the Earl, drawing in his breath through his clenched teeth, while a frown of alarm contracted his brow, "Who value life so cheaply as to bruit this abroad?"

"The vassals of the Lord Morton, with whom certain archers of my band have been carousing at Ainslie's hostel overnight, have accused thee, and so strongly, that I sorely suspect treason somewhere, and that their lord hath prompted them."

"He dares not!" rejoined the Earl, half assuming his sword, and setting his teeth.

"Thou knowest how false and subtle all men deem him."

"He dare not prove so to me--I tell thee, John of Bolton, he dare not!" replied the Earl, in a fierce whisper, starting to his feet. "I would level to the earth his castle of Dalkeith, and spike his head amidst its ruins. There is the bond, the damning deed we signed at Whittinghame, that will cause us all to hang together in our armour, lest we hang separately without it. Ha! ha! take another horn of the Burgundy. Thou seest, Bolton, how it gives me both wit and spirit. Any other tidings?"

"None, save of a horrible apparition that last night haunted the Lord Athol's lodging, near the Kirk-of-Field."

"And what about our Norwegian?"

"He hath been bound to the Papists' pillar, and left to drown."

"Now, God's malison be on these rascally burghers!"

"By this time he must be dead, for the rain hath fallen heavily, and thou knowest how fast the loch fills; besides, the host of the _Red Lion_ shut the sluice at the Trinity House, so long ere this all must be over."

"One other life!" said the Earl, gloomily.

Hepburn gave a bitter laugh, and there was a momentary pause.

"By Heaven, Bolton! I will not permit this stranger to perish if I can save him. Come--'tis not yet midnight! The deed may in some sort atone"----

"True--true! but there will be some danger, and much suspicion"----

"Danger--so much the better! Suspicion--I hope we are above it! In a brawl about a rascally courtesan, how readily did I draw my sword with that blockhead d'Elboeuff; while to-day I stood by yonder Tron, and saw, on one hand, a consecrated priest of God insulted, pilloried, and beaten down senseless in his blood--a priest who yesternight celebrated the most holy of all Christian sacraments; on the other, I saw an innocent man dragged away to a merciless and dreadful death; and, like a child or a woman, I stood paralysed, without giving a word or a blow to save either. Coward that I was! Oh, how deeply would old Earl Adam, who fell by James's side on Flodden Field, blush for his degenerate grandson!"

"Be it so; I will doff some of this iron shell, and, if thou wilt lend me a pyne doublet, will go with thee. Hark! what a driech storm without; and how the windows dirl in the blast!" and, as he spoke, the rain, blown with all the violence of a furious east wind, came lashing on the lofty casements of the palace, and hissed as it plashed drearily on the pavement of its empty courts.

"Summon French Paris!" cried the Earl; "I must first speak with him."

*CHAPTER VII.*

*THE RESCUE.*

The lightning's flash Scarce ran before the thunder's sudden crash; Down on the lake, the rain sonorous rush'd; O'er the steep rocks, the new-born torrents gush'd. _Bayley's Rival._

As the night closed, Konrad partially revived, and became alive to the horror of his situation. Corded by the wrists and neck to a stake, with the water almost up to his chin; faint, exhausted by the wound on his head, and the innumerable blows he had received, he was so very feeble that he thought himself dying, and endeavoured to remember a prayer; but his mind was a chaos, and he found himself alike unable to account for his predicament, and to free himself from it.

Darker, and darker still, the clouds gathered over the lofty city that towered up to the south; and the rain-drops plashed more heavily on the surface of the water, till the circles became mingled, and the shower increased to a winter torrent; for the month was February only, and, though the first of spring, the cold was intense.

The gled shook its wings, and croaked on the post above his head, and Konrad feared it might suddenly stoop and tear out his defenceless eyes.

Poured along the gorge between the Calton Hill and the city, the chill wind from the German sea swept over the rippled water; and then came the glare of the lightning to render the darkness of the night more appalling. Pale, blue, and sulphury, it flashed in the north and east, dashing its forky strength between the masses of cloud, gleaming on the darkened water, and revealing the bleak outline of the Calton--the high and fantastic mansions of the city, among whose black summits the levin-bolts seemed playing and dancing--to be tossed from chimney to turret, and from turret to tower--leaping from hand to hand, ere they flashed away into obscurity, or cast one lurid glare on the gorge behind the church that, for four hundred years, covered the grave of Mary of Gueldres and of Zutphen.

Then the thunder rumbled in the distance; and, as if the air was rent, down gushed the rain upon the midnight lake; and Konrad, as he felt his senses and strength ebbing together, became aware that the water rose--that, with all his feeble struggles, he would ultimately drown in that lake of mud, where so many have perished; for, so lately as 1820, the skeletons of these unfortunates have been found in the bed, where of old the water lay.

Still the dusky gled sat on its perch, and, by the occasional gleams of the lightning, he could perceive its sable wings flapping above his unsheltered head, like those of a shadowy fiend; and oft it stooped down, as if impatient of its feast. Whenever its unearthly croak rang on the passing wind, he could not resist the inclination to raise his hands to protect his eyes--but his arms were pinioned below water. Powerless, he resigned himself to die without a murmur--save one prayer for Anna. His last thoughts were of her--for the love of poor Konrad surpassed the love of romance.

Strange visions of home and other years floated before him; he heard the wiry rustle of his native woods, and the voice of Anna mingling with the music of the summer leaves. Then came a state of stupefaction, in which he remained, he knew not how long.

A sound roused him; it was a scream from the gled, as, scared from its perch, it spread its broad wings to the wind, and vanished into obscurity like an evil spirit. The stars were veiled in vapour; the moon was sailing through masses of flying cloud, and, by its fitful light, Konrad, as he unclosed his heavy eyes, could perceive a boat approaching. It contained two figures, which, as they were between him and the light, appeared in dark and opaque outline.