CHAPTER XVII.

A LORD ADVOCATE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

"_Camilla_. Thou execrable man, beware!-- "_Cenci_. Of thee? Nay this is idle:--We should know each other. As to my character for what men call _crime_, Seeing I please my senses as I list, And vindicate that right with force of guile, It is a public matter, and I care not If I discuss it with you."--_The Cenci_.

The young earl and Lady Sybil were loth to part, for they had met but recently; and after a long and painful separation--painful by its danger and uncertainty--and full of themselves and their plans for the future, the hours stole swiftly past them. Thus the earl delayed so long in accompanying his impatient sister, that the dusk had almost set in before they left the house, on their promised visit to her friend at St. Katherine's, where Jane proposed remaining until the noon of the next day.

The night was cloudy, and the streets were dark and misty, so that two men, who emerged half tipsy from the _Cross and Gillstoup_, following them softly and warily, and at the gate of Redhall's house were joined by five others, were quite unobserved.

The earl was still disguised and liveried as Vipont's valet. He wore a cuirass below his doublet, and carried the conspicuous long rapier over his shoulder. Jane was muffled in a close hood, so as to be completely unknown to the few persons who were abroad in the dusk; and thus with security she accompanied him, and leant upon his arm. Two servants of their own name, from the earl's barony in Forfarshire, marched before them with lighted links. Both these men were tall, athletic and well armed, with jacks and caps of iron, swords, daggers and hacques, or small handguns, about three-quarters of a yard long. In those dangerous times every trifling visit and affair had quite the aspect of a conspiracy.

The brother and sister were chatting merrily, and each was speaking of the person whose image and interest lay nearest their hearts: thus Jane spoke of Roland, his courage and sincerity, his truth and hope; and of King James's ingratitude in neglecting to reward his valour and loyal service.

The earl spoke of his dark-eyed Sybil, and how he would one day place his father's coronet on her brow; and would do so on the morrow, if she would but fly with him to England, where they might wed without that dispensation which was yet required in Catholic Scotland, as they were both within the prohibited degrees--a dispensation which the cardinal's hostility, he feared, would withhold for ever, for Beaton was legate of Paul III., north of the English frontier.

Rendered wary by necessity, and from the nature of the times instinctively cautious, the earl looked back more than once to observe whether they were followed. The streets were almost deserted, and echoed to no other footsteps than their own. They descended the Canongate, which was then more open and less regular as a street than now; and passing down a narrow loan between hedges, having a barnyard on one side and a large "Berne-Kilne and Kobill" (the appurtenances of an ancient distillery) on the other, they found themselves on the solitary horseway which skirted the city on the south, and led straight from the Cowgate Porte to the Palace and St. Anne's Yard.

On one side the craigs heaved up their tremendous front; on the other rose a lofty ridge, at the north end of which stood a chapel of St. John, at the south end a chapel dedicated to St. Leonard, the Hermit of Orleans, and midway between, the sharp ridgy roof of a large convent--St. Mary's of Placentia--cut the sky. About its walls grew a number of willows, planted by the fair recluses, in the spirit of that beautiful old tradition which tells that our Saviour had been scourged by willow rods, for which offence the trees had drooped or wept in sorrow ever after. And there the migrating crossbills built their nests--a bird, said by another old legend to have taken its name from the circumstance of having striven with its little bill to draw forth the nails from the feet and hands of the dead Christ.

A faint and pale light in the east brought the ridge and its triple edifices forward in strong outline, and the gigantic willows were seen waving their graceful branches mournfully in the rising wind. The darkness of utter obscurity veiled the front of the craigs, and the deep hollow at their base, then a rough and savage gorge, round the edge of which lay the road the earl and his sister were to pursue.

A bell rang.

"Oh, Archibald, let us hasten," said Lady Jane; "the nuns are already saying the compline at St. Mary's yonder; see how the chapel is lighted up!"

"Faith! my good sister, I have dwelt so long under English Henry's roof, that I have well-nigh forgotten these small items of our ancient faith. I have seen church lands turned into fair lay baronies, and more than one stately priory become an earl's fief, its chapel a dining-hall, its cloisters a stableyard, its refectory a dog's kennel. But omit not to ask the fair Josina* to say one prayer for me, though I am such a reprobate pagan. By all the furies! it seems very droll to think that my little friend Josina hath become a prioress! I cannot realize it! She will have quite forgotten me."

* Josina Henrison was prioress of the Dominicans, at the Siennes, near Edinburgh, in the time of James V.

"Do not think so, for she still uses the missal you gave her before----"

"My kinswoman Sybil came home from the convent at Northberwick," said the earl, quickly. "Poor Josina!--and I shall see her once more."

"To-morrow at noon, when you and Roland come for me--and yet perhaps it were better not."

"Thou art right, sister of mine. Poor Josina!" and, with a sigh that told its own little story, the earl paused.

"A religious life certainly never seemed to be her vocation; and yet I pray God that she is happy. How now?" he added, on hearing his followers wind up the wheels of their hacques by the spanners (as they were named) which were attached to the locks by small chains; "what dost thou hear, Gilzean?"

"Footsteps, my lord."

"The echoes of our own, perhaps; but where?"

"Behind; to be forewarned is to be forearmed."

Lady Jane clung to her brother's arm, and drew her hood closer over her face. They were now in a most lonely part of the road. Above them, about a hundred and fifty yards up the hill, towered the convent of St. Mary, with its high black walls and waving willows; below them, on the left, the lights of Holyrood were twinkling like wildfire, in the hollow afar off, at the foot of the Craigs. The clouds were flying in masses from west to east, and the tremulous stars looked forth at intervals like red and fiery eyes.

"Turn, my lord!" cried Gilzean, "for armed men are close behind us."

"Armed?"

"Like oursels. 'Odslife! I heard the clink of iron-graith!"

"Let us halt, then. Look to your arms, and extinguish the links; for, if friends, we may proceed together; if foes, we must drive them back. But Jane, in God's name, girl, do not cling to me thus--release my sword-arm;--tush, lassie, dost forget thou art half Seton, half Douglas?"

Over his left shoulder the earl unsheathed the long weapon with which Roland, partly in frolic, had accoutred him; his two followers wound up their wheel-locks, stood by his side, and peered into the gloom behind. They counted seven dark shadows approaching in the starlight.

"I see steel bonnets and Jedwood staves," said the earl.

"And I, drawn whingers and bent pistolettes. Their hints are alow," replied Gilzean, meaning that their matches were lighted. "Three to seven!"

"Tush! Gilzean, my good man and true, what matters that? I will spit the odd four, like so many mavises, on this long rapier."

"Stand and surrender, or you are three dead men!" cried one, through the obscurity.

"Zounds!" said the earl, clenching his sword; "surely I know that voice."

"And I, too," added Jane, trembling excessively.

"'Tis either the Laird of Redhall, or auld Hornie himsel'!" muttered Gilzean Seton.

"We are right, then--I am discovered at last! and my lord advocate comes like a common messenger, the vilest of villains, to arrest me."

"Do you yield, sirs?" asked the same person, who was now within ten yards of them.

"Not to the assassins of Sir Thomas M'Clelland of Bombie!" replied the earl, his heart animated by ferocious joy, while his sister's whole form vibrated with terror. "Keep aside, close to the fauld-dyke, my good sister, and leave us freely to deal with these rascals; the first onset is everything!"

Ashkirk led his sister close to the turf wall of the field which bordered the roadway, and cried to his followers--"Fire! and fire low!"

Gilzean and his comrade levelled their hacques, the wheels revolved like lightning, producing fire by the friction of the pyrites; the combined report of these two handguns resounded at once, and one man fell on the roadway with a wild cry that sank into a hollow groan.

The red flashes of three pistolettes replied; with a thousand reverberations, their echoes died away among the cliffs, and the bullets whistled harmlessly past the ears of the earl and his vassals. With the _cri de guerre_ of his family,

"Ashkirk and SET ON,"

the gallant noble and his two devoted followers fell bravely on their six adversaries, with whom a close and furious contest ensued.

The earl singled out the leader, and on engaging him, found that he had three others to deal with at the same time, and was thus compelled to act merely on the defensive, a perilous predicament with so unwieldy a weapon. He swayed it with both hands, according to the best rules then in use for handling those ponderous wall-swords, and bent low his head (which was protected by a tempered cabosset of proof), seeking to discover the faces of his adversaries, but all seemed blackness. They were masked. Red sparks flew in showers from their swords, and the sudden emission of more than one cry of pain acquainted the earl that the few thrusts which he ventured to give had proved successful.

"Lord earl, yield up your weapon!" cried the clear, full voice of Redhall. Jane, as she cowered by the wall, recognized it, and uttered a low cry of terror. "Yield!--yield!"

"To thee?" said Ashkirk, with a scornful laugh. "May eternal execration lie upon me if I do!"

"Traitor, thou shalt rue this dearly!" replied the other, wrathfully; "charge me your pistolettes again," he said to his followers, "and make service surely!"

Ashkirk replied by a tremendous back-handed blow, that would infallibly have cut the speaker in two; but he sprang back nimbly, and, by the fury of his stroke, the earl overstruck himself so far, that, before he could recover his guard, six vigorous hands were upon him, as many weapons gleamed darkly at his throat, and then, for the first time, he discovered that both his faithful followers were slain. Rising to his full height, and towering above his capturers, he endeavoured to throw them from him; but his vast strength failed; for, fearing to let him free, eager to avenge the wounds he had inflicted, and more passionately eager to serve their lord, whom (lawless and savage as they were) they loved better than life, and animated, no doubt, by the bribes which had purchased their secresy and services, the followers of Redhall hung upon the hands and throat of the furious earl like bloodhounds.

In a moment he was hurled to the earth, and pinioned hand and tongue, for Nichol Birrel tore off his steel cap and forced over his head one of those iron gags called in Scotland a pair of branks. Shaped not unlike a royal crown, this ignominious fetter was composed of four cross hoops, which enclosed the head by springing from an iron ring that encircled the neck, and was furnished with a steel plate for entering the mouth, and forcibly holding down the tongue. With his strong and regular teeth set firm as a vice, the unfortunate noble resisted long this last and deadly insult, but, unhappily, Sanders Screw, the torturer of the High Court, was among his adversaries. Being well practised in his profession, this daring ruffian thrust his thumbs behind the ears of the earl, and thus brutally compelled him to open his mouth. The gag was immediately forced in, and was held there by a padlock at the back of his neck.

The moment this was accomplished, four men raised him by the legs and arms, and bore him off towards the town; their wounded comrade followed, while the sixth remained with Redhall.

"Assist me to sweep away these carrion," said he, pointing to the bodies that lay on the road, with the blood yet oozing from their wounds; "in that field the corn is high, and they will feed the crows as well there as hanging on the gibbet at St. Giles's Grange."

The bodies of the two Setons were raised upon the fauld-dyke, but the heart of Redhall was too fiercely excited to feel even a shudder as he and Dobbie flung them far among the ripening grain, where they lay concealed, until found reduced to skeletons by the terrified reapers in the harvest of that year, as an old diary of the period informs us.

"Now, away, for we have not a moment to lose, and this traitor lord and dame must bide with me! Quick--quick! for I hear shouts and footsteps!"

Lady Jane, who had clung for support to the turf-wall of the road during this furious conflict, which just terrified her (but only in the same degree that a fisticuff battle might scare a lady of the present day, who is all unused to see the flash of steel), uttered shriek after shriek when her brother was beaten down, and she saw no less than six armed men struggling above him. Believing that they were busy with their poniards, she rushed wildly forward to interpose, to save or to die with him; when suddenly she was seized by one who sheathed his sword, and threw his arms around her.

"My brother! oh, my brother! Who are you that have dared to do this, and who that dare to grasp me thus? Cowards--cowards! I am the Lady Jane Seton! Oh, misery! misery! My brother! my brother! Oh, thou who wert so good, so kind, so brave--my mother--oh, my mother--and they have slain him!"

She uttered a shrill cry, and covered her face with her hands on seeing him borne away; she muttered to herself faintly and incoherently; for though she did not swoon, she was perfectly passive, for horror and grief had prostrated all her faculties, and she hung heavily in the arms of the tall masked man, who was no other than Sir Adam Otterburn.

The fury which had animated him during the conflict now passed away as he pressed her to his breast, where a glow of another kind began to kindle. Though he deemed there was contamination in the ruffian's touch, he was glad to crave the assistance of Dobbie, as he bore her away towards the town; but they had barely reached the southern or back gate of the Redhall Lodging (as his mansion was named), when the steps of men were heard rapidly approaching from the direction of the palace. Sunk deeply in the strong and fortified wall, which bounded the Canongate on the south and was overshadowed by a group of venerable chesnuts, this gate was very much concealed and secluded.

It was barely closed upon the whole party, when three men passed with drawn swords.

They were Sir Roland Vipont and his two friends, the captain and lieutenant of the King's Foot Guard.