CHAPTER XX.

THE BLACK PAGE.

"Ha! there was a fatal evidence. All's over now, indeed! The morning tide shall sweep his corpse to sea, And hide all memory of this stern night's work."--SCOTT.

Leaning on the arm of Sybil, and attended by Sir James Hamilton of Barncleugh, the Albany herald and their followers, we left the countess ascending the little valley which lies in the centre of Inchkeith. They proceeded in silence, for the path was somewhat perilous; the early morning was yet grey, though the eastern sky and ocean were fast brightening with the coming day. A cold wind swept over the bosom of the waters that girdled in the isle. About the middle of the valley a cleft in the rocks was reached, through which the pathway passed at direct right angles with that they had hitherto pursued; and from thence they continued to ascend, until they reached the summit of those precipices which, from the water, seemed to be inaccessible, and where the iron gate of the barbican stood, with a moss-grown Scottish lion carved in stone above it.

The light had been rapidly increasing as they ascended, and now behind bars of golden cloud the broad round morning sun rose red and gloriously from his bed in the German Ocean; and then indeed did the beautiful river, that from Highland hills rolls down on yellow sands, seem one vast tide of molten gold flowing to the dark blue sea; and beautifully in the warm sunshine were that bright blue and brighter gold mingling afar off in the estuary.

The morning smoke and the humid vapours of the past night yet veiled the close dense masses of the capital; but the spire of St. Giles's, and the embattled tower of King David, the loftiest summit of the castle, whereon the St. Andrew's cross was waving, were visible above the gauzy mist that veiled the glens below.

Clad in the brightest hues of summer, on one side lay Fife, its long expanse of sand studded by busy towns and red-tiled villages, baronial towers and ancient churches, its bold promontories jutting into the majestic river, and its beautiful mountains rising behind. On the other lay the three Lothians, with all their ripening fields and dark-green woods, the lonely cone of Soltra, the lonelier Lammermuirs, and the undulating sweep of the far-stretching Pentlands, a long blue waving chain of heath-clad mountain, that dwarfed the lesser hills, and threw the wooded cliffs of Corstorphine, the Calton, the castled rock, and even proud Arthur's basaltic brow, into comparative obscurity. So deceiving is distance, that this chain of peaks seemed to start abruptly from the very margin of the river; and Leith, with all its dense old Flemish wynds and closes, its marts and shipping, St. Mary's spire and old St. Anthony's tower, seemed to nestle at their feet.

Westward of the isle lay that armed fleet which had so recently arrived from France, under the pennon of Admiral Sir Robert Barton, brother of that other gallant Admiral Sir Andrew Barton, who, when returning from fighting the Portuguese, with two solitary ships, was waylaid by Lord Howard and the whole English fleet in the Downs, where he was slain by a cannon-ball.

The dawn of day, which had displayed this magnificent panorama to the countess and Lady Sybil, had also revealed the sable visage of Sabrino to Sir James Hamilton of Barncleugh, who had never seen or heard of a black man before; so he preceded the party, in some perturbation, signing the cross as fast as if all St. Anthony's imps were behind him, and marvelling at so hideous a masque.

"Welcome to the tower of Inchkeith, ladies," said he, turning round, and raising his bonnet at the barbican gate.

The countess replied, "Heaven grant I may soon return the welcome in my own house, Sir James."

"Though I _am_ a Hamilton?" replied the knight, with a smile.

"Oh, yes; for these dire feuds begin to weary me."

"Ah! old fox," muttered the castellan under his beard; "because thy nose is below the water now. Had we lost, and the Douglases won the battle of Linlithgow," said he, with a smile, "I doubt much if the feud had been tiresome to the Lady Ashkirk."

"She had not been _here_ to-day," replied the countess; "but how--what does this mean?" she added, with some asperity, on seeing that two soldiers, in obedience to a sign from Barncleugh, crossed their pikes before Sabrino, to prevent his entering the tower.

"It means, madam, that this black thing, quhilk in visage so closely resembles the promoter of all evil, cannot enter here."

"Sir James of Barncleugh," said the Albany herald, interposing, "he is the countess's page."

"Page! ugh! I like not to look upon him. I would do much for thee, John of Darnagaber, who art mine own natural-born clansman, and more for the widow of gallant Earl John of Ashkirk (a Seton and Douglas man though he was), but, by my holy dame! this black devil, whom I have no order to receive, shall not enter the tower of Inchkeith, that is flat!"

"Sir James Hamilton," said the countess, with dignity, "do be merciful, and spare us the humiliation of entreaty. This poor black boy is faithful and gentle, kind and attached to me as a spaniel, and assuredly he will die if separated from me; for he is, I know, an object of abhorrence to the ignorant and the vulgar."

At this remark, which was unintentional, the commander of the island gave her a furious look, and cocked his bonnet over his right eye.

"Madame," said he, coldly, "you will excuse me; I am but a blunt knight of James III., yet I would never forgive myself if anything evil occurred."

"Kiss the hand of this gentleman, Sabrino," said Sybil, "and he will admit you."

Sabrino was a mute, or nearly so; by some law of his barbarous native land, his tongue had been cut out near the root; thus he could only utter certain terrible and apparently unintelligible sounds, and when doing so opened his wide mouth to its utmost extent, revealing two rows of sharp teeth, and the black remains of his mutilated tongue, which he lolled about within the cavity in a manner which, to say the least, of it, was very appalling. The poor terrified black was beginning to mutter his thanks in this extraordinary fashion, and gradually approached the Lord of Barncleugh, when the latter sprang back, with alarm in his eyes, and his hand on his sword.

"Get thee behind me, Satan!" he exclaimed. "Away! I will not be touched by thee. My hand? nay, I will hew it off first. Hence, imp of darkness! for may I never see God, if thou abidest in this castle for a moment, or in this island for an hour!"

To overcome his prejudices, even if the countess had stooped to flatter them, seemed impossible; therefore, she gave the herald her hand to kiss, thanked him for his kind courtesy, entrusted him with messages for her daughter concerning certain necessaries they required, for she doubted not her residence on the isle would be a protracted one; and then begging that he would see the poor black page delivered safely to the care of Sir Roland Vipont, of the captain of the guard, or any other of his friends, she entered the tower with Sybil and Janet, their last solitary attendant.

Then the iron gate was closed and barred until the herald's boat should have withdrawn from the island.

A sign from the countess had been sufficient for Sabrino, and with tears and the utterance of many a strange and unearthly lamentation, he followed the herald and Hamilton of Barncleugh, who, after taking each a quaighful from a little keg of whisky that stood in the warder's lodge, descended to the boat; the disobliging castellan going thither partly from fear, and partly from courtesy, to see his friend and the page off together.

"I like this black creature as little as thee," said the herald; "but I have heard Father St. Bernard, when preaching of St. Frumentius of Ethiopia, tell us of a land, a hundred times the size of broad Scotland, where all the tribes were of this sable hue."

"True--and I have seen such a visage on a banner, ere this."

"Morrison of the Ilk carrieth three," replied the herald; "I saw them beaten down by the Stewarts of Lennox on that day, by Linlithgow brig. But, remember thee, that my lord advocate wished a strict watch to be kept over this creature."

"Then he should have inserted his name in the warrant of committal to ward. 'Slife! there is an old draw-well in the barbican, where I could have lodged it very well. Though a dour carle, I know Sir Adam Otterburn to be an upright man, an abhorrer of sorcery; and there is in this Seton family much that smelleth sorely of it. Earl John found a book of the black art once when on an English foray, as I have heard, but Redhall----"

"Ah, _he_ is a very good man," said the herald, ironically; "descended, indeed, from one of the apostles, by the father's side."

"Which?"

"Judas."

"Beware of thy waggery--he is a severe dispenser of the laws."

"What the devil care I for him, or for the cardinal either if it cometh to that?"

"My friend, my friend!" said Barncleugh, giving a furtive glance behind; "assuredly this black thing hath infected thee, for this discourse savoureth fearfully of the new heresy; but I forget that thou art a near kinsman of Patrick Hamilton, the umquhile abbot of Fearn, and so-called martyr."

"Nay, I remember only that I am speaking to a gentleman, Hamilton, and say what I choose."

"Not always a wise proceeding. But here is the boat, cousin."

The mariners, who had been in no way pleased at having Sabrino as a passenger to the isle, and had been mutually feeding each other's fears and prejudices during the herald's absence, were very much discomposed by his returning with the same sable attendant; and on hearing from the cardinal's pikemen that Sir James Hamilton had declined to admit him within the tower, their murmurs became loud and undisguised.

The herald shook hands with the knight, and attended by his pursuivant, sprang on board; but when Sabrino attempted to follow, the coxswain, a square-visaged and sturdily-built old fellow, with a long grey beard and shaggy eyebrows, snatched up a boat-hook, and attempted to push off the pinnace; then Sabrino, with one hand on the gunnel, and the other on his poniard, gave him a dark and terrible scowl.

"Awa, awa! thou imp of Satan--hands off, or I will ribroast thee!" cried the coxswain, somewhat alarmed at his own temerity.

"Reeve a rope through his siller ear-rings and tow him overboard," cried one sailor.

"Cast off! cast off!" cried another; "I hae heard o' sic imps that abide at Cape Non, and eat of ship-broken mariners."

The coxswain raised the iron-shod boat-hook.

"Hold!" exclaimed the herald, springing forward, but he was too late; it descended like a thunderbolt on the round, woolly head of Sabrino, and he disappeared like a stone in the deep fathomless abyss of the creek. "Dolt!" added the herald, "I have pledged my word of honour for his safety, and thou hast slain him."

"Heed it not, good fellow; I will owe thee a score of bonnet-pieces for that," cried Sir James Hamilton, as he sprang up the steep winding pathway that led towards the tower, while the oars dipt into the water, and the boat shot out upon the river, whose waves were dancing brightly in the glow of a cloudless morning.

Before this, the countess and Sybil, overcome by weariness, the grief of the past night, and a total deprivation of sleep, bad fallen into a deep slumber in a chamber of the tower above.

The worthy lady of Barncleugh was somewhat of a termagant, which was generally averred to be the principal reason why the good laird her spouse had solicited from the cardinal, and retained, the solitary castellany of Inchkeith. The lady never came into the island, and the laird never went out of it; but consumed the long and dreary days, revelling in the peaceful monotony he now enjoyed, playing chess with his seneschal, and drinking usquebaugh mixed with a small proportion of the brackish spring-water of the isle. A table was placed near the gate of the tower, at a sunny angle of the barbican, on the very verge of those cliffs named the Climpers; and there, with the sea rolling nearly a hundred and eighty feet below, the seagulls and the Solan geese croaking above them, they passed the summer afternoons, playing chess and drinking, with invincible resolution and impenetrable gravity, till sunset, when the knight was usually borne upstairs and put to bed, the damp air having stiffened his limbs, as he always declared next day--an assertion which the seneschal (who had his own thoughts on the matter) never dared to deny.

It may easily be supposed that such a castellan was in no way calculated to relieve the tedium, soothe the grief and mortification, or lessen the fears, of the countess and Sybil; for days rolled on and became weeks, and weeks were approaching a month; and though the opposite coast and the city, the scene of all their anxieties, were little more than three miles distant, they remained in total and blessed ignorance of all that was passing there.

They seemed to be as utterly forgotten as if they had been in the _oubliettes_ of the cardinal.

The countess heard nothing of her daughter, whom she had fully expected to join her; and Sybil learned nothing of her lover; so whether, with the Douglas faction, he was bearing all before him at sword's point, and waging a victorious though rebellious war with the king and court; or whether they had returned to exile at the capital of England, they knew not. The total absence of all intelligence made them conclude the latter, and that he had taken Lady Jane with him to protect her. Then the countess would weep bitterly at the thought of such a separation; for England was then a hostile country; and places that are now but a day's journey distant were then deemed afar off and difficult of access. A chain of royal castles watched the English from the south, and the cannon of Berwick and Carlisle, Norham and Newcastle, frowned towards the Scottish mountains on the north. Safe conducts and passports were constantly required on both sides of the frontier, the jealous Scot and his aggressive neighbour seldom saw each other, save under the peaks of their helmets; and an exchange of cannon-balls and sword-cuts was the only traffic in which they were permitted to deal. Though we can smile at such a state of matters between the two kingdoms, experience is daily showing that Scotland will soon require some _firmer guarantee_ for her national privileges than a British parliament can afford her, against the march of centralization.

A little rocky island, half a mile in length by the eighth of a mile in breadth, could afford but few amusements. Sybil soon tired of watching the white seagulls and the gigantic Solan geese that floated about the Longcraig, in the fissures of which the waves were ever roaring with a sound of thunder. She tired too of watching the passing ships, the Holland wachters, the Flemish crayers, the Rochellers and Dunkirkers, with their high poops and great square banners: the large brown lug-sails of the boats which then fished between the island and the town of Kinghorn, and of hearkening to the hum of that song which the fishers of the Forth yet chant to their oars, the end of each monotonous verse being--

"The leal gudeman of Aberdour, Sits in Sir Alan Vipont's tower."

She tired of watching the endless waves as they rolled on the rocky beach, marking every tenth billow as the largest and most forcible, a phenomenon known since the days of Ovid; and Sybil sighed for the city, whose lofty castle and ridgy outline "piled deep and massy, close and high," she saw daily shining afar off in the summer sun.

More content--for the wants, the wishes, and the hopes of age are generally few--the countess wiled away the time in the perusal of her missal, and searching for the four-leaved clover which she found sometimes in the little valley, and solemnly pulled, saying, after the old Scottish fashion, "In nomine Patris, Filii, et Spiritus Sancti," to be preserved and worn as a charm against the _evil eye_, which she thought was observable in Sir James Hamilton of Barncleugh.

"Sybil, my bairn," she frequently whispered, when the besotted castellan was dosing over his wine and chessboard, "he hath indeed a most evil eye, and whatever he looks upon cannot thrive; so keep all thy blessed relics and consecrated medals about thee. Beware," she would add, smoothing the jet-like ringlets, and kissing the cheek of Sybil, which exhibited that peculiar olive tint of the brave old Douglas race, which is so much richer than the most roseate hue; "beware thee, too, of approaching yonder end of the valley, for I fear me mickle the _gude-wichts_ dwell among the rocks;" and in confirmation she pointed to those bright sparry particles which frequently stud basaltic masses, and in Scotland are denominated fairy pennies. "More than once after nightfall, when sitting at my dreary chamber window in yonder tower, I have heard melodious sounds, and seen strange gleams of light emitted from yonder brae. I remember that my worthy father, Sir Archibald (quhom God assoilzie), once showed me a knowe near unto the duletree that grew beneath sur Castell o' Kilspindie, the stones whereof were studded with these sparry marks, and therein dwelt the gude-wichts in such numbers as ye will find the sand on the sea-shore. Quite gude neighbours they were, but wrathful and dangerous to molest. It happened in the year 1501, as he rode thereby, in full harness with his visor up, and the red heart fluttering on his pennon behind him--lo! the whole hillock was seemingly raised, and stood on twelve pillars, each about four feet high; and below he saw crowds of wee men and wee women all dressed in grass green, wi' foxglove and blue-bells on their heads. Thousands were dancing to the hum o' fairy harps and drums, while thousands more were airing heaps of gold, and pushing to and fro great chests full of shining coins. Sorely amazed at this sight, his hair bristled up below his helmet, but he bethought him of the patron of our house.

"'Sancta Brigida, ora pro me!' said he (being all the Latin he had ever picked up from Father St. Bernard), when down sank the hill, its grassy side became dark, for light and sound and fairies vanished; and then the gude knight, my father, thought it no shame on his manhood to gallop swiftly away. Ah, me! this was in the time of King James IV., of gallant memorie!"

Brighter and sunnier June came on; but such and so close were the measures of the cardinal, and his able second, the king's advocate, that no tidings reached that lonely little isle of the events which were taking place so near it.