CHAPTER XXXI.

THE PORTE OF THE SPUR.

"What! no reprieve, no least indulgence given, No beam of hope from any point of heaven? Ah, mercy! mercy! art thou dead above? Is love extinguished in the source of love?" _The Last Day_, Book III.

Redhall's second wound was of the most dangerous kind. It was below that inflicted by Roland, but nearer the region of the heart; it bled profusely; and his blind passion and fury on discovering that Lady Jane had really escaped, carried him beyond all bounds. While Trotter sprang on horseback, and galloped off for John of the Silvermills, and Dobbie, armed with the warrant, was despatched to recapture the fugitive Jane and her brother the earl, and have them secured in the castle of Edinburgh, Redhall, in a paroxysm of rage and despair, so great that it rendered him supine and powerless, lay on his bed as in a swoon, until the arrival of the physician, on whom, as on all, he enjoined (under the most tremendous threats) solemn silence concerning a wound, the inflicter of which he declined to name.

The strong emotions of anger and revenge, which, with every fresh interview, rejection, and defeat, had been gradually gathering in his heart, had now indeed swollen, drop by drop, to the torrent he had predicted; and, like the reed upon the current, she was about to be swept away with it.

"Harkye, Dobbie!" said he, through his clenched teeth, between which the blood was oozing, as he writhed in agony on his bed; "harkye! give me thy thumb; silence on all this--as thou livest, my good man and true--silence on this matter--I tell thee _silence_! Here is the warrant--seek the Albany herald and captain of the guard--quick! have this woman committed to ward, as it imports!"

"Should she say she has been our prisoner already?"

"Begone, fool! who would believe her? Hence--hence, my God!--go, wretch," he added, in a low, hissing voice, as Dobbie hurried away; "go, and accomplish this my work of vengeance; and, one day or other, I shall brush thee, too, from my path, like the bloated spider thou art!"

In half an hour the physician arrived; and the light of the dull grey dawn presented a figure which certainly had something very appalling in it, for, in his haste, he had come away wearing a mask which was furnished with two large, green, globular glass eyes, to protect his face from the poisonous air and scorching heats of his laboratory. His high and wrinkled forehead lowered above it, and his long beard flowed below.

The wound was speedily bathed and salved; and lint, with a bandage, was applied.

"Thou seest, friend, that I find this new office of king's advocate no sinecure," said Redhall, with a fierce smile. "A thousand furies--how the wound smarts!"

"'Tis the _unguentum armarium_," replied the learned John, with medical composure; "one touch is sufficient to make such a wound as this shrink to the size of a pin-thrust, and two ought to efface it."

"I feel as if the dagger was still in my heart! Two touches cure, sayest thou?"

"Yea, my lord."

"I pray they may do so."

"They must, Sir Adam, if thou followest rigidly my prescriptions, which are here," and from his pouch he produced various phials marked with those cabalistic figures which are still so much in vogue among apothecaries. These he drew up in line, with their labels hanging like shields before them. "Here is my Elixir of Life, which the care of many a long year hath yet failed to perfect, for the lack of a certain herb which groweth in Arabia Petræa, and is the real _arbor vitæ_--the tree of life of the patriarchs; but still, its restorative and strengthening properties are wondrous! Here are my mercurial balm and the essence of acorns, which last giveth to the bones the strength of the oak tree, and to the nerves and sinews the toughness and tenacity of the ivy. A spoonful of each are taken night and morning, dissolved in a little warm water; and doubt not, Sir Adam, that this day week will behold you a strong man, and well--yea, with redoubled energies, like those whom the Cassida of the pagan Romans restored to life."

And with these words the physician retired, leaving Redhall to writhe and struggle, in solitude, with his mental and bodily agonies--the former outdoing the latter by a thousand-fold.

Our learned astrologer enjoyed a great reputation in Edinburgh, and doubtless would have enjoyed a still greater in the present day, if we may judge of the success of southern quacks and quackeries; as they, like everything that is English, enjoy a vast popularity among the Scottish vulgar.

At this time Lady Jane Seton was at the porch of the palace, from whence Dobbie had dispatched one soldier for the Albany herald, and another to Sir John Forrester. On reviving, she found herself surrounded by arquebusiers in their steel caps, gorgets, and bandoliers, gazing on her with bold and scrutinizing eyes.

"What manner o' lassie is this?" said they, crowding round her chair, and winking to each other. "A dainty bird--i'faith!" said one.

"What hands;--how white!" said another.

"What ankles!" said a third connoisseur, stooping down. "Soul o' my body! but a glisk o' these would damn St. Anthony and St. Andrew to boot!"

"I am Jane Seton of Ashkirk," said she, suddenly opening her eyes, and looking wildly and imploringly upon them; "oh, where is your captain, my good soldiers--where is Sir John of Corstorphine?"

"He will be here immediately, madam," said one, while the rest fell back respectfully and abashed, and several felt themselves constrained to uncover before her, and remove their helmets. Though every man in the ranks of the royal guard was a born vassal and kinsman of the house of Hamilton, that inborn respect for gentle blood which the Scots possess in a high degree, together with that generous frankness which the camp always teaches, impressed with silence the thirty soldiers who occupied the court-of-guard; and the noisy jests and laughter, which first greeted and surrounded Lady Jane, immediately became hushed.

Seeing that she was faint and pale, one, without being asked, filled his drinking-horn with water, and brought it to her. Her fine eyes gave him a look of thankfulness that sank deep into the honest fellow's heart, and then she drank thirstily.

Pulling a ring from her finger, she offered it to him, but he shook his head, and drew back, saying, with a smile:--

"Nay, lady; a die sae braw is useless to the like o' me, a puir soldier-lad."

"But I owe thee something for thy kindness."

"You owe me nothing, Lady Jean; my mother was a Seton."

At that moment Sir John Forrester, who had been summoned from his lodgings in the palace, and had come forth armed with soldier-like alacrity, entered, with his visor up, displaying the sad and dark cloud that hovered on his brow; for the watchful Dobbie had met him in the palace-yard, and placed in his hand the warrant for Lady Jane's arrest and "committal to ward," as they phrased it in those days.

"To your arms!" said he, waving his hand to the soldiers, who immediately took their arquebuses from the rack, where they stood in a row, and leaving the guard-house, fell into their ranks before it.

"My dear Lady Jane," said the courtly knight, taking both her hands in his, the moment they were left alone; "from what has all this frightful affair arisen?"

Jane answered only with her tears.

"Lady--dear lady, of what are you guilty?"

"Ask the leaders of your faction, Sir John," she replied, bitterly; "but ask not me."

"My faction, lady?"

"Thou servest the Court?"

"Nay, madam, I serve the king, like Sir Roland Vipont, whose fast friend I am; and as such, I beg permission to be thine."

"I thank you, Sir John Forrester," replied Jane, with another passionate burst of tears; "but were my father and the Lord Angus here, as of old, I had needed no other friends; but, alas! the one lieth now in his grave at St. Giles's, while the other is a poor and impoverished exile, compelled to eat the bread of Englishmen. Alas! I am now totally forsaken."

"Nay, lady; for here stand I, John Forrester of Corstorphine, ready to be your champion; and as such, to maintain your innocence against all men living, body for body, according to the laws of battle and of arms."

"A thousand thanks, Sir John; but remember, Sir Roland Vipont claims priority in that. Meanwhile, let me leave this place."

"And dost thou know for where?"

"Oh, yes," she replied, with a bitter smile; "for the castle of Edinburgh; be it so; I am not the first of my race who has paid clearly the penalty of opposing tyranny. There were Sir John de Seton, and his kinsman Sir Christopher de Seton, captain of Lochdoon, who were so barbarously murdered after surrender by English Edward, and my grandsire, William Seton, who fell at Verneuil, fighting against the English, under Lord Buchan, the Constable of France. Let us go--let us go! the sooner this frightful drama is ended the better. Oh, they are good men and gallant soldiers, those courtiers of King James--those slaves and parasites of Arran. Sir John, I await you."

"But you cannot go thus--on foot, lady. Excuse me, but for a moment."

He dispatched a messenger to the palace for a horse and a pillion, and to beg the favour of a riding-cloak from the Lady Barncleugh; both of which were brought in a few minutes.

In this interval, Jane, with great energy but incoherence, and amid frequent bursts of tears and indignation, had related the story of her abduction and retention by Redhall; but, dreading to criminate her brother, or afford, even to this friendly gentleman, the least clue to his flight, she blundered the whole episode of her escape, and became so perplexed and confused, that Sir John Forrester considered the whole affair as a mere hallucination, and listened with a face expressive only of pity and sincere sorrow; and thus she found her tale received by all to whom she afterwards ventured to relate it; for the reputation for high moral worth and sterling integrity enjoyed by Redhall, placed him as on a lofty pedestal, above the reach of ordinary calumny, though some men did at times shake their heads and look mysteriously at the mention of the gallant Sir Thomas of Bombie, whose blood stained the steps at the north door of St. Giles for many a year after the era of James V.

The sun was up and shone joyously on the palace towers and the vanes of its ancient porch, on the battlements of the traitor's tower (which Moyse speaks of in his memoirs), and the beautiful façade designed by Hamilton of Fimart, when Lady Jane was led forth from the pointed archway.

She was mounted on the pillion behind Sir John Forrester; and thereafter followed by the Albany herald with the warrant, and a party of the guard marching with matches cocked and lighted, she proceeded at a rapid pace towards the castle; for even at that early hour the High-street was beginning to be busy. The guards and warders were unclosing the portes and barriers; the merchants were opening their booths, and displaying their wares under those long arcades which then were on both sides of the street, and remnants of which still exist in several places; farm horses laden with barrels, baskets, and boxes were pouring into the markets, and the water-carriers were crowding round the fountains at the Cross and the Mile-end.

A party of the king's guard, with a knight in full armour, and a female prisoner riding behind him, drew the burgesses from all quarters to the centre of the street.

"Jean Seton of Ashkirk," flew from mouth to mouth, mingled with mutterings of commiseration and hatred, as the sympathies or antipathies of the rabble led them. Many there were who mourned that one so young and fair should be made another sacrifice to the animosity avowedly borne by the king and the court against that humbled faction which had triumphed over both so long, and many there were who remembered the deadly strife of 1520:--

"When startled burghers fled afar, The furies of the border war; When the streets of high Dunedin, Saw axes gleam, and falchions redden;"

when, sheathed in full mail, her father, at the head of a hundred barbed horsemen, had thrice hewn a passage through the barricaded streets, giving to death and defeat the spearmen of Arran. Many women, whose husbands and fathers, lovers and brothers, had fallen on that terrible 29th of April, recalled their treasured hatred as keenly as if the strife of seventeen years had been enacted but seventeen hours ago, and openly, bitterly, and unpityingly reviled her.

"A Hamilton! a Hamilton!"

"Doon wi' the Setons! doon wi' the Douglases! doon wi' the star and the bluidy heart!"

"Set her up, wi' her lace and her pearlings sae braw, when an honest wife like me wears but a curstsey o' flannel!"

"Holy Virgin!" cried another crone in a grey cloak and a flanders-mutch; "and to think I hae taen an awmous frae this Seton sorceress! 'Twas weel I had my relique o' blessed St. Roque aboot me!"

"Fie upon thee, thou fause Seton! Death to the witch! bones to the fire, and soul to Satan!"

Full of horror at these frightful and opprobrious cries, this poor being, whose gentleness had never created her a personal enemy, surrounded by her guard and a vast mob that every moment grew more dense as the street narrowed, arrived at the Castle-port, an ancient and massive archway in the Spur, which then lay between the castle and the town, covering the whole of what is now called the Esplanade, and surmounted by a round bastion, displaying a flag and more than twenty pieces of brass cannon.

There the governor of the fortress--the strong towers of which were looming redly and grimly in the morning sunshine above the parapets and glacis of this hornwork--received Lady Jane, as the king's prisoner, from the herald and captain of the guard, who drew his soldiers across the Castle-hill-street, to bear back the tumultuous crowd, whose clamour reverberated with a thousand echoes in that high and narrow thoroughfare.

Bareheaded and ungloved, the castellan, Sir James Riddel, of Cranstoun-Riddel, a gallant and courtly soldier, received her with the utmost respect, and assisted her to alight. As she did so her riding hood fell back, and her pale and beautiful face was revealed to the people, who began anew to murmur variously. Then it was (such is the power of beauty) that many pitied, though more still hated and upbraided her; for the tide of common clamour in Edinburgh was against the Angus faction, among whom, in camp and council, her father and brother had borne a prominent part, having more than once, at the point of the sword, thrust their vassals as magistrates upon the people.

Confused and terrified by a scene so unusual, Jane murmured she knew not what, as her thanks and adieux to Sir John Forrester, and gave her hand to the governor, who led her within the archway, on the battlements of which was seen the head of the Master of Forbes, who a short time before had been beheaded for raising a sedition in the Scottish camp at Fala, and attempting to shoot King James with an arquebuse. Though pale and exhausted by the terrors of the night, with eyes purple and inflamed by weeping, she gave a sad and perhaps scornful smile at that strong arch, the massive wall, and iron-jagged gate, whereon her father once had nailed his glove in defiance of Arran; but her heart sunk when she really found herself within those lofty walls, where so many had pined in hopeless captivity; nor could she repress a shudder when the rattling portcullis closed behind her, sinking slowly down with a jarring sound between its stony grooves.

The Lady of Cranstoun-Riddel, a kind, and (as the Scots term it) "motherly body," now approached her, and said,--

"Lady Jane Seton, in the name of the blessed Mary, what is the meaning of all this?"

"Dearest madam, I know as little as thee," said Jane, throwing herself upon the bosom of this kind matron, rejoicing to find that one of her own sex, who, though even an entire stranger, could sympathize with her, and who, in age, appearance, and manner so nearly resembled her beloved mother. "Indeed, madam," continued Jane, sobbing, "I swear to you that I am ignorant of the cause; but I am accused of murder, of sorcery, of treason, and I know not what more,--I, that have not the heart to kill even the smallest insect. There must indeed be sorcery in this, but not with me."

"My puir bairn! my pair bairn! thou must thole mickle ere these dark charges are cleared and refuted."

"Yea, madam; for, as my brother truly said, we are but the victims and playthings of tyranny and misrule."

"Lady," said Sir James Riddel, gravely, but respectfully, "you are here by the orders of James V. and his eminence the cardinal, who fourteen days ago sent me instructions to receive you, but you had disappeared on the very night his warrant was issued. Remember, lady, that the king is king; besides, my lord advocate--pardon me if my words disturb you, for I am a rough old rider of James III.'s days, and unused to speaking daintily."

Jane shuddered at the name of her persecutor; and hurriedly, but with more coherence than before, began the story of her recent abduction, and more recent escape. Again, to her infinite chagrin, she found that she was utterly disbelieved, for the knight regarded her with a kind but sad smile of commiseration, as one whom terror had slightly "demented;" she saw him elevate his eyebrows, and nod perceptibly as he exchanged a glance with his lady, who kindly smoothed Jane's glossy hair, kissed her again as a mother would have done, and led her through the Spur, and up the Castle-rock towards King David's Tower. Stung to the soul by this provoking disbelief, she became immediately silent, and resolved to explain no more.

As they proceeded through the vast hornwork, which, as we have said, covered the whole Castle-hill, between the loopholes and embrasures she obtained glimpses of the rough bank that shelved abruptly down to the loch on the north, and of the reedy loch itself, where the wild ducks and swans were floating, and of the bare ridge of pasture-land where now the modern city is built.

"So I am now a captive in the castle of Edinburgh, while my poor mother pines on Inchkeith! Where will the events of this dark drama end?" thought she; and her heart sank lower still as the gigantic gates of the Constable's Tower were closed and barred behind her.