CHAPTER V.

A PAIR OF RAPIERS.

If thou sleep alone in Urrard, Perchance in midnight gloom, Thoul't hear behind the wainscot Of that old and darken'd room A fleshless hand that knocketh----" HIGHLAND MINSTRELSY.

In a dark old wainscotted apartment, in the small arched chimney of which a coal fire was glowing cheerily, supper and wine were sullenly laid for Walter by a sleepy and half-frightened servant; but the first remained untouched and the last untasted, at least for a time. Removing his burgonet and gloves, he sat with his elbow on the table and his forehead on his hand, with his fingers writhed among his thick dark locks. He was again sunk in one of his gloomy reveries; but at times a smile of pleasure and animation unbent his haughty lip and lit up his handsome face like sunlight through a cloud; and it was evident he thought more of Lilian Napier's bright blue eyes, her innocence, and her fears, than the dangers and ignominy to which coming day would assuredly expose him.

The mildness, modesty, and beauty of the young girl, with the touching artlessness of her manner, had awakened a nearer and more vivid interest in his heart, one to which it had hitherto been utterly a stranger. It was the dawn of passion; never before, he thought, had one so winning or so attractive crossed his path; he had found at last the well-known face that his fancy had conjured up in a thousand happy reveries, and he was predisposed to love it. Her tears and affliction for the last relative (save one) whom fate and war had left, had increased her natural attractions, and a keen sense of her unmerited humiliation, and the risk he ran for her, by knitting their names together, all tended to raise a glow in young Walter's solitary heart; for having no living thing in this wide world to cling to, it was peculiarly susceptible and open to impressions of kindness and generosity; now it expanded with a flush of happiness and delight to which since thoughtless childhood it had been a stranger; and in a burst of soldierlike enthusiasm, he uttered her name aloud, and drained the pewter flagon of Rhenish to the bottom.

As he set it down, a noise behind made him turn sharply round and listen; nothing was visible but the dark stains of the wainscotting, and its gilded pannels glistening ruddily in the glow of the fire. From an antique brass sconce on the wall, the light of three great candles burned steadily on the old discoloured floor, the massively jointed arch of the fire-place, which bore a legend in Saxon characters, on three old pictures by Jamieson, of cavaliers in barrelled doublets, high ruffs, and peaked beards, and one of the famous Barbara Napier of Bruntisfield, who so narrowly escaped the stake for her sorceries, on a spectral suit of mail, and six old heavily carved chairs, ranged against the wall like grotesque gnomes with their arms akimbo; but although nothing was visible to create alarm, the aspect of the chamber was so gloomy, that certain tales of a spectre cavalier who haunted the old house, began to flit through Walter's mind, and he could not resist listening intensely; still not a sound was heard, but the wind rumbling in the hollow vent, and the creaking of the turret vanes overhead.

"Tush!" said he, and whether it was the faint echo of his own voice or a sound again behind the wainscot, he knew not, but he palpably heard something that made him bring the hilt of his long rapier more readily to hand. The portraits, like all those of persons whom one knows to have been long dead, when viewed by the dim candle-light had a staring, desolate, and ghastly expression, and they really seemed to "frown" over their high ruffs on the intruder, who would probably have frowned in return, had he not, even in the harsh lines of the old Scottish artist traced a family likeness to the soft features of Lilian Napier. But there was a stern, keen and malignant expression in the features of the old sorceress, Lady Barbara, that made Walter often avert his eyes, for her sharp features seemed to start from the pannel instinct with life and mockery.

As sleep weighed down the eyelids of Walter, strange fancies pressed thick and fast, though obscurely, on his mind; and though once or twice the same faint hollow sound made him start and take another survey of the apartment by the dim light of the sconce and dying embers of the fire, his head bowed down on the table, and at last he slumbered soundly.

Scarcely had he sunk into this state when there was a sharp click heard; a jarring sound succeeded, and on the opposite side of the room, about three feet from the ground, a pannel in the wainscotting was opened slowly and cautiously, and the bright glare of a large oil cruise streamed into the darkened apartment. Beyond the aperture, receded a gloomy alcove or secret passage, into the obscurity of which the steps of a narrow stair ascended, and therein appeared the figure of a man, who gazed cautiously upon the unconscious sleeper. He was about thirty years of age, strongly formed, and possessing a handsome but very weatherbeaten countenance. He wore a plain buff coat and steel gorget; his waist was encircled by a broad belt, which sustained a pair of long iron pistols of the Scottish fashion, and a sharp narrow-bladed rapier glittered in his hand.

Young Fenton still slept soundly.

The stranger regarded him with a stern and louring visage, on which the lurid light of the upraised cruise fell strongly. It betokened some fell and deadly intention, and as the hostile ferocity of its aspect increased as slowly, softly, and ominously he descended into the apartment.

"Through which part of the iron shell shall I strike this papistical interloper?" he muttered; "I will teach thee, wretch, to think of Lilian Napier in thy cups!"

His right hand was withdrawn preparatory to making one furious and deadly thrust, which assuredly would have ended this history (ere it is well begun) had not the subject thereof started up suddenly, exclaiming,--

"Back, rebel dog! on thy life, stand back!" and striking up the thrust rapier, drew his own, and throwing a chair between him and his adversary, he stood at once upon his guard.

"Malediction!" cried the stranger, furiously, "dolt that I was not to have pistolled thee from the pannel!"

"Wemyss, Wemyss!" exclaimed Walter, "The guard--what; ho! without there!"

"Spare your breath, for you may need it all," said the other, putting down his lamp, and barring the door. "This chamber is vaulted and boxed, and long enough mayest thou bawl ere thy fellow-beagles hear thee. Defend thyself, foul minion of the bloodiest tyrant that ever disgraced a throne. Strike! for by the Heaven that is above, ere a sword is sheathed, this floor must smoke with the blood of one or both of us! Come on, Mr. Springald, and remember that you have the honour to cross blades with the best swordsman in the six battalions of the Scottish Brigade."

"You are----"

"Ha, scoundrel! Quentin Napier of Bruntisfield, by God's grace and King William's, a captain of the Scots-Dutch; so fall on, for I am determined to slay thee, were it but to keep my hand in practice for better work."

The blades crossed and struck fire as they clashed; each cavalier remained a moment with his head drawn back, the right leg thrown forward and his eyes glaring on his antagonist. Walter was ten years younger than his adversary, upon whom he rushed with more ardour than address, and consequently, in endeavouring to pass his point and close, received a slight wound on the hand, which kindled him into a terrible fury. Napier excelled him in temper, if not in skill; he parried all his thrusts with admirable coolness, until, perceiving that the youth's impetuosity began to flag, he pressed him in turn, the ferocity that sparkled in his eyes and blanched his nether lip revealing the bitterness of his intention; but in making one furious lunge, he overthrust himself, and was struck down with his sword-hand under him. Rage had deprived Walter of all government over himself; in an instant his knee was on Napier's breast, and his sword shortened in his hand with the intention of running him through the heart, for his blood was now up, and all "the devil" was stirred within him. He felt the deep broad chest of his powerful adversary heaving beneath him with suppressed passion and fury.

"Captain Napier," said Walter, "for the sake of her whose name and blood you share--though you disgrace them--I will spare your life if you will beg it at my hands."

"Strike!" and he panted rather than breathed as he spoke; "Strike! life would be less than worthless if given as a boon by Dunbarton's beggarly brat. O, a thousand devils!--is it come to this with me?"

"Peace, fool!" exclaimed Walter, "peace, lest your words tempt me to destroy you. Accept life at my hands; they spared the blood of a better man upon the field of Sedgemoor."

"Be it so," replied the discomfitted captain, sullenly receiving his rapier; "I accept it only that I may, at some future time, avenge in blood the stain thou hast this night cast upon the best cavalier of the Scottish Brigade." He ground his teeth. "D--nation! my throat is burning--any wine here?" He drank some Rhenish from a flask, and then continued, "Ho, ho, and now, since you know my hiding-place, doubtless for the sake of the thousand marks this poor brain-pan is worth, ye will deliver me unto our Scottish Phillistines--those Lords of Council, who are steeped to the lips in infamy and blood!"

"Perish the thought!" replied Walter, sheathing his rapier with a jerk. "You are safe for me--and here is my thumb on't."

"Gad so, young fellow, I love thy spirit, and at another's expense could admire your skill in the noble science of defence. You fought at Sedgemoor--so did I."

"For the King?"

"Why--not exactly."

"For James of Monmouth?"

"Humph!"

"Then doubly are you a branded rebel."

"I had been a glorious patriot, had we won that bloody field. Young fellow, you must have early cocked your feather to the tuck of the drum! Art a Papist?"

"Nay, I am a good Protestant, I hope."

"And loyal to our Seventh James, the crowned Jesuit? Der tuyvel, as we say in Holland, 'tis a miracle!" and after drinking from the wine-flask, he resumed with greater urbanity, "When I remember how you permitted the Lady Bruntisfield and my kinswoman Lilian to escape, it shames me that I was not more generous; but the devil tempted me to blood in that infernal hole to which I must return."

"Now, sir, since the ladies are gone, you will undoubtedly starve."

"Nay, the whole household know of my concealment, and old Drouthy will not let me want for wine and vivres."

"They may inform."

"O never! I am their lady's only kinsman--the last of the good old line, and they are staunch servitors; a few among those, whom the courtly villany of these times hath left uncorrupted. 'Tis well I know all the outlets of the mansion, for it will become quite too hot for me after to-night. No doubt a band of your soldiers will be here at free quarters until the whole barony, outfield and infield, are as bare as my hand."

"In part, you anticipate rightly."

"Henckers! then I must shift my camp among our whig friends in the west until----"

"Until what?" asked Walter, suspiciously.

"Thou shalt learn anon, and so shall all thy faction with a vengeance!" replied the captain, while a deep smile spread over his features. "Meantime adieu, and may God keep us separate, friend! I trust to thine honour."

"Adieu!"

He sprang into the secret passage, closed the pannel, and Walter heard his footsteps dying away as he ascended into the hollow recesses of the thick wall, and sought some of those secret hiding-places with which this ancient mansion abounded more than any other edifice in or around Edinburgh.

Morning came, and with it came an order from the king's advocate to bring the prisoners before the privy council, and to secure the persons of their entire household for future examination and thumb-screwing, if necessary.

The multiplied lamentations and exclamations of fear and sorrow, which rang through the house of Bruntisfield on the arrival of Macer Maclutchy, with this terrible fiat (which he announced with all the jack-in-office insolence peculiar to himself), and the clank of musquets and din of high words in the corridor or ambulatory, roused Walter from a second short but sound sleep, and starting, he raised his head from the table on which he had reclined.

Redly and merrily the rays of the morning sun rising above the oak woods streamed through the grated window of the chamber, and threw a warm glow on its dark-brown wainscotting. It was a sunny March morning, and the old oaks were tossing their leafless branches on the balmy wind; the black corbies cawed on their summits, and the lesser birds twittered and chirped from spray to spray; the clear sky was flecked with fleecy clouds, and its pure azure was reflected in the still bosom of the long and beautiful loch, that stretched away between its wooded banks towards the east, where the old house of Gilford and the craigs of Salisbury closed the background.

Walter felt his bruises still smarting from the recent struggle; he examined the place of his fierce visitor's exit, but failed to discover the least trace of it; every pannel fitted close, and was immovable, for he knew not the secret. The whole combat appeared like a dream; but a scar on his hand, a notch or two on his sword, and several overturned chairs, still remained to attest the truth of it. Hastening to unfasten the door which Quentin Napier had secured with such deadly intentions, a little glove on the floor attracted his eye. He snatched it up. It was very small, and of richly worked lace, tied by a blue ribbon.

"She has worn this. Oh, 'tis quite a prize," said the young man as he kissed it, and laughing at himself for doing so, placed it within the top of his corslet.

"My certie, here is a braw bit o' wark and a bonnie!" exclaimed Macer Maclutchy, bustling into the room. "Here is an order from the king's advocat to bring the leddies o' Bruntisfield to the Laigh Council House instanter, and the chamber o' dais is empty, toom as a whistle,--the birds clean awa, and the gomeral that stood by the door kens nae mair about them than an unchristened wean. My word on't, lads," he continued flourishing his badge of office, "some here maun kiss the maiden or climb the gallows for last night's wark!"

After swearing an oath or two, which appeared to give him infinite relief in his perplexity,

"Master Walter," said the old halberdier, "here is a devilish piece of business--an overslagh, as we used to say in Flanders. Rot me! I have searched every place that would hold a mouse, but the prisoners are not to be found! I have pricked with my dagger every bed, board, and bunker, and so sure as the devil--make answer, Halbert Elshender," he cried, shaking the sentinel roughly by his bandoliers, "answer me, or I will truncheon thee in such wise, thou shalt never shoulder musket more. Fause knave! where are the prisoners over whom I posted ye?"

"A lang day's march on the road to hell, I hope--the old one, at least," responded the musqueteer, sullenly; "dost think I have them under my corslet?"

"Faith! General Dalyel will let ye ken, friend Hab, that a thrawn craig or six ounce bullets are the price Scottish of winking on duty. Ye'll be shot like a cock-patrick. I pity thee, Hab--d--mme if I don't; you've blawn your matches by my side on many a hot day's work, and bleezed away your bandoliers in the face o' English, Dutch, and German; but my heart granes for the punishment ye'll dree."

"You are all either donnart or drunk!" exclaimed the incensed soldier; "if the ladies were in the chamber when I first mounted guard, I swear by my father's soul, they are there yet for me. I neither slept nor stirred from the door; so they maun either have flown up the lum or whistled through the keyhole----"

"Didst ever hear of a noble lady playing cantrips o' witchcraft like a wife o' the Kailmercat, or that auld whaislin besom, your mother, down by St. Roque?"

"What for no?--it rins in the family, this same science o' witchcraft, gif a' tales be true."

"See if such a braw story will pass muster with Sir Thomas Dalyel. Cocknails! I think I see every hair o' his lang beard glistening and bristling with rage!"

"And he will mind that my father was a staunch vassal o' the Napiers!" added the poor musqueteer, in great consternation at the idea of confronting that ferocious commander. "What can I do or say?--O help me, Master Walter! Would to God I had been piked or shot at Sedgemoor!"

"Wemyss," said Walter, advancing at this juncture, just as the serjeant was unbuckling the soldier's collar of bandoliers. "The ladies are gone where I hope none, save friends, will find them. Elshender is innocent, for I freed them, and must bear the punishment for doing so; but next time, comarade Hab, you take over such a post, see that your wards are in it."

"I had your word, Mr. Fenton," replied the musqueteer in a voice between sorrow and joy; "your word at least in the sense, and we alway deemed you a gentleman of honour, though but a puir soldier-lad like mysel."

"True, true," replied Walter, colouring; "will not the generosity of my purpose excuse the deceit?"

"Why, Mr. Fenton, I wish weel to the auld house, for I was born and bred under its shadow, and mony o' my kin hae laid down their lives in its service, and I can excuse it----"

"D'ye think my Lord Chancellor will, though?" asked the Macer sharply, as he bustled forward, "or His Majesty's advocat for His Majesty's interest?"

"Or Sir Thomas Dalyel o' the Binns?" added the serjeant testily. "O! what is this o't noo--after I, from a skirling brat, had made a man and a soldier of thee? O! 'tis an unco scrape--a devilish coil of trouble, and I wish you weel out o't. Retain your sword, my puir child, but consider yourself under close ward until orders come anent ye. D--me! I once marched three hundred prisoners from Zutphen to French Flanders, among them the noble Count of Bronkhorst himsel, and never lost but one man whom I pistolled for calling me a hireling Scot, that sold my king for a groat, whilk I considered as a taunt appertaining to the Covenanters alone. Gowk and gomeral, boy, what devil tempted thee to----but why ask? Yon pawkie gipsey's blue een----"

"Hush!"

"Hae thrown a glamour owre ye. Wherever women bide, there will mischief be. 'Tis a kittle job! What a pumpkin-head I was not to keep watch and ward mysel. Rot me! a young quean's skirling, or a carlin's greeting would hae little effect on me, for I have heard muckle o' baith in my time. Did no thought of our Council prevent ye running your head in the cannon's mouth?"

"No; I saw women in distress, Wemyss, and acted as my heart dictated."

"Had they been two auld carlins with hairy chins, gobber teeth, wrinkled faces, and hands like corbies' claws, I doubt not your tender heart would have dictated otherwise. But when next I set a handsome young lad to watch a young lass, may the great de'il spit me, and mak my ain halbert his toasting fork!"

"Ay, ay," muttered Macer Maclutchy, whose jaws were busily devouring all the good things he could collect in buffet or almrie; "auld Hornie may do so in the end, whatever comes to pass."

"O Willie Wemyss, Willie Wemyss!" quoth the veteran halberdier apostrophizing himself; "dark dool be on the hour that brings this disgrace upon thee, after five and thirty years o' hard and faithful service, under La Tour d'Avergne, Crequy, Condé, and Dunbarton! The deil's in ye, Walter Fenton! You were aye a moody and melancholy cheild, and I ever thought ye were born under some ill star, as the spaewives say."

"Braw spark though he be," said the Macer, "he's come o' the true auld covenanting spawn, Mr. Wemyss--and birds o' a feather--here's luck, serjeant, and better times to us a'"; and so saying he buried his flushed visage in a vast flagon of foaming ale.