CHAPTER XXIII.

LORD DRUMMOND AND ROBERT BARTON

"How can I 'scape Antonia!--how evade A father's stern inflexible decree? Paint but the means, I ne'er shall be afraid To tread a path prescribed by love and thee." _Bridal of Pisa_

While this atrocity was acted in the garden, and about a pistol shot distant from the mansion, Robert Barton received from Lady Euphemia a sorrowful and excited explanation of her father's new and peculiar views regarding herself and her sister; on hearing which the lover lost all patience, and said all one might be supposed to say on receiving such startling information. David Falconer would, perhaps, have heard it in silent sorrow, for he felt himself poor and powerless; but the wealthy heir of old Sir Andrew Barton had no doubt on the subject of his own conduct.

"'Zounds, Effie, what is this you tell me? Would your father, Lord of that ilk, and Steward of Strathearn though he be, wrest thee from me? thee whom the Church hath given me--who art all but my wife, and wear on that dear hand the betrothal ring, which soon must be a bridal one? No, no! Yonder lieth the frigate, and the barge's crew are at the Craig of St. Nicholas; say but the word, and I shall place the broad waters of the Tay between thee and these Lords of Home and Hailes! They may be the prouder and the sterner, but that they are either richer or better men than Robert Barton of Leith I deny. 'Sdeath, 'tis little I value such holiday loons! Mass! I would like rarely to see them both piped aloft in a close-reefed topsail breeze to send down the topgallant-yard, or haul out a weather-earing! On my faith, it would be a sight for old Andrew Wood."

"Alas! they have seldom less than each a thousand lances at their back; and thou, dear Robert, hath none."

"None, say ye, Effie? I have every man in yonder _Yellow Frigate_, and the _Queen Margaret_ to boot; I have every seaman in Leith and Dundee. Faith! I would not lie in the hosen of him who wronged the son of Andrew Barton; but to let these lordlings get the weathergage of me and Davie Falconer--Hailes and Home--two varlets only fit for carrying powder or wringing wet swabs--no, no, Effie, it never shall be!"

"But alack! they are both brave and determined."

"Likely enough--brave fellows in smooth water; but I'll teach them how to dip their spoons in the captain's mess; by St. Mary I will!"

Euphemia Drummond threw herself upon his breast and wept, as she said--

"Surely, they will never have the evil heart to take me from thee? Oh, were my uncle the dean, or our good friend the old bishop here, they dared not even to think of it."

"But your uncle the dean is attending a chapter at Dunblane, and our good friend the bishop is drinking King Henry's sack in London Tower, to which he has been wantonly conveyed a prisoner, by those same Englishmen who quite as wantonly slew my poor father on the open seas. But some one approaches--'tis thy father, Effie; leave me to speak with him on this matter--for a moment only, my sweet one."

As the old lord raised the arras at one end of the apartment and entered, his eldest daughter retired by a door at the other; and Robert Barton, while his heart swelled with sorrow and honest indignation, approached with a lowering brow the father of the girl he loved, and one whom until now he had ever esteemed is a dear and venerable friend.

"Good my lord," said he, "I pray you to pardon me, if I intrude upon the grief occasioned by the disappearance of Lady Margaret, by making a humble offer of my service and assistance."

"I thank you, Master Robert Barton," replied Lord Drummond, with something of confusion and much of stern coldness in his manner; "but I believe that to the king--and to him only--must I look for the restoration of my dearest and most gentle daughter."

"To the king?----"

"Ay, to the king! I spoke plain enough. She is the wedded wife of his son, the Duke of Rothesay----"

"Rothesay!"

"Ay, ye well may start; but James, still hankering after those grasping Tudors (may God confound them all!) liked not the match, and hath had her kidnapped. He hath dared to do this; but the act shall cost him a crown, should I spend the last of my breath and the last of my blood to tear it from his brow. False king!" he added, apostrophising the wall; "didst thou forget even for a moment that she was a daughter of Lord Drummond?"

"Hark you, my lord; I am the king's liegeman, and deplore you should nurse thoughts of treason, or have such words of danger on your tongue; but still more do I deplore that you should harbour in your heart sentiments repugnant to the principles of honour, and to the happiness of your eldest daughter."

A flush of anger reddened the brow of the proud old noble.

"What mean you, Captain Barton?" he asked.

"Why, my lord, have you proposed to cast me adrift--I who am affianced to Euphemia, and who love her with a true and honest heart? Come, my lord, be fair and above-board with me; remember that our dear Effie is my plighted wife--plighted and betrothed to me in happier times than these."

"Pledges made in peace are often broken in war," replied the noble, coldly, and without noticing a gesture of impatience which escaped the honest seaman; for he remembered how anxious the conspirators at Broughty were to obtain the king's ships. In his ambition to achieve this, and also obtain vengeance upon James, he condescended to subterfuge.

"Captain Barton," said he in a low voice, "all correspondence between the king and his nobles is at an end, and another day may see their swords unsheathed against him. Promise me, should this event occur," he continued, sinking his voice into a whisper, "that you will contrive to have yonder war ships delivered unto such captains and mariners as the vice-admiral who acts under his Grace the Duke of Albany may appoint; or that you will serve the nobles--and my pledge to you may yet remain inviolate."

"_May_? God forgive thee, thou subtle old man, for such a cruel alternative," replied Barton, with deep emotion, while his eyes filled and their lashes trembled. "I love your daughter better than my life; Heaven knows how long I have loved your Effie, how dearly and how well; but I also love that good king who was ever my father's friend; and the curse of that dead father would arise from his grave in the Englishman's sea, and follow me to the end of my days on sea and on land, if I proved false to my allegiance. My dear Effie! accursed be the policy which would make thee the boon for which I am to barter name and fame, honour and soul!"

Lord Drummond whose perceptions of right and wrong (never too clear at any time) were somewhat clouded and warped by the quarrel of the barons and king, against whom he now felt a deadly hatred, witnessed this deep burst of feeling unmoved, for he had not the smallest intention of yielding up his daughter to her betrothed, even though the latter were base enough to betray the admiral and surrender those great caravels, which were the terror of the northern sea, and the flower of the infant navy.

"You will not join us, and deliver up two paltry ships," resumed the politic tempter; "what! not even for a bride so fair?"

"No--not as the king's rebellious subject."

"So, so," muttered the lord, impatiently, "if you go from this on your feet, you may warn James of the cloud that gathers round his throne."

"Alas! I will never betray your lordship. As the father of Euphemia, I almost considered you mine. Heaven judge between us, my lord, for I love and revere you still; natheless, this duplicity to me, and this falsehood to our beloved king."

Instead of being touched by the depth of feeling displayed by Robert Barton, the cruel noble now only feared that in his efforts to serve that desperate cause in which he had enlisted himself, he had betrayed too much to the king's true man, and saw at once the danger thus incurred. Raising the arras, he whispered to young Drummond of Mewie, who stood without, and was in attendance upon him,--

"Summon Carnock, Balloch, and their people; they are loitering in the hall, the street, or garden. Tell them that this man knoweth more than should be risked with others than ourselves. Dost thou comprehend me?"

Mewie, a savage-looking and unscrupulous young Celt from Strathearn, muttered something under the thick red beard that fell in shaggy volume under the brow of his steel cap, while he grinned and withdrew. Then Lord Drummond turned once more to poor Barton, who, under the old noble's calm exterior, could never have divined the deadly intentions of one he loved so well, but gazed sadly at him as if he sought to gather some new hope for himself and for Euphemia.

"Then in this approaching raid, Captain Barton, you will permit that long Toledo of yours to rust in its velvet scabbard?"

"Not if the king's enemies are in the field; but, good my lord, let us talk of that which is nearer my heart than broil or battle. Consider how this sudden enmity to me has filled my soul with sorrow. Oh, my lord, to say how much poor Effie and I have loved each other were a vain and useless task; but to reflect that the very day on which we were to wed was named--to think----"

"Come, come," replied Drummond, with a lowering brow and a grim smile, as he heard the trampling of feet in the arcades below, and knew that his clansman, Mewie, and others were assembling there; "this may not be; Cupid must not shoot his shafts amid a civil war, nor Hymen light his torch at the flame of burning towns. We can have no dalliance now; the dame to her bower, and the knight to his saddle. If, Robert Barton, thou wilt deliver up Sir Andrew Wood and the king's ships to the governor of Broughty, thou mayst yet have thy bride; to not, seek a mate in another nest than the house of Drummond, and as its foe, _gang warily_. Fare ye well, sir,--ha! ha! my daughters shall wed with new made earls."

"'Tis true, my lord, I am no noble, and consequently I am the better Scotsman; but I believe I am rich enough to please even you. My father has left me a fair estate upon the Forth and Almond, where the land is so fertile that, as the old rhyme says,

"A rood of land on links of Forth Is worth an earldom in the north."

"I care not," replied Lord Drummond, doggedly; "thou shalt never have daughter of mine, wert thou rich as James III., and rumour says his black chest in the castle of Edinburgh is brimming with ingots and precious stones. I will not wed a Drummond to the son of a merchant trader."

"My Lord,"--Barton began, proudly--

"Nay, nay," interrupted the old lord, impatiently; "get thee some huckster lass about the timber holfe, at Leith; she will better suit old Barton's son than will a daughter of the Steward of Strathearn."

At this gross speech Barton grew deadly pale, and laid a hand on his sword, but immediately relinquished it, saying with calmness,

"No insult will tempt me to forget that you are the father of my dear Euphemia; that your hairs are grey as my poor father's were; and more than all, that (alas!) you loved me once!"

"Zounds, fellow, I shall lose all patience!" replied the lord, angrily, for, in truth, he felt ashamed of himself, and wished to be worked up into a passion. "Wouldst thou place thyself in competition with the Lord Home, the son of the Hereditary Bailie of Coldinghome, or with the Lord Hailes, the son of that gallant peer who slew the Lieutenant-general of England at the battle of Sark, and won that glorious day for Scotland?"

"The son of Sir Andrew Barton may compete with any man! True, _he_ began life as a poor ship-boy and skipper's varlet; but he died a knight and Laird of Barnton. Woe to both Home and Hailes, if they come within arm's-length of me; some day I may overhaul them, and show them the foretop with a vengeance! Farewell, my lord; when next we meet I will not trouble you with entreaties even for your daughter; and so, till then, God keep you."

Barton bowed, and with a heart swollen almost to bursting with rage and grief, and a brain that seemed to swim under the influence of his conflicting emotions, he staggered from the chamber, and descended unattended to the outer-door, and with all the aspect of a man flushed with wine. On gaining the pavement he saw the Drummonds of Carnock, Balloch, and Mewie, all with the holly-branch in their bonnets or helmets, loitering under the arcades in the Fish-street, and all well armed. He was hurrying past them towards St. Clement's Wynd, when some one called aloud,--

"Hallo!--Captain Barton!"

Too much occupied by his own bitter thoughts, he did not hear the cry, but walked hurriedly on.

"Dost thou not hear us, rascal?" cried several voices.

Barton now turned to discover who was addressed.

"Ah," said Lord Hailes, who with Home and others issued into the street, "I thought he would know we meant _him_."

"Villain!" said Barton, unsheathing his sword, and trembling with a terrible joy; "what mean you by this?"

"By the black rood, my fine fellow, but your tone is high for a skipper of Leith!" said Home.

"It is the tone to which I am entitled."

"Ah, we shall prove that," said Borthwick, drawing his sword, while his eyes gleamed with cruelty and malice; and the rest, to the number of seven or eight, also unsheathed their weapons.

Barton did not wait for the attack but fell on bravely, dealing long and sweeping cuts with many a thrust between. One of the latter ripped up the sword-arm of Borthwick, and hurled him against the wall of a house; one of the former fell full upon the harnpan which Lord Hailes wore under his velvet bonnet, and rolled him ignominiously in the gutter; but the rest closed in, fighting in a circle, and notwithstanding his bravery, skill, and that strength of arm peculiar to all seamen, Barton would have been beaten down and slain without mercy had not the sudden arrival of old Sir Andrew Wood, Cuddie Clewline, the coxswain, and the whole barge's crew, armed with boatstretchers and poniards, given a sudden change to the aspect of the conflict. With a stentorian shout, such as only can come from the throats of those who are wont to out-bellow the wind and waves, they rushed into the fray, with cries of--

"Ho for Barton! Clear the hause here, loons and lubbers! Ware your gingerbread masters--Largo for ever!"

Barton, who had been driven back against the wall of a house, was soon freed, and his assailants put to immediate flight, but not before several severe blows had been given and received. With the admiral there was a tall and handsome man, who was clad in a coat of rich gold brocade, and whose face was concealed by a salade. This person immediately assailed Lord Home with great impetuosity, and at every blow cried--

"Down with the traitor nobles--perdition to the foemen of the king!"

Home met him with great resolution, but on receiving from Caddie a side blow, right in the pit of the stomach, this great lord of the Merse was doubled up, as the admiral said, "like a bolt of old canvas," and stretched without breath on the causeway.

"Now that we have cleared the fairway, let us trip our anchors and be off," said the admiral, "for Home has a hundred mosstroopers and more in the market-place. Away to the Craig of St. Nicholas, my lads, and shove off!"

They soon reached the landing-place and sprung into the barge; the oars were shipped, Barton grasped the tiller, and with the blue ensign trailing in the water astern, they pulled away towards the ships. In his excitement the captain forgot his poor friend Falconer; then suddenly the recollection flashed upon him; he turned to address the admiral, when lo! he found that the tall gentleman whose voice and sword had been so active in Fish-street, had now removed his salade, and was no other than the--king!

On recognising him, the barge's crew suspended rowing for s moment, and doffed the bonnets amid deep silence, while Barton also uncovered.

"Give way, my lads," said the admiral, smiling; "'tis his Majesty the King, who, finding only falsehood and rascality among the loggerheads ashore, is coming to sail merrily with us on the sea, where we shall teach him how to knot and splice, to grease a mast, to hand, reef, and steer, and to sleep in the topgallant-sail, as soundly as in the Castle of Stirling. Barton," he added, in a whisper, "the nobles are rising in arms; the men of Angus are already mustering in the Howe, and the barons hold conclave at the Tower of Broughty. We are on the eve of a dark rebellion, and as yet, nowhere hereabout could the king be safe but on board the _Yellow Frigate_."

Barton bowed, for he had no words to reply in. His heart was already too full of anxieties of his own--anger, bitterness, and sorrow, not unmingled with fear for the persecution that might be endured by Euphemia, and the domestic tyranny to which she might be subjected.

In a few minutes they were close to the frigate. Cuddie caught the mainchains by his hook, and the boat sheered alongside the steps. The boatswain's pipe was heard--the kettledrum beat, and the arquebussiers stood to their arms as the king stepped on board, followed by Wood and Barton. He was then marshalled with great formality and the deepest respect to the great cabin.

Then the royal standard, the yellow banner with the red lion rampant, was hoisted at the mainmast-head, to indicate that the king was on board. On this appearing, a commotion was observable immediately on board the _Margaret_, which lay a bowshot further up the river; her drum was beaten and her barge's crew piped away, to bring old Sir Alexander Mathieson, "the King of the Sea," on board the Admiral, while all her port-lids were triced up, and the cannon run out.

The salutes of the two great ships, which fired each a hundred guns, announced to the people of Dundee and of the opposite coast, that the king was on board. Hence arose that rumour, which proved perhaps so fatal to the interests of James--_that he had abdicated_, and was going with Admiral Wood to Holland or Flanders. Circulated industriously by the highborn enemies of the throne, the report spread like wildfire, and though there were no means of travelling in those days but on foot or on horseback, it was known with many strange additions at the cross of the metropolis on the following day, and it gave a great impetus to the bad cause of the malcontent nobles.