CHAPTER XXXI.

THE TORWOOD.

"On earth 'twas yet all calm around, A pulseless silence, dread, profound,-- More awful than the tempest's sound." _Lalla Rookh._

It is recorded in history that James III. made a second effort to overcome the treason of Shaw, but in vain. The message delivered by Sir David Falconer and Lord Bothwell, commander of the Royal Guard, was received with derision and contempt; and for the evening and night the king remained in the town of Stirling, with all his troops around it, and fully resolved to fight the insurgents on the morrow, if they advanced against him.

Rumours of their great strength made the few faithful nobles who adhered to James doubtful of victory and fearful for his safety; thus, the good old Duke of Montrose desired Sir David Falconer to bear a message to Sir Andrew Wood, who was still anchored off Alloa, requesting him to have his boats along the beach and near the Carse, to take off all fugitives and wounded men of either party who might pass that way. As the Torwood--a vast forest of primeval oaks which covered most of the Carse to the eastward of Stirling--was full of wolves, wild deer, and, worse than these, the hunting and wandering parties of the insurgents, this duty was a task of no ordinary danger; but the gallant captain of the king's arquebusses prepared for it with alacrity; resolving, if molested, to trust to a ready hand, a sharp sword, and a swift horse.

Accoutred in his harness, back, breast, and head-pieces, armlets and gloves, or, as the Acts of James I. say, "weel horsed and weel harnished as gentlemen oucht to be," with lance, sword, dagger, and a hand-gun at his saddle-bow, Falconer quitted his lodgings in the Friars' Wynd, near the Meal-market, and rode down the steep streets of Stirling on his mission, just as the sun was setting afar off behind the mountains of the Highland frontier. He had wisely taken from his helmet the knot of _red_ and _yellow_ ribbons--the royal colours--which the Duchess of Montrose and her _dames d'honneur_ had prepared and bestowed upon the gentlemen of the royal army; thus he had nothing to distinguish him as he rode on his solitary mission, and he could pass for loyalist or traitor, according to circumstances.

He passed out of Stirling by an ancient porte near the Wolf's Craig, where, in the war of Donald V., a sentinel, when asleep, and been awakened by the growl of a wolf, and started to his sword just in time to find a horde of Saxon invaders close by; they were routed; and to this day we may still see on the old burgh seals a wolf, recumbent on a rock, with seven stars above it in the sky, in memory of how the town was saved. As Falconer gave his steed a draught of the pure spring that flows from St. Ninian's well, a dark frocked figure--an Augustine of Cambuskenneth apparently--was similarly occupied in watering his nag, a stout Galloway cob.

"Good morrow, father; I hope you are come to bless the cause of the king," said Falconer. But he received no answer; so leaving the well and chapel behind, he wheeled off to the left, between the deepening shadows of the Torwood and the stupendous eminence crowned by the town; and at a rapid trot pursued the old Roman route towards the north-west.

This time-worn path was solitary and deserted; at such a crisis none were abroad save well-armed men, and now all these in the neighbourhood were within the walls of Stirling or cantoned around it. In the stillness of the summer eve, he heard the cattle lowing in the Queen's haugh, where the herds of the Queen were grazing, for the lordship of Stirling was the dowry of the queens-consort of Scotland.

The summer moon rose clearly and brightly above the dark foliage of the Torwood, and its silver light mingled with the yellow flush of the western sky, and threw forward in black and bold relief the sharp ridge of Stirling, with its castled rock, its turreted chateaux and old square gothic spire; the wooded Abbey Craig, on which were the ruins of a castle, with the Forth winding like a gigantic snake of silver between thickets of beautiful coppice, and forming those green links of rich alluvial land which, in all ages, have been so proverbial for their pasture and fertility. Above these towered the lofty Abbey of St. Mary of Cambuskenneth--massive, rich, and strong, as when King David built it three hundred and forty years before; and lights began to twinkle in the painted windows of its church and dormitories as the daylight faded behind the gigantic Ochils, and as the river that swept around it turned from silver to a cold, yet bright star-studded blue; and the mighty bell which swung in the highest tower was tolling the hour of ten, and summoning the Augustines to prayer, as the arquebussier rode on, and passing the abbey and river on his left, dipped into the wood. The head of this great abbey was usually a powerful and wealthy lord. Henry, the then abbot, was sent ambassador to England a few years after the period we write of.

As the last note of its melodious bell--which, strange to say, as yet lying in the Forth, just where the Reformers sunk it--died away upon the wind, and the road grew dark as the lofty oaks of the Torwood arched their branches over it, forming, as it were, a lofty tunnel of twined and matted foliage, Falconer thought he heard the hoofs of a horse behind him: he checked his own for a moment, and looked back. He saw only the monk mounted on his stout little cob, and well muffled up in his black gown and cowl: so the soldier turned and rode on, though it was evident that the stranger had also for a moment checked his speed.

As Falconer crossed the Bannock he again looked back; the monk was still in sight, preserving his distance, and pursuing at a trot, the old Roman way. Falconer turned to ride back and meet this follower, who immediately wheeled round and galloped in the opposite direction to avoid him.

"Poor friar--my harness frightens him!" thought Falconer, as he resumed his way. "By my faith, but these are sharp times, when peaceful monks and men of God tremble at the sight of their own countrymen!"

He soon dismissed the circumstance from his mind, on remembering that it was a peculiarity of the Augustines or Canons Regular, that they took charge of parish churches and performed ecclesiastical functions in any place, whereas the contemplative orders never left their convent walls. As he passed Polmaise (or the Pool of _Rotting_, so named from the thousands of bodies that lay unburied there after the Battle of Bannockburn), he again heard the hoofs of the priest's cob following closely and warily behind him.

"'Tis intolerable, this!" said Falconer, as ideas of spies and assassins were suggested to his mind, and he remembered that twice he had recently escaped a barbarous death. "Come on, good father," he cried, "come on, and fear nothing, for I am a peaceful man, though armed, as you see."

To this the priest made no response, but again wheeled his horse to the right, and dashed into the recesses of the Torwood.

"Suspicious, this!" thought Falconer; "and if I find thee tracking me again, I will try the effect of a hand-gun shot on thee, wert thou the last of all the friars in Scotland."

He listened for a time, but all was still, save some distant and uncertain sounds that rose from the recesses of the forest and floated in the still air overhead; but whether these were the notes of hunting horns recalling straggling parties, or wild wolves baying at the summer moon, seemed uncertain; so, once more he resumed his way, and at a hand-gallop passed the manor of Throsk, crossed the fertile Carse, turned round a link of the Forth, and descended to the Craigward or King's Ferry, where the river is still crossed by a boat.

Here the Forth is only half-a-mile broad at high water. Opposite lay dusky Alloa, with its lights twinkling among masses of quaint old buildings, and the smoke of their chimneys ascending into the pure still air of the evening, which had now almost blended with the dewy night. The woods, the castle, and the town were reflected downward in the stream, in the mid-channel of which were the _Yellow Frigate_ and _Queen Margaret_, with their consorts, lying at anchor, with all their boats hoisted in, their courses loose, the upper portlids triced up and the guns run out; strong watches were on deck, with battle-axe and arquebuss, and all ready for sea and service at a moment's notice.

Dismounting, Falconer took his horse by the bridle and led it close down to the water-edge at the Craigward, and selecting a place where the boor-trees grew thick and mingled with the wild Scottish roses and the woodbine in a matted screen, over a scaured bank which the river had scooped as if to form a place of concealment, he looked cautiously round and listened for a moment, and all was still, save the ripple of the stream as it flowed towards the sea. He placed to his mouth a silver-mounted bugle that hung at his girdle, and blew one low, winding, and peculiar note. It floated away over the river, and ere it died in the distance, the shrill whistle of Archy the boatswain was heard on board the admiral's ship--a boat plashed as it was lowered into the moonlit water, the crew were seen to drop lightly down from the chains, and the oars gleamed, as Cuddie the coxswain pushed off from the carved and painted side of the high and formidable caravel.

At that moment Falconer heard something crackling among the boor-trees above his head. He looked upward suspiciously, but could perceive nothing.

"Tush," thought he, "I have scared some red fuimart or todlowrie from its lair--yet every leaf that stirs startles me to-night."

He had forgotten the suspicious friar; but had he looked more narrowly he might have seen that respectable personage, with his head uncowled, with neck outstretched, with a hand behind one ear to let not a sound escape, and with grey, malignant eyes, half starting from their sockets, while, screened among the leaves, he bent over the bank to see and hear what this bugle-sound, the answering whistle, and shore-rowed boat portended--for our monk was a spy!