CHAPTER XXXII.

THE DOUBLE BRIBE.

"Sordid, mean, and miserly, he has made various compacts, he has made a compact with pride; a compact with avarice; a compact with knavery; a compact with ambition; a compact with contempt; a compact with mammon; a compact with all the evil passions, and with all the fiends!"--_Tantalus._

"Welcome as a fair wind!" said Barton, leaping lightly ashore, though he was heavily armed in a suit of black unpolished armour, and carried in his hand a Jedwood axe--"Welcome, doughtie Davie."

"And welcome thou, my comrade and shipmate," replied Falconer, as they drew off their steel gloves, and shook hands, but without a smile, for their hearts were full of stern thoughts.

"What tidings are there 'long shore, eh?" asked Barton.

"Evil enough--the lords are all in arms in the Carse, and to-morrow we hope to give them battle."

"Would I might leave the ship and share it with thee!"

"And why not?" asked Falconer.

"The admiral----"

"True--true."

"'Tis said these lords have a hundred thousand men under their banner."

"Rumour says even more," added Falconer.

"But rumour is a landlubber, and often lies: and the king, how many?"

"Only thirty thousand men, to my certain knowledge, but all good men and true, and God will bless their cause. Have any tidings of Howard's ships reached thee yet?"

"Not a whisper--nor has a boat boarded us since the king marched west from Alloa. On board we hear no more than a deep-sea lead, when down. Would that we could meet him!" added Robert Barton, twisting his mustachios. "To me the opening cannon of that English fleet were welcome as a peal of merry marriage bells. Any message from the fair sisters in Strathearn?"

"Alas, none! and I suppose there is no intelligence of the lost Lady Margaret?"

"None--a strange mystery!"

"Can she be with Rothesay among the rebel lords?"

"Impossible! for Rothesay then would leave their banner. Hostility, despair, and old Lord Drummond's wiles alone detain the prince among them; for Sir James Shaw, who twice to-day bent the cannon of Stirling against the king, and also Sir Patrick of Kyneff, declare aloud that James has hidden or poisoned her."

"I should like to meet, on clear deck or open field, an armed man who would say so much to me!" said Barton, grasping his Jedwood axe.

"Dost think we will have a fair day for the battle to-morrow; for the rain so bedevils our gun-matches."

"Fair--I think so," said Barton, looking at the starry sky. "As Archy the boatswain says--

"When the mist takes to the German sea, Fair weather, shipmate, it will be; But when the mist rolls owre the land, The rain comes pouring off the sand;"

so the mist took to the sea this morning. And now, shipmate of mine, what errand brings thee to the Craigward to-night?"

"A message from the Duke of Montrose to the admiral."

"Well, and what is his grace's desire?"

"That, as we have, perhaps more chance of being vanquished than victorious on the morrow, he will keep his boats along the shore here, to take off all fugitives and wounded men, and so provide a safe retreat for the king, who in case of reverse (which God avert!) will be conveyed by faithful friends this way."

"So James retreats _this way_!" said the lurker overhead.

"And how shall we know him?" asked Barton.

"By the Lord Lindesay's famous grey horse, which he is to ride on the morrow, and by a yellow plume in his helmet."

"Good," said Barton; "I shall note them in the log-book of my memory."

"Good, and so shall I," muttered the friar, overhead. "_A grey horse and a yellow plume_ will be readily known on the morrow."

"Hark," said Barton, as the listener withdrew; "dost thou not hear something?"

"Can we be watched?" exclaimed Falconer, grasping the hand-gun at his saddle-bow. "A muffled man--one at least in a friar's cowl, followed me to-night, pace for pace, from the Wolf Craig to the Polmaise."

"Cuddie--ho, there!--keep the boat close in," cried Barton, looking sharply round him. "A friar, said ye--and there is one, even now, at the top of the Craigward!"

Barton sprang to the summit of the bank with all the agility of a sailor, and grasping the lurker by the frock, as he was crawling away, dragged him roughly down to the beach.

"How now, sir friar, what seek you here?" asked Falconer, recognising the priest he had met at the Wolf Craig.

"A passage across the ferry."

"Then you are not likely to get it, for the rebels have burned the boat, and the oarsmen have fled," replied Barton, releasing him, and half ashamed of having shown so much warmth before a clergyman. "Why did you not come boldly forward and say go at once, good friar, instead of crawling about there like a parboiled parton--eh?"

"This is not a time to venture rashly among armed men."

"The friar is right," said Falconer; "and such was perhaps his reason for avoiding me in the Torwood."

"Moreover, I am a friend of the Lord Drummond, bound on a peaceful mission to two gentlemen of the king's ships," said the friar, the upper and lower parts of whose face were concealed by his hood.

"We know most of the men in the king's ships, father," said Barton, in an altered tone; "and for whom may your message be?"

"Robert Barton, captain of the _Yellow Frigate_, and Sir David Falconer, captain of the king's arquebussiers."

There was a pause, during which the persons mentioned gazed at each other and then at the friar.

"Priest, thou gibest us," said Barton, bluntly; "for we are the men you speak of."

"How shall I be assured of that, sirs?"

"Ask our names of the boat's crew, if you doubt us," said Falconer.

"It is enough--I now recognise ye both, sirs."

"A sudden recognition!"

"Well, friar, thou'st the weathergage of us, and knowest our rank and rating now; but what would the Lord Drummond with us?" asked Barton.

"Step a little this way; what I have to tell must not be overheard," said the friar, drawing them a few paces from the boat.

"Sir David Falconer, you love the Lord Drummond's daughter, Sybilla?"

Falconer was silent, for the sound of that beloved name made his heart leap under his cuirass.

"And you, Robert Barton, love her sister, Euphemia?"

"Silence, friar!" said Barton, angrily; "what hast thou to do with this?"

"Thus much, that the Lord Drummond, the High Steward of Strathearn, sent me to say, that if you will make the admiral prisoner, seize his ships, and deliver them to the lords, ye yet win your brides; but refuse, and you shall never see them more."

"Villain monk, thou liest!--the Lord Drummond is a gentleman!" said Falconer, furiously.

"He is more," said the monk, sneeringly; "he is a Scottish noble."

"In that word _noble_ lies a world of treason," said Barton; "but he was wise to send a priest on this infernal mission, for with this axe I had cloven a layman to the chine."

"Very likely," sneered the monk again; "for useful and honourable men are never appreciated in this world--they are ever unfortunate."

"Such priests as thee will be fully appreciated in the world to come," said Falconer.

"Do not let us quarrel, sirs," said the tempter, with assumed meekness, crossing his hands upon his breast; "I am but the Lord Drummond's mouthpiece; and he said, Sir David, that your pay as captain of the king's arquebussiers would go but a short way, with a houseful of little Davies and Sybies crying for bannocks, cheese, and Christmas-boxes."

This sneer enraged the soldier, but he heard it with apparent disdain.

"So you will not win your brides, fair sirs--yea, with as many gold pieces each as would fill a Linlithgow firlot."

"English, no doubt," said Falconer.

"Of course," added Barton; "what other coin could pay for Scottish treason? No--we will not win our brides thus, but by lance and sword will we win them on the morrow; so, base slubberdegullion, slip your cable and sheer off--begone, or by my father's bones, now bleaching in the English Downs, I will tie thee in thy Mar's frock as in a sack, and sink thee with a whinstone bullet; though thou art more likely to die with a fathom of rope than a fathom of water over thy shaven crown! Away; ship your oars, my hearts," he added, springing into the boat, as Falconer leaped on his horse; "Farewell, gossip Davie--God speed thee back to Stirling, and give us victory on the morrow. I will not forget to look for the yellow plume, though I pray it may never come here on the head of a fugitive king. Give way, lads; we have been off a full hour by the glass;--give way for the ship."

The boat shot off from the shore into the stream, the rowers keeping time with Dalquhat, who pulled the stroke oar, and all their blades flashed in the moonlight, as Sir David Falconer, without bestowing a word or glance on the recreant friar, galloped up the slope and along the Carse by the old Roman Way that led to Stirling.

The moment they were gone, the friar threw back his hood and displayed to the white moon, then sailing high aloft in the clear blue sky, the evil visage of Hew Borthwick, over the deep sinister eyes and hateful mouth of whom a laugh spread as he said--

"Fools! The bodachs of Angus, the men of the Mearns, the Whelps of the Black Bitch, and the Souters of Selkirk--yea, even the canny folk of Aberdeen--are in arms against you, and yet ye hope for victory! I am now a Stirling laird, duly infeft and seized with earth and stone. Well, well! they laugh merrily who laugh the last. A little more of Henry's gold, and my fortune is made! In the battle of to-morrow, a crown will be lost and won; and I shall gain a thousand _crowns_ if I can bear to Berwick-gate sure tidings of King James's death! The _yellow plume---the yellow plume_,--I shall watch for it in yonder field to-morrow as one who is damned watches for the first blink of redemption!"