CHAPTER XL.

CLEARED FOR ACTION.

"The boat rocks at the pier o' Leith, Fu' loud the wind blaws down the ferry, The ships ride at the Berwick Law, And I maun leave my bonnie Mary."--_Scottish Song_.

As his barge glided into the stream, and Leith with its pier, spires, and sandy links, melted into the sunny haze; as the harbour closed and narrowed astern; the admiral, after remaining long silent, exclaimed,--

"Well---split my topsails, if I would not rather endure the English fire, yardarm and yard arm for eight glasses, than overhall all this talk again with these herring-faced lordlings; but one day, gadzooks! I hope to make the best among them lower his ancient at the king's name."

"They have cast a glamour over the Lord Drummond," said Barton, with a gloomy expression in his eyes; "he was kind to me once, and but for my father's death and this unhappy strife, I had been ere now his son-in-law, and holding a banquet, perhaps, in yonder hall, where all that rabble rout of hostile peers hold council."

"Thy fair weather and smooth anchorage are coming, Robert," said the admiral; "and what sayst thou, Davie Falconer?"

"That fickle fortune, I fear me, will never tire of persecuting one who ever courts her smiles; though sooth to say, I never fear her frowns. Poor Lady Sybilla, how sad, how pale she looked!"

"Be not cast down, Falconer," continued the kind old Laird of Largo, on seeing the arquebussier gazing dreamily at the tall house of Barton, which stood like a watch-tower on the left bank of the Leith; "be not heavy o' heart, because thy purse is at low water; thou shalt have thy winsome bride yet, my lad! And if the king gives thee not land, thou shalt never lack siller while auld Andrew Wood hath a shot in his locker. Thy father's son, Davie, shall beat to windward, and keep in the line of battle with the best craft in the fleet. The happiest occurrence in the voyage of life is to be brought to by a bonny young lass."

"How wobegone young Rothesay looked to-day," said Falconer.

"Ah! there our king (God bless him!) was wrong," said the admiral; "he should have given the lad a longer swing to his cable, or a little more headway, in the matter of running after the winsome dames at court, as young princes will do at times. The tide of experience would soon have brought him into deep water. I know that, though an auld sailor, who (St. Mary be thanked) knoweth as much anent courts and cities as a seamew may; but hilloh! what is astir here?" he added, as the barge sneered alongside the Yellow Caravel, and two very ominous loops were seen to dangle from her foreyard-arms.

History informs us that the admiral had just returned in time to save his two noble hostages from being hung; for the crew having become alarmed by his long stay on shore, were preparing--by order of Sir Alexander Mathieson, who took command in his absence--with great deliberation to run George Lord Seaton and John Lord Fleming to the yardheads; and the poor nobles (both good and worthy men) were in the very act of making their peace with Heaven, through the intervention of Father Zuill, when the admiral stepped on board, and at once despatched them on shore, where the account they gave to Angus and others of their treatment, made the peers more than ever dread and abhor the Laird of Largo and his crews.

"Tell the spearmen o' the Lord Angus," shouted Cuddie over the side, as their boat was shoved off, "that d--n my auld buits if----"

"Peace, coxswain," said Barton; "thou ever becomest crank when lacking ballast, or when thine orlof is overstowed with usquebaugh; so, silence--man the tackles, and hoist the boats on board."

"Lords, indeed!" muttered the admiral, as he walked aft; "were my honour not pledged, I would fain have belayed the dogsons to the whipping-post, and given them a round dozen with a rope's end, just as a fare-ye-well. But heave short on the anchor, Barton--cast loose the courses, and make sail on the ship."

History (to which in these chapters we are obliged to have constant reference) informs us, that though the admiral had several ships at his disposal, and the English squadron consisted of five sail, he somewhat unwisely resolved "to take _only his own two_," meaning the _Yellow Frigate_ and the _Queen Margaret_, which had been built at the Newhaven, under his own eye; and so, after desiring the other armed vessels, whose captains adhered to him and the cause of the missing king, to cruise between Leith Roads, St. Margaret's Hope, and Alloa, to cut off the communication of the insurgents with Fife, he weighed anchor, and stood down the river about six in the evening, favoured by a gentle south-west wind.

There were great preparations made for battle on board these two stately ships, as under a press of canvas, they bore down the Forth, between Inchkeith and those two reefs known as the Briggs and the Craigness, and steered for the Isle of May, which lay north-east by east, but was not visible from that part of the river. The admiral and his officers remained in their harness. Willie Wad and his yeomen hoisted powder up from the magazine; the boatswain was preparing all the culverins on the long and clumsy slides then in use; the arquebussiers put fresh matches to the serpentine cocks of their firearms; filled their priming horns, and buckled on their bullet-bags, which were hung at the right hip, and all were on deck in their jazarine jackets and steel caps, swords, and daggers. The seamen were accoutred in nearly a similar manner, and armed themselves from the racks of Jedwood axes, hand-guns, and boarding-pikes, that were framed round the masts and the bulwarks of the poop. All were noisy, loquacious, and enthusiastic, save a few of the quiet married men, whose wives and little ones were watching their departure from the shore.

"Away aloft, Cuddie--get into the fore-crosstrees," said the admiral, "and thou shalt have a can of egg-flip and three silver bonnet pieces the moment ye sight these English ships. Will she not carry more, Barton?"

"Not without leaving Sir Alexander too far astern; but we may try: master boatswain, rig me a guy on the spanker-boom, sheet home the mizen-staysail, and up with that cross-jackyard a bit."

This primitive contrivance has now been replaced by the gaff, and to the lower end of it the staysail was then bent on. Though the summer evening was then bright on shore, a thick white haze arose from the broad estuary, and hid the land on both sides. The admiral became merry as the river widened, and the May arose in a faint blue line at the horizon; and he said to the gunner,--

"Pass the word, Willie, to Father Zuill, to quit the mass-book--to overhaul his hurdy-gurdy, and ship on its mirrors, for gadzooks, we will be aboard the English in another hour or two."

"Carry those shot to their guns, Willie Wad," said Barton, kicking away some balls that were rolling about the deck; "no iron should ever come within seven feet of a binnacle."

The wind soon became lighter and more aft; and as the yards were squared more, the staysails began to shiver. The vessels were now going slowly through the water, and cleaving a shining passage that left a long wake astern. The sun of June set brilliantly behind the distant Ochils; the shores were mellowed in haze; but above it, the peculiar hill of North Berwick rose on the starboard bow, gleaming in the western light like a volcanic cone of flame. As the glow faded on the waters, a light, like a gigantic star, began to beam among the hills astern.

This was Saint Anthony's Light--a beacon which was burned by the good and charitable Hospitallers of St. Anthony upon the tower of their hermitage on the rocks above Holyrood. This tower was then more than forty feet high, and thus its light was seen far down the estuary, in which it was the only beacon in those days; for there was then no Pharos on Inchkeith (which belonged to _Keith_, the Earl Marischal), and was without a night-beacon until the early part of the seventeenth century. The island, in the time of James III., was a place of compulsory retirement for lepers and other sick persons; and was a famous resort of water-cows and kelpies; and on the rocks there the mermaids, with curling tails, a looking-glass in one hand and a comb in the other, are _still to be seen_, as more than one hardy boatman of Newhaven, and pious elder of the Fishwives Kirk, are ready to aver on oath, especially when the moon is S. by W., and the tide is full between Granton and Kinghorn.