CHAPTER XLI.

THE ENGLISH BOAT.

"St Abb, St. Helen, and St. Bey, All built kirks near unto the sea; St. Abb's upon the Nabs, and St. Helen's on the Lea, But St. Bey's upon Dunbar sands is nearest to sea!"--_Old Rhyme._

Meanwhile, the worthy messenger of the worthy knight, Sir Patrick Gray, captain of Broughty, was riding hard towards the east. To avoid question by the gateward, who kept the bridge and toll of Musselburgh, he swam his horse through the river, near the church of St. Michael the Archangel, and dashed through Pinkie-woods, over Tranentmuir and Hoprigmains, and never drew his bridle until King David's royal burgh of Dunbar and the massive towers of that noble fortress, which was then considered the key of East Lothian, rose before him; and from the higher ground, as he approached the bare and sea-beaten promontory on which they stand, he could perceive five English vessels cruising in the offing, or deep water, and almost becalmed between the mainland and the May.

Three of these were indeed the vessels of Howard, who, when on his homeward voyage, had been joined off Holy Island by two large armed vessels, under Miles Furnival, sent by Henry VII. from the Thames, with orders to pillage the coast of Scotland, and (in fulfilment of the old and invariable policy of the English kings) to take every advantage of the intestine broils of Scotland to distress and harass the people, that they might the more willingly listen to his proposals, when the project of the prince's marriage with Margaret Tudor was revived--a foolish and mistaken policy, as the Scots were ever the last people in the world to be wooed by cold steel and gunpowder.

Feeling appetised after his long ride, Sir Patrick's messenger reined up his foam-flecked charger at the _Dunbar Arms_, an hostel in the Highgate, where he ordered a cup of Malvoisie, a pair of roasted plovers, and a quail, with sweet sack, for he felt able to devour a horse, after his long ride near the seacoast; and he resolved, that though the evening was drawing on, affairs of state should wait his pleasure.

"How happy are the rich," thought he, with a sigh of enjoyment, after he had drained the last of his sack, and picked the last bone of the quail; "how often have I fed my hopes when I had little wherewith to feed my stomach," he added, clinking the English gold pieces, with which his purse was now so well lined, and which went current in Scotland, as Scottish coins did in England, for then the coin of all nations was circulated everywhere; "but this country will grow too hot for me ere long, so I must e'en turn spy on Henry, and win in England the lyons, louis, and angels of the new king, James IV.--ugh!" and he smiled a ferocious smile, "he owes his crown to _me_! But now to reach these devilish ships anent that damsel, who I would with all my soul was sleeping with her fathers."

He now went on foot to the harbour, where, though the sea was calm, there was considerable agitation in the water, for Dunbar is the most bleak and stormy headland on the coast; but he found that no money would tempt the fishermen to put him on board of any of those English vessels, which were lying, almost becalmed, about two miles off; and he soon ceased to ask them, as their suspicions were readily excited, and there were not a few who threatened to drag him before the provost, that he might be forced to "declare what manner of business he, a Scot, had on board these hostile craft."

This threat made him tremble, for now he had three tenements in Stirling, with a remarkably well-lined purse; and if "the sudden possession of gold will make a brave man cautious," how much more so will it render timid a dastardly regicide?

Hastily leaving the fishermen, he walked for nearly a mile along the sands, on which the surf was rolling with considerable force, and gazed anxiously at the English ships, which were all within two miles of each other, with their high lumbering poops, their carved and gilded quarter-galleries, and the muzzles of their brass cannon shining in the last rays of the sunlight that lingered in the west; and Borthwick stamped his feet with anger, for he supposed that Wood's ships must, by this time, have dropped far down the river, and that shots would soon be exchanged.

Upon the level shore, close to the seamark, there stood in those days the chapel of St. Bey, who was daughter of a certain Saxon king. This princess, according to local tradition, had emigrated among the Scots with her two sisters, St. Abb and St. Helen, who, being meek, gentle, and pious, were disgusted with the world and the barbaric pomp of their father's petty court, and resolved to spend their dowers in the erection of churches, and their lives in devotion. All these three votaresses having a curious predilection for salt water, endeavoured to find sites as near the sea as possible. St. Helen built her oratory on a plain, near the beach, and St. Abb raised hers on that high rock which overhangs the German Ocean, while St. Bey succeeded in founding her fane so close to the floodmark that at every full tide the waves washed its massive walls; and hence arose the Lothian rhyme prefixed to this chapter.

Thinking little of St. Abb, St. Helen, or St. Bey, Hew Borthwick, on passing the chapel of the latter, suddenly found himself seized by a party of seamen, whom, by the fashion of their gabardines, and the sound of their voices, he knew at once to be English; and close by was a large boat, well laden with several sacks of flour, three sheep, and a quantity of vegetables, all taken from an adjacent farm; for this foraging party were numerous and well armed.

"Yoho, brother; whom seek ye?" demanded one, who grasped Borthwick by the throat--yet the craven dared not to draw his sword.

"I seek some one who will take me on board the _Harry_, for I have an urgent message to the captain."

"Concerning the damosel aboard, I have little doubt," replied the seaman, who was no other than Dick Selby, the gunner; "I ever said little luck would come to Eddy Howard by having this painted galley in tow."

"Nay, Dick," said another, "she be no galley, but a noble lady."

"A Scots one, though. Well, and what want ye with the captain, eh?"

"How can the Scot answer thee, Dick," interfered another, "when thou'st twisted his mouth all to starboard; why, 'tis all on one side, like the ballast-port of a timber-ship."

"Teach thy grannum to make sackwhey! I warrant thee I'll make the Scot find his tongue. Speak!" roared the gunner, giving Borthwick a furious shake.

"I have an urgent message for your captain, which none must know but he," gasped Borthwick, in a half-strangled voice; "look at me, sirs--some of you must have seen me on board before now?"

"Tarry a minute, gunner Dick," said a soldier who was in half mail, and had but one eye; "I _have_ seen this man before, methinks."

"Off Taymouth--at night," said Borthwick.

"I remember me now," said the soldier, who was Anthony Arblaster; "unhand him, Dick, ere worse come of it, for the captain's temper hath been truly devilish of late."

"We have had a long spell on this here shore," growled the gunner, as he released the throat of Borthwick, whose lace doublet was no way improved by the application of such a hard and tarry hand as Dick's; "we have turned our best barge into a bumboat, as ye may see, so come aboard and let us shove off, before some of your furious Scots come after their flour-sacks. I would to St. George they were all, for the trouble they give us, steering in the latitude of purgatory!"

"Or a warmer latitude still," added Anthony Arblaster, rubbing his blind eye.

"Avast," said an old sailor, "and remember there is a Scot here, and that he be but one among many."

But the said Scot, though boiling with rage at his treatment, cared little for national reflections; yet, had these honest English hearts known the actual character of the wretch they had on board, they would have flung him into the sea, lest they should never more have fortune on its waters.

"Ship your oars, my hearts," said the gunner; "and harkee, Arblaster, bear a-hand, old dead-eye, and belay these here quadrupeds to the thwarts, or we may lose them in the surf."

The boat was bluffly built, and being full of men, and moreover heavily laden, she laboured through the breakers which roll for ever on those sands, and shipped a great quantity of spray before her head was fairly turned towards the _Harry_, which was astern of all the other vessels, all of which were lying with their heads towards the river. The uneasiness manifested by Borthwick, as the spray flew over his rich cloak and doublet, afforded extreme gratification to the hardy seamen who had nothing to spoil, and whose oars bent almost to breaking, as they strained between the tholing-pins, and shot the heavy barge from one long roller to another.

After they had pulled a mile from the shore, and saw the Castle of Dunbar rising with all its strong red towers and crenellated ramparts in many a frowning row, bristling with cannon and black loop-holes, the one-eyed archer, who was seated in the stern, uttered a shout of astonishment:--

"Hilloah, old Buff," said the gunner; "what is the matter?"

"There are two large ships standing down the river!"

"Sir Andrew Wood, for a thousand rose nobles!" said the gunner, slapping his thigh; "thou hast the true eye of an English archer, Tony, thof thou'st but one; well, I thought we should not make out two days of a quiet cruise here. Give way, my hearts--give way! odds firkin, they are bringing down both wind and tide with them--yare--yare--stretch out!"

"It _is_ the Admiral Wood," said Borthwick, with gloomy spite, "and my message to your captain concerns him."

"They are hull down as yet, though," said the gunner, as he stood up and shaded his weather-beaten visage with his thick knotty hand; "well--odds my life, bold as he is--and a better seamen never spliced a rope, Scot though he be, I do not think Sir Andrew, with only two ships, will venture to attack us; and we'll see him haul his wind ere another half-glass is run."

The ships of Wood were about nine miles off, being abreast of North Berwick, and they loomed large through the haze of the summer gloaming, which, however, was rising from the water as the moon, which was round and full, soared into the clear blue sky, above the hills of East Lothian. The Ness of Fife was not visible in the haze, for at this extreme point the noble Forth is more than twenty miles broad.