Part 5

"Sir Robert has himself written me about that beldam," said the chamberlain. "She is in our secret, I understand--an extraordinary instance of imprudence, which I must have explained to me. Meantime, the danger must be averted. I have not seen her. Have you, sir?"

"No," answered Allan. "I wish I could get a climpse o' her. It's te very thing I want. She would never see te face o' te king, if she ance crossed my path--tamn her!"

"What would ye do with her?" inquired the chamberlain, eagerly. "I wish we could get her out of the way. You know what I mean; a sum of money is of no importance in comparison of security--real, absolute, undoubted security--from this plague. You understand me?" And he touched his sword, to make himself better understood.

"Understand ye!--ugh, ugh, your honour," cried the Gael, "there was nae occasion for touchin te sword; your words are sharp aneugh for gettin to my intellects. You mean" (whispering in the chamberlain's ear) "that for a praw consideration and remuneration, I might kill te auld hag. Eh! isn't that it, your honour?"

"Supposing, but not admitting, that that was my meaning," said the chamberlain, cautiously, "what would you say to the proposition?"

"Say to't, your honour!" said Allan. "Ugh! ugh! Let your honour say te word and pay te remuneration, and te auld harridan is dead twa hoors after I get a climpse o' her. Of course" (looking knowingly into the chamberlain's face), "your honour would protect me till I got to to hills. Te work itsel is naething--an auld wife's easy kilt--it's no pe tat te remuneration should be measured--it's pe te risk o' hangin. Was it ten merks your honour said?"

"I did not mention any sum," said the chamberlain; "but you may have twenty, if you relieve us of this fear in the manner you have yourself mentioned."

"Ten in hand, I fancy," said the Gael--"word for word, your honour. If I trust you ten merks, you may trust me te trifle o' killin an auld wife--a mere pagatelle. I hae kilt twenty shust to please te Wolf o' Padenoch's son, Duncan."

"But do you know the woman?" said the chamberlain.

"I think I do," answered Allan. "There pe nae fear o' a mistake; put, if I should kill ae auld wife for anithor, whar's te harm? The right ane can easily be kilt afterwards."

The importance of being entirely relieved from the danger that thus impended over the heads of the conspirators was very apparent to Sir Robert Stuart. He knew well the character of James: a hint was often sufficient for him; and the statement of a woman, if it quadrated with known facts and suspicions, would be believed; inquiry would follow; one fact would lead to another, and the whole scheme be laid open. He therefore eagerly closed with Allan's offer; the ten merks were paid; and it was agreed upon that the murderer should receive his other ten merks, as well as harbourage and protection, upon satisfying the chamberlain that the deed was executed. Well pleased at having made so easily a sum of considerable magnitude in those days, Allan went to look for his mother--not, it may readily be conceived, for the purpose of killing her, but simply with the view of getting her out of the way, until the king had set off for Perth, which he understood he would do in a few days.

He wandered round the skirts of the town, musing on his good fortune, looking at the novelties that presented themselves to his view, and keeping a sharp eye for a red cloak. In this way he passed the time until the grey of the twilight; when, as he sauntered along the foot of the Calton Hill, he saw, lying in a sequestered spot, his aged parent, wrapped up in her red cloak, and apparently in a sound sleep, into which she had, in all likelihood, fallen, from the excessive fatigue to which she had been exposed in her long journey to the metropolis. The affection of the son produced only an involuntary sigh, and a musing attitude of a few moments. He hastened to the residence of the chamberlain; and, as he passed the door of a flesher who was killing sheep, ran in, and, without saying a word, dipped his sword in the blood, and then proceeded on his way. He got instant admittance to his employer, who was sitting alone, occupied by the thoughts of the mighty and dangerous enterprise on which he had entered. Slipping up to him, with an air of great secresy, he stood before him.

"She's dead!" said Allan, looking into the face of Stuart, with an expression of countenance in which triumph and cunning were strangely blended.

"You are a most expeditious workman," replied the chamberlain; "but where is the evidence of our being freed from this plague?"

"Will her heart's pluid satisfy ye?" replied Allan, holding up the sword covered with the sheep's blood. "Waur evidence has hanged a shentleman before noo. Ye'll pe ken there's twa kinds o' pluid in te human body--a red and a plack: te ane comes frae flesh wounds o' te skean dhu, when it's bashfu, and winna gang far ben; and te other follows te plow o' te determined dirk, when it seeks te habitation o' life in te heart itsel. Does yer honour ken te difference? What say ye to that?" showing him the sword. "I'm sure ye never saw ponnier plack pluid i' te heart o' a courtier o' King Shames."

"You are getting ironical in your probation," said the chamberlain. "I'm no judge of the difference of veinous and arterial blood; but, if I were, how am I to be satisfied that this is the life stream of the old woman?"

"Nae other auld plack teevel could hae kept it sae lang in her gizzard," replied the Gael. "Put there pe mair evidence. An honest man's like gowd--he rejoices in te fiery furnace. I'll show ye te pody o' te treacherous hag hersel, wha would hae sent us a' to te head o' her clan, Satan, if I hadna peen beforehand wi' her. She lies on te Calton yonder, as quietly as if she were in the Greyfriars; and if your honour will accompany me, ye may satisfy yersel o' te absolute truth and verity o' my statement."

"The dead body cannot be long there," answered Sir Robert, "without being discovered; and by approaching the spot we may subject ourselves to suspicion, especially if you were previously seen hounding about the place."

"Ugh! ugh! Is that a' your honour kens o' a Gael's prudence?" replied Allan. "Think ye I wanted to let your Edinburghers see how neatly we Gaels can strike pelow te fifth rib? Na! I was working for te ten merks, and te salvation o' mysel, your honour, and Sir Robert Graham; and if te auld witch hersel wasna inclined to spake o' te affair, it didna pecome me to say a single word. She took it as quietly and decently as I'll receive te ten merks (and whatever mair my expedition merits) frae te hands o' yer honour. Put te night's fa'in, and there's nae danger in lookin at te pody o' a dead wife. Come, your honour, and trust to me for your guide."

The chamberlain, pleased with the issue of his negotiation, was notwithstanding fully aware of the danger to which he was exposed by his connection with the murderer. He hesitated about examining the evidence of the murder; but how otherwise could he have any faith in the statement of the Highlander? And his peace of mind, as well as the safety of his colleagues, would repay the slight risk he ran in taking a cursory view of the body of the murdered woman. He resolved, therefore, on accompanying Allan to the spot; and having requested the Gael to go before, he secretly followed him, until he saw his guide stop, and point with his finger to the spot where his mother lay. Still under an alarm, which the increasing gloom might have in some measure allayed, he walked irresolutely forward, and having seen the body of the woman wrapped up in the red cloak lying extended on the ground, he had not the slightest doubt that she was dead, having been killed by the stern Gael. He instantly retreated; and having waited for the approach of Allan, paid him twenty merks (being ten in addition), and requested him to fly with all expedition to the Highlands. Allan received the money, counting it with a nonchalance which surprised the chamberlain, and bidding him good-night, walked away to waken his mother, and take her to a warm bed, while the other went home, delighted that this great danger had been so easily averted.

Some days afterwards, the king and queen set out for Perth--Sir Robert Stuart, now freed from all alarm, having preceded them, for the purpose of making the necessary preparations at Dundee for the reception of his royal master and mistress, and for their journey along the north bank of the Tay to Perth. The royal party arrived at Leith about twelve o'clock of the day, for the purpose of embarking in a yacht, which was to carry them across the Forth. A large assemblage of people was present, collected from Edinburgh and Leith, to see the embarkation; among whom, the courtiers, dressed in their gay robes, were conspicuous, as well from their dresses as the air of authority they assumed, on an occasion which some of them might suspect was to be the last in which their monarch would ever require their attendance. The sounds of the carriages and horses, of a tumultuous crowd, and of those actually engaged in the embarkation--with the crushing of anxious spectators, and the efforts of the military to insure order, and make room for the progress of the party towards the yacht--produced the confusion generally attending such a scene. The queen had been escorted forward to the side of the vessel, and been assisted on board; and the king was on the eve of taking the step which was to remove him from the pier into the yacht, when an old woman, wrapped in a red cloak, rushed forward, and, holding up two spare, wrinkled arms in the face of the monarch, cried, in a wild and prophetic manner--

"James Stuart, receive this warning! It is not made in vain, however it may be received. If you cross the Scottish sea, betwixt and the feast o' Christmas, you will never come back again in life."

Having said these words, she waved her hands, and disappeared. Struck with her solemn and impressive manner, and her extraordinary appearance, James started, and stood for a moment mute. Recollecting himself, he called out to a knight to follow, and question her. He obeyed; but ere he could make his way among the crowd, Allan Mackay had seized his mother (for such she was), and hurried her beyond the reach of the courtiers. The event struck James forcibly. He concealed it from his queen; but, during the passage to Kirkcaldy, he was remarked to be silent and abstracted--a mood which remained on him during a great part of his journey. At Dundee, he repaired to the palace, in St Margaret's Close, where he still meditated secretly on the strange warning, and compared it with the denunciation and threat contained in the letter he had some time before received from Sir Robert Graham. After retiring to his chamber, he sent for Sir Robert Stuart, to commune with him on matters of importance. The message alarmed the guilty chamberlain, who conceived that the conspiracy of the north had been discovered, in spite of his murderous effort to conceal it, by the death of the Highland woman. He repaired to the presence-chamber, trembling, and full of fearful anticipations.

"Sir Robert," said the king, as the chamberlain approached him, "I am filled with gloomy apprehensions of a violent death, that will prevent me from re-crossing the Forth. Have you heard anything of late of my bitter foe, Graham, who has denounced me? Are you certain he is not hatching against me some bloody conspiracy in these fastnesses of the north?"

The question went to the heart of the conspirator. He gave up all for lost, and guilt supplied all that was awanting in the king's speech to fix upon him the reproach of plotting against the life of his sovereign. Happily, James did not observe his agitation, having relapsed, after his question, into the gloomy despondency in which he had for several days been immerged. All the resolution of the guilty man was required to enable him to utter a solitary question.

"What reason has your majesty," he said, "for entertaining these fears, apparently so unfounded?"

"I have been warned," replied the king, in a deep voice, "surely by a messenger from Heaven. As I stood on the pier of Leith, ready to step into the yacht, a strange woman, muffled up in a red cloak, approached me, and holding out her hands, warned me against crossing the Forth, and said that if I did, I would never come back alive. Her manner was supernatural, her voice hollow and grave-like. She disappeared, and, notwithstanding the efforts of my messengers to seize her, could nowhere be found. I cannot shake this vision from my mind. Every one knows that I despise superstitious fears; but that very circumstance makes my gloom and despondency the more remarkable."

This speech struck another chord in the mind of the guilty courtier. No doubt had remained in his mind that the old woman in the red cloak, mentioned by Sir Robert Graham, had been by his orders killed; he had seen her blood on the fatal sword, and he had seen her body lying lifeless on the ground. Who, then, was this second old woman in the red cloak, that had made such a fearful impression upon the king? Had Heaven not taken up arms against him, and re-incorporated the departed spirit of the murdered woman, for the purpose of her humane object being still attained? Had not the king himself, the most dauntless of men, said the figure was supernatural? And, above all, was it not certain that there was a just occasion for the interposition of Providence, when one of the rulers of the earth, who have often been protected by Heaven, was about to fall a victim to a cruel purpose, in which he himself was engaged? These thoughts passed through his mind with the rapidity of light, and struck his heart with a remorse and fear which made him quake. James looked at him with surprise; but attributed his agitation to the strange tidings he had communicated regarding the supposed supernatural visitation. Relieved, however, from the fear of personal danger produced by the king's first announcement, the guilty chamberlain endeavoured to shake off his superstitious feelings, and, summoning all his powers, contrived to put together a few sentences of vulgar scepticism, recommending to the king not to allow the ravings of a maniac (as the old woman undoubtedly was) to disturb his tranquillity, or interfere with his sound and philosophical notions of the government of the universe.

The king proceeded to Perth, and subsequently overcame the feeling of apprehension and despondency produced by the supposed apparition; and the chamberlain got again so completely entoiled in the details of his conspiracy, that the affair passed from his mind also. By the time the festivities of Christmas came to be celebrated, the apprehensions of evil had died away, just in proportion as the real danger became every day more to be dreaded. The power of the chamberlain was now exercised vigorously, and with ill-merited success. He contrived to gain over to his side many of the royal guards; while Sir Robert Graham was not less successful in his organisation of the external forces, composed of wild and daring caterans, ready, on being let into the palace, to spread death and desolation wherever they came. Meanwhile, the Duke of Athol dreamed his day-dream of royalty, and indulged in all the intoxicating visions of state and power, which he thought were on the point of being realised. Yet the conspiracy was confined to a very few influential individuals--the duke himself, Graham, Stuart, Hall, and Chambers being almost the only persons of any distinction or authority who had been asked to join the bold enterprise; and these, it is supposed, would not have ventured on the scheme, had they not been blindfolded by personal cravings of insatiable revenge, which prevented all prudential calculations of consequences.

As the revels approached, the chamberlain took care to prevail upon the king to send an invitation to those of the conspirators who were considered to be so much in favour at court as to be entitled to that mark of the royal favour; while especial care was also taken to get the invitations to the _real_ friends of the king so distributed, that there should, on the night intended for the murder, be collected in the monastery as few as possible of the latter, and as many of the former as the king could be prevailed upon to invite. There would thus be insidious enemies within, at the head of whom would be the Duke of Athol; and fierce foes without, led by the furious and bloodthirsty Graham, to the latter of whom, by the bribing of the guards, a free passage would be opened to the sleeping apartment of the king, where the bloody scene was intended to be enacted in presence of the queen.

It was on the night of the 20th of February that the conspirators had resolved to execute their work of death. All things were carefully prepared: wooden boards were placed across the moat which surrounded the monastery, to enable the conspirators to pass unknown to the warders, who were placed only at the entrances; and the extraordinary precaution was taken by the chamberlain, to destroy the locks of the royal bedchamber, and of those of the outer room with which it communicated, whereby it would be impossible for those within to secure the doors, and to prevent the entrance of the party. Meanwhile, in the inside of the monastery, a gay party was collected, consisting of young and gallant nobles and knights, and crowds of fair damsels, dressed in the glowing colours so much beloved by the belles of that age. In the midst of this happy group were the traitors Sir Robert Stuart and his aged grandfather, Athol, who looked and smiled upon the scene, while they knew that, in a few minutes, that presence-chamber would in all likelihood be flowing with the blood of the king who sat beside them, and become, through their means, a scene of massacre and carnage.

Of all the individuals in the royal presence-chamber on that night, no one was more joyous than the merry monarch himself. A poet of exquisite humour, as well exemplified in his performance of "Peebles to the Play," he was the life and spirit of the amusements of the evening, which consisted chiefly of the recitation of poetical stories, the reading of romances, the playing on the harp to the plaintive tunes of the old Scottish ballads (the touching words being the suitable accompaniment), the game of tables, and all the other diversions of the age. In all this, the king joined with (it is said) greater pleasure and alacrity than he had exhibited for many years. In the midst of his jests and merry sayings, he even laughed and made light of a prophecy which had foretold his death in that year--an allusion perfectly understood by those who knew of the apparition of the old woman in the red cloak, whose warning, though not forgotten, was now treated with his accustomed levity. In playing at chess with a young knight, over whose shoulder the grey-bearded Athol looked smilingly into the face of the king, his jesting and merriment were kept up and exercised in a manner that suggested the most extraordinary coincidences. He had been accustomed to call the young knight "the king of love;" and, in allusion to the warning, advised him to look well to his safety, as they were the only two kings in the land. The old duke started as he heard this statement come from the mouth of one on the very eve of being consigned to the dagger; and for a moment thought that the conspiracy had been discovered; but a second look at the joyous merry-maker left no doubt on his mind that his jesting was the mere overflow of an exuberance of spirits.

At this moment a hundred wild and kilted caterans, armed with swords and knives, and thirsting for blood, were lurking in the dark angles of the court of the monastery, directing their eyes to the blazing windows of the presence-chamber, and listening to the sounds of the revels. The conspirators within knew, by a concerted signal, that Graham and his party were in this situation, and looked anxiously for the breaking up of the entertainment; but the king was inclined to prolong the amusements, and the hour was getting near midnight. While the king was engaged in play with the young knight, Christopher Chambers, one of the conspirators, was seized with a fit of remorse, and repeatedly approached the royal presence, with a view to inform James of his danger; but the crowd of knights and ladies who filled the presence-chamber prevented him from executing his purpose. The amusements continued; it was now long past midnight, and Stuart and Athol heard at length the long-wished-for declaration of the king, that the revels should be concluded.

Just as James had uttered this wish, the usher of the presence-chamber approached Stuart, and whispered in his ear that an old woman, wrapped up in a red cloak, was at the door, and requested permission to see and speak with the king. The guilty chamberlain, who was on the point of giving the fatal signal, heard the statement with horror, and recoiled back from the usher; but the die was cast, and even the powers of heaven were disregarded amidst the turmoil of wild thoughts that were then careering through his excited mind. "Bid her begone--thrust her from the door!" he whispered in the ear of the usher, and applied himself again to the dreadful work in which he was engaged.

Soon after this, the king called for the parting cup, and the company dispersed--Athol and Stuart being the last to leave the apartment. With the view of going to bed, James and his queen now retired to the sleeping chamber, where the merry monarch, still under the influence of high spirits, stood before the fire in his night-gown, talking gaily with those around him. At that moment, a clang of arms was heard, and a blaze of torches was seen in the court of the monastery. The quick mind of the king saw his danger in an instant; a suspicion of treason, and a dread of his bloodthirsty enemy, Graham, were his first thoughts. Alarm was now the prevailing power; and the ladies of the bedchamber, rushing into the sleeping room, cried that treason was abroad. The queen and her attendants flew to secure the doors; the locks were useless; and the certainty of having been betrayed by his chamberlain now occupied the mind of the king. Yet, though he saw his destruction resolved on, he did not lose presence of mind. He called to his queen and ladies to obstruct all entrance as long as they could, and rushed to the windows. They were firmly secured by iron bars, and all escape in that way was impossible. The clang of arms increased; and the sounds of the approach of armed men along the passages came every instant nearer and nearer. The ladies screamed, and held the doors; the king was in despair; and, seizing a pair of tongs from the fireplace, with unexampled force wrenched up the boards of the floor, and descended into a vault below, while the ladies replaced the covering.