The Scottish Cavalier: An Historical Romance, Volume 2 (of 3)
Date: 2021-08-23T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Scotland -- History -- 1649-1660 -- Fiction

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Title: The Scottish Cavalier: An Historical Romance, Volume 2 (of 3)

Author: James Grant

Release date: August 23, 2021 [eBook #66121]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Al Haines

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER: AN HISTORICAL ROMANCE, VOLUME 2 (OF 3) ***

THE

SCOTTISH CAVALIER.

An Historical Romance.

BY JAMES GRANT, ESQ.,

AUTHOR OF
"THE ROMANCE OF WAR, OR THE GORDON HIGHLANDERS,"
"MEMOIRS OF KIRKALDY OF GRANGE," &C.

Dost thou admit his right,
Thus to transfer our ancient Scottish crown?
Ay, Scotland was a kingdom once,
And, by the might of God, a kingdom still shall be!
ROBERT THE BRUCE, ACT II.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LONDON:
HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,
GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.

1850.

Contents

I.   Les Gardes Ecossais
II.   The Glove
III.   A Ball in the Olden Time
IV.   Two Loves for One Heart
V.   Beatrix Gilruth
VI.   The Sedan
VII.   Adventures of the Night Concluded
VIII.   The Fencing Lesson
IX.   The Luckenbooths
X.   The White Horse Cellar
XI.   The Betrothal
XII.   The Defiance
XIII.   The March for England
XIV.   The Hawk and the Dove
XV.   A Statesman of 1688
XVI.   Trust and Mistrust
XVII.   The Guisards
XVIII.   The Revolt at Ipswich
XIX.   Free Quarters
XX.   The Redeemed Pledge
XXI.   The Swart Rüyters

WALTER FENTON;

OR,

THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER.

CHAPTER I.

LES GARDES ECOSSAIS.

Thus shall your country's annals boast your corps,
And, glorious thought! in times and ages hence,
Some valiant chief to stimulate the more,
And urge his troops, the battle in suspense,
Shall hold your bright example to their view.
RUDDIMAUN'S MAG.

Louis, surnamed the Saint, King of France, having taken the cross, sailed with a splendid retinue of knights, nobles, and soldiers bent on the delivery of Jerusalem from the profanation of the Moslem; and, landing in the East, laid siege to Damietta (in Lower Egypt), which he triumphantly won by storm. But, after enduring innumerable hardships and disasters by the sword, and by pestilence from the fœtid waters of the marshy Nile and the Lake of Menzaleh, he was overthrown in battle at Mansoura, and made captive by the Soldan.

This was about the year 1254, when Alexander III. was King of Scotland.

In these Eastern wars, St. Louis was twice saved from death by the valour of a small band of auxilliary Scots crusaders, commanded by the Earls of March and Dunbar, Walter Stewart Lord of Dundonald, and Sir David Lindsay of Glenesk. Those brave adventurers had the good fortune to rescue the French monarch, first from the scimitars of the followers of the King of the Arsacides, a Mahommedan despot, and afterwards from the emissaries of the Comtesse de la Marche. Our good King Alexander, sent ambassadors to congratulate St. Louis on his deliverance from these double perils; and on his return from this first crusade, the two monarchs agreed that, in remembrance of these deeds of fidelity and valour, there should remain in France, in all time coming, "a standing company or guard of Scotsmen recommended by their own sovereign," and who should in future form the garde-du-corps of the most Christian King.

Such was the origin of the bravest body-guard that Europe ever saw, though our ancient historians are fond of dating its formation from the days of Charlemagne and Gregory the Great of Scotland.

The Guard thus established by St. Louis marched with him to his second crusade, in the year 1270. It was then led by the Earls of Carrick and Athole, Sir John Stuart, Sir William Gordon, and other brave knights, most of whom perished with Louis of a deadly pestilence before the walls of Tunis, and under the towers of Abu Zaccheria.

This noble band of Scottish Archers remained constantly in France, and were the only military corps in that country, until King Charles VII. added a few French companies to increase his Guards, still giving the Scots their old pre-eminence and post of honour next the royal person. Their leader was styled Premier Capitaine of the Guards, and as such took precedence of all military officers in France. When the French sovereign was anointed, he stood beside him; and when the ceremony was over, obtained the royal robes, with all their embroidery and jewels, as his perquisite. When a city was to be stormed, the Scottish Archers led the way; when it surrendered, the keys were received by their captain from the hands of the king.

Twenty-five of them, "in testimony of their unspotted fidelity," wore over their magnificent armour white hoquetons of a peculiar fashion, richly laced and embossed with silver. Six of them in rotation were ever beside the royal person—by night as well as by day—at the reception of foreign ambassadors—in the secret debates of the cabinet—in the rejoicings of the tournament—the revels of the banquet—the solemnities of the church—and the glories of the battle-field. These Scottish hearts formed a zone around the monarchs of France; and at the close of the scene, the chosen twenty-five had the privilege of bearing the royal remains to the regal sepulchre of St. Denis.

It would require volumes, instead of a chapter, to recount all the honours paid to the Scottish Guard, and the glory acquired by them in the wars of five centuries.

Led by Alexander Earl of Buchan, Great Constable of France, they performed good service in that great battle at Banje-en-Anjou, where the English were completely routed; and at Verneuil, where Buchan died sword in hand, like a brave knight, and covered with renown,—at the same moment that Swinton, the gallant Laird of Dalswinton, slew the boasting Clarence with one thrust of his border-spear.

In 1570 the Guard consisted of a hundred curassiers, or hommes-des-armes, a hundred archers of the corps, and twenty-five "keepers of the King's body,"—all Scottish gentlemen of noble descent and coat-armour. They saved the life of the tyrant Louis XI. at Liege, and at Pavia fought around the gallant Francis in a circle until four only were left alive; and then, but not till then, the King fell into the hands of the foe. In gratitude for their long-tried faith and unmatched valour, they were vested with "all the honour and confidence the King of France could bestow on his nearest and dearest friends;" and thus, in a little band of Scottish Archers originated the fashion of standing armies, and the nucleus of the great permanent forces of France.

"By this means," says an old Jacobite author, "our gentry were at once taught the rules of civility and art of war; and we were possessed of an inexhaustible stock of brave officers fit to discipline and to command our armies at home, and ever sure to keep up that respect, which was deservedly paid to the Scots' name and nation abroad."

As Sir James Hepburn's regiment of Pikemen they returned to Scotland in 1633, being sent over by Louis XIII. to attend the coronation of Charles I. at Edinburgh. On the commencement of the great and disastrous civil war eight years after, they loyally adhered to the King, and were then by the Cavalier army first styled the Royal Scots. On the reverse of Charles's fortune and subversion of all order, they went back to France; and under Louis of Bourbon, Duc d'Enghien, shared in all the dangers and glories of that campaign on the frontiers of Flanders, so famous for ending in the utter destruction of the Spanish host, the death of the brave Condé de Fuentes, the fall of Thionville, Philipsburg, Mentz, Worms, and Oppenheim, till the waters of the Rhine reflected the flash of their armour; and there fell the veteran Hepburn with his helmet on his brow, and the flag of St. Andrew over him.

Returning in 1678, they re-entered the Scottish army as the Earl of Dunbarton's foot; and eight years after served against the ill-fated Monmouth, and suffered severely, being attacked at Sedgemoor by his cavalry in the night, their position being discerned through the darkness by the glow of their lighted matches.

At the Union in 1707, on the incorporation of the forces as the British establishment—and when Scottish blood and Scottish treasure were more than ever required to further the grasping aims and useless wars of that age—the Royals, in consequence of their high-standing in arms and venerable antiquity, were numbered as the First, or Royal Scots Regiment of Foot,—a title they have since maintained with honour, and on a hundred fields have upborne victoriously, the same silver cross which the brave Archers of Athole and the spearmen of Buchan unfurled so gloriously on the plains of Anjou, and at Verneuil, on the banks of the Aure.

Proud of themselves and of the honours their predecessors had sustained untarnished in so many foreign battles, Dunbarton's musqueteers felt an esprit du corps, to which at that time few other military bands were entitled; and it was with a bosom glowing with the highest sentiments of this description, that Walter Fenton for the first time clasped on the silver gorget and plumed headpiece of his junior rank, and found himself really a standard-bearer of a regiment deemed the first in Europe, and whose boasted antiquity had become a jocular proverb, obtaining for it the name of Pontius Pilate's Guard.

When next he paid his devoirs at the residence of the Napiers, Lilian fairly blushed with pleasure to see him looking so gallant and handsome; for, to a young girl's eye, a nodding plume, a golden scarf, and jewelled rapier, were considerable additions to an exterior otherwise extremely prepossessing.

The paleness resulting from his confinement had quite passed away; his olive cheek was suffused with the rich warm glow of health; while buoyant spirits, new hopes, and high aspirations, lent a lustre to his eye and a grace to his actions, which was not visible before, when he felt himself to be the mere object of patronage and dependence—the poor private gentleman with a brass-hilted whinger and corslet of black iron.

Again and again he visited the old turretted house on the Burghmuir, and drank deeper draughts of that intoxicating passion which, from its hopelessness, he dared hardly acknowledge to himself. Every day he became more and more in love, and felt that it would be impossible (with all his awe of Lady Grisel's fardingale and cane) to keep it long a secret from the being who inspired it.

CHAPTER II.

THE GLOVE.

Distrust me not, but unreserved disclose
The anxious thought that in thy bosom glows;
To impart our griefs is apt to mitigate,
And social sorrows blunt the darts of fate.
EVENING, a Poem.

A month had passed away, and the summer came; it was a month of unalloyed happiness to Walter Fenton, who, at the somewhat solitary mansion of Bruntisfield, was a frequent and always a welcome guest; and there he spent every moment he could spare from his military duties, which chiefly consisted of being on guard at the Palace Porch or Privy Council Chamber, a review on Leith Links before old Sir Thomas of Binns practising King James's new mode of exercise by flam of drum, or 'worrying' various unhappy old women to say 'God save the King,' pronounce the rising at Bothwell a rebellion, Archbishop Sharpe a martyr, and Peden an impostor.

Notwithstanding the early season of the year, the game in the woods had particularly taken his fancy; so had the herons, eels, teals, and trout of the Loch; and rabbit-warrens, and foxes that lurked among the great quarries; and with Finland he generally contrived to finish the day's loitering at the Hall fire, where Lady Grisel, with the birr of her silver-mounted wheel, performed a burden to the long and monotonous tales she inflicted, of the splendours of King Charles's court, the terrors of the wars of Montrose, and the spells and charms of sorcerers and witches—warnings, ghosts, and Heaven knows what more; but all of which proved much more interesting to her hearers in that age, than it could to my readers in this.

Walter loved better to hear the wiry tinkling of Lilian's cittern or virginals after the old lady had fallen fast asleep, and then Annie Laurie joined her clear merry voice to the deeper notes of Douglas; and they were ever a happy evening party when the pages of Cassandra, or The Banished Virgin, and other romantic folios of the day—luxury, music, and conversation, free and untrammelled as any lover could wish—made the hours fleet past on silken wings. Ever joyous and ever gay, it was a circle from which Walter departed with regret, and counted one by one the long and weary hours until he found himself there again.

Notwithstanding her violent prejudice against the obscurity of his birth, Lady Grisel warmly admired the young man for the frankness and courage he displayed, his general high bearing, and above all, for a certain strong resemblance which she averred he bore to her youngest son, Sir Archibald Napier, who was slain in the unfortunate battle of Inverkeithing, when Cromwell forced the passage of the Forth.

Lucky it was for Walter that this strong idea took possession of her mind. From that time forward she loved to see him constantly, to watch his actions and features, and to listen to the tones of his voice, until, to her moistened and aged eyes, the very image of her youngest and best-beloved son seemed to be conjured up before her; and so strong became her feelings when this fancy possessed her, that it would have been a relief to have fallen upon his neck and kissed him.

To her it was a living dream of other days—a dream that called back sorrow and joy, and a thousand tender memories from the mists that envelope the past; and Walter was often surprised to find her eyes full of tears when, after a long pause, she addressed him. Perhaps for nothing but this tender and mysterious source of interest, would she have permitted such an intimacy to spring up between the nameless soldier and Lilian, the last hope of her race, the heiress of the honours and possessions of the old barons of Bruntisfield and the Wrytes. But her mind was now becoming enfeebled by age, and prudence struggled in vain with her powerful fancies.

Lilian (but this is a secret known only to ourselves and her gossip Annie) admired young Fenton too, though with ideas widely differing from those of her grandaunt, because he was a very handsome lad, with a cavalier air, and locks curling over a white and haughty brow; keen dark eyes, that were ever full of fire, but became soft and chastened when he looked on her. She soon deemed that the curl of his lip showed a

"Spirit proud and prompt to ire;"

but she never observed his moustachioed mouth without thinking what a very handsome one it was. His soft mellow voice was deep in its tones, and she loved to listen to his words till her young heart seemed to vibrate when he spoke. He was generally subdued rather than melancholy in manner; but the depth of his own thoughts imparted to all he said an interest, that could not fail to attract a girl of Lilian's gentle disposition.

But his enthusiasm and his vehemence startled her at times, when he spoke of the soldiers of Dunbarton, and of the glory he hoped to win beneath those banners which Turenne and the Great Condé saw ever in the van of battle. Gratitude, too, had no small share in her sentiments towards him, when, reflecting on the risk he had so generously run to save her dearest and (except one) her only relative from a humiliating examination by the imperious Privy Council; and she shuddered to think how narrowly he had escaped the extremity of their wrath; for every instrument of torture was then judicially used at the pleasure and caprice of the judicial authorities.

A month, we have said, had passed away: in that brief time a great change had gradually stolen over the hearts of Walter and Lilian Napier. No declaration of love had been made on his part, and there had been no acceptance on hers; but they were on the footing of lovers: secret and sincere, each had only acknowledged the passion to themselves: to her he had never whispered a word of the love that now animated every thought and action; but she was not ignorant of his affection, which a thousand little tendernesses revealed—and love will beget love in others.

They both felt it, or at least thought so.

Though his dark eyes might become brighter or more languid, his voice more insinuating, and his manner more graceful and gentle, when he addressed her, never had he assumed courage sufficient to reveal the secret thought that with each succeeding interview was daily and hourly becoming more and more a part of his existence. Often he longed to be an earl, a lord, or even a laird like Finland, that then he might throw himself and his fortune at her feet, and declare the depth of his passion in those burning expressions, that a thousand times trembled on his lips, and were there chained by diffidence and poverty.

He was very timid, too: what true lover is not?

A circumstance soon occurred, which, however trivial in itself, was mighty in its effect on our two young friends; and, by opening up the secret fountain of hope and pleasure, altered equally the aspect of their friendship and the even tenor of their way.

Lilian was fair and beautiful indeed; and (though not one of those magnificent beings that exist only in the brains of romancers) when gifted with all the mystic charms and romantic beauty, with which the glowing fancy of the lover ever invests his mistress, she became in Walter's imagination something more angelic and enchanting than he had previously conceived to exist; for a lover sees everything through the medium of beauty and delight.

Notwithstanding the real charms of her mind and person, she possessed a greater and more lasting source of attraction, in a graceful sweetness of manner which cannot be described. With a voice that was ever "low and sweet," and with all her girlish frankness and openness of character, she could at times assume a womanly firmness and high decision of manner, which every Scottish maid and matron had need to possess in those days of stout hearts and hard blows, when brawls and conflicts were of hourly occurrence, as no man ever went abroad unarmed; and the upper classes, by never permitting an insult to pass unpunished, became as much accustomed to the use of the sword and dagger as their plodding descendants to handling the peaceful quill and useful umbrella.

On a bright evening in May, when the sun was sinking behind the wooded ridge of the dark Corstorphine hills, and when the shadows of the turrets of Bruntisfield and its thick umbrageous oaks were thrown far across the azure loch, where the long-legged herons were wading in search of the trout and perch, where the coot fluttered and the snow-white swan spread its soft plumage to the balmy western wind, Walter accompanied Lilian Napier and her fair friend, Annie Laurie, in a ramble by the margin of the beautiful sheet of water, the green and sloping banks of which were enamelled by summer flowers.

The purple heath-bell, bowers of the blooming hawthorn, the bright yellow broom, and a profusion of wild rose-trees, loaded the air with perfume; for everything was arrayed in the greenness, the sunlight, the purity, the glory of summer, and the thick dark oaks of Drumsheugh towered up as darkly and as richly, as when the sainted King David and his bold thanes hunted the snow-white bull and bristly boar beneath their sombre shadows.

The charms of the beautiful Annie Laurie live yet in Scottish song, though the name and memory of the gallant lover whose muse embalmed them is all but forgotten.

Tall and fair, with a face of the most perfect loveliness, she had eyes of the darkest blue, shaded by long black lashes, cheeks tinged with red like a peach by the morning sun, and bright auburn hair rolling in heavy curls over a slender and delicate neck, imparting a graceful negligence to the dignity of her fine figure. Her whole features possessed a matchless expression of sweetness and vivacity; her nose was the slightest approach to aquiline; her lips were short and full; her profile eminently noble. A broad beaver hat, tied with coquettish ease, and adorned by one long ostrich feather drooping over her right shoulder, formed her head-gear; while a dress of light-blue silk, with the sleeves puffed and slashed with white satin, and white gloves of Blois fastened by gold bracelets, formed part of her attire. She carried a pretty heavy riding-switch, which completed the jaunty, piquant, and saucy character of her air and beauty.

The young ladies were walking together, and Lilian hung on the arm of her taller friend; while her cavalier was alternately by the side of each.

Though loving Lilian, he conversed quite as much—perhaps more—with her gay companion, whose prattle and laughter were incessant; for Annie invariably made it a rule to talk nonsense when nothing better occurred to her. Walter treated both with the utmost tenderness, but Lilian with the greatest respect: he now felt truly what Finland had often averred, "that the girl one loves is greater than an empress."

"And so," Mr. Fenton, said Annie, continuing her incessant raillery, "is it true that a party of Dunbarton's braves were out at the House-of-Linn yesterday, dragooning the poor cottars to pray for King James, to ban the Covenant, and all that?"

"It is but too true, I fear. Indeed, I was on that duty, and at the Richardson's Barony of Cramond too."

"Oh, such valour!—to terrify women and children, and drive the poor millers and fishers away; to stop the mills, break the dams, spoil the nets, and sink the boats. Fie upon you! Don't come near me, sir. Alas for the warriors of the great Condé, how sadly they are degenerating! Oh! Mr. Fenton, we positively blush for you: do we not, gossip Lilian?"

"Fair Annie, you are very severe upon me. If I was on such a duty, could I help it? A soldier must hear and obey."

"Even to ducking his mother, I suppose. Go to—I have no patience with such work! And was it by Finland's orders that all the old cummers of Cramond were sent swimming down the river tied to chairs and cutty-stools?"

"But they were very old, and ugly too; besides, the stream was very shallow. And as they were all caught in the act of singing a psalm in the wood of Dalmenie, what else could we do but duck them well for their contumacy? It was rare fun, I assure you, and Finland nearly burst his corslet with laughing; but I assure you, ladies, we only ducked the old women of the village."

"Ay—ay; the young would not get off scatheless, I fear," replied Annie, giving him a switch with her riding-rod; "I know soldiers of old. But, marry come up! our Teviotdale lads would have given you a hot reception had you come among them with such hostile intentions."

"Then the worse would be their fare," said Walter, in a tone of pique. "When ordered by our superiors to test the people——"

"Heigh-day! Now, good Mr. Fenton, suppose you were commanded to test us in that rough fashion, because we would not pronounce Sharp a martyr and the Covenant a bond of rebellion, and said just whatever you wished of us,—what then? For, in sooth, we would say none of those things: would we, gossip Lilian?"

"But then we should each be sent voyaging down the loch on a cutty-stool," said Lilian, joining her friend in a loud burst of merriment.

"On my honour, ladies," said Walter very seriously, "these Orders of Council refer only to the rascal multitude. Who ever heard of a lady of rank being treated like a cottar-wife?"

"High and low share alike the vengeance of the Council, and Argyle lost his head for some such bubble. I cannot forget how, in the January of '82, six years ago (faith, I am getting quite an old spinster!), Claver'se and his troop took a fancy to quarter themselves at our house of Maxwelton, because my youngest sister had been christened by that poor man Ichabod Bummel, who carries misfortune wherever he shows his long nose. The cavalier troopers ate and drank up all they could lay hands on, in cellar, buttery, and barnyard; and I was terrified to death by the clank of their jack-boots and long rapiers, as they laughed and swore, and pursued the servants up one stair and down another. But Claver'se drew his chair in by the hall-fire, and taking me upon his knee, looked on me so kindly with his great black eyes, that I forgot the horror my mother's tales of him had inspired me with; and he kissed me twice, saying I would be the bonniest lass in all Nithsdale,—and has it not come true? But Colonel Grahame is so ferocious——"

"Oh! hush, Annie," whispered Lilian, for the name of Claverhouse was seldom mentioned but with studied respect and secret hatred, from the fear of his supernatural powers.

"Tush, dear Lilian! I am resolved to assert our prerogative to say whatever we have a mind to. But to return to the raid of yesterday. Had you heard Finland describing how valiantly his soldiers marched into the little hamlet, with drums beating, pikes advanced, and matches lighted, driving wives and weans and cocks and hens before them, you would (like me) have felt severely that the brave cavaliers of Dunbarton, les Gardes Ecossais of Arran and Aubigne, the stout hearts that stormed the towers of Oppenheim, had come to so low a pass now. If ever Finland goes on another such barns-breaking errand, I vow he shall never come into my presence again!"

"Under favour, fair Annie," said Walter laughingly, "your heart would soon relent; for I know you to be a true cavalier-dame, notwithstanding all this severe raillery."

"I have heard her say quite as much to the Earl of Perth—what dost think of that, Walter?" said Lilian.

"It is more than the boldest of our Barons dared have done in these degenerate days; but he would find how impossible it is to be displeased with you, fair Annie. How is it, Madam Lilian, that you do not in some way assist me against the raillery of your gossip? Her waggery is very smarting, I assure you."

Ere Lilian could speak, the clear voice of Annie interrupted her by exclaiming—

"Aha, Mr. Fenton, you have dropped something from the breast of that superbly pinked vest of yours—is it a tag, a tassel, or what?"

"I know not," he muttered hurriedly, putting his hand in the breast of his coat.

"It fell among the grass," said Lilian.

"Oh, I have it! I have it!" added Annie, springing forward and picking something up. "'Tis here—on my honour a glove!"

"A lady's—it fell from his breast," said Lilian in a breathless voice.

"Of beautiful point lace—one of yours, gossip Lilian? O brave!—ha! ha!"

"Mine—mine, said you?" Lilian's voice faltered; she grew pale and red alternately, while adding, with an air of confusion, "You are jesting as usual, you daft lassie. Oh, surely 'tis a mistake!"

"Judge for yourself, love. I saw you mark it: here are your initials worked in beads of blue and silver."

"It is but too true—I lost it some weeks ago," faltered Lilian, whose timid blue eyes stole one furtive glance at the handsome culprit under their long brown lashes, and were instantly cast down in the utmost confusion. She was excited almost to tears.

"Forsooth, there is something immensely curious in all this, Mr. Fenton," continued the waggish Annie, twirling the little glove aloft on the point of her riding-switch. "We must have you arraigned before the High Court of Love, and compelled to confess, under terror of his bow-string, to a jury of fair ladies, when and wherefore you obtained this glove."

"Now, Mr. Fenton, do;" urged Lilian, entering somewhat into the gay spirit of her friend, though her happy little heart vibrated with confusion and joy as tumultuously as a moment ago it had beat with jealousy and fear. "Tell us when you got it, and all about it."

"The night Ichabod Bummel was arrested," replied Walter, who still coloured deeply at this unexpected discovery, for he was yet but young in the art of love.

"Aha, and Lilian gave it! My pretty little prude, and is it thus with thee?"

"Cease, I pray you, Annie Laurie!" said Lilian, in a tone very much akin to asperity. "I hope Mr. Fenton will resolve this matter himself."

"Forgive me, Lilian—forgive me, Madam. I found it on the floor after your escape, and I kept it as a token of remembrance. You will pardon my presumption in doing so, when I say, at that time, I thought never, never to meet you again, and assuredly could not have foreseen the happiness of an hour like this." He spoke in a brief and confused manner, for he was concerned at the annoyance Annie's raillery evidently caused Lilian. "Permit me to restore it," he added, with increased confusion, "or perhaps you—you will permit me—"

"What?"

"To have the honour of retaining it."

"O no—no; how could you think of that?" said Lilian hurriedly and timidly, as she took the glove from the upheld riding-rod, and concealing it in some part of her dress, continued, "now let us hear no more of this silly affair. Ah, Mr. Walter, how sadly you have exposed yourself! To carry one's old glove about you, as Aunt Grisel does a charm against cramp, or thunder, or luck. 'Tis quite droll! Ah, good Heavens!" she added, in a whisper, "do not tell her of this affair, Annie!"

"Dost think I am so simple? Finland has taught me how one ought to keep one's own secrets from fathers and mothers, and aunts too."

"But to-morrow your sedan will be seen trotting over the whole town, up this close and down that, as you hurry from house to house, telling the wonderful adventure of the glove, and trussed up quite into a story in your own peculiar fashion, as long as the Grand Scipio, or any romance of Scuderi."

"For Lilian's sake, let me hope not, Mistress Laurie," said Walter, imploringly, to the gay beauty.

"Trust me for once, dear Lilian," said Annie, patting her cheek with her riding-switch, "I know when to prattle and when to be silent. Dost really think, my sweet little gossip, that I would jest with thy name, as I do with those of my Lady Jean Gordon, Mary of Charteris, the Countess of Dunbarton, or any of our wild belles who care not a rush how many fall in love with them, but bestow glances and kerchiefs, and rings and love-knots of ribbon, on all and sundry? I trow not. Apropos of that! I know three gentlemen of Claver'se Guards who wear Mary's favours in their hats, and if these ribbons are dyed in brave blood some grey morning, she alone will be to blame, for her coquetry is very dangerous. Young Holsterlee will be at the Countess of Dunbarton's ball à la Française next week; observe him narrowly, and you will see a true-love knot of white ribbons at his breast; and if the young Lords Maddertie and Fawsyde are there, you will see each with the same gift from the same fond and liberal hand. Ah, she is a wild romp! It was the Duchess Mary's late suppers, and Monsieur Minuette's Bretagne that quite spoiled her, for once upon a time she was as grave, discreet, and silent as—as myself."

"O you wag—such a recluse she must have been!"

"Quite a little nun!" added Annie, and both the charming girls laughed with all the gaiety of their sex and the thoughtlessness of their rank.

Lilian was both vexed and pleased at the discovery that Fenton had for so many weeks borne her glove in his bosom; but from that time forward she became more reserved in his presence, and walked little with him in the garden, and still less in the lawn or by the banks of the loch.

She did not avoid his presence, but gave him fewer opportunities of being alone with her. Did she think of him less?

Ah, surely not.

A lover is the pole-star of a young girl's thoughts by day and night, and never was Walter's image absent a moment from the mind of Lilian; for like himself she numbered and recounted the hours until they met again. Their meetings were marked by diffidence and embarrassment, and their parting with secret regret.

Walter, too, was somewhat changed, from the knowledge that Lilian had discovered his passion. His voice, which seemed the same to other ears, became softer and more insinuating when he addressed her. He was, if possible, more respectful, and more timid, and more tender. His imagination—what a plague it was! and how very fertile in raising ideal annoyances! One hour his heart was joyous with delight at the memory of some little incident—a word or a smile; and the the next he nursed himself into a state of utter wretchedness, with the idea that Lilian had looked rather coldly upon him, or had spoken far too kindly of her cousin the captain of the Scots' Brigade.

Though the latter was a bugbear in his way, Walter did not seriously fear a rival; for he wore a sword, and after the fashion of the time feared no man. He dreaded most the loss of Lilian's esteem, for he dared not think that yet she linked love and his name together in her mind. Could he have read her heart and known her secret thoughts, he would have found a passion as deep as his own concealed under the bland purity and innocence of her smile, which revealed only well-bred pleasure at his approach.

Many days of anxious hoping and fearing, &c. passed, after the affair of the glove, but he saw Lilian thrice only. She kept close by the side of her grand-aunt Grisel, and the old lady seldom left her wheel and well-cushioned chair in the chamber-of-dais.

"Why did she not permit me to retain the glove?" he would at times say to himself. "Then I would have no cause for all my present doubts and fears. Had we been alone, perhaps she would have done so——"

Walter was right in that conjecture.

CHAPTER III.

A BALL IN THE OLDEN TIME.

Shades of my fathers, in your pasteboard skirts,
Your broidered waistcoats and your plaited shirts,
Your formal bag-wigs—wide extended cuffs,
Your five-inch chitterlings and nine-inch ruffs;
I see you move the solemn minuet o'er,
The modest foot scarce rising from the floor.
SALMAGUNDI.

On the south side of the city where the old Liberton road branching off enters it by two diverging routes, one by the narrow and ancient Potter Row, and the other by the street of the Bristo Port, a formidable gate in the re-entering angle of the city-wall, which bristled with cannon and overlooked the way that descended to the Grass-market, there stood in 1688 (and yet stands) an antique mansion of very picturesque aspect. It is furnished with numerous outshots and projections, broad, dark, and bulky stacks of chimnies reared up in unusual places, and having over the upper windows circular pediments enriched with initials and devices, but now blackened by age and encrusted with the smoky vapour of centuries.

It is still known as the "General's House," from its having been anciently the residence appropriated to the Commander-in-chief of the Scottish forces. A narrow passage leads to it from that ancient suburban Burgh of Barony, the Potter's Row, where doubtless many a psalm-singing puritan of Monk's Regiment, many a scarred trooper of Leven's Iron Brigade, and many a stern veteran of the Covenant have kept watch and ward, in the pathway which is still, as of old, styled, par excellence, THE General's Entry.

Its garden has now become a lumber-yard, and is otherwise encroached upon; its stables have long since vanished, and mean dwellings surround and overtop it; the windows are stuffed with old hats and bundles of straw or rags; brown paper flaps dismally in the broken glasses, and its once gay chambers, where the "cunning George Monk," the grave and stern Leven, Dalyel of the iron-heart, and the gallant Dunbarton feasted royally, and held wassail with their comrades, have, like all the surrounding mansions of the great and noble of the other days, been long since abandoned to citizens of the poorest and humblest class.

In 1688 its aspect was very different.

Standing then on the very verge of the city, it was deemed in the country, though now the gas lamps extend two miles beyond it, and dense and populous streets occupy the sites of two straggling and unpretending suburbs of thatched cottages and "sclaited lands." To the southward of the road, a narrow rugged horseway, passed through fields and thickets towards the great Loch of the Burgh, and ascending its opposite bank, passed the straggling suburb named the Causeway-side, where there were many noble old villas, the residences of Sir Patrick Johnstone, of the Laird of Westerhall, and others, and sweeping past the ruined convent of St. Catherine of Sienna, wound over the hill (near a gibbet that was seldom unoccupied by sweltering corpses and screaming ravens), towards the Barony of Liberton, a lonely hamlet with a little stone spire, and the tall square tower of the Winrams, in older days the patrimony of a lesser Baron named Macbeth.

To the westward of the General's House were fertile fields that extended close up to the defences of the city, then a long line of lofty and embattled walls built of reddish-coloured sandstone, strengthened at intervals by towers alternately of a round or square form, which defended its various ports or barrier-gates. Within this stony zone rose the dark and massive city, which for ages had been increasing in denseness; for, in consequence of the nature of the times, and the dubious relations of the country with its southern neighbour, the citizens seldom dared to build beyond the narrow compass of the walls.

From these causes, and in imitation of those bad allies the French, Edinburgh, like ancient Paris, became deeper and closer, taller and yet more tall; house arose upon house, street was piled upon street, bartizan, gable, and tower shot up to an amazing height, and were wedged within the walls, till the thoroughfares like those of Venice were only three feet broad, and in some places exhibited fourteen tiers of windows.

An Act of the Scottish Legislature was found absolutely necessary to curb the rage for stupendous houses, and in 1698 it was enacted, that none should be erected within the liberties of the city exceeding five stories in height. Prior to the middle of the seventeenth century Edinburgh could not boast of one court or square save that of White Horse Hostel, if indeed it could be termed either.

The access to these vast and imperishable piles was by turnpike stairs, steep, narrow, dark, and mysterious. The population of the city was then about 50,000; but as it increased, so did the denseness of the houses; even the buttresses of the great cathedral were all occupied by little dwellings, till the venerable church resembled a hen with a brood under her wings. Year by year for seven centuries the alleys had become higher and narrower, till Edinburgh looked like a vast city crowded in close column on the steep faces of a hill, until the building of a bridge to the north, when it burst from the embattled girdle that for ages had pent it up, and more like another Babylon than a "modern Athens" spread picturesquely over every steep rock and deep defile in its vicinity. But to return:

On a dusky evening Walter Fenton and Douglas of Finland, muffled in their ample scarlet rocquelaures, which completely hid their rich dresses, came stumbling along the dark and narrow Potter's Row, towards the gate of the General's House, where a mounted guard of the Grey Dragoons sat motionless as twenty statues, the conical fur cap of each trooper forming the apex of a pyramid, which his wide cloak made, when spread over the crupper of his horse. Still and firm as if cast in bronze, were every horse and man. Each trooper rested his short musquetoon on his thigh, with the long dagger screwed on its muzzle. This guard of honour was under arms to receive the General's military guests, and the fanfare of the trumpets and a ruffle on the kettle-drum announced that Sir Thomas Dalyel of Binns had just arrived.

In the entry stood a foot soldier muffled in his sentinel's coat.

"One of ours, I think," said Douglas; "Art one of the old Die-hards, good fellow?"

"Hab Elshender, at your service, Laird."

"Hah! hath the Lady Bruntisfield arrived?" asked Walter.

"Ay, Sir," replied Hab, with a knowing Scots' grin; for he understood the drift of the question: "Ay, Sir—and Madam Lilian too—looking for a' the world like the queen of the fairies."

Within the gate the court was filled with light and bustle. Carriages of ancient fashion and clumsy construction profusely decorated with painting and gilding, with coats armorial on the polished pannels and waving hammer-cloths, rolled up successively to the doorway; sedans gaudy with brass nails, red silk blinds, and scarlet poles, military chargers, and servants on foot and horseback in gorgeous liveries, all glittering in the light of the flaring links which usually preceded every person of note when threading the gloomy and narrow thoroughfares of Edinburgh after nightfall.

Impatient at every moment which detained him from the side of Lilian, now, when he could appear before her to the utmost advantage, Walter, heedless of preceding his friend, sprang up the handsome staircase of carved oak, the walls of which were covered with painted panels and trophies of arms, conspicuous among which was the standard of the unfortunate Argyle taken in the conflict of Muirdykes three years before. Here they threw their broad hats and red mantles to the servants, and were immediately ushered into a long suite of apartments, which were redolent of perfume and brilliant with light and gaiety.

Douglas, whose extremely handsome features were of a dark and olive hue, like all those of his surname generally, wore the heavy cavalier wig falling over his collar of point d'Espagne and gold-studded breastplate. Walter had his own natural hair hanging in dark curls on a cuirass of silver, polished so bright that the fair dancers who flitted past every moment saw their flushed faces reflected in its glassy surface.

Their coats and breeches were of scarlet, pinked with blue silk and laced with gold; their sashes were of yellow silk, but had massive tassels of gold; and their formidable bowl-hilted rapiers were slung in shoulder-belts of velvet embroidered with silver. Their long military gloves almost met the cuffs of their coats, which were looped up to display the shirt-sleeves—a new fashion of James VII.; and everything about them was perfumed to excess. Such was the attire of the military of that day, as regulated by the "Royal Orders" of the King.

Threading their way through a crowd of dancers, whose magnificent dresses of bright-hued satins and velvets laced with silver or gold, and blazing with jewels, sparkled and shone as they glided from hand to hand to the music of an orchestra perched in a recessed gallery of echoing oak, they passed into an inner apartment to pay their devoirs to the Countess, who for a time had relinquished the dance to overlook the tea-board—a solemn, arduous, and highly-important duty, which was executed by her lady-in-waiting, a starched demoiselle of very doubtful age.

Though rather diminutive in person, the Countess of Dunbarton was a very beautiful woman, and possessed all that dazzling fairness of complexion which is so characteristic of her country-women. She was English, and a sister of the then Duchess of Northumberland. Her eyes were of a bright and merry blue; her hair of the richest auburn; her small face was quite enchanting in expression, and very piquant in its beauty; while her fine figure was decidedly inclined to embonpoint.

She was one of the fashionable mirrors of the day, and the standard by whom the stately belles of Craig's Close and the Blackfriars Wynd regulated the depth of their stomachers and the length of their trains—the star of Mary d'Este's balls at Holyrood, where, in the splendour of her jewels, she had nearly rivalled the famous Duchess of Lauderdale; and though an Englishwoman, notwithstanding the jealousy and dislike which from time immemorial had existed between the two kingdoms, she was, from the suavity of her manner, the brilliancy of her wit, and the amiability of her disposition, both admired and beloved in Edinburgh.

With a pretty and affected air, she held her silver pouncet-box in an ungloved and beautifully-formed hand, which was whiter than the bracelet of pearls that encircled it. Close by, upon a satin cushion, reposed a pursy, pug-nosed, and silky little lap-dog, of his late Majesty's favourite and long-eared breed. It had been a present from himself, and bore the royal cypher on its silver collar. Near her on a little tripod table of ebony stood the tea-board, with its rich equipage and a multitude of little china cups glittering with blue and gold.

The tea, dark, fragrant, and priceless beyond any now in use, was served by the prim gentlewoman before mentioned (the daughter of some decayed family), who acted as her useful friend and companion; and slowly it was poured out like physic from a little silver pot of curious workmanship, a gift from Mary Stuart (then Princess of Orange), and the same from which she was wont to regale the ladies of Holyrood.

Tea was unknown in London at the time of the Restoration; and when introduced a few years afterwards by the Lords Arlington and Ossory, was valued at sixty shillings the pound; but the beautiful Mary d'Este of Modena was the first who made it known in the Scottish capital in 1681. This new and costly beverage was still one of the wonders and innovations of the age, and was only within the reach of the great and wealthy until about 1750; but the royal tea-parties, masks and entertainments of the Duchess Mary and her affable daughters, were long the theme of many a tall great-grandmother, and remembered with veneration and regret among other vanished glories, when, by the cold blight that fell upon her, poor Scotland felt too surely that "a stranger" filled the throne of the Stuarts.

Lady Grisel of Bruntisfield, and other venerable dowagers and ancient maiden gentlewomen (a species in which some old Scottish families are still very prolific), all as stiff as pride, brocade, starch, and buckram could make them, were sitting very primly and uprightly in their high-backed chairs, clustered round the Countess's little tripod table, like pearls about a diamond, when the cavaliers advanced to pay their respects.

"Welcome! Finland," said the Countess, addressing Douglas according to the etiquette of the country. "My old friend Walter, your most obedient servant. How fortunate!—we have just been disputing about romances, and drawing comparisons between that lumbering folio The Banished Virgin and the Cassandra. You will act our umpire. My dear boy, let me look at you; how well you look, and so handsome, in all this bravery; doth he not, Mistress Lilian?"

Lilian, who, in all the splendour of diamonds and full dress, was leaning on Aunt Grisel's chair, blushed too perceptibly at this very pointed question, but was spared attempting a reply, for the gay Countess continued:

"Remember, Walter, that the great Middleton, who became an earl, and lieutenant-general of the Scots' Horse, began his career like yourself, by trailing a partisan in the old Royals—then Hepburn's pikemen in the French service; and who knoweth, my dear child, where yours may end? Heigho! These perilous times are the making and unmaking of many a brave man. So, Mr. Douglas, we were disputing about——(Madam Ruth, assist the gentlemen to dishes of tea)——about—what was it?—O, a passage in the Cassandra."

"I shall be happy to be of any service to your Ladyship," began Finland, with his blandest smile, while raising to his well-moustachioed lip a little thimbleful of the new-fashioned beverage, which he cordially detested, but took for form's sake.

"We are in great doubts whether Lysimachus was justified in running his falchion through poor Oleander, for merely desiring the charioteer of the beautiful princesses to drive faster. You will remember the passage. We all think it very cruel, and that no lover is entitled to be so outrageous."

Douglas knew the pages of his muster-roll better than those of the romance in question, but he answered promptly:

"I think Master Oleander was an impudent rascal, and well deserving a few inches of cold iron, or a sound truncheoning at the hands of the provost-marshal. I remember doing something of that kind myself about the time that old Mareschal de Crecqui was blocked up and taken in Treves."

"Ay, Douglas, that was when we were with the column of the Moselle," said the Earl, who now approached and leaned on the back of the Countess's chair. "It was shortly after the brave Turenne had been killed by that unlucky cannonball that deprived France of her best chevalier. We were in full retreat across the river. Some ladies of the army were with us in a handsome calêche, as gay a one as ever rolled along the Parisian Boulevards. There was a devil of a press at the barrier gate of Montroyale, and an officer of the Regiment de Picardie was urging the horses of the vehicle to full speed by goading them with his half-pike, regardless of the cries of the ladies, when Finland, by one blow of his baton, unhorsed him, and some say he never marched more."

"O! Mr. Douglas!" said the Countess, holding up her hands.

"There was an old feud between us and the chevaliers de Picardie," continued the Earl; "but the worst of this malheur was, that the poor officer was the husband of one of the demoiselles in question; and as she was extremely handsome, and Finland, by becoming her very devoted serviteur, endeavoured, during the remainder of the campaign, to make every amends for the loss he had occasioned her; the gallants of the army said——"

"Marry, come up! My Lord, dost take my boudoir for a tavern or a sutler's tent? Fie! Laird of Finland, you are worse than the Lysimachus of the romance. But what think you, Walter, of that hero becoming enamoured of the fair prisoner committed to his care, the Princess Parisatis? It would seem that in ancient times, as well as modern, that beauty must be a dangerous trust for a young soldier."

The Earl laughed till he shook the perfume from his wig; Walter smiled, and stole one glance at Lilian. She, too, was smiling, and playing with her fan; but her long lashes were cast down, and her cheek was burning with blushes.

"So dangerous, indeed, is beauty," said the Earl, "that had I any fair prisoners, I would entrust them only to old fellows with leather visages and tough hearts, ancient routiers, like Will Wemyss, or, if they were remarkably handsome, why, I might keep them in my own immediate charge."

"Indeed, my Lord—quotha?" said the Countess, pouting.

"Believe me, dear Lætitia," said the handsome noble, patting her white shoulder, "they could not be in safer keeping than the wardship of your husband. He can never see beauty in others."

She smiled at the Earl's compliment, and turning to the blushing Lilian, said:

"In sooth, madam, Walter Fenton was always somewhat addicted to gallantry, though Mistress Ruth and he were ever at drawn daggers while he was about me. While a boy, he was quite a little cavaliero; and when obeying my orders, always preferred a kiss to any other reward. But by my honour, little Walter was so pretty a boy, that I gave him enough to have made my Lord the Earl quite jealous. Even Anne of Monmouth and Buccleugh, never had a page so handsome and so gay; and I doubt not, boy, thou prove a true Scottish cavalier in those sad wars which all men say are fast approaching."

Walter's only reply was pressing to his lips the white hand of the beautiful English woman; for his heart was too full to speak.

"And now, Walter," she continued, "as a mark of my favour you shall dance with me, while Lord Dunbarton leads out the young lady of Bruntisfield. I have not been on the floor since the first cotillon with Claverhouse. Madam Ruth, you will please preside at the tea-board. Mr. Douglas—Finland, as you Scots name him, where is he?"

"Gone to look for the Lily of Maxwelton, I warrant," said the Earl.

"Then he may even spare himself the trouble, poor man! she has been coquetting for this hour past with the Laird of Craigdarroch, a gentleman of the Life Guards. On, on, or we shall be late for the cotillon. Ah, Walter, you are still looking after that fair girl Napier. She is very pretty; but are you really in love with her? You blush! Bless you, my poor boy, she is immensely rich they say—and—but you shall dance with her next."

As they advanced among the dancers, a tall lady in scarlet brocade, with a stomacher blazing with diamonds, swept past. She was led by a gentleman gorgeously attired in a coat of pink velvet, lined and slashed with yellow satin, and looped and buttoned with gold. Like all the rest, his voluminous wig was of the most glossy black. His dark stern eyes glared for a moment upon Walter, as he bowed profoundly to the Countess and passed on.

"'Tis Mary of Charteris, and that fearful man Lord Clermistonlee," said she. "We cannot omit him here though we detest him. How handsome, how noble he looks; and yet, how repulsive!"

A crash of music burst from the arched gallery, and after a few preliminary flourishes, a cotillon commenced. This graceful dance was then the universal favourite, but has long been superseded or merged in the modern quadrille, where some of its figures are still retained. Though stately in measure and elaborate in step, the cotillon had none of that grave solemnity which characterises the latter. When our forefathers danced, they did so in good earnest, and the whole ballroom became instinct with life, action, and agile grace, as the dancers swept to the right and to the left, the tall ladies with their high plumage floating, trains sweeping, and red-heeled slippers pattering, while their pendants and lappets, flounces and frills, and pompoons and puffs were flashing, glinting, and waving among the curled wigs and laced coats, diamond hilted swords and brocade-vests of the gentlemen. In what might (now) be deemed odd contrast with the richness of their attire, and the starched dignity of their demeanour, familiar and homely expressions were heard from time to time, such as,—

"My Leddy Becky, your hand—Drumdryan, you're a' gaun agee, man!—Pardon, my Lord Spynie, your rapier's tirled wi' mine—Haud ye a', my Leddy Pituchar has drappit her pouncet-box!—Hoots, Laird Holster, are you daft?—Pilrig, set to her Leddyship," and so forth.

Meanwhile Douglas wandered through the glittering throng in quest of his beautiful Anne, nodding briefly on all hands; for Dick, the Laird of Finland, was one of those gay fellows whom every body knew; but his fair one was nowhere visible. He began to wax fearfully wroth, and resolving to dance with no one else, continued his search until he found himself at the end of the suite of apartments, in a handsome little room wainscotted with gilt panels, and having a large sun gilded over the mantel-piece, from the centre of which, as from a reflector, a blaze of yellow light was thrown by an alabaster lamp.

Lord Mersington, accurately attired in black velvet, plainly laced with silver, Dalyel, with his long white beard and mail-rusted buff coat, looking as ferocious as ever, with his enormous toledo, and Swedish jingle-spurs, which in lieu of rowels had each four metal balls in a bell, and consequently made a great noise when he walked; the unfortunate President Lockhart, the "bluidy Advocate," Mackenzie, the two ancient maiden dames of Pheesgil, Lady Grisel Napier, and Madam Drumsturdy, a tall and raw-boned dowager in black taffeta with pearls, plumes and heartbreakers (or false ringlets) were all intently playing at the old-fashioned game of Primero.

"Hee, hee, my Lady Drumsturdy," said Mersington, simpering like an ape at his partner in his attempts to be pleasing, "the general is a kittle opponent. A spade led."

"Your Lordship will not turn my flank gif I can help it—'tis a knave;" replied the old cavalier, sorting his suite. "I ken Primero weel. Mony a time and oft, d—n me! I have played a round game at it, and Ombre, Knave-out-o'-doors, Post-and-pair on the head o' a kettle-drum, and mony a score o' roubles I have swept off the same gude table: but troth, Mersington, ye are waur to warsle wi' then a Don Cossack—(play, Sir George)—o' whom God wot, I have had some experience in my time."

"Ay, ay—hee, hee—a diamond was played," said Mersington, as the card party exchanged glances of impatience, confidently foreseeing the infliction of some of Sir Thomas's Russian reminiscences.

"Speaking o' Don Cossacks," said he, starting off without further preamble, and clanking his enormous spurs; "it was just this time thirty years ago that we sacked Smolensko and Kiow, after storming them from the Polanders. Dags and pistols! but my squadron of Cossacks shewed themselves born deevils that day. Sabre and spear was the cry. Some braw pickings we got, your ladyships, in that same province of Lithuania, which to an industrious cavalier, who knoweth the fashion of war, is as fine a place for free inquartering as the Garden of Eden would have been, d—n me!"

"Oh! Sir Thomas," said Lady Grisel deprecatingly. "But is it true that in Muscovy no man will either beck, bow, or veil bonnet to a woman in the streets?"

"I hope no true-born Russ would undervalue himsel' so far," replied Sir Thomas, stroking his silver beard. "He would as soon put his head in the fire as bend it to any woman, his ain mother even; and as for adoring beauty—udsdaggers! a Muscovite would sooner think of adoring his horse's tail. I assure you, ladies, that the great Duke of Muscovy himsel' would not permit his mother, wife, or daughter to eat at the same buird wi' him, even if it were to save their lives. 'Tis the law o' the land, and a very gude ane too."

Here the old ladies held up their hands and eyes, but the General continued.

"They are fine cheilds those same Russians though, and I will at one sliver cut the throat of any loon that gainsayeth it. Had your ladyships seen Salcroff's Black Cuirassiers sweeping ten thousand wild Tartars before them, and driving them with levelled lances into the foaming waters of the Vistula, it would have been a sight to mind o'. Udsdaggers! that was different work from riding owre a band o' puir psalm-singing deevils o' Covenanters, just as ane would trot owre a corn-rig. Ay, those were the days, and that was the service, for a pretty man! My Lord President, play if it please you."

"You are an awfu' man, Binns," said Mersington; "a perfect auld deil's buckie, and weel kent to be a most unrelenting tulzier, that caresna whether a man crieth quarter in our decent Scots' tongue, or in that o' an Englishman, Tartar, or other unco body, death being the doom o' all alike."

"And what for no, my lord?" rejoined this ferocious commander, knitting his formidable brows. "Are these times in whilk to shew mercy to low-born rapscallions? A bonny spot o' work this is in the north: these deevils the Clandonald o' Keppoch and the Fusileer Guard hae been at it ding-dong wi' pike and broadsword every day for this week past. But I have heard that Captain Crichton is off on the spur wi' some horse and dragoons, to tak' a turn against the Hielandmen; and if he sends a pockfu' o' heads now and then to the Council, he will not be riding aboon the King's commission."

"Oh, Sir Thomas!" ejaculated Lady Grisel again, "the brave are ever merciful."

"So, please your ladyship, I have often ridden by the side of a certain cavalier, Sir Archibald Napier of Bruntisfield, whom Montrose esteemed as brave a man as put foot in stirrup; and, like mysel', he shewed but small favour to the canting, crop-luggit, covenanting rapscallions o' his time. Puir Paton o' Meadowhead and Wallace o' Auchans, whom thrice at Pentland I had this very blade upraised to smite, were the only honest men that followed their banner. God sain them baith! for they were pretty men, and knew the wars like mysel'.—Lady Drumsturdy, a spade if you please."

"Sir Thomas," said the soft voice of Lady Grisel, "no marvel it is that the poor nonjurors shrink before you, even as from—from——"

"Our gude friend wi' the forkit tail," added Mersington, closing the sentence, while Dalyel's bushy beard shook with his laughter as he replied—

"Ou ay; and like Claver'se, Glenæ, Lag, and a few mair o' our leal royal commanders, I am proof to lead and steel—ha! ha! Weel may these sniveling loons, who sold their King for a groat, and sacrificed their country for its d—n'd Kirk, quail before the eye of a leal man and true. I am an auld gentleman trooper, and trailed a pike under the Muscovite eagle owre lang to hae mony remains o' tenderness, whilk is a failing I believe few folk will accuse me o'. Uds-daggers, Finland, I see you listening, my braw man. Your beard may grow white like mine (though, after the fashion o' these degenerate days, your chin is as smooth as a Christmas apple), but never will ye ride owre the spur-leathers in Tartar gore as I have done. Braw gallants as ye are, in your plate corslets and pinkit doublets, laced and perfumed, tasselled and tagged, and jagged and bedeevilled like state trumpeters, ye would be but puir hands at resisting a charge o' mailed horse or heavy dragoons."

"Under favour, General Dalyel," replied the handsome lieutenant laughing, "I hope not; and Monmouth's cavaliers found lately, that a stand of Scottish pikes are still as firm as when levelled on the fields of Sark or Otterburn. By my faith, their spurred horses recoiled from our solid squares like water from a rock."

"Awa'," replied Sir Thomas sternly; "it beseemeth not a laddie like you to venture an opinion on that fray at Sedgemoor. Had ye seen the field of Smolensko on the day that great battle was fought and won, then might ye speak o' sic matters. There, mair than a hundred thousand matchlocks and petronels rung like thunder in the frosty sky; bombs were bursting, cannon-shot and barbed arrow fleein' thick as hail; while helmet and corslet rang like siller bells to the clink o' cimitar and mace. Oh! for a deep wassail bowl to drink to the brave that fought there, for my auld heart warms to their memory. Like the wind o' their snowy deserts, the squadrons of horse swept with uplifted lances to the heidlong charge. Alexis on the right—Sinboirs on the left, and myself the leal Laird o' Binns, in the centre wi' the eagle—whoop! then came a crash, and all gave way before us, like a Dutchman's dyke when the dam breaks. Loud aboon a' the din o' war thundered the great battle-drum of the Muscovite host, carried on four horses, and having aucht loons loundering on't wi' wooden mells. Sedgemoor!—It was bairns' play to such a field as Smolensko; and gif mortal man gainsayeth it, there is the hand that will right the matter! I mind the fray as if 'twere yesterday; and I assure you, Lady Grisel, that I had a braw supper that night on the field, cooked from a horse's flank by some of the Tartar women I kept about me."

Tired of this conversation, Douglas left the old beaux to do the agreeable to the brocaded dowagers of the Canongate, and lounged through the glittering rooms, continuing his search for Annie Laurie. Leaning on the arm of the handsome Claverhouse, who over a coat of white velvet, richly laced and slashed, wore a sash and gorget of burnished gold, with the collar of the Thistle, the Countess of Dunbarton slowly promenaded past.

"Ah, laird of Finland," said she archly, "I know for whom you are still looking so anxiously."

"In sooth, madam, I scarcely know myself."

"All the better is such philosophy, for she has been coquetting all night with the young laird of Craigdarroch."

They parted. At that moment a flourish of music swept along the painted ceilings, and the dancers began to arrange themselves for a new cotillon. Douglas, now seriously angry, cast a rapid and impatient glance round the bright throng, and caught a glimpse of his fair one in all the glory of white satin, white lace and white pearls, her eyes sparkling with pleasure, and the braids of her auburn hair with diamonds and spangles. She was chatting gaily with Lady Mary Charteris, one of those beautiful romps who flourished in ancient Edina, notwithstanding the starched demureness of the time. Fearful of being anticipated, he advanced at once, and requested her hand for the next dance.

"And now, Finland," said she, placing her soft hand in his, "What have you to say for yourself?"

"How, fair Annie?"

"That until this moment you have never approached me; and I have been forced to endure the vanity of Craigdarroch, who, like all Claver'se gentlemen-troopers, thinks he is quite a Palladin, because he guards the High Commissioner, rides with the Parliament, and (like yourself) terrifies the old cummers of the Kailmarket, or some poor cock-lairdie, to abjure the Covenant, or hang on the next tree. Is it not so?"

Douglas laughed as his merry mistress spoke; for Craigdarroch was the only man in Edinburgh of whom he felt a little jealous, or whose influence he valued a rush. Tall and handsome, an accomplished gentleman, an expert horseman and fencer, and a brave and good-hearted fellow to boot, young Fergusson was altogether a rival quite calculated to create some uneasiness; and his whole regiment were a source of dread to the beaux and dandies of the capital.

There was a certain dashing and indescribable bearing attached to all the cavalier troopers of the Scottish Life Guard, which, with the unusual splendour of their garb and armour, their rank in society, courage in the field, and that high esprit-du-corps which necessarily pervaded a band so very exclusive and prætorian, made every one a formidable rival. Thus, notwithstanding his own rank, figure, and bearing, Douglas felt considerable anxiety whenever Craigdarroch approached his mistress; nor could he at times repress a sigh of anger and regret at her gaiety and volatility, which charmed him one moment and provoked him the next.

The cotillon commenced. Happy Walter and his beautiful Lilian were their vis-à-vis. They were chatting very gaily on the trivial matters of the day—De Scuderi's last, but ponderous romance—the new comedy performed by his Majesty's servants at the little theatre in the Tennis-court—new-fashioned suits of Genoa velvet laced with Bruxelles—gloves of Blois—perfumes and balls of pomme d'ambre—a witch that was to be burned next day on the Castlehill, by the economical provost and baillies, in the same bonfire lit in honour of the victory at Bothwell, on its eighth anniversary.

The whole city was agog "anent the worrying" (as the term was) of this famous sorceress, who had been unanimously condemned by a pious and intelligent jury (principally composed of Kirk-elders) for sailing across to Fife in a sieve instead of the Kinghorn cutter; for causing a neighbour's calf to have two heads; for raising a storm to sink the good ship Charles the Second of Leith, by performing certain diabolical cantrips over a kail-blade full of water; and various other enormities, which made every hair in the wigs of the fifteen Lords of Session and Justiciary stand on end with horror and amazement.

CHAPTER IV.

TWO LOVES FOR ONE HEART.

Oriana sighed as if her heart were breaking, and said to herself, dear friend, in a woful hour the boon was granted.

AMADIS OF GAUL.

Notwithstanding the graces of her person and richness of her attire, there were many bright and beautiful beings present who attracted more attention than the timid and retiring Lilian Napier; but in her whole air and manner it is not easy to imagine a girl more exquisitely lady-like. Her long eyelashes were drooped upon her soft and changing cheek, veiling her soft glances, and imparting to her eyes an expression of timidity and modesty, which lent additional charms to the fine features of her adorable little face. The ball delighted, the music exhilarated her; and she soon raised her head, like a flower when the dew is past. Her blue eyes were full of animation; her cheek was flushed; the most enchanting grace was in all her motions. She was glorious; and Walter felt that he adored her.

Her friend, gay Annie, outshone her in showy and dazzling beauty; but to those who knew and loved the winning manner of Lilian, and beheld how her cheek mantled with the emotions of her heart, while her eyes beamed with the purest good-nature and vivacity, she was indeed one without a peer (as the King said of her mailed ancestor), and one fair star that charms us thus, is worth a thousand of those brighter planets that shine alike on all.

But nothing could be more brilliant than the loveliness of Annie. Tall, full, and graceful, in all the bloom of twenty, and radiant with health, white satin, and diamonds, she excited the admiration of her companions, while little Lilian touched their hearts. There were many fair girls present, who, like mistress Laurie, had in their manners a considerable dash of Parisian coquetry, which is always excessively attractive to beaux, though a timid and retiring girl, like Lilian, is sure, in the end, to prove the most loveable and devoted.

At that time, the tone of society in Edinburgh was very different from what it had been during the rampant reign of Presbyterianism, and equally so from that which characterized it twenty years afterwards, when the gloom, depression, and humiliation of the country, and the empty desolation of the capital "communicated to the manners and fashions of society a stiff reserve, precise moral carriage, and a species of decorum amounting to moroseness." At the period of our narrative, it was very different. The recent residence of foreign ambassadors and influence of a court, the existence of a parliament—(for centralization, that grand curse of Scotland, was then unknown)—the long intercourse with France, in the armies of which all younger sons and cavaliers of good family took a turn of service, had communicated a lightness to the manners of the aristocracy, very different indeed from the "moroseness" which succeeded the Revolution, and still more so that great national paralysis, the Union, which was so long a source of regret to our grandfathers.

Walter longed to change the commonplace tenor of the conversation, mentioned in the last chapter, and endeavoured gradually to broach the sentiments that lay nearest his heart; but he either wanted tact, or the figures of the dance put him out, or a crowded room was not quite the place for it. The young lady too was somewhat reserved; she remembered the affair of the glove, and thought it quite necessary to be so.

"So you will not go with me to-morrow to see this old witch burned?" said he.

Lilian shuddered.

"Ah, how could you think of it?"

"Lady Mary of Charteris is going—all the Earl of Dumfries' windows are occupied, but I think I could procure you a seat somewhere, overlooking the Castle-hill."

"I would not go for the wealth of the Indies. Oh, is it not said that she confessed some horrible things?"

"As you would have done, fair Lilian, if questioned in the same manner."

"And what did she reveal?"

"That she was kissed and christened anew by the devil, whom she met at the Gallowlee one mirk midnight, when he imprinted his mark between her shoulders; and though the minister of St. Giles and my Lord Mersington ran a long needle thrice through the infernal signet, she neither winced nor betrayed the least uneasiness."

"Betouch us too! The wicked woman deserves to die—but her death—how horrible! And she really sold her soul? Oh, what appearance had the devil—and what said he?"

"If all be true that appears in the Mercurius Caledonius, which I saw to-day in Blair's Coffee-house, Satan is a very well-bred and gentlemanlike man," replied Walter, laughing. "He wore a lowland bonnet, and had his nether foot in a buff boot to conceal its deformity. He was somewhat rough, and had a beard of iron wire. He kissed the witch whose spells had conjured him up, and said in husky French, 'Permittez moi, Madame,' adding thereafter in our kindly Scottish, 'What's your will, cummer?'

"And so Monsieur Le Diable kissed her? He has long been proverbial for very bad taste. His witches are always so old, so ugly, so hideous!"

"After giving her all the power she required, Master Mahoud vanished in a whirlwind."

With all the credulity incident to the time, and though deeply imbued with a sense of the ridiculous, Lilian shuddered; but be it remembered, that the grave and learned senators of the College of Justice had that very morning trembled at the same appalling recital.

"And the power," she faltered.

"Ample it was indeed. She could brew hell-kail, and wherever it was sprinkled the soil was scorched, the herbs were blasted, and whoever trod thereon died. Water would not drown, nor hemp hang her. She could bewitch cattle that were without St. Mungo's knot on their tail."

"Mungo—poh! he was a papist."

"And blight children, and bring sickness on her enemies by roasting waxen images, and in short do more mischief than was contained in wise King James's Dæmonology, or the box of Pandora."

"Pandora—was she a papist too?—Away with this witch! she must indeed be an ill woman. But now, Mr. Fenton, do you really believe in all the charms of these old enchantresses?"

"No, but I do devoutly in those of the young," he added gaily, as he led her down the dance, resigned her to Douglas, and turned to Annie Laurie, who whispered,

"Saw ye who overheard your tête-à-tête?"

"No," he replied, laughing; "but perhaps it was the great subject thereof."

"One not much better, certes. He is behind you now."

Walter turned and beheld the large dark eyes of Lord Clermistonlee, fixedly regarding him with an expression too hostile to be misunderstood. He replied by a glance as haughty and as stern; but a cold and inexplicable smile curled the proud lip of the handsome roué, as he turned slowly away, and addressed himself to Lady Charteris, the beautiful blonde, who rustled in a ponderous suit of brocade, and stood five feet seven inches independent of "cork-heeled shoon," being in every sense of the word what the Scotch were wont to consider a "fine" woman, one of those stately and patagonian beauties, of whom once in a time Edinburgh could always boast a large stock, but who appear to have vanished with the hoops and fardingales, the bobwigs and laced coats, the gentlemanly spirit and the sterling worth of the "last century."

In the middle of the cotillon, Fergusson of Craigdarroch, who had been looking unutterable things for some time, now approached, and twisting his moustachios, said with cold hauteur,

"Your humble servant, Mr. Douglas."

"Craigdarroch, yours," rejoined Finland, quite as coldly, and they surveyed each other from head to foot.

"I requested the honour of Mistress Laurie's hand for this cotillon."

"Indeed!" replied Finland, in the same cavalier tone, and raising his eyebrows with a well-bred stare of surprise. "You have forfeited it by being too late, however."

"You will not resign in my favour?"

"Zounds!" said Finland, frowning. Fergusson's cheek glowed with passion.

"You have your rapier with you?"

"Here, at your service," replied Douglas, in the same low tone, and bit his glove.

"Good. When the cotillon closes I will be in the garden, where the moonlight is bright enough to enable us to come to a proper understanding." Douglas nodded significantly, and his rival withdrew. Annie, who had been gaily chatting for a minute with some passer, had not heard what passed—Lilian Napier did, or at least, she saw enough to alarm her. Douglas went through the cotillon with his usual gaiety and grace; and after a short promenade, handed his unconscious partner to a seat; but instead of posting himself behind it as usual, to Annie's great surprise and indignation, he beckoned Walter Fenton, and they left the room together.

At that moment Lilian, with a pale lip and agitated eye, glided to the side of her friend, and whispered:

"Where has the Laird of Finland gone?"

"I know not, and I care not," replied Annie, pettishly, flirting her large fan; "but the varlet left me abruptly enough, and 'tis not his wont. This comes of loving soldiers—fie!"

"O! Annie," said Lilian, in a breathless voice, "they have followed Craigdarroch to the garden. There has been a feud about your dancing with one when engaged to the other; and something terrible will assuredly come of it."

"Preserve me, Heaven! O! in my heedlessness I did so, and they will be fighting about it—blood ever comes of a Scotsman's quarrel. My God! Lilian—where is the Earl—the Countess—to whom shall I speak? Stay—let us not spoil the merriment around us. The garden, said you? I know the way, and if the cavaliers are there, I will soon make them sheath their rapiers, I warrant you."

Lilian took her arm; and though it was not easy for two such bright stars to leave their orbit unseen, they contrived, to elude observation, to glide down stairs, and reach the old-fashioned garden, on the rich flower-beds, leaden nymphs and corydons, box-edged walks and thick green holly hedges of which, several flakes of strong light fell in long ruddy lines from the grated windows of the mansion.

The full round moon was sailing in summer radiance through clouds of fleecy whiteness, and threw her slanting beams in showers of silver on the shrubbery and terraces of the garden. All was still and silent; the agitated girls could not perceive any one; but, trembling, they listened fearfully for the clash of swords or the jingle of spurs.

"Oh! if they should have gone to the fields, where we cannot follow them!" murmured Annie, in great agitation. "God guide me!" she added, pressing her hands upon her temples, and displaying, as she did so, two beautiful and braceleted arms, that shone like alabaster in the moonlight. "O! if blood is shed for me, I will never smile more. Ah! surely they will not fight about such a trifle as my preference in a cotillon."

"Dear Annie, think you your love is a trifle to spirits as these? They will fight, and desperately too. Douglas bit his glove, and that, Aunt Grisel says, is an old border sign of deadly feud; Craigdarroch will never forgive it; and I saw his black eyes flash fire, as he bit his gauntlet in reply, and turned sharply away on his heel."

At that moment they heard the voice of Douglas. He was close by, but one of those dark holly hedges, so common in ancient gardens, interposed its thick impervious screen between them.

"'Tis well!" he exclaimed; "but ere we come to slash the doublets we were born in, Walter, unclasp this iron shell of mine: Craigdarroch is minus a corslet, and we must fight on equal terms. A merry moonlight, gentlemen, for a camisadoe. A clear field, and no favour. Shall we fight with our buff gloves on?"

"That is as you please," replied another guardsman, the young Laird of Holsterlee, who was Craigdarroch's second. "But speak softly, or Dunbarton's guard of Dragoons may overhear us. Ah! gentlemen, this cometh of the sin of promiscuous dancing—men mingling with women, whilk is ane abomination in the sight of the Lord!" he added in a sing-song voice. "Ha! ha! so say the dogs of the Covenant. Are ye ready, sirs!"

"All ready," replied Craigdarroch, unsheathing his long troop-sword.

"Be brief, gallants," said Holsterlee, "and sink points on the first blood drawn. I hope the the Earl's guests will not disturb us; but ere ye tilt at each other's throats, Finland, as a dear friend to both, I ask thee to apologise to Craigdarroch."

"Apologise to the devil!" rejoined Douglas, as he threw away his corslet and plumed hat, drew his rapier, and stood on the defensive, while his antagonist confronted him in the same manner. Handsome, richly garbed, graceful, and athletic, they would have formed a noble study for an artist, as they remained steadily watching each other, their eyes sparkling, and their long keen blades gleaming like blue fire in the moonlight. Such was the aspect they presented when the terrified girls hurried by a circuitous path towards them.

"Oh! Finland—Finland!" muttered Annie.

A well-bred man of the present day, on seeing a lady, whose hand he had engaged, dancing with another, would not take any unpleasant notice of it, however mortifying the preference might be; but not so the bold cavalier of the seventeenth century. To fight or be dishonoured were the only alternatives. Craigdarroch was infuriated, and Finland rapidly found his blood boiling up in turn; but ere a blow could be struck, his beautiful Annie, like a fairy or angel of peace, glided between them, and the menacing points of the rapiers were lowered at her approach.

"Sheath your swords this instant, sirs!" said she, with a half-playful, half-earnest imperiousness, which the gentlemen showed no disposition to resist. "Up with them! and remember it was an ancient rule of chivalry that knights combatants became friends at a woman's approach. Come hither, Mr. Holster, and tell me what these gay rufflers have quarrelled about."

"Yourself, fair madam," replied Holsterlee, a tall athletic young man, whose fair complexion consorted ill with a sable wig, and in whose sporting air there was a certain jaunty swagger, bordering on the vulgar, but acquired chiefly by frequenting Blair's Coffee-house at the Pillars, the Race-course at Leith, and every tavern and stew wherever he happened to be quartered—Clermistonlee's furious dinner-parties, and the company of all the horsemongers, bucks, bullies, and courtezans in the city;—"yourself, fair madam; and on my honour, I know no prize in all broad Scotland so well worth tempting buff under bilboa for."

"Prize, sir!" retorted Annie. "Do you talk of me as if I were your famous roan horse, or the city purse you expect it to win at Easter? Go to, sir! Certes, gentlemen, you honour me greatly by accounting me merely a sword-player's prize—the guerdon of a duello between two cut-throats! I am infinitely obliged to you," she added curtseying low. "But if you are determined to fight, O do so, good sirs," she continued, with a merry laugh; "but I am not for you, Finland, at all events."

"Indeed! madam," rejoined Finland, as he bit his nether lip, and grasped his sword. "Craigdarroch, then, I presume is the favoured——"

"Nor he either, quotha!"

"Ha, ha!—ho, ho!" shouted Holsterlee. "May the great diabulus roast me in my own ribs if this isn't good! Who then, fair Annie?"

"What is it to such as thee, sirrah?" she replied, stamping her pretty foot scornfully; but the beautiful rogue laughed as she added slowly, "I have not yet made up my mind whether to accept Sir Thomas Dalyel of the Binns, or that very accomplished cavalier——"

"Who? who?" they all asked.

"Lord Mersington."

"Zounds!" laughed Holsterlee; "but that old cock hath a roost-hen already—a brave girl—a bouncer that can coquette and ruffle it, without snaffle or martingale; a thorough-pacer, by the Lord—ho, ho!"

"As this is her choice," said Douglas, who perfectly understood the humour of his waggish mistress, "I think, Craigdarroch, we had better shake hands on't, as neither will be a winner in this affair."

"Yes, yes—shake hands like whipped schoolboys, and quarrel no more. So, up with your rapiers!—or, as the comedy says, the dew will rust them. But as a penance on you, Mr. Douglas, for fighting without my express permission, I shall dance with the Laird of Craigdarroch, and no one else, while you lead out old Dame Drumsturdy, or some such witch, whose most devoted you must be for the remainder of the night."

"How droll! O! I shall die with laughing," cried Lilian, clasping her hands with delight at this happy conclusion.

"Nay—fair Annie," said Douglas, "under favour—I must implore——"

"Not a word, sir, of extenuation or excuse. You shall walk a minuet with old Lady Drumsturdy, who is as charming as patches, puffs, and rouge can make her."

Holsterlee laughed till the braces of his corslet started.

"Tush! Annie—O by all the devils, I shall be the laughing-stock of the whole city."

"I care not."

"Gadzooks! I'll have a duel with old Dalyel next."

"I care not. And, ah! Mr. Fenton, I must find a way to punish you too. But come, Lilian, love—Craigdarroch, your hand."

Douglas joined in the laugh against himself, as Annie was led off by his rival, while Walter gave his hand to Lilian, and they hastened back to the ball-room in the happiest mood. Douglas, while loitering a little behind to clasp the braces of his cuirass, was attracted by the voice of Lord Clermistonlee, a man whom, of all others in Edinburgh, he disliked, in consequence of an old grudge between them, when they exchanged blows in a brawl at Blair's Coffee-house. Though he scorned being a spy upon his Lordship, the fact of his overhearing the name of Lilian Napier pronounced in a very audible whisper—his knowledge of the speaker's passion, and of what he was capable—formed a sufficient whet to his curiosity, and were, he deemed, quite a warrant for assuming the unpleasant part of eavesdropper.

Clermistonlee was standing near a gate, which afforded communication between the crowded courtyard and the quiet gardens, and through its iron bars the bright moonlight streamed upon the rich embroidery of his gay attire, on the brilliants of his hat-band, buckles, and silver-hilted rapier. Near him stood a stout and thickset old man in green livery, having a massive crest and coronet worked on each sleeve. A broad belt encircled his waist, and sustained a heavy basket-hilted sword. He was a little intoxicated, and balancing himself on one leg, snapped his fingers while chaunting the merry old catch,—

"Though I go bare, take ye no care
I nothing am acolde;
I stuff my skinne so full within,
With jollie gude ale and old.

Back and side go bare, go bare,
Both foot and hand go colde;
But bellie, God give thee gude ale enough,
Whether it be newe or olde.

I love no roste, but a nut-brown toste——"

"God's curse, rascal!" said his master angrily, "in this mood you will never arrange the matter satisfactorily."

"Trust me, my Lord, trust me," stammered Juden, rubbing his bald pate with a sudden air of perplexity, which showed that the matter referred to had quite escaped him; "but ane needs a lang spoon to sup kail wi' the deil, and you are kittler than the great serpent himsel."

"Gadzooks! old limb of Beelzebub, thou art drunk already; but hear me, Juden, if you fail in this service to-night, old though ye be, by the Heaven that hears us, I will handle my whip in such wise that a coffin will be your next resting place."

The eyes of the fierce Lord gleamed as he spoke, though his face was pale with that white fury which is ever the index of a bad and bitter heart, and is much more to be dreaded than the red flush of passion that suffuses a generous brow.

"How many followers hath the dame of Bruntisfield in her train to-night?"

"Four, my Lord—her chairmen."

"Armed, of course?"

"Like myself, ilk ane wi' a gude basket-hilted whinger. They are a' in Lucky Tippeny's Changehouse outbye, birling the ale cogue like sae many lords or troopers."

"All the better. Here is money—join them, and spare not to push the jorum till they become like blind puppies; but, peril of thy life, Juden, keep sober, though ale, usquebaugh, and even wine flow like water, if the knaves will it. When Lady Grisel summons them, if they are able to stand, by the head of the King I will truncheon thee in famous fashion. Dost comprehend, jolt-head?"

"The upshot, my Lord, the upshot?"

"When Lady Bruntisfield's people are summoned—but who is with you to-night?"

"The hail household—just Jock, my sister's son. Wha else would there be?"

"The devil! that fellow is a born gomeral, like his uncle, and will spoil all."

"Jock's gey gleg at the uptak', and mair kens-peckle than ye think. My certie, my Lord, there are mair fules in the world than Jock, puir man—fules that canna keep their fingers out of the fire."

"Silence, or I will certainly beat thee. When the Napiers' chairs are summoned, you will immediately bear off that containing the young lady Lilian, without the delay of a moment."

"No to Bruntisfield, I warrant!" rejoined Juden, with a bright leer of intelligence.

"'Sdeath no—to the Place of Drumsheugh."

"Ha! ha! ha! My certie, gif this plot succeeds, there will be a braw clamjamfray in the toun the morn! But I hope the business will be owre in time to let me be at the tar-barrelling. 'Twill be a braw sight. O that it were Lucky Elshender's! then I might ride up Meg, puir beastie, to see hersel revenged for that weary fit o' the wheez-lock——"

"Silence, addlepate. I go to Beatrix Gilruth. Wo to thee, if one tittle of my injunctions be forgotten."

Juden bowed with a tipsy air of respect, and withdrew, while Lord Clermistonlee rolled his furred rocquelaure about him, and, stepping through the postern gate, issued into the Potter's Row, and hurried away at a quick pace.

"Good even, my Lord," said Douglas, looking scornfully after him. "If I mar not your precious plot to-night, may I never march more!"

He sprang up the stair, and, forgetful of the penance his playful mistress had assigned him, sought an opportunity of communicating to Lady Grisel or to Walter Fenton this new plot of Clermistonlee, but none occurred. The former was too deeply engaged with General Dalyel in the intricacies of ombre or primero, and the mode of impaling among the Tartars, and the latter in the more delightful occupation of squiring Lilian from room to room, or exchanging the hand-in-hand mazes of the merry couranto for a moonlight promenade on the flowery terraces of the garden.

Douglas became deeply anxious; the night wore apace, and the hour rapidly approached when the guests would be departing, for already had the roll of the ten o'clock drum rung through the thoroughfares of the city, and these late balls and suppers were but a new innovation of the time, an introduction by Mary of Modena.

CHAPTER V.

BEATRIX GILRUTH.

Her heart was full
Of passions which had found no natural scope.
She hated men because they loved not her,
And hated women because they were beloved,
And thus in wrath, in hatred and despair,
She tempted hell.——
THE CURSE OF KEHAMA.

Clermistonlee walked hurriedly forward, with his mantle rolled about him, his hat flapped over his eyes, and his sword-hilt ready at hand, for his amorous quarrels and politics had, through life, created him innumerable enemies. He muttered as he went, and his cheek flushed at times, though his nether lip was pale as marble, and under the broad shadow of his Spanish beaver his fierce dark eyes burned like two sparks of fire.

Inflamed by wine and the beauty of Lilian, who had never appeared so enchanting as in her ball-dress, he had determined that very night to make another desperate attempt to obtain possession of her person, at whatever ultimate danger and odium. It was curious how strongly the sentiments of pride, avarice, and revenge, mingled with his love-musings;—his matchless pride was fired by the idea of the woman he loved being given to another—he had revenge to be gratified because, with ill-disguised loathing, she had shrunk from his addresses, and avarice crowned all, as he doubted not if by fair means or foul he obtained her hand, the entail of Bruntisfield and the Wrytes would soon become a dead letter. In effect, it was so already. But once a prisoner in his power, even for a single night, he knew that shame and her injured reputation would compel her to become his wife.

Full of these thoughts, which crowded and chased each other in rapid succession through his unsettled brain, he strode forward at a quick pace, impatient for the triumphant consummation of his projects. The city was silent and dark, for the moon had now become obscured, and there were no lamps to light the narrow ways through which he hurried. In the High Street a few oil lanterns had been suspended about four years before by the Provost, Sir George Drummond, of Milnab, and these at long intervals shed a pale and sickly light; but all the numerous alleys diverging from this great thoroughfare were still involved in Cimmerian darkness. Deserted as they were, the cogitations of Clermistonlee were often interrupted by scraps of conversation from belated passengers, or stair-head gossips, who were making all secure for the night, and maintained at the top of their voices a colloquy with their neighbours opposite.

"Ken ye cummer, at what hour the morn that vile witch is to be worrit?" screamed one.

"When the Tron Kirk bell rings aucht. My Lord Provost, the Baillies and the Captain of the Guard are to eat the deid-chack at Hughie Blair's twa hours thereafter. Fie upon the greedy gleds that meet to revel and roister oure a puir sinner's departure, and to drink Gascony and Rhenish like spring water, though they be eight-pence the quart, and at this time when a puir man's four hours' draught——"

"But gif a' be true, nane hae sae well deservit bridle and faggot, since that monster o' iniquity, Weir, was burnt wi' his staff, whilk my ain faither, as honest a body as ever wore the blue ribbon at his lug, often met stoting down the Bow, for a plack's worth o' snuff for its hellicate master. And mair, cummer——"

But Clermistonlee hurried on, and passing the Porte of the Potter's Row, hurried down the steep College Wynd, where picturesque edifices of vast strength and unknown antiquity towered up on each side of the way, and excluded the pale light of the stars. A single ray from a window revealed the rich dresses of two gentlemen who were slowly ascending.

"I insist upon giving you a Kelso convoy, my Lord," said one.

"A devil of a dark night, Laird, especially for a summer one—but I vow to ye, Libberton, that my Lord Perth's claret has cast a glamour oure me."

"Hold up, Balcarris, or ye'll measure your length in the gutter; and that would be a braw place for the Lord High Treasurer to be found in the morning. Thank God, the gate is no a broad ane. I mind when Cromwell, that's now roasting in a pretty hot place—ahoa! who goes there? Draw, Balcarris—it's some spy o' the States-General—a keeper o' conventicles contrary to proclamation. Stand, ye deil's buckie—for King or Covenant?"

"For the King!" cried Clermistonlee; and, irritated by their stopping the narrow way, he unceremoniously tumbled the inebriated laird of Libberton to the right and the Treasurer to the left, as he broke past and hurried into the Cowgate (the ancient comunis via), then the residence of aristocratic exclusives. An old author,* who wrote in the sixteenth century, informs us "that the nobility and chief senators of the city dwell in the Cowgate—via vaccarum in qua habitant patricii et senatores urbis;" and that "the palaces of the chief men of the nation are also there; that none of the houses are mean or vulgar, but, on the contrary, all magnificent—sed omnia magnified."

* Munster Cosmograph, p, 52.

The troubles of Clermistonlee were not yet over. On issuing into the High Street a crowd of tipsy roisterers, young bucks, students, and Life Guards, burst out of Hugh Blair's tavern, with shouts of laughter and drawn swords, ripe for mischief. They beat back the axes of the watch, and joining hands in one long line, danced down the broad street, vociferously chaunting the merry old ditty—

"Now let us drinke,
Till we nod and winke,
Even as good fellows should do;
We shall not misse
To have the blisse
Good wine doth bring men to!"

"Hold fast, my brethren," cried one whom his lordship recognised to be the Reverend Mr. Joram, the famous cavalier chaplain of Dunbarton's Foot. "Hold fast—and every lass we meet must kiss us all from right to left—ay, d—me! or drink a pint of hot sack at one gulp."

"Bravo!" shouted the rest. "Once, twice, thrice, and away!"—and onward they came, hand in hand, dancing and singing with stentorian voices that made the whole street ring. Clermistonlee drew his rapier, and shrunk under the carved arches of those stone arcades which supported the houses on both sides of the way; and, without perceiving him, this crowd of merry fellows passed on to beat the watch and terrify the sleepy denizens of other quarters. Glad of his escape—for he had confidently expected a dangerous brawl—Clermistonlee hurried down Mary King's Close.

Debauched and roué as he was, he felt an involuntary shudder on descending into the gloomy precincts of that deserted street, a locality shunned by all since the plague had swept off its entire inhabitants. For a hundred years its houses remained closed, and gradually it became a place of mystery and horror, the abode of a thousand spectres and nameless terrors. Superstition peopled it with inhabitants, whom all feared, and none cared to succeed.

Those who had been foolhardy enough to peep through the windows after nightfall, saw within the spectres of the long-departed denizens engaged in their wonted occupations—headless forms danced through the moonlit apartments, and on one occasion a godly minister and two pious elders were scared out of their senses, by the terrible vision of a raw head and blood-dripping arm, which protruded from the wall in this terrible street, and flourished a sword above their heads, and many other terrors which are duly chronicled in that old calender of diablerie, Satan's Invisible World.

Scarcely a foot's space from his elbows on either hand, the tall mansions rose up to a great height, empty, dark, and desolate, with their iron-barred and shadowy windows decaying and rattling in the gusts that swept through the mouldering chambers. Who Mary King was, is now unknown; but though the alley is roofless and ruined, with weeds, wallflowers, and grass, and even little trees, flourishing luxuriantly among the falling walls, her name may still be seen painted on the street corner. Clermistonlee was not without a strong share of the superstition incident to the time and country, and he certainly quickened his pace as he turned down the steep alley towards the dark loch, the waters of which rippled in little wavelets against the bank, then named Warriston Brae. The eastern sluice was shut, for there was a whisper abroad of coming strife, in which the city might require all the strength of its fortifications; and thus in a few weeks the loch had risen many feet above its usual margin. The ferry boat was chained to a stake, against which it jarred heavily, as the west wind swept over the darkened water.

It was down this steep bank that the Earl of Arran and his son rushed, after being defeated in their famous feudal battle in the High Street; and finding a collier's horse at the edge of the loch, leaped upon its back, and though both were sheathed in complete armour, forced it to swim them over to the opposite bank. And down the same place, the wild young master of Gray dragged the fair mistress Carnegie, whom, sword in hand, he had torn from her fathers house, and boated over the loch, attended by twelve men-at-arms.

Lustily the impatient Lord thundered at the door of the ferryman's cottage; but it was long ere the unwilling Charon of the passage attended his summons.

"Hallo, boatmen! Harkee, fellow, truss your points and come forth," he cried in his usual overbearing manner. All cavaliers of the time spoke thus towards inferiors; but Clermistonlee carried it to an outrageous extent. "Come forth, rascal, or I will chastise thee so tremendously, that thou wilt never pull paddle again, in this world at least."

"Awa, ye impudent limmer, awa!" replied a voice from the profundity of a box-bed. "Is that the way to ding at a douce man's yett? Awa, ye misleared loon, or I tak' my dag frae the brace, and send a bullet through your cracked harnpan."

A terrible oath burst from Clermistonlee, for he was frenzied by wine, passion, and delay. "Insolent runnion! attend me, or by —— I will beat down the door, and twist thy whaisling hause! Beware thee, fool," he added in a low tone; "I am the Lord Clermistonlee!"

On hearing that terrible name the affrighted boatman sprang from bed; an exclamation of fear and much anxious whispering followed. The door was immediately opened by a lean and withered old man, whose face was a mass of wrinkles. Scarcely daring to raise his grey twinkling eyes, he stood lamp in hand, cringing and bowing his bald head with the most abject humility before Clermistonlee, who cut short his muttered apologies by saying,

"Unmoor, dyvour loon, and pull me across the loch, if you would be spared the beating I owe you."

The old ferryman hurriedly dragged his leather galligaskins over his hodden grey breeches, donned his skyblue coat and broad bonnet, and bowing at every step of the way, though inwardly cursing the summons from his cosy nest and gudewife's side, led the proud Baron towards the little boat, for the use of which he paid a yearly rental to the city. They stepped on board; he unlocked the mooring-chain and shoved off.

Fed by the springs of the castle-rock and the rivulets that gurgled down its northern bank, the loch had of late become considerably swollen, and now rose high upon the bastions of the Well-house-tower. It was without current, and, save the ripple raised by the soft west wind, was still and motionless as a lake of ink.

Clermistonlee, with his rocquelaure rolled around him, and his broad beaver with its heavy plumage shading his face, lounged silently in the stern, watching the gigantic features of the city as they rose in sable outline behind him, towering up from the lake like a vast array of castles, or a barrier of splintered rock, a forest of gables and chimnies, whose summits shot upwards in a thousand fantastic shapes.

To the westward, from a cliff of perpendicular rock, three hundred feet in height, rose the towers of the castle. Beneath the gloomy shadow of this basaltic mass the loch vanished away into obscurity; but from under its impending brow there gleamed a light that tremulously shed one long red ray across the dark bosom of the water. It shone from the guard-fire in the Well-house-tower. Save the measured dash of the oars, and the creaking of the boat, all was so still that Clermistonlee heard the pulsations of his own evil heart.

Suddenly the moon gushed forth a glorious blaze of light between the flying clouds. Magnificent was the effect of that silver splendour, and wondrous was the beauty it lent to that romantic scene. High over the jagged outline of the tall city it streamed aslant, and its thousand points and pinnacles became tipped with instant light. The great stone turrets, the massive towers and angular bastions of the Castle and its perpendicular cliffs were thrown forward, some in silver light, while others remained in sombre shadow. To its base the still loch rolled like a silver mirror, while the dewy alders, the waving osiers and bending willows that fringed its northern bank, shone like fairy trees of gleaming crystal.

Even the old boatman paused for a moment and looked around him. City, rock, wood, and water, all shone in the magnificent moonlight, but once more the gathering vapours obscured the shining source, and the whole faded like a vision. The varied masses of the city and its stupendous fortress sank again into darkness, and once more the sheet of water rolled to their base a black and foetid lake. At that moment the boat grounded, the passenger sprang ashore, and addressed the boatmen in his usual style:—

"Peril of thy life, knave, tarry till my return, or thy fee will contain more cudgel-blows than bonnet-pieces."

"Yes, my Lord, yes," stammered the poor man, whose teeth chattered with cold and fear: meanwhile his imperious employer sprang up the bank, and hurried on, till, reaching the Lang Dykes, a road which led westward, and which he traversed until he gained the Kirk-brae-head, where on one hand the road branched off towards the castle rock, and on the other plunged down between thick copsewood towards the secluded village of the Dean, which lay at the bottom of a deep dell overhung by the richest foliage.

By the margin of the Loch, and surrounded by an ample churchyard, where the long grass waved and the yew-trees cast their solemn shadows on many an ancient grave, where the moss-grown headstones, half sunk in earth and obliterated by time, marked the resting-place of the dead of other days, the old cross kirk of St. Cuthbert reared up its dark façade with a gloomy square tower and pointed spire surmounting its nave and transept. There slept all the ancestors of Clermistonlee; he cast but a glance at its vast outline and hurried on. The occasional stars alone gleamed through its mullioned windows, for the tapers of the midnight votary had long since been quenched on the altars of Cuthbert and St. Anne the mother of the Virgin.

Under a mouldering gateway, where two stone wyverns with forked tails and outspread wings, reared up on their mossy columns, Clermistonlee paused for a moment—for a host of strange fancies and burning thoughts, the memories of other days, crowded fast upon his mind as he surveyed the long gloomy vista beyond.

It led to his mansion of Drumsheugh.

The avenue was long and dark; thick oaks and beeches, clothed with the most luxuriant foliage of summer, formed a leafy arcade, which seemed dark and impervious as if hewn through the bowels of a mountain.

"Long, long it is," thought he, "since the hoof of the trooper's horse, or the blast of the hunter's horn, the voice of mirth, or the merry voice of a woman awoke these lonely echoes. Alison—Alison—pshaw! I am another man now," he added aloud, and endeavoured to whistle a fashionable couranto, as he walked up the grass-grown avenue, at a pace which soon brought him to the door of the house, where again he made a brief pause.

The mansion was a high and narrow edifice, built on the very verge of a cliff overhanging the water of Leith, that struggled through a deep and wooded gorge a hundred feet below, and the rock was so abrupt that a plumb-line could have reached without impediment from one of the turrets to the rocky bed of the river.

The house had the usual Scottish gablets, turrets at the angles and machecoulis between. Its windows were all thickly barred, dark, silent, and in many places broken. The vanes creaked mournfully in concert with the rooks and the wind that sighed through the ancient oaks. All else was silent as the grave. There came no sound from the mansion; none from the empty stalls of the stable court, and none from the tenantless perches of the Falconry.

On the door-lintel, notwithstanding the darkness, Clermistonlee could decypher I fear God onlye, 1506, a legend placed there by his pious forefathers to exclude witches and evil spirits, on whom it was supposed that the name of the Deity would act as a spell of potence. The present Lord was as evil a spirit as the city contained; but the legend neither affected him or his purpose, and he furiously tirled at the risp and kicked at the door till the whole house rang to the noise. A ray of light streamed through the key-hole, and vizzying slit of the door, on the green leaves and dewy grass, and the approach of a slip-shod female was heard.

"Who knocks so late?" asked a shrill voice. "A proper hour and a pleasant to disturb folk. Marry, Deil stick the visitor," she added, withdrawing the ponderous bolts, and opening the door.

"As of old, good Beatrix, you are still without fear," said Clermistonlee.

"Why? because I am without hope," she rejoined in a fierce tone. "Fear! what should I fear? Did I not know it was thee? But what fool's errand or knavish purpose brings thee here now?"

"Silence, Mistress Malapert!"

There was a momentary pause, and a terrible glance—one at least of intense expression passed between these two. A sentence will explain it.

When Clermistonlee was but a youth, Beatrix though ten years his senior, was among the first of his loves, and by her own futile endeavours to ensnare the heir of a powerful Baron, became one of the first victims of his gallantry; she was then a beautiful and artful woman; but gradually her beauty faded, her arts failed, and her spirits sank: abandoned by her friends, and despised by her betrayer, she had long, long since lost sight of every hope of marriage, or of regaining an honourable position in life, and now she had sunk so low as to be a mere abject dependant, a vile panderer to the amours of her early lover—an entrapper of others; and when the old mansion was abandoned to the crows and spiders, she had remained there, a half-forgotten pensioner on his bounty—a creature only to be remembered when her vile services were required. Now she was old, wrinkled, and hideous; but Clermistonlee in his fortieth year seemed as gay and as young, as in the days when first he pressed her to his bosom. Beatrix was now fifty!

These ten years made a world of difference between them.

He felt all her eagle glance conveyed, but uttering a very cavalier-like malediction, strode along the passage or ambulatory with his bright spurs clanking, and his white plumes waving as gallantly as they had done twenty years before. How different was the aspect of Beatrix! Crime, mental misery, and a life of disease and dissipation made her seem many years older than she was. She stooped much at times, and was poorly clad in garments that like herself had seen better days. Her head was covered by a dirty long-eared linen cap, beneath which a few grizzled hairs escaped to wander over a face that, like her hands and neck, had by the use of lotions and essences become a mass of saffron wrinkles. Her eyes were grey, hollow, keen, and unpleasant in expression; her lips thin and colourless, and grey hairs were appearing on her chin.

"Zounds!" thought Clermistonlee, as he loathingly gazed upon her; "can this old kite be the creature I once loved?"

By the course of time and desertion, the house seemed as much dilapidated as its occupant; but an air of desolate grandeur pervaded its lofty chambers and echoing corridors. Masses of the frescoed ceiling had in many places fallen down; in others the wainscoting had given way, revealing the rough masonry behind. The once gaudy tapestry hung mouldering on its tenter-hooks, and a dreary air of dusky dampness was everywhere apparent. A thousand spiders spun their nets undisturbed across the unopened windows and unentered doorways; and through the rattling casements the hurrying clouds were seen afar off chasing each other in masses across the pale-faced moon and paler stars, that twinkled through the tossing trees.

Traversing an ambulatory, on the discolored walls of which old pictures and older trophies hung decaying, Clermistonlee was about to enter the hall; but its vast space rang so hollowly to his tread, and its gloom so much resembled that of a church at midnight, that he drew back overpowered by some superstitious feeling, and entered a small apartment which adjoined it, and had in earlier days been named the Lady's Bower.

A fire burned cheerily on the hearth; the furniture and the tapestry were fresh; the gilding and scarlet marquise of the high-backed chairs unfaded; a large mirror gleamed over the carved buffet, which two grotesque imps sustained on their heads; and several old portraits in the warm glow looked complacently out of their round oak frames.

"And 'tis here you have made your lair!" said Clermistonlee, throwing himself into a chair.

"Yea: it was her boudoir—her bower. Hast thou forgotten that too?" responded the woman, setting down her lamp, and surveying him with a malicious eye.

"Well! old dame, and what recks it thee?" asked the Lord, impatiently. "Art alone—of course—eh?"

"Alone!" reiterated the woman, bitterly—"when am I ever otherwise? Alone—and why! Because I am old and hideous now. Yet there was a time when it was otherwise. Yea—I am ever alone, save when the knave and the fool (on whose scanty bounty I am too often dependant), prompted by the devil, come hither to visit me."

"Dependant? have I not given thee a fee of four hundred pounds Scots per year, and what the devil more?"

"Between your own necessities and your butler's villany, not a plack of it have I seen since Lammas-tide."

"This shall be seen to. Come, come, Beatrix, my merry old lass, thou art as petulant as when I led you into this chamber twenty years ago. You want gold, I know; but, faith! I have devilish little of that." He spread a few French crowns on the table.

"'Tis but white money," said the hag, her eyes sparkling as, with clutching hands, she swept the coins into her lap.

"Greedy Gled! if thou art faithful, the gold will come in bushels anon."

"On what ill errand come ye now? Is there any one to be poisoned—hah! any poor flower to be torn from its stem, and trod under foot when its perfume is gone?"

"Harkee! Lucky Gilruth," said the Lord, striking his clenched hand on the table; "thou knowest me well, I think."

"O would to Heaven I had never, never known thee!" said Beatrix, with a tearless sob. "I know little of thee that is good."

"What know ye that is bad?"

She gave him a glance of scorn and fear.

"Say forth, old Barebones—I care not. I am one——"

"Who never spared a man in his hatred or a woman in his lust! A renegade covenanter!—a relentless persecutor of the pious and the holy!—a perjured lover!—a faithless husband!—a false friend!—one to whom Lord Solis of old, and the Marquis de Laval, were as saints in comparison. Randal Clermont, thou art a fiend in the form of a man!"

"With a heigh lillilu and a how lo lan! ha! ha!" laughed Clermistonlee, shaking back his feathers and long cavalier locks, while regarding Beatrix with a sardonic glance, for her words stung him deeply. "And I know thee for one whom the tar-barrels and thumb-screws await, if ye prove false to me. Ay, woman, I doubt not my learned gossip Mersington would soon find the devil's mark on that poor hide of thine. But I came to arrange, not to quarrel with thee—ha! ha! I want my fortune read."

Beatrix gave him a long steady glance; her bleared eyes were glaring with insanity, and a certain degree of intoxication; but she quailed before the dark basilisk eye of her former lover, for the ferocity of her expression relaxed, and she burst into a horrid laugh.

"Thy fortune? ho! ho! I tell thee, Randal, that the blade is forged and tempered that will drink thy heart's blood!"

"Gadzooks! likely enough; for I do not expect to die in bed," replied Clermistonlee, calmly, yet nevertheless exasperated by her reply, as he knew from old experience the value of her prophecies. "But I trifle. I know, good Beatrix, you can be faithful, and will serve me as of old. Here is my hand—shall I be fortunate in love?"

"How often these twenty years hath that question been asked of me; and where now are those anent whom ye asked it? Fortunate? I doubt not ye will be more so than she whose portrait is there;" and suddenly withdrawing a veil from a panel, she displayed the portrait of a pale young lady, in a rich dress and high ruff. Her features were soft and beautiful; her hair fair and in great profusion; and her parted lips appeared to smile with inexpressible sweetness. Clermistonlee turned pale, and averted his face, for the portrait seemed full of life and expression.

"Cover it!" said he, in a husky voice; "Cover it!—dost hear me? or must I blow the panel to pieces with my pistols, that these upbraiding eyes may look on me no more?"

"Wretch—ye dare not!" said Beatrix, scornfully, while gazing with something like pity on the fair face the pencil of Vandyke had traced in other times. "Yes, Lady Alison, I hated thee in life, but in death I can respect thee. Oh! Randal, she shared thy wedded love; but was it more fortunate than mine? It was—it was; for she is at rest in her grave, while I still linger here."

"Pity you are not there too! Enough! I am tired of these eternal complaints; and were ye fair as Venus——but look to my hand—what say its lines to-night?"

In her long, lean, and wrinkled fingers she took his ungloved hand, and he half withdrew it, with ill-concealed disgust.

"Ha!" screamed Beatrix, in a terrible voice; "you shrink from my touch now! Oh! Randal, Randal!" she added, in a tone of intense bitterness, "to kiss these faded hands was once a boon of love to thee. Oh! Randal Clermont, have you so quite forgotten these days as to feel no pity for the being you once loved so well?"

"Hum!" muttered the Lord, impatiently.

"How different was I then from what I am now!" she exclaimed, pressing her hands upon her breast, as if it would burst.

"The deuce!" Clermistonlee whistled.

"Yes, base and ungrateful! the hand that now ye loathe was then white as the new fallen snow, and these grey locks were like the dewy wing of the raven. My eyes could then look love to thine, that flashed with the youth, the joy, and the brightness of twenty summers. Who that saw us then, would dream that we are the same? I am no longer young, no longer lovely, and thou—art still a man."

"Crush me if this is not ridiculous! art nearly done, old lady?"

"No—there is a rival in thy way!"

"S'Death, I know that too well. 'Tis that spawn of the Covenant, young Fenton of Dunbarton's Foot. But I am still trifling. Listen, Beldame, and lay my words to heart. A brisk young damsel will be here in an hour hence. See that the turret that overhangs the rocks is prepared for her reception, for I swear by all that is holy! she shall never leave this roof until she is mine—yea, as much as——"

"As I once was, and many more have been, hah!"

Clermistonlee laughed loudly. "I have arled thee, Beatrix, and woe if thou failest or playest me false, for the hemp is twisted that shall strangle, and the faggots oiled that shall consume thee. Yet more. The eyes of the Council have long been on thee for suspected sorcery, and dealing in love potions and medicinal charms—the red hand of Rosehaugh is over thee, wretched Beatrix, and ere long thou mayest know the full value of the protection I afford thee. Enough! we know each other, I think."

"Not quite," replied Beatrix, with an air that startled her proud tormentor: "Vain fool! ye know not that by a word I could crush thee to nothing—yea, to the dust beneath my feet. Randal Clermont, I could reveal that, would smite thee like the scorching lightning. But no! my lips shall remain sealed, until——"

"When?"

"When the measure of my wrongs and my vengeance is full!"

"Pshaw! thou art but a woman—a fool," replied Clermistonlee, jerking on his buff gloves carelessly, but feeling somewhat surprised by her manner.

"When will this new victim be here?" asked Beatrix, with a ghastly grin.

"I have said in an hour, if all goes well. Prepare the old turret for her—that cage hath held a wilder bird ere now; nay, nay, none of that kind of work," said he, changing colour as Beatrix took a poniard from the mantelpiece; "nothing of that sort will be required—once in a life-time—tush! I will be back anon—till then, adieu." He hurried away with evident confusion, and rushing down the avenue without looking once behind him, leaped into the boat and was pulled over to the city.

"Will your Lordship be crossing the water again this nicht?" asked the boatman, with the utmost humility.

"That is as may be—what recks it to such as thee, fellow?" rejoined the passenger haughtily, as he tossed a few coins into the extended bonnet of the ferryman, sprang up Mary King's Close, and hurried towards Bristo.

CHAPTER VI.

THE SEDAN.

ADURNI. I will stand
The roughness of the encounter, like a gentleman,
And wait ye to your homes, whate'er befal me.
THE LADY'S TRIAL.

Lord Clermistonlee, as he anticipated, reached the Earl of Dunbarton's house just when the company were separating. The guard of horse was drawn up in the court-yard in courtesy to the guests. Lumbering old-fashioned carriages were rolling solemnly away; sedans, borne by liveried chairmen, and having lighted links flaring in the night-wind before and behind them, were carried off at a trot through the dark and devious windings of the city. The court on the north side of the mansion was becoming comparatively still and empty, and Clermistonlee, with no small anxiety for the success of his plot, looked on all sides for his faithful Juden; but that pink of butlers and factotum of his household was nowhere visible, and he searched in vain for the green livery of Clermont faced with scarlet.

At this crisis a sedan approached bearing the blazon of Napier in a widow's lozenge. It was borne by two men, in whom, though attired as public chairmen, Clermistonlee recognised Juden and his nephew Jock, a strong, lank-bodied fellow, who acted as valet, groom, errand-boy, turnspit, &c., at his Lordship's lodging. He had coarse pimply features, high cheek-bones, and a shock head of red hair waving under a broad bonnet, piggish eyes, and a mouth of vast circumference. His whole vocabulary consisted of a deep gutteral ay, with which he replied to everything and everybody. Half knave, half idiot, he was just the kind of ally required by Clermistonlee, to whom he was intensely devoted, and to whom he looked up as something more than a demigod.

"I am glad you have doffed the green and scarlet," said the lord. "You have been a thought beyond me to-night, Juden. Have her ladyship's sedans been summoned?"

"Half-an-hour syne, my lord."

"Indeed!" rejoined the other, in a breathless voice, and letting fall the rocquelaure which muffled his face. "Mistress Lilian is not departed! Rascal, if she has——"

"Hooly and fairly: we have just come for her, by her ladyship's orders," grinned Juden. "A weary tramp we had to Bruntisfield wi' the auld dame (devil tak' her!); but we coupit her at Dalryburn—ha! ha!"

"How, sirrah? where were her chairmen?"

"Where they are even now—in the water-hole of the town-guard—a dungeon vaulted wi' stane, dark as pitch, and half fu' o' water. Gif your lordship does na ken sic a place, owre weel do I, for there I passed fifteen weary days and eerie nights, after Bothwellbrig, shivering like a rat in an ice-house."

"Gomeral! is this a place for thy pestilent reminiscences of Bothwell? Ye obeyed my orders?"

"To the letter o' the law, as my lord Mersington says. I have made Lady Grisel's servitors as fu' as strong October, reeking usquebaugh, ay, and a three gallon runlet of gude red Rhenish, at sixpence the quart, could make them. But then, by way o' repaying my hospitality, they began misnaming your Lordship."

"What said the knaves?"

"That ye were but a cock-laird o' Cramond, for a' your baron's coronet, and a fause whig and misleared covenanter at heart."

"Foh! it matters not," replied Clermistonlee. "I will have all those varlets under my thumb ere long, and then I will teach them the respect that is due to my coronet. A cock-laird! By all the devils, they shall have their tongues bodkinned, and their ears nailed to the Tron, as a terror to all such plebeian rascals. But what didst thou, and this great baboon thy nephew, when these rascals made so free with our family?"

"We sweeped the house wi' the hair o' their heads—eh, Jock?"

"Ay," gaped the personage appealed to.

"My birse rose at the first word, and drawing my whinger, I fell on like a Stenton. Jock threw owre the buird and settles, and laid about him wi' a three-leggit stule. The gudewife o' the change-house scraighed like a howlet, and a' gaed to wreck. Shelves o' dishes and tin flagons, caups and luggies, Leith crystal and Delft ware, iron pots and pewter trenchers, a' flew like a hailstorm, and we laid about us like naething that I mind o', but the tulzie at Bothwell, when Dalyel's troopers broke the brig-ward, and fell on us sword in hand."

"Bothwell again! Rascal, how often must I tell thee to recur to those days no more?"

"In burst the toun-guard, wi' axe and pike, and carried them a' to the water-hole, as disturbers o' the peace."

"And how did you escape?"

"At the very sight o' the red wyvern on my sleeve, the loons let me go, as if my gude braid claith had been iron in a white heat: and sae I am here."

"Excellent! for this night her people are safe. Thou art a priceless fellow, Juden."

"When Lady Grisel's men were summoned, we changed our coats, and in their places came as ye see. We bore her awa to the Place o' Bruntisfield, and are now, by her orders, returned for Madam Lilian."

"Heaven is propitious to me to-night. But I fear me, thy dullard of a nephew may spoil all."

At that moment the voice of the earl's chamberlain was heard summoning "Mistress Napier's chair," and with much pretended bustle, Juden and his cunning nephew, in their assumed character of hack-chairmen, carried it up the broad flight of steps into the brilliantly-lighted lobby, while, with a beating heart, Clermistonlee withdrew a little, to observe the issue of his plans.

He waited what appeared to be an age; for Juden and his nephew had been desired to remain in the court without for a time; and when again they were summoned, Lilian Napier was in the chair, and when it was brought forth, the little blinds of scarlet silk were so closely drawn that Clermistonlee could not discern the least part of that fairy form, over the beauties of which he revelled in fancy; and his swart cheek glowed, his pulses quickened, as his unscrupulous serving-men approached at a slow trot, carrying with ease the sedan, though it was ponderous with black leather, gilded nails, and armorial bosses.

Equally pleased and surprised that Walter Fenton was not escorting it, Clermistonlee (who had pre-arranged to leave him dead among the fields) silently opened the gate of the court which led to the westward, and shrinking behind the shadow of a wall, almost held his breath as the vehicle passed which contained that fair being for whose possession he was risking so much odium and danger; but neither were new to him. Regardless of the feelings of others, and dead to every sense of honour, save that bull-headed valour which made the cavaliers of his day fight to the death for matters of less value than a soap-bubble, he had long been accustomed to gratify without a scruple his strong and unruly passions.

He breathed more freely as his followers traversed the deserted road that led to the barrier of Bristo, and thence striking westward, proceeded by a narrow horseway leading to the thatched hamlet and manor-house of Lauriston, a suburb a few hundred yards from the city wall, which, with its row of embattled bastelhouses, rose on the right hand.

It was a long and monotonous line of crenelated wall, the outline of which was broken only by the spire of the old Greyfriars' Kirk (which was accidentally blown-up in 1718 by powder stored therein by the thrifty bailies of Edinburgh), the turrets of Heriot's Hospital, and at intervals a fantastic stack of great black chimnies studded with oyster-shells. On the left were fields of waving grain, and rows of foliaged trees, that spread over the gradual slope to the sandy margin of the beautiful lake. The little village was buried in silence and sleep; all was hushed under the green thatch of its humble cots. Scarcely a star was visible; it was nearly midnight, and utter solitude surrounded them.

Poor Lilian! Her daring abductor had not as yet formed any defined plan of ultimate procedure. His first object was to have Lilian completely at his mercy, and nowhere could she be more so, than in the strong and solitary house of Drumsheugh, watched by the infamous being introduced to the reader in the preceding chapter.

Within the grated chambers of that house, which he had made the scene of a thousand enormities, Clermistonlee hoped soon by terror, persuasion, or force, to overcome the repugnance Lilian had so long expressed for his addresses. The cold, but decided refusal, of old Lady Grisel, the startled dismay and ill-concealed hauteur of Lilian, when but a few months before he had made a somewhat abrupt and unexpected proposal for her hand, now rose vividly to his mind, and spurred him on to triumph and revenge.

He contemplated with a malicious satisfaction, that even if to-morrow, or a week hence, he should free Lilian from durance, she would go forth with a stain upon her reputation, and imputations upon her honour, worse than death to a girl of her delicacy and spirit—imputations which ultimately might force the proud little beauty into his arms, when the web of his machinations was stronger, and when even her lover would shrink from her as from one contaminated.

Then would be his hour of triumph! and—but here his cogitations were interrupted by the yelling of a great wolf-dog, which thrust its black nose through the barbican-gate of the Highriggs, and barked furiously.

Clermistonlee had hoped that, fatigued with dancing and the lateness of the hour, sleep had overpowered Lilian, and now he trembled lest she should awake, and by her cries summon aid to her rescue from this old baronial mansion, which terminated the Portsburgh. In wrath, he thrust with his long rapier at the dog; but its baying redoubled, and, in great consternation, Juden and Jock hurried northward down the slope at their utmost speed. To the joy of Clermistonlee, his fair captive expressed no alarm, and the curtains of the sedan remained undrawn. Her voice was unheard, and no sound broke the stillness of the place, save the wind sweeping over the fields, and the tramp of the chairmen's feet, as they ascended by a narrow bridle path to the ancient gate of Drumsheugh.

"She is mine at last!" exclaimed the triumphant roué, through his clenched teeth, as they entered the damp gloomy avenue. "Ha, Master Fenton, I have the odds of thee! Ha, ha! Not all hell itself could save her from me now."

At the base of a tower where a small doorway gave entrance to the house, Juden, who was in front, to his great tribulation, saw Beatrix Gilruth with a long pikestaff in one hand, and an iron cresset in the other. She held it aloft at the full stretch of her meagre arm, and fitfully the flame streamed in the night-wind, casting a bright but uncertain glare on her pinched unearthly features, her sunken eyes, matted hair, and tattered attire, on the mossgreen walls, the grated windows, and striking façade of the ancient mansion, and the thick trees that grew around it, revealing the dewy leaves and threads of silver gossamer that spread from branch to branch—but Beatrix was the most striking object, for the wildness of her air imparted to her the aspect of an antique Pythoness, a sorceress, or maniac. Juden fearfully eyed her askance.

"Gude e'en to ye, cummer," said he breathlessly.

"Evening? ye feared gowk!" retorted Beatrix. "'Tis the dead hour of midnight, as ye may know by putting your neb oure the kirkyard dyke, where mair may be seen than ye reckon on. Behold the light that dances in yonder hollow."

Juden looked down the long avenue, which the dense foliage caused to resemble a leafy tunnel, and saw far off a lambent and uncertain light playing in the distance.

"'Tis a corpse candle!" screamed Beatrix. "It glints above the grave of an unchristened wean. Hah, fool! frightened as ye are for it, the day is not far off when the same deidlicht will be dancing among the grass that covers your own."

Perspiration burst over Juden's brow, while the woman enjoying the terror she created, uttered a wild laugh.

"My Lord—Jock—I tak ye to witness she foretells my wierd—a clear case o' malice and sorcery as ever came before the Fifteen. But I defy ye, Lucky Gilruth, for the barrels are tarred that shall send thee to the fires o' eternity, ye shameless limmer." Juden trembled between pious confidence and deadly fear—like one who in a dream defies a fiend.

"Hark to St. Cuthbert's bell?" continued Beatrix, who appeared to find a satisfaction in the fear and aversion she created. "Now shall ye behold the spirits of the dead, that many a time and oft on this returning night, I have seen rush forth from yonder woods,—Sir Patrick of Blackadder, and his slayers, Douglas, Hume, and Clermistonlee. Like the driven cloud, they fly without a sound along the gloomy avenue—pursuers and pursued, their swords flashing and their hell-forged harness glinting, as they sweep like shadows oure the dewy grass, with the stars shining through the ribs of their skeleton horses, till the spirit of Blackadder plunges into the loch, as it did on his dying day—then red flash their petronels, and the pure water sparkles around them like diamonds in the moonlight—an eldritch yell arises from its shining bosom, and all is over!"

"What mummery is this, thou eternal babbler?" said Clermistonlee, in a voice of suppressed passion. "Woman, Beatrix, silence, lest I strangle thee!"

The sedan was now within the vaulted ambulatory of the mansion; and the door was securely bolted by Juden, while his master, who had begun to feel no little surprise and anxiety at the silence maintained by Lilian, advanced hurriedly to the chair; but first whispered to his old paramour:

"A word, Beatrix,—is the wainscoted room in the turret prepared for the reception of this little one?" Beatrix nodded. "Peril of thy head, woman, if it were not," he added scornfully, and raised the top of the sedan, while his assistants respectfully withdrew. "Fair Lilian," said he, commencing one of his made-up fine speeches, but not without apparent confusion, "fair Lilian, and not less beloved than fair, pardon this duplicity, for which the excess of my love can be my only, my best excuse. My love—alas! my dear girl, you have known it long, and too long have you slighted it. But on bended knee, behold!—I beseech you to pardon me—Lilian—dearest Lilian——"

"Ha, ha! ho, ho!" laughed a deep and sonorous voice within the sedan. "Horns of Mahoud! if this is not exquisite!" and, instead of beholding Lilian's fair face, shaded by silken ringlets—lo! the exasperated lover was confronted by the bushy perriwig, swart visage, and black moustachios of Dick Douglas of Finland. "Ho, ho! your Lordship has been prodigiously outwitted;" and the cavalier laughed as if he would die.

"A thousand furies! draw! Finland, draw!—your life shall pay for this!" exclaimed Clermistonlee, recoiling and laying hand on his sword.

"As you please, Right Honourable; but I hope, most noble Lord, your rascals mean to carry me back to the city—ha, ha!"

"Not unless it be cold and stark upon a bier. Zounds! Sir, I believe you know I am one who will not brook being trifled with."

"Your Lordship must know me for the same," replied Finland, gravely. "I care not a straw what view you may take of this night's adventure, and will now, or at any time, render due satisfaction for it, with my sword, body to body. I am generally to be found either at my quarters in the White Horse Cellar, or in Hugh Blair's Coffeehouse."

"Or the Laird of Maxwelton's—ha!"

"Where your Lordship had better not present yourself; and so, gadzooks! your most obedient. Harkee! Mother Gilruth, undo the barrier; you know me, I think, old one, eh?" and he threw a few coins in her apron, saying, "I can be as free of my flesh and gold as either lord or loon."

Beatrix, whose grey eyes gleamed with malice and avarice, clutched the money with one hand, and shook a poniard at the donor with the other; while Clermistonlee, who was boiling with passion and mortification, again approached him. Douglas started, and half unsheathed his glittering rapier; while Juden, who considered his Lord's affront as one offered to himself, snatched an old partisan from the wall, and prepared to fall on.

"Hold! Juden—back!—not now—not now!" said his master, waving his hand.

"'Tis well, my Lord," said Douglas; "delay so long as you please. We expect to march southward shortly, and I would regret to be left behind with a slashed skin, when Dunbarton's drums were beating the point of war in the face of an enemy. Yes—by all the devils, I would wish rather to fall à la coup de mousquet, than by the rapier of Randal Clermont."

"Your wish may be frustrated if you speak thus insolently," replied Clermistonlee, who admired the cavalier's bearing, though exasperated by the trick he had played him. "But be it so, Finland. Were not this hand fettered by a longing for revenge—a longing which beyond the morrow I cannot control, and which compels me to retain my sword for the heart of another enemy, God wot, I would slay you where you stand. As a swordsman, you are aware I am unmatched in the three Lothians."

"Pshaw!—on the ramparts of Lisle, after three passes, I disarmed Monsieur de Martinet, of the Regiment du Roi; and he was the first swordsman in France and Flanders. I believe we are pretty equal. But, my Lord, he for whom you reserve your skill and fury is my friend—my friend is my second self; and I tell thee, Randal Clermont, Lord and Baron though ye be, that when I think of what might have been the fate of Lilian Napier under this accursed roof, and in the hands of thee and thy hell-doomed harridan, I am sorely tempted to have at thy throat."

"'Sdeath! these are words rarely addressed to Clermistonlee. Begone! sirrah, ere from high words we come to hard blows. Away! and remember that the time is not far distant when this night's prank shall be dearly atoned for."

"When that hour comes, Finland will never fail," replied the cavalier, throwing his broad beaver jauntily on one side, as with one hand on his rapier, and the other twirling his moustache, he strode away, singing—

"She is all the world to me,
And for my blue-eyed Annie Laurie,
I would lay me down and die."

CHAPTER VII.

ADVENTURES OF THE NIGHT CONCLUDED.

COUNT. What an unaccountable being! But it won't do. Steinfort, we will take the ladies home, and then you will try once again to see him. You can talk to these oddities better than I can.
THE STRANGER.

Rage, mortification, and love (if so his passion can be named), possessed by turns the proud heart of Clermistonlee; but every idea soon became absorbed in one deep and concentrated longing for revenge—revenge upon Douglas of Finland and Walter Fenton, especially the latter, as being the most dangerous and hated—his rival.

He considered and re-considered every charge upon which he could possibly subject their conduct to the scrutiny of the council, and their persons to its torture and dungeons. It was in vain. The high character of Finland on one hand, and the influence of Dunbarton on the other, rendered all such attempts utterly futile; and with a savage exultation, the baffled Lord resolved to trust to his own unerring hand for disabling, maiming, and perhaps slaying the young Ensign: and he resolved, on the first opportunity, to put in practice a species of outrage, which was far from being uncommon in those unsettled times, when our bold forefathers fought to the last gasp, rather than yield one inch of the causeway to a man of a family or a faction whom they held at feud.

While the dénouement (recorded in the preceding chapter) was taking place at the desolate old mansion of Drumsheugh, gay Annie Laurie, with her usual vivacity and wit, was relating to the Earl and his beautiful Countess, and to Lilian, who, with Walter Fenton, had tarried in the bower or boudoir after all the other guests had departed, the plot of the famous roué; and how, by her contrivance, Douglas had been carried off in the sedan to mortify and disappoint him.

Poor Lilian trembled and changed colour as she felt alternately fear and indignation at the lure that had been laid for her; but Walter kindled up into a red-hot passion; the Countess became agitated; and the Earl hurriedly buckled on his walking sword, saying,—

"This must be looked to. My fair but thoughtless Laurie, mischief will come of this, Douglas is a brave spark, and somewhat too prompt in the use of his hands; while Clermistonlee is wary as a wolf, and blood will be drawn. Fenton, order the household guard to horse: we will ride round and arrest them, ere worse come of it."

"Yes, yes," exclaimed the little Countess, clasping her white hands; "away, away—but oh, will it not make both your deadly enemies? Heavens! what a land is this for blows and outrage!"

"Fear not, dear Lady Dunbarton," said Annie. "When Douglas left me, he pledged his sacred word of honour not to fight Clermistonlee until I gave permission. That promise ties his sword to its sheath, unless his honour requires it should be drawn, and then ill would it become a Laurie of Maxwelton to fetter the hand of any brave cavalier."

"You are a perfect enchantress, fair Annie," said the Earl, pressing one of her silken ringlets to his lips; "one that can rule our wildest gallants, and bend them to your will like the Urganda of Amadis."

"Nay, my Lord, if you talk much thus, I shall be deemed a witch in earnest. You Lords of Council deem suspicion equal to guilt. Is not the poor creature who is to be burned to-morrow merely suspected of sorcery?"

"On application of the boot, she confessed all the Lord Advocate asked her; but let us not canvass the decrees of the High Court or Privy Council. In these our days, the decisions of such tribunals will not brook much scrutiny. But Clermistonlee shall answer to me for this attempt. S'death! to abduct my guest, and the fairest that ever graced our roof-tree: but say, Madam Lilian, what punishment doth he deserve?"

"Good, my Lord, leave him to the reproaches of his own evil conscience."

"The answer beseems your artless gentleness, fair Napier; but you know not the infamy he intended for you. 'Tis horrid! 'tis damnable."

"And, belted Baron though he be," began Walter, handling his rapier, for his wrath increased while the Earl spoke, "a day shall come——"

"Tush, my boy. Art beginning to ruffle it already. His Lordship is the best hand either with rapier or dagger, single or double falchion, in all broad Scotland, while you are but a new-fledged soldier, whose burganet is bright as a new carolus. When you have followed the drum as long as I, you will learn to view everything with more coolness; though I ever loved a young gallant that was ready witted and quick-handed in defence of his mistress and honour. Clermistonlee is a thorough-paced rascal, and, though invited here for State purposes, God wot he is the only unwelcome guest under the roof-tree of Dunbarton. When I bethink me how he treated his wife, and kinswoman Alison Gifford, my blood bubbles up to boiling heat. Poor Alison! I used to love thee in my boyish days; but—hah! 'tis past like a tale that is told."

Twelve o' clock had rung from all the city bells, and the time was waxing outrageously late according to the punctilious ideas of the age. Lilian, in great anxiety to be gone, accepted the Countess's chair, while Walter, muffled in his rocquelaure, and having his sword girt close, followed as her escort, and bade adieu to their noble friends whose suite of apartments now seemed deserted, sad, and desolate, after the departure of all the gay and beautiful forms that had thronged them but an hour before; and the only traces of whom were here and there a faded or forgotten bouquet; a stray glove, a scarf, a ribbon, or a fontange. The lights waxed dim and few, for, like the joyous spirit of the fête, their lustre had passed away. Walter had too much of the continental gallantry that then distinguished the Scottish gentles, to act the mere part of escort. He threw the chairman's slings over his own shoulders, and fairly carried his lady-love home.

Dismissing the sedan at the barbican gate, he led Lilian up the steps to the door of the house, lingering at each; for there was something on his lips which he longed, but dared not to utter. Ere he pulled the ring of the risp, he softly pressed her hand and said, in a very gentle voice,—

"Lilian—dear Lilian—restore the glove of which you deprived me."

"Glove—glove?" reiterated Lilian in a great flutter.

"Forgive me, dear Madam—oh, you cannot have forgotten, when last we walked by the loch yonder."

"Foh! what a droll request, Mr. Fenton."

"All night you have called me Walter. Alas, I shall be very wretched if you refuse this little boon."

"I am sorry for that; but you must learn that Aunt Grisel's marmoset carried it off from my toilet-table and quite tore it to pieces."

"Ah, the provoking ape! But, dear Lilian, do not be so cruel as to cloud this dream of joy by dismissing me without a token of—of your favour to-night. I will not see you often now—we leave Scotland very soon, 'tis said."

Walter's voice trembled, for a first love (while it lasts) is always a timid and a true one. His passion was rapidly mastering him. Lilian soon began to tremble too, but had sufficient tact to answer with a tone of raillery,—

"I owe you something for your chairman's fee—ah, rogue Walter, you are pulling my glove off! Come, Sir! tirl the risp, or must I stand here all night."

The risp rang; but first she permitted him to untie and remove a glove from her hand, which he immediately pressed to his lips. His heart glowed within him, his feelings became tumultuous and impetuous—at all risks he would have pressed her to his heart and transferred to her soft cheek that burning kiss—but unluckily the door was opened at that instant by a sleepy old servant (who still carried the pewter flagon which he had drained in the spence an hour before), and Meinie Elshender, who appeared very coyly in a very becoming dishabille, with all her fine hair gathered up, en papillotes.

Pleased with all the passages of the night, Walter retired, and preserved in his gauntlet the little blonde glove which his braced corslet of steel prevented him from consigning to his bosom—the romancer's grand emporium for all tokens of love and friendship, save,—cash.

Happy Walter walked briskly forward between fields and hedges, shaded by trees that were now clothed in the heaviest foliage of summer, and skirted the western rhinns of the lake, where the scared coots squattered among the sedges at his approach. The vast expanse of water lay still as death; its dark unruffled bosom reflecting only the occasional stars and the masses of flying cloud which by turns revealed and obscured them.

The deep bark of a watchdog in some lonely cot made him start at times, as it echoed among the copsewood; so did every distant sound, and every peculiar shadow attracted his scrutiny. He kept his sword-hilt ever at hand. Perilous to all, the times were especially so to the soldiery, whose duties, dictated by the tyranny of the Council, and the mistaken bigotry of James VII., made them obnoxious to all—but more so to the oppressed Covenanters, whose vengeance and hatred had been terribly evinced on several occasions.

It was the patrician regiment of Claverhouse they more particularly reviled and abhorred; and several of his reckless cavaliers had perished by the most villanous assassination. One was actually shot dead in open day in the streets of Edinburgh; and soldiers were often barbarously murdered in their solitary billets in the country. The indiscriminate ferocity with which the guilty districts were invariably scourged for those outrages, served but to make matters worse. It has been remarked by some one, that though there were laws for everything in Scotland, even to the shape of a woman's hood, still it remained the most lawless kingdom in Europe.

Walter knew that his only personal enemy was Lord Clermistonlee, yet every sound kept him on the qui vive, and interrupted the gayer visions of his fancy, and his happy anticipations of the morrow, when he had made an appointment to escort Lilian to the Castlehill and Luckenbooths, then the favourite promenades of the loungers of the time.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE FENCING LESSON.

HOST. What say you to young Master Fenton? he capers, he dances, he hath the eye of youth, he writes verses, he smells April and May; he will carry't, he will carry't; 'tis in his buttons; he will carry't.

PAGE. Not by my consent, I promise you!

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

With the fumes of a late debauch still obscuring his faculties, Clermistonlee sat next morning with his head reclined on his hand, and breakfast before him, but untasted. His lordship was in a decidedly bad humour. It was the 22nd of June, and he had been early aroused by the cannon of the castle and the citadel of Leith saluting in honour of the anniversary of the victory at Bothwell; and the deep boom of the artillery, as they pealed over the city, drew many a groan from the burning hearts of the subdued faction.

The morning was beautiful; a thin gauzy mist was curling up from the loch, and rolling round the green foliage of the Trinity Park, and the sable rocks of the Calton.

In vain the fragrant coffee, new manchets hot from the oven, the fragment of a collared pig, a great silver flagon of spiced ale, a trencher of kippered salmon, and other viands sent up their odours, or were displayed before him in tempting array. Juden, napkin in hand, bustled nervously about the room; one moment dusting the buffet, which already shone like a mirror, or repolishing the row of plate tankards that glittered upon it; and the next, turning to his pettish master, whose attention he endeavoured yet half dreaded to attract.

The fierce dark eyes of Clermistonlee were red and bloodshot; his face was pale, and a stern smile of sinister import curled his proud yet handsome lip; his rich bobin vest was awry and unbuttoned, the lace cuffs and broad collar of his shirt crumpled and soiled; his overlay of point d'Espagne tied carelessly. One hand was thrust into the wide pocket of his rich dressing-gown, the other supported his unshaven chin; one foot exhibited a maroquin slipper, the other was cased in a handsome funnel boot of white buff, garnished with a gold spur and scarlet spur-leather. His lordship was regularly blue-devilled; and, though he sat motionless, a storm of fiery passions were smouldering in his haughty bosom.

In the grate, among torn billets, faded bouquets, love-knots, stray gloves, and innumerable corks, lay his glossy black wig, just where he had flung it the preceding night; his broad hat, with its cavalier plume, lay crushed under the buffet, where a favourite sky terrier had for an hour past been engaged in a vain attempt to masticate the quills of the ostrich feathers. The arrangement of the chairs on one side of the room showed that the roué had reposed there during the night, or morning rather, after the failure of his attempt upon Lilian. A book lay near him: it was Sir William Hope of Hopetoun's "Complete Fencing Master;" and he glanced at it from time to time.

"What hour is it?" he asked suddenly.

"It will be ten gin the time," replied Juden, dusting the buffet again; "but I think, my Lord, a drap coffee, or spiced October, a crail capon, or a slice o' the kipper, would do ye mair gude than graning and glooming for a' the world like your grandfather in the painted chalmer. Here are eggs fresh frae Moutriehill owerbye. Had ye been up in the braw cauler air like me this morning, ye would hae the appetite o' a hawk or a lang famished bratch."

"Like thee, fool!—And where the devil didst bestow thyself this morning?"

"Just awa' up at the tounheid, to see that auld witch tar-barrelled. It was a braw sight! Every place was crowded wi' folk—every window crammed wi' faces, and every lumheid and bartisan loaded wi' skirling weans and shouting laddies. And there was auld Magnus the provost, the baillies and the councillors, a' majoring up the causeway in their scarlet gowns, wigs, and cocked beavers, with the city sword, mace and banner borne before them, wi' drums beating and halberts glinting. Dunmore's dragoons lined the street.

"Certes, it was grand, my lord, and a bleeze weel worth riding to Birgham to see. She maun hae been a horrid witch, that auld carlin, for gude kens was a dooms ugly ane. She was trussed wi' a tow, like a chicken for the spit; and a devilish black beetle, her familiar spirit, tied round her neck in a crystal vial. 'Twas na brunt wi' her, but, God sain us! when the flames touched it, gaed up into the sky, wi' a flaff o' sparks and a clap like a thunder. She scraighed for a tass o' water before the fire was lighted. 'Gie her nane,' quoth my Lord Mersington, 'Gie her nane, ye loons; gin the auld jaud's dry, she'll burn better.' Then a' body leugh and threw up their bannets, as if they had been making a Robin Hude.

"Auld Sir Thomas o' Binns was there, and he leugh too, till the tears came rowing owre his beard; for there is naething that born deil likes better than a tar-barrelling, unless it be a back-handed slash at the hill-folk. And ken ye, Clermistonlee, that a' body said she would hae slippit the claws o' the Council and the Fifteen to boot, but for the notable speech o' my worthy Lord Mersington, who laid down the law and quoted the acts o' Estate in a way whilk was most edifying to hear."

"What is all this cursed cataract of words about?—Of what are you prating?"

"Prating?" reiterated Juden, a little put out. "Ou, just that if your lordship would condescend to break your fast——"

"To eat!—no, the first morsel would choke me like a burning coal. No, Juden; away with the table, and bring me the quilted gloves and a bundle of foils."

Clermistonlee impatiently pushed aside the table, and in doing so, overturned the great ale tankard.

"What are ye aboot, laddie?—are ye daft?" exclaimed Juden, wiping up the streaming liquor in a state of high excitement. "The best damask buirdclaith—he's gane clean wud! The last o' four dizzen o' my lady's Flanders plenishing—he's daft—keepit for high days. O Randal! hae some respect for yoursel', if you have nane for her whose bonnie hands worked your cypher in the corner o' this very buirdclaith."

"Silence, pest!" cried his master in a voice of thunder; but the destruction of the table-cloth was a matter of no small importance to the thrifty old butler, who continued to wipe and mutter,

"The damask buirdclaith—the best in the aik napery-kist—sae braw wi' its champit figures, the very ane that His Highness the Duke (James VII. that is now) dined off wi' Lag, Lauderdale, and the auld Laird. Fie upon ye, Clermistonlee! sic wickedness and waste would hae driven your faither daft—wae's me!"

"Art done with this cursed gabble?"

"Indeed I'm no, my Lord."

"When you are, fool, go and bring the foils."

"Is that a' the breakfast you are for?"

"Rascal, begone! or by——" Juden trotted off, napkin in hand, ere his passionate Lord could finish. He returned in a few minutes with foils, masks, and gloves. Clermistonlee then threw off his dressing-gown; and as he grasped one of the long heavy foils, his cheek reddened and his eye sparkled in anticipation of successful revenge and signal triumph.

"Now, Juden, my trusty knave," he began, in a milder tone; "you know that in my affair with this young minx, Lilian Napier—though I have been foiled in divers ways—that it would ill become me to draw bridle when such game is in view."

"Ay, my Lord; many a shy bird we have flown our hawks at, but never saw I ane that cost the trouble this pretty paroquet hath done."

"She loves a young spark of Dunbarton's Musqueteers—a nameless and beggarly varlet, who in infancy was found among the covenanting rabble in the Greyfriars kirkyard——"

"Aboot the time o' Bothwell—o'd I mind it weel."

"And, forsooth," continued the Lord, stamping with impatience, "Dunbarton's baby-faced Countess, in imitation of proud old Anne of Monmouth, would needs have a pretty page to hold up her train when she walked, sit by her knee in coach and boudoir, carry her lap-dog to church when the Bishop preached; to kiss her dainty hand at all times, and God knows what more.

"This fair lady's toy hath now become a man with a beard on his chin, and a sword at his side; and after trailing a pike for these three years past beneath our Scottish pennon, hath obtained a pair of colours in his patron's band, and presumes to ruffle it in scarlet, and lace among the best gentlemen in Scotland; and cocks his beaver à la cavalier in the faces of the boldest and the best. But these are trifles. This misbegotten minion hath become my rival—mine. Ha, ha! Juden—and to be crossed in purpose by a cur like this! Zounds! I shall burst..... This very noon he will be flaunting his feathers with other triflers; and if it is in the power of mortal man to dash his rapier in a thousand pieces—to nail him to the pavement through steel and bone, and to drench his sark in his heart's best blood before her very face, by Jove! this right hand will do it. But ere venturing on so public a trial of my skill, I would fain have a bout with thee; so come on, my old boar-at-bay—have at thee."

Entering at once into the spirit of the anticipated conflict, he attacked Juden with as much ferocity as if he had actually been his foe and rival. He thrust and lunged forward with such fury and rapidity, that Juden, being stout, pursy, less agile, and older by twenty years, was sorely pressed; but being perfect master of the broad-sword, back-sword, and dagger, he stood his ground like a thoroughbred sword-player; and for a time nothing was heard but their suppressed breathing and the clash of the foils.

The cheek of Clermistonlee was crimsoned with passion, and his dark eyes flashed with the energy of every cut and thrust; for, in the excitement of the lesson, he seemed to forget that he was not engaged with Walter, waxing wroth when his most able thrusts were parried with such force that his sword-arm tingled up to the very shoulder. Under old General Lesly and the Duke of Hamilton, Juden had often hewn a passage, sword in hand; through the solid ranks of the English pikemen; and, though somewhat blown, he remained perfectly cool, and when he had breath to spare, assumed the part of an instructor.

"My Lord, my Lord—hoots, laddie! this will never do. You forget yoursel, and show owre mickle front."

"S'death! how so?"

"Mind ye—hand and arm, body and sword, should be dressed in one line; and inclining forward, ye should lunge so."

"Pest! fellow—dost take my bobin vest, for buff coat, or pyne doublet?"

Juden laughed as his master spoke.

"Rough lessons are suited to rough work. It was just sae at Dunbar; my whinger whistled through a fat Southron's brisket. Touts! my Lord—what na way was that to fient forward? I ken a wile worth twa o' it. Lurch forward sae—making an opening and pawkily inviting a lunge; when giving a riporte at him, ye may lock in, as the masters of fence say; that is, seize his sword-arm by twining your left round it—close your parade shell to shell, in order to disarm him, whilk ye sall do just so;" and suiting the action to the word, Juden suddenly closed up and wrenched away his Lordship's foil.

"God confound thee, fellow!" exclaimed the fiery Lord, exasperated to find himself so adroitly disarmed; while his bluff old butler, delighted with his own skill and vigour, laughed till his eyes swam.

"My Lord," said he, presenting the hilt of the foil, "ye will find yoursel mickle the better o' this rough lesson when crossing blades with our young spark; for my mind sairly misgies me, that Dunbarton's cavaliers are kittle callants to warsle wi'. But ye ken, Clermistonlee, there is no a man in the three Lowdens that could hae dune what I did now. Hech! I am ane o' auld Balgonie's troopers, and mony an ell o' gude English bone and braidcloth I've cloven in my time."

"Well—enough of this, Juden. Bring me a tass of hocheim dashed with brandy—the last runlet—and then I will go abroad. Get me my walking boots and short wig, a buff under-coat, and my scarlet suit bobbed with the white ribbons; my hat—ah, thou damnable cur!—the terrier has torn to shreds a feather, which, with its gold drop, cost me six silver pounds at Lucky Diaper's booth. But it matters not—I may never don another, I will wear my white beaver with the yellow feathers; and get thee thy bonnet and whinger, and follow me. Be brisk, for the morning wears apace."

In five minutes the embossed cup of hock had been brought and drained, and his lordship attired. With his noble features, shaded by his broad hat and its waving feathers, his black wig curling over the shoulders of his scarlet satin coat, which was stiff with silver lace and white ribbons, Clermistonlee had quite the air of a finished gallant. A perfumed handkerchief fluttered from one pocket, a gold snuff-box, with a lady's picture on the lid, glittered in the depth of the other. His long bowl-hilted rapier, with a grasp of embossed silver and a sheath of crimson velvet, hung behind from an embroidered shoulder-belt: one hand dangled a gold-headed and tasselled cane—the other carried the long buff glove, and was bare, according to the vanity of the time, for displaying the sparkle of a splendid diamond ring.

Juden buttoned his green coat close up, buckled on a heavy basket-hilted spada, and drawing his broad blue bonnet over his red burly visage with the air of a man intent on something desperate, followed his master, respectfully keeping a few paces behind on their gaining the crowded street, which was to be the grand arena of their operations.

CHAPTER IX.

THE LUCKENBOOTHS.

He comes not on a wassail rout,
Of revel, sport, and play;
Our sword's gart fame proclaim us men
Long ere this ruefu' day.
OLD BALLAD.

The bell tolling eleven in the clock-tower of the Netherbow Porte, made Clermistonlee quicken his pace in issuing from the gloomy alley of his house into the broad and magnificent High Street, along the far extending vista of which, and on its thronging crowds and infinity of shining windows, the summer sun poured down its morning glory. Round the Fountainwell there was the same bustle that may be seen at the present day; thrifty and noisy housewives quarrelling with the watercarriers, whose shining barrels upborne on leather slings, were then the only means by which water was conveyed to the houses; and a few old men, the last remnant of another age and more primitive state of society, yet linger around the old fountain, and climb to the loftiest mansions of the ancient Wynds, supplying the water which the Reservoir cannot force to so great a height.

Carved and gilded coaches rumbled slowly over the rough causeway, and sedans borne by liveried chairmen were bearing the owners to morning visits. The street was crowded with passengers and loungers dressed in all the colours of the rainbow. The heads of the ladies were covered by hoods of silk and velvet, while the wives of citizens were forced to content themselves with a plaid muffler pinned under the chin.

Gentlemen still wore the plain Scottish bonnet, or the vast cavalier hat, looped up and plumed; snug burgesses and staring countrymen thronged past, attired (conform to Act of the Estates) in linsey-woolsey, hodden-grey, tartan, coarse blue bonnets, and ribbed galligaskins, a style of dress which formed a strong contrast to the splendid vestments of their superiors, whose silks and velvets, slashed and laced, were glittering everywhere in the sun.

A few officers of the Fusilier Guards in their gilt breast-plates, scarlet coats, and white scarfs, cavaliers of Claver'se regiment, and other "bucks of the first fashion," in all the magnificence of laced taffeta, long rapiers, perfumed scarfs, and tall feathers, were lounging about the pillars of the Venetian arcade, in front of Blair's Coffee House, or jested and flirted with those passing fair ones who flaunted their long trains under the cool shade of the Mahogany-lands, as certain old balconied edifices that have long since disappeared were named.

Jangling in mid air under the gothic crown of the old cathedral, the musical bells rang merrily, mingling with the busy hum that floated upward from the dense population below. The gift of Thomas Moodie, a citizen, these bells had been hung there in 1681. In one of the recesses formed by the buttresses of the church, a man was reading to a crowd, that listened intently, around the barrel on which he had perched himself. It was the Caledonius Mercurius, from the columns of which he was detailing some of Louis XIVths religious persecutions under the intolerant Mazarine, which now and then brought a muttered execration from the listeners.

Paunchy and gorbellied citizens, whose shops were in the gloomy recesses of the Luckenbooths, the cruicks of the Bow, or cellars of the Lawnmarket, were grouped about the city cross, which, with its tall octagon spire and unicorn, was for ages one of the chief beauties of the city. On one side of it stood the Dyvours-stane, whereon sat a row of those unfortunates, who for misfortune or roguery were, by act of the council, compelled to appear there each market day at noon, in the bankrupt's garb—a yellow bonnet, and coat, one half yellow, the other brown, under pain of three months' imprisonment.

On the other side groaned a wretched woman, who, for the heinous enormity of drinking the devil's health had just undergone the triple punishment of having her tongue bored, her cheek branded, and her back scourged.

The cross was the 'Change of the city, and on the spot where it stood, every Wednesday our traders yet meet to buy and sell, and to consult with sharp Clerks to the Signet, and more sharping Solicitors, where bargains are daily made as of old, but requiring ratifications more binding than merely standing on "our lady's steps" at the east end of St. Giles, or the pressure of wetted thumbs on a certain mysterious stone which was there kept for that purpose.

With a velvet mantle floating from his left shoulder, a long yellow feather waving over the right, and having in his carriage all that indefinable air which the consciousness of rank and spirit seldom fail to impart, Clermistonlee walked hastily up the street, poking his nose into the hood of every woman that passed. He kissed his hand to fair Annie Laurie, as she sailed out of Peebles Wynd with her fan spread before, and her vast fardingale behind her: he made a long step to cross the grave of Merlin, (whose stone coffin for ages marked the street he had been the first to pave), he roundly cursed the sooty Tronmen who did not make sufficient way for him, kicked a water barrel ten yards off, and laid his cane across the shoulders of the aquarius, its owner, bowed to the gay fellows under Blair's pillars, and with the air of a man who knew he was pretty well observed, made a pirouette near the cathedral, surveying all around him, but without seeing the person of whom he was in quest.

"Juden," said he to that respectable personage, who stuck close to his skirts, "I see not this knave, with whom I would fain come to blows while my spirit is in its bitterest mood."

"Right, my lord; but I warrant they will be cooing and billing on the Castle-hill yet."

"They—whom? Dost mean to tell me that Lilian Napier hath appeared there with her spark?"

"Hath she no? By my faith, 'tis the toun gossip," said Juden, who, notwithstanding his devotion to his master, thought there could be no harm in rousing his fierce spirit to the utmost. "Mony a summer even in the balmy gloaming have they been seen in the King's Park, where none but lovers gang, as your lordship kens, for there yoursel and bonny Lady Alison——"

"Silence!" said Clermistonlee, through his clenched teeth; "always these memories—ever reminding me of her whom I would wish to forget for ever, as the dead should be forgotten. But the park and the hill!—Gadzooks, varlet! I believe thou liest, for Fenton hath not known her many months, I believe. I hope, too, the girl is over-modest thus to exhibit herself. Come on; by all the devils, come on!" and, giddy from passion and the fumes of his last night's wine, he turned abruptly, and made a circuit of the Parliament Square. Though it was false that Lilian had ever appeared on those solitary promenades, which then were the usual resort of avowed lovers (for such was the custom of the time), and though Clermistonlee could scarcely believe the tidings of Juden, they served the end that worthy aimed at, and became an additional gall to his spirit, and whet to his ferocity.

The idea of a young lady of family and fashion appearing with her lover in such a place as the King's Park, may excite a smile; now it is the resort of the artisan, the student, and the sewing-girl; but in those days it was the common place for afternoon promenades and assignations, ere the phases of society among the middle and upper classes of the Scottish capital underwent so complete a change.

"My lord," whispered Juden, approaching his master sidelong, "what think ye o' keeping the croon o' the causeway this morning?"

"Much as you love me, sirrah, you are ever prompting me to blows and danger, and then seem wretched until I am safe again. Gadso! dost think, thou gomeral, that I am in humour to indulge the quarrelsome mood of every fool who deems the length of his rapier and pedigree, entitle him to maintain it for himself? Besides, the fashion went out with our fathers, and he who would now march down the street in defiance of all mankind, would be deemed a blustering swashbuckler, and pitiful fanfaron, worthy only of a sound cudgelling. No, no; for one alone must I keep my rapier bright, and by Jove! yonder he comes—she is with him, too—she leans on his arm—he talks, and she smiles—D——nation! How happy they seem!—and this is the minx who rejected my love, and despised my coronet. Follow me, Juden, for now I will show thee a brawl such as this street hath not witnessed, since old Crauford and the covenanting major fought with sword and dasher from the Bowhead to the Tronbeam!"

Swelling with fury, he advanced to the entrance of the Luckenbooths, and Juden, like a true Scottish retainer, felt his wrath rising in proportion with that of his leader. The narrow pile of buildings they traversed extended the whole length of the cathedral and the Tolbooth which adjoined it; dividing that part of the high-street into two narrow alleys. Expedience, the increasing population, and the political relations of the country with England, which required every citizen to be within the walls, can alone account for this singular erection of one street in the centre of another.

Some of its tall ghostly edifices were very old and picturesque, having modern outshoots supported by grotesque oak pillars forming arcades below; under these were the Laigh cellars (i.e., low shops), where the merchants exhibited their goods, and called public attention to them as noisily and importunately as the shopmen of the Bridges did until 1818, and those of St. Mary's Wynd do at the present day. Between the deep gothic buttresses of the cathedral were clustered a multitude of little shops called the Craimes, similar to those which still disfigure the magnificent façades of Antwerp and other great continental churches. This was the centre of the city, the place of bustle, crowd, and business, dust in summer, mud in winter, and noise at all times.

Quite unconscious of the fiery spirit that followed him, Walter Fenton led Lilian slowly through this narrow and crowded street, where they stopped often to survey the various things displayed under the piazza, and laughed and chatted gaily, for the young lady was very well pleased with her cavalier officer, who, she thought, never looked so handsome in his rich military dress and tall ostrich feather.

There was something very pretty, racy, and piquant in the beauty and attire of Lilian, whose hood of purple velvet, tied with a string of little Scots' pearls, permitted her fair hair to fall in front, dressed à la negligence. Her ruff was starched as stiff as Bristol board, and her long rustling skirt of crimson silk stuck out like a pyramid all round, from the velvet boddice which was laced round a little bust, to Walter's eyes, the most charming in the world. Her gloves were highly perfumed, and so was all her dress; altogether the young lady of Bruntisfield was very charming; everybody knew her, smiled on her, and made way with that native politeness which, alas! is no longer characteristic of the Lowland Scots. A lame old liveryman who had ridden in Sir Archibald's troop, limped behind as their esquire and attendant.

"What are ye boune for buying the day, my winsome lady?" said a buirdly vender of groceries; "what are ye buying? Plumedames sixpence the pound—the new herb wise folk ca' tea, and fules ca' poison, only fifty English shillings the pound—oranges, nutmegs, and lemons frae the land o' the idolatrous Portugales—Gascony, Muscadel, and Margaux, the wines o' the neer-do-weel French—aughteen pence the Scots quart—what are ye for buying, madam?"

"Or if you lacked a sharp rapier, Sir," cried a bare-armed swordslipper, leaning over his half door, and taking up the chaunt; "a corslet o' Milan that would turn a cannon-ball. I have spurs o' Rippon steel, dirks of Parma, pikes of Culross, blades of Toledo, pistols of Glasgow, and gude Kilmaurs whittles, the best of a'."

"O what a Babel it is!" said Lilian.

"Or a warm roquelaure to wear in the camp, my handsome gentleman?" cried Lucky Diaper, a brisk and comely haberdasher in a quilted gown, high-heeled shoes and lace-edged coif. "What are ye buying my Lady Lilian? You will be setting up house I warrant, and are come to seek for the plenishing. Walk in, sir—walk in, madam. I have cushions o' velvet for hall-settles and window-seats stuffed with Orkney down—buird-claiths of worsted and silk, servants (or napkins, as the Southrons ca' them) o' Dornick and Flanders' damask, some sewit, and others plain—crammasie codwairs, and sheets just without number. What want ye my bonny leddy, and when does the bridal come off?"

"Malediction on her chatter!" muttered Clermistonlee, who lounged at the door. Walter smiled, Lilian blushed and trembled between diffidence and anger; but her reply was interrupted by the entrance of a customer, who, lifting his bonnet respectfully to her, tendered his order to Lucky Diaper, who immediately reddened up with indignation, and eyeing him askance, said sharply,

"Set ye up, indeed, wi' a coleur-du-roi coat of three pile taffeta; its like the impudence that makes ye speir before your betters are served. My certie! what is this world coming to when a loon o' a baxter, comes spiering for the like o' that? Awa wi' ye, man, awa! Galloway-white, drab-de-frieze, or buckram conform to the Act o' Apparel are gude enough for one of your degree!"

The unfortunate baker was forced to retreat, for the draper of 1688 thought very differently from one of the present day.

"Ay, Madam Lilian, there was that ill-faured wife o' Baillie Jaffray, who bydes up the Stinking Style (just aboon the Knight o' Coates' lodging), gaed down the gate not an hour ago, wi' a hood o' silken crammassie wi' champit figures as red as her ain neb, and a mantle wi' passments sevvit round the craig o't. What think ye o' that for a wabster's wife in the Lawnmarket? I mind the time when sic presumption would have found her a cauld lodging in the Water Hole. That was in 1672, when the Apparel Act was strictly enforced, and nane but gentlefolk daured to ruffle it on the plainstanes in silk, taffeta, lace or furring, broidery or miniver; but the times are changing fast. I am getting auld now; and neighbours say, am far behind the world.

"Bonny Florentine blue that is, my lady; and weel would it become your sweet face, if pinkit out wi' red satin à-la-mode. Lack ye a sword-knot, young gentleman, blue and white, our auld Scottish cockade? In what can I serve ye? A' the cavaliers of my Lord Dunbarton ken me; for I had a fair laddie once, that fell in their ranks at Tangier (rest him, God!), far, far awa' among the black-avised unco's."

When a pause in the bustling dealer's garrulity permitted her to speak, Lilian requested so much of the finest blue velvet as would make a scarf for the shoulder, with fringe and embroidery thread, and spangles of gold and silver.

"I see, madam—I ken," resumed Lucky Diaper with a smirk of intelligence; "'tis a scarf for this winsome gentleman. Oh, hinny, ye needna blush; I mind the time when your lady mother came here to order a braw plenishing for her bridal and bedecking for her chamber-of-dais; and a blythe woman I was to serve her! Blue taffeta?—you'll be taking the very best Genoa, I warrant. It is a pleasure to serve gentlefolk; but it gars my heart grieve when loons like that baxter body think o' decking their ill-faured heads and hoghs in my fine Florence silk and Sheffield claith. Come, bustle, lassies, and show my Lady Lilian our velvets."

Two spruce and buxom shop-girls, in short overgowns, with snooded hair and bare arms, laid several rolls of velvet before Lilian, who immediately made her selection, and, anxious to escape the infliction of any more observations from Lucky, desired her to give it to the lame serving-man, and note it in the books of the steward, Syme of the Hill. All the shopwomen curtsied profoundly, as Lilian took the arm of Walter, and swept again into the morning bustle of the Luckenbooths.

Chafing at their delay, Clermistonlee had been looking with imaginary interest into the window of a bookseller's booth (the sign of which was "Jonah"); but he heard not the chatter of the proprietor, whose tongue supplied the place of newspaper puff, review, and publishing list. His lordship's thoughts were elsewhere than among the red-lettered and quaintly illustrated tomes before him.

"What are you for buying, this braw day, my noble lord? There is the Knight of Rowallan's 'Trve Crvcifix,' the 'Banished Virgin'—a folio that will please you better;—the three volumes of 'Astrsea;' the 'Illustrious Bassa,' imprinted by Mosely, the Englishman in St. Paul's Churchyard, fresh frae London by the last waggon, only three weeks ago; the last poem o' bluidy ——, my noble Lord Advocate, Sir George o' Rosehaugh, 'Clelias Country House and Closet,' whilk, as the Lady Drumsturdy said in this very buith yesterday, is the most delichtfu' book since the days o' Gawain Douglas or Dunbar——"

"Sirrah, I want neither your books nor your babble; when I lack either, I will know where to come," said the haughty lounger, suddenly remembering where he was, and whence came the cataract of words that poured on his ear. Turning, he saw those for whom he was in wait entering the Lawnmarket, the loftiest and most spacious part of the street, and where at that early part of the forenoon the thronged pavement was almost impassable. The moment for action had come! The heart of Clermistonlee beat like lightning. He beckoned Juden (who had condescendingly been tasting the vaunted usquebaugh of various dealers), and hurried after them into the denser crowd and full glare of the noonday sun.

Quite unconscious of what was about to ensue, Walter and his fair companion, with the lame servant limping behind them, wended slowly up the busy street, chatting and laughing with low and subdued voices, till the blow of a heavy rapier ringing on Walter's backplate of steel, and the words—

"Turn, villain, and draw or die!" thundered in his ear, making him start round with his hand on his sword, and Lilian uttered a low breathless exclamation of dismay on beholding Clermistonlee,—the dreaded and terrible Lord Clermistonlee, tall, strong, and fierce-eyed, standing on his defence; while a dense crowd, whose attention the wanton insult immediately attracted, closed round on every hand.

All was clamour and uproar in a moment, and cries of "A fray, a fray!—the Guard, the Guard!—redd them!" burst from a hundred tongues. Walter's wrath was boundless on finding himself anticipated, insulted, and defied by the very man he had resolved to call to account on the first opportunity.

"Strike, rascal!" cried Clermistonlee.

"Thou double-villain! why molest me thus in the public street?"

"That the public may the more readily behold thy cowardice. Wilt strike, man, or shall I spit upon thee as a cream-faced coistral?"

"For these words all the blood in your body could never atone. You will have it then? Come on, proud Lord!" replied Walter, while with his sword he waved back the people, whose applause seemed in favour of Clermistonlee, as a townsman and peer, and late events had made the army in bad odour with the populace.

"O good people, part them—stay them for the love of God!" urged the plaintive voice of Lilian, and it thrilled through Walter's heart.

"Place, gentlemen! fall back, fellows—clear the causeway!" cried Douglas of Finland, pushing through the crowd.

"Give the gentlemen room," added Jack Holster, coming up at the same moment. "Now, gallants, to it blade and shell. Gentlemen of the Royal Guards, draw, that we may see fair play to the King's commission;" and he unsheathed his sword.

"Mistress Lilian, permit me—you must—intreaties are unavailing," said Finland, leading away the pale and sinking girl, in whose ears the clash of the rapiers rang terribly, and she saw them flashing in the sunlight above the heads of the dense and shouting mob, till reaching the booth of Lucky Diaper, where she burst into a passion of tears, and here we will leave her for the present.

Drawing his rapier, Douglas rushed back to separate the combatants, or take part in the brawl if necessary. Clermistonlee pressed forward with the greatest fury, determined to slay his antagonist, who, knowing how much he had to dread, if a man so high in rank, a Lord of the Parliament, Privy Councillor, and head of a feudal family, perished by his hand, fought only to defend himself, or, if possible, to disarm or disable his furious enemy. At times their long keen rapiers were visible for a moment; but a moment only. Like blue fire, the bright blades flashed around them; but the skill of both was so admirable, that as yet not a wound had been given.

The people laughed when the tall plumes of Clermistonlee were shred from his hat by a back-stroke, and floated away over their heads; and in turn they applauded, as Walter (still fighting strictly on the defensive) was driven by the impetuosity of his enemy backward to the wall of the Tolbooth, and cries of—

"Weel dune the gudeman o' Drumsheugh—up wi' the Red Wyvern—the auld leaven o' the Covenant for ever!" rang on every hand, and Juden exerted his lungs like a Stentor.

With a glowing heart and cheek, Walter found the conflict going against him, and that his adversary was becoming exhausted, on which he pressed vigorously in turn, and gaining more than the ground he had lost, drove Lord Clermistonlee towards the arch of Byre's Close, and then the rabble waved their bonnets and shouted—

"Hurrah for the Cavalier! Weel done, my brave buckie! doon wi' the persecuting Lord!" and so forth; but Walter despised their praise, and continued pressing forward till the fury of his antagonist on finding himself driven back, step by step, amounted almost to madness. Just at this successful crisis, Walter found his arms violently seized by some one behind, and pinioned in such a manner that he was placed completely at the mercy of his antagonist.

Jealous for the honour of his Lord, Juden, who had worked himself into a very becoming fit of passion, had watched with kindling eyes and half-drawn sword, the various turns of the combat, and now, on beholding the master whom he loved as though he had been his own and only son, driven backward, breathless and exhausted, and in danger of being compelled to yield or die, he could no longer restrain himself, but rushed upon Walter, and pinioned his arms, exclaiming,—

"Now, my Lord, now! put your bilbo through his brisket. Devil's murrain on you, Randal, strike for Clermont, or never strike again!"

Surprise, for an instant, kept mute the shout of shame which rose to every lip; and Walter struggled furiously with the stout old butler. The eyes of Clermistonlee glared malignantly, and twice he raised his long sharp rapier for a deadly thrust, and twice he lowered its point. Walter's life seemed to hang by a hair, and how the fray might have ended, it is impossible to say; but just when Jack Holster, by a blow of his hunting whip, levelled Juden on the pavement, Lord Mersington came running with a remarkably unsteady gait, out of Blair's coffee-house, with his senatorial robes gathered about his waist, his wig awry, in one hand a roll of interlocutors, in the other a wine-flagon, which, in the hurry, he had forgotten to leave behind him.

"Haud, ye loons! haud, in the sacred name of the King!" he exclaimed, throwing him self boldly between them. "This is breaking the peace o' the burgh—clean contrary to the act saxteenth James Sext, whilk ordains that nae man shall fight, or provoke another to the combat, under pain of death, and escheat o' moveable gudes and gear. What, is it you, Clermistonlee—hee, hee, hee! ye born gomeral, to be brawling like a wild Redshank on the plainstanes in open day? Come, come, gossip, this will never do. Stand back, I charge ye baith in the sacred name of his Majesty the King!"

"My lord of Mersington, I am the best judge of my own conduct," replied his friend, fiercely.

"But one far owre lenient—hee, hee! I am legally constituted judge and justiciar baith o' the haill country; or up wi' your rapiers, gallants, or I shall commit you, Randal, to the iron room of the Tolbooth, and this braw spark o' Dunbarton's to the water-hole, whilk being fifteen feet below the causeway, is a fine place for cooling hot spirits."

Mersington's efforts were unavailing, for he was a man whom few respected. Jack Holster and Craigdarroch pulled him back very unceremoniously by his scarlet robes; for which he thrust his roll of papers into the face of one, and hurled the wine-pot at the head of the other.

Again the rapiers clashed together; but at that juncture Baillie Jaffroy, a portly magistrate, the curve of whose round paunch was finely delineated by his braided coat of purple broadcloth, and its front row of vast horn buttons, displaying his gold chain (the badge of civic power), rushed with a party of the Lord High Constable's guard from the lobby of the Parliament House, and bearing back the crowd with levelled partisans, separated the combatants.

Neither of them were arrested.

Clermistonlee, followed by Juden (who had acquired a black eye and broken head), retired suddenly into the lower council chamber, where the baillie, in dread of such a formidable personage, could not follow, and therefore turned the whole torrent of his magisterial wrath and indignation upon Walter Fenton, as being, he well knew, less able to withstand them. But Douglas of Finland, Gavin of Gavin, Holsterlee, and other military gallants, with drawn swords, carried him off triumphantly to Hugh Blair's famous establishment at the pillars, from whence, on the dispersion of the crowd, he rejoined Lilian: and so ended the last single combat witnessed in the high-street of Edinburgh.

CHAPTER X.

THE WHITE HORSE CELLAR.

To eat cran, pertick, swan, and pliver,
And everie fisch that swyms in river;
To drink with us the newe fresch wyne,
That grew vpon the River Ryne;
Fresch fragrant Clarets of France,
Of Angiers, and of Orliance,
With comforts of grit daintie.
DUMBAR TO JAMES V.

It was now the autumn of 1688.

The evil genius of James VII., and the influence of his advisers, were fast hastening him and his House to destruction. His measures for the re-establishment of the Catholic faith, in all its pristine power and ancient grandeur, exasperated the whole nation, and the Episcopalians in the south, and the sourer Presbyterians in the north, joined in one united voice against him.

Many powerful nobles of both kingdoms were in exile. With these, and with the intermeddling Prince of Orange, a close correspondence was maintained by the friends of the intended Revolution. Even the Scottish and English forces, on whose valour and fidelity the unhappy King too much relied, were foes to his religion; and certain obnoxious measures, in his military administration, tended to alienate from his cause all but the most romantic and devoted of his subjects.

It was evident that a great crisis was at hand. The King, in the month of September, sent an express to the Privy Council, requiring them to place the country on the war establishment. The standing army was increased, the militia embodied, the garrisons put in a state of defence, the Highland clans, ever loyal and ever true, were ordered to assemble in arms, and beacons were erected on Arthur's Seat and other mountains, to alarm the country. Similar preparations to repel William of Orange were made by the English government, whose forces, thirty thousand strong, under the Earl of Feversham, were concentrated about London. But James's measures in the south ruined his influence everywhere, and the cheers of the English troops, on the acquittal of the Bishops being known in the camp at Hounslow, proved that he had lost their sympathy for ever, and could rely on their support no more.

The regular forces of Scotland were cantoned in and around the capital, ready at an hour's notice to march for England, a measure which was vigorously and wisely opposed in council by Colin, Earl of Balcarris, the Lord High Treasurer. Malcontents were secretly flocking to Edinburgh from all quarters; and Master Magnus Prince, the sycophantic Provost, with his bench of baillies, sent a dutiful letter to James VII., assuring him "of their most hearty devotion to his service, and being ready with their lives and fortunes to stand by his sacred person upon all occasions, and praying for the continuation of his princely goodness and love towards his ancient city."

The presbyterians conducted themselves with more than their ordinary boldness, and in the streets openly chanted Psalms and Lillibulero bullen a la; the Government and its friends were full of anxiety, and remained on the alert. The whigs spoke boldly, and the cavaliers with somewhat less confidence, of the great preparations of the Dutch for the invasion of Great Britain—of the frigates, fireships, transports, horse, foot, and artillery assembled at Nimguen, and of the Scottish and English noblesse who in exile crowded beneath the unfurled banner of the Stadtholder. Thus,

"While great events were on the gale,
And each hour brought a varying tale;"

none were more loyal in drinking His Majesty's health in Hugh Blair's best Burgundy, and the Hocheim of the White Horse, than Walter Fenton and his cavalier comrades of the Scots' Musqueteers; none squeezed the orange more emphatically, and none handled so roughly those luckless wights whom they found chaunting Lillibulero, and none drained their vast bumpers more earnestly to the undamning and double damning of the pumpkin-headed and twenty-breeched Dutch.

It was the afternoon of a September day; the last detachment of Dunbarton's Foot had marched into Edinburgh, from the famous expedition against the Macdonalds of Keppoch, in attacking whom they had been co-operating with a battalion of the Guards, and the horsemen of the celebrated Captain Crichton, whose memoirs were edited by Dean Swift; and now to enjoy a complete military re-union, all the cavalier officers of the ancient corps sat down to a banquet in the great dining hall of the White Horse Cellar.

The long apartment was lighted by several windows that faced the Calton hill, which towered away to the north and westward, covered with whin and broom, where the fox, the hare, and the weazel yet made their lairs unheeded and unhunted. The hall was spacious, elegant, and hung with arras, and a great painting by Jameson, our Scottish Vandyke, the pupil of Rubens, hung over the yawning fire-place. It was a fanciful representation of the fair Mary, on that favourite white palfrey, which a hundred and fifty years before had given a name to the hostel, when the range of stabling below it had been occupied as a mews of the Scottish kings. Beneath this, hung the battered headpiece and Jedwood axe which Gibbie Runlet had wielded—and wielded well as the king's rebels knew to their cost—in the wars of the glorious Montrose.

The sturdy legs of the old oak beauffet appeared to bend under the load of glittering crystal, shining plate, and various good things piled upon its shelves, while underneath in columns dark and close, were ranged in deep array the flasks of good old wine, from the cool vaults of the White Horse cellar, and covered with the undisturbed dust and cobwebs of years of long repose.

Clad in their rich military dresses, bright steel, and spotless scarlet, glittering with jewels and gold lace, the row of cavalier guests on each side of that long and festive board, presented a very gay and striking appearance, as the setting sun shone full upon them, and caused the whole vista of the dinner table to glitter with sparkling objects, and the curling steam of the smoking banquet.

In a great chair, with high back and stuffed arms, rough with carving and rich with nails and scarlet leather sat the portly master, Gilbert Runlet (that host of immortal memory), with a vast red face, that seemed like the harvest-moon rising at one end of the table; while the great rotund form spreading out below it, a yard in diameter, loomed like a mountain, closing the long perspective of the board.

Gibbie had been for twenty years the most substantial burgess of the Canongate; and as a stanch and irascible Royalist, had long "ruled the roast" at the council board of that ancient burgh. The beau ideal of a jovial host, he laughed and talked, and helped on all sides incessantly, yet never appeared to be behind any one in emptying his own plate or tankard, which were replenished and emptied with wonderful celerity.

But the dinner! A flourish of trumpets announced it; and well it deserved the compliment of such a preliminary. A huge sirloin, which balanced a baron of beef, was undergoing a rapid process of diminution under Gibbie's long carving whinger; six collared pigs, bristling with cloves, and having flowers stuck in their nostrils, stood erect on great platters. Around them were hares, turkies, geese, ducks, and chickens, roasted, stewed, fricasseed, and boiled. There was a vast silver salt-foot at each end, two grand epergnes of flowers and peacocks' feathers, two great salads, two hundred little manchets, venison, hams, salmon, flounders, crabs, and Crail capons,—all placed pell-mell without order of courses, among tarts, trifles, confections, pyramids of jelly and plumbdames, puddings and fruit of every description, disposed in ornamental figures of trees, birds, &c.

But, far above all this wilderness of viands towered a great edifice, representing a fortress; the towers were of pie-crust, with ramparts of wax; the cannon and sentinels were sugar-paste; the bullets were little bon-bons; the moat was filled with wine, and from the keep hung a flag with St. Andrew's silver saltire. This erection elicited great admiration from the guests, by whom it was unanimously named the Castle of Tangier, beneath the towers of which so many of their brave comrades had found a soldier's grave.

The feast proceeded in gallant style, amid unrestrained hilarity and bursts of military merriment. All did justice to the good things before them; while the servants, or ecuyers trenchant, were kept on the alert pouring forth Rhenish, Gascony, Muscadel, port and sherry, and the rich and luscious wine of Frontiniac, as if there had been a conflagration in the stomach of every guest.

On the right of the host sat the regimental minister, the Reverend Doctor Jonadab Joram (who by the courtesy of the Scottish service had the rank of Major), a bluff and jovial personage, whose merry eyes twinkled on each side of a bottle-nose, and who could stride and swagger, drink and play with any man—one who winked knowingly at landladies, kissed their daughters, and, if he chose, could have out-bullied a Mohock. He was brimful of jocularity, which had cost him a duel or two in Flanders, and was known to be "up to" a great many things not very consonant to the dignity of his cloth.

On the left of the host sat the Chevalier Laird of Drumquhasel, a tall, stark, and sunburned soldier, on whose breast sparkled several French orders; and near him was the chirurgeon, who was the very counterpart of the divine, a laughing, bullet-headed, merry-faced little man, about sixty years of age. Like his clerical brother, he was in the habit of averring that he had been broiled at Tangier, half-drowned at Bergen-op-zoom, and wholly frozen in the Zuider Zee; blown up in Flanders, and trod down in Alsace, for he always charged in the line-of-battle, and consequently neglected his professional duties; or, like many sons of the healing god, was wont to introduce its topics at unseasonable times; and he was then, in the style of a lecturer of the old College of Physic at the Cowgate Port, employed in tracing the spinal marrow of a hare, for his own amusement and the edification of Jerry Smith, a gay fellow, with a curly perriwig and thick mustache, the same who afterwards entered the English service and became so famous for his gallantries at Halifax in Yorkshire.

There were present many handsome young sparks, whose first fields had been Sedgemoor in the south, or Muirdykes in the north; and their smooth chins and fair faces contrasted well with those war-worn cavaliers, whose service included the Scottish battles of Dunbar and Inverkeithing, the sack of Dundee, and the fight at Kerbister, and whose sparkling stars and crosses attested the good deeds they had performed under Henri d'Avergne, le Mareschal Turenne, and the great Condé of glorious memory, especially old Drumquhasel.

When the Duc d'Enghien charged the Mareschal de l'Hôpital so successfully that the Spanish infantry, till then deemed the finest in the world, were swept before the victorious French, there was not a chevalier of St. Louis who distinguished himself more than old John of Drumquhasel, who with his own hand cut down the famous Count de Fuentes, for which he was thanked by Monsieur of France at Versailles, and had a chaplet placed upon his head by Mademoiselle la Fleur, the reigning favourite of the time.

Douglas was joyous and gay; but Walter was somewhat reserved and abstracted; he foresaw that this great military reunion would interfere with his evening visit to the Napiers, and he was bored by the gaiety of the young, as much as by the prosing of the older soldiers around him.

"Hector Gavin, harkee," said the divine to a tall officer whose looped doublet and black corslet announced him Lieutenant of the Grenadiers, a species of force introduced about ten years before,—"Master Gibbie, our right honourable host informs me that there are some excellent pigeons in the casemates of that same castle of Tangier before you; and if you will so far favour me——"

"With pleasure, Joram. By my faith, I should know something of the mode of attacking the place! It wants the lower cavalier, with its thirty brass culverins, that swept the gorge of that avant-fosse. Ha! I have breached the upper parapet," said Gavin laughing, as he cut down the pastry.

"Ay, Hector, odsbodikins!" replied the divine. "I saw thee push on at the head of our pikemen, like a true Scottish cavalier, when the old Tangier regiment of England were thrown into confusion by the shower of petards. Demme! Hector, the recollection of that hot work makes me thirsty as dry sand."

"Is the sack tankard empty, Doctor?" asked Douglas.

"Drained to the lowest peg, laird."

"Tush, Joram; mayest thou be turned into a gaping oyster, as the play-book saith, and drink nothing but salt water all the days of thy life! You were talking of a shower of petards, Doctor: I remember when we marched with Condé into Tranche Compte with displayed banners, we beleaguered the castle of a certain seigneur, which resembled one of our Scottish peel-houses; and therein a brave cavalier of Spain commanded a corps of tall Irish pikemen. For three days they abode the salvoes of the demi-cannon, which battered their outer ravelins, and breached the great barbican. I led a hundred of our Scottish lads and sixteen German reformadoes to the assault, with pike and pistol bent. By my faith, Doctor, the loons fought like so many peers of Charlemagne. Each man flung a petard as we advanced. Crush me! a shower of petards. Pho! my fellows were blown to ribbons—their very entrails were twisted round the trees and ramparts; but Condé took the place at push of pike—put all the Irishry to the sword, and placed in the châtelet a garrison of the Compté de Bulliones Scottish pikemen, and the good old Regiment de Picardie."

"Doctor Joram," said Walter, "I have heard much of your famous duel with a chevalier of that regiment, but never the particulars. About some fair damoiselle was it not?"

"You were never more mistaken in your life, Master Fenton. We measured swords in the purest spirit of esprit du corps. I will tell you how it was. We were with the army that invested Doesburg, where the famous Adjutant Martinet was killed by a cannon-ball within a pike's length of me. We had long been at feud with that Regiment de Picardie, anent certain points of precedence and posts of honour, which was a state of matters not to be borne by us, who represent les Gardes-Ecossais of the sainted Louis, while the Battalion de Picardie was but one of the mere vieux corps of Charles the Ninth's time. The Sieur de Guichet, their captain-lieutenant, and I came to high words about it, in a certain house —— of —— of ——."

"Ay, ay, Doctor, we all know the place," said two or three cavaliers, amid loud laughter. "Madame Papillotes' little château on the banks of the Issel: she always accompanied the army. A nice billet for your reverence truly."

"De Guichet quarrelled with me about precedence and right of entrée, though, as Chaplain of the Scots Royals, in the line of battle I rode next to Dunbarton himself. 'Tush, monsieur,' said I, laying hand on my sword, 'remember I am a Scottish cavalier, and Chaplain to the Guards of Pontius Pilate.' 'Nombril de Beelzebub!' said the irreverend rascal, 'I believe you rightly name yourselves the Guards of Monseigneur Pilate, for had the old routiers of the Regiment de Picardie kept guard on the Holy Sepulchre, they would not have slept on their posts as the Scots Musqueteers must have done.' 'This to a clergyman?' I exclaimed. 'Have at thee, d——d runnion!' and attacking him, sword in hand, I disarmed him at the third pass; and ever afterwards Messieurs the Regiment de Picardie cocked their beavers the other way when passing us in the breach or on the Boulevards."

"'Tis a brave old band," said Gavin of that ilk. "I saw them on the plains of Nordlingien. You remember how gallantly they repulsed a charge of the Count de Merci's steel-clad Lancers. We had just formed square, with Sweyns' feathers in front, to repel their onfall, when Monsieur de Martinet (whom all the world knows of), Adjutant of the Regiment du Roi, galloped up, rapier in hand, with an order from Monseigneur le Duc d'Enghien to form line in battalion with the horse and dragoons on the wings; but my Lord of Dunbarton was too old a soldier to hear him amid the roar of such a battle; and luckily a cannon-ball took Martinet's charger in the crupper, on which he scrambled away. But only conceive, sirs, to form line in face of a horse brigade! By my sooth, wild Hielandmen would have known better, and I marvel that Monseigneur d'Enghien and Monsieur de Martinet so greatly forgot their boasted tactiques de guerre; but, as I said to my Lord Dunbarton," et cetera, and so forth.

Such was the tiresome small talk with which those "hunger and cold beaten soldiers" (to use a camp phrase of the day) maintained a cross-fire at table, and it differed very little from what one may hear in a similarly constituted party of the present day. The younger members of the company, whose whole experience of war had been confined to repelling a foray on the Highland frontier, a brawl in a whig district, or a review on the links of Leith before Sir Thomas Dalyel, his grace the Lord High Commissioner, and the ladies of his mimic court, were somewhat more peaceable in the tenor of their conversation, which went not beyond a duel at St. Anne's Yard or in Hugh Blairs, the Leith races (where yesterday the long pending match between Jack Holster's horse and Clermistonlee's mare had ended in the defeat of the latter), of Reid the mountebank, and the feats of his famous "tumbling lassie" at the Tennis Court Theatre, where they had all been the preceding night to behold "The Soldier's Fortune" by the celebrated Otway, for whom they had a fellow-feeling, as he had lately been a cornet of dragoons in Flanders. The merits of the new-fashioned iron hat-piece covered with velvet, which the English were now substituting for the old helmet, were warmly discussed. Mistress Annie Laurie, Jean Gordon, Lady Dunbarton, and other fair belles, new tawny beavers, silver-hilted swords, horses and wines, and various frivolities were all descanted upon, while the bright wine flowed and the laughter increased apace.

Dinner was over, and the vast wilderness of viands had undergone a great and melancholy change; the collared pigs were minus heads and legs; the great platters of turkeys, geese, and ducks, stewed hares and fricasseed rabbits, the lordly baron and the knightly sirloin, and everything else were in the same plight; while the noble Castle of Tangier had been completely sacked, demolished, and its garrison of baked and spiced cardinals, capuchins, and fan tails given up to the conquerors. The servants cleared the polished tables, and one placed before Gibbie, the host, a great chased silver tankard, the pride of his heart, for it was the production of George Heriot. It was mantling with purple port, and Gibbie (whose orb-like visage, by eating and drinking, was flushed like the setting October sun), laid his hand upon the cup, and looked round the board with his great saucer eyes to see that every guest's horn was filled; for the toast he was about to propose was,

"The health of His Sacred Majesty James VII., with peace at home, and war and confusion to his enemies abroad."

Gibbie, we say, with a rubicund visage beaming with loyalty and hospitality, had just upheaved his ponderous bulk for this purpose, when the rapid and ominous clatter of hoofs in the inn-yard attracted the attention of all; and the reverend Doctor Joram exclaimed,

"Egad, here comes my Lord Dunbarton and the young Laird of Holsterlee! Gentlemen, the old game must be afoot—but what can be in the wind now?"

"A rising among those crop-eared curs in the west, I warrant," replied the Laird of Drumquhasel. "Men say that false villain Clelland, the covenanting colonel, and Dyckvelt the Hollander, have been in the land of the whigamores, blowing the trumpet of sedition, and preparing the way for southern invasion and northern rebellion."

The earl hurriedly dismounted, and abstractedly threw the reins of his horse to Holsterlee his gentleman-in-waiting, who exclaimed,

"'Sdeath, Dunbarton, you forget that a cavalier of the Guard is not like one of Douglas' Red Troopers or Dunmore's Grey Dragoons."

The earl asked pardon, and laughed as he ascended the flight of steps that led to the inn-door; while Jack vociferously summoned the peddies or horse-boys, and tossing to them the reins of the chargers, jerked his long bilbo under his arm, and sprung up the steps, three at a time, after the general.

"Place for the most noble lord the Earl of Dunbarton—place for the general commanding!" exclaimed a servant ushering in the noble visitor, and all present arose at his entrance. His dark and handsome features were slightly flushed, and not without a marked expression of anxiety, while the saucy face of Jack Holster was extremely animated, and he displayed rather more than usual of his jovial and reckless swagger.

"Gentlemen," said the earl; "the old banner that waved so often and ever victoriously in the vanguard of Condé and Turenne is again to be unfurled before a foe."

"South or west?" asked a dozen of eager voices.

"In the land of our ancient enemies."

"By my soul I rejoice at that," said Douglas. "I have no fancy for bending our fire on ranks that speak our mother tongue, and wear the broad blue bonnet."

"Well said, my true Douglas!" exclaimed Drumquhasel. "I knew this muster of force aimed at the recapture of Berwick. Dags and pistols there is the hand (and he struck it clenched on the table), that will pull their d——d red cross from the ramparts when the time comes."

"Ye mistake, gentlemen, and you in particular Chevalier Major; but know that the time hath come which shall prove who among us are true cavaliers, and who false-hearted whigs. Wilt credit me, that the insolent Dutch prince William of Orange has at last put his great armament in motion, and that a hundred sail of the line, frigates, fireships, and four hundred transports have unrolled their canvass to the wind? Herbert leads the van, Evertzen the rear, and William the centre. He has with him fifteen thousand good soldiers," continued the earl, consulting a royal dispatch from Whitehall: "some of these are the hireling dogs of the Scottish Brigade, who are led by Hugh Mackay, laird of Scoury, and carry a red banner."

"Scoury?" exclaimed Douglas; "how—the old rascal who deserted from us in Holland."

"The same. Why, my dear fellow, this man is a mere Swiss, and prick his ears whenever drums beat without caring a rush which side wins if the rix-dollars are sure. The Prince's Guards and Brandenburgers under Count Solmes, Knight of the Teutonic Order, and Grand Commander of the Bailiewick of Utrecht, march with a white standard."

"Bravo! we will know all the rogues by head-mark."

"The Dutch and French Protestant refugees, under Velt Mareschal Frederick Duc de Schomberg, carry a little blue banner," continued the Earl, still consulting his dispatch. "Mynheer Goderdt van Baron de Ginckel, on whom the would-be usurper hath bestowed the Earldom of Athlone, commands the cavalry; Mynheer Bein Tenk, who expects the Dukedom of Portland; and Arnold Joost van Keppel, the Earldom of Albemarle; Massue de Rouvigny, who is to be Earl of Galway; General le Baron de Sainte Hippolite; d'Auverquerque, Zuylestein, and Caillemote, with all our banished Lords, Argyle, Shrewsbury, Macclesfield, Dunblane, and the devil knows how many more runaways and wild soldiers of fortune, the riddlings of rapine and scum of European wars, all crowd beneath his banner as to a bridal!"

"They are welcome!" exclaimed Finland, with enthusiasm. "Up, gallants, all for God and King James!" and drawing his sword he flourished it aloft, and drained his wine-horn to the bottom. Every man followed his example, save Gibbie Runlet, who, having no rapier to draw, contented himself by draining his wine tankard, which he did without once removing his large saucer eyes from the face of the Earl, to whose muster-roll of hard-named invaders he listened with the aspect of one astounded.

"Our dogs of citizens have already caught the rumour, that their Dutch Saviour is coming with his fireships and Swart Ruyters," said Holsterlee; "and in anticipation of their great political millennium are chanting the Lillibulero with might and main; yea, under our very beards, as we rode down the Canongate. By the horns of Mahoud! we have tough work before us gentlemen. Fifteen thousand Hollanders under baton, said you, my lord?"

"Pooh!" said Doctor Joram; "King James's English troops alone are enough to eat them up."

"Will they be inclined to do so, reverend sir?" replied the earl. "I fear me greatly."

"Then God help Church and King!" ejaculated the minister, gulping down a sigh and his sack together.

"Gentlemen," said Dunbarton, looking around him with sparkling eyes, "the great, the terrible crisis to which our leaders and our statesmen have so long looked forward, has come at last; and to the hearts and swords of his faithful soldiers, King James can alone trust the fortunes of his House. I have received most urgent dispatches, written by himself, from Whitehall, and all our available force must, to-morrow, march for England; Hounslow is the rendezvous; Church and King our cri de guerre! The Privy Council meets secretly in the gallery at Holyrood; they will sit in ten minutes. Farewell, my good friends and gallant comrades," continued the Earl, bowing with a heaviness of heart that was apparent to all; "I will see you at daybreak, when the générale beats. For the palace, ho! come Hosterlee."

"Away, gallants, to your fair ladies and gay lemans," exclaimed the latter, with a tragi-comic air; "away, to dance a merry couranto, and have one last daffin with the belles of the Cap-and-Feather close; a last horn at Hugh Blair's; a last dish of oysters and a game at shovelboard in Bess Wynd; a last camisadoe with the students and city watch, for we march to-morrow, and when the Guards and the Royals go, well may our ladies rend their silken tresses, and exclaim 'Ichabod, Ichabod, Auld Reekie, for thy glory hath departed!'"

In a few minutes the jovial party was completely broken up; many of them had taken leave, hurriedly, on those very missions Mr. Holster had enumerated; some to bid farewell to mothers, wives, and sweethearts; some to have a last horn of wine with old familiar friends; others to prepare for their sudden departure; while those happy spirits, who had neither preparations to make, nor friends to leave behind them, clustered round the appalled landlord, and pushed the wine-cup more briskly than ever.

But Gibbie's spirit and vivacity had evaporated; he looked forward to blood and blows, trooping and free-billeting, with no small horror, and on the departure of his military patrons, beheld a gloomy perspective of fines, persecutions, and annoyance from the whig enemies of the Government, who would undoubtedly usurp place and power in absence of that armed force, on the presence of which the authority of James VII., in Scotland, alone depended.

The moment the earl retired, Walter had thrown himself on horseback, and galloped away by the base of Saint John's Hill, and skirting the village of the Pleasance, dashed along the banks of the Burghloch, a place "then shaded by many venerable oaks," and reached the house of Bruntisfield just as the sun began to dip behind the wooded summit of Corstorphine.

CHAPTER XI.

THE BETROTHAL.

O love, when womanhood is in the flush,
And man's a young and an unspotted thing!
His first-breathed word and her half conscious blush
Are fair as light in heaven,—as flowers in spring—
The first hour of true love is worth our worshipping.
THE MAID OF ELVAR.

The red evening sun was setting, and his rays piercing the half-stripped trees of Bruntisfield fell on the old mossy dial-stone, which they never reached through the thick foliage of summer. It was about the hour of five, and the western sky shed a crimson glow over the whole landscape; the Loch lay calm and unruffled as a vast sheet of polished crystal, reflecting in its bright surface the ruddy clouds, the blue sky, and the bordering trees, whose foliage was now assuming the warm tints of Autumn, presenting alternately the darkest green, the brightest yellow, and most russet brown. The fallen leaves rustled among the withered sedges of the lake, and the wild swan, the black duck, and the water hen floated double "bird and shadow" on its surface, while the tall heron waded among the eel-arks that lay half hidden by the reeds and water-lilies at the margin.

The rustle of the dark brown woods and the deepening gloom of the hills, marked the decline of the day and year, and Walter's heart became chilled and sad as he galloped up the long dark avenue, which was strewed with the spoil of the passed summer—that happy summer which had passed away for ever.

Lilian sat within the deep bay of a window in the chamber-of-dais, busily embroidering Walter's long-promised scarf: it was of blue velvet, having thistles of silver worked with St. Andrew's crosses alternately. For many weeks her nimble little fingers had plied the needle on it, and now it was nearly finished. The tramp of hoofs made her look down the far-stretching avenue, which, with its arching elms and sturdy oaks, formed a long vista to the eastward, where it was terminated by an ancient and grass-tufted archway; beyond it, the bluff craigs of Salisbury and Arthur's ridgy cone mellowed in the distance, shone redly in the light of the setting sun, above the green and waving woods.

The blood rushed to Lilian's snowy temples: she sprang from her seat, her eyes beaming with delight, which rapidly gave place to surprise on observing the hurried and disordered air of Walter, who was minus cloak and plume. Never before had he come on horseback, and her mind misgave her there was something wrong.

She cast a timid glance at Aunt Grisel. Lulled by an old and favourite ditty, which for the thousandth time the affectionate Lilian had sung to her, the old lady had fallen fast asleep in her great leathern chair, with her relaxed hand on the spinning-wheel, the gay silver and ivory virrels of which glittered in the light of the cheerful fire. She slept profoundly.

Lilian threw on her hood and hurried to the door, where Walter had dismounted, and was in the act of slipping his snaffle-rein through one of the numerous rings in the wall, necessary appendages to the door of a manor-house, and quite as requisite as the "louping-on-stane" in those days, when every visitor of consideration came on horseback.

With a charming mixture of frankness and timidity, the blushing girl held out both her hands in welcome to her lover; but there was a sadness in his smile that made the colour leave her cheek and the lustre fade in her eye.

"Lilian—dear Madam—Lilian, I see you for the last time!" he exclaimed, as he took her hands in his, and raised them to his lips.

"The last time?" reiterated Lilian, faintly.

"Oh, are not these sad and bitter words? But so it is, Lilian; the fatal hour has come—our dream is over. We march for England to-morrow. The Dutch invaders are on the ocean, and in the hearts and swords of his faithful soldiers poor King James can alone rely in the struggle that is to come."

"O, Walter, what horror is this?"

"All the land is on the alert. A red beacon will blaze to-night from Arthur's rocky peak, and from Stirling in the west, to the Ochils in the north, will be sent tidings that will rouse the distant clans, and all Scotland will arise in arms. But oh! how adverse will be the motives of many who draw the sword! I have come to bid you adieu, Lilian—a long adieu, for many a battle must be fought and won ere again I stand on the threshold of your home—this happy home—the memory of which will cheer me through many a melancholy hour."

"Ah, Walter, the horrors of Aunt Grisel's girlhood are again come upon us. What a sudden blow it is! We have been so happy—and you go—." Tears choked her utterance.

"This instant, Lilian," said Walter, overpowered at the sight of her tears; "this instant. God! I have only a few minutes to spare even to bid you adieu."

"And Lady Grisel, too," said Lilian, in a breathless voice, for she was too artless to conceal her deep emotion; "she to whom you have always been so kind, so attentive—you surely will bid her adieu?"

"I could not be so ungrateful as to omit such a duty; but, dear Lilian, let us walk once more in the garden—you know our favourite place, by the old mossy fountain. Ah, Lilian, refuse me not," urged Walter, who saw that she trembled and hesitated. "I have much to say that I must not leave unsaid, for never again (how bitter are these words!) never again may an opportunity come to me; never again may I bend my eyes on yours, or hear the sound of your voice—oh, Lilian—"

Never had Walter trusted himself so far: he was earnest, impetuous, and confused. Lilian glanced timidly at his sparkling eyes, and then at the darkening woods, and, trembling between love and timidity, permitted him to draw her arm through his, and lead her into the ancient garden, the thick holly hedges of which entirely screened them from observation.

The heart of Lilian foreboded that a scene was to ensue; but a spell was upon her, a power which she could not resist threw a chain of delight and fear around her, and bound her to the side of Walter. She seemed to be in a dream: the very air grew palpable, and she felt only the beating of her little heart. Equally wishing and dreading the coming denouement, she was almost unconscious of whither Walter led her.

He, poor fellow! was something in the same frame of mind. Though he had full time to rally his thoughts, reflection served but to make him more confused, and instead of the passionate avowal which, a moment ago, had trembled on his lips, his intense respect for Lilian brought him down to the merest commonplace, and again the favorite words of Finland came truthfully home to his mind, "the girl one loves is greater than an Empress."

"It is very sad to think that—that peradventure we are walking here for the last time," said he.

This was not quite what Lilian expected, and somewhat reassured, she murmured a polite reply.

"You will not forget me when I am far, far away from you, Lilian?"

"Oh, no—how could I forget?" said she, bending her timid eyes kindly and sadly upon him. There was a charm in her answer that bewildered her lover, and, unable to resist longer the ardour and impulses of his heart, he threw an arm around her, and, pressing her right hand to his breast, exclaimed, in a voice that trembled with emotion,

"I love you, Lilian—I have dared to love you long—oh, may I hope you will forgive me?"

He paused; but Lilian could make no reply. An instant she was pale, then a deep blush crimsoned her cheek; her long lashes veiled her humid eyes—and for the first time Walter pressed his lips to hers as she sank upon his breast.

"Oh, Lilian," he resumed, after a long pause. "Now on the eve of parting, and perhaps for ever, I could not leave you with this great secret preying upon my heart—without saying that I loved you. The hope, that when I am gone, you will think of me with sentiments more tender and more endearing than those of mere friendship will be my best incentive to become worthy of them. Dear Lilian, I am poor and nameless; save my heart and my sword, and the sod which shall cover me, I own nothing in all this wide world; but than mine, never was there a love more generous or more true. Long, long, adorable Lilian, have I loved you in secret, and loved you dearly."

There was no art in his declaration; it came straight from the soul, and his words, rich, deep, and full of feeling, thrilled through the agitated heart of the young girl. He sought no reply, no other avowal of her reciprocal love, than her beautiful confusion and eloquent silence. Immovable and breathless, she lay within his embrace, with the deepest blushes overspreading her whole face and neck. Her mild eyes were shaded by their lashes, and the charming expression of modesty imparted by their downcast lids increased the emotion of Walter; and closer to his breast he pressed her passive form till her heart throbbed against his own.

"O love, when womanhood is in the flush!"

Walter was intoxicated. The purple hood of Lilian had fallen back, and the braids of her fair hair drooped upon his breast; his dark hair mingled with them, and their locks sparkled like gold in the glow of the set sun, as its last rays streamed down the long shady walk.

Short as the interview was, an age seemed to be comprised within its compass; the lovers were in a little world of their own—or with them the external world seemed to stand still. They were all heart and pulse, and overwhelmed with an emotion which the orthography of every human language has failed to pourtray.

But anon, the first glow of ardour and excitement passed away, and the memory of their parting fell like a mountain on their hearts. Lilian hung half embraced by Walter's arm; and a shower of tears relieved her.

Ah, could the evil-minded Clermistonlee have witnessed this scene!

The sun set behind the dark woods of Corstorphine; its last rays faded away from the turret vanes and seared foliage of Bruntisfield; the oaks and loch of the Burghmuir grew dark, as the shadows of the autumnal gloaming increased around them, and warned the lovers of the necessity of retiring and—separating.

Never was the glowing memory of that interview forgotten by Walter Fenton; and it cheered him through many an hour of sorrow, humiliation, and misery; through the toils of many a weary night, and the carnage of many a dangerous day. How happy and how well it is for us that the future is covered by an impenetrable veil that no mortal eye can pierce, and no hand draw aside!

The swans had quitted the lake, and the last glow of the day that had passed, was dying away upon its glassy surface, when hand in hand, the girl and her lover, contented, if not supremely happy, left the garden. There, by the old fountain of mossy and fantastic stone-work, on the pedestal of which a grotesque visage vomited the water from its capacious throat into a stone basin, they had plighted unto each other their solemn troth, according to the simple custom of the time and country.

There was no witness but the evening star that glimmered in the saffron west. There was no record but their own beating hearts.

Standing one on each side of the gushing fountain, and laving their hands in the limpid water, they called upon God to hear and register their vows of truth and love—vows which were, perhaps, less eloquent than deep, but uttered with all the quiet fervour of two young hearts as yet unseared and unsoured by the trouble, the duplicity, the selfishness, and the bitterness of the world.

Poor lovers! It was their first hour of delight; and even then, though by them unseen, a human visage of livid and terrible aspect was steadily regarding them from the thick foliage of a dark holly hedge, with eyes like those of a serpent—eyes that glared like two burning coals, and seemed full of that dire expression with which the superstitions of Italy gift the possessors of the mal-occhio. The lips were colourless and white, the teeth were clenched; it was all that a painter could pourtray of agony and mortification. As they arose from the fountain, it vanished; footsteps crashed among the fallen leaves and withered branches, but the lovers heard them not. Lilian, though she still wept from over-excitement and the approaching separation which had so suddenly called all these secret feelings to empire and control in her bosom, with sensations of mingled happiness and grief too intense to find vent in words, hung on Walter's arm, and thus clasped hand in hand with more apparent composure, they slowly returned to the house and entered the chamber-of-dais.

Its panels of polished oak, the silver plate on the buffet, the china jars, and japan canisters, on the grotesque ebony cabinets, glittered ruddily in the light of the blazing fire. A noble stag-hound, with red eyes and wiry hair, Lilian's lap-dog, and a favorite cat, were gambolling together on the hearth and tearing the snow-white wool from the prostrate spinning wheel. Lady Grisel still slept soundly; but Lilian stole to her side, kissed, and awoke her by murmuring in a broken voice, and with a sickly attempt at playfulness,

"Awake, aunt Grisel, Mr. Fenton has come to bid us farewell. He marches by crow of the cock, and we may not see him again for—for many a weary day."

"My dream is read!" exclaimed the old lady, starting. "O, Lilian, lass! what is this you tell me? Walter, my poor bairn, come to me; for whence are ye boune?"

"For England, Madam."

"England! alake, alake! and I was dreaming of Sir Archibald," replied the venerable dame, whose eyes were glittering with tears. "I saw him standing there, before the oaken cabinet, in his buff coat, steel cap and plume, just as I saw him last when under harness; and oh! but he seemed young and winsome, with glowing cheeks and bright locks of curling brown. 'Archibald,' I cried, and stretching my arms towards him, I strove to say mair; but O! Lilian, the words died away in whispers on my lips. He walked over to the buffet, and took up his silver tankard, which other lips have never touched since his own. It was empty. Sairly he gloomed as he wont when aught crossed him, and flang down the cup. I heard the clank of his jangling spurs as he turned lightly about, saying, 'Fare-ye-weel, my jo Grisel, horse and spear's the cry again,' and strode away. But O, his face, and the flash of his dark-browed eye; they come back to me, a vision from the grave. I awoke, and there stood Walter Fenton—his living image. O, Lilian! my doo, something sad is at hand. Blows and blood ever followed such visions as mine hath been this night. It forbodes deep dool, and dark misfortune."

"Dear Aunt Grisel, why such dreary thoughts?" said Lilian, no longer able to restrain her tears; "though we are losing our dear friend Mr. Fenton—one, I hope, after Sir Archibald's own heart."

"True he hath the bearing of a Napier, and the very eye of my young son, and, sooth, he was a stalwart cavalier as ever danced a gay galliard or spurred a horse to the battle field. And you are boune for the south, Walter? War and blood, more of it yet—more of it yet—when will the wicked cease from troubling? Well it is for ye, boy, that ye have no mother to weep this night the bitter tears that I have often shed for mine. Three fair sons, Walter, hae gone forth from this auld roof-tree, three stalwart men they were, and winsome to look upon, blooming and strong as ever braced steel ower gallant hearts; but hardalake! e'er the sun sank owre the westland hills, the last o' them lay by his father's side, cauld and stark on the banks of the Keithingburn.

"But I trow," she added, striking her cane on the floor, "many a braw English cap and feather lay on the turf ere that came to pass." The keen grey eyes of the spirited dame flashed bright through their tears, for strongly at that moment the Spartan spirit of the old Scottish matron glowed within her breast. "England? Alace! and what is stirring now that our blue bonnets maun cross the border again? Smooth water runs deep. I aye thought we were owre sib wi' the south to byde sae long."

"Madam; we march as friends and allies to assist in repelling invasion from its shores. William of Orange, with a great armament, now bends his cannon on the English coast, and by daybreak to-morrow we march for King James's camp. I must leave you instantly, for I have not a moment to spare. My Lord Dunbarton requires my presence at Holyrood, where General Douglas of Queensbury is to address the officers of the army. Farewell, dear madam; think kindly of me when I am far, far away from you, for never may we meet again," and half kneeling he kissed her hand.

"Then ere thou goest, my poor boy, drink to the roof-tree of one who loves thee well, and who may never behold thee more. Ye hae the very voice of my youngest son; and O, Walter, my auld heart yearns unto ye even as a mother's would yearn unto her dearest child."

Walter's heart swelled within him as the kind old lady laid her arm round his neck.

"Lady Bruntisfield," said he, in a low voice, "often have I known how sad a thing it was to feel oneself alone in the world, and never will the memory of these kind words be effaced from my heart."

Lilian, blushing and pale by turns, with eyes full of tears, brought from the almry a silver cup of wine, and after she and Lady Grisel had tasted, Walter drained it to the bottom, as he did so uttering a mental blessing on the house of Bruntisfield. The rich Gascon wine fired his heart, and gave him courage to sustain the separation.

"'Tis a sad and sudden parting, Walter," said Lady Grisel, weeping unrestrainedly with that old-fashioned kindness of heart which has long since fled from the land. "How long will you be away from us?"

"That depends on the fortune of war, Madam."

"Puir bairn! ye mean the misfortune. Alace! we live in waefu' times. Year after year an auld Scots' wife seeth the fair flowers that spring up around her trod down and destroyed. How many fair sons are reared with mickle pain and toil to be cut down by the sword of the foemen! Thrice in my time have I seen the balefire blaze on Soutra-edge and Ochil Peak, and thrice have I seen the haill flower o' the country-side wede away. And well it is, Walter, that thou hast no other mother than myself to mourn for thee this night; for, as I said before," she continued, in the garrulous musing of age, "my mind gangs back to the happy days and the fond faces of other times, when I have laced the steel cap owre comely cheeks whose smiles were a' the world to me. Then the balefire was lowing on ilka hill, and mount and ride was the cry. O, when will men grow wise (as that fule body Ichabod said with truth), and let the wicked kings of the earth gird up their loins and go forth to battle alone?

"Thine, Walter Fenton, is owre fair a brow for the midnight dew to lie upon, and the black corbie to flap its wings aboon in the stricken battlefield," continued the old lady, weeping, as "tremulously gentle her small hand" put back the thick dark locks from Walter's clouded brow and kissed it, while Lilian sobbed audibly on hearing her speak so forbodingly. The heart of the young man was too full to permit him to reply, but at that moment he felt he had done this kind and noble matron a grievous injury in gaining the love of Lilian without her consent. So reproachfully did the idea come home to his heart that he was about to throw himself upon his knees, and in the ardour of his temper pour forth an address in confession and exculpation—but his courage failed, and never again had he an opportunity.

Compelled at last to assume his bonnet and rapier he felt his heart wrung when reflecting that he was, for the last time, with the only two beings on earth actually dear to him, that in another moment he would be gone with the wide world before him, and that world all a void—a wilderness.

Lilian threw over his shoulders the scarf her fingers had embroidered, and as the reverend lady blessed him, the tears started into his eyes; he kissed their hands, and hurried away. Both arose to accompany him to the door; but while Lady Grisel searched for her long cane, he had yet a moment to give to Lilian. The light in the entrance hall fell full upon her face; it was pale as death, and never until that moment had Walter felt how intensely he loved her.

"Once again, farewell, dear Lilian," said he, putting a ring upon her finger; "wear this for my sake, and forget not this night—the twentieth of September. O, Lilian, this ring is the dearest, the only relic I possess, and it contains the secret of my life. On my mother's hand it was found, when cold, and pale, and dead she lay among the tombs of the Greyfriars, in the year of Bothwell:—you know the rest, and will treasure it for my sake. If your lover falls, Lilian, for you it will be some satisfaction that he died beneath the Scottish standard, fighting for his King by the side of the brave Dunbarton! Who would desire a better epitaph?"

"Walter," implored Lilian in a piercing voice, "for the love of God, if not for the love of me, speak not thus!"

"Thou shalt hear of me, Lilian, if God spares me, as I hope he will for thy sake," replied Walter, whose military pride neither love nor sorrow could subdue. "My name shall never be mentioned but with honour, for I have sworn to become worthy of thee, or to—die! And if our soldiers prove as they have ever done, leal men and true, many a helmet will be cloven, many a corslet flattened, many a pike blunted, and bullet shot ere the banner of King James shall sink before these plebeian Dutch! Farewell: forget not the twentieth of September!"

Another mute caress, and Lilian was alone: a horse's hoofs rang among the strewn autumnal leaves; but the sound died away, and Lilian heard her heart beating tumultuously.

As his horse plunged forward down the steep avenue, the starting of the saddle-girths compelled Walter to rein up near the gateway, and while adjusting the buckles, he became the unconscious listener to another leave-taking, which was accompanied by loud and obstreperous lamentations. It was Meinie Elshender bidding adieu to her kinsman and sweetheart Hab, who was reeling about in his bandaleers under the influence of various stoups of brandy.

"Now, Hab, you fause loon, dinna say no! You will forget me in the south, as you did in the west. Soldiers are a' alike."

"Roaring buckies are we, lassie!"

"Twa-faced varlets, that kittle up their lugs when the drums beat, and make love wherever they gang," replied Meinie, sobbing heavily. "You will be taking up with some English kimmer, I ken, and forgetting puir Meinie Elshender, that lo'es ye better than her ain life; and——"

"If I do, May——"

"Ewhow? and the rambles we've had together in many a red gloaming by the heronshaws and quarrel-holes. O, Hab, you're a fause ane, and will forget me—for the truth is no in ye!"

"Dear Meinie, if I do may——"

"Dinna swear, ye fule; for I may weary waiting on ye."

"May the de'il jump down my throat with a harrow at his tail! There now, will you believe me? Hoots, lass, we'll be back by the Halloween time to douk for apples in the muckle barn, sow hemp-seed in the Deil's-croft, roast nuts in the ingle, pu' kail castocks, and gang guisarding by Drumdryan and the Highriggs. Hech, how!

'Dunbarton's drums beat bonnie, O!'

Kiss me again, lass, and keep up your heart for a month or two more, when again I will have my arm around ye, and your red cheek pressed to mine;" continued poor Halbert, to whom that hour was never doomed to come, "and many a brave story I will tell ye of how our buirdly Scots chields clapper-clawed the ill-faured Holanders."

"Hab, ye ill-mannered loon!" cried Elsie. "Hab, ye ungratefu' vassal, daur ye gang awa' without paying your devoirs to my lady?"

"Bid her good bye for me, mother," replied Halbert in a faltering tone, as the old woman hobbled up and threw her arms passionately around his neck. "My father was her bounden vassal; but his son is the king's free soldier. Say gude'en for me, for I have not another moment to spare even for Meinie. Fareweel, dear mother; I never expected to leave you again, but for those who follow the de'il or the drum—Hoots, mother, havers!" exclaimed the soldier, as the poor woman sobbed convulsively on his breast. "I thought we had a' this dirdum oure before."

"Fareweel, my bairn, my winsome Habbie! On this side o' the grave we sail never meet mair. England is a far awa' and an unco' place, and long ere ye return I will be laid in the lang hame o' my forbears. But fearfu' times will come and pass ere the grass is green and waving oure me. Mind your Bible, Hab, for your faither (peace be wi' him, for he had none wi' me) ever gaed forth to battle with a whinger in one hand and the blessed book in the other. Beware o' the errors of episcopacy and idolatory, for your gaun to the hotbed o' them baith."

"O yes; ou' aye," muttered Hab impatiently.

"Now gang, my bairn, and God will keep his hand oure ye in the hour of strife, for he ne'er forgets those by whom his power and his glory are remembered."

And while Hab dashed off towards the city, the old woman with upraised hands implored with Scottish piety and maternal fervour a blessing on the footsteps of the son that had departed from her—for ever.

CHAPTER XII.

THE DEFIANCE.

'Tis well for thee, Sir, that I wear no sword,
Else it had soon decided which should claim,
And which for death's colde arms exchange the dame.
OLD PLAY.

Walter had listened longer than he intended, and for a moment he felt keenly how sad a thing it was that there were neither parent nor kindred to bless his departing steps. The sincere grief of the humble cottar had deeply moved him; but two kind kisses were yet glowing on his cheek, and the remembrance that there were two gentle beings who sorrowed for his departure and sighed for his return, filled his heart with joy.

The ardour of youth, and his old enthusiastic spirit, blazed up within him as he galloped back to the town. There, bustle and confusion reigned supreme. The streets were thronged with citizens and soldiers; and, though the hour was late, the hum of many voices shewed that all were upon the qui vive.

As he passed the old house of the High Riggs, in the gloom of the autumnal night, he nearly rode over a man whose grey plaid and broad bonnet indicated him to be a peasant.

"Hollo, friend!—I crave your pardon."

"Goodeen to you, Mr. Fenton—you ride with a slack rein for a cavalier," replied the other in a thick voice, after a brief pause.

"Ha! you know me, and it seems as if your voice was not unfamiliar; but the night is so dark. You are——"

"Captain Napier of the Scots-Dutch," replied the other in a low voice.

"Astonishment! Unwary man, know you not that the Council have placed a price on you, dead or alive? Is it madness that prompts you to venture, in this Cameronian disguise, within a city swarming with royal troops?"

"No, sir," replied the other haughtily; "but the service of William Prince of Orange."

"For Godsake, sir, hush! These words are enough to raise the very stones in the streets against you."

"Enough, young spark. I have been too long under the ban of Scotland's accursed misrulers not to have learned caution. But I know that he who addresses me is a man of honour."

"I thank you, sir, for the compliment."

"I believe you to be honourable as I have found you brave, and will trust you when I cannot do better. I am bound for England, on the shores of which William of Orange will soon pour his legions like another Conqueror. Hark you, Mr. Fenton, we are rivals in love as we are foes in faction; and, though the goal we aim at is the same, our paths are widely different. The scene I saw and overheard this evening by the fountain, makes me long with the hatred of a tiger rather than the spirit of a Christian man to slay you; for, by the might of God! no mortal shall ever cross the path or purpose of Quentin Napier, while his hand can hold a rapier or level a pistol!

"Walter Fenton, from my boyhood, I have loved that amiable girl, and there was a time when I fondly thought she loved me too. Necessity forced me into the ranks of the Stadtholder. In the campaigns in Zealand and Flanders, amid the turmoil of war, her image almost faded from my mind; but when again we met, my memory went back to the pleasant days of our younger years—all the first hopes and fond feelings of my heart returned to their starting-place. 'Twas thou that didst destroy this spell! And well it is for thee, youth, that I am unarmed; for strong in my heart at this moment, is the power of the spirit of darkness."

"Sir," replied Walter scornfully, "this is the mere Cameronian cant of the Scots Brigade; and had I pistols——"

"The dust beneath our feet should drink the heart's blood of one or both of us! By the Heaven that hears me, it should be so!"

At that moment the balefire on the cone of Arthur's Seat suddenly burst forth into a lurid flame, and, flaring on the night wind in one broad forky sheet, seemed to turn the dark mountain into a volcano, and, tipping its ridgy outline with light, brought it forward in relief from the inky sky beyond. The turreted battlements of Heriot's Hospital, and the casements of the towering city, were reddened by the gleam, and a faint light glowed on the pale contracted features of Quentin Napier. He smiled grimly.

"How long have I looked forward to the time when yonder blaze would redden on our Scottish hills! The time hath come! Farewell," he said, grasping Walter's hand with fierce energy, while his voice became deep and hoarse; "blows will soon be struck, and we may—we must—meet in the field. When that hour comes, spare me not; for by the Power who this night heard your plighted troth, and from His throne in heaven hears us now, I will not spare thee."

"Till then, adieu," replied Walter, with something of pity mingling in his pride and scorn.

"But that you may fall by other hands than these, is the best I can wish you. You were generous once, and I respect while I abhor you."

They separated.

A ferocious rival and uncompromising traitor were within his grasp, and effectually he might have crushed both in one; but he could not forget that this stern and cold-blooded partisan was the kinsman of Lilian Napier, and one who trusted in his honour.

As he urged his horse towards the Bristo Port, the great forges of the foundry, where formerly the Covenanters had cast their cannon, were in full operation, and the rays of those lurid pyramids of fire, that shot upwards from their towering cones, produced a wild and beautiful effect as they fell on the fantastic projections and deep recesses of the old suburbs, and the long line of crenelated wall which girdled the city, on the dark and ancient college of King James, and on the groups of anxious citizens gathered at their windows and outside-stairs, conversing in subdued tones on those "coming events" which were already casting their shadows before. As Walter passed, their voices died away, and many a lowering eye was bent upon him, while not a few shouted injurious epithets, and chanted "Lillibulero bullen à la," the Marseillaise hymn of the Scottish revolutionists.

The arcades or piazzas in the High Street were crowded by a noisy mob. The whole city seemed on tip-toe from the Highriggs to the Palace Gate, and many an eye was turned to where, like stars upon the west and northern hills, the answering balefires threw abroad the light of alarm. No man had yet dared to assume the blue cockade of the Covenant; but the faces of the "sour-featured Whigs," were become radiant with hope in anticipation of their coming triumph and revenge. Guarded by Buchan's musqueteers, the Scottish train of artillery were drawn up near the Tron, wheel to wheel, limbered and ready for service; while cavalier officers with their waving plumes and scarfs, guardsmen, and dragoons in their flashing armour galloped hurriedly from street to street.

Women were wailing, and soldiers crowding and revelling in and around the hostels and taverns, and the whole city was one scene of universal confusion, noise, and dismay. Followed by six of his splendidly accoutred cavaliers, Claverhouse (now Major-General Viscount Dundee) dashed up from the Palace at full gallop. All shrunk back as he swept forward on some mission of importance to the Duke of Gordon, "the COCK of the north," who commanded in the castle of Edinburgh, and, fired by the gallant air of Claverhouse, Walter felt his heart glow with ardour for the military splendour of the coming day.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE MARCH FOR ENGLAND.

The neighynge of the war-horse prowde,
The rowleinge of the drum;
The clangour of the trumpet lowde,
Be soundes from heaven that come.
Then mount, then mount, brave gallants all,
And don your helmes amaine;
Death's couriers—fame and honour—call
Us to the field againe.
SCOTS SONG.

Led by General James Douglas, a brother of the Duke of Queenberry, the Scottish army was to march to London in three columns or divisions. He commanded the foot in person; Major-General Viscount Dundee led the cavalry; the Laird of Lundin the train of artillery.

By grey dawn on the 21st of September, the boom of a cannon pealed from the ramparts of the castle over the city, and echoed among the craigs of Salisbury and the woods of Warrender and Drumsheugh. It was the warning gun; and immediately the varying cadence of the cavalry trumpets sounding to horse, and the infantry drums beating the générale, an old summons that has often gained the malison of the wearied soldier, rang within the narrow thoroughfares of Edinburgh.

"I thought I heard the General say,—
'Tis time to rouse, and march away!"

Poor Lilian had passed a restless night; she slept only to dream, and awoke only to weep, and to feel that no tears are more bitter than those shed unseen by lonely sorrow in the solitude of night. Many a young heart was crushed with grief, and many a bright eye sleepless and tearful in anticipation of the morrow's separation, perhaps for ever. Many a fierce and enthusiastic religioso looked forward to the march of his countrymen as a relief from thraldom, and the dawn of a day of vengeance on the upholders of "the Great Beast."

Now that morrow was come, and the ruddy sun arose above the Lammermuirs to shed his morning glory on the woods of russet brown, from the bosky depths of which the lark, the gled, and the eagle were winging their way aloft.

Lilian looked forth from her turret-window, and the very brightness of that beautiful morning, in contrast to the gloom of her thoughts, made her heart feel more sad and lonely. The stern façade of the ancient chateau gleamed in the light of the rising sun, and the few flowers of autumn lifted up their heavy petals as the warm rays absorbed the diamond dew. Hastily and less carefully than usual, the duties of the toilet were dismissed, and deeply the young girl sighed as she braided her auburn hair, for now there was no one whom she cared to please. Bright and cloudless though the morning, to her a gloom seemed to veil everything; but she mastered her grief until Meinie Elshender, her tirewoman, burst into an uncontrollable fit of lamentation over the departure of her light-hearted Hab; upon which Lilian, infected by her sorrow, could no longer restrain herself, and the two girls wept together.

"Oh, Lady Lilian, another hour will see our braw lads owre the hills and awa! Hech-how!" sobbed the disconsolate bower-maiden, "I am glad that muckle tyke, Tam o' the Riggs, is no gaun too. I'll be sure o' him gif puir Hab's shot by the Hollanders. Eh, sirs, that ever I should see this day!" and she sobbed comfortably between sorrow and satisfaction.

"Oh that Annie of Maxwelton would come!" said Lilian; "she is ever so lighthearted, so joyous and gay—her presence were a godsend. Poor Annie! another week would have seen her wedding-day, and now her Douglas must follow Dunbarton to battle—perhaps to death."

"Yonder are her chairmen," replied Meinie as a sedan appeared in the avenue; "and my Lady Dunbarton's English coach, and Madam this and my Lady that—ewhow, Sirs! we'll hae a fu' hall to-day."

Numerous vehicles were seen approaching. The troops were to march southward by the Burghmuir, and many ladies of rank and fashion were arriving, to behold their departure from a platform erected within the orchard-wall of Bruntisfield, and overlooking the rough old quarries and deep marshy ground that bordered the Burghloch. Lilian flew down to the barbican, and embraced her friend. Though as gaily attired as usual, Annie was very pale, and the breeze of the morning when it lifted her heavy locks, shewed the pallor of the beautiful cheek below. Her innocent gaiety and coquetry had fled together; her spirit had evaporated, and tearful and sad, she sorrowfully kissed her paler friend.

The orchard was higher than the roadway, which its wall overlooked like a rampart, and there numerous highbacked chairs were placed for the convenience of the ladies, who were every moment arriving, each in a greater state of flutter and excitement than the last, to view the troops on their line of march. Various pieces of tapestry were spread over the parapet, and an ancient standard or two, and several branches of laurel tastefully arranged by the gardener, made the orchard-wall like a balcony at a listed tournament.

Lady Grisel was merry and grave by turns, but always stately and hospitable. With her the day had long since passed, when the march of a mailed host could raise other sensations in her bosom than those of pity for the young and brave who might return no more. The beautiful Countess of Dunbarton veiled her anxiety under an admirable placidity of face and suavity of manner; while Lilian, Annie Laurie and many other fair girls who had lovers and relations "under harness" were clustered together, a pale and tearful group that conversed in low whispers.

The moss-grown trees of the ancient orchard spread their faded foliage over them; behind rose the striking outline of the old manor-house, with its round projecting turrets and high-peaked gables glowing in the early rays of the sun, which streamed redly and aslant from the southern ridge of Arthur's Seat, lighting with a golden gleam the mirrored lake that rolled almost to the orchard wall. A light shower had fallen just before dawn, and everything was brightened and refreshed. The dew yet glittered on the waving branches and the bending grass, and white as snow the morning mists rolled heavily around the base of the verdant hills, or curled, in a thousand vapoury and beautiful forms, in the saffron glory of the rising sun. The dewy autumnal breeze was laden with balm and fragrance. The first fallen leaves rustled in the long grass; the corbies and wood-pigeons were wheeling aloft, and the swan and the heron floated on the still bosom of the loch.

Bright though the morning, and beautiful the scenery, the group assembled near Bruntisfield were thoughtful and reserved; any little chit-chat in which they had indulged while Lady Grisel was detailing the Duke of Hamilton's march for England in her younger days, died away, when the far-off notes of military music and the increasing hum in the city, announced that "they were coming."

"Hark!" said Lady Dunbarton, "now they are approaching. 'Tis by Lord Dundee's advice they march through the entire length of the city, from the Girth Cross to the Portsburgh, that their array may intimidate the false Whigs, who are hourly crowding in from all quarters."

Beneath where the ladies were seated, the roadway was thronged with cottars from the adjacent hamlets; and many an eye was turned wistfully to the road that wound by the western rhinns of the Loch towards the old baronial manor of the Lawsons, that on the Highriggs, as before mentioned, terminated the ancient suburb of Portsburgh. From thence a dense mass was seen debouching: the sound of the drum, and the sharper note of the trumpet, were heard at intervals, while pikes glittered, banners waved, and hoofs rang, and every heart beat quicker as the troops approached; for, even in our own matter-of-fact age, there are few sights more stirring than the departure of a regiment for foreign service; but then it was the entire regular force of the kingdom en masse on the march for another land. Dense crowds occupied the whole roadway; for though the Scottish government had few friends, all the idlers of the city were pouring forth from its southern gates.

England was still a foreign and rather hostile country, and London was "an unco and far-awa place" (much more so than Calcutta is now); and persons on their departure therefor received the condolences of their friends; on their return, were welcomed by joy and congratulation, and were regarded with wonder and interest like the ancient mariners who had doubled Cape Non. And thus the Edinburghers, according to their various hopes, fears, hates and wishes, regarded with unusual anxiety the departure of their countrymen.

Save our brave Highlanders, fifty-seven years afterwards, this was the last Scottish host that ever marched into England.

First came an advanced guard of Horse Grenadiers, who wore scarlet coats over their steel corslets, and had high fur caps; they were armed with long musquets, bayonets, and hammer-hatchets, and wore grenado-pouches on their left side, to balance the cartridge-boxes on the right.

Led by the Laird of Lundin, Master of the Ordnance, next came the train of artillery, with trumpets sounding and kettle-drums beating; the matrosses marching with shouldered pikes on each side of the polished brass cannon; the firemasters on horseback, distinguished by waving plumes and golden scarfs. Nearly sheathed in complete armour of Charles the First's time, four gentlemen-of-the-cannon rode on each side of the great flag gun, which was drawn by eight horses. The Scottish standards—one with St. Andrew's Cross, the other with the Lion, gules—were displayed from its carriage, on which sat two little kettle-drummers beating a march. It was followed by the gins, capstans, forge-waggons, and a troop of horse with their swords drawn.

Then the column of cavalry filed past; all fierce and select cavalier troopers, many of them inured to service by the civil wars of eight-and-twenty years. Claverhouse's Life Guardsmen, in their polished plate-armour, wearing white horse hair streaming from their helmets;—all were splendidly mounted, and rode with the butts of their carbines resting on their thighs. They were greeted by a burst of acclamation from the ladies, for these dashing horsemen were the Guardi Nobili, the Prætorian Band of Scotland. Douglas's regiment of Red-coat Horse, and the Earl of Dunmore's Dragoons, the Scots Greys in their janissary caps, buff coats, and iron panoply, brought up the rear.

Next came the infantry; the two battalions of the Fusilier Guards, clad in coats, breeches, and stockings, all of bright scarlet, with white scarfs and long feathers; the officers marching with half pikes, and the soldiers with lighted matches; the battalions of the Scots Musqueteers in their round morions and corslets of black iron; the Earl of Mar's Fusiliers, Wauchop's regiment, &c. &c., poured past in rapid and monotonous succession, till the rear-guard of Horse and a few pieces of artillery, with a long line of sumpter-horses, bidets, and peddies, or grooms, closed the rear.

From a cloudless sky, full upon their long line of march, the bright sun poured down his morning splendour; the blare of the brazen trumpet and the ringing bugle-horn, the clashing cymbal and the measured beat of the drum, rang in the echoing sky and adjacent woodlands; while, like the ceaseless rush of a river, the tread of many marching feet, the tramp of the horses, the clank of chain-bridles, steel scabbards, and bandoliers, the lumbering roll of the brass cannon and shot-tumbrils of the train, filled up the intervals of the air which all their bands were playing,—the famous old Scots' March, composed for the Guard of King James V.

Never before had Walter Fenton felt such exultation, or so proud of the banner that waved over his shoulder; and his heart seemed to bound to every crash of the martial music that loaded the morning wind. It is impossible to pourtray the glow of chivalry that stirs a heart like his at such a time.

Amid the dust of the long array in front, the innumerable bright points of armour, and accoutrements, and weapons, were sparkling and flashing, and, when viewed from the distant city, the host of horse and foot, with standards waving, resembled a vast gilded snake sweeping over the Burghmuir, and gliding between its old oak trees and broomy knolls towards the hills of Braid. It was a scene which no man could behold without ardour and admiration, or without that gush of enthusiasm which stirs even the most sluggish spirit—

"When hearts are all high beating,
And the trumpet's voice repeating
That song whose breath
May lead to death,
But never to retreating."

"Ah! Douglas," said Walter to his friend, "I feel that all the romance of my boyish dreams is about to be realized. My breast seems too narrow for the emotions that glow within it. Love——"

"Yes, Fenton, it is the most powerful of all human passions; but a desire for military glory is scarcely less strong. Yet, bethink thee, Fenton, how sadly an old veteran's memory retraces the ardour of such an hour as this."

"To me it almost counterbalances the pain of parting from yonder dear girl;" and, while speaking, he bowed repeatedly to Lilian and kissed his hand, for they were now beneath the orchard-wall. Long and sad was the glance he gave that fair face, every feature of which was indelibly impressed on his heart. Her vivacity was gone, and her cheek pale; her heart was wrung with anguish, though it fluttered with the excitement around her. Even the gay Annie was unusually grave, and her dark blue eyes were humid with the heavy tears that trembled on their long black lashes.

"Farewell, Annie," said Douglas, looking up to her with intense feeling. "Farewell, my love. 'Horse and spear' is the slogan now."

The aspect of Dunbarton's Royals elicited a burst of applause, and the ladies threw flowers among their passing ranks. That surpassing state of discipline and steadiness which they had acquired under the great De Martinet (that phoenix of adjutants and paragon of drills) whose fame is known throughout all the armies of Europe, had not passed away.

From the richness of their accoutrements, they seemed one mass of vivid scarlet and polished steel. The musqueteers and pikemen (every corps had still a proportion armed with that ancient weapon) wore a close round morion of iron with cheek-plates clasped under the chin: those of the officers were of burnished steel, surmounted by dancing plumes of white ostrich feathers. The cuirasses and gorgets of the captains were of the colour of gold; the lieutenants' were of black, studded with gold; and those of the ensigns were of silver,—and all had embroidered sword-belts and crimson scarfs with golden tassels. The corslets of the soldiers were of black iron, crossed by their collars of bandoliers, little wooden cases, each containing a charge of powder; the balls were carried loose in a pouch on the left side, balanced by a priming-horn on the right. Their scarlet coats were heavily cuffed and richly braided, and each was armed with a sword in addition to his bright-barrelled matchlock. With tall fur caps, and coats slashed and looped, led by Gavin of that ilk, their grenadiers marched in front, with hammer-hatchets, slung carbines, swords, daggers, and pouches of grenades. Such was the aspect of the regular Scottish infantry of that period; and certainly it was not a little imposing.*

* Royal Orders of the day.

At the head of his regiment rode the brave Earl of Dunbarton, with the curious mask or visor (then appended to the helmet) turned upward, revealing his dark and noble features; his coat of scarlet, richly laced, was worn open to display his corslet of bright steel, which was inlaid with gold. The military wig escaped from beneath the plumed headpiece, and flowed in long curls over his shoulders; and he rode with his baton rested on the top of his long jack-boot. Still more gaily armed and accoutred, the handsome Viscount of Dundee rode on his left; and on the right, the dark-visaged and sinister-eyed James Douglas of Queensberry, the general commanding, managed a spirited black charger; and on passing the ladies, the three cavalier leaders bowed until their plumes mingled with their horses' manes.

The venerable Sir Thomas Dalyel, attired in his antique buff coat, steel cap, and long boots, and with his preposterous white beard streaming in the wind, galloped up, baton in hand, to pay his devoirs to Lady Grisel and her visitors—making, as he reined up, such a reverence as might have been fashionable at the court of His Ferocity the Czar of Muscovy. A crowd of tenants and cottars who loitered near, shrank back with ill-disguised fear and aversion as the "auld persecutor" approached.

"A fearfu' man, whose face is an index o' his heart," muttered Elsie Elshender, shaking her clenched hand at him behind Meinie's back. "'Tis just such a beard the warlocks and the deil have on, when they meet the witches at their sabbath on the Calton." As she spoke, the keen stern eye of the veteran cavalier chanced to fall full upon her, and the old woman trembled lest he might divine her thoughts, if he had not overheard her words—so great was the terror entertained of his real and imaginary powers.

"Ye say true, Cummer Elsie," whispered Symon, the ground baillie, a grim old fellow, clad in hoddin grey, wearing his Sunday bonnet and plaid, a staff in his hand, and a broadsword at his side. "He hath the mark of the beast on his frontlet. Hah! I have seen as muckle bravery displayed in the moss o' Drumclog, but the cheer of the oppressor was changed ere the gloaming fell. But better times are coming, Elsie; better days are coming, and then sall 'the children of Zion be joyful in their king.'"

Sir Thomas Dalyel, who

"Like Claver'se fell chiel,
Was in league wi' the deil,"

and had of course been rendered bullet-proof in consequence of this infernal compact, from his style of conversation was ill calculated to soothe the anxious fears of those he addressed.

"How, Sir Thomas?" said Lady Grisel Napier, "I knew not that you were boune for England."

"Nor am I, please you, madam," replied the old cavalier, standing in his stirrups, erect as a pike. "I am getting owre auld in the horn now. Eighty years, saxty of whilk were spent under harness, are beginning to tell sairly on me at last; and that frosty auld carle, Time, hath whispered long that my marching days are weel nigh over. But, please God, I may die in my buff coat yet, gif the tide of war rolls northward. I would fain see a few more blows exchanged on Scottish turf before I am laid below it."

"I marvel not, Sir Thomas," said the gentle young Countess of Dunbarton, "that the sight of these passing bands rouses your nobler spirit, when I, who am so timid, feel myself inspired with a false ardour and courage."

"Most noble ladies, the heart would indeed be a cauld one, that felt nae fire in sic an hour as this. By my faith, even my auld troop-horse, grey Marston, kittles up his lugs at the fanfare o' the trumpet, like a Don Cossacque at the cry of plunder. Puir Marston," he added, patting the neck of his charger, "I fear our fighting days are now gone by, unless the Dutch rapscallions come north, whilk may God direct, that auld Tammas o' the Binns may strike three strokes on steel for Scotland and his king, ere this baton is laid on his coffin-lid. 'Tis a brave sight, ladies, and Douglas hath under his banner some brave lads as ever marched to battle or breach. But I like not this new invention, whilk is callit the bayonet, preferring the good old Sweyn's feather, which repels the heaviest brigade of horse like a stane dyke.

"Lady Grisel, I heard you speak just now of the Mareschal-General Lesly. He was a d——d auld round-headed cur, and his brigades of sour blue-bonnets were no more to be compared to our lads that marched to Worcester, than eggshells are to cannon-balls. But had you seen the Muscovite host on the march for Samoieda, in that year when we beleaguered and sacked and overran the whole shores of the Frozen Ocean, ye would have seen marching to their last campaigns some of the prettiest cavaliers that ever ate horse-flesh or slashed the head off a Tartar. Now, God's murrain on the southern clodpoles!" began Sir Thomas, commencing some fierce tirade against the English, for he was a Scot of the oldest school.

"Fie, Knight of Binns!" said Annie Laurie; "you forget that my Lady Dunbarton is south-land bred."

"Sweet mistress, I crave pardon of her gentleness. But I am owre auld to pick my words now. I say as my fathers have said; I think as my fathers have thocht."

"Your servant, Sir Thomas.—Ladies, your humble servant!" said that unconscionable bore, Lord Mersington, who at that moment rode up with Clermistonlee. "Hee, hee, General—seeing your auld friends awa again—'bodin in effeir of weir,' as the acts say?"

"Yea, my Lord. You, too, hae seen some work like this in your time."

"Ay. At Dunbar I rode in the troop of the College of Justice, and exchanged the judge's wig for the troopers morion; ye ken, when drums beat, laws are dumb."

"Then Heaven send they may beat for ever and aye. A bonnie like troop o' auld carlins your Lordship's Justiciars were, and merrily we stark cavaliers of the French and Swedish wars laughed when Monk's regiment of foot, whilk are now denominate the Coldstreamers, routed ye like sae mony schule bairns."

"Under favour, Sir Thomas, I hold that to be leasing-making, hee, hee! and though we laugh owre it now as auld gossips, I mind the day when blades had been drawn on it."

Clermistonlee, while endeavouring with equal skill and grace to curb his restive horse, fixed his dark gloating eyes on Lilian Napier, and gave her a profound bow; but, well aware of what his intentions had long been towards her, instead of acknowledging it, she coldly turned away, and took the arm of Annie Laurie. She was too gentle to glance disdainfully, but an indignant blush crimsoned her cheek, and she withdrew to another part of the parapet. Clermistonlee bit his proud lip with vexation; but the fierce gleam of his dark eye passed unobserved by all save Juden, who, like his shadow, was never far off.

"My Lord Clermistonlee, we will hae but a toom toun now, when our brave bucks and braw fellows have a' marched southward," said Dalyel.

"Many a fair damsel sees her stout leman for the last time," replied his Lordship, with a soft smile at Lilian; "but keep bold hearts, fair ladies—there are as handsome fellows left behind as any that march under the baton of James Douglas."

"As gude fish in the sea as e'er cam' out o' t, hee, hee!"

"True," retorted Annie Laurie; "but such gay fellows as your Lordships are too economical of their persons to suit the taste of a bold border lass."

"Indeed, Mistress Laurie! But according to love à la mode, one leman is quite the same as another."

"Whilk," said Sir Thomas Dalyel, with a deep laugh, interrupting a sharp retort of Annie's, "whilk were the very words a certain Muscovite damsel sain to me, after her husband's head had been chopped off by the ungracious Tartars. I construed it into a hint that I was to occupy his place, and I was but owre happy, for 'tis a cold country, the land of the Russ and——but, dags and pistols! here cometh the rear-guard already! and as there are some lads marching owre yonder brae, with whom I would fain confer for the last time, I must crave your Ladyship's pardon, with leave to follow the line of route."

Erect in his stirrups, with toes pointed upwards and baton depressed, the old cavalier made a profound obeisance, and notwithstanding his great age dashed at full gallop through the crowd, amidst an ill-repressed shout of hatred and execration from amongst it.

"An auld ill-faured persecuting devil!" said Elsie Elshender, shaking her withered hand after him; "a tormentor o' God's worthiest servants, a Cain among the sons o' men—a fearfu' tyrant, and suited to fearfu' times. Gude keep us! look at the doken blade he spat on; there is a hole brunt clean through it."

"His horse's hoofs mak' runnin' water boil," added Syme the Baillie's wife in a low voice.

"Silence, Cummers!" said Juden Stenton; "or you'll hae the steel jougs locked round your jaws the morn, and may be get a het tar-barrelling after for speaking sae freely o' your betters."

Sir Thomas reined up alongside of the three generals, whom for several miles he bored with musty maxims, obsolete tactics, and strange advice, anent the superiority of Sweyn's feathers over the screwed dagger (or bayonet), and furiously condemned the slinging of carbines in budgets in lieu of shoulderbelts, as in the days of Montrose—expatiated on the method of forming square with the grenadiers covering the angles, and making the bringers-up (or third rank) entirely of musqueteers. He particularly impressed upon General Douglas the method of posting musqueteers among the horse and dragoons in alternate regiments—a tactique of that Star of the North, the great Gustavus of Sweden, and used by Prince Rupert at Long Marstonmoor—and after a fierce tirade against Sir James Wemys's leather cannon for field service, and a few words about the Muscovites, this veteran soldier of fortune bade them adieu near the Balm Well of St. Catherine, which lay yet a ruin, just as Cromwell's puritans had left it thirty-eight years before, when 16,000 of them encamped on the Gallaehlawhill. There Dalyel parted with "bluidy Dunbarton, Douglas, and Dundee," never to meet again; for though he saw it not, the hand of death was already stretched over the venerable "persecutor" and exile—war, wounds, and death were the portion of the others.

Long, long remained the fair young Countess watching the glittering columns as they wound over the Burghmuir, and ascended the hills of Braid, and until the faintest tap of the drums died away on the wind, and the helmets of the rearguard flashed a farewell ray in the evening sun, as they disappeared over the distant hills.

Then the grief of Lilian could no longer be restrained, for a heavy sense of utter desolation fell upon her heart.

"Oh, Annie, Annie!" she exclaimed, and throwing herself upon the bosom of friend, burst into a passion of tears.

The bustle, the glitter, and the music all combined, had caused an unnatural degree of excitement, and had sustained their spirits while the troops were pouring past, enabling them to behold with calmness a thousand tender partings. All now were away—silence and stillness succeeded—the excitement had evaporated, and they experienced an unnerving reaction which rendered them miserable, and they wept without restraint for the lovers that had left them—perhaps for ever.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE HAWK AND THE DOVE.

O wae be to the orders, that marched my love awa,
And wae be to the cruel cause that gars my tears' dounfa';
The drums beat in the morning, before the screich o' day,
The wee fifes played loud and shrill, and yet the morn was grey;
The bonnie flags were a' unfurled, a gallant sight to see,
But waes me for my soldier-lad, that marched to Germanie.
MOTHERWELL.

The intense sadness of Lilian for some days after the march of the troops, soon led Lady Grisel to suspect that her heart and hopes were away with the Scottish host; and the blush that ever suffused her cheek on Walter's name being mentioned convinced the old lady that her conclusions were just. Lilian knew well what was passing in the mind of her grandaunt, and as she had never hitherto concealed a thought from her, she threw herself upon her neck, and with tears, blushes, and agitation, which made her innocence appear more than ever charming, confessed how she and Walter Fenton had plighted their solemn troth, and shewing his ring, implored her pardon and her blessing upon them both.

"God bless thee mine own dear child!" said the kind old lady; "though poor Walter Fenton hath nothing on earth but his heart and his sword, and though I might wish a longer pedigree than he, good lad, can boast of, still I esteem him for his manly bearing—I love him for his generosity, and I have ever loved thee, Lilian, much too well to withhold aught on which thy happiness depends. May the kind God bless thee, my fair-haired bairn! and may thy love be fortunate and happy as it is innocent and pure!"

Lilian's heart was full, and she wept on the breast of her kind old kinswoman.

After a time the idea did occur to Lady Bruntisfield, that the first love of her grand-niece, who since the captain's outlawry had become the only hope and last representative of an old baronial race, should be a nameless and penniless soldier, about to become a partisan in a dangerous civil war, was a matter for serious deliberation; but her blessing had been given, her honour had been pledged, and neither could be now withdrawn. She remembered too, that if William conquered in the coming struggle, that Lilian would be dowerless; for on her own demise, the lands of Bruntisfield and the Wrytes (of which as before stated she had but a life-rent) passed to her nephew the captain of the Scots Dutch, as next heir of entail; and she knew that the crafty Lord Clermistonlee, who had long been Lilian's avowed suitor, based his mercenary and ambitious hopes mainly on breaking this law by bringing the unfortunate captain under the ban of the Council, now no difficult matter, as he had openly joined the standard of the Prince of Orange.

Though his Lordship's rank made him, in one respect, an eligible suitor, his general character for cruelty, debauchery, and every fashionable vice, caused him to be viewed with detestation by all, save a few wild and kindred spirits; and there were current certain dark, and, perhaps, exaggerated stories concerning the death of his lady several years before; and these, more than any thing else, led every woman, in that moral age, to regard him with secret horror.

Yet all admitted that he was pre-eminently a handsome man, and that none dressed so magnificently, danced more gracefully, had better trained hawks and hounds, or fleeter racers than Randal, Lord Clermistonlee. Notwithstanding all this, Lady Grisel would rather have seen her dear-loved Lilian in the coils of a boa-constrictor than in his arms; and as the image of the daring roué came vividly before her, she blessed poor Walter more affectionately, and kissing her fair grand-niece again, made her feel more happy than she ever thought to have been in absence of her lover. Rendered buoyant in spirit by the hopes which the affection and approbation of her venerable kinswoman had kindled anew within her breast (for love and hope go hand in hand), she retired to the garden, to view, for the hundredth time, the spot where she had plighted her faith and love to Walter Fenton, a species of hand-fasting in those days so solemn and binding, that it was almost esteemed a half espousal.

Day was closing, and the old knotty oaks creaked mournfully in the evening wind: now their October foliage was crisped and brown; the branches of many were bare and leafless, and the voice of the coming winter was heard on the hollow gale; while the fallen leaves and faded flowers, the apparent exhaustion and decay of nature, increased the idea of desolation in her mind, and poor Lilian's heart swelled with the sad thoughts that oppressed it. Seated by the mossy dialstone, resigned to solitude and to sorrow, she yielded to the grief that gradually stole over her, and wept bitterly.

How vividly she recollected all the circumstances of that dear interview, and Walter's last injunction—"Remember the hour beside the fountain, and forget not the 20th of September!" The hour was the same; and the fountain was plashing with the same monotonous sound into the same carved basin, and the voice of Walter seemed to mingle with the echo of the falling water.

"Walter! Walter!" she exclaimed, and, dipping her hands again in the water, pressed to her lips the pledge he had given her at parting—his mother's ring, the only trinket he had ever possessed in the world; and though small its apparent value, it contained a secret that was yet to have a potent influence on the fortunes of both.

On the preservation of that ring depended the life of Walter and the mystery of his birth.

Absence had now rendered more dear to her that love which preference, chance, and congenial taste had previously made the all-absorbing feeling of her heart.

"And he was here with me three weeks ago! Only three weeks! Alas! dear Walter, if years seem to have elapsed since then, what will the time appear before we meet again? Oh, that I had the power of a fairy, to behold him now!" She turned her eyes to the south,—to where, above its thick dark woods, the embattled keep of the Napiers of Merchiston closed the view. There she had last seen the Scottish host winding over the muir, and remembered the last flash of arms in the sunlight as a straggling trooper disappeared over the ridge. Her heart yearned within her, and her agitation increased so much that she reclined against the cold dialstone, and covered her face with her hands.

At length she became more composed, and her grief gave way to softer melancholy, as the sombre tints of the balmy autumnal evening crept over the beautiful landscape. The sun was setting, and, amid the saffron clouds, seemed to rest afar off like a vast crimson globe above the dark-pine woods that cover the ridges of Corstorphine. The bright flush of the dying day stole along the level plain from the westward, lighting up the grated casements, the fantastic chimnies, and massive turrets of the old manor-house, and the gnarled trunks of its ivied beeches and old "ancestral oaks."

Pouring aslant from beneath a screen of dun vapour like a thunder-cloud edged with gold, the sun's bright rays gave a warm but partial colouring to the scenery, glittering on the dark-green leaves of the holly hedges, then gaudy with clusters of scarlet berries, and rendering more red the crisped and faded foliage that bordered the shining lake. White smoke curled up from many a cottage-roof embosomed among the coppice; and as the sunbeams died away upon the stirless woods and waveless water, Lilian recalled many an evening when, at the same hour, and in the same place, she had leant upon Walter's arm, and surveyed the same fair landscape; and the memory of his remarks, and the tones of his voice, came back to her with a fond but painful distinctness.

Her favourite pigeon, with the snow-white pinions and silver varvels, alighted on her shoulder and nestled in her neck; but the caresses of her little pet were unheeded. Lilian neither felt nor heard them; her heart was with her thoughts, and these were far away, where the Scottish drums were ringing among the Border hills and pathless mosses. The face, the air, the very presence of her lover, came vividly before the ardent girl; like a vision of the second sight, she conjured them up, and his voice yet sounded in her ears as she had last heard it—softened, tremulous, and agitated; but, alas! now mountains rose and rivers rolled between them, and kingdoms were to be lost and won ere again she felt his kiss upon her cheek. The dove seemed sensible of the sorrow that preyed upon its mistress, and, nestled in her soft bosom, lay still and motionless, with bowed head and trailing pinions.

"By Jove! she is a magnificent being," said a voice. "Now, fair Lilian—now, by all that is opportune, you must hear me."

She started, but was unable to rise, from confusion and fear. Lord Clermistonlee stood beside her. His dark velvet mantle half concealed his rich dress, as the plumes of his slouched hat did the sinister expression of his proud and impressive features. He was armed with his long sword and dagger, and had a brace of pistols in his girdle. A large hawk sat upon his wrist, and the expression with which his large dark eyes were fixed on the shrinking girl, found an exact counterpart in those of the hawk when regarding the trembling dove, which cowered in the bosom of its mistress. From the ardour of his glance and a certain jauntiness in his air, it was evident that he was a little intoxicated, as usual.

Lilian, in great terror, looked hurriedly around her. She was at the extremity of a spacious garden, and now the evening was far advanced. Save old John Leekie, the gardener, none could be within hearing; and the cry she would have uttered died away upon her lips. Even had that venerable servitor approached, he would soon have been knocked on the head by Juden Stenton, who lay close by, concealed like a snake in the holly hedge.

"My Lord, to what do I owe this sudden visit?"

"To the attractive power of your charms, my beauty."

"Permit me to pass you," said Lilian sharply.

"Nay, my dearest Lilian," replied the lord, taking her hand, and retaining it in spite of all her efforts to the contrary. "The very modesty that makes you shrink from my polite admiration invests you with a thousand new attractions."

"Doubtless," said Lilian, with as much scorn as her gentleness permitted, "politeness is the peculiar characteristic of your lordship; and yours is not less flattering than your admiration."

"My adorable girl! you transport me—you open up a new vista of hope to me in these words," said Clermistonlee, with something of real passion in his voice. "You must be aware there are few dames in Scotland that would not be flattered by my addresses; and that few men in Scotland, too, would dare to cross me. For thee alone my heart has been reserved. On this fair hand let me seal——"

"Nay, nay, my lord," urged Lilian, struggling to be free, and becoming excessively frightened.

"By every sparkle of those beautiful eyes, and the amiable vivacity that illumines them," continued his lordship, making a theatrical attempt to embrace her,—"suffer me to implore——"

"Help! help, for God's sake!" exclaimed Lilian. "My Lord, this insolence shall not pass unpunished."

"Death and the devil! Dost mock me, little one? Is it insolence thus to fall at your feet?—thus to pour forth my soul in rapture, where a king might be proud to kneel?"

"My Lord, you are the strangest mixture of pride, presumption, and absurdity in all broad Scotland," said Lilian, spiritedly. "I command you to unhand me, and to remember that there is a pit under the house where much hotter spirits than yours have learned to become cool and respectful."

He released her.

"The pretty moppet is quite in a passion. My dear Lilian, why so cruel? Am I indeed so hateful that you despise me?"

"O, no," said she, gently, touched with his tone, for his voice was very persuasive, and his presence was surpassingly noble. "I cannot hate one who has never wronged me; and I dare not despise aught that God has made."

"Then you only respect me the same as the cows in yonder park?"

"Heaven forbid, my Lord, I should rate you so low!"

"Joy! beautiful Lilian. I now perceive that you do love me; and that coy diffidence alone prevents you revealing the sentiments of your heart." And throwing his arms around her, he embraced her, despite all her struggles, and though the girl was strong and active. Thrice she shrieked aloud; and having one hand at liberty, seized Clermistonlee by his perfumed and cherished mustachios, giving him a twist so severe, that he immediately released her, but still interposed between her and the house. His eyes sparkled with ill-concealed rage.

"Hoity toity!" he muttered, stroking his mustachios, and surveying her with a gloomy expression. "May the great devil take me if I understand you!"

Lilian now began to weep, and murmured—

"I request your lordship to learn——"

"That thou lovest another? Damnation, little fool! art still favouring that beardless beggar, whom some Dutchman's bullet will hurl to his father in the bottomless pit?"

"Wretch!" exclaimed Lilian, with undisguised contempt. "In heart and soul, Walter Fenton is as much above thee as the heavens are above the earth!"

Stung by her words, the eyes of Clermistonlee glared, and his lips grew white: he looked round for some object on which to pour forth the storm of rage and jealousy that blazed within him. He saw the poor dove which nestled in Lilian's breast, and, prompted by wickedness and revenge, suddenly snatched it away, and tossed it into the air; then, quick as thought, he slipped the jess of scarlet leather that bound the fierce hawk to his nether wrist, and like lightning it shot after the terrified pigeon, and soared far in air above it.

With fixed eyes and clasped hands Lilian watched it; and so intense was her fear for her favourite, that, in the imminence of its danger, she quite forgot her own. The stern eyes of Clermistonlee were alternately fixed on the soaring birds and on Lilian's pallid face; and he grasped her tender arm with the force of a vice with one hand, while pointing upward to the dove with the other.

"Behold! thou foolish vixen," said he—"thou art the dove, and I am the hawk; and thus shall I conquer in the end!" Even as he spoke, the hawk soused down upon its quarry, and both sank to the earth.

The pigeon was dead!

Lilian never spoke; but bent upon her tormentor a glance of horror, scorn, and contempt, so intense that he even quailed before it, while darting past him, she rushed towards the house.

The intruder then leaped the garden wall; and, followed by his stout henchman, hurried towards Edinburgh.

CHAPTER XV.

A STATESMAN OF 1688.

Call you these news? You might as well have told me,
That old King Coil is dead, and graved at Kylesfield.
I'll help thee out——.
AYRSHIRE TRAGEDY, ACT II.

Some weeks after this, at a late hour one night, Lord Clermistonlee was seated by the capacious fireplace in his chamber-of-dais. He was alone. A supper of Crail capons and roasted crabs, a white loaf, and wine posset, had just been discussed; and he was resorting to his favourite tankard of burnt sack, when a loud knocking was heard at the outer gate.

His lordship was decidedly in a bad humour: satiated with a long career of gaiety, he had resolved to give this night to retirement, to reverie, and to maturing his plans against Lilian, whose beauty and manner in the last interview had inspired him with something like a real passion for her. He remembered with pain the hatred and the horror expressed in her parting glance. The memory of it had sunk deeply in his heart; and he bitterly repented the destruction of her favourite pigeon; for he felt that this cruel act had increased the gulf between them.

The knocking at the gate recalled his thoughts.

"'Sdeath!" said he, "who dares to knock so loud and late? Ha! it may be a macer of council; we have had no news from London for these fourteen days past. Now, by all the devils, who can this be?"

A person was heard ascending the stair, and singing in a very cracked voice the Old Hundredth Psalm. Clermistonlee started, and looked around for a cane, marvelling who dared to insult him in his own house. A psalm! he could hardly believe his ears.

"Pshaw!" said he, recognising the voice, as Juden ushered in Lord Mersington, who entered unsteadily, balancing himself on each leg alternately: his broad hat was awry, and his wig gone; but a silk handkerchief tied round his head supplied its place. The learned senator was in one of his usual altitudes.

"How now, gossip!" said Clermistonlee, impatiently; "whence this unwonted piety?"

"Out upon thee, son of Belial! Dost not see that the Spirit is strong within me?"

"Rather too plainly; but sit down, man—thy tankard of burnt sack hath grown cold. Juden prepares it nightly quite as a matter of course. Any news from our army yet?"

"None—none," replied the other, shaking his head with tipsy solemnity; "but if matters go on as they seem likely to do, I maun een change, Randal, or the grassy holms and bonnie mains o' Mersington will gang to the deil before me; and I'll hae my canting hizzie o' a wife back frae the west country to deave me wi' ranting psalms and declaring against the crying sin o' the Mass, Papacy, Prelacy, Arianism, and a' the rest o't." A glance of deep meaning accompanied this.

"And I, to mend my fortune, must fly my hawks more surely. Bongré, malgré, Lilian Napier must become Lady Clermistonlee, or my lord of that ilk must boune him for another land."

"Hee, hee!—and you are fairly tired o' following mad Mally Charteris, Maud o' Madertie, and my Lady Jean Gordon—hee, hee!"

"Stuff!—name them not. I am sick to death of all damsels who owe their beauty to sweet pomade, cream of Venice, Naples' dew, and the devil's philters. Ah! the blooming glow of health and loveliness that renders so radiant the gentle Lilian arises from none of those."

"Ou' aye, ou' aye!" muttered Mersington, as he buried his weason face in the tankard. "You have been an awfu' chiel in your time, Randal, and would restore the auld acts o' King Eugene III. gif the Council would let ye—hee, hee!"

"By all the devils, I would!" laughed the roué, curling his mustachios, as he lounged in his well-cushioned chair; "thou knowest, good gossip, that the great horned head of the law always gave me a strong goût for vice."

"But Eugene's law would matter little to you, Randal—hee, hee! Ye have but few women married within your fief or barony now."

Clermistonlee bit his lip as he replied:

"You taunt me with my poverty, gossip; but remember, that though I have lost my manor of Drumsheugh, I consider that of Bruntisfield as being nearly mine. Sir Archibald was an old cavalier, and staunch high Churchman; and if the current of affairs (here his voice sank to a whisper) goes against the King, we may easily prevail upon the Council to forfeit these lands to the State for ancient misdemeanors."

"And for the leal service done to the cause of Grace in 1670, I would move that the Council bestow upon my noble friend, the Lord Clermistonlee—hee, hee!—the haill in free heritage and free barony for ever, with all the meithes and marches thereof, (as the form in law sayeth,) auld and divided as the same lie in length and breadth, in houses, biggings, mills, multures, &c., hawking, hunting, fishing, eel-arks, &c., with court, plaint, and herezeld, and with furk, fok, sack, sock, thole, thame, vert, wraik, waith, ware, venison, outfangthief, infangthief, pit and gallows, and sae forth, with the tower, fortilace, or manor place thereof, and the couthie wee dame hersel into the bargain."

"By Jove, thou art mad!" exclaimed Clermistonlee, who had listened with no little impatience and surprise to this rhapsody which the law lord brought out all at a breath.

"Hee, hee! the haill barony o' Bruntisfield is a braw tocher!—think o' its pertinents, forbye the lands o' Puddockdub, whilk yield o' clear rental ten thousand merks after paying Kirk and King!"

"King and Kirk, you mean."

"I say Kirk and King—hee, hee! The times are changing, and we maun change wi' them."

"Zounds! I believe the old fool is too drunk to hear me. Harkee! gossip Mersington, you know I lost a thousand pounds to that addlepate, Holsterlee, on our race at Leith, where my boasted mare failed so devilishly."

"Had ye tar-barrelled the carlin Elshender, it would hae been another story," grumbled Juden, as he replenished the tankards.

"A drowning man will cling to straws. By all the devils, on that race hung the partial retrieval or utter ruin of my fortune! 'Tis a debt of honour—the money is unpaid, and must be discharged with others, even should I turn footpad to raise the testers."

"'Tis an auld song, Randal—the fag-end of a career o' wickedness and depravity—birling the wine-cup, and flaunting wi' bona robas," replied Mersington, practising his now snuffling tone, and shaking his head with solemn but tipsy gravity in the new character his cunning led him to assume. "A just retribution on the crying sins, blasphemies, and enormities, anent whilk see the act (damn the act!) committed in the days o' your dolefu' backsliding. I doubt you'll hae to take a turn wi' the Scots' Dutch, like Jock the Laird's brother."

"My drivelling gossip," said Clermistonlee, with considerable hauteur, "you forget that it beseems not a Baron to be so roughly schooled by the mere Goodman of Mersington."

"Byde ye there, billy," exclaimed the other. "Gudeman, quotha! we hold our fief by knight's service, of the Scottish crown; and ken ye, Randal, that such as hold their lands of the King direct are styled Lairds; but such as held their tacks of a subject were styled gudemen; a custom hath lately gone into disuse, as Rosehaugh saith in his folio on Precedence."

"Laird or Lord, I care not a brass bodle. No man shall assume the part of monitor to me! Again and again I have told thee, Mersington, that my whole soul, for this year past, has been bent upon the possession of Lilian Napier, and her acres of wood and wold; and dost think, gossip, that I, who have subdued so many fine women (yea, and some deuced haughty ones, too), shall be baffled by a little moppet like this? Come, good gossip, assist me with thy advice. I have ever found your invention fertile, your advice able, your cunning matchless. Canst think of no new plan, by which to——Hah! who the devil can that be, now?" he exclaimed, as another furious knocking at the outer gate cut short his adjuration; and he listened anxiously, muttering, "'Tis long past midnight; some drunken mudlark, I warrant."

"A macer o' council, my Lord," exclaimed Juden, entering hurriedly, and laying a square note before his master, who let fall his wine-cup as he examined the seal, which bore the coronet and collared sleuth-hound of Perth. A red glow suffused the dark cheek, and sparkled in the eyes of Clermistonlee, as he deliberately opened a billet which he previously knew to be of the most vital importance to himself and to the nation. It was addressed "ffor ye Right Honourable my very good friend the Lord Clermistounlee," and ran thus:—

"Dear Gossip,

"There is the devil to pay in the south—all is lost! Craigdarroch, a trooper of the Guards, hath brought intelligence that our army, like the English (God's murrain on the false knaves!) hath en masse joined the invader—that James has fled, and William reached London. Meet us at the Laigh Council Chamber without delay.

"Yr assured friend,
"PERTH, Cancellarius."

Overwhelmed with consternation, Clermistonlee stood for a moment like a statue; then, crushing his hat upon his head, he stuck a pair of pistols in his belt, snatched his cloak and sword, and tossing the note to Mersington, to read and follow as he chose, rushed away in silence with his usual impetuosity.

Mersington, who had regarded his actions with a stare of tipsy wonder, took up the note, and contrived to decypher its contents. As he did so, his features underwent a rapid change; fear, wrath, and cunning by turns contracted his hard visage, and completely sobered him. At last, a sinister leer of deep meaning twinkled in his bleared eyes; he quietly burned the note, brushed his large hat with his sleeve, adjusted it on his head, and assuming his gold-headed cane, departed for the Board of the Privy Council.

From that hour his Lordship was a true-blue Presbyterian.

CHAPTER XVI.

TRUST AND MISTRUST.

March! march! why the deil do ye no march?
Stand to your arms, my lads, fight in good order;
Front about, ye musketteers, all
When ye come to the English border.
LESLY'S MARCH.

As before related, the Scottish army advanced into England in three columns.

It was by the express desire of James VII., and contrary to the wish of the Council, that these forces left Scotland, where William had many adherents, especially in the western shires. There the old spirit of disaffection was subdued, but far from being extinguished. The Privy Councillors had proposed to retain their troops, and in lieu thereof to send to their frontiers a corps of militia and Highlanders, thirteen thousand strong; but James was urgent for the regulars immediately joining him at Hounslow, and they marched accordingly.

On the first day of October the Scottish army crossed the Tweed, and drew up on English ground, when General Douglas (to quote Captain Crichton, the cavalier-trooper who served in the Grey Dragoons) "gave a strict charge to the officers that they should keep their men from offering the least injury on their march; adding, that if he heard any of the English complain, the officers should answer for the faults of their men."

That night the Scottish drums were ringing in the streets of "merry Carlisle." There Douglas halted for the night, and Dunbarton's regiment bivouacked in a field on the banks of the Eden. Provisions were brought from the city in abundance, fires were lighted, and the cooking proceeded with the utmost dispatch.

English troops kept guard at the gates of the city, which was inclosed by a strong wall, and Saint George's red cross waved on the castle of William Rufus—the same grim fortress where, a hundred and twenty-one years before, Mary of Scotland experienced the first traits of Elizabeth's inhospitality.

General Douglas, who commanded the Scottish troops, was a traitor at heart, and deeply in the interest of William. On the morning after the halt at Carlisle, he ordered the Viscount Dundee, with his division of cavalry, to march for London by the way of York; while he in person led the infantry and artillery by the road to Chester. Anxious that William should land before the army of James could be strong enough to oppose him, Douglas, by a hundred frivolous pretences, and by every scheme he could devise, delayed the march of his infantry, which did not form a junction with the English under the Earl of Faversham at London until the 25th of October.

James VII. had now under his command a well disciplined and well appointed army, led by officers of distinguished birth and courage, and he awaited with confidence the landing of his usurping son-in-law. The whole of his troops were quartered in the vicinity of London.

For many reasons, the people of England, like those of Scotland, were prepossessed against all the measures of King James, and to his brave army alone did this unhappy monarch look for support in the coming struggle; but notwithstanding that for years he had been a father rather than a captain to his soldiers, and had watched over their interests with the most kingly and paternal solicitude, quarrels and disgusts broke out between them, and he was yet to find that he leant on a broken reed. The strict amity subsisting between him and Louis of France, excited the jealousy of the nation, who dreaded an invasion of French and Irish catholics, to enforce the entire submission of the protestants.

Never were fears more groundless; but the Irish appear to have been particularly obnoxious to the English soldiers, who flatly refused to admit them into their ranks. The officers of the Duke of Berwick's regiment, on declining to accept of certain Irish recruits, were all cashiered, and the evident weakness of his position alone prevented James from bringing them to trial as mutineers.

Finding that the civil and ecclesiastical orders opposed him in every measure, James unguardedly made a direct appeal to his English army, by whose swords he hoped to enforce universal obedience. Anxious that each regiment in succession should "give their consent to the repeal of the test and penal statutes," he appealed first to the battalion of the Earl of Lichfield, which the senior Major drew up in line before him, and requested that "those soldiers who did not enter into the King's views should lay down their arms."

Save two catholics, the entire regiment instantly laid their matchlocks on the ground!

Astonishment and grief rendered James speechless for a time; but his native pride recalled his energies.

"It is enough, my soldiers," he exclaimed haughtily. "Resume your arms! Henceforth I will not do you the honour of seeking your approbation."

Hurried on by the secret advices of the Jesuits, by his religious enthusiasm (bigotry, if you will), and by the evil genius that has seemed to haunt his race since the days of the first Stuart, James rendered yet wider the breach between him and his army. He distributed catholic officers and soldiers throughout the different English regiments, "and many brave protestant officers, after long and faithful service, were dismissed, without any provision, to favour this fatal scheme." The quota of Irish troops joined him at London, and, on chapels being established for the celebration of mass, the murmurs of the protestants became loud and unrestrained, and a storm of indignation was raised, which in these days of toleration, we can only view with a smile.

The ill-advised appointment of the Pope as sponsor for the young Prince of Wales, the vile and unfounded rumours concerning whose birth the hapless king felt keenly, and the universal approbation with which the secretly dispersed manifestoes of the coming invader were received throughout the land, shewed James that his throne was crumbling beneath him. The brave old Earl of Dartmouth, who lay at the Gunfleet, with thirty-seven vessels of war, and seventeen fireships, in consequence of a storm, was unable to attack the armament of William, who arrived at Torbay on the 5th of November, and immediately landed his Dutch, Scots, English, and French troops, under their several standards.

James, who had no small share of courage and military skill, now threw himself entirely on that army, which he had spent so many anxious years in fostering, training, and disciplining. He dispatched his son, the famous Duke of Berwick, to take possession of Portsmouth, and prevent the inhabitants declaring for the invader, who was then on the march for Exeter; meanwhile he hurried to Salisbury plain, and placed himself at the head of twenty battalions of infantry and thirty squadrons of cavalry, with a resolution to defend his crown to the death: but, alas! the spirit of disaffection, disloyalty, and ingratitude had already manifested itself in the camp. The desertions were numerous and alarming, while sullen discontent and open mutiny so greatly marked the conduct of those who remained, that save a few of the Scottish regiments, James found none on whom he could rely.

Lord Colchester, son of the Earl of Rivers, with many of his regiment, were among the first who deserted to the standard of the invader; Lord Cornbury, son of the Earl of Clarendon, followed, with three regiments of horse.

Lord Churchill, who, from a page, had been raised by James to the peerage and a high military command, also betrayed the blackest ingratitude, by forming a plot to seize his royal benefactor, and deliver him as a bondsman to the Prince of Orange. Failing in this, he deserted with several troops of cavalry, and took with him the Duke of Grafton, a son of the late king. Many officers of distinction informed the Earl of Faversham, their general, "that they could not in conscience fight against the Prince of Orange," and thus, hourly, the whole English army fell to pieces.

The spirit of disaffection soon spread into the Scottish ranks. Douglas, the perfidious general, with his own regiment of Red Dragoons, openly marched off to William with the Scottish standard displayed, and their kettle-drums beating, a circumstance which deeply affected James, for this was a corps on which he had particularly relied; but the treason of Douglas was ultimately avenged by a cannon-shot on the banks of the Boyne. James was a Stuart, and naturally founded his hopes on the soldiers of the nation from whence he drew his blood.

A battalion of Scots' Foot Guards next revolted under a corporal named Kempt, and then every regiment went over in succession under their several standards, save a troop of Dundee's Guards, a corps of dragoons, and the Scots' Royals, fifteen hundred strong, which yet remained loyal and true.

These repaired to Reading, where the gallant nobles, Dunbarton and Dundee, by exerting all their energies, re-mustered ten thousand men in ten days.

The former, with his single regiment alone, offered to attack the Dutch, and by a more than Spartan example of heroism and rashness, to shame their faithless comrades.

Meanwhile the Dutch drums beat merrily up for recruits, which poured to the banner of the invader on all hands, and horses were brought to mount the cavalry and drag the artillery.

All was lost!

The unhappy king, deserted nearly by all, found none near him to whom he could apply for consolation or advice, or in whom he could confide. By the instigation of Lady Churchill, even his daughter, the Princess Anne, left him, and retired to Nottingham. On finding himself now, when in the utmost extremity of distress, abandoned by a favourite daughter, whom he had ever treated with the utmost affection and tenderness, James raised his eyes and hands to heaven, and bursting into a passion of tears,—

"God help me!" he exclaimed, in the greatest agony of spirit; "God help me now, for even my own children, in my distress, have forsaken me!"

* * * *

CHAPTER XVII.

THE GUISARDS.

O mother, thus to fret is vain—
My loss must needs be borne;
Death, death is now mine only gain—
Would I had ne'er been born.
God's mercies cease to flow—
Woe to me, poor one, woe!
BURGER'S LEONORA.

Walter had now been absent many weeks, and the constant fears expressed by Lady Grisel, with all the querulous and tedious prolixity of age, in no way tended to soothe the anxiety of Lilian. She was excessively superstitious, though guileless, kind, and simple, and daily saw terrible omens of impending ill. Black corbies flapped their wings incessantly on the steep gables, and the dead-bell was never done ringing in the cranies of the old house. Strange sounds rumbled behind the wainscoting, shrouds guttered in the candles, coffins fell out of the embers, and the indefatigable death-watch rang the live-long night in the recesses of her old tester bed. Her kindly-meant, but ominous insinuations, and her dreams of stricken fields and riderless horses, nearly drove Lilian to distraction, while old Elsie Elshender, who had been admitted to her confidence, failed not to make matters worse by shaking her palsied head mysteriously, and saying—

"It boded ill-luck to be betrothit wi' a dead woman's ring."

So passed the first weeks of their separation in tears and dark forboding, save when Lilian was with Annie Laurie, whose joyous buoyancy of spirit banished care and fear together. Of Lord Clermistonlee she had seen nothing of late, save on one occasion, when he had followed her from the Abbey porch to the Bowhead; but as she was attended by Drouthy, the butler, and another liveryman, well armed with swords, and pistols in their girdles, she was under no apprehension.

The state of Edinburgh was daily becoming more and more alarming.

As yet there had been no tidings of William's landing; but his friends were on the alert. Under Sir George Munro, a strong division of militia occupied the city; but on the march of the regular troops, these failed to prevent the disaffected from making the capital the focus of their operations. No sooner had the Scottish army crossed the borders, than the Presbyterians, and all revolutionary spirits, crowded to Edinburgh well armed, and there held secret and seditious meetings, which were attended by the Earls of Dundonald, Crauford, Glencairn, and others.

The subtle Mersington, the proud Earl of Perth, the reckless Lord Clermistonlee, and others of the haughty council, were made aware of all this by their numerous spies; but the formidable tribunal which had so long ruled the land by the sword and gibbet, was now completely paralysed by the appearance of many "sulky blue bonnets" crowding the streets; they failed to arrest a single individual, though treason, like a hundred-headed hydra, stalked in daylight through their thoroughfares, and declaimed in their public places. The lords had no tidings of events in the south; all their dispatches from the King being effectually intercepted by Sir James Montgomery, a revolutionist.

And now came hoary Christmas; but it seemed not as of old. It was a dreary one to poor Lilian; and the forebodings that hung over bolder hearts, chilled hers with apprehension. Old Arthur's bare ridge and rocky cone, the great chain of the Pentlands, and all the lesser hills that lie around them, were mantled with shining snow; the deep glens were impassable, and many flocks had perished in them. The cold norlan blast howled over the bleak Burghmuir, then a wide and frozen heath, save where, in some places, a venerable oak spread its glistening branches in the sparkling air. Above the lofty city to the north, that towered afar off on its ridgy hill, the dun smoke of a myriad winter fires ascended into the clear mid-air, and overhung its spires and fortress like a thunder-cloud, portentious of the storm that was brewing among its denizens. The great loch of the burgh lay frozen like a sheet of shining crystal; and there a few jovial curlers, forgetful of the desperate game of politics, shot the ponderous stones along their slippery rinks.

The great Yule-logs crackled and blazed merrily, as in other days, in the wide stone fire-place of the dining-hall, and old familiar objects and beloved faces glowed in its light; but Lilian's heart and thoughts were far away, and she seemed wholly intent on watching the sparks as they flew up the broad-tunnelled chimney.

The eve of Christmas was dark and gloomy. The moon was enveloped in clouds, and not a star was visible; but the frozen snow that covered the whole ground gave, by its whiteness, a reflected light. The hollow wind blustered in the bare copsewood and rumbled in the chimnies, and a very social but hum-drum party of old friends formed a circle round the fire-place in the chamber-of-dais.

Old Lady Grisel occupied her great-cushioned chair, with her spinning-wheel on one hand, and her cup of milk posset on a tripod table at the other. The neighbouring Laird of Drumdryan, a plain, hard-featured man, in an unlaced coat and hideous wig; Sir Thomas Dalyell, in a gala suit of laced buff, rather cross and irritable with a lumbago contracted in Muscovy; and the dowager Lady Drumsturdy, all stomacher, starch, and black satin, with Mistress Priscilla, her daughter and exact counterpart, occupied the foreground; while honest Syme of the Greenhill, in his plain hodden-gray coat, a flaming red vest, with ribbed galligaskins rolled over his knees, and his fat, comely dame, with her serge gown, laced coif, and bunch of household keys, sat respectfully a little behind.

While the two lairds were accommodated with silver tankards, which Mr. Drouthy replenished again and again with the burnt sack, then so much in vogue, the bluff ground baillie, in virtue of his humbler station, drank nut-brown ale from plain pewter. Every thing in the apartment was trimmed with green holly branches, and a mistletoe bough hung from the great dormont-tree of the ceiling, under which the long-bearded old cavalier saluted Lady Grisel's faded cheek with much good humour and courtesy.

"Yes, Simeon, it was the case," continued the latter, who was engaged in some prosy reminiscence of King Charles the First's days. "A fiery dragon was seen in the west, and it flew owre the Muirfute hills, towards the castle of Dunbar; and, that day month, a mournful field was fought and lost there."

"I weel mind the time, your ladyship," replied Simeon, scratching his galligaskins where he had received a thrust from a Puritan's pike; "but the fleeing dragon, wi' its fiery tail, was thought to portend——"

"Just such things, Simeon, as the bright lights in the north hae portended this month past. And ye ken, Sir Thomas, that the miraculous shower of Highland bannets whilk preceded the irruption of the ill-faured Redshanks into the west, in the December of '84, was another wonderful and terrible omen."

"True, Lady Grisel," replied Dalyell, taking a sip from his tankard; "but ane partaking owre mickle o' the leaven o' the auld Covenant (d—n it!) for an auld cavalier like myself to believe; unless auld Mahoud was the merchant that made sae free wi' his gear. He has owre lang been poking his neb in our Scottish affairs."

"O' which my late lord (rest him!) had most ocular proof," said Lady Drumsturdy, in a low impressive voice—"when he saw him, wi' horns and tail, dancing on the walls o' Blackness, in the hoar o' its upblawin', in the year 1652."*

* See Nicol's Diary.

"Cocksnails!" muttered Drumdryan, "here's the snow coming down the lum," and he shook the flakes from his wig.

"You are sitting owre far ben the ingle, laird."

"We'll hae a storm this night, sirs," said Simeon. "I ken by the sough o' the norlan wind—its gey driech and eerie."

"'Sdeath! I hope not," said Drumdryan. "I've a score o' braw bell-wethers owre the muir at the Buckstane; and I lost enough at Martinmas-tide, when twa hundred black faces were smoored in the Glen o' Braid."

"And there has been no word from England since the snow fell—six weeks?" said Lilian sighing.

"Some say the roads are deep, sweet mistress," said General Dalyell; "and others say the Orangemen are deeper: but the deil a scrap hath reached the Council since that rinawa' loon Craigdarroch arrived; and gude kens wha's hand maybe strongest by this time. But God bless the King and the gude auld cause!" continued the old cavalier, draining his tankard.

Drumdryan did the same, adding cautiously,—"The King, whae'er he be!"

"Out upon ye, Laird!" exclaimed Lady Grisel with great asperity. "Wha could he be but his sacred Majesty King James VII., whom I pray the blessed God to counsel wisely and protect."

"'Live and let live' has ever been my maxim, Lady Grisel; but such words may cost ye dear, if the next news frae Berwick be such as I expect," replied the sly laird, drinking with quiet composure.

Rage bristled in every hair of Dalyell's beard, and his eyes glistened like those of a rattlesnake. He could not speak; but the old lady, whose loyalty, fostered by that of the umquhile baronet, was tickled by these observations, brought her chair sharply round, and, striking her long cane emphatically on the floor, said to the shrinking delinquent—

"Shame on ye, Drumdryan!—is your blood turning to water, or what? Gif ye expect bad tidings, it is time that ye donned your buff coat and bandoliers, and had your steed in stall wi' garnissing and holsters. And mair let me tell thee, Sir Laird——but what is that I hear?—singing and mumming, eh? What is it, Simeon?"

"Guisards!" exclaimed Lilian, looking from the window down the snow-covered avenue—"guisards with links glinting and ribbons flaunting. A braw band, in sooth!"

At that moment a faint but merry chorus was heard upon the night wind that rumbled in the wide stone chimney, and a loud knocking rung on the barbican gate.

"Drouthy," said Lady Grisel, "away with ye to the buttery, and get some cogues of ale ready for the loons; and bid Elsie prepare some farls of bannock and cheese, while John the gardener lets them into the barbican, where we will hear them sing. Let twa men keep the door with partisans, that none may cross our threshold. In my time I heard of some foul treachery done by masked faces. Wow but the knaves are impatient," she added, as the knocking was energetically renewed at the outer gate. "And, Drouthy, d'ye hear, take a gude survey of them through the vizzy-hole."

The butler trotted off.

"Lady Grisel," said the General, rubbing his hands, "ye speak like a prudent dame; and a usefu' helpmate meet Sir Archibald maun hae found ye, for he saw hot work in his time."

"Kittle times mak' cautious folk," said the malecontent Drumdryan slowly; "but wi' a that, General, had I feared snow, my braw bell-wethers——"

"D—n you, and your bell-wethers to boot!" growled the fierce old Royalist. "Here come the guisards," and, save him, all rushed to the windows; the veteran cavalier, whose lumbago chained him to his bolstered chair, fidgetted and stroked his beard with a most vinegar expression of face.

Lilian clapped her hands with delight at the merry scene below.

From time immemorial, it has been the custom in Scotland for young people of the lower class, in the evenings of the last days of the old year, to go about from house to house in their neighbourhood, disguised in fantastic dresses, whence their name, guisards. The usual practice was to present them with refreshment; but that custom has departed with the other hospitalities of the olden time. They dance and sing a doggrel rhyme, adapted to the occasion or the person they visit; but, while the Catholic faith was the established one of Scotland, in their songs, the guisards were wont to proclaim the birth of Christ and the approach of the three kings who were to worship him; and some trace of this ancient religious ditty was discernible in the song sung by the visitors at Bruntisfield.

There were ten or more men, all stout, athletic fellows, each bearing a blazing torch, the united lustre of which lit up the deepest recesses of the old façade, under which they performed a fantastic morrice dance to their own music. They were all furnished with enormous masks, of the most grotesque fashion; from these rose head-dresses like sugar-loaves, covered with belis, beads, and pieces of mirror. Their attire was equally outré.

One was clad in the skin of a cow, having its horns fixed to the crown of his head, and the long tail trailing behind him in the snow. Another was furnished with an enormous nose, from which ever and anon a red carbuncle exploded with a loud report; and a third had nearly his whole body encased in an enormous head, which had a face expressive of the most exquisite drollery. Under this prodigious caput the diminished legs appeared to totter, while the jaunty waggery of its aspect was increased by a little hat and feather which surmounted it.

But the principal figure was a tall, fierce, and brawny, but very graceful man, clad in a fantastic robe of scarlet, with his legs curiously cased in shining metal scales: he had a black face of dreadful aspect, from three hideous red gashes, in which the blood was constantly dropping. He wore a crown of green ivy-leaves and scarlet hollyberries, wreathed among the sable masses of a voluminous beard and shock head of coarse hair. Through the openings of his scarlet robe, close observers might have observed a corslet glint at times. All were accoutred with swords and daggers.

Dancing in front, the red masker brandished his sputtering torch, and chanted in a deep bass voice the following rhyme:

"Trip and goe, heave and hoe,
Up and down, and to and fro;
By firth and fell, by tower and grove,
Merrily, merrily let us rove!"

Then the whole choristers struck in while whirling round, they brandished their torches and jangled their bells.

"Hogmenay! Hogmenay!
Trois Rois la! Homme est ne!

Never before had so droll and jovial a band of guisards been seen; and Lady Grisel, preceding all her guests, came cane in hand to the doorway to see their grotesque morrice-dance, and listen to their rhymes; and while the servitors were busy regaling them with ale, cheese, and bannocks, Lilian brought a cup of wine, which, in courtesy, she tendered to their leader. As he approached, she could not repress a shudder, so formidable was his aspect—so tall his stature—so large and dark the eyes with which he regarded her through that terrible mask, down the gaping lips of which he poured the ruddy Burgundy, and again tendered the cup to the fair Hebe who brought it.

As Lilian received it, his strong arm was thrown around her.

"Homme est ne!" he shouted, in a voice like a trumpet. There was a confused discharge of pistols—swords were seen to flash, and in an instant all the torches were extinguished. There was a stifled shriek; and the whole party were seen rushing down the avenue, leaving the barbican gate locked behind them.

"Clermistonlee!" exclaimed Lady Grisel, and swooned away in the arms of her people.

"Boot and saddle!—Horse and spear!—Ride and rescue!" exclaimed old Dalyell, forgetful of his lumbago and everything but the danger of Lilian. Rushing to the hall, no readier weapon than the poker was at hand; but, alas! it was chained to the stone pillar of the chimney-piece. Shrieks and outcries filled the mansion. Old Simeon the baillie, John Leekie the gardener, and others, snatched such weapons as came to hand; and, headed by Dalyell, who was now armed with his great Muscovite sabre, sallied forth to find themselves within the barbican, the strong iron gate of which defied all their attempts. The fierce old soldier rent his beard, and swore some terrible oaths in the Tartar, Russ, and Scottish tongues, till ladders were procured and the walls scaled.

They rushed down the avenue to find only the traces of many feet in the snow, the extinguished torches strewn about, the marks of horse-hoofs and coach-wheels, which, instead of going towards the city, wound over the Burghmuir towards the Castle of Merchiston; and, after many turnings and windings—made evidently to mislead pursuers, were lost altogether among the soft furzy heath at the Harestone, the standard-stone of the old Scottish muster-place.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE REVOLT AT IPSWICH.

I scorn them both! I am too stout a Scotsman,
To bear a Southron's rule an instant longer
Than discipline obliges.
SCOTT.

Unconscious of this bold abduction, a whisper of which would have driven him mad, on the very night it took place, Walter Fenton was seated with Douglas of Finland in the public room of a large hostel or tavern in the central street of Ipswich.

It was the sign of the "Bulloign Gate:" the house was curious and old-fashioned; and on entering, one descended several steps, in consequence of the soil having risen upon the walls. Its fantastic front presented a series of heavy projections, rising from grotesquely-carved oak beams, diagonally crossed with spars of the same wood; little latticed windows, and two deep gloomy galleries, and projecting oriels, over which the then leafless woodbine and honeysuckle clambered, and from thence to the curious stacks of brick chimneys, and broad Swiss-like roofs, with their carved and painted eaves.

The host, a bluff and burly Englishman, with the whole of his vast obesity encased in a spotless-white apron, and exhibiting a great, unmeaning, and bald-pated visage, every line of which receded from the point of his pug nose, sat within the outer bar, where countless jugs of pewter, mugs of Delft, and crystal goblets shone in the light of a sea-coal fire, that roared and blazed in the wide fire-place of the public room.

At a table in one corner of the latter, a ponderously fat Southern was engaged in discussing several pounds of broiled bacon and a small basket of eggs. Over the great pewter trencher his round flushed face beamed like a full moon, while he had the wide cuffs of his coat turned up, and a great napkin like a bib tucked under his chin to enable him to sup without spotting his glossy suit of drap-de-Berri.

Near him were several groups of saucy-like citizens, in short brown wigs and plain broadcloth suits, playing at tric-trac, knave-out-o'-doors, and drinking mulled beer or egg-flip; while from time to time they eyed the Scottish officers askance, and whispered such jokes as the prejudices of the lower English still inspire them to make upon aliens. These they did, however, very covertly and quietly, not caring to enter into a brawl with two such richly-clad and stout cavaliers, armed with sword and dagger, and whose comrades, fifteen hundred in number, were all in the adjoining street.

Our friends sat silent and thoughtful, drinking each a posset of wine. Walter's eyes were fixed on the glowing embers of the fire and the changing figures they exhibited; while Finland seemed wholly intent on reading two papers pasted over the mantel-piece. One was the sailing notice of "the good ship Restoration, which was to sail from the Hermitage Bridge, London, for Leith, on the penult of next month, ye master to be spoke with on ye Scots Walk, where he would promise civility and good entertainment to passengers." The other was a proclamation, signed W.R., regarding the quarters of the Scottish forces in divisions. The cavalier's brow grew black as his eye fell on it; and he sighed, saying:

"Matters are now at a low ebb with the King. Religion and misfortune have fairly check-mated him, as we say at chess."

"Measter, say rather his curst Scottish pride and obstinacy," said a great burly fellow, whose striped apron and greasy doublet announced him to be a butcher. Finland gave him a scornful glance; but being unwilling to engage in a brawl, was about to address Walter again, when the corpulent citizen, having gorged himself to the throat, now felt inclined to be jocular; and looking at the long bowl-hilted rapiers and poignards of the Scots, said:

"Sword and dagger! by my feeth, thee art zo well vortified, that if well victualled, as thy coontryman, lousy King Jemmy, zaid to the swash-bookler, thee wouldst be impregnable. He was at Feversham by the last account," resumed the butcher, "with that long-nosed Jesuit, his confessor, about to embark vor France or Ireland—devil care which. Here is a long horn, lads, that King and confessor may gang to the bottom together."

"Silence, rascal!" said Walter. "Remember that we wear the King's uniform."

"Dom! and wot care I?" said the bumpkin, pushing forward with every disposition to annoy and insult, while a dozen of his townsmen crowded at his elbow. "Have ye not changed sides, like the rest of your canny coontrymen, and joined King William?"

"We have not!" replied Douglas, fiercely, making a tremendous effort to keep down the storm of passion and national hostility that blazed up within him. "Our solitary regiment alone remains yet true to James VII., over whom (with all his faults) I pray Heaven to keep its guard. I abhor his religion, and despise the bigots by whom he is surrounded, as much as you may do, good fellow; but I cannot forget that he is our rightful King; and for him, as such, I am ready to die on the field or the scaffold, should such be my fate."

The fire of his expression, the dignity of his aspect, and the splendour of his attire, completely awed the English boors, and for a moment they drew back.

"You mistake, good people, if you think that, like too many of our comrades, we have changed banners. No! we are still the faithful subjects of that King who heirs his crown by that hereditary right which comes direct from God. This Dutch usurper (whom the devil confound!) hath made us splendid offers if we will take service with him, and march to fight for his rascally Hollanders under Mareschal Schomberg, instead of our good and gallant Dunbarton; and, to intimidate us, is even now enclosing us in your town of Ipswich by blocking up the roads with troops. But let him beware! we have stout hearts and strong hands, and Dunbarton may show him a trick of the Black Douglas days, that will cool the Dutchman's courage, despite his black beer and Skiedam. Yes, Fenton; the arrival of Schomberg to command us bongré malgré will bring us to the tilt."

While Douglas spoke with animation and energy, the Ipswichers had gazed upon him with open mouths and eyes, not in the least comprehending him; but their champion, suddenly taking it into his head that he was defied, threw his hat on the ground, and tucked up his sleeves, saying:

"Dom, but I'll vicht thee for a vardin, an ye have zo much about thee. Dom thee and all thy lousy coontrymen; they should be droomed out o' the town, before they get fattened up among us. Come on, my canny Scot, and if I doant lace thy boof coat for all its tags and tassels, I aint Timothy Tesh of the Back Alley."

"Hoozah!" shouted the rabble in the room and at the doorway, where they had collected in great numbers on hearing high words in the tavern.

"Sawney, hast anything else than oats in thee pooch?" cried one.

"He hath some brimstone, I'll warrant," added another.

"Oot upon thee for a vile Scot that zold his king for a groat, to zave his precious kirk."

"Come on, Measter Scot, and I drub thee in vurst rate style as old Noll did thy psalm-sing countrymen at Dunbarfield. Rat thee! my vather was killed there."

"Heyday, my canny Scot, wilt try a fall with me for a copper bawbee? Dom thee and thy mass-moonging race of Stuarts to boot. May ye all go to hell in the lump!"

"Ware your money, my masters, there are Scots thieves among us," said the Host, entering into the spirit of his townsmen.

Walter and Douglas exchanged mutual glances expressive of the scorn they felt.

"Silence, knaves!" cried Finland, kicking over the table, dashing all the jugs to pieces, and drawing his sword. "This is but a poor specimen of that southern spirit of generosity and hospitality of which (among yourselves) we hear so much said. Bullying and grossly insulting two unoffending strangers, who are guiltless of the slightest provocation; and I tell thee, Butcher, that were it not beneath a gentleman of name and coat-armour to lay hands on your plebeian hide, I would break every bone it contains."

Flushed with ale and impudence, and encouraged by the presence of his friends, the fellow came resolutely forward; he was immensely strong and muscular, but rage had endued Douglas with double strength, and, seizing him by the brawny throat, he dashed him twice against the wall with such force, that the blood gushed from his nostrils in a torrent, and he lay stunned without sense or motion.

His comrades were somewhat appalled for a moment; but gathering courage from their numbers, and enraged at the rough treatment experienced by Mr. Tesh, they snatched up the fire-irons, stools, and chairs, and commenced a simultaneous assault upon the two cavaliers, who, rapier in hand, endeavoured to break through them and gain the doorway, where now a dense and hostile crowd had collected, who poured upon them a thousand injurious taunts and invectives.

The affair was beginning to look serious. Fired by their insolence and the old inherent spirit of national animosity Walter Fenton lunged furiously before him, and shredding the ear off one fellow, slashed the cheek of a second, ran a third through the shoulder-blade, but was borne to the ground by a blow from behind. Walter's sword-hand was completely mastered, and he struggled with his heavy assailants, unable to free his dagger or obtain the least assistance from Finland, who, with his back to the wall, was fighting with rapier and poignard against the dense rabble that pressed around him.

Walter struggled furiously. The moment was critical, but he was saved by the timely arrival of an officer with a few of the Royal Scots, who burst among them sword in hand.

"Place, villains—make way," he exclaimed, with the voice and bearing of one in high authority. "I am George Earl of Dunbarton!"

They fell back awed not less by his demeanour than by the weapons of his followers.

"Chastise these scoundrels, Wemyss," said he to a serjeant who followed him. "Lay on well with your hilts and bandoliers; strike, Halbert Elshender, for it is beneath a gentleman to lay hands on clod-poles such as these."

Thus urged, the soldiers who required little or no incentive to make use of their hands against their southern neighbours, laid on with might and main, and, clearing the house in a twinkling, drove the clamorous host out with his guests; after which they overhauled the premises, and set a few of his best runlets abroach.

"A thousand thanks, my Lord Earl, for this timely rescue," exclaimed Finland. "But for your intervention I must indubitably have hurried some of those rogues into a better world."

"And I had been worried like an otter by a pack of terriers," said Walter; "however, I have had blood for blood."

"The old Moss Trooper's justice, Master Fenton," said Serjeant Wemyss, drinking a flagon of wine. "God bless the good cause, and all true Scottish hearts."

"Here is to thee, Wemyss, my noble Halberdier," said the frank Earl, drinking from the same cup; "and I would to the Powers above, that this night King James had under his standard ten thousand hearts like thine. But time presses—away, lads, to the muster-place, for hark, our drums are beating."

"The générale!" exclaimed Fenton and Finland, as the passing drums rang loudly in the adjacent streets.

"Yes, gentlemen, the crisis has come," said the Earl; "an hour ago, De Schomberg arrived to deprive me of my command."

"By whose orders?"

"The Stadtholder's."

"We know him not, save as an usurper," said Walter Fenton; "and rather than obey his Mareschal, we will die with our swords in our hands."

Wemyss flourished his halbert, the soldiers uttered a shout, and poured forth to the muster-place.

It was a clear frosty night; the whole sky was of the most beautiful and unclouded blue. Seven tolled from the bells of St. Peter's church. The winter moon, broad, vast, and saffron-coloured, rising above a steep eminence called the Bishops' Hill, poured its flaky lustre through the narrow and irregular streets of Ipswich, which in 1688 differed very much from those of the present day. There terror and confusion reigned on every hand for, on the drums beating to arms, the mayor and inhabitants feared that the Scots would burn and sack the town, which assuredly they would have done, had Dunbarton expressed a wish to that effect.

Save where the bright moonlight shot through the crooked thoroughfares, the whole town was involved in gloom and obscurity; but every window was crowded with anxious faces, watching the Scots hurrying to their alarm-post, while the flashing of their helmets and the clank of their accoutrements impressed with no ordinary terror the timid and the disloyal.

By this time King James had fled from Whitehall, and under an escort of Dutch troops, was—nobody knew where. William was in possession of his palace, from whence he issued orders to the troops, and proclamations to the people, with all the air of a conqueror and authority of a king. The entire forces of Britain had joined him, save sixty gentlemen of the Scottish Life Guards, and a few of the Scots' Greys (who were on their way home, under Viscount Dundee), and the Royals, whom, from their number, discipline, and known faith to James, the Stadtholder was very desirous of sending abroad forthwith, under command of the Marshal-Duke of Schomberg, a venerable soldier of fortune, whose arrival at Ipswich on the night in question had brought matters to a sudden issue.

Clad in a plain buff coat, with a black iron helmet and breastplate, Dunbarton galloped into the market-place of Ipswich, where the two battalions of his musqueteers were arrayed, three deep, in one firm and motionless line, with the moon shining brightly on their steel caps, their glittering bandoliers, and the gleaming barrels of their shouldered arms. As he dashed up, the four standards—two of white silk, with the azure cross, and two with the old red lion and fleurs-de-lys—were unfurled, and a crash of prolonged music rang through the echoing street, and many a bright point flashed in the moonlight as the arms were presented, and the hoarse drums rolled the Point of War, while the handsome Earl bowed to his holsters, as he reined up his fiery horse before his gallant comrades. The music died away, again the harness rang, and then all became still, save the hum of the fearful crowd, and the rustle of the embroidered banners.

"Fellow-soldiers of the Old Royals!" exclaimed the Earl, "at last the hour has come which must prove to the uttermost if that faith and honour which have ever been our guiding-stars, our watchword and parole, still exist among us—when we must strike, or be for ever lost! Through many a day of blood and danger we have upborne our banners in the wars of Luxembourg, of the great Condé, and the gallant Turenne; and shall we desert them now? I trow not! Oh! remember the glories of France and Flanders, of Brabant and Alsace. Remember the brave comrades who there fell by your side, and are now perhaps looking down on us from amid these sparkling stars. O, my friends, remember the brave and faithful dead!

"Shall it be said that the ancient Royals, les gardes Ecossais of the princely Louis, so faithful and true to the race of Bourbon, deserted their native monarch in this sad hour of his fallen fortune, and at most extremity? No! I know ye will serve him as he must be served, till treason and rebellion are crushed beneath our feet like vipers—I know you will fight to the last gasp, and fall like true Scottish men—I know ye are prepared to dare and to do, and to die when the hour comes!"

A deep murmur of applause rang along the triple ranks.

"That hour is come! Even now, Frederick De Schomberg, the tool and minion of the Dutch usurper and his parricidal wife, is within the walls of Ipswich, empowered to deprive me of my baton, which I hold from the Parliament of Scotland, and to lead you—where? To the foggy flats and pestilential fens of Holland, the land of agues and hypocrisy, to fight for his beggarly boors and pampered burgomasters, and to encounter our ancient comrades of France—the bold and beautiful France, whose glories we and our predecessors have shared on a thousand immortal fields. Between us and our home lie many hundred miles. De Ginckel, with three thousand Swart Ruyters, hovers on the Lincoln road to intercept us; Sir John Lanier, with two squadrons of English cavalry, awaits us on another; while that false villain Maitland, with a foot brigade of our Scottish guards, is pushing on from London to assail our rear. But fear not, my good and gallant comrades, for by the blessing of God, by the holy consecration of these standards, by the strength of our hands, by the valour of our hearts, and the justice of our cause, we will cut our way through ten thousand obstacles, and reach the far-off hills of the Scottish highlands, where the loyal clans are all in arms, and wait but the appearance of Dundee and myself to sweep like a whirlwind down on the Lowlander!"

A loud shout from fifteen hundred men rang through the market-place, and the brave heart of Dunbarton swelled with exultation at the devotion of his loyal soldiers, and anger at the desertion of their false comrades. He was not, however, without considerable anxiety as to the issue of this decided revolt, or rather appeal to arms, at such a distance from their native land, and in a place where they were so utterly without sympathy, succour, or friends—where to be a Scotsman was to be an enemy. But the very desperation of the attempt endued him with fresh energy. Ere he marched his devoted band, he addressed Gavin of that ilk, a tall gigantic officer, with a rapier nearly five feet long—

"Go to the house of the town treasurer, and tell him instantly to hand you over 10,000l. for the service of King James, under pain of immediate military execution. If the villain demur——"

"I'll twist his neck like a cock-patrick!" said Gavin.

"You will rejoin us at the bridge of the Orwell."

"And how if these rascally burghers make me prisoner?"

"Then, by the blood of the Black Douglas!" said the Earl, passionately, "I will not leave one stone of Ipswich standing upon another."

Gavin strode away, and his tall feathers were seen floating above the heads of the shrinking crowd that occupied the lower end of the marketplace.

"And harkee, Finland!" continued the Earl, "take young Walter Fenton and fifty tall musqueteers, break open the English government arsenal, and bring off four pieces of cannon which I understand are there; press horses wherever you can get them; blow up the magazine; and join us at the bridge—forgetting not, if you are invaded, to handle the citizens at discretion, in our old Flemish fashion. By Heaven, they may be thankful that I have not treated their town of Ipswich as old John of Tsercla, the Count Tilly, did Magdeburg. Away, then!"

CHAPTER XIX.

FREE QUARTERS.

FALSTAFF. 'Sblood! 'twas time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me scot and lot too.—HENRY IV.

The redness of the moon passed away as it ascended into the blue wide vault, and its cold white lustre was poured upon the level English landscape that spread at the feet of the Scottish soldiers, as they began to ascend the heights, or gentle eminence to the northward of Ipswich. Above the winter-smoke of the dense little town, the spires of its churches stood out in bold relief, like lances glittering through a sea of gauze; and the wich or bend of the beautiful Orwell swept in a silvery semicircle, like a gleaming snake, among the fallow fields and leafless copsewood; and far around the scenery spread like a moonlit map or fairy amphitheatre. All was still in the town below; at times, a light twinkled, or a voice rang out upon the quietness that reigned there, but the Scots' Royals, who were halted on the brow of an eminence, over which wound the northern road (the way to their distant home), heard nothing to indicate the success of their comrades.

Anon a vast blaze gleamed broadly and redly on the night, revealing a thousand striking objects unseen before,—the church of St. Peter, with its gleaming windows, and the Gothic façade of Wolsey's ruined college. A loud explosion followed, a shout rose up from the town below; then all became still, and it seemed, as before, to float in the calm misty light of the silver moon.

"Finland has blown up the English magazine," said the Earl; "and here he comes."

The clatter of hoofs and wheels ringing in the narrow streets, and rumbling above the hollow bridge of the Orwell, approached; steel caps flashed in the moonlight above the parapet, the gleam of arms was reflected in the surface of the river, and in a few minutes Douglas, Walter Fenton, Gavin of that ilk, and their party seated on the tumbrils, dashed up with four pieces of beautiful brass cannon, marked with the broad arrow and red rose of England, and drawn by twelve horses captured for the occasion.

"Bravo, Finland!" exclaimed the Earl; "here are four braw marrows for old Mons Meg."

"Would to heaven, my lord, they were in the Maiden Castle alongside of her, with the standard of the Cock o' the North waving over them!"

"How so?—art faint-hearted, man?"

"Tush, I am a Douglas.—Ask Gavin."

"What news, my tall grenadier?—You have the rix-dollars, I hope."

"My Lord Earl, the devil a tester. This English burgomaster was not a whit dismayed by my threats, but assailed me with a band of tip-staves; so, with drawn rapier, I was glad to beat a retreat and gain Finland's band with my skin whole."

"And what think you inspired him to beard us thus?" asked Walter.

"By the head of the King, I care not!" said Dunbarton, setting his teeth and rising in his stirrups. "I will hang him from yonder steeple and inquire after."

"Jeddart justice all the world over," muttered old Wemyss.

"He had received news that Sir John Lanier, with his regiment of Dragoon guards and Langstone's horse, have already reached Saffron Waldron, in which case it were madness in us to tarry."

"Gavin, must we then retreat?" said the Earl, colouring with passion. "Who brought these evil tidings?"

"An English gentleman."

"Pshaw—I don't think he can be relied on."

"I know him to be a man of good repute," replied Gavin: "Sir Tufton Shirley of Mildenham. He fought for the King at Sedgemoor. I warrant him brave and honourable as any cavalier in his country."

"Be advised, noble Earl," urged the grim old Laird of Drumquhasel; "every moment is worth the life of a brave comrade."

"Indubitably so," added the Reverend Dr. Joram, as he spurred a prancing mare which he had borrowed unconditionally, with holsters and saddle-bags, from the host of the Bulloign-gate. "As Sir John Mennys saith in his 'Musarum Delicæ'—

"Hee that fights and runnis away,
May live to fight——"

Ye know the rest, sirs."

"We are not wont to make such reservations, reverend sir; but you are in the right," replied the Earl. "March in silence, comrades, and with circumspection. Keep your ranks close and your matches lighted—forward!"

About midnight they passed Needham, a town on the Orwell. All was dark and silent; scarcely a dog barked as they marched through its deserted streets, and continued their way, by the light of the stars, across the fertile country beyond. The fugitive Scots marched with great care and rapidity; four hundred miles lay between them and their native land, a long and perilous route, on which they knew innumerable dangers and difficulties would attend them.

De Ginckel, the Dutch Earl of Athlone, Sir John Lamer, and Colonel Langstone, with six regiments of horse and dragoons, and Major Maitland with a brigade of the renegade Scottish Guards, were pressing forward by various routes to intercept and cut them off. No man dared, on peril of his life, to straggle from the ranks; for, as Scotsmen and Loyalists, they were doubly enemies to the English peasantry, who would infallibly have murdered any that fell into their hands, as they had done all the Scottish wounded and stragglers after the battle of Worcester. And thus, animated by anxiety, hope, and the exhortations of the gallant Dunbarton and his cavaliers, they marched—all heavily accoutred as they were—with such amazing rapidity, that, long ere daybreak, they had left Bury St. Edmunds, with its ancient spire and once magnificent abbey, twenty miles behind them.

Making detours through the fields, cutting a passage through walls, hedges, and fences, they avoided every town and village, and more than once were brought to a halt by Gavin, who led the avant guard, declaring that he saw helmets glittering in the light of the waning moon. They forded the waters of the Lark, and the cold grey light of the winter morning began to brighten the level horizon, throwing forward in dark relief the distant trees and village spires, as they came in sight of Ely, without having encountered their Dutch or English foemen.

The cold was intense; and the same white frost that powdered the grassy lawns and leafless trees encrusted the iron helmets and corslets of the soldiers, whose breath curled from their close ranks like smoke from a fire. To Scotsmen even the most hilly parts of the landscape appeared almost a dead level, where Ely, with its fine cathedral and street, that straggled on each side of the roadway, seemed floating in a sea of white mist, through which the Ouse wound like a golden thread. Shorn of its beams by the thick winter haze, the morning sun, like a luminous ball of glowing crimson, ascended slowly into its place, and the great tower and pinnacles of Ely Cathedral gleamed in its light as if their rich Gothic carving had been covered with the richest gilding, and the tall traceried windows shone like plates of burnished gold.

The Reverend Dr. Joram, who had dashed forward with cocked pistols to reconnoitre, returned to report, with military precision, that "it was a fair city, open, without cannon or fortifications of any kind; and that, if it contained soldiers, they kept no watch or ward. And I pray Heaven," he added, "we may get wherewith to break our fast."

"We will march in with drums beating," said the Earl. "Allons, mon tambour Major! Give us the old Scottish march, with which stout James of Hepburn so often scared the Imperialists in their trenches on the Oder and the Maine."

With drums beating, standards displayed, and matches lighted, the solid column marched into the little city of Ely just as the tenth hour rang from the cathedral bells, and halting, the Earl sent to the affrighted mayor to demand peaceably three hours' quarters and subsistence for 1,500 Scots in the service of King James. The mayor, who on the previous night had dispatched a most loyal address to the new King William, was considerably dismayed to find the city so suddenly filled by the soldiers of a nation he equally feared and detested: but to hear was to obey. The determined aspect of young Walter Fenton, with his features flushed and red by the long and frosty night march, his drawn rapier, and Scottish accent and fashion of armour, made the mayor use every exertion to get his unwelcome visitors peaceably billeted on the terrified citizens, who expected nothing less than immediate sack and slaughter.

To the Earl he sent a flowery invitation to breakfast, thus anticipating Dunbarton, who had proposed to invite himself. The other cavaliers quartered themselves on any houses that suited their fancy; and Walter Fenton, Finland, and their jovial chaplain took possession of a handsome old mansion at the extremity of the city, having with them Wemyss and a few soldiers, to prevent treachery, surprise, or inattention on the part of the occupants, whom they desired to prepare a substantial breakfast, on peril of their lives, ere the drums beat to arms.

It was an ancient, oriel-windowed house, with clusters of carved chimnies rising from steep wooden gables, around which the withered vine and dark-green ivy clambered; its gloomy dining-hall, lighted by three painted and mullioned windows, was floored with oak, and curiously wainscotted. A great pile of roots and coal was blazing in the projecting fireplace, and a shout of approbation burst from the frozen guests as they clattered in, and drawing chairs around the joyous hearth, threw aside their steel caps, and demanded breakfast as vociferously as if each was lord of the mansion, and the venerable butler looked from one to another in confusion and dismay.

"Fellow, where is thy master?" asked Finland; "why comes he not to greet the King's soldiers, if he is a true cavalier?"

"To be plain, sir, his honour took horse, and rode off whenever your drums were heard beating down-hill."

"Some rascally old roundhead! and why did he ride—was he afraid we would eat him?"

"I know not, sir; but a bold horseman is my master; and he dashed into the Ouse as if he saw the game before him."

"Or the devil behind!" added the clergyman. "Mahoud! a thought strikes me—he crossed the Ouse—what if he be gone to warn De Ginckel of our route? The Swart Ruyters were last seen at Haverhill."

"Convince us of that, Doctor," said Walter, "and we should burn this fair house to the ground-stone."

"Gadso, lad; let us have breakfast first. Harkee, butler——"

"Thou see'st, reverend sir," began the old servant, trembling.

"Avaunt, caitiff! dost thou thou me? 'I am come of good kin,' as the old morality saith," cried Joram; "fetch me a pint of sack posset, dashed with ginger, and a white loaf, while breakfast is preparing; and if you would save your back from my riding-rod, and your master's mansion from the flames, see that our repast be such as not even Heliogabalus could find a fault with."

"And bring me a wassail bowl of spiced ale," said Finland.

"And me a stoup of brandy, master butler," added Sergeant Wemyss.

"And me the same," chorussed Hab Elshender and the soldiers at the lower end of the hall; while his Reverence the chaplain, stretching himself before the ruddy flames, began the old ditty of the Cavaliers of Fortune.

"Now all you brave lads that would hazard for honour,
Hark! how Bellona her trumpet doth blow;
Mars, with many a warlike banner,
Bravely displayed, invites you to goe!
Germani, Denmark, and Sweden, are smoking,
With a band of brave sworders each other provoking,
Marching in their armour bright,
Summonis you to glory's fight,
Sing tan ta, ra, ra, ra, ra, ra!"

As his Reverence concluded, he drained the sack posset, which the white-haired butler placed obsequiously before him.

"Many a time and oft have I heard my father chant that old Swedish war-song," said Finland. "He commanded a regiment of Ruyters under Gustavus."

"O Vivat! Gustavus Adolphus, we cry,
With thee all must either win honour or die!
Tan, ta ra, ra, ra, ra, ra!"

sang the chaplain; "O 'tis a jolly anthem. Heres to his memory—Gustavus Adolphus, the friend of the soldier of fortune—the Cæsar of Sweden—the Star of the North! I perceive, gentlemen," continued the divine, "that there are virginals and music in yonder oriel window. What say ye—shall we summon the rosy English dame, whose dainty fingers I doubt not, press those ivory keys, that she may sing us some of the merry southern madrigals King Charles loved so well?"

"Nay, Doctor, by Heaven!" said Walter, as the thought of his absent Lilian (for whose sake all the sex were dear to him) flashed upon his mind. "If there are ladies here, no man shall molest them while I can hold a rapier."

"Hear this young cock o' the game," said Joram, angrily; "he cocks his beaver like a mohock already."

"Well spoken, young comrade," said Finland; "our clerical friend hath mistaken his avocation. Instead of entering holy orders, he should have been purveyor to old Dalyel's Red Cossacks."

"'Sdeath! gentlemen," said the divine, colouring; "I only jested, and you turn on me like so many harpies. But as for you, Mr. Fenton, my pretty cavaliero, who proposed burning the mansion to the ground-stone?"

"I knew not that it contained ladies."

"My lady comes of an old cavalier family, noble sirs," said the old butler, with great perturbation; "and would herself appear to greet you, but illness——"

"It is enough, good fellow," replied Finland; "how is she named?"

"She is a daughter of old Sir Tufton Shirley."

"Then God bless her!" said Joram; "her father's Hall of Mildenham can show the marks of Cromwell's bullets. And your master, gaffer Englishman—his name?"

"Marmaduke Langstone," answered the servant, hesitatingly.

"Who commands a corps of Red Dragoons on the borders of Bedfordshire?"

"The same."

"Then hell's malison on him for a false, canting, prick-eared, round-headed, double-dyed traitor!" exclaimed the chaplain, furiously, as he attacked a cold sirloin, with the same energy as if it had been the proprietor. "He is now tracking us from place to place; but if he comes within reach of our cannon—Gadso! let him look to it."

A sumptuous breakfast of cold roasted beef, venison pies, broiled salmon, white manchets, cheese, butter, eggs, milk, possets of sack, tankards of spiced ale, coffee, &c. had been spread on the table of the dining-hall, by the timid English servants, whose dread and aversion of their unwelcome guests often made the latter laugh outright.

"I am glad," said Walter, as he breakfasted, "we have taken quarters in the house of so false a traitor. I should like much to have a horse; and, for the service of King James, I will mulct him of the best in his stable."

Wemyss and other soldiers, who occupied the lower end of the long oak table, were feasting, with all the voracity of famished kites, on the rich viands; but while hewing down the great sirloin in vast slices, Hab Elshender declared that he "would rather have a cogue of brose at his mother's ingle-neuk, than the best that bluff England could produce."

"And well I agree with thee, friend Hab," said the veteran Wemyss. "My heart misgives me, we will be sorely forfoughten, ere we see the blue reek curling from our ain lumheeds. But here is to Dunbarton—God bless his noble heart, and the good old cause."

"Good Wemyss, and you, my brave lads," said Dr. Joram, from the head of the table, "I crave to drink with you."

"Thanks to your Reverence—thanks to your honour," muttered the soldiers, bowing and drinking.

The meal was a very protracted one; but the moment it was over, Dr. Joram muttered a hasty blessing, called loudly for more wine, lighted his great pipe, unbuttoned his vest, and with Finland sat down to a game at tric-trac; the soldiers began to examine their bandoleers and musquets, and Walter repaired to the ample but nearly empty stables, where, from among the indifferent farm horses the necessities of war had left behind, he selected a fine-looking charger, high-headed, close-eared, square-nosed, and broad-chested, and having saddled, bridled, and caparisoned him to his entire satisfaction, led him forth just as the générale was beaten. Mounting, he galloped to the muster-place, well pleased with the acquisition the law of reprisal and the fortune of war entitled him to make.

CHAPTER XX.

THE REDEEMED PLEDGE.

Ha! dost thou know me? that I am Lothario?
As great a name as this proud city boasts of.
Who is this mighty man, then, this Horatio,
That I should basely hide me from his anger?
FAIR PENITENT.

Refreshed by their halt at Ely, the soldiers of Dunbarton pushed on towards "Merry Lincoln," the merriment of whose citizens would probably be no way increased by their arrival. Marching by the most unfrequented route to avoid the highway, they pursued a devious path through fallow fields and frozen lawns, and sought the shelter of every copsewood.

The level plains of fertile England could oppose but few and feeble obstacles to the hill-climbing Scots, accustomed from infancy to the rocky glens and pathless forests of their rugged mountain home; however they found it necessary to abandon the four pieces of English cannon, which were spiked and concealed in a thicket, and thus unencumbered, they hurried on with increased speed.

Walter's heart grew buoyant and gay as the day wore apace, and the picturesque villages with their yellow thatched cottages and ivy-covered churches, the old Elizabethan halls and brick-built manors of Cambridge and Lincolnshire, were passed in rapid succession. He knew that every pace lessened the distance between Lilian and himself, and before the sober winter sun descended in the saffron west, he hailed with pleasure the old town of Crowland, with its great but ruined abbey, the walls of which were buried under masses of luxuriant ivy.

Far over the gently undulated landscape shone the purple and yellow rays of the setting sun; Crowland Abbey, its old fantastic houses and village spire, on the summit of which the vine and ivy flourished, and all the winter scenery were bathed in warm light. The Scots were descending a slope towards the town, when a shot fired by the avant guard, gave them an alert; then the voice of Dunbarton was heard commanding his brave musqueteers to halt, while Gavin of that ilk came galloping back from the front.

"My lord earl," said he, "we have seen the glitter of steel above the uplands yonder."

"Then we have been brought to bay at last. With 6000 horse on our flanks, it was not likely we would pass the Ridings of Yorkshire without a camisado. Strike up the Scottish point of war, and let these knaves show themselves."

The shrill fifes and brattling drums rang clear and sharp in the pure frosty air, and ere the last note had died away, a body of horse appeared on an opposite eminence. Their broad beaver hats and waving feathers, polished corslets and scarlet coats, declared them English.

"'Sdeath," said the earl, "they are Langstone's Red Dragoons, so de Ginckel's Black Riders are not far off."

"'Tis but a troop of sixty, my lord," said Walter.

"Dost think thee are within range?" asked Gavin, as his grenadiers began to open their pouches and blow their fuses.

"Scarcely, and we have no ammunition to spare; so if they molest us not, I freely bid them good speed in God's name."

A single cavalier was now seen to spur his horse to the front, and after riding along the roadway a few yards, to rein up and fire a pistol in the air. By the military etiquette of the time, this was understood to be a challenge to single encounter, or to exchange shots with any cavalier so inclined.

Full of ardour and youthful rashness, and burning to distinguish himself, Walter Fenton exclaimed,

"I accept the challenge of this bravadoer; you will permit me, my Lord Dunbarton?"

"Doubtless, my brave lad, but beware; yonder fellow appears an old rider; his harness is complete, à la Cuirassier, as we used to say in France."

"Scaled all over like an armadillo, as we used to say at Tangier," added Dr. Joram. "Speed thee, Fenton, and shew the rebel villain small mercy."

Walter galloped within a few paces of his adversary, who had now reloaded his pistol. His powerful frame which exhibited great muscular strength, was cased in a corslet of bright steel, buff coat and gloves, and enormous jack boots, fenced by plates of iron; his head was defended by an iron cap covered with black velvet (a fashion of James VII.,) and was adorned by a single feather; he carried a long carbine and still longer broadsword. His hair was cut short, and his chin shaved close in the Dutch fashion. He levelled a pistol between his horse's ears with a long and deliberate aim at Walter, whose eye was fixed in painful acuteness upon the little black muzzle and stern grey eye that glared along the barrel.

He fired!

The ball grazed the cheek plate of Walter's morion. He never winced, but felt his heart tingle with rage and exultation, as in turn he levelled his long horse pistol at the Williamite trooper, who was reloading with the utmost coolness. Walter fired, and with a loud snort, a strange cry, and terrific bound, the strong Flemish horse of his adversary sank to the earth, and tore up the turf with its hoofs. Its brain had been pierced. The rider lost his pistol by the plunge, but adroitly disengaging himself from the twisted stirrups, high saddle, and convulsed legs of the fallen steed, he unsheathed his long sword, and brandished it, crying—

"Vive le Roi Guillaume! come on young coistrel!"

While the cheers of his comrades and a brisk ruffle on their drums made his heart leap within him, Walter sprang from his horse, and throwing the reins to Hab Elshender, drew his slender, cavalier rapier, and rushed to encounter his strong antagonist, but a glance sufficed to stay his forward step and upraised hand, and to lull the excitement of his spirit.

"Captain Napier!" he exclaimed, on recognizing beneath the dark head piece, the stern, unmoved, but not unhandsome features of Lilian's kinsman, and his rival.

"I told thee, Fenton, we would meet again," said Napier, coldly and sternly, "and I swore when that hour came to spare thee not. It hath come, so do unto me, as thou wilt be done by."

"For the sake of her whose name and blood you inherit in common, I would rather shun than encounter you. Your life—I spared it once."

"Why remind me of that?" said Napier, furiously, while his cheek reddened. "'Tis better to die than remember that the boldest heart of the Scots Brigade owes its existence to the favour of a beardless moppet like thee! bethink thee, man," continued Napier, sneeringly, "the entail—your sword can break it in a moment; Quentin Napier is the last of his race, and then Lilian becomes an heiress."

"Away, sir," replied Walter, sadly and calmly, as he dropped the point of his sword, "you have mentioned the only thing that in an hour like this, unnerves my hand to encounter you."

At that moment a drum of Dunbarton's beat a charge.

"Hark! your comrades are impatient," said Napier scornfully; "fall on, you nameless loon, for here shall I redeem the pledge I gave or die," and swaying his sword with both hands, he attacked Walter with great fury and undisguised ferocity.

His courage was well met by Walter's address, but his bodily strength and weight of weapon were far superior, and he pressed on pell mell, until a deep gash in the right cheek reminded him of the necessity of coolness. The wound which would undoubtedly have roused another man to additional fury, had the effect of giving Napier a caution, that enabled him to parry Walter's successive cuts and thrusts with great success. Without the least advantage being gained on either side, the combat continued for three or four minutes, during which the greatest skill in swordsmanship was exhibited by both cavaliers, in their attempts to pass each other's points, until a stone in the frozen turf caught Walter's heel and he was thrown to the earth with great force. Ere he could draw breath, the captain sprang upon him like a tiger, and with his sword shortened in his hand, and a knee pressed upon his breast, he exclaimed in a fierce whisper through his clenched teeth,

"Now I have thee! now your life is in my hand, but even now will I spare it, if here before the God that is above us, ye swear for the future to renounce all hope and thought of Lilian Napier—now, yea, and for ever!"

"Never!" gasped Walter, panting with rage and shame, for an exulting shout from the Red dragoons stung him to the soul; "never; by what title dare you impose such terms on me?"

"By the right of a kinsman and betrothed lover who would save her from contamination, by becoming the wife of an unknown foundling, a beggarly varlet, a soldier's wallet boy—ha!" and he ground his teeth.

Walter felt stifled as his corslet was compressed beneath the heavy knee of his conqueror, and he made many ineffectual struggles to grasp his poniard, but it lay below him.

"Renounce—renounce! swear—swear!" hissed Napier through his teeth.

"Never, never," groaned Walter.

"Then die!" shouted Napier; and raised his shortened sword which he grasped by the blade; but endued with new energy at the prospect of instant death, Walter by a vigorous effort of strength, with one hand flung his adversary from him and pinning him to the earth in turn, unsheathed his long dagger, and while labouring under a storm of wrath and fury, drove it twice through the joints of his shining gorget, but unable to withdraw it after the second blow, sank upon his enemy, and they lay weltering together in blood.

"My bitter and my heavy curse be on thee, Walter Fenton!" hissed the dying Napier through his chattering teeth; "and if thou gettest her, may the curse of Heaven, and the curse that fell on Jeroboam be thine! mayest thou die childless, and be the last as thou art the first of thy race!" He fell back and expired.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE SWART RÜYTERS!

With burnished brand and musketoon,
So gallantly you come;
I read you for a bold dragoon,
That lists the tuck of drum.
ROKEBY.

When Walter Fenton recovered, he found himself on horseback, and his comrades on the march, beyond Crowland, and the setting sun was about to dip below the far-off horizon. A throng of thoughts chased each other through his mind, but sorrow was the prevailing one. The rage he had felt against Napier for his taunts, the hatred for his rivalry, and animosity for his politics had all passed away; he felt now the keenest sorrow for his fate, and remorse that he had fallen by his hand.

The thought did flash upon him, that by the fatal issue of the encounter, Lilian was indisputably heiress of Bruntisfield and the Wrytes, but shrinking from contemplation of it, he dismissed it from his mind, as unworthy to be dwelt upon. By him, the warm congratulations of his friends were unheeded and unheard; his whole mind was absorbed in the idea that he had slain the only kinsman of his beloved Lilian, and destroyed the last of a long and gallant race, and already in anticipation he beheld her tears, and heard the sorrowful reproaches of the proud Lady Grisel.

The appearance of the advanced party of Langstone's troopers, whom the earl knew belonged to Sir John Lanier's brigade of English horse, had considerably increased the dread of the retreating regiment. There was now every prospect of being enclosed and cut off, for independent of infantry pouring from twenty different roads upon their route, there were 6000 horse following them on the spur from the eastern and western counties. Actuated by loyalty, by dread of capture and consequent disarmment, decimation, captivity, or dispersion, they marched with great rapidity, and to cheer them on, the earl and his officers constantly encouraged them by enthusiastic addresses and encomiums, to which the brave Royals responded by shouts and cheers.

Shrill blew the fifes, and the braced drums rang briskly, as they entered upon a dreary wold to the northward of Crowland, a grassy and heathy waste, or down, over which the fading light of the setting sun shone in all its saffron splendour. On debouching from the road over which the tall poles with the slender stems of the hops twining and clambering, though leafless and faded, formed an archway through the thick and dense hop gardens that bordered each side of the way, the advanced guard uttered a shout of surprise and defiance, and halted till the main body came up.

Goring his horse, Dunbarton dashed to the front, and beheld a dense column of darkly-armed cavalry formed in line across the moor, about a gunshot distant. They were motionless as statues, and the setting sun shone full upon their serried files and glittering weapons; they were soldierlike in aspect; their helmets and corslets were of unpolished iron, as black as their long jackboots; their yellow coats, heavily cuffed, and with looped skirts, proclaimed them Dutch, Their horses were large, heavily jointed, and as phlegmatic in aspect as their riders, for the whole brigade stood motionless and still as a line of bronze statues. Even their blue standards, with, the white fess, hung pendant and unmoven.

A little in advance of the line was an officer on horseback, motionless, inert, and seemingly fast asleep; he was a man of vast rotundity, and cased in a capacious cuirass of polished steel, which gave him the aspect of a mighty tortoise, or some great bulb of which the gilt helmet formed the apex. An enormous basket-hilted sword swung on one side of him, and a brass blunderbuss on the other; while a great tin speaking-trumpet, like that of a Dutch skipper (then common in all armies, and last used by the brave Lord Heathfield), was grasped in his right hand. So utterly lifeless seemed the whole array, that if any other proof was wanting, it alone would have proclaimed them Hollanders.

"Dutch, by all the devils!" cried Dunbarton, galloping back to the Royals. "'Tis the Baron De Ginckel and his Swart Ruyters. Pikes against cavalry! Gavin, throw your grenadiers into the centre. Finland, Drumquhazel, brave gentlemen, march me your companies to the front. Musqueteers, blow your matches, open your pans, and prepare to give fire!"

"Shoulder to shoulder, my boys!" cried Dr. Joram; "though the number of Gog be countless as the sand on the sea-shore, fear not!"

"God save King James! Hurrah!" cried the Royals, as the pikemen rushed forward to form the outer faces of the square, in which Dunbarton resolved to cut a passage through the Dutch, as there was no time for a protracted fight by taking advantage of the localities; for other troops were pressing forward on every hand. Like a vast hedgehog with all its bristles erected, the band of Scots, in one dense mass, debouched upon the wold, with their fifteen hundred helmets and myriads of bright points gleaming in the last flush of the set sun. The stout pikemen, with their long weapons charged (or levelled) from the right haunch before them, formed the outer faces of the square; and the musqueteers, with their smoking matches and polished barrels, the rear-rank; in the centre were the grenadiers with their open pouches and lighted grenades, clustered round the Scottish standards, beneath which the old national march was beaten by twenty drums, as the whole column moved, with admirable order and invincible aspect, towards the centre of that long line of horse, whose flanks, when thrown forward, would quite have encircled them.

With his half-pike in his hand, Walter marched in front of the first face, and he felt a glow of ardour burn within him as they neared the Swart Ruyters—for so these horsemen were named, from their black armour.

The moment the Royals advanced, De Ginckel placed his great trumpet to his mouth, and puffing out his cheeks, in a voice of thunder bellowed an order to break and form squadrons, for the purpose of attacking the Scots on every side. Hoarsely and deeply, in guttural Dutch, rang the words of command, as each successive captain gave the order to his troop; and the whole line became instinct with life and action. Swords and helmets flashed, and standards waved, as the heavy iron squadrons, galloping obliquely to the right and left, formed in two dense columns, preparatory to charging.

"We will be assailed on every hand," exclaimed the Earl; "but be firm, my brave hearts, and quail not, for our lives and liberties depend upon the issue of this conflict. Halt! pikemen, keep shoulder to shoulder like a wall."

"Vivat!" cried the Dutch dragoons; "gluck! gluck! vivat Wilhelm!"

On they came in heavy masses, but ere their goring spurs had urged their ponderous chargers to the gallop, the voice of Dunbarton was again heard—

"Musqueteers, open your pans—give fire!"

"Hurrah; down with the Stadtholder, and death to his hirelings!" cried the Scots; and the roar of six hundred muskets seemed to rend the very air, and reverberated like thunder over the echoing heath. From each face of the square, above the stands of pikes, six ranks poured at once their vollies, three kneeling and three firing over their heads, according to the old Swedish custom of the Scots when formed in squares. Two hundred grenades soared hissing into the air, sank and burst, and the effect was tremendous on the advancing Dutch.

More than a hundred and fifty troopers and horses fell prone on the frozen heath, dead or rolling in the agonies of death, and were fearfully trampled and kicked as the rearward squadrons, instead of dashing onward, reined up simultaneously, and appalled by the slaughter, and aware of the inutility of attacking a square of resolute infantry, began to recoil.

A shout of fierce derision burst from the retreating Scots, as de Ginckel, like a vast Triton blowing on a conch, galloped from troop to troop, bellowing in furious Dutch the order to advance, accompanied by a storm of hoarse abuse; but his Ruyters were immoveable, and he beat both officers and men with the bell of his trumpet in vain. While reloading and blowing their matches the musketeers continued retiring with all expedition towards a thick coppice that grew on the margin of the moor about a mile distant. The Dutch cavalry re-formed, for pursuit. The roadway on the snow-covered moorland was scarcely visible in the grey twilight; on the right it branched off towards Boston, and on the left towards Folkingham.

Dunbarton knew not the exact route, but his whole aim for the present moment was to reach the copse wood, where he would be less assailable by horse.

When but a quarter of a mile from this friendly bourne, a drum was heard to beat within its recesses, a long line of bright arms flashed under its dark shadows, and as if by magic the fugitive band beheld Maitland's brigade of the Scots Guards two thousand strong, drawn up in firm array, with the red matches of their shouldered muskets gleaming like a wavy line of wildfire in the twilight of the evening.

The shout of wrath and dismay that burst from the soldiers of Dunbarton, was immediately succeeded by another—for lo! a dense body of cavalry debouched from the Boston road, forming line at full gallop as they spread over the wold, while another in dark and close array, came leisurely up at a trot from the ancient town of Folkingham, and all their trumpets sounded at once in martial and varying cadence, as they came in sight of the fugitives, and reined up for further orders.

"Lanier's troopers on the right!" said Finland.

"Marmaduke Langstone on the left!" added Dr. Joram; "hemmed in—lost—there is nothing for it now but surrender to the Philistines."

"Or die in our ranks!" said Walter Fenton.

"Right, my young gallant!" replied the Earl. "All is indeed lost now—but discretion is oft the better part of valour, and by yielding for the present we may the better serve King James at a future period, than by being shot on the instant, and thus ending our lives and our loyalty together. What say ye, cavaliers and comrades?" Though the Earl spoke thus lightly, his heart was throbbing with smothered passion, and the murmur that broke from his soldiers was expressive rather of wrath and fury than acquiescence to his advice.

Then a dead silence followed, and not a sound was heard throughout the different bands arrayed on the level waste, but the clank of accoutrements as two Dutch officers, dispatched by the Baron de Ginckel rode up to Langstone and to Lanier, to communicate the orders of their leader, who was rapidly advancing with his strong column of Ruyters, so disposed as completely to cut off all hope of flight in any direction.

In spite of his natural courage, Walter felt his heart now become a prey to intense sadness, if not apprehension. Jaded and wearied by excessive fatigue, his comrades were dispirited and little inclined for new strife, to engage in which, so far from their native land, and when hemmed in by forces so much more numerous, would have been madness. He contemplated with horror being a prisoner to the Dutch or English, to be banished perhaps to the West Indies or some far foreign station, or to endure a protracted captivity, and a shameful death—in either case perhaps never again to behold his Lilian and his loved native land, for to a Scotsman the love of home is a second being—a part of his existence. So much was he occupied with these sad thoughts that he was not aware a flag of truce was approaching, until he saw an English cavalier rein up his horse within a few yards of him. The stranger bowed gracefully, saying,

"Sir Marmaduke Langstone would speak with the Earl of Dunbarton—he is bearer of a message from Goderdt de Ginckel, Earl of Athlone."

"Say forth, Sir Marmaduke," replied the noble Douglas; "if it be such as a Scottish Earl may hear without dishonour. What says Mynheer of Athlone?"

The Englishman laughed and replied,

"He desires me to acquaint your Lordship and those gallant Scots who have so rashly revolted from King William——"

"You mistake, Sir; we never joined the banner of the statholder, and cannot be termed revolters."

"Then ye are rebels by the laws of the land."

"Not of England, as we owe it neither suit nor service."

"Then ye have broken the laws of your own country."

"Under favor, Sir Marmaduke! We hold our commissions from the Scottish Parliament, from whom we have received no orders, since we marched south among you here; and you sadly mistake in naming those rebels, who still wear the king's uniform."

"My Lord," rejoined the English knight haughtily, "I have no time to argue these niceties with you. De Ginckel desires me to inform you, that he will grant such terms as might be expected by any other foreign foe who hath marched on English ground, with drums beating and standards displayed—and these are, life and kindness, on an unconditional surrender of arms and all martial insignia, yielding yourselves prisoners at discretion."

The swarthy cheek of the Earl grew gradually crimson with passion as Langstone spoke; but an expression of shame and mortification succeeded.

"Alas, alas!" said he, looking sadly on the silk standards that rustled in the evening wind. "Are those old banners that were wrought for us by the noble demoiselles of Versailles to be thus dishonoured at last? Often have they been pierced by the bullets, but never sullied by the touch of a foe!"

"We will yield to our ain kindly folk," cried Sergeant Wemyss and several soldiers; "we will yield us to Major Maitland and the Scots Guards."

"You must surrender to the Swart Ruyters alone, my brave hearts!" cried Langstone.

"And what if we do not?" asked Dunbarton.

"Good my Lord, the consequences will be frightful—unconditional surrender, or utter extermination, Dutch terms. On every hand you are hemmed in, and every road to your native land is blocked up by enemies. My noble Lord," and here with generous confidence the brave Englishman rode close to the levelled pikes, "be advised by one who wishes well to Scot as to Southern. If one cannot fight prudently to-day, better be fighting a year hence, than have the sod growing green over us. Shall I ride back to the Baron, and promise your surrender?"

"Be it so; but deeply do I grieve that Sir Marmaduke Langstone, whose family has ever been distinguished for valour and loyalty, is the propounder of such bitter terms to George of Dunbarton."

"The times are changed, my Lord; live and let live is my motto; had such been the maxim of James II., this sword, which my father drew for his at Marston, had not this day been drawn against him. Liberty of conscience is dear to us all, and I respect the high principles of those soldiers who rushed to the standard of our deliverer."

"Then learn still more to respect the chivalry and generosity of the few whose principles of loyalty bound them to their unhappy king in the darkest hour of his distress and misfortune."

"Decide, my Lord, decide—for the Swart Ruyters are closing up troop upon troop."

"We will yield our national standards to the Scottish Guards—our arms and persons to de Ginckel."

"It is enough," replied Sir Marmaduke, as he wheeled round his horse, and rode towards the immense Dutch commander, whose Ruyters with the brigades of Scots and English, had now hemmed in the fugitives, as it were in a large hollow square.

Far off, at the horizon of the frozen heath, the winter moon shining, red and luminous rose slowly into the blue sky, eclipsing the light of the diamond-like stars as it ascended; and its pale splendour fell brightly and steadily on the fitful weapons and the dark masses of half mailed men, among whom they gleamed—on the white and powder-like frost that glittered silvery and clearly on every blade of grass, and on the dark spots that dotted the plain to the southward.

There many a rider and horse were lying stiff and cold.

END OF VOL. II.

LONDON:
HARRISON AND SON, PRINTERS,
ST. MARTIN'S LANE.

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Table of Contents

- THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER.

- CHAPTER I. LES GARDES ECOSSAIS.

- CHAPTER II. THE GLOVE.

- CHAPTER III. A BALL IN THE OLDEN TIME.

- CHAPTER IV. TWO LOVES FOR ONE HEART.

- CHAPTER V. BEATRIX GILRUTH.

- CHAPTER VI. THE SEDAN.

- CHAPTER VII. ADVENTURES OF THE NIGHT CONCLUDED.

- CHAPTER VIII. THE FENCING LESSON.

- CHAPTER IX. THE LUCKENBOOTHS.

- CHAPTER X. THE WHITE HORSE CELLAR.

- CHAPTER XI. THE BETROTHAL.

- CHAPTER XII. THE DEFIANCE.

- CHAPTER XIII. THE MARCH FOR ENGLAND.

- CHAPTER XIV. THE HAWK AND THE DOVE.

- CHAPTER XV. A STATESMAN OF 1688.

- CHAPTER XVI. TRUST AND MISTRUST.

- CHAPTER XVII. THE GUISARDS.

- CHAPTER XVIII. THE REVOLT AT IPSWICH.

- CHAPTER XIX. FREE QUARTERS.

- CHAPTER XX. THE REDEEMED PLEDGE.

- CHAPTER XXII. THE SWART RÜYTERS!

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE