The Captain of the Guard. Grant James

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СКАЧАТЬ forth with barking hound and twanging horn, in that Rood-day in harvest, which so nearly cost him his life; and how the fair Queen Margaret daily fed the poor at the castle-gate, "with the tenderness of a mother;" those who had seen Randolph's patriots scale "the steep, the iron-belted rock," – Count Guy of Namur's Flemish lances routed on the Burgh-muir, and wight Wallace mustering his bearded warriors at midnight by the Figgate-burn, ere he marched to storm Dunbar.

      That white spot above the gate of the Portsburgh is the bleached skull of Sir Robert Graham, who was the first to plunge his dagger in the heart of James I. It has been there since 1436, when those awful tortures took place before the Roman legate, and filled even him with horror.

      The lofty old mansion on the south side of the long street down which we look from the ramparts, is the residence of the princely abbot of Cambus Kenneth; the gilt vanes in the distance are those of a similar edifice where dwells John Fogo, abbot of Melrose, author of a work against the heresy of Paul Crawer, who, in 1432, was sent hither from Bohemia, by John Huss, to preach the gospel, undeterred by the flames to which Fogo had consigned Resby, the Englishman, thirty-two years before.

      In the centre of the street are wooden booths, where the country folks, in their canvas gaberdines and hoods of hodden grey, or the burgesses in their pourpoints of good Flemish cloth, may "cheapen" ale at sixteenpence per gallon; otherwise, the brewster or tapster shall have a hole punched in their measures at the market-cross, where now the women of the adjacent villages and farms are arranging their baskets of butter and poultry for sale; and see! there, at this moment, come the town officers, with their halberts and helmets, and the common headsman, in the provost's livery, with a cresset full of blazing coals. Now a crowd gathers: the halberts flash as they are swayed to and fro by the pressure of the people. Then a shriek rises!

      They are publicly branding on the cheek a poor woman, a leper, who has rashly ventured within the burgh; though yesterday, by sound of trumpet, at this same old market-cross, the people of the city, and the villages called Leith and Broughton, were forbidden to attend the fairs of Anster and St. Monance, under pain of pit and gallows, as the plague called the het-sickness, – the same disease of which Archibald earl of Douglas died at Restalrig, – rages in Fife.

      If the reader, in fancy, can realize all this, he will see the quaint old Edinburgh of 1440 clustering on the steep ridge, —

      "Piled deep and massy, close and high;"

      the same city over which the haggard eyes of Crichton wandered, and through which, preceded by trumpet and banner, the haughty young lord of Douglas and Touraine was passing to his – doom!

      Edinburgh, a village then in size and opulence, was, nevertheless, a capital city. Now, when in aspect and magnitude it is one of the most magnificent in Europe, by a strange anomaly it is, in reality, when its narrowness of spirit, in religion, politics, and patriotism are considered, the most provincial village in her Majesty's dominions, perhaps in the world.

      By the time the trumpets were heard, the sun was at its zenith, and Crichton, with a shirt of mail under his velvet pourpoint, came forth to meet the regent in the court-yard.

      Livingstone had assumed a similar steel shirt under his shortcoat, which was of red damask, laced with silver, and over which he wore a long flowing gown with open sleeves, revealing those of his ringed defence, which, being a man of more open character than his compatriot, he cared not to conceal, especially in these perilous times.

      These two statesmen met, sternly and gravely, without a smile or bow.

      "Is all prepared?" asked Livingstone of the chancellor, in a low voice.

      "All," was the brief and emphatic reply.

      "Your men-at-arms?"

      "I have a hundred concealed in the tiring-room, which opens off the great hall."

      "Only a hundred! Are you not most rash?"

      "But they are men whose forefathers for ages have eaten the bread of mine."

      "You, then, deem them stedfast?"

      "Stedfast and true as Rippon steel; unyielding as flint. They are to rush forth under Achanna, when the signal appears."

      "Achanna," said the regent with contempt; "always Achanna. I know not how it is, but that man makes my blood to curdle."

      "He is a faithful – "

      "Villain," interrupted the regent, with irritation.

      "True – but such villains are useful," said the chancellor quietly.

      "And the signal is the black bull's head; but does not Achanna dine with us?"

      "Dine!" reiterated the chancellor, with a flashing eye and a quivering lip. "He will share the banquet at all events."

      "And the four bodies," said Livingstone, gnawing the ends of his grisly moustache, and looking aside, "how mean you to dispose of them?"

      "Under that green turf, where even now the king is playing with his goshawk, they will sleep as soundly as if below a ton of marble in Melrose Abbey Kirk, among their lordly kin," replied the chancellor in a low whisper, and with a ghastly smile; "but hark! I hear trumpets in the streets; and here comes Gray, the Captain of the Guard."

      Accoutred as we saw him yesterday, in his plumed bassinet, with its camaile and chaplet, and his rich mail with its hanging sleeves of scarlet and yellow silk, Sir Patrick Gray, happily ignorant of the dire preparations of the two statesmen, and the mine they were about to spring, made a low bow to each, with some passing remark on the auspicious beauty of the day – for the weather was as common a topic in the time of James II. as in that of his descendant, Queen Victoria.

      "A cloud is coming anon, that may darken its close," said the regent, thoughtfully.

      The Captain of the Guard looked upward, but the sky was cloudless, then his eye swept the horizon in vain.

      "Yea, Sir Patrick," added the chancellor, who is reported to have used the same figurative language, "have you never observed that there are periods – times of our existence, when past, present, and future hopes seem to culminate in one?"

      "Under favour, my lord, I do not comprehend," replied the puzzled soldier, as he played with the buckle of his belt, and thought of Murielle Douglas.

      "Yes – when we seem to hold them all – the past, the present, and more especially the future, in our grasp, and yet may throw them all away. Now dost comprehend?"

      "Do you mean in affairs of love, my lord?"

      "Love!" reiterated the chancellor, scornfully, "nay, I think but of death," he added in a voice so stern and hollow that the soldier started, "but ere long you may, nay you shall know all I mean. Till then, God be wi' you – adieu."

      And with his hands behind his back, and his eyes bent thoughtfully on the ground, Crichton slowly followed the regent into David's Tower, while the Captain of the Guard, bewildered by their strange remarks, hurried to join his hundred pikemen, who were drawn up in two ranks at the gateway which opened under the Constable's tower.

      Sir John Romanno of that ilk, who commanded the fortress, had now all the king's garrison at their posts, with bills and crossbows, and the cannoneers by their guns, with lintstocks lighted.

      CHAPTER X

      FOREBODINGS

      She СКАЧАТЬ