The Captain of the Guard. Grant James

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Firmilian.

      A simultaneous cry burst from all on seeing this sure and terrible forerunner of a sudden death; all sprang from the table, and instinctively did so, sword in hand; for at the same moment the door of the 'tiring room was thrown violently open, and a chosen party of Crichton's vassals, led by Romanno of that ilk, constable of the castle, Andrew Gray of Balgarno, and others, rushed forward, and with levelled partisans, separated the earl of Douglas and his brother David from their more immediate friends.

      "To your swords and defend yourselves, my brother and friends; we are lured – tricked to death!" cried the young earl, with prompt bravery, hewing right and left at the partisans; "A Douglas! a Douglas! cut me a passage to the king – to the throne – it is at least a sanctuary!"

      "Hold, my lord!" exclaimed the chancellor, in a voice of thunder, as he stood with one foot on the lower step of the king's chair, and firmly interposed his drawn sword, "it is no sanctuary for thee or thine! and dare you – "

      "Slay a chancellor? Yes, if I can, and this dog regent, too, like false hounds and fell traitors as ye are!" replied the brave youth, with a scornful but heartrending smile; while, by the press of partisans levelled in a dense rank, he and his brother, with Sir Malcolm Fleming, Sir Alan Lauder, and all others disposed to resistance, were thrust close to the wall, yet they shouted resolutely, "a Douglas! a Douglas!" The chairs and banquet-tables were overthrown, and all became a scene of confusion, destruction, and dismay, from which many fled by the doors, not knowing how the brawl would end.

      "Guards and gentlemen!" exclaimed the tall grim regent, as he towered above the armed throng, and roughly but firmly grasped the left arm of the bewildered king, who thought he was about to perish, like his father, by the hands of regicides, yet, like a brave boy as he was, had rushed forward to save Douglas; "guards and gentlemen, disarm this traitorous peer and all who have drawn their swords by his side in the royal presence. Put up your blade, I command you, William, earl of Douglas – the king is here, and this is his royal castle!"

      "Dishonour blight it for this day's deed," exclaimed old Sir Malcolm Fleming, "and may its roof-tree be the gallows of all thy race, accursed Crichton! thou cogging villain, thou cheat and assassin! And as for thee, Lord regent – hah! the sword that knighted thee was never notched in battle!"

      "A very carpet squire!" said Lauder, scornfully.

      "Liars are both; the blade that knighted me was our Scottish sword of state; a king's hand gave me the accolade – a king murdered by traitors false as you! Now hearken to me, Douglas. Fate has this day placed the destinies of your rebellious and overweening house in the hands of a justly-offended king and his resolute ministers, so prepare for a doom upon which a short but ample career of evil actions has hurried you – that fatal doom which incensed justice is about to mete out to you and the adherents of your father. Disarm them, guards I say; by my voice the king commands it!"

      Seeing the futility of resistance, the venerable laird of Cumbernauld tossed his sword disdainfully to the Captain of the Guard, and Sir Alan Lauder broke his blade across his knee, and flung the fragments down in sullen silence; but the earl and his brother hacked and hewed at the shafts of the partisans, inflicting many severe wounds on the hands and arms of their assailants, before they were beaten down, disarmed, when mad with fury, and secured by silken cords, torn from the curtains of the hall windows. Achanna, while pretending to save the earl, hung treacherously upon his sword arm till he was captured, and the sorrowing and bewildered Captain of the Guard had to interpose his own sword between the furious boy Lord David and Romanno, who had drawn his dagger, having been exasperated by a slash across the face. Prior to this the abbot of Tongland, the earl of Ormond, Douglas of Pompherston, and others, had all been dragged from the hall and forcibly expelled into the city, where they spread alarm and consternation through every street and alley.

      The poor little king, who, with the six princesses his sisters, had been given up completely to the care of Livingstone and Crichton, since his mother Queen Jane had contracted her foolish marriage with the handsome Sir James Stewart, usually known as the Black Knight of Lorn, surveyed this terrible scene with the bewilderment of a startled boy; but, on beholding the two brothers manacled with cords, bruised, bleeding, and faint, after their brave but futile struggle, he burst into tears, and clutching the robe of the lord chancellor, besought him "to spare them."

      Then, according to Balfour, in his "Annals of Scotland," and other writers, the chancellor replied sternly: – "You are but a child, and know not what you demand, for to spare them would be the ruin of you and your whole kingdom!"

      "Forgive them; oh, forgive them!" continued the princely boy, wringing his hands, and appealing next to the regent; but he too replied grimly: – "Your grace knows not what you ask."

      "I do know what I ask, and what I command. Am I not a king?" was the passionate response.

      "Well, rather than obey," replied Crichton, through his clenched teeth, "I would walk barefoot over seven burning ploughshares, or over the seven times heated furnace of hell," he added, with terrible energy; "our time for vengeance has come!"

      But the little monarch continued to sob and say: – "Lord regent, lord regent, I am a king."

      At last he appealed to Sir Patrick Gray, commanding him to draw his dagger and cut the cords which bound the brothers and their two faithful friends; but the unfortunate captain, confounded by the suddenness of the catastrophe, impelled by his love for Murielle on one hand, his duty to the two highest officers of the crown on the other; his regard for the young king, and a remembrance of how insolently these Douglases had ever treated himself, leaned on his sword, and covered his face with his hand, to hide the emotion that warred in his breast.

      Suddenly he approached Crichton, to unite his entreaties to those of his young monarch; but was roughly repelled.

      "Oh, chancellor," he exclaimed, "is this my meed – this my reward for faithful service as the king's liege man?"

      "If such you be, I command you, peace, Sir Patrick – guard the king, and leave the punishment of his rebels to us."

      Now the voice of the regent was heard above the throng, as he shook his clenched right hand aloft.

      "I arrest you, William, duke of Touraine, earl of Douglas, lord of Annandale, Longueville, and Galloway, on charges of foul treason; and you, Lord David Douglas; you, Sir Malcolm Fleming of Biggar and Cumbernauld; and you, Sir Alan Lauder of the Bass, captain of the castle of Thrave, on the same serious accusation."

      "Treason?" reiterated the young earl, as he proudly raised his head; "in what have I been guilty of treason; and who dare accuse me?"

      "I – the chancellor of Scotland," replied Crichton.

      "Read the charges," said the regent, sternly.

      "They are here," replied Crichton, unfolding a document, while all leaned on their unsheathed weapons, and listened breathlessly. "Treason, in the daily oppression of the king's subjects, at the head of two thousand horsemen, most of whom are outlawed moss-troopers and thieves of Annandale, who sorn on the king's lieges, and commit every outrage; and this ye do, though the parliament held at Perth, in 1424, ordained that no man should travel abroad with more followers than he could maintain. Treason in dubbing men as knights who are but sorners, limmers, and masterful rogues. Treason, in holding cours plénières after the fashion of parliament; and treason, in sending two gentlemen to France as your ambassadors to Charles VII."

      "It is false, as all the rest!" exclaimed the earl. "I did but send them as my father desired me, when he lay dying at Restalrig, to renew his oath of fealty for the duchy of Touraine, the fief of Longueville, and other lands we hold in France; and СКАЧАТЬ