The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Scottish Cavalier, Vol. III, by James Grant

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.

CHAPTER I.

LILIAN.

I love thee, gentle Knight! but 'tis,
    Such love as sisters bear;
O, ask my heart no more than this,
    For more it may not spare.
                                                          KNIGHT TOGGENBURG.

The image of Clermistonlee and his threats came painfully upon Lilian's memory. She shrieked for aid, but her cries were lost in the vacuity of the old-fashioned coach in which she was being carried off. She strove to open the windows, but they were immoveable as those of a castle, and she resigned herself to tears and despair. The vehicle was rumbling and jolting over a waste of frozen snow; here and there, a farm-house or a congealed rivulet were passed, but everything appeared so strange and new, when viewed in their snowy guise by the twilight of the mirky winter night, that Lilian had not the most remote idea in what direction she was taken; and, shuddering with cold and apprehension, the poor girl crouched down in a corner of the coach, and abandoned herself to grief and wretchedness.

The excessive chill of the night, and prostration of spirit under which she laboured, produced a sort of stupor, and when the coach stopped, she was unable to move; but a tall dark man, muffled and masked like an intriguing gallant of the day, lifted her out. As one in a dream, who would in vain elude some hideous vision, she attempted to shriek; but the unuttered cry died away on her lips, and she closed her eyes. A strong embrace encircled her; a hot breath—(was it not a kiss?)—came upon her cold cheek, and she felt herself borne along; doors closed behind her, and by the warmth of the altered temperature she was aware of being within a house.

She was seated gently in a chair; and now she looked around her. A large fire of roots was blazing on the rough stone-hearth; its ruddy glow rendered yet more red the bare walls and strongly arched roof of a hall (built of red sandstone) such as may be seen in the old fortlets of the lesser barons of Scotland. The windows on each side were deeply embayed by the thickness of the wall, and a deep-browed arch spanned each; they had stone seats covered with crimson cushions, and foot-mats of plaited rushes.

The hurrying clouds and occasional stars were seen through the strong basket-gratings that externally defended these prison-like apertures. The hall was paved, and its rude massive furniture consisted only of a great oblong table of oak, several forms or settles, a few high-backed chairs, and one upon a raised part of the floor, at the upper end, had a canopy of crimson cloth over it, announcing that it was the state-chair of the Lord of the Manor. Swords, pikes, harquebuses, hunting and hawking appurtenances, with a few veiled pictures, were among its ornaments.

A great almery, or cupboard (so called from the old hospitable custom of setting aside food as alms for the poor), occupied one end of the apartment, and an ancient casque surmounted it. Various bunkers of carved oak, bound with iron, occupied the other. On the right hand of the doorway, a stone lavatory, covered with magnificent sculpture projected from the wall. This old-fashioned bason was furnished with a hole to carry off water, and was an indispensable convenience to every ancient dining-hall.

With one rapid glance of terror Lilian surveyed the whole place, and started from her chair to be confronted by one whose aspect made her instinctively shrink back. The keen and hawk-like eyes of Beatrix Gilruth were fixed upon her with an expression at once menacing, searching, and scornful. There was something in the wild visage of this inexplicable woman that excited curiosity, while her air terrified, and her withered person repelled approach.

"Who are you, woman?" asked Lilian firmly, as, stepping back a pace, she surveyed her from head to foot; "and what are you?"

"What am I?" reiterated the other, with a voice that thrilled, while her grey eyes gleamed with a blue light, and she ground her teeth. "I am what thou shalt be, my pretty minx, ere ye leave these walls, perhaps."

Lilian, terrified by her aspect and her answer, sank into a chair, saying, as she clasped her hands, and looked up imploringly from her bright dishevelled hair—

"Neither the Heaven that is above us, nor the Hell that is beneath, will protect you, pretty one; but you will be made what many as fair have been,—the toy, the plaything of an hour, to be cast aside when some new fancy has seized the wayward mind of your lord and betrayer. Look at that veiled portrait——"

At that moment three distinct knocks were heard against the almery. Lilian started and turned pale.

"Yes, yes," said Beatrix scornfully, addressing the knocker; "you are impatient. There was a time—but it matters not—I bide mine; and my long delayed vengeance will wither thee up, false lord, even as if the lightning of God had scorched thy perjured soul."

Low as this was uttered, it reached the ears of Lilian; she became doubly terrified, and a momentary feeling of utter abandonment made her cover her face with her hands and weep bitterly. But, suddenly starting up, she said with energy—

"I will go hence, madam; and whatever be the danger, I will risk it. But the snow, the darkness, and the distance—oh, horror!—Aunt Grisel—gossip Annie—what will they think of this?—what will become of me?"

"Stand," said Beatrix, interposing. "Are you mad, to think of leaving this roof in the middle of a winter night? Remember the dreary lea of Clermiston, the rocks and the frozen marshes of Corstorphine, you are fey, maiden, to think it."

"Begone, thou ill woman," replied Lilian contemptuously; "I will go, and I dare thee to stay me."

"Then," rejoined Beatrix spitefully, "remember the barred windows, the bolted gates, and the good stone walls. Pooh, maiden, take tent and bide where ye are; for I swear ye can never go from hence, but at the pleasure of my lord."

"The young lady of Bruntisfield," answered Beatrix coldly; "a wayward lass with a braw tocher, it seemeth,—one who prefers a younger cap and feather than my lord. Ha! hath he not sworn—(and mark me, maiden, he never swears in vain!)—that he will compel thee yet to beg his love at his hand as a boon, even as humbly as he now sues thine."

"In sooth!" retorted Lilian, with angry surprise. "He will surely have the aid of some such witch as thee to work so modern a miracle."

"Witch, quotha!" replied Beatrix, whose withered cheek began to redden with passion. "Lilian Napier, there was a time when these grey grizzled locks were once as bright and as glossy as thine; when this brow was as smooth, this faded form as round, yea, and as beautiful; this step as light, and this poor face as fair, as thine now are. So beware thee of taunts, maiden; for the time is coming (if thou art spared) when thou mayest be loathsome as I now am, and loathing as I now do. That hour is coming; for Clermistonlee hath an evil eye, beneath whose baleful influence all that is good and beautiful in woman will wither and die. Oh! Lilian Napier, what a tale of love and weakness, shame and misery, sin and horror, would the history of my life reveal! But my hour of revenge is coming. Yes——"

Again three knocks louder than before rang on the almery; and Beatrix, trembling, ceased to talk, and busied herself in laying a supper on the hall-table.

"Oh, Walter! Walter!" murmured Lilian, "if you knew of this—if you were here to protect me!" Her tears flowed freely.

"Walter!" reiterated Beatrix musing; "can it really be the same? No, it is impossible; and yet, why not?—He is your lover, then, this Walter?" she asked in a low voice, while laying some cold grilled meat, confections, and wine from a buffet. "I know he is—that blush tells me (when did my cheek blush last?) He is young and handsome, I warrant?"

"Oh, yes! brave as a hero of romance," said Lilian in the same low tone; for there is nothing so pleasing to love as to hear the object of it praised. "And so noble—so generous! If true worth gave a title, my dear Walter would be a belted Earl."

"You have seen him then?" said Lilian, her blue eyes beaming, as she almost forgot her present predicament in the thought of her lover. "Is he not handsome, good woman?"

"It is the same!" exclaimed Beatrix, in her shrillest tone. "Walter, the powder-boy—the soldier's brat—hah!"—she ground her teeth, and clenched her shrivelled hands like knots of serpents—"I bide my time. Oh, I will be fearfully avenged!"

She pointed to the supper-table, and, throwing herself into a chair, fixed her sunken eyes upon the red glowing fire, and, lost in her own wild thoughts, continued to jabber with the rapidity and restlessness of insanity. It was evident that she was partly deranged,—a discovery which, while it raised the pity of the gentle Lilian, increased the dread and the horror of her situation.

Clermistonlee, with his faithful rascal Juden, were both within earshot. The former had sufficient tact and experience to know that it would be better to defer any interview with Lilian until next morning, by which time he hoped she would be a little more familiarised with her situation; and leaving Juden, who was ensconced in the recesses of the almery, to be a check upon the troublesome garrulity of his only female domestic, he retired to a snug apartment, where, enveloped in his shag dressing-gown, and comforted by a great tankard of his favourite mulled sack, and several books of "ungodly jests," he practised all his philosophy to enable him to endure this temporary separation from Lilian, consoled by the idea that she was completely in his clutches, within his strong tower, which he was entitled to defend against all men living; and well aware that, in the political storm which in another week would convulse all Scotland from the Cheviots to Cape Wrath, the abduction of a girl—more especially the daughter of a "persecuting cavalier"—would be less regarded than the wind blowing over the muir.

As the still, quiet night wore on, and the fumes of the wine mounted into his head, very strange ideas floated through the brain of the roué. Again and again the thought of Lilian being so utterly in his power intruded itself upon his heated imagination; he felt his blood begin to glow; his mind became confused; he endeavoured to combat his constitutional wickedness, and, by aid of his repeated potations, and a highly seasoned grillade, dozed away the night very comfortably in a well-cushioned chair; while his leal henchman was in the same happy state of oblivion, through the medium of various stoups of ale which he imbibed in the spence or buttery.

The repast prepared for her was left untouched, she resisted every invitation to repose, and resolved on passing the night by the hall-fire; until, reflecting that she would be quite as safe in one part of the tower as in another, and wishing to be alone, that she might weep unseen, she was ushered by Beatrix up a narrow stair into a little sleeping apartment, the greater part of which was occupied by a great hearse-looking tester, or canopy bed. The only light in the chamber came from the fire-place, where a heap of logs and coals were blazing, and diffusing a warm glow on the dark wainscotted walls, the oaken floor, and rude ceiling, which was crossed by a massive dormant-tree of oak, covered with grotesque and hideous carving.

There was something very gloomy and catafalcque-like in the aspect of the gigantic bed in which Lilian was to repose; its massive posts of dark oak and darker ebony were covered embossage, and the deep crimson curtains, with heavy fringes, fell in shadowy festoons, while four great plumes of feathers surmounted the corners in sepulchral grandeur. It stood upon a raised dais of three steps, and on the back, amid a wilderness of bassi-relievi, flowers, angels, satyrs, and ivy, appeared the coronet and gorgeous blazon of Clermistonlee.

"I cannot sleep here, good woman," said Lilian shuddering; but the noise of the closing door, and the bolt jarring outside, was her only reply. She found herself alone. Her first impulse was to fasten her door within securely; her second to examine the chamber, by the light of the fire. In the deep little window stood a beautiful cabinet, on the upper part of which were a mirror and all the usual appurtenances for a lady's toilet, but of the most costly and elegant description, with all the perfumes, oils, essences and lotions then most in vogue. She turned from them with disgust to survey the walls, for the fear of secret entrances was impressed powerfully upon her mind by her knowledge of the number that existed in her own home; but, upon examination, she found nothing to increase her dread, save the cabinet, the doors of which were locked, and returned an unusually hollow sound when she touched them.

Alternately a prey to fear and indignation, she walked about the little apartment, or sat by the fire weeping and praying, until sleep began to oppress her; and, unable longer to resist its effects, with an audible supplication to Heaven that the morrow might bring about her release, she threw herself (without undressing) on the bed, and almost immediately fell fast asleep.

CHAPTER II.

HOW CLERMISTONLEE PRESSED HIS SUIT.

A strong dose of love is worse than one of ratafia; when once it gets into our heads it trips up our heels, and then good night to discretion. THE LYING VALET.

From an uneasy slumber that had been disturbed by many a painful dream, Lilian started, awoke, and leaped from the bed. The embers of the night fire still smouldered on the hearth stone, and the rays of the red sun rising above a gorge in the Corstorphine hills, radiated through her grated window as through a focus. Pressing her hands upon her temples, she endeavoured to collect the scattered images that had haunted her sleep. She had dreamt of Walter. He seemed to be present in that very chamber, to stand by her gloomy bed, and smiled kindly and fondly as of old. He bent over to kiss her, but lo! his features turned to those of Lord Clermistonlee; the great tester bed with its plumage and canopy became a hearse; she screamed and awoke to find it was day.

Now all her former fear and indignation revived in full force, and she wept passionately. Reflecting how completely she was at the mercy of Clermistonlee, whose character for reckless ferocity, and steady obstinacy of purpose, she knew too well; she resolved to endure with patience, and await with caution an opportunity for release or escape. How little she knew of what was acting in Edinburgh! And her beloved kinswoman, so revered, so tender, and affectionate, but so aged and infirm.

"O horror!" exclaimed Lilian, wringing her hands, "this must have destroyed her."

"Open Madam Lilian," said the voice of Beatrix Gilruth, as she knocked at the door; "open, my lord awaits you at breakfast in the hall."

Lilian hesitated; but aware that resistance would not better her fortune, with her usual frankness ran to the door, opened it, and despite the repulsive sternness of Gilruth's aspect, impelled by a sense of loneliness, and a wish to gain her friendship, she bade her good morning, and lightly touched her hand. Her air of innocence and candour impressed the misanthropic heart of Beatrix, and she smiled kindly. While leading her before the mirror to assist in arraying her for breakfast, the bosom of the unfortunate castaway could not repress a sigh, and a scanty tear trembled in either eye, as she writhed her withered fingers in the soft masses of Lilian's hair.

"I will shew thee my bairn what a braw busker I am," said Beatrix, "though 'tis long since these poor fingers have had aught to do with top-knots and fantanges."

Resigned and careless of what was done with her, Lilian remained with a pale face of placid composure and grief, gazing unconsciously upon her own beautiful image as reflected in the polished mirror; and though she marked it not, there was a vivid and terrible contrast between her statue-like features, and those of her tire-woman—keen, attenuated, and graven with the lines of sorrow, rage, bitterness, and misanthropy; the true index of that storm of evil passions and resentful thoughts that smouldered in her heart.

At length the captive was arrayed so far as the skill of Beatrix would go; her dress (that in which she had left home) was long, flowing, and heavily flounced in the French fashion, derived from Albert Durer, who represented an angel in flounced petticoats expelling Adam and Eve from Paradise—hence flounces were all the rage. She wore long and heavy ruffles of the richest lace, a string of pearls and amber was twisted among the bright braids of her beautiful hair; a diamond drop depended from each of her delicate ears, and a rich necklace like a collar, with a pendant, encircled her neck, the whiteness and purity of which never appeared in greater splendour, than when contrasted with the faded skin of poor Beatrix. Passive under her hands, Lilian allowed her great natural beauty to be thus dangerously enhanced, and when she stood up, her rather diminutive stature being increased by her high heeled maroquin shoes, and the grace with which she wore her commode and floating flounces, caused the poor woman, whom so many fair ones had successively supplanted, to utter an exclamation of delight.

"Oh my God!" exclaimed Lilian, in deep anguish; "and was it to please him you have thus arrayed and attired me. Fie upon thee, ill woman!"

"Here at least his bidding must be obeyed implicitly, as when a hundred of his men stabled their horses in the barbican stalls. He is a dangerous man, hinny, and never tholed thwarting, though the hour is coming when he shall thole bitter vengeance, and dree the deepest remorse. But I bide my time—I bide my time."

As she led Lilian into the hall, Clermistonlee advanced to receive her, with an imperturbable air of assurance, gallantry, and devotion. Through one of the deeply recessed windows, the light of the morning sun fell full upon his noble face and figure, which the richness of his dress displayed to the utmost advantage. He wore an embroidered suit of light blue satin slashed with white; he had round his neck the gold collar of the thistle, and had over his left breast the green ribbon and oval badge of the order; a diamond hilted rapier sparkled in a baldrick that was stiff with gold embroidery; his flowing peruke was redolent of perfume; his ruffles were miracles of needlework, and his brilliant sleeve buttons flashed whenever his hands moved.

Hateful as he was at all times to Lilian, now he was more so than ever; surprise, indignation, fear, and contempt, agitated her by turns, and she gazed on him in painful suspense, awaiting his address. He had evidently made his toilet with more than usual care, and resolving to give Lilian no time for reproaches, he led her at once to a seat, saying,

"My dear girl will no doubt be in a prodigious passion with me, but ladies are kindly disposed to forgive every little mistake that has love for its excuse. 'Tis but a dismal old peelhouse this, dear Lilian, but I hope you slept well. The wind sings in the corridors, the corbies scream on the roof, and all that, but with a clear conscience you know, oh yes, one may dose like a top, or a lord of session.

"A clear sharp morning this; I rode as far as Craigroyston before sunrise. There is nothing so improves one's complexion as a gallop in the morning air. Apropos! what do you think of this embroidered suit? 'Tis the last fashion from Paris; that old villain Saunders Snip, in the Craimes, brought it direct from thence last month. On a good figure it is quite calculated to make an impression. Look'ee, fair Lilian; these ruffles cost me twenty guineas a pair, not a tester less I assure you; and the sleeve buttons are the first of their kind, and were made by Monsieur Bütong, the eminent Parisian jeweller, for that glorious fop, the Comte d'Artois, who presented them to a friend of mine in the Scots Archers.

"But this tie of my overlay, ha! that is a contrivance of my own; graceful, is it not? exactly—I knew you would think so. Droll, is it not, that our tastes should be the same? You see, my dear girl, at what trouble I have been to please you. Smile again, dear Lilian," continued his lordship, whose overnight potations, the morning ride had failed quite to dispel; "by Heaven, you look divine: where shall I find words to compliment the beauty of your appearance this morning!"

"You really seem to require all your verbosity for praising yourself, my lord," said Lilian, coldly.

"Now—now, do not be so angry," said Clermistonlee, taking her hand in spite of all her efforts to prevent him.

"I am justly so, my lord," replied Lilian making a strong effort to restrain her tears under an aspect of firmness and determination. "By what right have you dared to bring me here and detain me prisoner?"

"Ha, ha! Lilian, there is no law now, no order, morality, nor any thing else. The world is turned upside down, (at least Britain is)—revolutionized, bewildered, and the old days of battle and broil, reiving and rugging, have come back in all their glory. In this desperate game, my girl," he added, through his clenched teeth, "Clermistonlee must repair his fortune or be lost for ever; but enough of this; let us to breakfast, and then we will talk over matters that lie nearer our hearts. Nay, nay, no refusal—breakfast you must have."

He led her towards the long hall table, where, thanks to Juden's catering and ingenuity, a noble repast was laid, in the profuse "style of ancient gourmandizing; and the unscrupulous factotum who stood near with a napkin under his arm, and a long corkscrew in his hand, surveyed Lilian with something between a smirk and a leer, which was sufficient to increase the fear that oppressed, and the anger that swelled within her breast. She withdrew, saying, with a voice that trembled between indignation and apprehension,

"Spare me this continued humiliation. Oh my Lord Clermistonlee, if there remain within your breast, one spark of that bright spirit which ought ever to be the guiding star of the noble and the gentleman, you will restore me to my home, to the only relative (save one) whom death has left me in this wide world. Be generous, my lord," continued Lilian, touching his hand, with charming frankness; "Oh be generous, as I know you are brave and reckless. Restore me to my home, and I pledge my word you will never be questioned concerning my abduction. I will pass it over as a foolish but daring frolic. Hear me, my lord, in pity hear me."

Clermistonlee trembled beneath her gentle touch; but answered with his usual air of raillery,—

"Hoity, toity, little one! art going to read me curtain lectures already? My dear Lilian, it is too bad really! The abduction? Oh the ardour of my love will be a sufficient excuse for that; and as to being questioned—I don't think any person will permit himself to question me, if he remembers that I am the best hand at pistol, rapier, and dagger, in broad Scotland.

"Beside, dear Lilian, (why dost always shrink? dost think child I am going to eat thee like a rascally ogre) if thou wouldst save thine honour," here his voice sank involuntarily into an impressive whisper, "become mine. Thou shouldst be well aware that after living in the power of one who is so tremendous a roué by habit and repute, no woman could go forth into the world without lying under suspicions of a very unpleasant nature. The roisters at Blair's coffee house have got hold of the story, for it hath made a devil of a noise in the city, and in the mouths of the Bowhead gossips, and Bess Wynd scandal-mongers, our little affair will be quite a romance."

This cruel speech, which was uttered with the utmost coolness and deliberation by Clermistonlee, who played the while with his gold sword-knot, came like ice upon the heart of the unhappy Lilian, who could not but secretly acknowledge that it was too true. She grew pale as death, and, unable to reply, gazed upon her tormentor with a look of such intense aversion, that he could not repress a haughty smile of astonishment.

"Alas!" said Lilian, weeping as she sank into a seat, "the simile is but too true."

"You are very unpolite, Madam Lilian; a gerfalcon is between the vulture and the hawk."

Lilian answered only by her tears, and his lordship began to get a little provoked.

"A devil of a breakfast this, my pretty moppet," he continued, with an air of composure; "when these vapours have passed away, peradventure you will condescend to hear my addresses—meantime consider yourself quite at home, and for Heaven's sake (or rather your own), do take a share of such humble cheer as this my poor house of Clermiston affords." And without troubling her farther, he threw back the curls of his peruke, and attacked the devilled duck, the cold sirloin, and wassail-bowl of spiced ale, the smoking coffee and hot bannocks forthwith.

Within the recess of a window, reclined upon the cushion of one of those stone side-seats so common in old Scottish towers, Lilian sat with her face covered with her hands, and shaded by the masses of her fine hair which fell forward over her drooping head. The glory of the red morning sun streamed full upon her tresses and turned them to wreaths of gold. She seemed something etherially beautiful, and the sensual lord felt his heart beat with increased ardour as he gazed on her from time to time; but aware, from old experience, that it was useless to press her to partake of his luxurious breakfast, he resolved to trouble her no more until the first paroxism of her indignation had evaporated.

Juden and Beatrix having finished their luggies of porridge and ale at the lower and uncovered part of the table, were now engaged, the former in making lures of feathers and raw meat to train two young hawks that sat near him on a perch, with their long lunes or leashes coiled round it; and the latter, while affecting to occupy herself with some household matter, from the bay of an opposite window, watched with a keen, restless, and often malicious expression, the nonchalant lord and the unhappy Lilian, for whom, at times, she felt something akin to pity, and fain would have set her at liberty; but the keys of the tower gates were buckled to Juden's girdle, and every window was closed by a grating like a strong iron harrow.

In the faint hope of some rescue approaching, Lilian gazed earnestly from the window she occupied. It faced the south, and overlooked the then dreary waste of Clermiston Lee, which, with all the undulating country extending to the base of the Pentlands, and that gigantic range, towering peak above peak, as they diminished in the western shire of Linlithgow, were covered with one universal mantle of dazzling snow. Afar off above the hills of Braid the level sun poured its red rays through a hazy sky across the desolate landscape; the thickets, bare and leafless, stood like cypress groves in the waste; the dim winter smoke from many farm-house and cottage lum of clay, ascended in murky columns into the frosty air, but around the lonely tower on the Lee, there was an aspect of stillness and desolation that struck a chill upon Lilian's heart.

Far off, on the Glasgow road, that passed the picturesque old church, the thatched hamlet and Foresters' Castle of Corstorphine, a strong square fortress flanked by round towers, a solitary traveller, muffled in his furred rocquelaure and leathern gambadoes, or grey maud and worsted galligaskins (according to his rank), spurred his horse towards the city; but such occasional passers were all beyond the reach of Lilian. The bridle-road to the town was hidden, and not a foot-print stained the spotless mantle of the level Lee. At times a hare or fox shot across it, from the woods or rocks of Corstorphine, but no other living thing approached, and the heart of poor Lilian grew more and more sad as the dreary day wore on, and night once more approached.

CHAPTER III.

CLAVERHOUSE TO THE RESCUE.

The winter cold is past and gone,
    And now comes on the spring;
And I am one of the Scots Life Guards,
    And I must fight for the King.
                                                My dear!
And I must fight for him!
                                                        OLD SONG.

By orders from William of Orange, who had taken possession of James's palace, and issued from thence his sounding declarations and imperial mandates, Goderdt de Ginckel, with the utmost expedition, marched the captured Scots towards London, where the Statholder (though he had not yet been crowned) was intent on revenging, by the lash and bullet, this signal instance of resistance to his authority. In consequence of this event; he had the first "Mutiny Act" framed, but being an edict of the English Parliament it could in no way apply to Scottish troops.

Aware of the esprit du corps and indomitable valour of the old musqueteers, and fearful of revolt or rescue, de Ginckel sent Lieutenant Gavin twenty other officers and five hundred privates, in charge of Sir Marmaduke Langstone, direct to London, towards which place he marched the remainder by another route; keeping near his person and under sure escort, Lord Dunbarton, Walter Fenton, Finland, and other officers, whose hostility of spirit was more undisguised than their comrades, de Ginckel advanced some miles in rear of the main body of his Black Horsemen. The Earl was destined for the Tower of London; Walter and his brothers in misfortune for the cells of Newgate.

In every town and village through which they were marched, dense mobs of "the rascal multitude" attended and loaded them with every insult and opprobrium, such as the vulgar, the cruel, and the wicked are ever ready to hurl upon the fallen or the unfortunate. Marrowbones and cleavers were clattered around them; effigies of King James, and a figure meant to represent a Scotchman, were carried or kicked along the streets before them, and amid yells and hootings, warming-pans were everywhere displayed from the windows at their approach; at that time a famous mode of insulting the Jacobites, being a palpable hit against the legitimacy of the young Prince of Wales.

"Fie upon the Scots! Out upon thee, Mon! No warming-pan King! William for ever, and down to hell with all Scots, Papists, and Mass-mongers! hurrah!" yelled the rabble on every hand, while vollies of mud, stones, dead cats, &c., were showered on them from every hand. Meanwhile their Dutch escort rode on each side with the most phlegmatic indifference, every man seeming as if fast asleep in his voluminous breeches and wide jack-boots.

"Down with the race of Gog—the soldiers of the priests of Baal!" cried an old puritan; "down with Scots Jemmy and his cursed Jesuits!"

Weak and exhausted by constant marching, lack of food and sleep; dispirited by misfortune, and disfigured by mud and their torn and soiled attire; in the captives no one could have recognized the dashing cavaliers who passed northward a day or two before. They had all been deprived of their horses and arms, and been robbed of everything of value—their cuirasses, purses, rings, &c.—by their guard. De Ginckel was as brutal and merciless as a Carrib Indian, and repeatedly struck the unfortunate cavaliers with his speaking-trumpet.

"Ach Gott!" he often cried to his Ruyters; "if von ob de brisoners escape, ye shall answer for him, body for body, by cast ob dice on de kettle-trum-head!"

"My good comrades, and gallant gentlemen," said the Earl of Dunbarton to the little group that marched around him, "were it not that I feel in my heart assured that an hour of vengeance and retribution will come, I would die of sheer spleen and mortification, for the insults we are compelled to put up with."

"I pity these bluff-headed Saxon boors, because they know no better," replied Walter, staggering, as a stone struck him on the temple; "but De Ginckel——"

"My dear fellow," said Finland, bitterly, "'tis a sample of the good old southern hospitality and kindness of which we hear so much in romance, and so little in history."

"But," continued Walter, "I despise these poppy-headed Dutch poltroons in their black iron doublets, and would risk my share of Heaven to have De Ginckel under my hands on Scottish ground, with none to interfere, and no weapons but our rapiers and a case of good pistols."

"You speak my thoughts," said the Earl, through his clenched teeth. "My malediction on Langstone and his Red Dragoons. Had they and such as they been good men and true, we had not been reduced to this misfortune; and our misguided King, instead of being a houseless fugitive, had dwelt in Windsor still, where now the usurping Stadtholder keeps Court and Council. Sirs, of a verity we live in strange times!"

As they had now crossed the Nen, had left behind old Peterborough (with the hoary fane where St. Oswald's bony arm worked miracles of old), and were marching through the open country, being free from the yells and missiles of the mob, they could converse with tolerable freedom, though at times De Ginckel thundered silence through his trumpet, or a Swart Ruyter, more waggish or wickedly inclined than his soporific comrades, pushed his horse sidelong to tumble one of the captives among the half-frozen mud that encumbered the roadways. Their mortification and dejection increased at every step of their retrograde march, and even the lively sallies of Dr. Joram failed to enliven them.

The sombre evening was closing, when De Ginckel, with his Ruyters and their captives, after traversing the fenny district between Cambridge and Lincoln, came in sight of Huntingdon, where, as Dr. Joram remarked, "the devil's god-son, that prime rascal, old Noll, first drew breath." The dying light of the winter sun tipped the spires of the ancient town-hall and the church of All Saints, and glimmered on the sluggish windings of the Ouse. The prisoners were pursuing a lonely road; on one side lay a thick copsewood, and on the other one of those wide and desolate fens then subject to the inundations of the Ouse, whose waters in many places formed deep and solitary meres or tarns. Within the recesses of the wood, the quick eye of Walter had soon detected the glitter of arms, to which he drew the attention of the Earl.

"It matters not," replied the dejected noble, "no arms now glitter under James's standard; we are lost men, my dear lad. It will be black tidings for my little Lætitia, when the accursed Tower of London holds the last Lord of Dunbarton."

"And what thinkest thou, Walter, our dear lassies will say when they hear we are in Newgate?" asked Finland.

"'Twill be rare news for the Lord Clermistonlee," replied Walter, in a fierce whisper. "But look, gentlemen!—behold! In Heaven's name, are these friends or foes?"

As he spoke, a troop of horse, clad in brilliant armour, with their white plumes waving in the evening wind, and their long uplifted rapiers flashing in the setting sun, and all gallantly mounted on matchless black horses, filed forth from the coppice, and drew up like magic on the roadway, about a hundred yards in advance of the Swart Ruyters, who instantly reined-up. One cavalier, splendidly accoutred, rode to the front, wheeled round his snorting horse that pawed the air, and issued his orders with stern rapidity—

"Gentlemen of the Scottish Guard, prepare to charge! Uncase the standards! Sound trumpets!"

The banneroles were unfurled, the trumpets sounded, the kettle-drums ruffled, and each brave cavalier pressed forward in the saddle, as if impatient for the order to rush to the charge.

"Ach tuyfel!" shouted De Ginckel through his trumpet; "Scots' Horse—der tuyfel! Sabre de brisoners—cut dem into de towsand becies! Fall on, you Schelms!" But there was no time.

"'Tis Claverhouse, and the remains of his regiment. I would know his black steed among a thousand horse!" exclaimed the Earl. "Now God be with thee, thou gallant Grahame, for at last our hour of vengeance is come! Oh for a sword! How gallantly they formed line! Now, now! forward, my Scottish hearts!"

The dark eyes of the proud Douglas gleamed with fire, as the deep and distinct order, "Cavaliers of the Life Guard—forward! charge!" burst from the lips of Dundee; and with the force of a whirlwind, the sixty Scottish Guardsmen, bridle to bridle and boot to boot, rushed with their uplifted swords to the onset.

"Unsling carbines—blow matches—fire!—tousand tuyfels!—no!—traw sworts!" bellowed De Ginckel through his trumpet, as the front rank of his Ruyters recoiled in confusion on the rear.

"Gentlemen, prepare to save yourselves!" exclaimed the Earl of Dunbarton, as the Dutch troopers cast off the cords that bound the prisoners to their waist-belts.

"To the rescue, Claverhouse! A Grahame! A Grahame! God for Scotland and James VII.! To the devil with the Stadtholder! hurrah!" cried the Life Guards.

It was a critical moment for the dismounted prisoners, who were hemmed in among the hostile horsemen, and each felt his heart beat like lightning, and his breath come thick and fast, for death or deliverance were at hand.

Between the close files of the Swart Ruyters, Walter Fenton saw the full rush of the advancing troop, in their shining harness, and chief of all, the lordly Viscount of Dundee, a lance-length in front, with his sword brandished aloft, and his white ostrich-feathers streaming behind him, his cheek glowing, and his wild dark eyes flashing with that supernatural brightness which was the true index of his fierce and heroic spirit. Though the Dutch were as four to one, the Scottish cavaliers were fearless.

There was a tremendous shock—a flashing of swords, as their keen edges rang on the tempered helmets and corslets of proof—a furious spurring of horses—and Walter felt himself beaten to the earth, as if by the force of a thunderbolt; the light left his eyes, and he heard the voice of Claverhouse exclaiming enthusiastically—

"Hand to hand, old gorbelly. Come on! for here are the hand and sword that shall punch a hole in thine Earl's patent!"

A heavy hoof struck the head of Walter, as a horse plunged over him, and the Dutch recoiled in utter confusion.

Hewn down by the long swords of the Ruyters, poor old Wemyss and Halbert Elshender lay dead beside him.

CHAPTER IV.

THE SECRET STAIR.

Chloris! since first our calm of peace
    Was frighted hence, this good we find,
Your favours with your fears increase,
    And growing mischiefs make you kind.
                                                            EDMUND WALLER.

Heavily and slowly passed the cloudy winter day at Clermiston, and evening found Lilian seated, full of tears and misery, by the great fire that rumbled in the arched chimney, and threw a ruddy glow on the rough architecture of the ancient hall. According to old etiquette, there were but two chairs, one for the lord of the manor and the other for his lady; the additional seats were mere stools. Lilian occupied one of these chairs, and her suitor the other. On one of the stone benches within the ingle sat Juden Stenton still trimming hawks' lures; opposite was Beatrix, spinning with all the assiduity of Arachnè. These from time to time regarded her with furtive glances, which roused her anger not less than the presence and odious attentions of their lord did her apprehension. She felt a load accumulating on her breast, as the night wore on; anxiety was impairing her strength and weakening her fortitude, and whenever Clermistonlee addressed her, she answered only by tears. Touched at last by her sorrow, a sentiment of generosity at times would prompt him to return her to her home; but other thoughts came with greater power, and the momentary weakness was immediately dismissed.

Sitting close by her, he spoke from time to time in a low voice; and the scorn, malice, and jealousy which lighted up the keen grey eyes and pinched features of the fallen and forgotten Beatrix on these occasions, filled the gentle Lilian with a horror and pity which she could not conceal. The presence of this unfortunate woman, who, with the indefatigable Juden, formed now his entire household, was a curb for the present on the vivacity of his lordship's passion, and seemed to restrain it within the decorous bounds of gentle whispering. He soon tired of that, and ordering supper to be laid, took advantage of the domestic's absence to draw his chair still nearer Lilian, and take her hands within his own. She was so humbled, so gentle and broken in spirit, that she permitted them to remain, and the passiveness of the action made the heart of Clermistonlee glow with additional ardour.

"She loves me in secret," thought he; "but how charming is her coyness—how enchanting her modesty! My dear Lilian—"

"My Lord, oh cease to persecute me thus. What wrong have I done you? In what have I offended, that you should make me so utterly miserable?"

"What a soft, low, charming voice! Does it offend you, to hear the sighs of the most honourable love that ever warmed a human heart?"

"This is the mere cant of love-making—flirtation—the phrases you have addressed to hundreds. My Lord, I know their full value, and despise them. 'Tis enough! I can have no love for you."

"None—so for heaven sake spare me more of this humiliation, and let me begone to the house of Bruntisfield."

"Now what strange infatuation is this? No love for me?" mused the egotist. "Why, damsel, when I was in London with Charles, all the women were mad about me—I was quite the rage. Rochester and I led the way in everything. But that was before Bothwell Brig." He glanced at a veiled picture that often attracted his eye, and disturbed the current of his thoughts. "No love for me," he resumed, after a pause. "My pretty one, does my zeal offend you?"

"Like your flattery, it does; and my captivity here—a captivity which, I fear, will ever be a stain upon my honour, makes me abhor you."

"Abhor? Oh! 'tis a word never said to me before. Provoking Lilian! But," he added, maliciously, "you are right—your honour is lost, and there is only one way to redeem it."

She gave him a momentary glance of inquiry and disdain. Clermistonlee drew a ring from his finger. Lilian started back.

"Hah—then you are still thinking of him—this beggarly boy—this nameless soldier—this so-named Fenton. 'Tis a cursed infatuation, Madam; for doubtless, soldierlike he will forget you, while the flower of your youth is wasted in fruitless reliance on his constancy and advancement to honour and fortune."

"Forget me?" reiterated Lilian, raising her bright blue eyes to the speaker. "Oh no, he never will forget me! Dear, dear Walter," she added, weeping bitterly; "I know thy worth and truth too well to lose my own."

"Never!" replied Lilian, energetically clasping her hands. "In the busy city and on the lonely hills, in the hour of battle and storm by sea and land, he will ever think of me—ever, ever!"

"No second choice would ever make me violate the solemn vow I pledged to him—that plight which I called on heaven to witness and angels to register."

Clermistonlee made no reply, but her fervour and her words stung him to the soul; her eyes sparkled and her usually pale cheek glowed; but he knew that it was for the love and by the recollection of another; his first thoughts were those of wrath; his second spleen and sorrow. He arose and stepped aside a little.

"Unfortunate that I am!" said he, with something of sadness and real love in his tone and manner. "By what witchcraft am I so hateful to her; but I must quit her presence for a time at least, or lose all hope of her favour for ever."

He walked to and fro, while Lilian, resigned again to tears, covered her face with her handkerchief.

"Beatrix," said Clermistonlee, in a fierce whisper to the shrinking woman, as she laid supper on the long dark oaken board, over which six tall waxen candles flared from a great iron candelabrum. "Beatrix Gilruth—hear me, old shrivel-skin! Hast never a love philtre about thee? Ere now I have known thee to my own cost use such things."

She gave a keen and fierce glance with her sunken eyes, and drawing him into one of the deeply bayed windows, pointed to where the square keep and round towers of the castle of Corstorphine threw a long dark shadow across the frozen lake that, like a mirror before its gates, lay shining in the cold light of the winter moon.

"Then remember how, nine years ago, the lord of that fair mansion perished under its shadow; and how his own good rapier, urged by the hand of the woman he had wronged, was driven—yea, to the very hilt—in his false and fickle heart. Often at mirk midnight have I seen the dead-light glimmering on his tomb in St. John's kirk, and illuminating the west window of the Forresters' aisle."

She gave him a glance so expressive of hatred, fear, contempt, and reproach that he almost quailed beneath it; and as she pointed to the veiled portrait, he turned abruptly away. Her words and allusion had evidently a deep effect on Clermistonlee. He was about to retire, but paused irresolutely, turned, and paused again. Then kissing Lilian's hand, he said in a gentle tone—

"Forgive me if I have offended, but love for you makes me perhaps act unwisely. Adieu, dear Lilian: if my presence is obnoxious, I hasten to relieve you of it. Till to morrow, adieu; and pleasant dreams to you."

He bowed profoundly, and retired to his own apartment followed by Juden, who kept close to his heels as a spaniel would have done.

"Bethink you, lady; the whole day hath passed, and you have tasted nothing but a posset of milk with a little sack. Still weeping! 'Twas so with me once; but I shall never weep again, until I have wrung tears of blood from my betrayer."

"Now you are going to frighten me again. A light, if it please you, good woman; I will retire. Another night under his roof! My poor aunt Grisel.... how bad, how wicked is this!"

"My lord desired me to ask if you wished to read a little: it may compose your mind."

"Oh, yes!—a thousand thanks, kind Beatrix. Bring me a Bible, if you have one."

"A Bible! when was one last seen in the tower of Clermiston? Not since the days of auld Mess John, I warrant; and his was torn up by the troopers for cartridges. There is nothing here but a rowth of evil play and jest books, and some anent hawking, hunting, and farriery, and others, my bairn, that suit only—women like me."

"Poor Beatrix!" said Lilian kindly, touching her hand, for the exceeding humility of her manner raised all her pity. Beatrix surveyed her for a moment, with a troubled and dubious expression. Seldom was it that a word of compassion or commiseration fell upon her ear. Her heart was touched; a moisture suffused her eyes; but, fearing to betray her feelings through the outward aspect of moroseness and misanthropy she had assumed, she set a light upon the cabinet of the bedchamber, and hurried away.

Again, as on the preceding night, Lilian fastened the door; and though the number and complication of its ancient iron locks somewhat reassured her, her heart sank when she surveyed the great gloomy tester-bed, with its dais, its solemn plumage and festooned canopy—the sombre wainscotting, and well-barred window, past which the changing clouds were hurrying in scudding masses, alternately obscuring and revealing stars. Kneeling at a chair near the fire, she prayed long and fervently, and, with innocent confidence, arose more assured and courageous, though aware that, by anxiety, want of food and rest, her natural strength and spirit were greatly impaired. A folio volume lay upon the cabinet; it was covered with purple velvet, on which a coat of arms and these words were exquisitely embroidered:—"Alison, Lady Clermistonlee, on her marriage day, ye penult Maij, 1668."

The hand of her tormentor's unhappy wife had probably worked these words; all the dark and mysterious stories concerning her misfortunes and her fate came crowding upon the mind of Lilian, and filled her with melancholy forebodings. Perhaps, thought she, this was her chamber, and that her bed, where often she had wept away the dreary night in unseen and unregarded sorrow. Full of mournful interest, she unclasped and opened the volume. It was the "Bentivolio and Urania" of Nathaniel Ingelo, one of the prosy and metaphorical romances of the seventeenth century. The first words arrested her, and she read on.

"He was no sooner entered within the borders of the forlorn kingdom of Ate, than the unhealthfulness of the air had almost choked his vital spirits; and being removed from the gladsome sun by a chain of hills, that lifted up their heads so high that they intercepted the least glance of his comfortable beams: it was dark and rueful. He chanced to light upon a path that led to Ate's house, which was encompassed with the pitchy shade of cypresse and ebon trees, so that it looked like the region of death. As he walked, he perceived the hollow pavement made with the skulls of murdered wretches. At the further end of this dismal walk he espied a court, whose gates stand open day and night; in the midst whereof was placed the image of cruelty, with a cup of poyson in one hand, and a dagger wet with reeking bloode in the other. Her hairs crawled up and down her neck, and sometimes wreathed about her head in knots of snakes; fire all the while sparkling from her mouth and eyes......"

This dismal passage in no way tended to alleviate the perturbation of her spirits; and, hastily closing the volume, she prepared to retire. Aware that proper repose was absolutely necessary to enable her to sustain all she might have to encounter or endure from Clermistonlee, remembering the apparent security of her apartment, and somewhat reassured by the cheerful blaze thrown by the fire upon the dark brown panelling and high old-fashioned bed, she slowly and reluctantly began to undress, often pausing to re-examine her room; but, perceiving nothing more to alarm her, gathering up the bright tresses of her hair into a caul, she unrobed and sprang into bed. The sleep and the heaviness that preyed upon her now completely evaporated; and, more awake than ever, she felt only the keenest sensations of fear, and her prevailing horror was Clermistonlee. By the light of the wood fire, that poured its broad blaze up the massive stone chimney, she surveyed the room with watchful eyes, that ached from the very intensity of their gaze, and the shadows of the carved posts seemed like those of giants thrown against the panelled wall.

Weariness overcame her, and she was about to drop asleep, when a sound was heard, and one of the doors of the cabinet rattled and opened; a cold wind blew upon her face; and by her recumbent position, she beheld a steep staircase winding away down into darkness she knew not where, between the masonry of the massive wall. She would have screamed, but terror chained her tongue; and almost fainting, and afraid to move or breathe, she continued to regard it with the most painful anguish and intense alarm. But up that dark and mysterious outlet, so suddenly disclosed, no sound came but the night wind, which moved the oak door of the cabinet mournfully to and fro.

Lilian's strength seemed utterly to have left her; and, though painfully anxious to learn the secrets of this staircase, which communicated so immediately with her bedchamber, she lacked equally strength to rise, and presence of mind to examine it.

But the current of air that swayed the door to and fro, closed it; the sound rumbled away in the far echoes of the tower, and all became still. Now more alarmed by the reflection that she was sleeping in this remote room alone, with a secret entrance, she bitterly regretted her imprudence in undressing, but had not the courage to rise and repair what a certain prophetic apprehension made her fear had been very unwise.

CHAPTER V.

THE ATTEMPT.

Once in a lone and secret hour of night,
When every eye was closed, and the pale moon
And stars alone shone conscious of the theft,
Hot with the Tuscan grape, and high in blood,
Haply I stole unheeded to her chamber.
FAIR PENITENT.

When Clermistonlee retired from the hall to the study or parlour, which was the only comfortably furnished apartment in the dreary old tower, he resigned himself to reflection, and sipping his mulled sack, a great tankard of which Juden placed unbidden, and quite as a matter of course, at his elbow. His thoughts at first ran in the usual channel,—a determination to possess Lilian, from the double incentives of passion and pecuniary necessity. He was on the brink of ruin; and her property, or expectations of it, were ample and noble. She was very unprotected; the land was convulsed and trembling on the verge of a great civil war, though as yet no tidings had reached Edinburgh of what was passing in England; and so, as the sack diminished in the tankard, his lordship's thoughts became in proportion more strange, more amorous, and confused. His brain wandered. He was restless and uneasy; his flowing dressing-gown seemed to fit him like a horse-hair shirt; and his disturbed manner was not unobserved by his faithful and subservient factotum.

The latter attempted some consolation, after his fashion; but it was not palatable.

"Begone to the bartizan!" exclaimed his master, angrily, "and bring me instant tidings if anything seems astir in the country about us. I expect news from the city hourly. Leave me."

"The deevil tak' lovers and lords!" he muttered, as he drew his broad worsted bonnet over his cross visage, and ascended to the bartizan of the tower, and setting his teeth hard, as he faced the keen north wind, took a survey of the dreary and snow-covered landscape. On the passing wind ten o'clock came sullenly from the spire of St. John of Corstorphine; then all was deathly still save the sough of the winter breeze as it swept over the dreary Lee, and whistled through the open corbells of the projecting tower.

Juden had no particular fancy for enacting the part of warder in so cold a night, and after taking a rapid survey of the extensive waste, he was about to descend again, when an unusual redness in the sky to the eastward arrested him. It rose in the direction of the city, and resembled the lurid and wavering glow of a great conflagration. The red blaze was rapidly spreading and crimsoning the edges of the dusky clouds above, and throwing forward in strong relief the southern edge of the Corstorphine Kills, and the dark pines that shaded them. Astonished, perplexed, and alarmed, Juden continued to gaze in the direction of the light, until a loud hollo startled him, and he perceived a man on horseback close to the foot of the tower.

"Ho!" cried Juden through his hand, for the wind blew keen and high. "What want ye, friend?"

"No a night's lodging, or I wadna come here," answered the other testily. "Closed gates and dark windows betoken cauld cheer and a caulder ingle."

"Beware o' your tongue, friend," replied the butler from aloft. "Langer lugs than yours hae been nailed to the tower yett. You have come frae Edinburgh I warrant?"

"Gif you had been there ye wad ken," responded the other with sulky importance. "I bear a letter for my Lord Clermistonlee on the king's service, which king Gude kens and the Deil cares."

"Thir are kittle times, friend," replied the butler, warily; "so if King James himsel' came to the peel o' Clermiston this mirk night, not a bolt would be drawn, or a lock undone. Tie the letter to this twine, gossip, and sae gang your way in peace."

Rendered cautious by the nature of the times, and by being constantly on the alert against force and treachery, the wary old servitor lowered over the wall a string, to which after sundry curses the horseman tied a letter, and Juden towed it up, "hand over hand."

"Ill folk are aye feared," said the stranger; "and I doubt there are but few clear consciences in Clermistonlee. My horse is sair forfoughton wi' my ride frae the West Port; he fell at the Foulbrigs, and was nigh swept awa' when fording the Leith doon by there; but I maun een ride on to his honor the Laird o' Niddry without a stirrup cup or a 'God save ye.' Out upon Clermiston and its ill-mannered loons!" and dashing spurs into his horse, the servant galloped at a hunting pace away to the westward, and disappeared among the hollows at the verge of the Lee.

Anxious to learn the contents of a letter in which he doubted not he had as much interest as his Lord, Juden hurried down the corkscrew stair from the bartizan, and repairing to the little study where his half-muddled master was gazing dreamily into the fire, and imbibing his sixth cup of sack, he placed the little square billet before him. Clermistonlee tore it open, and read hurriedly,

"A glorious revolution hath been accomplished, (and I am just drinking to its success in sugared brandy,) but Satan seems to have broken loose in the city, whilk the rascal sort hath fired in six different places. The acts of Estate and Council are mere nullities. Your presence is required by the Council anent ane address to the new king. We are to have a grand onslaught to-morrow against Baal's prophets, the Host of Pharaoh, and a' that, ye ken.

"Postscriptum.—Keep the bonnie bird in the cage close; her kinsman Napier hath been slain by young Fenton, and ye know how the entail stands. Vale! King William the Second of Scotland for ever!"

Clermistonlee's first impulse was to start up and buckle on his sword, exclaiming,

"My gambadoes, Juden; the red leather ones—saddle Meg, and, peril of thy life, look well to—but no—no! I will not. Thou mayest go to the devil, Mersington, with thy drunken scrawl, the address, and the Council to boot. I leave not Clermiston to-night. Napier slain—and by Fenton! By George, how the plot is thickening! 'Tis glorious. Juden, don your shabble, and ride to the city; tell my gossip Mersington in the matter pending, mark me, knave! in the matter pending to use my name as he shall deem fitting."

Juden replied by a leer of deep cunning (for he too was something of a politician), and, animated by an intense curiosity to know what was acting in the city, hurried away, and in ten minutes had left far behind him the dreary tower and frozen muir, above which its dark outline reared like that of a spectre.

As the fumes of the wine mounted upward, the heated imagination and inflamed passions of Clermistonlee got completely the better of his senses. Thoughts of Lilian's beauty and helplessness came vividly before him; but such reflections instead of kindling his pity, roused all his passion for her to an ungovernable height. Draining a cup of brandy to make him yet more reckless of consequences, and snatching a candle, he staggered from the room, and descended the narrow stone stair that led from his apartment.

He knew that he was alone, for Beatrix was under lock and key; yet he stepped with singular caution. Every stone in the rough walls seemed a grotesque face, regarding him with mockery and wrath; he saw a figure in every shadow, heard a step in every whistle of the midnight wind. He dared not look at portraits as he passed, lest their eyes might seem to move; and thus, though the entire consciousness of his dark intent came broadly and appallingly home to his heart, such was the influence of his ungoverned passions that a spirit of the merest obstinacy urged him to finish what he in part commenced, and the high pulsations of his heart increased at every step which brought him nearer to the chamber of his victim.

He entered the hall. The feeble rays of his upheld candle seemed only to reveal the size and darkness of the place, and the grey winter twilight that struggled through its thickly grated and deeply-arched windows. The embers of the fire still smouldered on the hearth, and, reddening when the hollow wind rumbled down the wide chimney, threw the shadows of the great oaken table, the dark grotesque cabinets and highbacked chairs in long and frightful figures on the paved floor.

Entering the almonry, he opened a door, within it, which revealed a narrow passage in the wall that communicated with the secret outlets of the place, and led directly to the cabinet in Lilian's room.

He stood within it, and the warmth of its atmosphere increased the ferment of his blood. Unconscious of the proximity of so dangerous a visitor, the innocent girl slept soundly, but lightly.

Shading the light with his hand, he gazed impatiently upon the slumbering beauty.

Her hair, which overnight she had put up with the carelessness so natural to grief, had now escaped from the caul, and rolled over the pillow in masses that glittered like gold in the rays of the uncertain light. She was very pale, but a slight glow began to redden her cheek, and it was graced with a smile of inexpressible sweetness.

An unseen hand seemed to restrain him; the air of perfect innocence pervading the presence of the sleeping girl protected her for a time; and scarcely daring to breathe, the intruder continued to gaze upon her. She slept softly. At last, tears fell over her cheeks, and she tenderly murmured—

Clermistonlee, on whose bent-down cheek her soft breath came, started at these words as if a serpent had stung him. One of those fierce, malicious, and scornful smiles, which so often imparted to his handsome features a fiendish expression, contracted them but for a moment; another of intense sadness and languor replaced it. At that instant, unable longer to restrain himself, he clasped her in his arms.

A piercing shriek, that startled the furthest recesses of the old and desolate tower, burst from the lips of Lilian; it was one of those deep and wailing cries of pain and horror which, when once heard, are never forgot.

"Be calm, Lilian—why should you fear me? Do I not adore you? Yes; I prize your love beyond the possession of life. Dear girl, look not on me thus. I am the most devoted of lovers, and by this kiss, dearest——d—nation!"

He attempted to kiss her; but, endued with new strength by rage and fear, her little hands clutched fiercely his thick mustachios, and twisted his head aside, as she had done once before so effectually.

"Hear me!" he continued, "hear me, sweet Lilian; I came but to say that I loved thee——."

At that moment a loud explosion, followed by the fanfare of trumpets and the ruffling of kettle-drums beneath the walls of the tower arrested all the faculties of Clermistonlee, and by throwing his thoughts into another channel, covered him with shame; and he started back, the image of astonishment and irresolution.

Not so Lilian; her presence of mind was instantly restored. Springing to a window, and fearlessly dashing her hands through the panes of glass, she cried in agonized accents—

"Lilian! Lilian!" cried a voice that filled her with transport. It was that of Walter Fenton.

A glance sufficed to show her a gallant troop of horse halted beneath the tower in the grey morning twilight. Again she would have spoken, but the strong hand of Clermistonlee dragged her furiously back into the apartment.

CHAPTER VI.

EDINBURGH—THE NIGHT OF THE REVOLUTION.

Meanwhile, regardless of the royal cause,
His sword for James no brother sov'raign draws.
The Pope himself, surrounded with alarms,
To France his bulls, to Corfu sends his arms;
And though he hears his darling son's complaint,
Can hardly spare one tutelary saint.
TICKELL, Edit. 1749.

From the hour in which Lilian had been torn from her, the ased Lady Grisel had never raised her head. Affection and horror, wrath and insulted pride, had all aggravated to the utmost the weakness and debility consequent to exceeding old age; and by her weeping domestics the venerable dame was borne to her great chair in the Chamber-of-Dais, where she remained long insensible to all that passed around her.

The storm and hurry of political events employed otherwise Sir Thomas Dalyel and those friends who might have served her in this dilemma; and now she found herself quite deserted.

Syme the baillie, and the whole male population of the barony had fruitlessly searched the Burghmuir for the remainder of the night and morning; but, for reasons which will shortly be apparent, any application to the Privy Council or magistrates of Edinburgh would have been utterly futile, as their attention was amply occupied by more important matters than the abduction of a girl.

Long fits of stupor, succeeded by querulous bursts of passion, left the poor old lady so weak, that, as Elsie related to Sir Thomas of Binns, "between the night and morning, she cried on Sir Archibald to save her doo Lilian; and then she just soughed awa like a blink o' the sunshine, and lay back under her canopy in the Chaumer-o'-Deese, a comely corpse to see as ever was streekit."

The old lady did not die, however, but recovered her senses by having a pistol fired at her ear by the rough old Muscovite trooper, "a cure for the vapours, whilk," he said, "he had often seen practised on Samoieda."

As before related, in consequence of the vigilance of Sir James Montgomerie, the Privy Council and people of Scotland had been kept for several weeks in a state of painful uncertainty as to the fate of James's affairs in England: but a letter from Lord Dundee reached the Scottish ministry, expressive of apprehensions for the issue of a conflict between the troops of the King and those of his invader.

To ascertain the true aspect of affairs, they despatched into England a man named Brand, a baillie of Edinburgh, who basely betrayed his trust by carrying his despatches straight to the Prince of Orange, to whom he was introduced by Dr. Burnet.

On Craigdarroch's arrival at the Scottish capital, and others with similar tidings of the desertion and dissolution of the army, the flight of James, and success of William, the long-threatening storm burst forth in all its fury. Scotland at that time swarmed with brave and hardy soldiers, skilful officers, ruined barons, and desperate vassals—the veterans of the Covenant, and the endless wars of Sweden, France, and Flanders; thus, ingloriously as the campaign had passed over in the south, a cloud was gathering on the Highland hills, that threatened to descend, as of yore, in wrath and blood on the fertile Lowlands.

Infuriated by the severities of what was called the "twenty-eight years' persecution," the Lowland population were ripe for armed revolt, and the capital, to which they flocked in overwhelming masses, became the grand centre of their operations, and the scene of newer atrocities. The greatest outrages were committed upon the persons and property of those unhappy Catholics, Episcopalians, and cavaliers, who fell into the hands of this wild mob.

Perth, the Lord Chancellor fled; the Privy Council, which had been severe to the nation, in proportion as it was servile to James, dispatched an immediate address to William, and none were more cordial in their offers of dutiful service than Provost Prince, and the worthy council of Edinburgh: those very men who had so lately declared to the unfortunate Stuart, that they "would stand by his sacred person on all occasions." Now they were equally prompt in offers to his dethroner, to whom they complained bitterly "of the hellish attempts of Romish incendiaries, and of the just grievances of all men relating to conscience, liberty, and property."

For three days the capital was in the power of a mad and lawless rabble, who, rendered furious by bigotry and intoxication, committed the most dreadful atrocities.

The houses of all who were obnoxious to them were plundered and given to the flames, and all effects of value were scattered in the streets. There were episodes of horror ensued such as Edinburgh had never witnessed before. The streets were filled with the smoke of burning houses; the air was sheeted with flame; the shrieks of the perishing inmates, the howls of their destroyers, and the crash of falling masonry, rang night and day. The college of the Jesuits was levelled to the dust; crosses, and reliques, statues, pictures, and vestments were borne aloft through the streets, and consigned to the flames amid yells of derision.

The ale and wine found in the cellars of the cavaliers, inflamed the inborn savagism of the multitude, who were urged by their ministers to commit a thousand nameless atrocities. For three days they continued in a state of perfect intoxication (says Lord Balcarris in his Memoirs), and in open daylight, in the crowded streets of the city, committed upon the persons of many Catholic ladies such outrages as cannot be written, and "without any attempt being made by the authorities to restrain such brutality." (pp. 22, 27.)

Of all the members of the old government none was more obnoxious to the people than Sir George Mackenzie, of Rosehaugh, the celebrated lawyer and essayist, who had rendered himself an object of intense hatred, by the severity with which he had stretched the criminal laws to answer the views of the Government; and who, in his office of Public Prosecutor, had obtained the unenviable soubriquet of "the persecutor of God's saints," "the blood-thirsty advocate," "bluidy Mackenzie;" and to this hour his vaulted mausoleum at Edinburgh is regarded with hatred and loathing by the old Cameronians and "true blue" Presbyterians.

His mansion in Rosehaugh Close was soon made the object of attack. The night of the third day had closed over the city, and still the scene of tumult and frenzy, the din and the flames of destruction, loaded the air with sounds of horror and outrage.

In great anxiety for his personal safety, the unhappy statesman heard with no ordinary perturbation the increasing roar of sounds, like the chafing of a distant sea; the mingling of a myriad human voices, and the rush of feet, which betokened the approach of a vast mob.

With drums beating before them, and armed with various weapons, the thousand bright points of which gleamed in the lurid blaze of the uplifted torches, a dense mass of ragged, squalid, and insane-looking men, poured like a human flood into the deep and narrow alley at the foot of which still stands the house of Rosehaugh. Begrimed with smoke and filth, maddened by intoxication and excess, their yells as they resounded between the solid walls of the narrow street, rang like those of fiends from some deep abyss, and the heart of Mackenzie died away within him. To appeal to their pity would be like craving mercy from the waves of an angry ocean? there was no escape, no remedy, no bribe, no hope; for among that terrible mob were the fathers, the sons, the brothers—yea, and the mothers of those who at his instance had perished in thousands, by the sword, by the torture, and the gibbet, or were lingering out a miserable existence as slaves and bondsmen in the distant Indies.

"My God! my God! for what am I reserved?" he exclaimed, as from a lofty upper window he surveyed the dense mass of madmen, who, wedged in the alley below, impeded each other's motions. Conspicuous above all, raised on the shoulders of two strong men, whose arms and faces were smeared with blood and blackness, there was upborne a man, whose sad-coloured garments and white bands announced him a preacher; his gaunt visage and long hair of raven hue waving around a face ghastly, though flashed with passion, his large hazel eyes glowing like those of a tiger, his upraised hands clenching one a bible, and the other a broadsword, declared him a wild enthusiast (another "Habakuk Mucklewrath").

It was Ichabod Bummel, who had escaped from the damp vaults of the wave-beaten Bass, and had now come to take vengeance on Mackenzie for his exile, his captivity, his crushed bones, and long persecution.

"Come forth, Achan, thou troubler of Israel!" he shrieked; "come forth, thou destroyer of the good and just, thou persecutor of the saints of God! come forth, thou thing that art accursed, or we will burn thee in the ruins of thy dwelling, and salt them with salt. Courage, my brethren! Oh, is not this a brave hour and a glorious one? For lo, the time is come when the host of Pharaoh shall be discomfited and stricken as of old. Achan, thou persecutor of the covenanted kirk, behold me towering amid Baal's prophets, four hundred and fifty men, as the book saith!"

This rhapsody was responded to with yells of ardour, and the din of hammers rang like thunder against the strong oaken door of the mansion, while many bullets were discharged at the windows, which were securely grated. A door of massive oak closed the entrance of the turnpike stair, and though the whole house resounded under the energy of the blows, the barrier refused to yield, though gradually it was falling in splinters, a process too slow to suit the fierce impatience of the increasing mob.

"Let fire be brought," cried Ichabod, "let the mansion be consumed, that its flames may be as a light to the house of Judah. Know, O thou persecutor of God's covenanted saints, that a sword is this night upon the inhabitants of Babylon, and upon her princes, and her mighty men; for it is the load of graven images, and they are mad upon their idols."

Urged by this blasphemous application of Scripture, burning brands were heaped by the people against the door, and soon the increased yells of satisfaction announced to the miserable advocate that the barrier was rapidly giving way, and that in another moment the reeking hands of the destroyers would be upon him. He threw round a glance of agony, the barred windows denied all hope of escape, and now his stern soul sank at the prospect of a cruel and immediate death, when lo! one tremendous yell of another import brought him once more to the shattered windows. "It is a dream!" he exclaimed.

A troop of the Royal Life Guards, with their bright arms flashing in the light of the waving torches, were hewing and treading down the mob like a field of rye; and chief above all shone one cavalier—it was Dundee—the gallant, the terrible Claver'se, that man-fiend, whom all deemed six hundred miles away. There was no mistaking the splendour of his armour, the nobility of his air, the ferocity of his purpose.

"Close up—fall on, gentlemen; no quarter to the knaves!" he exclaimed, while, standing erect in his stirrups, he showered his blows on every side, his white plumes rising and falling in unison with his trenchant rapier.

"Hey for King James! Ho for the cavaliers! Down with the rebels—down with the whigamores!" cried Holsterlee and others, as they pressed forward, and the rabble grovelled in the dust beneath the tremendous rush of the heavy horses, and their riders in steel and buff. In a minute the narrow alley was cleared of the living, and piled knee-deep with dead and dying. The shrill voice of Ichabod, as he was borne off by his disciples, was heard dying away in the distance, like that of an evil spirit carried away by a stormy wind.

By something like a miracle, Lord Dundee had traversed the whole of hostile England, and though menaced on every hand by great bodies of troops, had reached his native capital in safety; bringing with him not only the sixty cavalier troopers (who of all his cavalry alone remained staunch to him), but with them Walter Fenton, Lord Dunbarton, Finland, and other officers retaken from De Ginckel. They now rode under his orders as gentlemen-troopers, mounted on heavy black chargers that had whilome belonged to the Swart Ruyters; and the whole, with standards displayed, had entered the city about an hour before the assault on Rosehaugh's house.

The Rev. Dr. Joram, late chaplain to the Royal Scots, also bestrode a horse which he had taken as his spoil in battle; and had donned a trooper's corslet, with which his clerical bob-periwig consorted as oddly as with the fierce and tipsy expression of his flushed and florid face, and with the stern cock of the Monmouth beaver that surmounted it. The gallant divine had recently imbibed so much wine that he could scarcely keep his saddle.

Of the fate of their captured comrades they as yet knew nothing; but Gavin of that Ilk, with twenty other officers and five hundred men, were then at London, close prisoners; the rest had returned to their colours; and after a time, the whole, seeing the futility of resistance, ultimately embarked peaceably under the orders of their new commander, the veteran Duke de Schomberg. None were punished, "as the new government had not yet been fully recognized in Scotland."

Rosehaugh had been saved from a terrible immolation; but the services of the night were not yet over. Claverhouse, with his cavaliers, retired to a quiet part of the city, under protection of the castle batteries, where a brave garrison of Catholic soldiers, led by the Duke of Gordon, remained yet staunch to James.

"My lord Earl," said Dundee to Dunbarton, "we must be somewhat economical of our persons and horses, when encountering these mad burghers and drunken saints, and not forget that we are the last hope of the King in this hotbed of Presbytery and rebellion."

"True," replied the Earl, "and I rejoice that we have but few to regret, and few to mourn for us if we perish in the struggle on which we are about to plunge."

"Dunbarton," said he, "I am alone in the world. Our grateful King has given me honours to which none can succeed, for I have cast the die by which they are lost for ever; and nowhere can my coronet be more gloriously surrendered than on the battle-field."

"I thank Heaven that the Countess, my dear little Lætitia, is in England," said the Earl, pointing to the lurid flames that from the blazing houses of the Abbey-hill flashed along the shadowy vista of the Canongate, glowing redly under the arch of the Nether Bow, and throwing forward in bold relief a thousand fantastic projections of the old Flemish mansions that reared up their giant fronts on either hand. "I thank Heaven that she is in a safer place than this poor city of wild fanatics."

"Would that I could say the same of Lilian!" thought Walter, with a deep sigh. "Can she be safe amid all this dreadful uproar?"

At that moment a dense rabble approached, with drums beating, torches blazing, and weapons glinting.

"To the Palace! to the Abbey!" cried a thousand hoarse voices. "Let us pull doon the temple of the Idolater, and gie his fause gods to the flames!" and they swept forward, greeting the troop of Guards with yells of hatred and menace.

They were led—by whom? Lord Mersington, with his wig awry, his clothes soiled with dust, and his face flushed with exertion! The Earl of Balcarris relates "that this fanatical judge, with a halbert in his hand, and drunk as ale and brandy could make him," led on the rabble to the assault of time-hallowed Holyrood; but before reaching the eastern extremity of the city, his followers were joined by the trained bands in their buff coats and bandoleers, the magistrates, and other authorities, who vested this lawless mob with an air of order and official importance.

"Will those villains really dare to molest the palace of our kings?" said Dundee, his eyes kindling, as he looked after the revolters, and reined-up his impatient horse.

"What will they not dare?" rejoined Dunbarton; "but I doubt not they will experience a warm reception. Wallace, who commands the guard, is a brave cavalier as ever drew sword, and the traitors will make nothing of it."

"Under favour, my Lords," said Fenton, "they are in great numbers, and I have misgivings as to the issue."

"Wallace—he is an old friend of mine," said Finland. "'Sdeath! we've seen some sharp work together on the frontiers of Flanders; and with your permission, my Lords, I will take a turn of service with him to-night."

"As you please," replied the Viscount; "Dunbarton commands here, though he rides in my troop. Go—ha, ha! two heads are better than one."

"I go then; and yonder fanatical senator may beware how he comes within reach of my hand."

"I volunteer also," said Walter, who was under great anxiety to have an opportunity of visiting Lilian.

"And I too," added the Reverend Jonadab Joram. "I long to encounter with bible and bilbo, yonder preacher of sedition, that urges on this unhanged rout of traitors. For know ye, gentlemen, (hiccup) that one preacher is better in Scotland than twenty drummers to find recruits for the devil's service; so, in his own phraseology, I will gird up my loins, and go forth to battle against them. Come on, gallants! Ho, for King James, and down with the whigamores! Rub-a-dub, rub-a-dub——"

"Beware, sirs, for the good cause has not many such spirits to spare," said Claver'se, as they dashed spurs into their horses, and making a detour down one narrow wynd and up another, reached without interruption the deep groined archway of the Palace Porch, an ancient gothic edifice, heavily turreted and battlemented.

CHAPTER VII.

SACK OF HOLYROOD.

'Twas a dream of the ages of darkness and blood,
When the ministers' home was the mountain and wood;
The musquets were flashing, the blue swords were gleaming,
The helmets were cleft, and the red blood was streaming;
The heavens grew dark, and the thunder was rolling,
When on Welwood's dark muirland the mighty were falling.
ANONYMOUS.

"Welcome, gentlemen," exclaimed Wallace; "I never stood in such need of advice and comradeship."

He was a handsome man, above six feet in height; his gold-coloured cuirass and buff coat, laced with silver, announced him a captain; the slouch of his broad Spanish hat, with its drooping plumes, and the tie of his voluminous white silk scarf, gave him inimitable grace.

"Welcome, Finland, to share the poor cheer and hard fighting of Holyrood. By Mahoun! but times are changed with the King's soldiers. I have endured a three days' siege here, and matters are not likely to mend."

"No; a rabble, many thousands strong, by all the devils! the very riddlings of St. Ninian's and the Beggars' Row, are at this moment approaching, and if one of your guard are left alive by daylight it will be a miracle."

"Dost think so?" rejoined Wallace, as he led them to a table in the outer court of the palace, where a lantern placed on a table revealed a few drinking horns, a keg of eau de vie, and some objects of a more unpleasant nature, the dead bodies of several soldiers, shot by the rioters during the day. "You hold out a dark future to us, Finland, and, nevertheless, like the true soldier I have ever known thee, come to take a turn of service with us."

"As you see," replied Finland, laughing, as he filled a horn from the keg unbidden.

"This keg of brandy was lately in the cellars of the Jesuits, and some friendly rogue trundled it our way. God bless the good old cause! my service to ye, sirs. Hark, comrades—drums!" he added, as he drained and threw down the cup.

"Indeed!" rejoined Wallace, sternly. "Let all the whigamore scum of Scotland come, they are welcome. I am one of the good old race of Elderslie, and I thank heaven that in an hour like this, it hath been the hap of one of my name to have entrusted to his care the defence of the palace of our princes, and yonder holy fane, the sepulchre of their bones—one of the fairest piles that ancient piety ever founded, or modern fanaticism destroyed." His swart countenance lighted up, and signing the cross (for this noble cavalier was a true catholic), he drew his sword.

"Hark, a chamade!" said Walter Fenton; "now let us hear what these rascals have the impudence to say;" and the three cavaliers repaired to the porch, leaving the divine to continue his devoirs to the brandy keg. They beheld a very extraordinary scene.

Wallace's company was an Independent one. It was something less than a hundred strong, and had the great porch of the palace and the two lesser gates of the boundary wall to defend. In the former there were sixty musqueteers drawn up, as it was the point of the greatest danger; the remainder were posted at the small gates, which were well secured by internal barricades. The great façade of the magnificent palace, with its deep quadrangle and six round towers, loomed through the starless gloom of the winter night; lights flickered in the gallery of the Kings of Scotland, and through the lofty casements of its long corridors and echoing chambers, for there many proscribed catholic and cavalier families, terrified women, and helpless children, hud fled for refuge. And from the great western windows of the chapel royal shone "the dim religious light" of the distant altar, where many a devout worshipper, in the ancient faith of our fathers, sent up, with catholic fervour, the most solemn prayers to God for conquest and for succour.

How different was the scene without those sacred walls, with their shadowy aisles, their glimmering shrines and marble tombs—their dark, deep, solemn arches, and mysterious echoes.

Through the strong gate of vertical iron bars that closed the dark round archway of the porch, the cavaliers beheld the long vista of the Canon-gate, extending to the westward. Its long perspective of ancient and picturesque edifices, turrets, outshots, and gables, was vividly lit up by the crimson glare of the blazing houses on the Abbey-hill, to the northward of the palace.

A dense mob that had gathered in the Cow-gate, provided with weapons and torches, mingled with Trained Bandsmen, and having drums beating, and the Earl of Perth's effigy, borne aloft before them, after traversing the West Bow and High-street, maltreating all they met, were now descending the Canon-gate; and the light of their brandished flambeaux streamed through the groined portal of the palace, glittering on the helmets and arms of the soldiers drawn up within it in close array, and beyond on the tall outline of the tower of James V.

As the drums of the Trained Bands continued to beat the point of war, the rabble poured forth from all the diverging wynds and alleys, until, like a river swollen by a hundred tributary streams, the dense mass that debouched upon the open space around the ancient Girth-cross of the once holy sanctuary, covered the whole arena. The united roar of ten thousand angry voices swelled along the lofty street, and the red torchlight revealed many an uncouth visage, distorted by drunkenness, fanaticism, and ferocity. Several musquets and pistols were incessantly discharged, while stones, sticks, fragments of furniture, dead cats, and every available and imaginable missile were hurled in showers over the battlements of the porch, and strewed the pavement of the court within.

In front were Grahame and Macgill, two captains in the trained band, armed with their buff coats, steel caps, and half pikes; several baillies, in their scarlet gowns and gold chains; Lord Mersington, reeling about and brandishing a partisan, his senatorial wig and robes in a woeful plight; the Rev. Ichabod Bummel, bare-headed and spurring like a madman a short, plump, and active Galloway cob of which he had possessed himself, and over the flanks of which, his long spindle shanks and scabbard trailed upon the ground. On each side were the Marchmont and Islay heralds, the Unicorn and Ormond pursuivants, in their tabards blazing with embroidery, and their tall plumed bonnets; behind was a confused forest of uplifted hands, and weapons, swords, pikes, staves, and halberts which flashed incessantly in the wavering glare of the brandished torches, and chief above all were the effigy of the Chancellor, and a great orange and blue standard; the first the colour of the Revolutionists, the second of the Covenanters.

The houses of the Earl of Perth, the Lairds of Niddry, Blairdrummond, and others, were blazing close by, and the sky was sheeted with fire. The contents of their cellars were rolled into the streets and staved, and the rich and luscious wines of France, the nut-brown ale, and crystal usquebaugh streamed along the swollen gutters, where hundreds of rioters were wallowing like pigs in the kennel, and were trod to death beneath the feet of the mighty host that swept over them. After a flourish of trumpets, the senior herald cried with a loud voice,—

"In the name of the Lords of His Majesty's Privy Council, I, the Islay Herald-at-Arms, summon, warn, and charge you, Captain William Wallace, under pain and penalty of loss of life and escheat of goods——"

"Yea, and the loss of salvation," screamed Ichabod, with a voice of a Stentor, as he brandished his bible and bloody sword. "Woe unto ye who march against God with banners displayed! Woe unto ye who would build up the walls of Jericho, which the Lord hath casten down! Take heed, ye vipers and soldiers of Jeroboam, lest the curse that fell on Kiel, the Bethelite, fall upon ye also! Woe unto ye, worshippers of the Babylonian harlot, the mother of sin, for the hour is come when it is written that ye shall perish!"

"——And escheat of goods and gear," continued the herald, "forfeiture of name and fame."

"Surrender, ye d—d loons!" cried Mersington, "or hee hee, we'll gie ye cauld kail through the reek, conform to the Acts of Estate."

"Sound trumpets for silence!" exclaimed the herald indignantly; but now the voice of Mr. Bummel was again heard.

"Oh for one moment of the hand that smote the foes of Zion!" he exclaimed, raising to heaven his sunken eyes that in the torchlight seemed to fill with a yellow glare. "Oh for God's malediction on the brats of Babel! Lo! I see a sign in the lift—they are delivered unto us, that we may dash them against the stones. On, on, and spare not! smite and slay! death to the false prophets! death to the soldiers of the idolatrous James!"

"Haud your d—d yammering!" cried Captain Graham, of the trained bands, interrupting in turn; "close up, my trained men! come on, my buirdly Baxters, and couthie craftsmen—advance pikes—musqueteers, blow matches—give fire!"

"Give fire!" re-echoed the deep voice of Wallace within the groined portal. A loud discharge of musquetry took place, and the bullets of the mob rattled like a hailstorm against the walls, or whistled through the archway of the porch.

Three soldiers fell dead, but nearly forty of the rabble were shot, for every bullet fired by the "Brats of Babel" killed at second hand. Still they pressed forward with undiminished courage, and assailed the three gates of the palace at once, and pressing close to the bars of the portal, fired their musquets and pistols through with deadly precision on the little band within. Here Wallace commanded in person, with a bravery worthy of his immortal name, and encouraged by his animated exhortations, his gallant few, though falling fast on every hand, stood firm, with a resolution to die, but never surrender.

Walter Fenton and Finland commanded each about twenty musqueteers at the lesser gates, which the insurrectionists assailed pell-mell with hammers and pickaxes, and as nothing but a cruel death could be expected if this mob of infuriated madmen obtained entrance, the poor soldiers fought as much for their lives as for honour and protection of the palace and chapel royal. From a platform of planks and furniture, overlooking the south back of the Canon-gate, Walter's party poured a fire upon the mob with deadly effect; the palace wall was high, the gate strong and well secured, so they hurled ponderous stones and swung hammers against its solid front in vain.

So it fared with Finland, who defended the northern doorway of the royal gardens near a little turretted edifice called Queen Mary's Bath. This experienced soldier had speedily made four loop-holes through the strong wall, and the rioters, as they approached the gate, were shot down in such rapid succession that an appalling pile of dead and dying lay before it, forming a barrier so hideous, that their companions began to recoil in dismay, and poured a storm of bullets and abuse from a distance.

The blaze from the Abbey hill illuminated the whole garden, and the dark buttresses, the square tower, the deep-ribbed doorway, and tall lancet windows of the beautiful church of the Sancta Crucis were all bathed in a blood-red hue by the flaring sheets of flame that ascended from the burning houses.

"St. Bride speed you, my gallant Douglas!" cried Wallace, who, anxious for the maintenance of his post, made a hurried round of the walls. "Art keeping the knaves in check?"

"Let the deed show," replied Finland. "By my faith! their dead are lying chin deep without the barrier. 'Twas a brave stroke in tactics this enfilade of the approach; and the flames of yonder great mansion enable my bold hearts to aim with notable precision."

"'Tis the noble lodging of the Great Chancellor," rejoined Wallace, turning his flushed face towards the ruddy glow; "and I grieve deeply that many noble dames of the first quality are likely perishing amid yonder flames; however, death is preferable to dishonour at the hands of fanatical clowns. This day they dragged my sister through the streets ..... and in open day—my God!" He ground his teeth and smote his breast.

"Impossible," replied the other, resuming his military nonchalance. "I cannot spare a man. Bonnie blackeyed Maud, of Madertie, and Merry Annie, of Maxwelton, are both yonder; this morning they fled to the house of Perth. God sain them both—now I must see how fares young Fenton." He hurried away, leaving Finland transfixed by what he had revealed.

"Follow me, some of ye," he exclaimed; "let six maintain the post. Come on, gallants—we will save these noble dames or die."

His party had now been reduced to twelve, but forgetful of everything save the probable danger of Annie, he rushed through the garden followed by six soldiers armed with pikes, and leaving the precincts of the palace by a secret doorway near the old royal vault, hurried through the narrow suburb of Croft-an-Righ, and felt his heart leap as the hot glow of the burning houses was blown upon his cheek, and the sparks fell like red hail around him. The roar of voices and of musquetry still continued around the palace with unabated vigour; but here the mob lay generally wallowing in the liquor that flowed along the street, or were busy in revelling around piles of wine flasks, runlets of wine, and barrels of ale, or hurrying away with whatever plunder they had saved from the fast-spreading conflagration.

The house of the chancellor, a lofty edifice, with turrets at the angles, steep roofs, and great stacks of chimneys, stood a little way back from the street, with a row of tall Dutch poplars before it; but these were now blackened and scorched by the forky flames that rolled in volumes from the windows, and clambered over the sinking roofs. The smoke ascended into the clear air in one vast shadowy pillar, and showers of sparks were thrown as from the crater of a volcano. Not one of the inmates was visible, for every window was full of flame, and Finland felt distraction in his mind as he gazed upon the blazing house; but suddenly several females appeared upon the stone gutters and upper bartizan, waving their handkerchiefs and crying in piteous accents for mercy and for succour; but they were unheeded by the mob, or, if heard, only treated with derision.

"A ladder, a ladder!" exclaimed Finland, whose arms and attire were so much disfigured by smoke and dust, that he seemed in no way different from the other armed citizens that thronged the streets. "Death and confusion! a hundred bonnet pieces for a ladder; my brave friends, my good comrades, your pikes—truss them into a ladder. Ere now I've led an escalade of such a turnpike. Bravo, my bold hearts!" and with the silent precision of practised campaigners, the soldiers with their scarfs trussed or tied their six pikes into the form of a scaling ladder. In a moment it was placed against the wall. "Guard the passage," cried Finland, as he disappeared through one of the upper windows.

The heat and smoke were so great that he could scarcely breathe; for the old mansion being all wainscotted, burned like a ship, and ancient paintings, costly hangings, carpets, furniture, books, and all the magnificent household of the great chancellor was crumbling to ashes beneath the relentless flame.

The hot conflagration often drove Finland back, and made his very brains whirl; but he found other passages, across the yielding floors, and ascending from story to story, at last felt gratefully the cooler air upon his flushed and scorched face as he stepped upon the flame-lighted bartizan, and Annie, with a wild hysterical laugh, threw herself into his arms and immediately swooned.

"Your hand, Lady Madertie—away, away!" cried he; "we have not a moment to lose;" and bearing his burden like a child, he attempted to descend the staircase; but lo! the forked flames shot up the spiral descent and drove him back upon the platform, which was thirty feet in height.

Annie was insensible, and Finland, as he leant against the parapet and pressed her to his breast and felt the masses of her soft hair blown against his face, became giddy with despair. At a little distance Matilda of Madertie, a beautiful blonde, was kneeling before her crucifix, and praying with all the happy fervour of a true Catholic; her long dark hair was streaming over her shoulders. Near her were several female servants, crouching against the parapet, and who, exhausted by the energy of their shrieks, and the near approach of death, lay in a kind of stupor, without motion, and seeming scarcely to breathe. Finland thought only of Annie; but a glance sufficed to show that their fate was sealed.

The whole of the lofty house beneath the turret where they stood was an abyss of flames, and the glare, as they flashed upward and around him, compelled him to close his eyes; and thus a prey to grief and horror, he moved to and fro upon the toppling wall until the slate roofs sank crashing into the flaming pit with a roar, and now one vast sheet of broad red fire ascended into the air, making the calcined walls that confined it rend and tremble; a shout came up from the street below; the whole city, the hills and the sky seemed to be on fire. The flames came closer to Finland; he felt their scorching heat; the next seemed to sweep his cheek, and Annie's waving locks and his own, that mingled with them, were burned away together.

"'Tis death at all events," replied the Cavalier, and quick as light, with his long scarf, he bound the slender waist of Annie to his own, and stretching from the wall, got into the lofty and strong poplar tree, and began to descend slowly and laboriously. A shout burst from the soldiers in the garden below.

"God receive us!" cried Maud of Madertie, holding up her crucifix to heaven. At that moment the wall gave way beneath her, and she disappeared for ever.....

Finland's desertion of his post proved ultimately fatal to the defence of Holyrood, which by the efforts of Wallace, Walter Fenton, and the church-militant, Dr. Joram, was protracted until eleven at night. Then the soldiers of Finland, having been all shot down, a party of the Trained Bands, led by Captain Grahame, broke down the gate with sledge-hammers, and then the armed mob, roused to an indescribable pitch of frenzy and ferocity by the liquors they had imbibed, the resistance and slaughter, and the exhortations of the religious maniacs who led them, crowded like a hell disgorged into the outer court and inner quadrangle of the palace.

Taken thus in flank, the soldiers of Wallace were almost immediately destroyed. That brave cavalier was hewn down, his body was hacked to pieces, his entrails torn out and cast into the air. Many of his soldiers who surrendered were shot in cold blood, and all the wounded perished. Walter Fenton, gathering a few of the survivors upon his platform, still continued to fire upon the sea of madmen that swarmed around them.

Conspicuous among his followers, upon his prancing Galloway cob, towered the tall and ghastly figure of Mr. Ichabod Bummel; and, urging the work of death, he sent his powerful voice before him wherever he went.

"No quarter to the birds of Belial!—smite them both hip and thigh. On, ye chosen of Israel, who now, in the good fight of faith, shall extirpate the heathen, sent forth even as the Jews were of old."

"Pick me down yonder villain!" cried Fenton to his soldiers; and bullet after bullet whistled past the head of the preacher, but he seemed to bear a charmed life, and escaped them all.

"On, on to the good work, and prosper!" he cried. "Smite and slay! smite and slay! lest the curses that befel Saul for sparing the Amalekites fall upon ye."

Thus urged, the people hewed the soldiers limb from limb, and the bodies of the dead shared the same fate. Seeing all lost, Walter and Dr. Joram had torn the cavalier plumes from their hats, and leaped upon their horses, hoping to cut their way through the press, or escape unknown. But, alas! Joram was recognised by the terrible Ichabod, who, urging his Galloway towards him, brandished his sword, and exclaimed with stentorian lungs—

"'Tis a priest of Baal, and this night will I send him howling to his false gods! Come on, Jonadab Joram, thou wolf in sheep's clothing."

"Approach, thou d—ned, round-headed, prick-eared, covenanting, and rebellious rapscallion!" cried the Doctor in great wrath, urging his horse towards his clerical antagonist; but the crowd was great between them, and they were enabled to glare at and menace and bespatter each other with scriptural abuse and very hard names for some time before they came within sword's point; for they were both intoxicated, the one with brandy, and the other with an enthusiasm that bordered on insanity. "Come on, thou villanous whigamore," cried Joram, flourishing his long rapier; "thy glory and thee shall depart to the devil together!"

"Out upon thee, and the bloody papistical Duke whom thou servest, and hast blasphemously prayed for; but the curse that fell upon Jeroboam hath already fallen upon him—he shall die without a son, and be the last of his persecuting race, despite the brat in the warming pan."

"On thy carcase, foul kite, will I avenge this treason against the Lord's anointed!" replied Joram, spurring his horse.

"Thou fool!" shrieked Ichabod, with a hollow laugh; "was that accursed tyrant who fiddled while Rome blazed beneath him the anointed of the Lord?"

"Caitiff and firebrand of hell, at last I have thee!" and their swords flashed as they fell upon each other like two mad bulls. The superior strength and skill of the cavalier chaplain quite failed him before the ferocious enthusiasm of the Presbyterian, whose long broadsword, swayed by both hands, was twice driven through his body at the first onset.

"King and High Kirk for ever!" cried poor Joram, as he fell forward with the blood gushing from his mouth; but, still unsatisfied, Ichabod seized him as he sank down, writhing one hand in his hair, and throwing the body across his saddle-bow, he slashed off the head, and held it aloft, a grinning and dripping trophy.

All was over now. Walter gave a hurried glance around him. The palace was being sacked by the rabble, who carried off all they could lay their hands upon; but it was upon the beautiful chapel, that venerable monument of ancient art and David's pious zeal, that the whole tide of popular fury was poured. In five minutes it was completely devastated. The tall windows, with their rich tracery and stained glass, were destroyed; the magnificent tombs of marble and brass, the grand organ, the altar with its burning candles and great silver crucifix, the rich oak stalls of the Thistle, with the swords, helmets, and banners of the twelve knights,—were all torn down, and the beautifully variegated pavement was stripped from the floor.

All the wood and ornamental work, the pictures, reliques, furniture, vestments, &c., were piled in front of the palace, and committed to the flames amid the yells of the populace, whose cries seemed to rend the very welkin. Dashing spurs into his horse, Walter gave him the reins, and sweeping his sword around him, right, left, front and rear, he broke through the crowd, and, followed by a score of bullets, galloped up the Canongate and escaped,—the sole survivor of that night's slaughter at Holyrood.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE VEILED PICTURE.

To the Lords of Convention 'twas Claver's that spoke,
Ere the King's crown shall fall there are crowns to be broke;
So let each Cavalier who loves honour and me,
Come follow the bonnet of bonnie Dundee.
SCOTT.

Skirting the city, Walter soon left the roar of the angry multitude far behind him; he was galloping among fallow fields, hedge-rows, and solitary lanes, and the silence of the country was a relief to his excited spirit after the fierce tumult of the last six hours. The snow had melted; Dairy-burn, and other little rills that traversed the dark fields, gleamed like silver threads in the starlight.

Walter passed the loch, and reached the old Place of Drumdryan; the house was ruined and desolate, roofless and windowless, and the roadway was strewn with fragments of furniture. His anxiety increased, and, goring his horse onward, he dashed up the dark dewy avenue of Bruntisfield, and reined up at the Barbican-gate. The perfect silence, unbroken even by the barking of a dog, and the strong odour of burned wood, had in some sort prepared him for the sight he witnessed. There, too, had been the hand of the destroyer, and a great part of the once noble mansion was a bare, blackened, and open ruin. Its corbie-stoned gables and round turrets stood bleakly in bold relief against the starry sky; and from the depths of its vaulted chambers, the remains of the smouldering conflagration sent forth at times a column of smoke into the calm winter atmosphere. The court and garden were strewn with broken furniture, torn hangings, books, and household utensils.

The sudden snorting of his horse drew Walter's attention to two corpses that lay near the outer door. They were those of John Leekie the gardener, and Drouthy the aged butler, who, like true vassals, had both "with harness on their backs" perished at their lady's threshold. Both had on corslets and steel caps, and one yet grasped a broken partisan.

Full of dire thoughts of vengeance, Walter galloped back to the city, every corner of which was now overflown with the tide of confusion and uproar that had been so long concentrated around Holyrood. He naturally sought the Castle-hill, where Dundee and Dunbarton, with their sixty followers, who of all the Lowlands seemed now alone to remain true to their fugitive king, were drawn up under the cannon of the Half-moon.

"To their contentment," replied Walter. "Poor Finland, our jolly chaplain, Wallace, and a hundred brave soldiers, have gone to render a last account of their faithful service; and I alone survive, my lords."

"To avenge them, add, sir. 'Tis the hope of repaying with most usurious interest this heavy account of blood that alone makes me bear up," replied Dundee with enthusiasm; "and God give me inspiration, for I feel I am the last hope of the old house of Stuart."

At that time certain persons who styled themselves a Convention of the Estates were assembled in conclave, and thither went the brave Dundee, though conscious that, personally or politically, he was the bitterest foe of every man present.

"My lords and gentlemen," said he, observing the chill that fell on the assemblage when he appeared—-"I have come here as a peer of the realm, to serve his Majesty James VII. and the Parliament of Scotland; and I demand that, if the latter has no occasion for my service, it will at least protect my friends and self from the insults of the base-born rabble."

With one voice this hastily collected and illegally constituted assembly exclaimed—"We cannot and will not!"

"Then farewell, sirs," replied the Viscount, with a smile of pride and scorn. "When again I appear before you, it will not be to entreat, but to command—it will not be to plead, but to punish; and now, let my trumpets sound To horse! In the country of the clans, the hills are as steep, the woods are as pathless, the glens as deep, and the rivers as rapid, as in the days of the Romans; and again from the wild north shall the whole tide of Celtic war roll on the traitor Lowlands, as in the days of the great Montrose. When again you hear the voice of Dundee, my Lords of Convention,—tremble!"

He clasped on his headpiece and retired. As the jangle of his sword and spurs descending the stone turnpike died away, a deep silence pervaded the dusky hall; for the threats of this chivalric soldier, when united to their foreknowledge of his dauntless courage, his unflinching loyalty, his loftiness of mind, and intense ferocity, threw a chill upon the more cold-blooded and calculating revolutionists. But soon the gallant blare of the trumpet, the stirring brattle of the brass kettle-drums, the clang of iron hoofs, and jingle of steel scabbards and chain bridles, awaking all the echoes of the great cathedral, and the hollow arcades of the dark Parliament Square, announced the march of the Life Guards—those sixty brave gentlemen who, of all his once numerous and fondly cherished army, now alone remained staunch to the hapless James.

Dark looks were exchanged, and as the music grew faint, all seemed to breathe more freely. Then the querulous voice of Lord Mersington was heard, and in the half-lighted hall, his dwarfish figure, clad in his senatorial robes, was dimly seen on the rostrum, and, as he addressed the convention, from the effect of his recent potations and over exertion, he swayed on his heels like a statue on a pivot. His speech was somewhat to the following purpose.

"That for sae mickle as the vile and bloody papistical James, Duke of Albany and York, having assumed the regal sceptre without the oath required for due maintenance of religion, and having altered the ancient constitution of the kingdom by ane exertion of tyrannous and arbitrary power, had forfeited all richt to the crown of Scotland, now and for ever; that it be forthwith settled on the Statholder William, and Mary his spouse; that there be made a list of grievances to be redressed, and a new act framit, anent witchcraft, papacy, prelacy, and ither abominations."

The last echoes of the trumpets of Dundee had died away under the arch of the Netherbow Port, and the motions of Mersington were carried with universal approbation. "Thus," says the author of Caledonia "the revolution in England was conducted constitutionally by the parliament; but in Scotland, unconstitutionally by the convention. The English found a vacancy of the throne, the Scots made one; the one grave and regarding law, the other vehement and disregarding it."

With a heaviness of heart, a deep and morbid sadness against which he struggled in vain, Walter rode down the steep Leith Wynd. He was now a private trooper under Dundee, and leaving Lilian far behind him; for he was going, he foresaw, to perish under the fallen banner of a desperate cause and ruined king; but soon the clash of the cymbals, the fanfare of the trumpets, the tramp of the stately horses, the high bearing of their gallant riders, and that innate loftiness of soul, which made Dunbarton and Dundee rise superior to their fortune, and seem to set fate at defiance, communicated a new ardour to his heart, and it soon beat responsive to the martial music, as the troop of cavaliers traversed the city's northern ridge, and riding by the Long Gate saw the morning sun rising afar off above the snow clad Lammermuir, gilding Preston Bay, the far hills of Fife, and the shining waters of the dark blue Forth.

Dundee rode near Fenton, who, finding more than once, the dark and pensive eyes of this singularly handsome soldier fixed upon him with something of that foredoomed expression, indicative of his future fate and fame, he ventured to ask, "Whither go you, my lord?"

"Wherever the shade of Montrose shall direct me," was the thoughtful and poetical reply. "Believe me, Mr. Fenton," he continued, after a pause, "under whatever circumstances, or however oppressed by fate, I will acquit myself before God, the world, and my own conscience. Yes!" he exclaimed, with flashing eyes, and striking his gloved hand upon his corsletted breast, "I will hazard life and limb, estate and title, name and fame, yes, I would peril even my salvation, were it possible, in the cause of my honour and allegiance; and if I cannot save the throne of King James, at least I will not survive its fall—so the will of God be done!"

There was something sublime in his aspect as he spoke; his dark and lustrous eyes were full of fire; his face, the manly beauty of which few have equalled and none surpassed, was suffused with a warm glow, and the proud curl of his mustachioed lip, showed the high spirit of achievement that burned within him. The soul of the great Montrose seemed indeed to inspire him, and in such a moment all the darker and weaker points were forgotten. His ardour was communicated to Walter, whose heart beat fast as he exclaimed,

"Noble Dundee, to victory or the grave, to the field or the scaffold, I will follow thee, and in that hour when I fail in my duty or allegiance, may woe betide me and dishonour blot my name!"

"In the wilds of the pathless north, ten thousand claymores will flash from their scabbards at the call of Dundee. The loyal and gallant clans have not forgotten the glories of Alford, Inverlochy, and Auldearn, when the standard of James Grahame, of Montrose, was never unfurled but to victory. Again, like him, will I lead them against this Dutch usurper, whom in an evil hour I saved from death upon the battle-field of Seneff. Yes, after he had fallen beneath the hoofs of Vaudemont's Reitres, I saved his life at the risk of my own, and horsed him on my own good charger, when, could his future ingratitude to me, and the usurpation of this hour have been foreseen, my petronel had blown his brains to the wind."

"Ha! what wants his grace of Gordon?" said Dunbarton as the flash of a cannon broke from the dark castle wall, and a puff of white smoke curled away on the clear morning air, while the echoes of the report reverberated like thunder among the black basaltic cliffs of the great fortress past which they were riding. A little arched postern to the westward opened, and a soldier appeared waving a white flag from the brow of the steep rock, which the turretted bastion overhung. The troop halted, and their kettle-drums gave three ruffles in honour of the duke.

"Tarry for me, gentlemen comrades," said Claverhouse, "while I confer with 'the cock of the north,'" and galloping to the base of the castle rock, he dismounted, and notwithstanding his steel harness, buff coat, and jack boots, clambered with great agility to the postern, where he held a conference with the Duke of Gordon.

What passed was never known; but each is said to have needlessly exhorted the other to loyalty and truth.

The multitude, who from a distance had watched the departure of the hated Dundee, fled back to the city, and reported to the Lords of the Convention, that "there was a coalition and general insurrection of the adherents of the bluidy Claver'se," and thereupon a dreadful panic ensued. The city drums beat the point of war; the Duke of Hamilton and other revolutionists, who had for weeks past been secretly bringing great bands of their vassals into Edinburgh, where they were concealed in cellars and garrets, now rushed to arms, and the members of Convention, confined in their hall, were terrified and put to their wit's end by the uproar. Lord Mersington, it is related, exchanging his senatorial robe and wig, "for ane auld wife's mutch and plaid," fled to his lodging, and appeared no more that day; but their fears were causeless, for Dundee, and the devoted cavaliers who accompanied him in his chivalric but hopeless enterprise, were then passing the woods and morasses of Corstorphine, on their route to the land of the Gael.

At a hand gallop they soon flanked the grey rocks and pine covered summits of those beautiful hills, and the sequestered village lay before them, with the morning smoke curling from its moss-roofed cottages, its broad lake swollen by the melting snows, but calm as a mirror, save where the swan and dusky waterouzel squattered its shining surface; the ancient kirk peeped above a grove of venerable sycamores, and to the south stood the castle of the old hereditary Foresters of Corstorphine.

"What castles are these on the right and left?" asked Dundee. "I warrant Mr. Holster can tell; he knows everything and everybody."

"Yonder hold with the loch flowing almost to its gates, is the house of the Lord Forester," replied the cavalier trooper, "a leal man and true."

"What! the house of Randal Clermont—um—a converted covenanter, and worshipper of the rising sun, eh?"

"'Tis said his name is at the address sent by the turncoat council to the Statholder," said Dunbarton.

"Assure me of that," exclaimed Dundee, sharply reining up his horse, "and by all the devils, I will hang him from his own bartizan, lord and baron though he be! Halt, gentlemen, we will pay these lords a visit; they, or their stewards, must pay us riding money, for the king's service. My lord, Earl, and thirty of you gentlemen, will detour across to Clermiston, while I will ride down to make my devoir to the Forester of these hills—forward, trot."

The troop separated, and Walter somewhat unwillingly accompanied Lord Dunbarton, whose party galloped in single files along the muddy and rough bridle-road that led over the lea to the gate of the solitary tower. They encircled the barbican wall, which was built partly on fragments of low rock, without being able to find entrance, the great gate being securely fastened, and the stillness of the place seemed to imply that it was uninhabited. A shriek, echoing through the vaulted recesses of the tower, rang out upon the clear morning air; a window was dashed open, and a female hand, white and bleeding, appeared, while a voice calling for aid made the blood of Walter Fenton rush back upon his heart.

"On, on, good sirs!" he exclaimed, leaping from his horse; "some work of hell is being enacted here!" and he rushed against the tower gate, making fruitless efforts to burst it open; but they were as those of a child against the solid planks of the barrier.

"By Mahoud's horns, Clermistonlee is at his old tricks again!" cried Jack Holster, leaping from his saddle, and unslinging his carbine. "He hath a lass in his meshes; alight gallants all, or the fair fortress will be won by storm, while we dally in the trenches."

"Unsling your carbines, gentlemen," said the Earl of Dunbarton. "A volley at the lock—give fire!"

Thirty carbines poured their concentrated volley upon the gate; it was torn to fragments, and an aperture formed which admitted the troopers; to creep through, and rush on with his drawn rapier, were to Walter a moment's work. By pulling the leathern latch of a long oak pin which secured the door of the tower, they procured ingress, and rushed up the turnpike stair to the hall, at the very moment that Lilian was just sinking backwards, with her hands clasped in despair, while Lord Clermistonlee, enraged by her outcries, and the new and pressing danger, was endeavouring with ferocious violence to drag her into some place of concealment.

"False villain!" exclaimed Walter, springing upon him with his rapier. "I have a thousand insults to avenge; but this, and this, and this, repay them all!" and he made three furious lunges at his rival, who escaped two by the intervention of Dunbarton, who vigorously interposed; but he received one severe wound in the left shoulder. Infuriated by the sight of his own blood, and being a man of great strength and agility, he grappled fiercely with Walter, breathlessly exclaiming, in accents of rage—

"Woe betide thee, thou unhanged rascal! A sword! a sword! lend me a sword, some one! Juden! Traitors, I am a Lord of Parliament, and dare ye slaughter me under the rooftree of my own fortified house? This is hership and hamesucken with a vengeance! Death and confusion, villains; recollect I am unarmed!"

"Oh no, no; spare him," moaned Lilian, who was supported by the Earl of Dunbarton.

"Base-born runnion, and son of a dunghill!" exclaimed Clermistonlee, with that intense ferocity and scorn which he could so easily assume at all times; "an hour will come when this insult shall be fearfully repaid——" here the clenched hand of Walter struck him down. Staggering backward, making a futile attempt to recover himself, his clutching hands tore away the veil that concealed the portrait already mentioned. The face it revealed instantly arrested the forward stride and menacing sword of Walter Fenton, who stood irresolute, trembled, and the sinking sword half fell from his relaxed hand, as he muttered—

"What is this coming over my spirit now? That face seems like a vision from the grave to me!"

"'Tis the Lady Alison, my Lord's late wife," said the shrill but sullen voice of Beatrix.

"Pshaw!" rejoined Walter; "then my weakness is over. Give him a sword, gentlemen. In fair stand-up fight, I will meet him here, with case of pistols, sword, and dagger, or anything he pleases."

Juden came in at that moment, clad in his steel bonnet and buff jack, and swaying an enormous partisan, was rushing upon Walter Fenton like a wild boar, when Holsterlee laid him flat with his clubbed carbine. The swooning of Lord Clermistonlee closed the brawl for the time; loss of blood, over-drinking, and over-excitement, had quite prostrated all his energies. Walter immediately sheathed his sword, and, kneeling down, was the first to tender assistance; for "compassion ever marks the brave."

Clermistonlee was borne away to his own apartment by the growling Juden, whose thick pate was little the worse of Holsterlee's stroke; and Lilian was now Walter's next and immediate care.

The disorder and scantiness of her attire, the pallor and horror of her aspect, and her presence in such a place, had previously informed him of all, and no sooner were they in a more retired apartment, than, throwing herself into his arms, she wept bitterly. Meanwhile, the unscrupulous cavaliers were ranging over the entire household, breaking open every press, cabinet, and girnel, with the butts and balls of their carbines, in search of wine, vivres, or anything else that suited their fancies. Juden kept always a full larder, and its contents furnished a sumptuous breakfast. Several whole cheeses, a cask of ale, and a thirty-gallon runlet or two of canary, were trundled into the hall; and a hearty repast, with the usual military accompaniments of mirth and laughter, was enjoyed by the hungry troopers, whose appetites a night spent in their saddles, and a ride in the keen air of a winter morning, had sufficiently whetted.

In a few minutes, Lilian, with faltering accents, had informed Walter of her abduction, of the hours of suffering she had endured, and her anxiety to return to Lady Grisel; but, alas! poor Lilian knew not that perhaps her only relative had perished in the conflagration of her old ancestral home.

Aware that Dundee meant to halt for an hour or so, to await despatches from the Earl of Balcarris and the ex-Lord-Advocate, Walter resolved without delay to accompany Lilian to Edinburgh, and there convey her to some place of safety, ere he cast himself upon the world for ever; for from that hour he was like a reed tossed upon the waves of misfortune. By the assistance of Jack Holster, he had Clermistonlee's favourite mare prepared for Lilian; and, after refreshing her with a milk-posset made by the cynical Beatrix, they departed for the city at a quick trot: the plain buff coat, steel cap, and accoutrements of Walter, enabling him to pass for a Royalist or Revolutionist, as occasion required.

As soon as they began to converse, the pace of their horses was checked, and they proceeded slowly: forgetful of Claverhouse and of his pledged word, Walter remembered only the presence of Lilian; and their minds were so much absorbed in their mutual explanations and plans for the future, that they marked not the tardiness of their progression towards Edinburgh.

CHAPTER IX.

LOVE AND PRINCIPLE.

My promised husband and my dearest friend;
Since heaven appoints this favoured race to reign,
And blood has drenched the Scottish fields in vain,
May I be wretched and thy flight partake?
Or wilt not thou for thy loved Chloe's sake,
Tired out at length submit to fate's decree.
TICKELL.

"And this is the fate to which you have dedicated yourself?" said Lilian, weeping; "to become a follower of that fierce Dundee in the desperate course on which he is about to fling himself. Oh, Walter Fenton, this is the very folly of enthusiasm. Too surely can we see that the hand of Fate is against the House of Stuart."

"Lilian," replied her lover, with mournful surprise, "the daughter of an old Cavalier house should have other thoughts than these. Remember, dear Lilian, there is not in Europe a royal race for which so many of the good and the gallant, the brave and the loyal, have from the foughten field and the reeking scaffold given up their souls to God. Let no man judge harshly of those whose splendour is dimmed for a time; for the hour shall come when in the full zenith of their pride and power, the old line of our Scottish kings——"

"'Tis all a dream, Walter. The entire nations are against them. I feel a presentiment that they and their followers are doomed to wither and perish like brands in the burning."

"The world is all before me; and I can always preserve my honour, my heart, and my sword. But thou, Lilian——"

"Am beside thee, dear Walter," said she, with touching artlessness; "and is not happiness better than honour?"

"True, true," replied the young man, while he kissed her hand, and his eyes filled with tenderness. "Ah, Lilian, it is the thought that I am leaving you, perhaps for ever, that alone unnerves me for the deadly venture in which we are about to engage. Hopeless though the cause of James may be, we have sworn not to survive it; and, come weal or woe, we will unfurl his standard on the northern hills, and if it waves not over us in victory, it shall never do so in defeat or dishonour; for to the last man we will perish on the sod beneath it. Your memory alone will make me sad—but am I singular? How many of these my brave companions have gentle ones to leave, mothers who bless, and sisters who love them, while I am alone. Save thee, there is nothing that binds me to this world. What of it is mine? The six feet that shall make my grave!"

"O! most ungrateful Walter," said Lilian, in a low voice of confusion and tenderness; "is not all that I have yours, manor and lands? are not these possessions ample? Greedy Gled," she added, smiling; "what better tocher would you have?"

"Lilian," sighed Walter, in a thick voice, as he pressed her hand to his heart, "it may not be, dearest—yet awhile, at least."

"You know that my heart is full of you, Lilian; but there is also room for ambition in it. I cannot live ignobly and obscure; as such I would be unworthy to possess you. I would feel myself a nameless intruder under the rooftree of your crested ancestors, whose armorial blazons on every panel and window-pane, would shame my meaner birth, and put me to the blush."

"Ungrateful! after all I have urged and said. 'Tis a dream, Walter, a mere dream, but one that will make the world dark—oh! very dark to me."

"'Tis very true; I am choosing the path of proscription, danger, and death; but the fortune of war may better the prospects of my faction."

"Oh, this wicked Claverhouse! he hath quite cast a glamour over you. How can you talk so calmly of years of separation? What may not be lost in that time?"

"Your life is mine, Walter; it was pledged to me. Have you forgot the 20th of September, and the hour by the fountain?"

"Dearest girl, how could I ever forget it? 'Tis true, Lilian, that we are in the very flower of our days; the bloom of our youth and existence is at its full; love, tenderness, beauty, and susceptibility, all glow within our hearts."

"And will not the roll of years make them dull, diminish their force, and cool their fervour? Oh, heavens! I am quite making love to you," said Lilian, blushing crimson; "but danger and the risk of losing you have endued me with great boldness."

"But time will never diminish the love I bear thee, Lilian; and the memory of this hour's bitter struggle—this conflict between a love that is irresistible and the strong ties of honour, that bind me to the banner of Dundee, will haunt me to my grave!" Tears started into his eyes.

A silence ensued. Poor Lilian had nothing more to urge; and despite of all her gentleness, felt both intensely grieved and mortified, if not quite piqued, at Walter, whose heart was wrung by an agony too acute for words. As they rode past the thick woodlands that shelter the venerable church of St. Cuthbert, they heard a shrill but cracked voice chanting slowly—

"By Jove! 'tis the villain who slew poor Joram," exclaimed Walter, drawing a pistol from his holsters; but the voices of two other persons finishing the verse, arrested him. "Astonishment! 'tis the voice of Finland!" said Walter, as he spurred his horse close to a fauld dyke, on the other side of which he saw, what? Annie Laurie, and his old friend and brother Cavalier, Finland, on their knees, beside Mr. Ichabod Bummel, chanting a psalm in most dolorous accents.

"By all the devils!" said Walter, almost bursting with laughter; "'tis the age of miracles this! What, ho! Dick Douglas and Mistress Anne Laurie, singing hymns among the heather like two true laverocks of the persecuted kirk."

"Woe unto thee, thou troubler of the just in spirit!" cried Mr. Ichabod, unsheathing his broadsword. "I have plucked the youth and the maiden like brands from the fire which is fated to consume all such unrepentant persecutors of Israel as thee."

"I have seen a new light," said Finland, giving Walter a sly wink of deep meaning.

"And so have I," added Mistress Laurie, demurely; "and command thee, Walter Fenton, thou man of sin, to treat this holy expounder of the Gospel with becoming reverence."

"Annie—oh, Annie!" cried Lilian, as she boldly leaped the mare over the fauld dyke, and threw herself into the arms of her friend.

"My service to you, Mr. Ichabod," said Walter, bowing to the rawboned preacher; but quite unable to unriddle the mystery of this rencounter, he whispered to Finland (while the slayer of Joram was engaged with Lilian), "What the devil does all this mean, Dick?"

"Learn in a few words," replied Finland, who was in as miserable a plight as dust, smoke, and a hundred bruises could make him. "Annie and I had a most miraculous escape amid the horrors of last night. I will tell you of it anon—'twas quite a devil of a business. As for me, I am well used to such camisadoes, having been blown up at Namur, and twice nearly drowned in the Zuiderzluys; but how my adorable Annie escaped, Heaven, who saved her, can only know. We were in the hands of the most villanous mob the world ever saw; they were about to hang me from the arm of the Girth-cross; and Annie—oh! my blood bubbles like boiling water when I think of what they intended for her; when this leathern-jawed apostle, who, with all his psalm-singing and whiggery, hath some good points of honesty about him, brought us off, sword in hand; we bundled out of the city without blast of trumpet; and here we are. As a gentleman of cavalier principles," said Finland, colouring, "you may marvel that I would condescend to chant a psalm like a mere clown or canting herdsman; but as we are utterly at the mercy of this Ichabod Mummel or Bummel, I had no choice. He needs must——tush! you know the musty old saw."

"It is enough, maiden," said the preacher, replying to something Lilian had said, and taking, with an air of real kindness, the little hand of the shrinking girl within his own great bony paw, "I know thee to be the kinswoman of that godly matron, Grisel Napier, who, though wedded to as cruel a persecutor as ever bestrode a war-horse—yea, and though leavened in their wickedness withal, sheltered me in the days of my exceeding tribulation, when there was a flaming sword over Israel, and when, as a humble instrument in the cause of that great Saviour of the Kirk (whose coming I foretold in my Bombshell, whilk hath not yet the luck to be printed), I came from Holland to this land of anarchy, and had no where to lay my head. She clothed and sheltered me, for the sake of that loved kinsman who is now no more, slain by some accursed persecutor, whom I would smite—yea, maiden, both hip and thigh, if I had him within reach of this good old whinger, that so oft hath avenged the fall of our martyrs!"

Walter instinctively grasped his sword, startled by the stern energy of the preacher, who continued—

"It is enough maiden,—with me ye are safe, and to a place of peace I will conduct you and your friend; but for these two sons of the scarlet woman—these slaves of Jezebel, who have been nursled in the blood of our saints and martyrs, and in whom it grieves me to think ye have garnered up your hearts, I may not, and cannot, with a safe conscience, protect them. Let them depart from me in peace; let them follow him who, ere long, will be called to a severe account for all his dark misdeeds—John Grahame of Claverhouse."

"'Tis sound advice, Mr. Bummel," said Walter, tightening his reins, and drawing off his glove. "By Heaven! I had quite forgotten; he will have crossed the Forth by this time, and it will require some exertion of horseflesh to rescue my honour. Finland, we must go. Mount Lilian's horse. Lilian," he added, in a low and tremulous voice, "farewell now; commend me to Lady Grisel, and bid her bless me; farewell, Lilian—we must part at last;" and stooping from his horse, he gently pressed her to his steel-cased breast, and kissed her.

"It cannot be—it is impossible now; I am pledged to Grahame of Claverhouse." And afraid to trust himself longer within hearing of her soft entreaties, lest love might overcome the stern principles of loyalty in which he had schooled himself, he leaped his horse over the fauld dyke; and while he felt as if his very heart was torn by the agony of that separation, he dashed along the road to the west, leaving Finland to follow as he chose.

With a mind overcharged by sad and bitter thoughts, Walter galloped madly on, retracing the way he had come with Lilian; his mind seemed a very whirlpool, and the events of the last twenty-four hours a dream. A steep old bridge, which the roadway crossed near the ancient manor of Sauchtoun was ringing beneath his horse's heels, when a distant shout made him rein up.

"Hollo!" cried Finland, as he came after him breathlessly on the panting mare; "what the devil—art gone mad, Walter? Oh this tormenting love—ha! ha!"

"Then you envy me the possession of all that fate hath left me in this bad world. This devilish commotion hath confiscated my free barony of Finland, and torn my arms at the cross; still I am more gay than thee who hath nothing to lose."

"And after parting with one you love," continued Walter, almost piqued by his friend's lightness of heart; "parting perhaps for ever——"

"Tush, man—I am used to such partings. I have had many a love that was true while it lasted; but none like the passion I bear my dear Annie. My first flame was a blue-eyed damoisella of the Low Countries (her mother was a fleuriste in Ghent). I thought I loved her very much; but somehow at Bruges, Mons, and Bergen-op-Zoom, 'twas ever the same; I always left some one with a heavy heart; and cursed the générale, when in the cold foggy mornings it rang through the dark muddy streets, waking the storks on the high roofs above, and the drowsy boors in their beds below. I know that the wheels of fate and fortune are ever turning; some points may, and others must come round, to their first starting place, so I always live in hope. I was very sad in Ghent when our drums beat along the street of St. Michael, and I bade adieu to my fair one, coming away I remember by the window instead of the door."

"I don't know, man," laughed Douglas; "but so we often left our billets in French Flanders. But I assure thee, lad, that under all this gaiety my heart is as heavy as thine; for I vow to thee, that the recollection of Annie with her beseeching blue eyes, her dark clustering hair and pallid cheek, the touching cadence of her voice, and the words she said to me are imprinted on my heart as if the hand of Heaven had written them there. By the bye I have composed a famous song about her."

"Music and all. I wrote it on the night we were about to sack the old house of Bruntisfield in search of yonder spindle-shanked apostle. Ah, if in my absence Craigdarroch should dare—but ho! yonder are some of our friends halted under a tree upon that grassy knowe."

"There is something odd being acted there. Does not yonder white feather wave in the steel bonnet of Dundee?"

"He is permitting some false Whig to sing his last psalm under the convenient branch where he is doomed to feed the corbies. Dundee is very kind in that way sometimes."

Recrossing the stream called the Leith, they rode towards a knoll that rose amid the marshy ground near the castle loch of Corstorphine. There a dozen of the cavalier troopers were dismounted, and leaning on their swords or carbines, were holding their bridles in a cluster round Dundee, who was still on horseback, and in the act of addressing a disarmed prisoner, in whom with surprise and sorrow they recognized the young Laird of Holsterlee.

Cool and collected, with folded arms he firmly encountered the large dark eyes of Dundee, which were fixed with stern scrutiny upon him. The group of his comrades surveyed him with glances of mingled scorn and pity.

"Holsterlee!" said the Viscount, who held in one hand a long Scots pistol, in the other a letter; "how little could I once have suspected that you, the best cavalier of the king's life guard, and one in whose loyalty and high spirit I trusted so much, would stoop to this dishonour! The attempt simply of deserting to take service with this vile usurper, though bad enough in itself, is as nothing compared to the treachery which this stray letter has revealed. Fool and villain! thou knowest that I am the last hope of the king's cause in Scotland, and that if I fall it will be buried in my grave; and yet thou art in league with this accursed Convention to destroy me! A thousand English guineas for my head, thou villanous scape-the-gallows and companion of grooms and horseboys, who hast squandered away a fair repute and noble patrimony among rakehelly gamesters and women of pleasure, dost thou value the head of a Scottish peer at a sum so trifling? hah!" He uttered a bitter laugh. "What," he resumed, "hast thou to urge, that I should not hang thee from the branch of this beech tree?"

"That I am a gentleman," replied Holsterlee boldly; "a lesser baron of blood and coat-armour by twelve descents, and should not die the death of a peasant churl or faulty hound."

"Right!" exclaimed Dundee, whose dark and terrible eyes began to fill with their dusky fire. "A gentleman should die by the hand of another, for every punishment is disgraceful. DEATH is the only relief from the consciousness of crime. Thou shalt have the honour of perishing by the hand of the first cavalier in Scotland. Thus shalt thou die—now God receive thy soul!" and pointing upward with his bridle hand, he levelled the pistol and fired. The ball passed through the brain of Holsterlee, and flattened against the plastered wail of a neighbouring cottage. The body sank prostrate on the turf, quivered for a moment, and then lay still and stiffening, with upturned eyes and relaxed jaws.

This act, which was the most terrible episode in the life of the stern Dundee, threw a chill on the hearts of his comrades; but he did not permit them to remain gazing on the lifeless remains of one who had ridden so long in their ranks, and who was the gayest fellow that ever cracked a jest, shuffled a card, or handed a coquette through the stately cotillion or joyous couranto.

"Our nags are somewhat breathed after the hot chase he gave us, gentlemen," said Dundee, deliberately reloading his pistol, and endeavouring under an aspect of external composure to conceal the immediate sorrow, remorse, and anger that too surely preyed upon his heart. "To horse! sling carbines—forward—trot!" and away they rode in silence leaving the cold remains of the dead man lying on the grassy sward, with his blood-dabbled locks waving in the morning wind, while the gleds and ravens wheeled and croaked around him with impatience.

He was stripped by the cottagers, and as his dress was remarkably rich, to prevent further inquiry they interred him where he lay between the bare beech tree and the old cottage wall*.

* On removing the walls of an old cottage near Tynecastle, a mile westward of Edinburgh, in 1843, the remains of a skeleton were found buried close by; the skull had been pierced by a bullet. In the plastered wall of the edifice a ball was found flattened against the stone.—Edin. Advert., April 18, 1843.

CHAPTER X.

THE PASS OF KILLYCRANKIE.

Heard ye not! heard ye not! how that whirlwind the Gael,
Through Lochaber swept down from Lochness to Locheil—
And the Campbells to meet them in battle array,
Came on like the billow, and broke like its spray!
Long, long shall our war-song exult in that day!
IAN LOM, OF KEPPOCH.

The Revolution might be said to be now fully achieved; save Dundee, Balcarris, and a few of their followers, all had submitted to the new sovereign whom these two nobles would rather have slain than acknowledged. Dundee had been required by a trumpet to return to the Convention; he treated the summons with scorn, and after cutting his way through a party sent to intercept him, reached the Highlands a proscribed fugitive, branded as an outlaw and traitor, and stigmatized with every epithet that Presbyterian rancour, heightened by the remembrance of his former military excesses, could heap upon him.

Colin, Earl of Balcarris, the High Treasurer, was captured and thrown into a dungeon. The weak and servile Melville, the crafty and fanatical Stair (the Scottish Tallyrand), and the not less crafty Duke of Hamilton, were now at the head of the Government, and these, though all staunch Presbyterians were by the king united in council with a few of the high church nobles, an intermixture which inflamed the animosities of both parties, and sowed the seeds of hatred, discord, and confusion.

With his troop of faithful cavaliers Dundee continued to wander from place to place in the Highlands until the beginning of May, 1689, when he appeared at the head of about two thousand clansmen led by Sir Donald Macdonald, the chiefs of Glengarry, Maclean, Locheil, and Clanronald—all names which shall ever be associated with the purest ideas of chivalry, generosity, and valour. He had only about 120 horse, but they were composed entirely of gentlemen, and were commanded by a Sir William Wallace, a brave cavalier; Walter Fenton was his cornet, and carried the standard.

Lieutenant-General Hugh Mackay, of Scoury, now commander-in-chief of the Scottish forces, Colonel-Commandant of the Scottish Brigade, and Privy Councillor of Scotland, marched against him at the head of nearly five thousand foot, and with two regiments of cavalry. Neither the fall of Edinburgh Castle (which Sir John Lanier demolished), nor the disappointment of assistance from Ireland which James had promised him, could damp the ardour of the brave Dundee. Deficiency of provisions had compelled him to shift his quarters frequently, and his devoted followers had endured the most severe privations; but under these they disdained to complain, when they knew that Dundee shared them all. Like Montrose, he was eminently calculated for a Highland leader. In his buff coat and headpiece he marched on foot, now by the side of one clan, and anon by the ranks of another, addressing the soldiers in their native Gaelic, flattering their long genealogies, and animating the fierce rivalry of clanship by reciting the deeds of their forefathers, and the sonorous verses of their ancient bards.

"It has ever been my maxim, Mr. Fenton," said he to our friend on one occasion, "that no general should command an irregular army in the field without becoming acquainted with every man under his baton."

On the 17th June, 1689, he marched to the Pass of Killycrankie, where one of the most decisive battles in Scottish history was bravely fought and fruitlessly won. Dawn was brightening on the hills of Athole; and Walter, who, quite exhausted by a long series of hardships, cold, starvation, and a pistol-shot wound, was sleeping under his horse's legs, was aroused by the sonorous and guttural cry of a sentinel, who screamed out in Gaelic—

It was the morning of a battle! Walter's first thought was of Lilian; his second of the prospects of victory. The dear image of Lilian made him rise superior to his fortune. Since they had so abruptly separated, he had never heard from her; and it was now many months. How long the time seemed! Amid his dreamy musings, the gentle expression of her face often came powerfully to his recollection, with, all the vigour of a deeply impressed vision; and recollection summoned the tones of her sweet voice to his heart like the memory of some old familiar air, and all the gushing tenderness of his soul was awakened. But with these remembrances too often came bitterness and despair, and he kissed with all a lover's fervour the scarf her hands had wrought him. Gleams of memory, and vivid visions of happiness, which he foresaw too surely could never be realized, made his heart swell alternately with tender recollections and joyous anticipations, that died away to leave him hopeless and despairing. Now they were on the brink of a battle which Walter welcomed with anxious joy, for it would be not less decisive as to the issue of his love, than for the fortune of James and the fate of the British people.

It was a glorious morning in June; the purple summer heather, the long yellow broom, the wild briar and honeysuckle, that clambered among the basaltic cliffs, loaded the air with a rich perfume; while, through the savage and stupendous gorge of Killycrankie, the rising sun poured a flood of golden lustre, bringing forward in strong light the wooded acclivities of those sublime hills, that heave up to heaven their scaured and wooded sides, involving in dark shadow the deep rocky chasms, through which the foaming Garry rushes to mingle its waters with the rapid Tummel—chasms so profound, and hidden by the overhanging foliage, that the roar only of the unseen water was heard, awakening the echoes of the dewy woods and shining rocks.

Nothing in nature can surpass the wild grandeur and imposing sublimity of this mountain gorge, the frowning terrors of which, in after years, so impressed a brigade of Hessians in the last of our Scottish wars, that they refused to penetrate what appeared to them to be the end of the habitable world. Save the mountain torrent foaming down from the lofty hills, appearing one moment to hurl its spray against the shining rocks, and urge masses of earth and stones along with it, and disappearing the next, as it plunged into the bosky woodlands,—all was still as death in that Highland solitude, when, in steadiness and order, Dundee drew up his little host at its northern verge, admirably posted on well-chosen ground, two miles from the mouth of the pass; the only road to his position being the ancient pathway that wound along the face of the precipitous cliffs, where the least false step threatened instant destruction even to the most wary passenger.

Dundee's band—for it was indeed no more, though named an army—was only two thousand strong, and composed of various little parties, which were the nucleus of the corps he expected yet to form. On the right was the soi-disant regiment of Sir John Macdonald; a small body of the clans, under the illustrious chiefs of Locheil, Glengarry, and Clanronald, the Atholemen under Ballechin, Wallace's troop of horse, and a corps of three hundred half-clad and miserably accoutred Irishmen, composed the mainbody. Dundee's old troop, in which rode the Earl of Dunbarton, his officers, and several Highland gentlemen, formed the reserve of cavalry. The Highlanders, arrayed each in the picturesque tartan of their native tribes, were formed in close ranks, with their filleadhbegs belted about them; their brass-studded targets, long claymores, ponderous poleaxes, and long-barrelled Spanish rifles, shining in the rays of the meridian sun.

The brandishing of weapons and clan-standards, and the fierce notes of war and defiance, as the various pibrochs rang among the echoing hills, announced that the troops of Mackay were in sight. And now the brave and anxious Dundee, clad in his rich scarlet uniform, with the tall plumes waving on his polished headpiece, his fine features full of animation, and his black eyes alternately clouded by anxiety, or flashing with valour and energy,—galloped from clan to clan, inspiring them by every exertion of graceful gesture and military eloquence to add that day to the fame of their forefathers.

The murmuring hum which, from afar off, announced the drums of Mackay, grew more and more palpable, and increased until the hoarse and sharp reverberations of the martial music rang between the steep impending rocks of the long mountain pass through which the foe was penetrating. Anon the Scottish standards, the red lion with the silver cross, and one with that of St. George (borne by Hastings' regiment), and the yellow banners of the Scots brigade, appeared at intervals of time, and weapons were seen flashing through the openings of the chasmed rocks and sable woods of drooping pine.

The day had passed slowly in anxious expectation: it was evening now, and the sun had verged to the northwest, but from between gathered masses of saffron clouds streams of dazzling light were radiating; and the setting rays, as they poured aslant on the mountain sides, made the deep pass seem darker as it receded beyond them. The rattle of the drums, and the blare of trumpet and bugle, the clank of bandoliers and tread of feet, rang with a thousand reverberations between the brows of that tremendous gorge, as the army of Mackay debouched from its windings, and formed successive battalions on the little level plain or hollow, above which the fierce and impatient Highlanders, "like greyhounds in the slips straining upon the start," were formed in array of battle. Undauntedly they surveyed the measured steadiness and precision of the Lowland soldiers, whose silken standards fluttered gaily above their moving masses of polished steel caps, their screwed bayonets, and long pikes, that were ever flashing in the setting sun.

Sir James Hastings' English regiment, and those of Leven and Mackay belonging to Scotland, were arrayed in that bright scarlet which was to become so famous in future wars; but the battalions of Balfour, Ramsay, and Kenmore wore the black iron caps, the scarlet hose, and yellow coats of the Scotch-Dutch brigade. The cavalry corps of the Marquis of Annandale and the Lord Belhaven wore coats of spotless buff and caps of polished steel. Their numbers, discipline, and order would have stricken with dismay any other volunteers than the Highlanders, whose hearts had never known fear, and who had long been accustomed to rout both horse and foot with equal speed and success. As the practised eye of Mackay reconnoitred the position of Dundee, he pointed to the clan, and said to young Cameron of Locheil, who rode near him—

"It matters little," replied the young man haughtily; "but I recommend you to be prepared, or my father and his 'wild savages' before night may be nearer you than you would wish."

The reports of a slight skirmish between the right wing of the Highlanders and Mackay's left, made the hearts of all beat quicker; and in the interval, Dundee exchanged his scarlet coat for one of buff, richly laced with silver; and over it he tied a scarf of green, which the Highlanders considered ominous of evil. Leaping on horseback, he galloped to the front, and a shout of impatience burst from the Highland ranks.

It was now eight o'clock, and the sun was dipping behind the hills, when a simultaneous volley ran from flank to flank along Mackay's line; and while the roar of the musketry rang from peak to peak, and rebellowed along the sky and among the hills like thunder, with a thousand echoes, Dundee gave the order to charge; and in deep silence, and like a cloud of battle, the race of old Selma came down!

Reserving their fire until within a pike's length of King William's troops, the Highlanders poured upon them a deadly volley; and throwing down their muskets, drew their claymores, and, under cover of the smoke, charged with the fury of an avalanche, striking up the levelled bayonets with their studded targets, and hewing down with sword and axe, routed the Lowland soldiery in a moment.

The brave Maclean cut the left wing to pieces; while Hastings' Englishmen, on the right, had equal fortune from the Camerons and Macdonalds. Dunbarton, at the head of sixteen mounted cavaliers, actually routed the whole artillery, and seized the cannon; while, led by Finland, the remainder of the troop broke among the dense and recoiling mass of Mackay's regiment, riding through it as easily as through a field of rye. King William's Dutch standard was captured by Walter Fenton, who, after a short conflict, drove his sword through the corslet of the bearer, and, spurning him with his foot and stirrup, bore off the trophy.

Meanwhile Finland encountered a mounted cavalier, and had exchanged blows before he recognised Craigdarroch, his rival, in the leader of Annandale's Horse, whom his brave little band had now assailed, and with whom they were maintaining a desperate and unequal combat of one to five.

"Have at thee, rebel!" cried his adversary, and by one blow struck his rapier to pieces. His sword was raised to cut down the now defenceless trooper, and end their rivalry for ever, but, animated by chivalric generosity, he spared him, and pressed further on the broken ranks of the enemy.

Carrying aloft the Dutch banner, Walter Fenton rode towards Dundee, who was applauding Sir Evan Cameron of Locheil, and urging his clan yet further to advance. Dundee (whose panting horse was in the act of stooping to drink of a mountain runnel), with his eyes of fire turned to the disordered masses of Mackay, was brandishing his sword towards them, when a random bullet pierced his buff coat above the corslet, and buried itself in his shoulder under the left arm.

The sword dropped from his hand; a deadly pallor overspread his beautiful features; he reeled in his saddle, and would have fallen, but Walter supported him, and held before his eyes the yellow standard of the Statholder.

"Now God be thanked, they fly!" said he, in a voice which showed how intense were the torments he endured; "you are a brave lad, Fenton—the dying hour of Claver'se is at hand, but he will not forget you. Meet me at the house of Urrard in an hour, if all goes well and I survive till then. Make my dutiful service to the noble Lord Dunbarton, and desire him to assume the command. Adieu;" and placing his hand on the orifice to staunch the blood, he rode over the field at a rapid trot.

In a mass of disorder, horse and foot, musqueteers, pikemen, and cavalry, the soldiers of Mackay were driven like a flock of frightened sheep down the narrow pass, while the fierce clansmen, swaying with both hands axe and claymore, "cut down," says an old author, many of Mackay's officers and soldiers, "through skull and neck to the very breast; others had their skulls cut off above their ears like nightcaps; some had their bodies and crossbelts cut through at one blow; pikes and swords were cut like willows, and whoever doubts this may consult the witnesses of the tragedy." Thanks to the skill of Dundee and the valour of the Highlanders, never was a more decisive victory won. Mackay lost his tents, baggage, artillery, provisions, and his standards; he had two thousand men slain and five hundred taken prisoners. Such was the battle of Killycrankie, or Rinn Ruaradh, as it is still named by the peasantry, who attribute the ultimately fatal effects of the victory to the circumstance of Dundee wearing green, a colour still esteemed ominous to his sirname. A rude obelisk of rough stone still marks the place where the death-shot struck him, and is pointed out by the mountaineers with respect and regret as the Tombh Claverse.

The grief and consternation that spread through the Highland ranks on the fall of their beloved leader becoming known, prevented the pursuit being followed with sufficient vigour, otherwise few would ever have reached the southern mouth of that terrible pass.

"Dundee hath assuredly been slain," said General Mackay, as he breathed his sinking charger at the other extremity of Killycrankie, two miles from the field. "I am convinced of it; otherwise we would not have been permitted to retreat thus far unmolested."

CHAPTER XI.

THE LAST HOUR OF DUNDEE.

Oh last and best of Scots! who did'st maintain
Thy country's freedom from a foreign reign;
New people fill the land, now thou art gone,
New gods the temples, and new kings the throne!
ARCHIBALD PITCAIRN.

Now the battle was over, and the fury of the conflict with the fierce energies it excited had passed away together. In that narrow gorge lay more than two thousand slain, and the broad round moon, as its shining circle rose above the dark ridge of the far-off mountains, poured its cold lustre on the distorted visages of the writhing wounded, and more ghastly linaments of the pallid dead. While the Highlanders were plundering the baggage and carousing on the provisions of Mackay (who was then retreating to Stirling), Walter Fenton rode to the house of Urrard, and repaired to the presence of his leader.

Within a little wainscotted apartment, lighted by four long candles, that flared in a brazen branch, stretched upon a low canopied bed lay the great and terrible Dundee. On his proud heart of fierce impulses and high aspirations, the hand of the grim monarch was now laid surely and heavily. His fine features were sharpened, pale and ghastly, by agony and approaching death. He breathed slowly. His Monmouth wig was laid aside, and his own raven hair, which formed a strong contrast with the whiteness of his skin, flowed over the pillow like the tresses of a woman.

His bloodstained buff coat, his sword and helmet, lay near him on a chair, and around the couch were Dunbarton, Finland, the great Sir Evan of Locheil, Glengarry, Clanronald, Grant of Glenmorriston, and other leaders, who leaned on their swords, conversed in low whispers, and watched with unfeigned sorrow the ebbing life of the only man who could lead them like Montrose.

The whole of his dying energies were now directed to one object, a despatch to his exiled king, containing an account of the glories he had gained in his cause, and the long career of service he had sealed with his own gallant blood. Though every muscle of his face was contracted at times with the agony he endured, when stretching from bed to write at the low table beside it, supported by his brother David Grahame, who was sheathed in steel, à la Cuirassier, he finished this memorable and disputed letter with singular coolness, appended his name, and instantly falling back, closed his eyes and lay motionless, as if in death.

"He is gone," whispered the agitated Earl of Dunbarton to the stern Locheil. "There lies the strongest pillar of the good old cause."

"Hereditary right will face the rocks!" replied the chieftain in Gaelic, as he grasped his dirk; "cursed be the green scarf that wrought this evil work to Scotland and to us!"

Their voices seemed to call back the fleeting spirit; and, controlling the painful trembling of his limbs, Dundee opened his bloodshot eyes, and looked slowly round him.

"Do not persist," said he to the surgeon, who approached. "I know that all is over—let me die in peace. Approach, Mr. Fenton—unfurl that standard;" and his wild dark eyes flashed with their old energy at the sight of the Stadtholder's banner. "You will, at all risks, bear this despatch and that trophy to the hands of King James, and say they are the last—the best—the dying bequest of Dundee."

Walter's heart was full; he could only lay his hand upon his breast, and bow a grateful assent.

"To Colonel Cannon I bequeath my baton and authority; let him use them well in the King's service, if he would wish to die in peace when he comes to lie here."

"Colonel Cannon!" muttered the Highland chiefs, as they drew themselves up, exchanged glances of hauteur, and twisted their mustachios.

"Be merciful to our prisoners," continued the sufferer in a voice more weak and quavering, and stopping often to take breath; "be merciful to them, for they are our countrymen. Release and bid them return to their homes in peace; say that such was the last wish of Dundee. Many have styled me merciless in my time, sirs, and bitterly will they speak of my spirit when it is far beyond the reach of mortal malevolence. I have done fierce and stern things, but I have been hurried to do them by an irrevocable destiny, and a tide of circumstances incident to these our troubled times. Every iota of what I have done was fore-ordained—hah! do not your Presbyterians tell us so? But grateful—deeply grateful is the conviction to my passing spirit, that my friends will ever remember my name with honour, and my foes with fear. I feel more bitterness in dying after a victory than I could have endured by a defeat; for it would have made life worthless, and death welcome. Oh, may this day's great achievement be an omen of future success, and a second Restoration! Go, my comrades; continue in that path of earthly glory which I must quit for ever; and let ye who survive to behold our beloved King fail not to tell him—that—that John Grahame of Claverhouse—with his last breath blessed him—and—died."

Falling back, he immediately expired, just as daylight (which at that season scarcely passed away) brightened in the east.

All started and bent over him; but the fierce spirit of that remorseless cavalier had fled for ever, and his magnificent features, as the rigidity and pallor of death overspread them, assumed the aspect of a beautiful marble statue. A groan that burst from the lips of his brother, as he knelt down and closed his eyes; the heavy sobs of a few aged Highlanders; and the low wail of a lament, as the pipers of Glengarry poured it to the mountain-wind and echoing woods of Urrard, were the only sounds heard within that gloomy chamber, where the terror of the Presbyterians—the idol of the cavaliers, and the last hope of James, lay prostrate, to rise no more. Though by one faction styled the last and best of Scots—by the other, a murderer and outlaw; yet, by the cause for which he died, and the manner of his death, he closed in glory a life of singular ferocity and turbulence.

His remains were hurriedly interred in the rural kirk of Blair Athol; and the cause of King James was buried with him. His brother assumed his title; but died in great obscurity in France in 1700. The buff coat of Dundee, bearing the mark of the fatal ball, and stained with his blood, together with his helmet and other relics, are still preserved in the ducal castle of Blair.

Remembering the dying desire of their leader on the day after the battle, the Highland chiefs liberated all the prisoners on parole of honour not to serve against the King, Colonel Fergusson of Craigdarroch (notwithstanding all the exertions of his generous rival Finland) "being excepted," says Captain Crichton, in his Memoirs, "on account of his more than ordinary zeal for the new establishment."

In those days the uncertain means of communication between towns, and the great deficiency of certain information of public events, caused many strange and varying rumours of the Highland war to be circulated in the Lowlands, where the only newspaper was the Caledonius Mercurius, which had been published occasionally since the Restoration. But the astounding intelligence of the victory at Killycrankie, and the fall of Dundee, spread like wildfire through the low country, to which he had so long been a terror and scourge. The defeat of Cannon at the Haughs of Cromdale, and the utter prostration of James's banner in the north, was soon followed by his disaster at the Boyne, in Ireland, where the loss of a decisive battle compelled him again to seek refuge in France.

Poor Lilian, at home in the then secluded capital of Scotland, heard of those stirring events at long intervals; and to her they were a source of deep interest, and of many a sigh and hour of tears; but of Walter she heard no tidings. Whether he lay mouldering in the Pass of Killycrankie, among the haughs of Cromdale, or was wandering among the wildest fastnesses of the north, with the doom of proscription and treason hanging over him, she knew not; and time in no way soothed or alleviated the agonies of her suspense. On the return of Colonel Fergusson, whose apostacy had opened an easy path to preferment under the new order of affairs, she learned some faint rumours of his departure to France with the other officers of Dundee—for that horizon where the sun of the exiled Jacobites was setting—the lonely palace of St. Germain. Though the tidings fell like ice on the heart of the poor girl, any certainty was preferable to suspense; and with her good Aunt Grisel, she could only weep for the poor youth they loved so well, and pray and hope for happier times. To lighten the solitude his absence caused, she could not even hope for a letter; all intercourse with the court of the exiled King being proscribed under pain of banishment and death; and thus slowly the melancholy summer of 1690 passed on.

With the accession of William, and total subversion of the old high church party, all the sourness and severity of Presbyterian discipline (which at times compelled the proudest peers to endure a rebuke on the ignominious repentance-stool, or at least before a congregation) was resumed by the overbearing clergy in full sway. From the innate cavalier sentiments of her family, and the wavering politics of Aunt Grisel, Lilian had never been a very rigid Presbyterian; and now, looking upon the triumph of "the Kirk" as having driven her lover into exile, she felt her heart further than ever removed from Presbytery. She had still to endure the persecution of Clermistonlee, who, having in a few months spent all the Revolution had enabled him to extort by fines from his old cavalier friends, was now more reduced and desperate than ever; and, as a last shift, was compelled to dispose of his tower of Clermiston for a trifling sum to his more cautious gossip Mersington; and though the gaming-table replenished his exchequer at times, gaunt starvation stared him hourly in the face.

Though the native kindness and exceeding gentleness of Lilian's manner had always given this indefatigable suitor some hope of ultimate success, he soon found that, besieging her whenever she went abroad, and keeping spies upon her when at home—pestering her with presents, and letters the most flattering and submissive his ingenuity and skill could indite, did not bring him nearer the summit of his wishes. As his funds waxed lower, his perseverance increased; and he brought a new ally into the field, in the person of our old friend Mr. Ichabod Bummel, whose zeal for the Revolution had procured him an incumbency in the city, where, every Sunday, he had the felicity of preaching in a pulpit of his own, quoting that immortal work the Bombshell, railing at the exiled King, and all other "bloody-minded massmongers," and "dinging" many successive bibles to "blads" in the true Knox-like energy of his discourse. This meddling preacher, after the abduction of Lilian, and the scandalous reports the kirk party had so industriously circulated concerning it, had long deemed it, in his own phraseology, "a shameful and malapert fact, unseemly to men, and abominable in the sight of Heaven, that these twain should remain unwedded;" and by his influence, Clermistonlee was duly cited before the kirk session. Resistance was in vain, for now the clergy had succeeded to the Council's iron rod; and temporal proscription and spiritual excommunication invariably followed delay.

Clad in a sack of coarse white canvass, and on his knees before a staring congregation of stern Presbyterians, he "confessit his manifold sins and enormities," as the records of the kirk show, "and was rebukit by the godlie Mr. Bummel for the space of ane hour, being comparit to ane owle in ye desart;" and it appears that the minister, in his ire, made such direct reference to the abduction of Lilian, in language so pointed, so coarse, and unseemly, that, overwhelmed with shame and horror, the poor girl, unable to bear the scornful scrutiny and malevolent glances of her own sex, sank down in the gloomiest recesses of the old family pew, and swooned.

This event, together with the cruel inuendos industriously circulated by the gallants and gossips of the city, was her crowning misfortune; from that hour her peace was blighted, and her fair fame blotted for ever. Her friends pitied and acquaintance shunned her. She endured the most intense grief and bitterness of soul that a sensitive and delicate woman could feel; for even the very children of the Whig faction pelted her sedan when it entered the city, and called her "My Lord's leman," "Clermistonlee's minion," and the "Deil's dearie."

The united effects of grief, shame, mortification, and insulted pride, were soon visible on her health; her cheek grew blanched and thin, her eyes dim; and though she did not weep, her sorrows lay deeper, and the canker-worm preyed upon her suffering heart. And not the least offensive to her feelings were those offerings of friendship which were mingled with condolence, when Lady Drumsturdy and others advised her to think seriously of the long and assiduous attentions of Clermistonlee; in short, "after all that had taken place," to receive him as her husband; that being in their opinion the only way to restore her forfeited honour.

The inuendo concealed under this odious advice provoked the anger of Lilian, whose concern was increased by perceiving that Lady Grisel and her own bosom friend and gossip Annie, were beginning to be of the same opinion. Their countenance, and the hope of Walter's return, had alone sustained her so long; but now a sense of utter desolation sank upon her soul, and her brain reeled with the terrible thoughts that oppressed it.

CHAPTER XII.

ST. GERMAINS.

And it was a' for our richtfu' king,
    We ere left Scotia's strand, my dear;
And it was a' for our richtfu' king,
    We saw another land, my dear.
                                                                    OLD SONG.

Agitated by feelings such as few have experienced, on an evening in the summer of 1690, Walter Fenton found himself pursuing the dusty highway from Paris to St. Germains, the place where the hopes and the fears, the loyalty and the sorrows of the Jacobites were centred. He wore a plain suit of unlaced grey cloth, very much worn, a hat without a feather, and a plain walking-sword. He carried under his arm a small bundle, with particular care, for it contained a few necessaries and all he possessed in the world—his commission, the long-treasured letter of Dundee, and the Dutch standard he had taken at Killycrankie. These were now his whole fortune.

That day he had walked from Senlis without tasting food, and was quite exhausted. After spending his last sou on a glass of sour vin ordinaire at a small cottage near the Wood of Treason (where Ganelon in 780 formed his plot which betrayed the house of Ardennes, the peers of Charlemagne, and occasioned the defeat at Roncesvalles), he grasped his bundle, and pushed on with renewed energy. His handsome features were impressed by an air of sadness and deep abstraction, for the acute achings of present sorrow struggled with the gentler whisperings of hope, and though his feet traversed the hard flinty roadway from Paris, his thoughts were far away in the land of his childhood, and his wandering fancy luxuriated on the memory of many a much-loved scene he might be fated to behold no more, and many an episode of tenderness and love that would never be re-acted again.

How vividly he recalled every glance and graceful action of Lilian, as he had last beheld her. Nearest and dearest to his heart, she rendered the memory of his native land still more beloved, for she yet trod its soil and breathed its air, and he knew that daily she could gaze on those blue hills which are the first landmarks of the child in youth, and the last of the man in age, and to the recollection of which the emigrant and the exile cling with the tenacity of life.

The current of his thoughts was interrupted, and his cheek flushed. The great and striking brick façade of the old castle of St. Germains, with its turrets shining in the setting sun, arose before him. There dwelt he on whom the hopes of half a nation rested, and Walter drew breath more freely as he progressed; his eye sparkled, and his cheek flushed with animation, for now other and less painful thoughts were occurring to his fancy. With the buoyancy natural to youth, sorrow gave way as hope spread its rainbow before him: and bright visions of the King's triumphant return and restoration by the swords of the Cavaliers or Jacobites, mingled with his own dreams of love and honour. Fired with ardour, he often grasped his sword, and springing forward, longed to throw himself at the foot of James VII., and pour forth in transport that singularly deep and burning passion of loyalty which animated every member of his faction.

"And this is the palace of our King!" he exclaimed, with enthusiasm. "Heaven grant I may yet greet him in his old ancestral dome of Holyrood!" But the fever of his naturally excitable spirits subsided when approaching the edifice, for the air of silence and gloom that pervaded it struck a chill on his anxious heart.

At the distance of twelve miles from Paris, this ancient brick chateau or palace is beautifully situated on the slope of a verdant hill, at the base of which flows the Seine, and opposite lies an immense forest. From the earliest ages, St. Germain-en-laye had been a hunting-seat of the French kings; but in compliment to his mistress, whose name was Diana, Francis I. (a monarch unequalled in gallantry, generosity, and magnificence) built the present palace in form of the letter D, with five towers, the vanes of which were gleaming like gold in the setting sun as Walter approached. A dry fosse crossed by drawbridges surrounded this noble chateau, which had on one side a range of beautiful arcades built by Henry IV. and Louis XIII., and a magnificent terrace 2,700 yards long and 50 broad, extending by the side of the dark-green forest, and from which, as our exile traversed it, he had a full view of the Seine winding through a beautiful country, bordered on each side by waving meadows, vineyards of the deepest green, and cornfields of the brightest yellow, villages of white cottages thatched with light-coloured straw, that clustered round the turreted chateaux or the ramparted châtelets of a noblesse that were then the most aristocratic in Europe.

But Walter saw only the home of the exiled Stuarts. On the ruddy brick-walls, the latticed casements, and gothic towers, the setting sun was pouring a flood of light as it set at the cloudless horizon. From the summit of the edifice, the royal standard of Britain hung down listlessly and still, and the same absence of life seemed to pervade all beneath it. The ditch was overgrown with luxuriant weeds, and long tufts of pendant grass waved in the joints of the masonry; great branches of vine and ivy had clambered up the walls of the palace, and flourished in masses on its terraced roofs and balconies. There was no one visible at any of the windows; the gateway, which was surmounted by a stone salamandre (the cognizance of Francis I.), was shut, and save two sentinels of the French guards, who stood motionless as statues on each side, and an old Jacobite gentleman or two, in full-bottomed wigs and laced coats, promenading slowly and thoughtfully on the terrace, the old chateau seemed lifeless and uninhabited.

As Walter crossed the bridge, and approached the gate with a beating heart, one of the sentinels, after giving a haughty glance at his faded and travel-stained attire, his weary aspect, and bundle, ported his musquet across, and said politely, but firmly—

Walter's heart swelled: had he travelled thus far, and reached the palace of his King, only to be repulsed from its gates? His colour came and went, as, with a painful mixture of pride and humility, he replied—

"Mon camarade, I am a poor Scots officer, exiled from his native country, and who has come here to take service in France." The face of the Frenchman flushed, and his eye glistened, as he drew himself up, and presented arms.

"Behold my commission," continued Walter; "I would speak with my noble Lord and Colonel the Earl of Dunbarton."

"Aha," replied the sentinel, "il est bon soldat, Monsieur Dunbartong. Passez, Monsieur officier; un gentilhomme est toujours un gentilhomme, et les braves officiers Eccossais sonts l'admiration de la France!"

Walter bowed at this compliment, the gate was opened by the porters, and, with a heart full of thoughts too deep for words, he found himself within the gloomy quadrangle of the palace of St. Germain-en-laye.

Left for some minutes to himself, he stood, bundle in hand, irresolutely surveying, with a dejected and crest-fallen air, the great and silent court. A gentleman in very plain attire, with a short wig, a well-worn beaver, and steel-hilted sword, who was slowly promenading under the arcade, suddenly turned, and the wanderer was greeted by his old friend Finland.

"Welcome to the poor cheer of St. Germain-en-laye!" cried this merry soldier (whom no fall of fortune could daunt), grasping Walter's hand. "My bon camarade, welcome to France. By all the devils, I was often grieved for thee, poor lad, and deemed thou wert doing penance in some rascally Tolbooth for our brave camisade in the north."

Walter was so much oppressed in spirit, and so weak in mind and body, that the tears rushed into his eyes, and he could only press his hand in silence.

"I have travelled on foot from Boulogne-sur-mer. I spent my last franc at St. Juste, my last sou an hour ago for a glass of vin ordinaire, and for three days no food has passed my lips."

"My God!" exclaimed Finland, striking his flushed forehead, "and my last tester went for dinner today! how shall I assist you? Travelling for three days without food! Surely the fortunes of the cavaliers are now at the lowest ebb."

'There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.'

Once at least in life, every man's fortune will be at the flood, and if he misses the tide his bark is stranded on the shore for ever. But thee, poor lad! how shall I get thee food?—we are all as poor as kirk rats here. There are not less than two hundred officers of Dundee's army, and other loyal gentlemen of the Life Guards and Scottish Brigade, subsisting here on the small bounty of our gracious king, (whom Heaven in its mercy bless!) until some turn of fortune again draws forth their swords. We have each but fourpence a day, and are in great misery from lack of the most common necessaries of life. Yet we never forget that we are Scottish gentlemen, and daily attend the king's levée, with as gallant an air as if we trod the long gallery of Holyrood in our feathers and lace as of old. His grace of Gordon, my Lords of Maitland, Dunbarton, Abercorn, and others dine daily at a poor Restaurateur's, on plain stew and cabbage broth, while I have to content myself with bread and onions, and a keen appetite for sauce; while it affords me no consolation to reflect that my old ancestral tower of Finland—the gift of the Black Douglas to his favourite son—and all the fertile lands that spread around it, are now possessed by some vile, canting, crop-ear. The Earl of Dunbarton——"

"He is gone to Versailles to visit le Mareschal Noailles, anent the unfortunate gentlemen who are starving here around us. He will be back tomorrow. Oh, Walter, when I see how might can triumph over right, and wickedness over more than Spartan virtue, I am almost tempted to believe there is no governing power in this wretched world; that all is the effect of chance or fate."

"Chance and fate are the reverse of each other, and this sentiment agrees not with your previous idea of 'the tide in the affairs of men.'"

"Tush! I am in a dozen minds in an hour. Let us leave these topics to such men as Mr. Ichabod Bummel. You remember that apostle of the covenant? ha, ha! A word in your ear. You saw our fair ones ere you left Scotland, I doubt not?"

"The deuce! how came that to pass? But you must dine, and where? for I have not a brass bodle, as we say at home in poor old Scotland, (God bless her, with all her errors!) I have it! the officer of the guard will lend me—or give—'tis all one; they are fine fellows, these French, and share their poor pay with us, in a spirit of charity that the apostles could not have surpassed. The gentleman and the soldier seldom seek a boon from each other in vain."

Finland calculated rightly; the French chevalier commanding the guard, on learning the cause of his present necessity, at once divided the contents of his purse, and enabled the happy borrower to lead his wearied friend to a tavern, where dinner was ordered and discussed with wonderful celerity.

"Now, Walter, I shall be glad to hear thy adventures," said Finland, when the waiting girl had cleared the dinner board and laid a decanter of wine, from which he filled their glasses. "Frontiniac dashed with brandy—you remember how often we have drank a bottle of it at Hughie Blair's, and the White Horse Hostel. How the times are changed since then! I was not at the Haughs o' Cromdale, being en route for Ireland to crave succour from James——"

"After the dispersion consequent to that ill-managed affair, I wandered from place to place, enduring such miseries as few can conceive, and was a thousand times in danger of being captured by Mackay's dragoons, who were riding down the country in every direction. Assisted by the kind and beautiful Countess of Dunbarton (who is yet intriguing in England), I procured some money, and, disguised as a Norlan drover, reached the western borders, for escape by sea from Scotland was impossible, the whole coast being watched by the English and Dutch fleet. In England my money was soon spent, and I despaired of ever reaching the port of Colchester, where I heard there lay a ship that in secret frequently transported our persecuted people to France. My bonnet and grey plaid, though they ensured my safety in the Lowlands, caused me to be viewed with hatred, jealousy, and mistrust, as soon as the Cheviot hills were left behind me, and I had not money wherewith to procure a change of costume. I travelled principally by night, and slept in ditches or thickets by day, for the villagers assailed me with stones and abuse whenever they saw me, using every bitter epithet that national animosity could inspire, while every country boor that had a couple of beagles at hand, uncoupled them to track and hunt me."

"I remember with what bitterness I changed my last penny for a poor roll at Rippon, and eat it by the side of a ditch, near the princely castle of one who had gained a coronet by his political apostacy. I had still many miles before me, but trusting to Providence, continued my journey. Travelling by night and lying perdu by day, I found myself in a waste moorland near Cawood, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. The moon was rising; but I found that hunger, fatigue, and humiliation, had done their worst upon me, and that I could achieve no more. Despair entered my heart, and I threw myself down in that bleak spot to die, cursing the rebellion of our countrymen, the inhospitality of the English, and my own bad fortune. From a stupor that for some time weighed down every sense, I was roused by the trampling of a horse, and a deep bass voice crying,

"'Hollo Gaffer, art dead, or dead drunk only! Get up with a murrain, for my nag will neither stand or pass; steady—so-so—gently, zounds! gently!"

"I started, and instinctively grasped my staff, on perceiving a tall stout fellow muffled in a dark rocquelaure, with his face masked, and a hat flapped over his eyes. He rode a strong, fleet, and active horse, and carried long holsters.

"'Crush me, if it isn't a Scotch Jockey—a pedlar, I warrant!' said he, drawing a pistol from his saddlebow; 'they never travel without the ready; so hand over the bright Jacobuses or William's guilders, or else I may pop this bullet through your brain.'

"I was desperate, and replied, 'Fire! and rid me of an existence that is worthless. I have nothing to give but my life, and it is no longer of value to me.'

"'A gentleman, by this light!' replied the other, withdrawing his pistol, 'some cavalier in disguise, I warrant.'

"'You have guessed rightly; so now lead me to the nearest justice of the peace for a reward, if you will.'

"'For what do you take me?' said he, angrily. 'God bless King James, and may the great devil choak his son-in-law! Ah, had the good Dundee (a Scot though he was) survived that brave day's work, in your infernal pass of what d'ye call it? 'twould have been another case with us both today, perhaps. So thou art a Scottish cavalier?'

"'Once I was so—to-night I am a beggar, perishing by want, and without a roof to shelter me.'

"'Right again, say I; though a highwayman, I love thee lad, for we have suffered in common from this accursed usurper, who sits in the throne of of our king. Here are thirty guineas; 'tis the half of all I have in the world, but to-morrow night may bring me better luck; take them with welcome, and spend them without scruple; but two hours ago, they were in the purse of that rascally whig, Marmaduke Langstone, of Langstone Hall. Keep to the right, and an hour's brisk walking will bring you to a hedge alehouse. Whisper my name to the wench at the bar (kiss her for me), and she will put thee on the right road for Colchester; the girl is true as steel to the good old cause.'

"'They call me "Highflying Tom" now, eastward of Temple Bar,' said he in a tone of bitterness; 'but when King James sat in his own chair, I was Thomas Butler, Esquire, of a long pedigree and an empty purse—devil else—but a gentleman every inch, sir; one that has shot his man, played at Cavagnole with King Charles, and Ombre with the Queen; drank many a bout with Rochester, ruffled it with Buckingham, and handed the fair Castlemaine and fairer Cleveland through a crowded cotillon. But it's all over now; and, d—n me! I am plain Bully Butler the highwayman.—So, sir, your servant;' and dashing spurs into his horse, he galloped away over the heath."

"Thomas Butler, of the princely house of Ormond—and 'twas he!" said Finland; "a braver spark old Ireland never sent forth to glory or disgrace. His father was a stout old Royalist, and shed his blood for King James on the banks of the Boyne. And so he hath taken to the road, the madcap! That is riding at the gallows full tilt with a vengeance!"

"But for that rencontre, I must have expired. The meeting gave me renewed energy; and (to be brief) I reached—not Colchester, but the sea-port of Saltfleet, where, in the disguise of a poor Scottish mariner, I embarked on board a smuggling craft, which landed me at Boulogne; and so—I am here."

CHAPTER XIII.

THE CAVALIERS OF DUNDEE.

In the cause of right engaged,
    Wrongs injurious to redress;
Honour's war we strongly waged,
    But the heavens denied success.
Ruin's wheel has driven o'er us,
    Not a hope that dare attend;
The world wide is all before us,
    But a world—without a friend.
                                        STRATHALLAN'S LAMENT.

The magnanimity of those unfortunate officers of the Scottish army who remained loyal to James VII., and had shared his misfortunes and exile, was equally worthy of ancient Caledonia and of the most glorious ages of Athens and of Sparta. They were about one hundred and fifty in number, all men of noble spirit, unblemished honour, and high birth; for they were the representatives of some of the first families in Scotland. Enthusiastically attached to the King, they gloried in the sufferings their principles had brought upon them.

On their first arrival in France, small pensions were assigned them by Louis XIV.; but these were shortly afterwards withdrawn, on the paltry pretext of public expedience; and the whole of those unfortunate gentlemen, who by their incorruptible loyalty and indomitable patriotism had forfeited their commissions, when they might have purchased new honours in the ranks of the invader, and many of whom had lost titles and estates by their expatriation, were thus thrown destitute in a foreign land.

It is related that, with a noble spirit of generosity, they shared their little funds for the benefit of those who were in greater destitution; and those who had raised money by the sale of their gilt corslets, jewels, laced uniforms, rings, &c., readily shared it with others who were penniless. But these occasional funds soon became exhausted; the King soon found it impossible, from the pittance allowed him, to maintain the numerous exiles and ruined dependants who made his court of St. Germain their rallying point. The poor Scottish officers finding the horrors of starvation before them, petitioned James for leave to form themselves into a company of private soldiers for the service of the French king, asking no other favour than permission to choose their own leaders: their former general, Dunbarton, to be their captain; their Serjeants to be lieutenant-colonels; and so forth. The King reluctantly consented.

Those high-spirited cavaliers were immediately furnished with the clothing and arms of French soldiers; and previously to their incorporation with the army of Mareschal Noailles, repaired to St. Germain, to be reviewed by the King, and to take a long—to many a last—adieu of him.

It was the day after Walter's arrival; and the summer morning rose beautifully on the Gothic towers of St. Germain, the crystal windings of the Seine, and on the dense dark woodlands that, interspersed with blooming vineyards and waving fields, imparted such charms to the landscape.

James VII. had become passionately fond of the chase since the loss of his kingdom; for his brave and restless spirit always sought excitement when not absorbed in the austere duties of religion, in the course of which he often subjected himself to the most severe penances. Kind, affable, and easy to all around him, religion improved the virtues of his heart, subdued the fire of his spirit, and by imparting a monk-like gentleness to his demeanour, endeared him to his enthusiastic followers. The butcheries of Kirke and Claverhouse, and the tyrannies of Jefferies and Rosehaugh, were forgotten. Though his uncompromising bigotry remained, all his arbitrary spirit had vanished; and when he laid aside his visions of worldly grandeur and kingly power, nothing could be more blameless and amiable than the life he led.

He frequently visited the poor monks of La Trappe, whom he surprised by the piety and humility of his deportment; but there were times when the sparkling eye, the flushed cheek, the forward stride, and the clanked sword, shewed how regal a spirit and bold a heart misfortune had crushed and fanaticism clouded. He was an enthusiast in the pleasures of the chase, which he enjoyed after the good old English fashion; and on the morning in question, the baying of dogs, the neighing of horses, and the merry ringing of the clear bugle-horn, awoke the echoes of the woods, the gloomy arcades, and quadrangle of St. Germain.

On each side of the archway were drawn up a guard of honour of les Gardes Françaises, in their white hoquetons laced with gold, powdered wigs, little hats looped on three sides and surmounted with plumes of feathers, and having the white banner of Bourbon displayed. The porters unclosed the heavy folding-doors, and a merry troop of huntsmen in green galloped forth, with their dogs barking and straining in the leashes, as the blasts of the shrill horns were poured to the morning wind, and roused their English blood. The heavy drawbridge clanked into its place across the grass-grown moat—the planks resounded to iron hoofs—the French guard presented arms—the oriflamme of St. Denis was lowered—the drums beat a march—and James VII., raising his plumed hat, sallied forth at the head of his train, and advanced along the spacious and magnificent terrace. The Earl of Dunbarton rode by his side; and as they caracoled along the level terrace, by the margin of the beautiful Seine, a body of soldiers in French uniform was seen in front, drawn up in steady array, with their fixed bayonets shining in the morning sun. They presented arms as the King approached, upon which he immediately reined up, and raised his hat.

"They are your Majesty's most faithful subjects and devoted followers," replied Dunbarton in a faltering voice. "Yesterday they were Scottish gentlemen of coat-armour and bearers of your Majesty's commission—to-day they are but poor privates in the army of Louis of France."

"My God!" said the King; "and, in the levity of the chase, am I so oblivious of the misfortunes of those unhappy gentlemen?"

Instantly leaping from his horse with a heart that swelled by its emotions, he approached them and raised his hat.

Every heart was full in that silent line before him, and every eye glistened. Walter Fenton, who now for the first time beheld that King for whom he had suffered so much, felt his bosom glow with the most intense loyalty and ardour,—a gush of sentiment that would have enabled him to hail with joy the terrors of a scaffold or the dangers of a battle-field.

"Gentlemen," said the King, "bitter though my own misfortunes be, yours lie nearer my heart, which is grieved, beyond what language can express, to behold so many men of valour and worth, from being the officers of my Scottish army, reduced by their loyalty to the station of private soldiers. Nothing but this more than Spartan devotion on the part of the few, but gallant and leal, makes my life worth preserving. Deeply, deeply indeed is my heart impressed with the sense of all you have undergone for my sake; and if it should ever please the blessed God"—(removing his hat)—"to restore me to the throne of my fathers, your sufferings, your services, and your devotion shall not be forgotten—never, oh, never! The prince my son, he shares your northern blood. Oh, may he likewise inherit your spirit of bravery and truth!

"At your own desire, gentlemen, you are now going on a long and perilous march, far distant from me, to encounter privation, danger, and death. To the utmost of my small means, I have provided you with money, shoes, and stockings. Heaven knoweth how great are my own necessities. I can no more.....

"Fear God—love one another, and you will ever find me your parent, if I cannot be your King."

"There is a gentleman here who arrived only yesterday," said Lord Dunbarton, who had also dismounted. "He is the bearer of two relics to your Majesty: the first is the despatch of the expiring Dundee; the second will bear witness of his own zeal and courage in your cause at the victory of Killycrankie."

"Mr. Fenton," said the Earl, "His Majesty would speak with you," and Walter, whose heart trembled from the depth of his emotions, grounded his musquet, and, kneeling before James, placed in his hands the long-treasured despatch of Dundee, and the Dutch standard of Mackay's regiment.

"My brave Dundee!" exclaimed James, in a low voice, as he kissed and perused the brief letter which had been hurriedly penned amid the agonies of death; "'tis stained with his loyal and noble blood! Oh! never had a king a subject more devoted, more loyal, or more true! Accept my thanks, young gentleman, for the services you have performed, the valour you have displayed, and the fidelity you evince; accept my thanks, for misfortune has left me nothing else wherewith to reward the faithful and the brave, who have followed me to exile and obscurity. This standard I will retain; one day, perhaps, in Holyrood or Windsor, I may replace it in your hands with such rewards as a king alone can give."

Walter strove to speak, but his voice failed him, on which Lord Dunbarton said,—

"Like his brothers in misfortune, my young friend seeks no other reward than the honour of serving your Majesty, and the satisfaction of doing that which is right."

"No kinsman, I hope, of Fenton of that ilk, who is so active in his treason against us?"

"Alas, no!" replied Walter, colouring in painful humility; "may it please your Majesty I am but a poor protegée of the noble Dunbarton. I know not my family, my name, or my origin."

"It matters not—I shall render honour to all who deserve it; arise Sir Walter Fenton, Knight Banneret—of this power, at least, my son William cannot deprive me."

Startled by the suddenness of the action, Walter, whose heart leaped within him at the words of the King, could only kiss his hand and resume his place in the ranks of his cavalier comrades, who with difficulty repressed a shout of applause. Walter felt giddy and confused; the King still seemed to be addressing him.

The temporary excitement which had led James through this painful interview, now passed away, and his features became overclouded with a sad and bitter expression, as he went slowly along the line asking each officer his name, inserting it in his note book, and returning him personal thanks. Meanwhile the troop of huntsmen, equerries, and whippers-in, with their packs of panting-hounds, were grouped about the terrace, and quite forgotten in the excitement of this sorrowful review.

"Your name, Sir—yesterday you were at my levée in a garb more suitable to your rank," said James, to a tall and very handsome man, whose fashionably curled wig consorted ill with the coarse looped hat and plain blue coat of a French musqueteer; "your name, Sir, if you please?"

"John Ogilvie, of the house of Airly—late a captain in your Majesty's Life Guard."

"Sir, I thank you—the day may come when you shall command that Life Guard," replied James, writing down his name; "and yours, Sir?" he asked of the next.

"May I live to requite it! 'Tis an ancient house, and one of unblemished honour. Are you Catholic?"

"Then the greater honour is due to you for disinterested loyalty. And yours, Sir?"

"Drumquhasel—first major to the same noble earl," replied the tali cavalier, on whose breast sparkled the cross of St. Louis.

"Another, and another! Oh, gentlemen, your sufferings and your losses, your loyalty and your truth—God may requite them adequately, but I never can!" exclaimed James, in a troubled voice, and when he had inserted the names of the whole hundred and fifty in his note book, he moved again to the front, and taking off his hat, bowed profoundly with an air in which thankfulness and respect were exquisitely blended with dignity and majesty. He then retired pensively towards the palace; but painfully aware of the misery of those who suffered for him, and still unwilling to leave them, with sensations too deep for utterance, the unhappy King returned once more, and bowing to them again and again, covered his face with his handkerchief, and burst into tears. Animated by one sympathetic impulse, the whole line sank at once upon their knees and bowed their heads; the spirit of many a brave man was subdued; several wept, and there was not an unmoistened eye among them. The King, in particular, was deeply affected; his sobs were audible; and again removing his hat, he raised his eyes to heaven, and exclaimed, in the words of the last chapter of Lamentations,—

"Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us! Consider and behold our reproach! Our inheritance is returned to strangers—our houses to aliens!"

He repeatedly smote himself upon the breast in an energetic fashion he had acquired among the Jesuits, who had been too much about him for his own fortune; and a long pause succeeded, until Lord Dunbarton gave for the last time the word of command. The Scottish officers resumed their aspect of steadiness and order, and marched past the King, whom nearly all of them were fated to behold no more; for death on the field, disease in the camp, poverty and despair, did their work surely and rapidly, and few of that brave but forlorn band ever returned from the frontiers of Spain.

From Versailles this company of unfortunate cavaliers received an order to join the army of Mareschal Noailles; and, next day, they set out from St. Germain, on their long and weary march of nine hundred miles, which they performed on foot, heavily accoutred, bearing their own camp-kettles and equipages, and accompanied by miseries and mortifications that baffle all description; but which, by the indomitable spirit and ardour that animated them, they seldom failed to surmount.

Louis of France was now plunged in a war, into which his mistaken policy had hurried him. In a long persecution of the unhappy Protestants, he had weakened his kingdom by the expatriation of thousands of his best and most industrious subjects, who wandered as refugees throughout other countries, and justly inflamed all Europe against him. To crush him, there had been formed at Augsburg a powerful league, to which the whole empire of Germany, Spain, Holland, Savoy, Sweden, and Denmark were parties; but, in no way daunted, he anticipated this great confederation by invading the empire and laying siege to Philipsburg. The recent revolution in England had given a new turn to this religious war, and Ireland became the theatre of a contest which ended on the banks of the Boyne, where William triumphed over his unfortunate father-in-law.

It may be that the great expenses of the war in which he was now involved prevented Louis XIV. from remunerating adequately to their merit the officers of Dundee's army; but when they joined the standard of Noailles on the Spanish frontier, they were in a state of lamentable destitution and misery. The coarse uniform in which they had marched from St. Germain was worn to rags; they were shoeless, shirtless, and emaciated by hardships, privations, and want of the most common necessaries of life; for by the selfishness and duplicity of individuals to whom their little commissariat was entrusted, they were cheated of their poor supplies, the few presents the generous had sent them, and even of a small pittance (a few pence daily) which James, amid all his own necessities, endeavoured to pay them; yet they were never known to utter a complaint, for the misfortunes of their sovereign pressed heavier on their hearts than their own.

Wherever they marched they were beheld with pity and remembered with sorrow. The kind ladies of Perpignan presented them with a purse containing 200 pistoles, and bought all their rings as relics of les officiers Ecossais. "Wherever they passed they were received with tears by the women and admiration by the men. They were the foremost in the battle, and the last in retreat, and of all the troops in the service of France they were most obedient to orders."

There is nothing in the history of ancient or modern times to equal their admirable bearing, heroic ardour, and devoted loyalty. They endured the most severe humiliation and privations without uttering a murmur, and performed actions of heroism outdoing the deeds of romance; for to their inborn daring was united a spirit of desperation, and a longing to be honorably rid of a life that was without a charm and without a ray of hope.

The French were touched by their misfortunes and sufferings; a universal shout rent the camp of Noailles on their marching into it, and with that generosity which is so characteristic of soldiers, the chevaliers and officers immediately subscribed for them, each furnishing shirts, clothing, and money, and none was more liberal with his purse than the noble Mareschal himself; but even of these presents the unhappy Scots officers were cheated by the villany of one to whom they were entrusted, and thus the kind efforts to alleviate their miseries failed.

On the route to Catalonia, near Montpelier, when fording a mountain torrent swollen by the recent rains, Walter Fenton and three other cavaliers were swept away. Catching hold of some alders that overhung the bank, they kept themselves above the current, and called on the peasantry to save them. It is related, that though hundreds were there looking on, they never offered the least assistance, but mocked and jibed them in barbarous Catalonian French, while waiting coolly until they were drowned, that they might possess their money, clothes, and arms. But after great toil and danger they were rescued by their comrades.

They were never seen on the field but with their faces to the enemy. On every desperate duty and forlorn hope they led the way, and often too where others dared not follow. Death and disease rapidly thinned their ranks, but their ardour never failed, and had the invisible spirit of the fierce Dundee led them as of old, they could not have surpassed the deeds they achieved and the glory they acquired. On Rosas surrendering,

"Senor Mariscal," said the Spanish governor, "what soldiers were those who assailed the breach so valiantly?"

"Ces sont mes enfans," replied Noailles, smiling; "they are my children—the King of Britain's Scottish officers, who share his obscurity and exile, and do me the honor to serve under my command."

"By St. James! they alone have compelled me to surrender," replied the noble Spaniard.

They marched from Rosas to Piscador, and, of an army of 26,000 men, 16,000 perished by the way-side of privation. Twice only the Scottish officers were known to disobey orders. The first occasion was at the siege of Rosas, an ancient and well fortified city, situated upon a gulf about twelve miles from Girona. The air was intensely hot, and the water muddy and unwholesome; the only rations of the Scots officers were horse-beans, garlic, and sardinas; they were utterly penniless, and could procure no better food, consequently deadly fevers and fluxes rapidly thinned their ranks, upon which Mareschal Noailles ordered them to leave the camp for the purpose of cantoning in a more healthy locality; but they delayed to obey, and sent Sir Walter Fenton to acquaint him that they "considered his order as an affront put upon them as soldiers of fortune and gentlemen of honour."

The second instance was when a strong body of German troops had made a lodgement on an island in the Rhine, from which it was necessary to force them; the Marquis de Selle ordered a number of boats to be prepared, under an impression that the river was too deep and rapid to be fordable, and the Scottish officers were to lead the way, but were not to move until orders were given to embark. Finding it impossible to restrain their ardour till the arrival of the boats, they slung their musquets and prepared to cross.

"Come on, Walter!" exclaimed the brave Douglas as he led the way, "and we will shew these gay chevaliers of France that we, who have forded the rapid Spey and rocky Forth, need not shrink on the margin of the Rhine. Join hands, gentlemen Scots; forward! and I will lead you to the dance. Hurrah!"

Hand in hand, in the Highland fashion, with their musquets slung, they threw themselves into the rapid and impetuous stream, where between jagged rocks it urged its foamy way over a slippery and stony bed; and thus breaking its force they stemmed the current, and, though under a fierce cannonade and storm of musquet balls poured on them from the rocks of the islet, they forced the dangerous passage in the view of both armies; the Laird of Drumquhasel and Captain Ogilvie* were shot dead; but, led on by Finland, the Scottish officers scaled the rocks, and assailing ten times their number of Germans with screwed bayonets and clubbed musquets, drove them from their intrenchments into the Rhine on the other side of the island, and reared the French standard on its summit.

* Captain Ogilvie was author of a song, which is preserved in Hogg's Jacobite reliques,—"Adieu for evermore."

"By St. Denis!" exclaimed the Marquis de Selle, "His the bravest action soldiers ever performed!"

"Vive les officiers Ecossais!" cried the French soldiers. "Le gentilhomme est toujours gentilhomme;" and to this day, in memory of the Scottish valour, the place is named

CHAPTER XIV.

THE 20TH OF SEPTEMBER, 1692.

But the far mind was absent in pursuit
    Of him, her love, in fields where foes contested
The bloody harvest, and a crown the fruit,
    Dread fruit, with cares and dangerous joys invested!
Her mind was absent in the distant war.
                                                                PEDRO OF CASTILE.

"Whither awa', Clermistonlee, ye mad buckie?" exclaimed Lord Mersington, as his friend jostled past him under the great pillars or arcade near the cross, one forenoon, when all the city were abroad enjoying the sunshine; "whatna way is that to gliff folk? is a dun or the deil after ye?"

"I crave pardon, my Lord, but did not observe you; for what is all this crowd collected?"

"The heralds have been proclaiming the ratification of the new Protestant league against Louis of France."

"A league," added Clermistonlee scornfully, "which our pious and glorious William hath tinkered up, that the treasure and blood of his two British kingdoms may be wasted in defence of the rascally Hollanders and thick-pated Flemings. By all the devils, my Lord, we have brought our political pigs to a pretty market!" and he began to whistle a cavalier air.

"Wheesht!" said Mersington, glancing furtively around him; "this is clean contrary to the Act of Council; and mind ye, my braw billy, if ye aye strut with that long feather and cocked beaver, your pinkit mantle, and lace o'erlay, like a ruffling buck o' King Charles' time, instead o' wearing the sad-coloured garb and sober demeanour of these our present days, when naething but psalm-singing, swearing in low Dutch, and mortifying the spirit, are in vogue, you'll sune hae the eyes o' the Council upon ye, as a Jacobite in disguise, a hatcher o' plots, conspiracies, and the deil kens what mair—he, he!"

"Crush me, if I will lessen one curl of my peruke, or one slash in my doublet, to please any Dutch king or clown that ever wore breeches!"

"You seem in a braw mood this morning. I warrant you'll hae pouched a round sum at shovel-board last night in the Covenant Close."

"A messenger from the court of St. Germain has just been arrested by Muclutchy, the macer of Council," replied Clermistonlee, watching keenly the sharp visage of the senator; "by Jove, you change colour, my gossip!—any correspondence in that quarter, hah?"

"I trow not," said the other, resuming his immovable aspect; "d'ye tak' me for a gomeral? What is that we see above the Tolbooth-gable?"

"Nought but letters from the exiled lords and gentlemen; some of them, I tell thee, Mersington, are deeply touching, and would harrow up even that impenetrable heart of thine. They tell of blighted loves and blasted hopes, of sorrow and of suffering, humiliation and despair; but of a loyalty and unblemished honour that shed a glory around the cause for which they suffer—a glory that makes us intensely despicable by comparison. There are passages in some of those letters from the brave cavaliers of Dundee that have made many of the Council almost weep with compassion. By the Heaven that is above us, I feel that I would be a thousand times more happy as one of those illustrious exiles, than struggling here to maintain, by gambling, exactions, and roguery, a hollow rank, a gilded title, and a career of extravagance on which I have run too far to return!"

"The only sensible clause in your process," said Mersington, testily. "But you'll hae yoursel laid by the heels yet, and then you may whistle on your thumb for the braw mains and revenues of Bruntisfield and the Wrytes, for whilk you've graned and girned these twa years and mair."

"Right! 'twas but the feeling of a moment for the misfortunes of our former friends, whose hearts, to their honour (unlike ours) were better than their heads."

"Puir chields—puir chields—I doubt the Act of eighty-nine presses unco hard on some of them."

"Among other letters, is one from that wild spark, Douglas of Finland, once a lieutenant in the regiment of Dunbarton, addressed to his false leman, Mistress Annie Laurie. Poor credulous fool, to trust in a woman's faith! He knows not that she hath become Lady Craigdarroch, and so hath forgot him in the arms of his friend. I like love-letters, having written some bushels of them in my time; but his—by the devil's beard!—it equals anything in the Banished Virgin, or Cassandra. I have taken the liberty to confiscate it to my own use; and here it is."

"Hold! a thought strikes me; the hand is easy of imitation, and for what may ye no add a postscriptum, whilk may be of service in your love affair, by wedding young Fenton——"

"To some airy damoiselle; or knocking him on the head during his French campaign?"

"'Tis all one. Excellent! Juden will deliver it. Annie will fly to her gossip, with every string in her boddice straining with the greatness of her intelligence; and as we never knew a damsel prefer a dead lover to a living one, we may imagine or hope the issue. 'Tis sublime!"

"I wad rather hae a dead gudewife, I ken—he, he!" said Mersington, as he adjusted his wig and took his friend's arm, striking his gold-headed cane on the pavement with the air of a man who has said something smart; "but let us hae nae mair o' your plaguy qualms o' conscience, for they dinna dovetail weel wi' the general tenour o' your way. Weel, anent this postscriptum—he, he!—let us adjourn to——"

"Hugh Blair's, you would say. Poor Hugh! his locale hath changed with the times, and there is nothing now but gloom and obscurity, cobwebs and dust, where all was once courtly merriment and joyous revelry. Who could have imagined that a time would come when this famous coffee-house would be voted 'a den of cavalier iniquity'—that the buirdly hosteller with whom the noble Perth, the gallant Dunbarton, and the courtly Dundee wiled away the hours at picquet and tric-trac, and pushed the wine from hand to hand, would be accused of those honours as a crime, and thrown into the iron-room of the Tolbooth, there to languish in poverty and misery, while the luscious contents of his well-stored cellars were confiscated to the public use?"

"It ill beseems ye to condemn the last clause in your interlocutor, my noble gossip, when the maist of the precious contents of Hughie's runlets ran owre your ain craig. My certie! you had a braw rug at the forfeitures, baith gentle and semple!"

"Ha, ha! enough of this—the present business is to procure the use of an inkhorn. I am restricted in wine to drink medicated Hippocras. What art grinning at now?"

"Your occasional scruples o' conscience—he, he! Do ye mind the whilly-whaw ye were in anent the spectre of an armed man in the hall of Clermiston?"

"Why the devil remind me of it?" exclaimed the other, angrily; "if it really was a spirit——"

"If! we have in profane as weel as sacred writing owre mony evidences of their reality, and their appearance for various purposes whilk we cannot comprehend; and we have also as mony solid proofs that the devil can mak' deid bodies move; but anent this, see Gabrieile Nandæus in his Apology, and Delrio in his Disquisitiones Magica."

"D—n Delrio! Ever pestering me with thy musty learning!—but here is a change-house, where it may be that we can get this notable postscriptum concocted."

The summer had passed away, and now brown autumn was once more reddening the heather of the Pentlands, and spreading her dun tints over the woods of Bruntisfield; the sombre eve was closing fast, but the bright fire burned merrily as ever in the chamber-of-dais at the old castellated Place, and ruddily its warm light shone through the barred windows into the recesses of the old woodlands, which every passing breeze robbed of some of their crisped foliage, and strewed it over the muirlands to the south. The old manor-house had recovered from the rages of that terrible night in 1688, and was now repaired, and stronger than ever; the windows were more thickly grated, and numerous loopholes and two additional turrets defended the barbican gate.

Lilian and her friend Annie were seated side by side as of old, and opposite sat Lady Grisel—but a change had come over them all. Though the hale old lady recovered from the shock of Lilian's abduction, it had seriously affected her health, and now she was a picture of the helplessness of extreme old age, in her dotage, pale and querulous, but ever gentle and childlike. She occupied the same old fringed chair, with its bobs of parti-coloured silk, in which she had sat every evening for fifty years; her ivory wheel, though now unused, stood on one side of it, and her tall metal-headed cane on the other. Lilian was paler and thinner, and had lost much of her girlish beauty; she had many cares gnawing at her heart, but she was still as adorable and interesting as ever. Annie was, if possible, more so than formerly; the bloom of her beauty had expanded to the utmost; her cheek had a higher colour, and her eye a brighter sparkle; her tall and beautiful figure was more inclined to embonpoint. But alas for poor Finland, the fickle Laurie was now the wife of Craigdarroch, who had risen to the rank of Colonel of Horse in the new Scottish army of William III. Her dress was more matronly and magnificent than formerly, and her rich flower tabby suit, with its brocade stomacher and silver fringes, contrasted with Lilian's plain blue suit of Florence silk with its falls of point d'Espagne.

Ashamed that she had broken her own solemn engagements to her exiled lover, with the natural fickleness of her sex, Annie was labouring to undermine the truth of Lilian, and, Heaven knows why, tormented the poor girl hourly, by urging the suit of Lord Clermistonlee, and left no arguments untried to carry her point, and remove the scruples of her more gentle but less facile friend.

"And poor Walter!" urged Lilian, with a look of great tenderness in her mild and moistened eyes, replying to some observation of Annie.

"Marry come up with your Walter!—tush! bethink you, dear Lilian, this gallant never loved you truly, or else, dost think he would have preferred following King James?"

Lilian's eyes sparkled; a terrible retort trembled on her tongue, but her gentleness repressed it, and she could only exclaim with tears—

"Oh, horror! this insinuation is the most unkind of all. The unmerited shame and contumely, the dark and dishonourable suspicions that the malice of Clermistonlee has brought upon me I can bear, for I despise though I mourn them deeply—but a doubt of Walter's faith—oh, Annie, Annie, it sinks like a dagger in my heart. 'Tis the hope of his return, animated by the same spirit of love and truth in which he left me, that makes me rise superior to them all. Oh, yes!" she exclaimed, with girlish ecstasy, "my dear, dear Walter, the hour will yet come, when, with a kiss of affection, I will tell thee that this old manor and all these lands around it are thine, for ever thine!"

"Dost think he loves me as Walter doth? dost think he knows what love means? Oh, no; he never conceived it. His passion is a turbulent phantasy, inflamed by rivalry, difficulty, and opposition, sharpened it may be by wounded pride and exasperated revenge. Oh, how can you forget the horrid mystery that involves the fate of his wife—the unhappy Alison Gilford?"

"Gossip, quotha!" laughed Annie, "hearts are never broken except in the pages of De Scuderi. But with all his averred evil propensities, I think there is something very noble about Lord Clermistonlee."

"Yes—but do they make us forget that the villain lurks under that prepossessing exterior?" rejoined Lilian, scornfully.

"Dear Lilian, I have but one more argument to urge, and 'tis the old one; remember that your fair fame which his addresses have injured, requires——"

"Marriage," added Annie, quietly. Lilian turned pale; her spirit of dissent was too strong for words; she shook her head with a mournful but decided air, and, after a pause, said, "never, oh, never!" but Annie only laughed, and a long and unpleasant pause in the conversation ensued. At length Lilian said, shuddering,

"That an evil spirit is near us," replied Annie, turning pale with the superstition of the time.

"Nay, felt ye a grue, my bairn?" said Lady Grisel, rousing momentarily from her waking dose; "then some one is treading on the ground that shall be your grave." Again Lilian shuddered, and throwing her arms around her grand-aunt, kissed her, exclaiming,

"'Tis the first sentence I have heard you utter for a month—and oh, what a terrible one it is!"

At that moment there was a loud jingle at the great risp on the barbican gate, and Elsie Elshender hobbled in to say that an "auld broken soldier, who had limpit up the gate was speiring for my Lady Craigdarroch, but wadna enter."

"'Tis a letter from the Laird; his troop are in the north, watching the wild gillies of Braemar. Tush! what can his message be now?" said Annie, as she flew to the foot of the staircase, where a man in a tattered red coat, a great scratch wig, with a broad hat flapped over it, one patch on his right eye, and another on his nose, limped forward on a crutch, and presented a letter. "From whence comes it, poor man?" asked Annie.

"From the frontiers of Alsatia; blessings on your sweet face, my noble lady," replied the veteran, gruffly. Annie grew pale as death.

"The brave laird of Finland, Lady Annie; on mony a lang day's march I have trailed my pike by his side, owre the fields o' France and the howmes o' Holland, deil tak them baith, for there's neither brose nor brochon, nor sowans nor sourocks to be gotten there for love, lear, or money; but I've far to gang this nicht, and maun een march on, so God bless your noble ladyship—mind a puir auld soldier that's faced fire and water baith."

Trembling violently, Annie untied the ribbons of her purse and gave him a carolus, which he received with abundance of thanks, and he was limping away when Elsie hobbled forward and presented him with a bicker of ale.

"Drink, puir body," said she, "though the times are sair changit, nane pass this threshold without tasting o' the kindness o' langsyne. We dinna send awa' the naked and the hungry wi' a scrap o' gospel and a screed o' a psalm, like auld Drumdryan or the Laird o' Lickspittal owre bye yonder; drink deep, puir body! I once had a son a soldier-lad, (my puir Hab that was killed in the fearfu' times,) and, for his sake, my heart warms to your auld red coat."

"Here's to ye, my bonny lady, and to you Cummer Elsie, and never may ye be tarbarrelled for a' you're sae runkled and auld; hech, how!" and, drinking the ale to the last drop, this rough and uncourteous old fellow tossed the bicker to Elsie and limped away with great agility.

"Ha, ha!" he laughed, when the barbican gate was angrily banged behind him; "how the gay goshawk pounced at the lure; wha would hae thought I would ever hae hobbit and nobbit wi' Lucky Elshender after puir Meg's mischanter among her kale? This carolus comes in gude time, for my pouch is gey empty now. Deil tak' the patches and scratches, the rags and bags," he continued tearing off his disguise; "again I am Juden Stenton,

"And wha daur meddle wi' me?
Wha daur meddle wi' me?
My name it's Juden Stenton,
And wha daur meddle wi' me?"

And, light hearted by the success of his Lord's scheme, he sang and laughed as he trudged back to the city.

On rejoining Lilian, Annie was in a flutter of extreme agitation; and, after great reluctance, in which shame and curiosity struggled with some remnant of her former love, and after bursting into tears and then laughing hysterically, she broke the seal and read in a quavering voice as follows:—

"God knoweth whether the words I am now inditing will ever be seen by your own dear blue eyes. Nevertheless I write (on a drumhead for a desk), and in great haste, for the bearer of this starts for Versailles in an hour. A trench where the dead and dying lie among the blood-stained earth, piled, yea, chin-deep, and where the cannon-balls are rebounding every instant from the ramparts of Mons, is a very unpleasant place to compose love-speeches; but, believe me, that the heart of poor Dick Douglas in suffering and danger, poverty and exile, is still unchanged, my beloved Annie, and as much thine as ever. Here are we, a company of gallant Scottish gentlemen, in such a plight as you never could conceive; and the very appearance of our ragged attire, our emaciated forms and our exceeding misery, would melt your gentle heart with the softest compassion. My ancient signet ring, the last relic of the house of Finland, I bartered yesterday for a loaf of bread, and now I have nothing left save the lock of thy hair, which shall go with me to the grave. But more glorious by far are our Jacobite rags than the gay bravery we might have worn under that accursed usurper against whom we have sworn to fight to the last gasp.

"The mischances of war are fast reducing the faithful cavaliers of Dundee. Starvation or the bullet daily send some brave heart to its long repose, and the survivors are in such a plight that not even the Westland Whigs could wish them lower. From the frontiers of Spain we have travelled to Alsatia, and from thence to Mons. It was a march of horrors! We were utterly without the necessaries of life, and in the depth of a severe winter, marched nine hundred miles over a country covered with snow. Many of us were barefooted. For many weeks our food was nuts in the woods, roots in the fields, horsebeans and garlic, and thus it is that Louis XIV. rewards our loyalty, our patience, our fatigues and achievements.

"Our old friend Walter Fenton is well. Through all the campaigns under Monsieur le Mareschal Noailles and the noble Luxembourg, he hath shewed himself worthy of the knighthood King James' sword bestowed. Yesterday he volunteered, with sixty of our unhappy cavaliers, to plant the banner of King Louis on the Bastion de Sainte Wandree, and nobly did he redeem his word. Commend me to all our leal and right honourable friends, and to those who may think kindly of the poor cavaliers for the happy days that have passed away for ever. A time may come—adieu, dearest Annie—the call to arms is sounding along the lines, and we are about to march for Steinkirke, a duty from which few will return. On my mind there weighs a heavy presentiment of what I cannot name to thee. Farewell, my gentle Annie, and may God bless thee! for I fear we shall see the bonnie braes of Maxwelton together no more.

There was a tone of sorrowful resignation to a hard and hopeless fate pervading this letter that struck a pang of deep remorse through the heart of Annie—but a pang for one moment only; the volatility of her sex aided her, and smiling through her tears, she said,

"My poor dear lighthearted Dick, would to Heaven I could lessen the miseries you endure!"

"Oh, Annie," said Lilian reproachfully, clasping her hands and weeping, "poor Walter and poor Finland!"

"Tush!" said Annie pettishly, her dark-blue eyes sparkling between shame and sorrow. "Gossip, tease me not."

"It will grieve you much to hear that Walter Fenton hath broken his plighted troth to your fair friend Napier, and married a French woman, a mere camp follower, of evil repute. Right heavy tidings this will be for the heiress of Bruntisfield, but I ever deemed her spark a fool; again I kiss your hand—adieu."

The wicked expression of triumph that flashed in Annie's eyes quickly gave way to one of compassion and regret, on beholding the aspect of Lilian. Pale as death, with her eyes starting from their sockets, her silken curls seeming to twist like knots about her throbbing temples; her nether lip turned from crimson to blue, and quivering convulsively; her bosom heaving with the terrible and sickening sensations that oppressed it. Her little hands were firmly clenched, and her dry hot eyes were full of fire.

"Again, again, read it once more, Annie," she said, in a voice of strange but exquisite cadence.

"Not for worlds!" exclaimed Annie; "Oh, thou wicked letter, thus to mar our peace and hurl us into sorrow. Oh, if Craigdarroch should hear I have had a billet from my former lover, he will kindle up into such a fit of jealousy and rage as the world never saw; to the flames with it!" and she tossed into the fire the letter which poor Finland had so fondly and sorrowfully indited. It was consumed in a moment; and thus all after examination of the postscript was precluded, otherwise the forgery might have been discovered before its effects became too fatal.

"A camp follower of evil repute! It is false—impossible—Finland hath lied! Yet—yet—a cup of water, for Heaven's sake—my throat is parched and scorching!" Lilian sank into a chair and covered her face with her hands, but neither wept nor swooned, for her sense of injury was too acute for tears.

Not a tear fell, for the fire that burned in her breast seemed to have absorbed them.

"This is the third 20th of September since he first left me. Oh, Walter, Walter, God may forgive thee this great ingratitude and cruelty, but I never can!"

CHAPTER XV.

THE EFFECT OF THE POSTSCRIPTUM.

Long, long did poor Lilian grieve and weep, and mourn in the solitude of her gloomy home.

She endured all the complicated agony of endeavouring to rend from her heart its dearest and most wonted thoughts—the hopes and affection she had fostered and cherished for years. No woman ever died for love but the heroine of a romance; so Lilian of course survived it; a month or two beheld her again tranquil and calm, though very sorrowful and subdued in spirit, for time cures every grief.

The bitter sentiment of insulted pride and mortified self esteem which often come so powerfully to the aid of the deserted, and enable them to triumph over the more tender and acute reflections, were kindled and fanned and fostered by the artful sophistry of Annie, who, with her real condolences, threw in such nice little soothing and flattering inuendoes, mingled with condemnations of Walter, and pretended rumours of his marriage, the beauty and gallantries of his French wife, whom some called a countess and others a courtesan, that Lilian first learned to hear her patiently and then with indignation.

With these were mingled occasional praises of Clermistonlee, managed with great tact, for Annie was cunning as a lynx, and never failed to flank all her arguments with the powerful one, how necessary it was for the restoration of her own honour, that she should receive the roué lord as her husband.

Poor Lilian, though these advices stung her to the soul, learned at last to hear and to think of them with calmness, and (shall we acknowledge it?) to say at last, "that it might be."

With something of that fierce sentiment of desperation and revenge which, like a gage thrown down to fate, makes the ruined gamester place his last stake on the turn of a card, she began deliberately to school herself into thinking of Clermistonlee as her future husband; and though in reality poverty was the real cause of it, Lady Craigdarroch failed not to impress upon Lilian how much he was reformed, how penitent he was, and for three years past had never been engaged in any piece of frolic or wickedness, and wound up by asserting that a reformed rake made the best husband.

"Alas! the love of women, it is known,
To be a lovely and a fearful thing;
For all of theirs upon the die is thrown
And if 'tis lost, life hath no more to bring."

Long and assiduous were the exertions, the arguments and artifices of Annie, and long and fearful was the struggle that tortured the heart of Lilian, ere she would consent to receive Clermistonlee as her suitor.

Annie flew to communicate the joyous tidings, and when next day he rode up the avenue to pay his devoirs, the miserable girl nearly swooned. The ring, the little embossed ring of antique gold, the last and only gift of Walter, and which he said contained the secret of his life, she had now laid aside, carefully locked up in a cabinet, because it brought too vividly before her the memories she had resolved to banish from her heart for ever.

Clermistonlee had increased his great personal advantages by all the aid of dress, and in defiance of the sad coloured fashions of the time, wore a voluminous Monmouth whig, the long curls of which were puffed with aromatic powder, a suit of rose-coloured velvet, laced so thick with gold that the ground of the cloth was scarcely visible, a sword and belt sparkling with jewels. A medal of gold, bearing his coat of arms, was suspended by a chain of the same metal round his neck; it was his last venture in quest of fortune, and his lordship had resolved to spend all he possessed upon the stake.

By the artful Annie he was led forward to the trembling and sinking Lilian, to whom he pleaded his cause, his constancy, and perseverance, his raptures and agonies, his hopes and despair, with an ardour that confused, and perhaps flattered, if it did nothing more. These his lordship brought out all at a breath, as he had got the whole by rote, having said the same things to a hundred different women before; but now his natural ardour and spirit of gallantry were greatly increased by the touching character which sorrow, vexation, and disappointment had imparted to the soft beauty of Lilian—and also by the aspect of the comfortable old manor house and the acres of fine arable land that lay around it; while she (shall we confess it?), as bitter thoughts of Walter and his French wife rose up within her, stole glances from time to time at her noble and courtly suitor—glances which he soon perceived, and fired with new animation, threw such an air of devotion into his addresses that he—triumphed.

Annie placed the hand of Lilian within that of Clermistonlee; he pressed her to his heart, and she did not withdraw it; but burst into a passion of tears. He then threw his splendid chain, with its medal, around her bending neck, and pressed her to his breast, and so sudden was the revulsion of feeling that Lilian fainted.

An hour afterwards Clermistonlee, with all his embroidery glittering in the sun, was seen galloping back to the city like a madman; he dashed through the Portsburgh, and reined up near the Bowfoot, where, at the summit of a ten-storied edifice, dwelt Mr. Ichabod Bummel, minister of the Gospel.

"The father of confusion take your long stair! Why, Mr. Bummel, 'tis like a rascally old steeple," said the lord, breaking breathlessly in upon the lank-haired and long-visaged pastor, who was intent upon "The Hind let loose" of Alexander Sheills.

"Yea, a tower of Babel—but what hath procured me the honour of your lordship's visit?"

"By all the devils, don't think I am come to drub thee for that lecture on the cutty stool—ha, ha! I am about to be married, man—and want you to proclaim the banns and so forth—but my Lord Mersington will see after them for me."

"But a deuced poor one, sometimes, Mr. Ichabod. I am about to be married to Lilian, of Bruntisfield, and thou shalt espouse us, because the citizens hold thee to be their first preacher, and it will increase my influence among them."

"But me nothing—'tis my non-attendance at kirk and my old tricks you aim at—pho! I am a thorough Reformado—but, Mr. Ichabod, hast never a drop of wine about thee?—'tis a hot forenoon."

"My dwelling contains nothing but water, and it is a plack the runlet in these dear years; but, my Lord," continued the divine, after sundry gasps and contortions of visage, "if I lend all my influence to render popular this intended espousal, whilk I perceive to be the main object of your visit, may I crave your Lordship's favour in another particular?"

"Command me in all things save my purse, for 'tis a mere vacuum, if thy philosophy will admit of such a thing. Say forth, my Apostle!"

"I love the maiden called Meinie Elshender—yea, I love her powerfully with the carnal love of this world, and the maiden is not altogether indisposed to view me favourably."

"Zounds!" said Clermistonlee, while the minister looked complacently down on his long spindle shanks; "in the name of mischief, who is Meinie Elshender?"

"By all the devils, thou shalt have her, bongré, malgré, and after I am fairly wedded, the best kirk in the Lothians to boot—even should I make Juden shoot the present incumbent."

"Heaven reward these generous promises," replied Ichabod, with a smile of incredulity. "Well it is that the maiden hath escaped the snares of her first lover, who was a soldier of Antichrist—a musqueteer of the bluidy Dunbarton."

"Say rather the most princely earl of the noble house of Douglas! Ha, ha—by my faith! we whigs are winning the false lemans of the cavaliers in glorious style."

"And now, my lord, I have one other boon to crave," said Ichabod, producing a tattered and dog-eared MS. from a bunker. "This is a book of which doubtless your Lordship hath heard; my Bombshell aimet at the taile of the Great Beast."

"Swallowed the whale; eh, Master Ichabod?" said the gay lord, pirouetting about and laughing boisterously.

"A hundredfold discourse, to convince thee of the crime of this irreverence and irreligion."

"Your Lordship's subscription; 'tis to be published in the imprinting press in the Parliament Close, whenever new irons are brought over from Holland."

"Oh, by all the devils, certainly; send me a dozen of copies. Faith! I must be quite pious henceforth. And now, bravo! see the Kirk Session about my little affairs, while I ride down the Lawnmarket to old Gideon Grasper, the Clerk to the Signet, for there will be a mountain of papers to sign and seal, and so forth; but the banns, the banns, next Sunday, remember;" and chaunting, "With a hey lillelu and a how lo lan," his lordship danced away out, tripping down the long stair by three steps at a time, and mounting, galloped into the upper part of the city.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE BATTLE OF STEINKIRKE.

As torrents roll increased by numerous rills,
With rage impetuous down their echoing hills;
Rush to the vales and pour'd along the plain,
Roar through a thousand channels to the main;
The distant shepherd trembling hears the sound:
So mix both hosts, and so their cries rebound.
ILIAD, BOOK IV.

It was the night before the famous battle of Steinkirke, when the confederates under William III. encountered the gallant and brilliant army of the great François Henri Duc de Luxembourg.

In happy ignorance of what was being acted at home by those whose memory lay so near their hearts, Walter Fenton and Douglas of Finland were carousing with their brothers in war and misfortune around a blazing fire, composed of rafters borrowed for the purpose from the roof of a neighbouring Flemish house.

Intent on crushing the alarming confederation of the Protestant powers against him, Louis XIV. had taken the field in person at the head of 120,000 men. This sensual, selfish, and weak-minded monarch was accompanied by all the effeminate pomp and tinsel splendour of an eastern emperor; his women and paramours, numerous enough for a seraglio; his dancers, players, musicians; his kitchen, opera, household, and all the ministers of his luxury, his pleasures, and his tyranny, in themselves a host, crowded and encumbered the great camp of his splendid army, which, however, soon captured Namur, a strong city on the Meuse, though strengthened by all the skill of the great Coehorn, and defended by the valour of the Prince de Brabazon and 9,000 chosen soldiers.

King William, whose duty it was to have raised the siege of this important fortress, lay with 100,000 men within gunshot of Louis, but, embued with all the stolid and phlegmatic stupidity of a Hollander, permitted the place to be captured, by which his military reputation was as much injured as that of Louis was increased. The victor of Namur immediately returned to Versailles, surrounded by triumph and adulation, worshipped undeservedly as a hero, and extolled as a conqueror, while William, whose inertness had at last given way to necessary activity, excited by shame and exasperation, having reviewed on the plain of Genappe a fresh quota of ten battalions of Scottish infantry, pushed forward against Mareschal Luxembourg, intent on retrieving his honour.

After basely employing a spy named Millevoix, under pain of torture and death, to mislead the French commander by false intelligence of the confederates' movements, William advanced with his 100,000 bayonets to prevent him from taking up a position between the then obscure villages of Steinkirke and Enghien, a royal barony of the house of Bourbon. With his usual bad generalship William completely failed, for Luxembourg outflanked him, gained the position, and trusting to the communications of the perfidious (or unfortunate) Millevoix, not anticipating any attack, confined himself to his tent, as he laboured under severe indisposition.

Not expecting an alerte, the whole of his numerous and brilliant army lay intrenched among the fertile fields and pastures of the Flemings, whose thick hedges, solid walls, and comfortable houses, were cut down, torn up and overthrown without ceremony to render the position more secure.

The post occupied by the Scottish officers was near the Senne, a slow and sluggish river. The sun had set, and far over the long perspective of the level landscape, that in some parts withdrew to the extreme horizon, shone the red departing flush of the last evening many would behold on earth. In some places the river was reddened by the gleam of the distant fires, whose flickering chain marked out the camp of Luxembourg; the higher eminences were covered by woods and orchards, from which the evening wind came laden with the rich perfume of the summer blossom. Save the hum of the extended camp all was still round Steinkirke, and where the exiled cavaliers were bivouacked there was little more heard than the monotonous ripple of the Senne, as it flowed past its willow shaded banks on its way to the northern sea.

The Scottish exiles were always more merry than usual on the eve of a battle, for it freed many from a life of humiliation and hardship, to which they deemed an honourable death a thousand times preferable. At times an expression of stern joy, of ghastly merriment, at others of deep abstraction pervaded the little group, as they clustered round the fire that blazed in a little alcove formed by an orchard on the river side. There their arms were piled, and they rolled from hand to hand a keg of Hollands, to which they had helped themselves at the devastation of the Flandrian château de Senne. Afar off, above the village spire of Steinkirke, the silver moon rose broadly and resplendently to light the wide and fertile landscape with its glory. The Senne and Tender brightened like two floods of flowing crystal, and the willows that drooped over them seemed the work of magic, as their dewy leaves glittered in the rays of the summer moon.

The stern hearts of that melancholy band were soothed by the beauty of the scenery, the seclusion of their tentless bivouac, the softness of the Flemish moonlight, and a song that Finland sang completed the effect of the place and time. He reclined upon his knapsack, and his fine features, which long privation and toil had sharpened and attenuated, flushed and reddened as he sang of his love that was far away, and felt his brave heart expand with the dear and long cherished hopes and memories her image stirred within it.

"Maxweltoun Braes are bonnie,
    Where early fa's the dew;
And blue-eyed Annie Laurie
    Gave me her promise true.
Gave me her promise true,
    That never forgot shall be;
And for my bonnie Annie Laurie,
    I would lay me down and dee.

"Her locks are like the sunshine,
    Her breast is like the swan;
Her hand is like the snawdrift,
    And mine her waist micht span.
But oh! that promise true!
    Will ne'er be forgot by me,
And for my blue-eyed Annie Laurie,
    I would lay me down and dee!"

This famous song, which, with its beautiful air, is so chaste and pleasing, and still so much admired in Scotland, poor Finland in his chivalric spirit had composed, to lighten the toil of many a long and arduous march, and now, inspired by the love and the fond recollections that trembled in his heart, he slowly sang the last verse with great tenderness and pathos.

"Like dew on the gowan lying,
    Is the fa' of her fairy feet;
And like wind in summer sighing,
    Her voice is low and sweet.
But O that promise true!
    Makes her all the world to me;
And for my bonnie Annie Laurie,
    I'd lay me down and dee."

Every word seemed to come from his overcharged heart, and as he sang the beautiful melody silence and sadness stole over the listening group. Softened by the dialect and the music of their fatherland, every heart was melted and every eye grew moist; the red camp fires and the shining waters of the Senne, the white tents of Luxembourg, the woodlands and orchards of Steinkirke passed away, and Scotland's hoary hills and pathless vallies rose before them, for their eyes and hearts were in the land from which they were expatriated for ever.

It was the morning of the 24th of July, and in unclouded splendour the sun shone from the far horizon upon the tented camp of Luxembourg, on the standards waving and arms glittering within the rudely and hastily constructed entrenchments of the great and veteran engineer the Chevalier Antoine de Ville. Like bright snowy clouds the morning vapour curled upwards from the sedges of the Senne, and the dewy foliage of the woods, and rolling lazily along the plain, shrouded everything in a thick and gause-like veil of white obscurity, which the rays of the sun edged with the hue of gold. Under cover of this, although the French knew it not, the entire force of the allied nations, led by William of England, were coming rapidly on in two dense columns, intent on avenging the disgraces they had endured at Namur. Luxembourg lay within his bannered pavilion on a bed of sickness, and neither he nor his soldiers were aware of the foe's approach until the Prince of Wirtemburg, at the head of ten battalions of English, Dutch, and Danes, drove back his outposts on the right, making a furious attack on the camp, which instantly became a scene of greater confusion than King Agramont's.

The patter of the musquetry, the roll of the advancing drums, and the bullets whistling through his tent, roused the brave Mareschal, who, leaping from his camp-bed, forgot his illness in the ardour and tumult of the moment. Hastily his pages attired and armed him, and throwing his magnificent surcoat above his gilded corslet, he seized his sword and baton, and rushed forth to repair what the artifices of William, the treachery of Millevoix, and the bravery of Wirtemburg had already achieved. To muster, to rally his immense force and repel the Prince of Wirtemburg, were but the work of a few seconds, and the great leader, who five minutes before had lain inert on a couch of illness, was now spurring his caparisoned horse from column to column, with his plumes waving, his accoutrements glittering, and his baton brandished aloft; his features filled with animation, his soul with energy.

The Dukes of Bourbon and Vendome, the Princes of Turenne and Conté, the Duc de Chartres, a youth of fifteen, whose almost girlish beauty made him the sport and the idol of the army, the Marquis de Bellefonde, and several thousand chevaliers of noble birth and matchless spirit, by their presence, their ardour, and example, restored perfect order, and in admirable battle array they stood prepared to encounter the host of the Protestant confederation.

As the sun rose higher the mist which shrouded the whole plain around the village of Steinkirke was gradually exhaled upwards, and as it rolled away the entire army of William III., a hundred thousand strong, were seen in order of battle, advancing as rapidly as the numerous thorn hedges, ditches, and dykes, which intersected the yellow cornfields, would permit.

In defence of a place which it was expected William's brilliant cavalry would assail, the Scottish officers were posted in an abbatis of apple-trees that had been cut down by the pioneers, and made an intricate breastwork all round; and within it, with their arms loaded, they stood in close order, watching with lowering brows and kindling eyes the scarlet ranks of their countrymen, to whom they now—for the first time since their exile—found themselves opposed in battle.

The golden bloom of the ripe and waving corn-fields, through which the lines were advancing in triple ranks, with their serried arms and embroidered standards glittering, threw forward the bright scarlet costume in strong relief, and the hearts of the little band of exiles beat with increased excitement as the moment of a general encounter drew nigh.

"Behold yonder fellows in our uniform!" exclaimed one, as the Scottish infantry debouched in heavy column on the French left, with their twenty standards displayed, and their drums loading the air with the old march of the Covenanters.

"God knoweth the sorrow, the bitterness, the hatred, and the fierce exultation that swell my heart by turns in this auspicious hour!" said Finland, striking his breast.

"You speak my very thoughts," responded Walter, with a deep sigh; "yonder are the old Royals, but now another than Dunbarton wields his baton over them; yonder are the standards we have carried—but others bear them now. How hard to forget that these are our countrymen! Do not ourselves seem to be marching against us?"

"Enough of this, gentlemen," said the veteran Laird of Dunlugais. "In them I behold only the rebels of our king, and the sycophants of an usurper. This day let us remember only that we are fighting under the standard of the first captain of the age, and about to win fresh glories for the most magnificent prince that ever occupied the throne of France!"

Led by that brave and veteran general, a dense column of British cavalry, accoutred in voluminous red coats, great Dutch hats, looped up, and vast boots of black leather, with slung musquets and brandished swords, rushed at full gallop to the charge on one flank, while the Prince of Wirtemburg assailed the other.

The abbatis lay full in front of Mackay, who held aloft his long gilt baton, as he led on this heavy mass of troopers. On they came, horse to horse, and boot to boot like a moving mountain; but the deadly and deliberate volley poured upon them by the Scottish cavaliers threw them into immediate confusion; the front squadrons by becoming entangled among their falling horses and riders, recoiled suddenly on the rear, who were still spurring forward; the furious shock produced an immediate and irredeemable confusion, and the whole gave way ere another volley of that leaden rain was poured upon their dense array.

The roar of forty thousand musquets now burst like thunder on the ear, as the Prince de Conté and the brave De Chartres, the boy-soldier, at the head of the superb household infantry, assailed the British, and volleying in platoons, continued to press upon them with increasing ardour until within pike's length of each other, when Conté led the whole to the charge. The shock was irresistible! Count Solmes failed to support the English and Scots, who immediately gave way, and a tremendous slaughter was made, especially among the latter.

"Les Ecossais, retreat!" exclaimed Conté. "'Tis a miracle. Tête Dieu! 'tis surely a bad cause, when the hand of Heaven is against them!"

The Scottish regiments of Coutts, Mackay, Angus, Grahame, and Leven, were cut to pieces, and the English Guards nearly shared the same fate. James Earl of Angus, a brave youth in his twenty-first year, was shot dead at the head of his Cameronians, William Stuart Viscount of Montjoy, Sir Robert Douglas, Lieutenant-General James Douglas, Sir John Lanier, Colonel Lauder, and many other brave Scottish gentlemen were slain, while the Prince de Conté bore all before him.

With the gallant Prince of Wirtemburg it fared otherwise. Pressing onward at the head of his English, he carried off some of the French artillery, and after immense slaughter, stormed the intrenchment which covered their position, but finding himself in danger of being overpowered, he twice sent his aide-de-camp to crave succour from the phlegmatic William and from Count Solmes, a noble of the House of Nassau. Twice over a field that was strewn with thousands of dead and dying, and swept by the fire of so many thousand musquets, cannon, and coehorns, the brave aide spurred his horse to beg succour for the prince his master; but William neglected, and the Dutch noble derided his request.

"Vivat Wirtemburg!" cried Solmes, laughing; "let us see what sport his English bulldogs will make."

At length William shook off the inertness that seemed to possess his faculties amid the storm of war that raged around him, and in person ordered Solmes to sustain the advance of the left wing which Wirtemburg had led on so successfully. Thus urged, the unwilling Lord of Brunsveldt, made an unavailing movement with his cavalry, but left a few English and Danes to sustain the whole brunt of the battle.

Amid the dense smoke that rolled in white clouds and concealed the adverse lines, their carnage and its horrors, again and again the brave old Laird of Scoury led his squadrons to the charge, resolved to force the passage to turn the flank of Luxembourg or die, and again they were repulsed from the abbatis by the courage of the desperate Cavaliers. As yet, not one trooper had penetrated among them, though hundreds and their horses lay groaning and rolling in the agonies of death, entangled among the apple-laden branches of the prostrate trees, grasping and rending them with their teeth in the tortures of dissolution. As yet not one of the Scottish exiles had fallen; but now Mackay ordered a body of his dragoons to dismount, to unsling their short fusees, and from behind the piles of dead and dying men and chargers, to fire upon the abbatis which could afford no protection against bullets.

A furious fusilade now ensued, and Fenton soon missed Finland from his side; he turned, and his hot blood cooled for a moment to behold him lying on the bloody turf in the last agonies of death. A ball had pierced his breast; his eyes were glazing, and he was beating the earth with his heels, as he blew from his quivering lips the bells of blood and foam.

Something was clenched in his hand and pressed to his lips; but as his dying energies relaxed, and his brave spirit fled to heaven, the relic fell on the turf;—it was Annie Laurie's braid of bright brown hair.

"Farewell, dear Finland," exclaimed Walter, kissing the dead man's hand. "Here end thy love and misfortunes together!" Sorrow, rage, and ardour roused the fury of Fenton to the utmost, and with his clubbed weapon he sprang over the trees of the abbatis, exclaiming, "to the charge, gentlemen Scots!—to the charge! Never let it be said that the Cavaliers of Dundee played at long bowles with those false English churls. Victory and revenge!"

Fired by his example, and animated by national and political hatred against those who had deserted James VII., and wrought so many miseries to his few adherents, the little band sprang from the abbatis and threw themselves with incredible fury and determination on the dismounted troopers. Onward they pressed over piles of dead and wounded, while every instant the balls that flew thick as drifting rain, thinned their narrow ranks, and added many another item to the vast amount of that day's carnage.

None can be so brave as those for whom life has lost every charm; and none so reckless as those who have a thousand real or imaginary wrongs to avenge. Thus, heedless alike of the number of their antagonists, who were again pressing up to the attack, the Scottish Cavaliers came on pell mell, and a desperate conflict ensued with firelocks and fusils clubbed.

As Walter, forgetful of everything else but to glut a fierce spirit of revenge, pressed onward, he encountered a tall and powerful officer. The nobility of his aspect and the richness of his attire (for his scarlet coat was so richly interlaced with bars of gold as to be almost sword-proof) not less than the vigour with which he kept his soldiers to their duty, made him a marked man; but Walter struck him from his horse and flourished the butt of his musket over him.

"Take these, you tattered villain," said the officer, offering a splendid watch and ring; "take these and spare my life."

"Insult me not, Sir," exclaimed Walter Fenton with undisguised scorn. "I am one of the officers of Viscount Dundee—of Dundee the brave and loyal."

"The vilest minion of hell and tyranny that ever disgraced his country—then doubly are you traitor!" said the other starting from the ground and flashing a pistol in Walter's face. Blinded by fury and the smoke of the discharge, he drove his bayonet through the breast of the officer and fairly pinned him to the turf.

"Curse on the hour that I die by the hand of a base and renegade clown like thee!" exclaimed the dying man, half choked in his welling blood.

"Traitor!" cried his destroyer furiously; "you die by the hand of Sir Walter Fenton, Knight Banneret of Scotland!"

"So falls Hugh Mackay, of Scoury!" moaned the other as he sank backward and expired.

"Scoury!" reiterated Walter; "hah! then this hour avenges Dundee the slaughter of Killycrankie and of Cromdale."

At that moment he was hurled to the earth by a wounded charger as it rushed madly from the conflict. He fell against a tree and lay stunned and insensible to all that passed around him.

The sun was setting, and still the doubtful battle continued to be waged with undiminished ardour, until Mareschal Boufflers, at the head of a powerful body of cavalry, the French and Scottish gendarmerie, and the royal regiment, De Rousillon, swept like a torrent over the corpse-strewn plains with the oriflamme, displayed and decided the fortune of the war just as the sun's broad disc dipped behind the far horizon. William, instead of restoring his tarnished honour, was compelled to retreat in renewed disgrace, leaving many officers of valour and distinction and 3,000 soldiers slain; while the French, though they had to regret the fall of an equal number, with the Prince de Turenne, the Marquis de Bellefonde, Tilladete, Fernaçon, and many other chevaliers of noble blood, remained masters of the field, over which they suspended from a lofty gibbet King William's luckless confidant, the spy and intriguer Millevoix.

Paris resounded with joy and acclamation on tidings of this great victory arriving; the princes and soldiers who had served there were idolized as superior beings by the ladies and women of every rank, whose transports amounted to a species of frenzy, and from that hour for many a year every ornament and piece of dress was known by the name of Steinkirke.

CHAPTER XVII.

A DISCLOSURE.

'Tis night;—and glittering o'er the trampled heath,
Pale gleams the moonlight on the field of death;
Lights up each well-known spot, where late in blood,
The vanquished yielded, and the victor stood;
When red in clouds the sun of battle rode,
And poured on Britain's front its favoring flood.
LORD GRENVILLE.

Again the summer moon rose brightly over the secluded village of Steinkirke, and poured its cold and steady lustre on cornfields drenched in blood, and trod to gory mire by the charge of the spurred squadrons, the closer movements of the compact squares of infantry, or the artillery's track; on the pale and upturned faces of the dying, the distorted and ghastlier lineaments of the dead,—on a wide battle-field strewn with all the trophies of war and destruction,—misery and agony.

Save where illumined by the gleams of moonlight, by the red flashes of a few distant fire-arms, and the redder glare from a convent burned by the retreating British, the ruddy conflagration of which mingled with the last faint glow of the departed sun, the field seemed gloomy and dark. A narrow lurid streak at the distant horizon shewed where the sun had set. The roar of that great battle had now died away, but it had sent forth an echo over France and Britain denoting joy to one and sorrow to the other. Where, then, was William of Orange, and where his mighty host?

The contest was now over, and, save the distant popping of a few skirmishers or plunderers, every sound of strife had ceased; but the cool night wind was laden with a sad and wailing murmur, a sound which it is seldom the lot of man to hear—the mingled moans of many thousands of men enduring all the complicated torture of sabre and gunshot wounds and the most excruciating thirst. Many a solemn prayer and pious ejaculation of deep contrition, uttered in many a varied tongue, were then ascending from that moonlit battlefield to the throne of God, while others in their ravings called only on Death to ease them of their torments; and long ere sunrise the stern king of terrors attended the summons of many.

A great cannon royal, drawn by eight horses and escorted by the artillerists of the Brigade de Dauphine, passed near the corpse-heaped abbatis where Walter Fenton lay, and he implored them to remove him from the field. They were passing him unheeded, when one exclaimed,

"Il est un officier Ecossais!" upon which the drivers reined up: the soldiers sprang from the tumbril, and placing him beside them, galloped across the field of battle towards the redoubts on the left of Luxembourg's position. The jolting occasioned Walter exquisite agony, and he could not repress a shudder when the cannon wheels passed over the crackling body of some dead or wounded soldier who lay prostrate in their path.

After riding a mile or two he fell from his seat with violence, and once more became insensible.

"Il est morte" said the Frenchmen, as they whipped up their horses and thought no more about him.

After lying long in a dreamy state, tormented by a burning thirst and feeling prickly and shooting pains over his whole body as the blood flowed back into its old channels, Walter made an attempt to rise, but the motion occasioned him exquisite pain, and the whole landscape swam around him. He thought he was mortally wounded; a cold perspiration burst over his temples; a stupor again stole upon his senses, and, believing he was dying, he piously recommended himself to God, closed his eyes, and lay down resigned to his fate.

But the mind was active though the frame remained inert, and he thought of Lilian, of Finland and Annie, and how the hand of Death had thrown a cold blight over all their fondest hopes and prospects, and so weak had he become that audible sobs burst from him.

The heavy dew was falling fast, and its moisture refreshed him; he raised his head, and near him saw the figure of a female in a sombre and peculiar garb: she was completely attired in black; a thick veil of the same colour with a little hood of white linen were drawn closely round her face, which seemed pale and colourless as that of death in the uncertain rays of a cruise which she carried; but though aged, she was marked by a serenity and air of repose singularly winning and prepossessing. She bent tenderly over him with a face expressive of the deepest commiseration.

"'Tis a vision!" was Walter's first thought; "'tis an Ursuline nun," was his second.

"Heaven's blessing on you, gentle lady," said Walter, as he endeavoured to rise; "no tears can be more precious in the sight of Heaven than those shed by compassion. God save great Luxembourg! We have this day gained a glorious victory; but at what a price to me!" he continued in his own language. "Alake! my brave and noble friends, the best blood of Scotland has mingled yonder with the waters of the Senne."

"Scotland!" replied the venerable Ursuline, and her mild eyes became filled with animation and sadness. "I acknowledge with sorrow and pride that your country is also mine; but, alas! I can only remember it with horror and humiliation. Your voice takes me back to the pleasant days of other and happier years, and stirs an echo in the deepest recesses of my heart. Oh, my God! what is this that I feel within me? Intercede for me blessed Ursula, and save me from my own thoughts! Oh, let not the contentment in which I have dwelt these many years be disturbed by worldly regrets and old unhappiness!"

There was a deep pathos in her voice, an air of subdued sorrow, mildness, and melancholy in her features, and a soft expression in her eye that was very winning, and Walter kissed her hand with a sentiment of affection and respect, and, strange to say, she did not withdraw it.

"I belonged to the convent of Ursulines at Steinkirke. At vesper-time the Count Solmes sacked it with his troopers; (God forgive him and them the sacrilege!) they expelled us with savage violence, and I found shelter in a cottage close by. Your groans drew me forth. Permit me to lead you, my poor son, for indeed you seem very weak. There is one poor fugitive there already, a countrywoman of our own, to whom I hope you will bring pleasant tidings; let us go."

They entered the humble Flemish cottage, the wide kitchen of which was brilliantly illuminated by a blazing fire of turf, that lit the furthest recesses of the great but rude apartment, that strongly resembled those represented by Rembrandt and Teniers, where every imaginable implement and article, garden and household utensil, hang from the beams of the open roof, load the walls, or encumber every available nook and corner; a heavy Flemish boor, in voluminous brown breeches, arose and doffed his fur cap, and with his wife made way for the sister of St. Ursula, who led Walter to a seat.

Thankfully he drained to the last drop a pewter flaggon of water that the housewife gave him, and was about to speak, when his attention was arrested by the sudden appearance of a young lady. She was very beautiful, and had an exquisitely fair complexion, the natural paleness of which grief and fear had very much increased; her blue eyes sparkled with animation, and her half dishevelled hair was of the brightest and glossiest but palest flaxen. Running to Walter Fenton she took both his hands in hers, and said, with a touching earnestness of manner,

"My dear madam, it is the garb of loyalty and exile; of great suffering, and of much endurance."

"Oh, tell me if you know aught of the fate of General Mackay in this day's carnage; Mackay, the Laird of Scoury?" she added a little proudly.

"Lady," faltered Walter, quite overcome by the question and the aspect of the speaker, "the brave champion of Presbyterianism is no more. I—I saw him slain."

"My father! oh, my father!" cried Margaret Mackay, in a voice that pierced the conscience-stricken Fenton to the heart; "I shall never see thee more—never behold thy kind old face and silver hair. Oh, my God! I am quite alone in the world, and what will become of me now? Oh, Lady Clermistonlee!" she exclaimed, and pressing against her heart the hand of the nun, sank into a chair and swooned.

"Clermistonlee!" reiterated Walter, starting; but the helpless condition of his young countrywoman demanded immediate attention, and he was compelled to smother his curiosity for a time, until she had partially recovered, and then the good Ursuline, after attending her with the most motherly care, left her engaged in prayer in another apartment, and turned all her attention to the wound on Walter's head.

With an adroit neatness of hand, a soft insinuating manner which drew the heart of Walter towards her as to a mother, the compassionate nun, assisted by the silent Flemish housewife, bathed the wound, cut away the long clotted locks, and bound it up, while the round visaged boor, whose mind was wholly absorbed by the loss of a field of corn, which had been cut down by Boufflers' foraging dragoons, sat with his eyes intently fixed on the smoke that curled from his pipe.

Walter had been so little accustomed to kindness, that all the strong feelings of his warm heart now gushed forth.

"A thousand thanks, dear madam!" he exclaimed. "I know not whether it is your kindness, the mere ardour of my heart, or some mysterious influence that Heaven alone can see, which calls forth all my fondest and most reverential sentiments towards you."

"Oh, what is this new feeling that stirs within me?" continued Walter, in a half musing voice. "It seems as if your face bore the long remembered features of some kind friend or dear relative. Like a gleam of sunshine through a mist, they come back to me from the obscurity of the past like those of one whom—but, ah! whither is my enthusiasm carrying me? Dear madam, once more a thousand thanks, for now I must leave, and shall never see you more, but your kindness will ever be remembered by Walter Fenton with gratitude and love."

"Fenton!" said the Ursuline, putting back his hair, and tenderly surveying his emaciated features, "I once had a dear though humble friend of that name, and my heart yearns to thee for her sake. But wherefore this hurry to depart? Your wound?—"

"I know not where I am, lady, and should any of the Statholder's people come this way I should assuredly be shot."

"Then, in the name of all that is blessed, away! The fires of the French camp are still visible, and you may gain it ere daybreak."

This passed in French, but the boor understood it; his eyes twinkled, and knocking the ashes from his pipe he slowly stuck it in his leathern cap and stole out unperceived.

"And what will be the fate of this poor daughter of the brave Mackay, for everywhere the French are swarming around us?"

"Through a lady of the house of Nassau, who belongs to our now, alas! ruined convent, I will see her consigned to the care of her father's best friend, William of Orange."

"'Tis fortunate. It reminds me of what I scarcely dare to ask. She called you by the name of my bitterest enemy—Clermistonlee," said Walter, biting his lip; "Clermistonlee, who has been my rival and the bane of my existence. Oh, madam, what terrible mystery is concealed under this Ursuline habit!"

As Walter spoke the blood came and went in the faded face of the trembling recluse. One moment, when fired by animation, her features seemed almost beautiful, and the next they were withered, rigid, and aged.

"My heart warms, Sir Walter, to that dear native land which I shall never behold again, and in a moment of such weakness I revealed myself to that poor fugitive girl, whom fate so happily threw under my protection, when the confederates were defeated and dispersed——. You know him then, this wicked man, to whom fate in an evil hour gave me as a wife. Oh, Randal! Randal! ————. Let me not recall in bitterness the burning thoughts of years long passed and gone—thoughts which I have long since learned to suppress, or endure with calmness and resignation."

"Enough, dear madam, I am animated by no vulgar curiosity, and time presses. Oh, learn rather to forget your earlier griefs than to remember them. Too well do I know the Lord Clermistonlee, and can easily conceive a long and painful history of domestic woe and suffering. You are the unfortunate Alison Gilford?"

"Of the house of Gilford of that ilk in Lothian," continued the recluse with tearless composure. "In his earlier days, when young, gallant, and winsome, with an honoured name and spotless scutcheon, Randal Clermont became my lover and my husband. Oh, how happy I was for a time; how loving and beloved! But a change came over the unstable heart of my husband. His political intrigues and private excesses soon ruined our fortune, deprived me of his love and him of my esteem. We were driven into exile, and retired to Paris. There he plunged madly into a vortex of the lowest dissipation, and spent the last of my dowry, my jewels, and everything. He became a drunkard, a bully, and a gamester, if not worse. Long, long I endured without a murmur or reproach his pitiless cruelty and cutting contempt, until he eloped with one who in better days had been my companion and attendant, an artful wretch named Beatrix Gilruth. He joined the army of Mareschal Crecquy as a volunteer, and I saw him no more. Hearing afterwards that he was in Scotland fighting under the standard of the Covenant, and being driven to despair by the miseries into which he had plunged me, by leaving me a prey to destitution in a foreign land, I resolved to quit the world for ever; I have come of an old Catholic family, and a convent was my first thought.

"Our child, for we had one, our child was alternately a source of torment and delight," continued the poor nun, weeping bitterly—"my torment from the resemblance it bore to its perfidious father, and my delight as the only tie that bound me to earth; I resolved to see it no more, and sent the poor infant to Scotland in charge of a faithful female servitor, to whom I gave a letter for my husband, purporting to be written on my deathbed, and a ring he had given me in happier days. In an agony of grief I saw the woman depart, and gave her all I possessed, a few louis-d'ors I had acquired at Paris, where I had supported myself as a fleuriste, and was patronized by the Scottish Archers, who were ever very kind to me. I considered myself as dead to the world from that hour, and immediately commenced my noviciate in the licensed convent of St. Ursula in French Flanders.

"Here again all the wounds of my heart were torn open by tidings that the ship in which my loved little boy and his nurse embarked had perished at sea; whether they perished too God alone knoweth, for I heard of them no more. And now the fierce stings of remorse increased the sadness of my sorrow, and I upbraided myself with cruelty, with lack of fortitude and such resignation as became a Christian. I accused myself of infanticide, and in my thoughts by day and my dreams by night I had ever before me the sunny eyes and golden hair of my little child, and its lisping accents in my dreaming ear awoke me to tears and unavailing sorrow."

"Time never fails to soften the memory of the most acute sorrow, and in the convent to which I had fled for refuge from my own thoughts, the soothing consolations of the sisterhood, the calm, the pious and blameless tenor of their way, charmed me as much as their holy meekness of spirit subdued my bitter regrets. After a time I tasted the sweets of the most perfect contentment, if not of happiness. In the duties of religion, of industry and charity, I soon learned to forget Clermistonlee, or to remember him only in my prayers—to forget that I had been a wife, to forget that I had been—oh, no! not a mother—never could I forget that."

"Villain that he is! and with the consciousness of your Ladyship's existence, he has, since he was ennobled, wooed many another to be his bride; but Heaven's hand or his own vices have always foiled him."

The eyes of the recluse sparkled beneath her veil; but folding her white hands meekly on her bosom, she said with exceeding gentleness—

"What have I to do with it now?—besides, youth, I am sure he believes me dead, for some of the Scottish Archers told him so—and dead I am to him and to the world."

"But God has comforted me." Her tears fell fast nevertheless, and a long pause ensued. Walter felt himself moved to tears, and he often sighed deeply, yet knew not why.

The sound of a trumpet roused him; it seemed close bye, and came in varying cadence on the passing wind.

"'Tis the trumpet of a Dutch patrole. I must begone, lady, or remain only to die. Farewell; a thousand blessings on you and a thousand more—for we shall never meet again;" and half kneeling he kissed her hand, and, slipping from the cottage, favoured by the darkened moon, hurried away towards the fires of Luxembourg's camp, just as a party of Dutch Ruyters led by the boor halted at the cottage door.

With fifty thousand men the Mareschal Duke of Luxembourg was posted at Courtray on the Lys; while William, with twice that number, lay at Grammont, inactive, phlegmatic, and afraid to attack him; an inertness which increased the growing ill-humour of Britain against him. Without a dinner and without a sou, abandoned to solitude and dejection, Walter Fenton one evening paced slowly to and fro on the ramparts of Courtray, watching the bright sunset as it lingered long on the level scenery. A page approached, who acquainted him that Monseigneur le Mareschal required his presence in the citadel, whither he immediately repaired, and found the great Henri of Luxembourg, the youthful Dukes of Chartres and Vendome, with other chevaliers of distinction, carousing after a sumptuous repast.

As he entered, De Chartres was singing the merry old ditty of Jean de Nivelle, while the rest chorused.

"Jean de Nivelle has three flails;
Three palfrays with long manes and tails;
Three blades of a terrible brand,
Which he never takes into his hand.
Ah! ouivraiment!
Jean de Nivelle est bon enfant!"

The magnificence of their attire, the happy nonchalance and graceful ease of their manner, contrasted with his own tattered and humble uniform, fallen fortune, and jaded spirit, made Walter's heart sick as he entered; but, assuming somewhat of the old air of a cavalier officer, he bowed to the noble company, and awaited in silence the commands of the Mareschal.

"Approach, Monsieur," said the handsome young Duc de Chartres. "Tête Dieu! but you look very pale! You were wounded I believe?"

"Or at Versailles," said a Chevalier of St. Louis. "He is thinking of little Mariette Gondalaurier."

"Say Paris at once, Messieurs," said the boyish roué, smiling. "I have beauties everywhere."

"The Scottish officer will drink with us—here, boy, assist our friend to wine," said Luxembourg to his page. "'Tis only Frontiniac, Monsieur; but an hour ago it was Dutch William's, and we drink it out of pure spite."

Walter drank the fragrant wine from a massively embossed cup, and his head swam as he imbibed it, and waited to hear for what desperate duty these noble peers designed him.

"Chevalier," said Luxembourg with his most bland smile, "it is pleasant to reward the brave. Aware that the repulse of the confederate cavalry on my right flank, and consequently the whole success of that glorious day at Steinkirke was mainly owing to the valour of the Scottish cavaliers animated by your example, King Louis sends you this." And taking from his own neck the sparkling cross of the recently created order of St. Louis, the Duke placed it around the neck of Walter Fenton, who bowed his thanks in silence.

"Go, Chevalier—you are a gallant soldier! The Scots were ever brave, and the friends of France. Wear that cross with honour to the Most Christian King, to your native country—"

"And to the most sublime Madame Maintenon," said the young Duke, and his gay companions laughed.

"Tête Dieu, Mareschal! dost think I fear her? Faith Madame, 'tis known, never gives a favour without a most usurious per centage. She is quite a Jewess in the intrigues of love and politics, ha! ha!"

"Attached to this cross, Chevalier, is a pension of four hundred livres yearly, which I doubt not will be acceptable in your present reduced circumstances."

"Oh, believe me, Monseigneur le Mareschal, and you most noble Dukes, it is indeed most acceptable; for with it I may in some sort alleviate the miseries of those gallant gentlemen, my comrades, who share your fortunes in the field."

"By St. Denis, you are a gallant fellow!" cried Luxembourg with kindling eyes, "Your generosity equals your courage. But this must not be. Messieurs your comrades must take the will for the deed. This night you must depart for the Court of St. Germain-en-laye, where King James requires your immediate attendance. My Secretary will supply you with money, and my Master of the Horse with a charger—adieu, Sir, and God be with you!"

That night he bade a sad adieu to his comrades, and, mounted on one of the Mareschal's horses, departed from Courtray.

His brave companions in glory and exile he saw no more. After all their services and their sufferings, their achievements and their chivalry, the few survivors of the war, sixteen in number, were, by a striking example of French ingratitude, disbanded at the peace of Ryswick, on the upper part of the Rhine, far from their native land—without money or any provision to save them from starvation and death. Of these sixteen only four survived to return to Scotland in extreme old age, when all fears of the Jacobites had passed away for ever.

Again the unclouded moon was shining over Steinkirke when Walter passed it, and vividly on his mind came back the fierce memories of that impetuous hour. The great plain was deserted, the full eared corn was waving heavily, and not a sound disturbed the silence of the moonlit scenery save the deep bay of a household dog or the croak of a passing stork.

Thickly on every hand lay the graves of the faithful dead. In some instances he saw great burial mounds; in others there was but one solitary grave secluded among the long grass and reeds, and his horse started instinctively as he passed them.

Fragments of clothing, accoutrements, and other relics, lay among the rank weeds by the side of the fields, under the green hedge-rows, in the wet ditches; and even fleshless bones, bare scalps, fingers and toes, protruded from the soil, imparting an aspect of horror to the moonlighted plain where the battle had been fought.

The abbatis still lay there, but the foliage of the trees that formed it had long since faded and decayed. A great tumulus, on which the young grass was sprouting, lay within it.

"Poor Finland!" muttered Walter, and with a moistened eye and heavy heart he plunged his horse into the Senne and swam to the opposite bank. The cottage where he had found shelter had now disappeared; its foundations, scorched and blackened by fire, alone marked the place where it stood. He thought of the poor Ursuline and her story, and sighed that he could learn nothing more of her fate; he sighed, too, at the memory of the beautiful Margaret Mackay, and felt the keenest remorse for having slain her father.

Of the recluse he never heard more; but the daughter of Mackay reached the camp of William in safety, and in after years became the wife of her kinsman and chief, George, third Lord Reay of Farre.

CHAPTER XVIII.

WALTER FENTON AND THE KING.

To daunton me, and me sae young,
And guid King James's auldest son!
Oh, that's the thing that never can be,
For the man is unborn that'll daunton me!
O set me once upon Scottish land,
With my guid braid-sword into my hand,
My bannet blue aboon my bree,
Then shew me the man that'll daunton me!
JACOBITE RELIQUES.

His confessor had just withdrawn, and King James was sitting in his closet involved in gloomy and distracting reverie—immersed in thoughts which even the mild exhortations of the priest had failed to soothe, and with his eyes intently fixed on the morning sun as it rose red and unclouded in the east, he gave way to the sadness that oppressed him.

Alternately he was a prey to a storm of revengeful and bitter political reflections, or to a gloomy fanaticism, which impaired the courage and lessened the magnanimity for which he had once been distinguished. On discovering that he was constantly conferring with the Jesuits upon abstruse theology, the ribald Louis spoke of him in terms of pity mingled with contempt. The French ridiculed, the Romans lampooned him, and, while the Sovereign Pontiff supplied him liberally with indulgences, the Archbishop of Rheims said ironically—"There is a pious man who hath sacrificed three crowns for a mass!"

And this was all the unfortunate and mistaken James had gained, by his steady and devoted adherence to a falling faith.

Bestowing a glance of undisguised hostility, not unmingled with contempt, at the follower of St. Ignatius Loyola as he withdrew, the Earl of Dunbarton, clad in his old uniform as a Scottish general, entered the apartment of the King. The green ribbon of St. Andrew was worn over his left shoulder, the star with its four silver points sparkled on his left breast, and around his neck hung the red ribbon of the Bath, and the magnificent collar of the Garter.

"Good morning, my Lord Dunbarton; you look as if you had something to communicate. Any news from Flanders? Is my dutiful son-in-law still playing at long bowles with Luxembourg? Has Sir Walter Fenton arrived?"

"Because, please your Majesty, it is all that is left to remind me of other days."

"Welcome, my brave and faithful soldier!" he exclaimed, as Walter was introduced by the gentlemen in waiting, and kneeled to kiss his hand. "Welcome from Flanders, that land of fighting and fertility. My poor Sir Walter, you look very pale and emaciated."

"I was wounded at Steinkirke, please your Majesty; and with those unfortunate gentlemen, my comrades, have undergone such hardships and humiliations as no imagination can conceive."

Walter's eyes suffused with tears; his voice and his heart trembled. He felt a gush of loyalty and ardour swelling within his breast, that would have enabled him cheerfully to lay his life at the feet of the King. The remark of a celebrated modern writer is indeed a true one. "Unfortunate and unwise as were the Stuart family, there must have been some charm about them, for they had instances of attachment and fidelity shewn them of which no other line of Kings could boast."

"You have indeed undergone sufferings which God only can reward," said the King, laying a hand kindly on his shoulder; "and your ill requited valour is a striking example of the falsehood and flattery of the Court of Versailles."

"When I consider our achievements," replied Walter, "my soul fires with pride and ardour; but when I think of the friends that have fallen, my heart dies away within me. To the last of my blood and breath I will serve your majesty; but, notwithstanding this gift of the Cross of St. Louis, I will follow the banner of the donor no more."

"Louis is a noble prince," said the Earl of Dunbarton, "and one who hath raised his realm to the greatest pitch of human grandeur."

"Oh, say not so, my Lord! When I remember the cruel persecution of his subjects after the Treaty of Nimguen, his repealing the edict of Nantes, his tyranny over the noblesse and the parliament, his unjust wars and usurpations, in which he pours forth so prodigally the blood and the treasures of his people; his blasphemous titles and lewd life; I can only remember with shame that I have served in his army, and from this hour renounce his service for ever. And were it not that this cross hung once on the breast of the gallant Luxembourg, I would hurl it into the Seine."

"The remembrance of your sufferings doubtless animates this unwise train of thought, Sir Walter," said the King, slightly piqued. "But permit me to remark, that to indulge your opinions thus in France, is to run your head into the lion's mouth. How goes the war in Flanders?"

"Still doubtfully, please your Majesty; but the recent arrival of the Duke of Leinster at Ostend, with fresh troops for William, may turn the fortune of the war against Henri of Luxembourg, and consequently please the people of England, who are not very favourably disposed towards this expensive and unnecessary war for the Dutch interests of the usurper."

"The best proof of this new sentiment, is the discontent of the Cameronians in the western districts of Scotland. What dost think, Sir Walter? They have engaged to muster 5000 horse and 20,000 infantry for my complete restoration, provided Louis will give them only one month's subsidy, beside other supplies, and these he hath solemnly promised me."

"From my soul I thank Heaven that again it is turning the hearts of your subjects towards you. If such is the spirit of the Cameronians, oh, what will be the energy and the ardour of the Cavaliers! But trust not in Louis; he has ruined every prince with whom he has been allied, in war or in politics, and assuredly he will shipwreck the interests of your Majesty, as he has done those of others."

"Still judging hardly of his most Christian Majesty," said James, smiling. "But I have the pledged words of better men. From the noble Drummonds', the gallant Keiths', the Hays', from the Lord Stormont and the Murrays', the gay Gordons and Grahames, I have received the most solemn promises of adherence and loyalty; and I know that the glorious clans of the northern shires will all rush to my standard the moment it is unfurled upon the Highland hills. Oh, yes!" continued the King, while his dark eyes flashed with joyous enthusiasm; "once again as in my father's days the war-cry of the Gael will ring from Lochness to Lochaber."

"But where is now Montrose, and where Dundee?" said Lord Dunbarton in a low voice.

"God will raise up other champions for those who have suffered so much in his service as the Princes of the House of Stuart," replied the King with Catholic fervour and confidence. "Meantime, Sir Walter, I would have you to set out for Scotland forthwith, to negotiate with those distinguished cavaliers, while the minds of my people are still inflamed by the memory of that fiend-like massacre at Glencoe, the defeat of Steinkirke, the slaughter of their soldiers, and all the disgusts incident to the Flemish campaign abroad and William's administration at home. My Lord Dunbarton avers that he will pledge his honour for the loyalty of his old regiment and the Scottish Guards, both horse and foot, for his Countess has questioned every man of them. You will not fail to visit Drummond of Hawthorndon; he comes of a leal and true race, and his house, with its deep caverns and secret outlets, is a noble place of rendezvous and security. You will be liberally supplied with money and letters of credit and compliment. You may promise, in my name, everything that seems requisite—titles, honours, pensions,—I will trust to your discretion, from what the Lord Dunbarton has told me of you. Flatter the vain, conciliate the stubborn, secure the wavering, and fire the loyal. Leave nothing undone, and remember that, perhaps on the success of your mission depend the fortune of the prince, my son, the ancient liberties of Scotland, the honour of her people, and the fate of her regal line."

The King ceased, and Walter was so overwhelmed by the magnitude of the diplomacy entrusted to him, and the joy at returning to Scotland, that he remained silent for some moments.

"Oh, with what a mission does your Majesty honour me!" he exclaimed, glowing with ambition, gratitude and joy. "How can I express my thanks for this great confidence reposed in one so poor, so friendless?"

"These are good qualities, Sir Walter, for a Jacobite agent; you may (being friendless and unknown) make your way through Scotland in safety, when a coroneted baron, or the chief of a powerful sept, would soon be discovered and committed to the Castle of Edinburgh or the Tower of London. Go, Sir Walter; Lord Dunbarton and my secretary will arrange the matters you require, and in addition to my holograph letters to the Lowland lords and Highland chiefs, will give you others to Mr. Brown, my English agent, and Father Innes, President of the Scots' College at Paris, who acts for me in Scotland. Go, Sir Walter, and prosper! If ever we meet again, let us hope it will be under very different circumstances. May God and his thrice-blessed mother keep their hands over you, and inspire you for the sake of my dear little son and the people over whom he is to rule! Farewell—I have in some sort rewarded your courage in the field, but if your talent in diplomacy equals it, I swear by the sceptre that my sires have borne for ages, you shall be Earl of Dalrulion in the north, and cock your beaver with the best peer in all broad Scotland. Farewell! may we meet again at the head of a loyal and faithful army, or part to meet no more!"

Again Walter Fenton kneeled, and after kissing the hand of James, was hurried away by the Earl of Dunbarton.

Furnished with a great number of letters addressed to the principal nobles and chiefs in Scotland, Walter artfully sewed them into the lining of his hat and the stiff buckram skirts of his coat, after which, without an hour's delay, he departed on his arduous and dangerous mission—to overturn the established governments of two kingdoms—to hurl down one dynasty and restore another.

Already he had gained a title which formerly he had possessed only in his day-dreams of success and glory; but now decorated by Louis with his new and famous military order, promised a peerage by his King, fired by loyalty, ardour, and love, he seemed to occupy a giddy eminence, from which he viewed distinctly a long and happy future.

It was a far-stretching and glorious vista of triumph and success; the restoration of the king by his means, and oh, far above all,—the exultation of placing a Countess's coronet on the bright tresses of Lilian Napier.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE RETURNED EXILE.

Then, Mary, turn awa'
That bonnie face o' thine;
Oh, dinna shew the breast
That never can be mine.

Wi' love's severest pangs
My heart is laden sair;
And owre my breast the grass maun grow,
Ere I am free from care.

In the gloaming of an evening in the autumn of 1693 a man left the western gate of Edinburgh, and, skirting the suburb of the Highriggs, struck into the roadway between the fields.

The sickly rays of a yellow sun shining faintly through the mist after throwing the shadows of the gigantic castle far to the eastward, had died away, and a deeper gloom succeeding, denoted the close of the day as the fall of the fluttering leaves did that of the dreary year.

The stranger was Walter Fenton; but how changed in aspect and attire! His form was thin and emaciated, his cheek pale, his eyes sunken from the pain of his wound and the toil of campaigning; but his step was as free, and his bearing erect as ever. His attire was of the plainest grey freize, with great horn buttons; a brown scratch wig and a plain beaver hat concealed the dark locks that curled beneath them; he carried a walking staff in lieu of a sword, and appeared to lean on it a little at times. He was now in the character of a Low Country merchant, and, favoured by a passport from the conservator of Scottish privileges at Campvere, had an hour before landed from the good ship Fame of Queensferry, at the ancient wooden pier of Leith.

Often he made brief pauses to view the desolate scene around him; for in that year a heavy curse seemed to have fallen upon the desolate kingdom of Scotland.

On an evening in the preceding summer, when everything was blooming and smiling—when the land was rich with verdure and the woods were heavy with foliage, a cold wind came from the eastward, and, accompanied by a dense and sulphureous mist, swept over the face of the country, blighting whatsoever was touched by its pestilential breath.

The fields seemed to whiten under its baleful influence; the ripening corn withered, and the land was struck with a barrenness. Dense, opaque, and palpable, like a chain of hills, this strange and horrid vapour lay floating in the valleys for many successive months, and there its effects were more disastrous. The heat of the sun seemed to diminish, the insects disappeared from the air and the birds from the withered woods, which, long ere the last month of summer, became divested of their faded foliage. The cattle became dwarfish and meagre, and the flocks perished by scores on the decaying heather of the blasted mountains. The people became sickly, ghastly, and prostrated in spirit; for a curse seemed to have fallen upon the land and all that was in it.

This terrible visitation continued until the year 1701, and the dear years were long remembered with horror in Scotland.

In some places, January and February became the months of harvest, and, amid ice and snow, and the sleet that drizzled through that everlasting and sulphureous mist, the half famished people reaped in grief and misery a small part of their scanty produce, while the other was left to rot in the ground. Famine, the lord of all, stalked grimly over the land, and strong men and wailing women, yea, and feeble children, fought like wild beasts for a handful of meal in the desolate market places.

"There was many a blank and pale face in Scotland," says Walker, the famous Presbyterian pedlar, "and as the famine waxed sore, wives thought not of their husbands, nor husbands of their wives," and the gloomy superstition and fanatical intolerance of the time added fresh horrors to this ghastly scourge.

The famine was not yet at its height; but there was a desolation in the aspect of the land that deeply impressed the mind of the returned exile, and he sighed in unison with the dreary wind as it swept over the blasted muir, shaking down the crisped leaves and acorns of stately old oaks of Drumsheugh. Save the solitary heron, wading as of old in the lake, not a bird was to be seen, not an insect buzzing about the leafless hedges. The air was dense and cold, and all was very still.

The country seemed to be wasting like a beautiful woman decaying in consumption. Walter felt that the manners of the people were changed; intense gravity and moroseness, real or affected, were visible in every face, while sad coloured garments, Geneva cloaks, and Dutch fashions were all the rage. Every trace of the smart mustache had disappeared, and with it the slashed doublets, the waving feathers and dashing airs of the gallant cavaliers.

Even the sentinels at the palace gates and the portes of the city, might have passed for those before the Town House or Rasp Haus at Amsterdam. The smart steel cap of the old Scottish infantry had now given place to a vast overshadowing beaver looped up on three sides, and the scarlet doublet slashed with blue, and the jacket of spotless buff, to square tailed and voluminous coats of brick-red, with yellow breeches and belts worn saltier-wise.

"The times were changed, old manners gone,
And a stranger filled the Stuarts' throne!"

Though confident of succeeding in his diplomacy with the loyal lords and chieftains of the Jacobite faction, he was well aware how arduous and difficult was the task to overthrow two Governments so well arranged, ably constituted and supported, as those of England and Scotland. It had long been the policy of William III. to conciliate domestic enemies, and, in pursuance of it, he had bestowed several lucrative offices on the leaders of the discontented and kirk-party. The Scottish Parliament, which had recently met, received from him an able and cunning letter, replete with flattering and cajoling expressions, which put all the Presbyterian Lords in such excellent humour, that they returned a most dutiful and affectionate address—granted him a supply of six new battalions of infantry, a body of seamen, and one hundred and fifty thousand pounds, to enable him to carry on his useless wars with new vigour; but though the Parliament was thus obsequious, the people were far from being pleased; and the Jacobites, numerous, enthusiastic, and determined, every where fanned the flames of discord and dissension.

The institution of fines and oaths of assurance upon absentees from Parliament, which had direct reference to certain Cavalier Lords and lesser Barons, exasperated them as much as the horrible massacre of Glencoe did the commonalty, who raised throughout the land a cry for vengeance on William and his Government.

Walter Fenton reflected on these things as he walked onward, and knew that he had come at a critical time. Other thoughts soon succeeded, and, grasping his staff as he had often done his sword, he pushed forward with a sparkling eye and reddening cheek.

Without impairing his nobler sentiments, suffering and misfortune had powerfully strengthened his loyalty and virtue, as much as campaigning had improved his bearing and lent a firmness and manly determination to his aspect; but often his brow saddened and the fire of his eye died away, when he thought of Finland and those he had been permitted to survive and to mourn.

Glowing with sensations of rapture, and eagerly anticipating the flush of joy that awaited him, he passed the rhinns of the beautiful loch, the curious gable-ended old house where once the Regent Murray dwelt, and approached the gate of Bruntisfield.

His heart beat painfully; he was deeply agitated. Five weary years had elapsed since he had stood on that spot, and it seemed only as yesterday. Through all the hurry of events that had swept over him, his memory went back to that memorable eve of September (of which this was now the anniversary) and to the glorious ardour that animated his heart on the day he marched for England, when the long line of the Scottish host wound over yonder hill before him. Oh, for one hour more of those fierce longings and brave impulses! But alas! the spirit seemed to have passed away for ever.

He approached the avenue. The old gate with its massive arch, its mossy carvings and loopholed wall, had given place to a handsome new erection of more modern architecture, surmounted by a rich coat of arms; and Walter felt every pulse grow still, and every fibre tremble as he surveyed the sculptured blazon.

It bore the saltire of Napier, engrailed between four roses, but quartered, collared, and coroneted with other bearings.

His heart became sick and palsied. Oh, it was a horrible sensation that came over him; he stood long irresolute and apprehensive.

"Of what am I afraid!" he suddenly exclaimed with the enthusiasm of a true and impassioned lover. "There is some mistake here; the house has been sold or gifted away like many another noble patrimony to the slaves of the Statholder. Lilian! Dear Lilian, when shall I hold thee in my arms?"

He was about to rush forward, when a horseman, the glittering lace on whose bright coloured suit of triple velvet, and waving ostrich feathers that fluttered in his diamond hat-band, formed a strong contrast to the sombre fashions of the time, dashed down the leaf-strewn avenue on a beautiful charger, with the perfumed ringlets of his white peruke dancing in the wind—for white perukes, from a spirit of opposition, were all the rage then, as black had been under the three last princes of the old hereditary line. It was Lord Clermistonlee.

"Hollo, fellow!" he cried imperiously, "keep out of my horse's way—dost want thy bones broken!" and giving a keen but casual glance at the dejected wanderer, he spurred onward to the city.

Suddenly he reined up so sharply as almost to pull his pawing steed back upon its strained and bending haunches.

"'Tis he!" exclaimed the proud lord, as he thought aloud. "By the great father of confusion 'tis he! How could I mistake, though truly, poor devil, these last five years have sadly changed him. But on what fool's errand comes he here? By all the furies, I knew his lachrymose visage in a moment, though the despatches of Dalrymple of Stair, to our Lords of Council, had in some sort prepared me for his return, and for what?—to organize a plot for James's restoration. Poor fool! Infatuated in love as in politics. He believes in the faith of women and the word of Kings; let us see how they will avail him tonight."

He smiled scornfully, and twisted the heavy dark mustachios which he still cherished with more than Mahommedan veneration. Alternately sad and bitter thoughts swelled within him as he remembered the joyous revelry of King Charles's days, and the tyranny he could then exercise over all nonconformists, and the hunting and hosting-dragooning and drinking of the Covenanting wars; then came feelings of jealousy and revenge that, as they blazed up in his proud breast, bore all before them.

"How dares he now to prowl before my own gates? Gadso! if my Lady Lilian sees him once, there will be a pretty disturbance. A shipload of devils will be nothing to it. The girl will die, and my own house will become too hot to hold me. D——nation! too well have I seen the secret passion that has preyed upon her gentle and affectionate heart—the grief—the deep consuming grief that all my magnificent presents and gentle blandishments have failed to soothe. A thousand curses on this upstart beggar, and a thousand more on the mother of mischief, who has raised him up again to cross my path! By what power hath he escaped war and woe, and storm and every danger again to thwart and come in the way of Clermistonlee, whose purposes were never yet foiled by man, or woman either? 'S death! the time has come when the cord of the doomster, or the axe of the maiden, must rid me for ever of this old source of dark forebodings and secret inquietude. Ho, for a guard and a warrant of Council, and then Sir Walter Fenton, Knight Banneret, the Jacobite spy, Chevalier of St. Louis, ex-private soldier, and soi-disant ensign to the Lord Dunbarton, may look to himself! Ha, ha!" and dashing spurs into his horse he galloped madly into the city.

CHAPTER XX.

THE BUBBLE BURST.

To linger when the sun of life,
    The beam that gilt its path is gone—
To feel the aching bosom's strife,
    When Hope is dead, but Love lives on.
                                                                    ANONYMOUS.

Meanwhile, without recognising Clermistonlee, and not aware that he had been recognized by him, poor Walter, who was of that temperament which is easily raised and depressed, turned away from the gate, crushed beneath the load of a thousand fears at the sight of so gay a cavalier caracoling down the avenue of Bruntisfield.

His heart was overcharged with melancholy reflections. "I have been away for five years—in all that time we have never heard of each other. Oh, what if she should have deemed me dead!"

Drawing his last shilling from his pocket, the unfortunate cavalier entered a poor change-house by the wayside, where a great signboard creaking on an iron rod and representing a portrait in a red coat and white wig, and having a tremendously hooked nose, imported that it was the 'King William's head,' kept by Lucky Elshender, who promised good entertainment for "man and beast."

The small clay-floored apartment, with its well-scrubbed bunkers, and rack of shining plates and tin trenchers, kirn-babies on the mantelpiece, and blazing ingle, where turf and wood burned cheerfully in a clumsy iron basket, supported by four massive legs, looked very snug and comfortable.

A personage evidently a divine, long visaged and dark featured, with his lanky sable hair falling on his Geneva bands and coat of rusty black, sat warming his spindle legs at the warm hearth, and smoking a long pipe, on the bowl of which he fixed his great lack lustre eyes with an expression of the deepest abstraction. It was the Reverend Mr. Ichabod Bummel, who came every evening as regularly as six o'clock struck, to smoke a pipe, and hear the passing news at the change-house kept by his aunt-in-law old Elsie, and to bore every traveller who was disposed to hear the abstruse theology and ponderous arguments advanced in his Bombshell, for that immortal work had been printed at last, in thick quarto, and a copy of it now lay under his elbow all ready for action against the first good-natured listener or fool-hardy disputant.

In person this redoubtable champion of toleration was as lean as ever, though the goods and chattels of this world had flowed amply upon him of late, notwithstanding the oppression and famine of the time. He had cautiously purchased various tofts and pendicles on the banks of the Powburn, and to these he gave hard and unusual scriptural names, which they bear unto this day, and which the curious may find by consulting the City Directory. One he named the Land of Canaan, another the Land of Goshen, the Land of Egypt, Hebron, and so forth, while the little runnel that traverses them was exalted into the waters of Jordan. Meinie, whom he had espoused, had "proved," as he said, "ane fruitful vine," for she had brought him four sons, all long-visaged, hollow-eyed, and sepulchral counterparts of himself, and he named them Shem, Ham, Japhet, and Ichabod.

On the opposite side of the ingle, and far back in a corner, a miserable-looking woman crouched on the stone bench for warmth. A tartan plaid was muffled about her shoulders, and half concealed her hollow cheeks and ghastly visage. She seemed a personification of the famine and misery that reigned so triumphantly in Scotland. Her eyes were full of unnatural lustre; they flashed like diamonds in the light of the fire, but had a scrutinizing and stern expression in them that startled Walter, and he felt uneasy in her vicinity.

"It's only puir Beatrix Gilruth, my winsome gentleman," said Elsie in a low voice; "she is a gomeral—a natural body that bides about the doors, Sir; just a puir, harmless, daft creature. She'll no harm you, Sir."

In the tumult of his mind Walter did not at first recognise either Elsie or Ichabod, but assuming an air of as much unconcern as he could muster, he called for a bicker of French wine, and took possession of a cutty stool which the slipshod Elsie placed for him hurriedly and officiously opposite the divine, who regarded him with a keen scrutinizing glance, to ascertain his probable station in life, his errand, and objects in coming hither. He saw that he was a traveller, and being on foot must be a poor one.

"Good e'en to your reverence, for I presume I have the honour of addressing a clergyman," said Walter, politely.

"Hum—humph!" answered Ichabod, with a short cough, nodding his head, and never once moving his eyes from Walter's face. Every man was then doubtful and suspicious of strangers (the Scots are so to the present hour), and consequently Ichabod was singularly dry and reserved. But Elsie drew near Walter, and looked at him attentively. The grief that preyed upon his heart had imparted a singularly prepossessing mildness to his features, and a winning cadence to the tone of his voice, but the stark preacher neither saw one nor felt the influence of the other.

"My service to you, Sir. Wilt taste my wine? 'tis right Gascony, and I should be a judge."

"Yea, having been in those parts where it was produced, probably," observed Ichabod, becoming more curious and communicative as he imbibed the lion's share of Walter's wine pot, and waited for an answer, but there was none given.

"Verily, Sir," began Mr. Bummel, "these are times to chill the souls and bodies of the afflicted. Thou seest how sore the famine waxeth in the land, especially in these our once fertile Lothians, which whilome were wont to be overflowing with milk and honey."

"Ay," chimed in Elsie, "but I've seen them in mair fearfu' times, when they were overflowing wi' blude and soldiers."

"'Tis for that red harvest, woman, that we are visited by this lamentable scourge; plagued even as Egypt was of old. In these three fertile shires of Lothian I have seen a woeful change since the last harvest, and my heart grows heavy when I think upon it; but I am about to arise and go forth from them for ever."

"Twa hunder pound Scots, a braw glebe, four bolls o' beir," replied Elsie, counting on her crooked and wrinkled fingers, "aucht chalders—"

"Peace, woman Elsie, for this enumeration of thine savours of a love for the things of this life."

"And a braw pulpit. O, but it's grand you'll be, Ichabod, when in full birr under your sounding board. But alake, Sir," she added, turning to Walter, "arena' these fearfu' times?'

"I was in the mealmarket this morning, and oh, Sirs, it was a sight to rend the heart of a nether millstane to see the hungry bairns and wailing mothers worrying about the half-filled pokes. God help them! the puir folk are deeing fast the west country we hear."

"'Tis a scourge on the land for its former sins," said the preacher in his most sepulchral tone; "but let us hope that the faith of its people will save it!"

"You'll hae come from some far awa' country I'm thinking, Sir?" said Elsie, inquisitively, for the extreme sadness of Walter interested her extremely.

"From Holland last. I am a merchant, and deal in broadcloths and cart saddles. From Holland last," he repeated, for their inquisitiveness made him uneasy.

"A blessed land, good youth," said Mr. Bummel. "I sojourned there long when there was a flaming sword over the children of righteousness."

"Reverend sir, canst tell me what are the news among you here?" asked Walter, who was in an agony of mind to lead the conversation to what lay nearest his heart.

"Verily, Sir, nought but the famine—the famine. The west winds hath detained the Flanders mail these two months, and we have heard nothing from London these many weeks, save anent plots of the Jacobites and Papists, of whilk we have ever enough and to spare."

"'Tis said that one Walter Fenton, formerly an officer in the regiment of Dunbarton (that bloody oppressor of Israel) is now tarrying among us, plotting in James's cause, or on some such errand of hell."

"The rascal," said Walter, drinking to conceal the confusion that overspread his face.

"Yea," continued Ichabod, puffing vigorously, and luckily involving himself in a cloud of smoke. "This morning the heralds, in their vain-glorious trumpery, were proclaiming at the Cross the reward of a thousand merks to any that will bring his head to the Privy Council; and the Lord Clermistonlee, from the good will and affection he bears his Majesty, offers five hundred more?"

"Indubitably. The ports are closed, the guards on the alert; the messengers-at-arms, macers, and halberdiers are all in full chase. He must perish, and so may all who would restore the abominations of idolatry! Here in my Bombshell (a work whilk I have lately imprinted with mickle care and toil), if I do not prove, from the epistles to the Thessalonians, that the great master of popery, the Bishop of Rome, is the grand Antichrist therein referred to, I will be well content to kiss the bloody maiden that stands under the shadow of the Tolbooth gable."

"Hear till him!" cried the delighted Elsie. "Hear till him! O wow, but my Meinie's man is a grand minister—he rides on the rigging of the kirk!"

"I am a stranger here," said Walter, no longer able to repress the torture of his mind; "I know nothing of the vile plot you speak of, having been long in the industrious Low Countries—and—and—cans't tell me, your Reverence, whose mansion is approached by yonder stately avenue of oaks and sycamores?"

"Aich ay," added Elsie, shaking her head mournfully; "but a house o' wrongs now."

"It is a lang story, honoured Sir," replied Elsie, drawing her stool nearer Walter, and knitting very fast to hide her emotion. "The auld line o' the Napiers ended in a lassie, as bonnie a doo as the Lowdens three could boast o', and mony came frae baith far and near to the wooing and winning o' her; but nane cam speed save a neer-do-weel-loon o' a cavalier officer, to whom she plighted heart and troth—and the plighting pledge was a deid woman's ring. As might be expected, the hellicate cavalier gaed awa' to the wars and plundering in the Lowlands of Holland, and sair my young lady sorrowed for him; I ken that weel, for I was her nurse, and mony a lang hour she grat in my arms for her love that was far awa'. At last word came frae Low Germanie that the fause villain had married some unco' papistical woman, and, in a mad fit o' black despair, my lady accepted the most determined, if no the best o' her suitors——"

"Who?" asked Walter in an unearthly voice, and feeling for the sword he wore no longer. "Who?"

"Randal Lord Clermistonlee, and ehow! but sair hath been the change in our gude auld barony since then. Her braw lands and farmsteadings, her auld patrimony, baith haugh and holme, loch and lea, brae and burn, are a' melting and fleeing awa' by the wasterfu' extravagance o' the wildest loon in a' braid Scotland. Hawks and hounds, revellers and roisterers, and ill-women, thrang the great ha' house frae een to morn and morn till eenin'; and sae, between the freaks and follies, the pride and caprice o' her lord, my puir doo Lilian leads the life o' a blessed martyr. When mad wi' wine and ill luck at the dice tables, he rampages ower her like a Bull o' Bashan; while, at other times, he just doats on her as a faither would on a favourite bairn. But, alake! doating can never remove the misery that has closed over her for the short time she'll likely be amang us—for her heart is breaking fast—it is—it is!"

"Her marriage day was ane o' the darkest dool to a' the barony, for on that miserable day our auld lady died; and a' the leal servitors were soon after expelled to mak' room for the broken horse-coupers, ill-women and vagabonds, that were ever and aye in the train o' the new lord."

While Elsie ran on thus, Walter heard her not. His mind was a perfect chaos of distraction.

Oh, what a shock were these tidings to one whose head was so full of romance and enthusiasm, and whose heart was brimming with sensibility and love!

He felt an utter prostration of every faculty, and a deadly coldness seemed to pass over the pulses of his heart. He arose, and laying on the table the last coin he possessed in the world, hurried forth without waiting for change, and, bent on some desperate deed, blind and reckless, with anger, agony and despair in his soul, he entered the dark shadowy avenue, and approached the old castellated mansion—the place of so many tender memories.

CHAPTER XXI.

LOVE AND MARRIAGE ARE TWO.

Oh, these were only marks of joy, forsooth,
For his return in safety! Were they so?
And so ye may believe, and so my words
May fall unheeded! Be it so; what comes
Will nevertheless come.
AGAMEMNON OF ÆSCHYLUS.

The shadows of the gloomy evening had deepened as he approached the ancient Place of Bruntisfield, and its dark façade, its heavy projecting turrets and barred casements, impressed him with additional sadness.

The wind sighed down the lonely avenue, and whirled the fallen leaves as it passed. Many a raven flapped its wings and screamed discordantly above his head, and all such sounds had a powerful effect on him at the time.

Confused, despairing, and feeling a sentiment of profound contempt and anger, struggling for mastery with his old and passionate love, his heart seemed about to rend with its conflicting emotions.

One sensation was ever present—it was one of desolation and loneliness—that he had nothing more to live for; that the world was all a blank. The light that had long led him on through so many miseries and dangers had vanished from his view: his idol was shattered for ever.

He felt that it was impossible to think with calmness; to tear from his breast the dear image and the cherished hopes he had fostered there so long—to exchange admiration for contempt—love for indifference. Oh, no! it could never be. Ages seemed to have elapsed since the sun had set that evening; while his parting with Lilian, the triumph of Killycrankie, the carnage of Steinkirke, and his mission from the King, seemed all the events of yesterday.

Irresistibly impelled to see her, heedless alike of the dangerous charm of her presence and the risk he ran if discovered, his whole soul was bent upon an interview, that he might upbraid her with her perfidy—hurl upon her a mountain of reprobation and bitterness, of obloquy and scorn, and then leave her presence for ever.

"I am alone in the world," thought he. "This is my native land—the land where I had garnered up my heart, my hopes, and my wishes, though not one foot of it is mine save the sod that must cover me. Of all the tens of thousands that tread its soil, there is not one now with whom I can claim kindred, who would welcome me in coming, or bless me in departing—not one to shed a tear on the grave where I shall lie. Oh! it is very sad to feel one's self so desolate. Where now are all those brave companions with whom I was once so daring, so joyous, and so gay? Alas! on a hundred fields their bones lie scattered, and I alone survive to mourn the glory of the days that are gone for ever! Oh, never more shall the drum beat or trumpet sound for me! Oh, never more shall love or glory fire my heart again! Oh, never more, for the hour is passed and never can return"—and he almost wept, so intensely bitter were his thoughts of sorrow and regret.

The barbican gate stood ajar, and the old and well remembered doorway at the foot of the tower was also open; they seemed to invite his entrance, and, careless of the consequences, he went mechanically forward.

The old portrait on horseback, the trophy of arms, and the wooden Flemish clock with its monotonous tick-tack, still occupied the vaulted lobby. Every thing seemed as he had seen them last. He turned to the left and entered the chamber-of-dais, breathless and trembling, for he seemed instinctively to know that she was there.

He entered softly, and, overpowered by the violence of his conflicting emotions, stood rooted to the spot. The old chamber, with its massive pannelling and rich decorations of the Scoto-French school was partially lighted by the ruddy glow from the great fire-place, and by the last deep red flush of the departed sun that streamed through its grated windows.

The dark furniture, the grotesque cabinets with their twisted columns, the stark chairs with their knobby backs and worsted bobs, the grim full-length of Sir Archibald Napier, cap-a-pie à la cuirassier, the dormant beam with its load of lances, swords, and daggers, were all as Walter had last seen them; but the old lady's well-cushioned chair, her long walking-cane and ivory virreled spinning-wheel had long since disappeared; and hawk's-hoods, hunting horns, spurs, whips, and stray tobacco pipes lay in various places, while in lieu of Lady Grisel's sleek and pampered tom cat, a great wiry, red-eyed, sleuth hound slept on the warm hearth-rug. On all this Walter bestowed not a glance, for his eyes and his soul became immediately rivetted on the figure of Lilian.

With her head leaning on her hand she sat within the deep recess of a western window, and the faint light of the setting sun lit up her features and edged her ringlets with gold. She was absorbed in deep thought.

Lilian, who for days, and months, and years, in health and in sickness, in danger and in safety, in sorrow and in joy, had never for a moment been absent from his thoughts, was now before him, and yet he had not one word of greeting to bestow. He seemed to be in a trance—to be oppressed by some horrible dream.

He observed her anxiously and narrowly. Nothing could be more tender than the love that was expressed in his eyes, and nothing more acute than the agony expressed by his contracted features.

Lapse of years, change of circumstances and of thought had considerably altered the appearance of Lilian. The light-hearted, slender, and joyous girl had expanded into a stately, grave, and melancholy matron. Oh, what a change those five sad years had wrought! Her dress was magnificent, as became the wife of a Scottish noble; her figure, though still slight, was fuller and rounder than of old; her face, though still dignified and beautiful, was paler—even sickly. Her blue eyes seemed to have lost much of their former brilliancy, and to have gained only in softness of expression. Her dark lashes were cast down, and her aspect was sad and touching. The bloom of her lip and her cheek had faded away together, for heavily on her affectionate heart had the hand of suffering weighed.

She wept, and the heart of Walter was melted within him. Had all the universe been his he would have given it to have embraced her. He sighed bitterly, but dared not to approach.

"He is gone," said Lilian,—"gone to spend another night in riot and debauchery, while I am left ever alone. Perhaps 'tis well, for often his presence is intolerable. Woe is me! Oh, how different was the future I once pictured to my imagination!"

The sound of that dear voice, which had so often come to him through his dreams in many a far and foreign camp and city, made Walter tremble. He was deeply moved. The fire in the arched chimney, which had been smouldering, now suddenly shot up into a broad and ruddy blaze that lighted the whole chamber. Lilian turned her head, and instantly grew pale as death, for full on the image of him who occupied her thoughts—of Walter Fenton, hollow eyed, emaciated, and supported on a walking-staff—fell the bright stream of that fitful light. He looked so unearthly, so motionless and spectral, that Lilian's blood ran cold.

She would have screamed, but the cry died away upon her lips. After a moment or two her spirit rallied; her respiration, though hurried, became more free; her face blushed scarlet up to the very temples, and then became ashy pale, as before, and her glazed eyes resumed their wild and inquiring expression. She arose, but neither advanced nor spoke. All power seemed to have left her.

"Oh, Lilian! Lilian!" said the poor wanderer in a voice of great pathos; "after the lapse of five long years of exile and suffering, what a meeting is this for us! Under what a course of perils have the hope of my return and your truth not sustained me? My God! that I should find you thus. Is this the welcome I expected?"

Summoning all her courage and that self-possession which women have in so great a degree, Lilian (though her eyes were full of tears) averted her face, and recalled the fatal letter of Finland, on which had turned the whole of her future fate.

"Look at me, adorable Lilian!" said Walter, kneeling and stretching his arms towards her.

"Look at me, beloved one," said Walter wildly and passionately. "Changed though I am, and though another holds your heart, you cannot have forgotten me, or learned to view me with aversion and contempt. If this Lord has won your affection—"

"Oh, horror! what misery can equal such an avowal? My fatal absence has undone us both."

"Oh, yes, yes; upbraid me not," said Lilian in a piercing voice. "I was faithful and true until you forsook me for another. To God I appeal," she cried, raising her clasped hands and weeping eyes to Heaven, "kneeling I appeal if ever in word, or thought, or hope I swerved in truth from thee, dear Walter, until tidings of your marriage reached me; when, stung by jealousy, by pride, by disappointment and despair, and urged by the unmerited contumely that had fallen upon me, I yielded to the exhortations of my friends, and in an evil hour——." She covered her face with her hands, and could say no more.

"Heaven preserve my senses!" ejaculated Walter Fenton, "for here the wiles of Hell have been at work. We have been deceived, cruelly deceived, dear Lilian, by some deep-laid plot of villany which this right hand shall yet unravel and revenge. And you are the wife of Clermistonlee? Hear me, unfortunate! You are less than—ah, how shall I say it? You are not and cannot be his wife!"

"You rave, poor Walter. Our doom is irrevocably sealed. Our paths in life must be for ever separate. Oh, for the love of gentle mercy begone, and let us meet no more, for at this moment I feel my brain whirling, and I am trembling on the very verge of madness."

"Cruel, cruel; do not speak of it," said she, wringing her hands. "For Heaven's sake leave me, and take back the pledge—the ring, for to retain it longer were a sin, and too long have I sinned in treasuring it as I have done."

Unlocking a cabinet, she drew from a secret drawer a ring to which a ribbon was attached, and offered it to Walter; but he never approached.

"We have been cruelly duped, dear Lilian; but oh, how could you doubt me, for never did I mistrust you? But hear me, though my words should crush your heart as mine just now is crushed. Alison Gifford, the first wife of Lord Clermistonlee yet lives, though (as she told me) dead to him and to the world for ever!"

In a few words her unhappy lover explained how he had become acquainted with the existence of Lady Clermistonlee.

"Oh, this is indeed to bruise the bruised—to heap brands upon a burning heart," said Lilian, as she sank into a chair and covered her face with her hands. A long pause ensued, till Walter said in a low and trembling voice,

"Love him!—oh, no! custom has in part overcome the aversion with which I once regarded him, and by his able flattery he has succeeded in soothing me into a temper of kind indifference and quiet resignation—but oh, this interview——"

Walter, who had never dared to diminish the distance between them, gazed wistfully and tenderly upon her; but at that moment an infant that was sleeping in its cradle awoke, and cried aloud. Its voice seemed to sting him to the heart, and he turned abruptly to withdraw.

"Farewell, Lilian," said he; "I will go, and my presence shall disturb your serenity no more. May you be happy, and may God bless and forgive you for the agony I now endure! Clermistonlee, like the matchless villain he has been through life, has wronged us both; but let him tremble in the midst of his success and his treason, for the hour is coming when our King shall enjoy his own again, and remember that in that hour the same hand which rends the baron's coronet from the brow of your betrayer, bestows on me the Earldom of Dalrulion! Farewell," said he through his clenched teeth; "to me the paths of ambition and revenge are open still, though those of happiness and love are closed, alas, for ever!" He gave her one long glance of agony, and turned to depart; but at that moment strong hands were laid upon him violently—the room was filled with soldiers and the beagles of justice; he was dragged down and bound with cords, ere he could make the slightest effort in his own defence.

"An out-and-out Jacobite, Papist, and a' the rest o' it—I ken by the look o' him!" cried Maclutchy, the macer, flourishing his badge of office. "Here will be some grand plots brought to light that will bring half the country under doom o' forfeiture and fine. Kittle times, lads, kittle times!'

"Away with him!" cried Clermistonlee, spurning the manacled unfortunate with his foot; "away with him! The Lords of the Privy Council meet in an hour. Lose no time, for by all the devils, the corbies of the Burghmuir shall pick his bones ere the morrow's sun be set."

As Walter was roughly dragged away, Lilian threw her hands above her head, uttered one wild shriek, and fell forward on her face, motionless as if dead.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE RING AND THE SECRET.

See the cypress wreath of saddest hue,
The twining destiny threading through;
And the serpent coil is twisting there—
While regardless of the victim's prayer,
The fiend laughs out o'er the mischief done,
And the canker-worm makes the heart his throne.
THE PROPHECY.

It was a bleak and cold night. The Lords of the Privy Council, muffled up in their well-furred rocquelaures, with their hats flapped over their periwigs, ascended from the subterranean vaults under the Parliament House where they held their dreaded conclaves, and hurried away to their residences in the various deep and steep wynds of the ancient city. Mersington, who, overcome by sleep and wine, had remained at the table until roused by Macer Maclutchy, was the last to come forth, and he stood rubbing his eyes in the Parliament Square, and watching the black gigantic statue of King Charles with steady gravity, for he could have sworn at that moment that it seemed to be trotting hard towards him. His rallying faculties were scattered again by a stranger violently jostling him.

"Haud ye dyvour loon!" exclaimed the incensed Senator; "I am the Lord Mersington."

"And what art doing here, pumpkinhead?" asked Clermistonlee, who was quite breathless by having rushed up the Back Stairs, as those flights of steps which ascended from the Cowgate to the Parliament Square were named. "Are the proceedings over? Hath the villain confessed? Is he to die?"

"Driveller!" cried Clermistonlee in a towering passion; "'tis like thee; your head is as empty as my purse——"

"Hee, hee, ye seem a bonnie temper to-night. But what detained you frae the board, when ye knew you were principal witness?"

"The sudden indisposition of Lady Clermistonlee made it impossible for me to leave Bruntisfield—but I have this moment galloped in from The Place."

"His hatred of the present government, and his weariness o' this life. He spoke unco dreich and sadly, puir callant,—and sae I fell fast asleep and dozed like a top."

"And did not that goosecap, the King's Advocate, give him a twinge or two of the torture?"

"We brought some braw things to light without the help o' rack or screw. The tails o' his coat were as fu' o' treason as an egg's fu' o' meat. There were five and twenty autograph letters frae the bluidy and papistical Duke James——"

"Stuff! But lately he was styled His most Sacred Majesty, by the grace of God, and so forth."

"I speak as we wrote it in the council minutes. Five and twenty letters to the cut-throat Hieland chiefs, to the Murrays of Stormont, the Drummonds and others, some slee tod lowries we have long had our een on. But maist of a' was a notable plot of that d——ned jaud Madame Maintenon to assassinate King William."

"From a paper found, it appears that a certain Monsieur Dumont is now disguised as a soldier in our confederate army in Flanders, watching an opportunity to shoot the King and escape."

"By St. George, I hope the aforesaid Monsieur Dumont is a good shot—a regular candle-snuffer!"

"Our culprit, Fenton, knew not of Maintenon's plot, or of her papers being among those on his person. He looked black dumbfoundered when Maclutchy drew them frae a neuk in his coat tail."

"To one Widow Douglas, whilk the King's advocate avers to be no other than the Lady Dunbarton. Fenton grew red with anger on their being read, and smote his forehead, saying, 'Dupe that I have been! the noble Duc de Chartres warned me to beware of De Maintenon; but let it pass:' and here, as I said, I fell fast asleep, until a minute ago. But come, let us have a pint of sack; I am clean brainbraised wi' drouth, and I warrant Lucky Dreep, in the Kirk-o'-field Wynd, keeps open door yet."

"And he dies?" said Clermistonlee, who could think of nothing but glutting his revenge.

"I would rather it had been by the cord. How came our considerate councillors to shoot instead of hang him?"

"Soldiers, ye ken, are often soft-hearted when other men are in stern mood; so auld General Livingstone, after pleading hard for Fenton's life, and failing, procured what he called an honourable commutation of the sentence, for which the puir gomeral cavalier thanked him as if it had been a reprieve."

"Cord or bullet it matters not. So perish all who would cross the purposes of Randal of Clermistonlee."

His Lordship for once resisted the importunities of his friend, and instead of adjourning to a tavern, rode slowly and reluctantly back to his own house. He felt a strange and unaccountable presentiment of impending evil, for which he could not account, but endeavoured to throw it from him. The effort was vain.

He felt himself a villain. A load of long accumulated wickedness oppressed his proud heart; it was not without its better traits, and writhed as he reflected on some events in his past life.

"Alison! Alison!" he exclaimed, turning his dark eyes upwards to the star-studded firmament, "now thy curse is coming heavily upon me."

His principal dread was the death of Lilian, for he had learned to love her with tolerable sincerity, but he knew not the secret which Walter had revealed to her, and the consequent intensity of her horror, aversion, shame, and anger. He knew not the tempest it had raised in her sensitive breast against him.

When he entered the chamber-of-dais she was seated near a tall silver lamp. The glare of the untrimmed light fell full upon her face, and its ghastly and altered expression struck a mortal chillness on the heart of her husband. He said not a word, but walking straight to a beauffet filled a large silver cup several times with wine, and always drained it to the bottom. The liquor mounted rapidly to his brain; he threw himself into a chair opposite Lilian, and heedless of the perfect scorn that quivered in her beautiful nostrils, and sparkled in her brilliant eyes, began leisurely to unbutton his riding gambadoes of red stamped maroquin, whistling a merry hunting tune while he did so.

It was easier for him to requite scorn with scorn than give tenderness for love.

"Confusion on the buttons!" he exclaimed. "Juden! Juden! Tush, I forgot; poor Juden hath been with the devil these three years. There is none now of all my rascally household who will share with me the morrow's glut of vengeance as thou wouldst have done, my faithful Juden."

Lilian wrung her attenuated hands; Clermistonlee regarded her sternly, and then bursting into a loud laugh, as he threw away his boots and spurs, chanted a verse from the old black-letter ballad of Gilderoy:—

"Beneath the left ear so fit for a cord,
A rope so charming a zone is;
Thy youth in his cart hath air of a Lord,
And we cry—there dies an Adonis!"

"Infamous and wicked!" exclaimed Lilian, feeling all her old love revived with double ardour, and no longer able to restrain her sentiments of grief and indignation. "Walter, dear and beloved Walter, how cruelly have I been deceived!" and drawing from her bosom the ring—his mother's ring, the pledge of his betrothal, she pressed it to her lips with fervour.

The brow of the proud Clermistonlee grew black as thunder, and he grasped her slender arm with the tenacity of a falcon.

"Surrender this bauble, that I may commit it to the flames. Surrender it, madam, lest I dash thee to the earth, for at this moment I feel, by all the devils, my brain spinning like a jenny."

"Give him the ring, Lady Lilian; give it, for the sight of it will arrest his vision even as the letters of fire arrested the eyes of Belshazzar and smote him with dismay. Sweet lady, let him look upon it," said the voice of a woman.

They turned, and beheld the pale, emaciated, and haggard visage of Beatrix Gilruth, half shaded by a tattered tartan plaid. Taking advantage of Lilian's momentary surprise, her husband snatched the ring from her, and was about to hurl it into the fire, when, incited by the woman's words, and impelled by some mysterious and irresistible curiosity, he looked upon it, and the effect of his single glance acted like magic upon him. He quitted his clutch of Lilian's arm, trembled, grew pale, and turning the ring again and again, surveyed it with intense curiosity.

"How came he to have this ring?" he muttered; "what strange mystery is here? If it should be so—— O, impossible!"

He pressed a spring that must have been known only to himself, for Lilian had never discovered it in all the myriad times she had surveyed it, and Walter himself was ignorant of the secret when he bestowed the trinket upon her. The lapse of years had stiffened the spring; but after a moment's pressure from the finger of Clermistonlee, a little shield of gold unclosed, revealing a minute and beautiful little miniature of himself, which in earlier days had been one of the happiest efforts of the young Medina's pencil.

"'Twas my bridal gift to Alison," he exclaimed in a voice of confusion and remorse. "Oh, Alison, Alison! many have I loved but never one like thee. Never again did my heart feel the same ardour that fired it when I placed this ring on your adorable hand. Unfortunate Alison!"

"This ring was tied by a ribbon around the neck of Walter Fenton, when a little child he was found by the side of his dead mother in the Greyfriars churchyard," said Lilian in a breathless voice.

"Confusion and misery! 'tis impossible this can be true; there is some diabolical mistake here. Woman, say forth."

"Walter's mother, sweet lady, gave that ring to Elspat Fenton, who, next to myself, was the most trusted of her attendants, and bade her travel from Paris to Scotland, and deliver the child and the bridal gift together to her husband—to Randal of Clermistonlee."

Lilian covered her face, and the fiery lord, whose first emotions were generally those of anger, surveyed Beatrix as if she had been a coiled up snake. She spoke slowly, and made long pauses, for aware that her words were as daggers, she dealt them sparingly.

"After long suffering and great peril by sea and land, this poor woman reached Edinburgh, but failed to meet the father of the infant committed to her care; for then he was in arms with the men of the Covenant, hoping by any civil broil or commotion to repair the splendid patrimony his excesses had dissipated. Elspat, being unable to give a very coherent account of herself, was declared a nonconformist by the authorities, and thrown with thousands of others into the Greyfriars kirkyard, where in that inclement season she perished; but the child was found and protected by the soldiers of Dunbarton. That child is Walter Fenton; he is your son, Lord Clermistonlee! the child of your once loved Alison Gilford. I call upon Heaven to witness the truth of my assertion! His own name was Walter, (ah! can you have forgotten that?) his nurse's Fenton. I saw her die, and I alone knew the secret, and have treasured it till this hour—this hour of vengeance upon thee, thou false and wicked lord! In my wicked spirit of revenge too long have I kept the secret; but now this blameless and noble youth is doomed to death, and fain would I save him, for he is innocent, and good, and generous; in all things, oh, how much the reverse of thee!"

"Maniac, thou liest!" exclaimed Clermistonlee, whose heart beat wildly. "I cannot believe this tale of a tub, which is told to affright me. And yet, how dare I reject it?—the ring—Walter—my God!"

"Ha! has Beatrix the wronged, the scorned, the despised, the neglected Beatrix, wrung your heart at last? Fool! fool! Did'st thou never suspect the volcano that slumbered here?" she exclaimed, laying her hand upon her heart. "Did'st thou never perceive the flame that smouldered in my breast—the yearnings, the throbbings, the fierce longing to be adequately revenged on thee who had brought me to ruin and madness, and had abandoned me to penury and privation? Wretch! 'tis twenty-five years since ye betrayed me. Time has rolled on—time, that soothes all sorrows and softens every affliction, and teaches us to forget the wrongs of the living—yea, and the virtues of the dead; and perhaps to wonder why we hated one and loved the other,—time, I say, has rolled on to many miserable years, until I have become the hideous thing I am, but it never lessened one tithe of my longing for vengeance for the thousand taunts and contumelies that succeeded my first sacrifice for thee. You say I am mad—perhaps I am—but mark me—a woman's sorrow passes like a summer cloudy but her vengeance endureth for ever!"

"My God—unhappy Walter!" said Lilian in a voice that pierced the heart of him she abhorred to deem her husband. "Then she who saved and nursed thee on the field of Steinkirke was thy mother—thy mother, and she knew it not? Oh, this was the secret sentiment, the heaven-born thought that spoke within her and made her heart so mysteriously yearn towards thee. Unfortunate Walter! how deeply have we been wronged—how bitterly must we suffer!"

"And till now, thou accursed fiend, this terrible secret has been concealed from me!" said Clermistonlee furiously, as he half drew his sword.

"Oh, horror upon horror! woe upon woe!" said Lilian in a voice of the deepest anguish as she rung her hands, and, taking up her little infant from the cradle, kissed it tenderly on the forehead, and retired slowly from the room.

"To solitude—to solitude," she murmured. "Any where to save me from my own terrible thoughts—anywhere to hide me from the deep disgrace you have brought upon me; to any place where never again the light of day shall find me."

Clermistonlee heard her light steps on the staircase, and they fell like a knell on his heart: impelled by some secret and mysterious impulse, he followed her to her own apartment, the door of which he had heard close behind her. There was no sound within it.

He entered softly; but she was not there; and from that moment she was never beheld again! Every ultimate search proved fruitless and unavailing. A veil of impenetrable mystery hung over her fate.......

A sudden thought flashed on the mind of Clermistonlee. The day dawn was breaking as he descended the staircase, after fruitlessly calling on Lilian through various apartments.

"I may, I must save him yet—unfortunate youth, a father's arms shall yet embrace him. Oh, my hapless and deeply wronged Alison! fortune may yet enable me in some sort to repair the atrocities of which I have been guilty. My horse! my horse!" and, rushing to the stable, he saddled and bridled a fleet steed, and in five minutes was galloping furiously back to the city, the walls and towers of which arose before him, red and sombre in the rays of the morning sun.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE IRON ROOM—THE DEATH SHOT.

Ay, I had planned full many a sanguine scheme
Of earthly happiness—romantic schemes,
And fraught with loveliness:—and it is hard
To feel the hand of death arrest one's steps,
Throw a chill blight o'er all one's budding prospects,
And hurl one's soul untimely to the shades,
Lost in the gaping gulph of blank oblivion.
HENRY KIRKE WHITE.

The Iron Room of the ancient Tolbooth of Edinburgh was a dreary vault of massive stone-work, and was named so in consequence of its strength and security. A low heavy arch roofed it, and the walls from which it sprung were composed of great blocks of roughly hewn stone elaborately built. Here and there a chain hung from them. The floor was paved, and the door was a complicated mass of iron bars, locks, bolts, and hinges. A single aperture, high up in the wall, admitted the cold midnight wind through its deep recess.

An iron cruise burned on a clumsy wooden table, near which sat Walter Fenton the condemned, with his face covered by his hands and his mind buried in sad and melancholy thoughts.

One bright and solitary star shone down upon him through the grated window, flashing, dilating, and shrinking; often he gazed upon it wistfully—for it was his only companion—the partner or the witness of his solitude and his sorrow. Once he turned to look upon it—but it had passed away.

Sad, bitter, and solitary reflection—for a few hours was all that was left him now: and, though the sands of life were ebbing fast, one absorbing thought occupied his mind—that Lilian was false and his rival triumphant; that all his long cherished schemes and dreams of love and happiness, glory and ambition, were frustrated and blasted irredeemably and for ever.

The infliction of punishment immediately after trial was anciently practised in all criminal cases, and the victim was usually led from the presence of the judge to the scaffold.

Walter had been doomed to death as a traitor, a raiser of sedition, and a deserter from the Scottish forces: the last accusation, in support of which his signed oath of fealty to the Estates of Scotland, had been produced in council by General Sir Thomas Livingstone, commander-in-chief of the army, saved him the dishonour of dying on the gibbet.

The door of the Iron Room was opened stealthily, and the heavy bolts and swinging chains were again rattling into their places, when Walter slowly raised his head. His eye had become haggard, and his face was overspread with a deathly pallor. The tall spare form of the Reverend Mr. Ichabod Bummel stood before him, clad in his ample black coat with its enormous cuffs and pocket-flaps, his deep waistcoat, and voluminous grey breeches. He removed his broad hat, and smoothed down the long lank hair which was parted in a seam over the top of his cranium, and fell straight upon each shoulder. He did not advance, but continued to press his hat upon his breast with both hands, to turn up his eyes and groan mournfully.

"Poor youth!" he began, after two or three hems; "poor youth! now truly thou lookest like an owl in the desert, yea, verily, even as one overtaken in the Slough of Despond. Now thou seest how atrocious is the crime of rebellion, and how bitter its meed. Now thou seest how wicked is the attempt to overturn our pure and blessed Kirk as by law established, and to substitute anarchy and confusion for peace and brotherly love, and to involve the innocent with the guilty in one common destruction. Ewhow! O guilty madness—O miserable infatuation, that for the phanton of kingly and hereditary right, would ruthlessly hurl back the land into the dark abyss of Popery, restore the abomination of the mass, and substitute the vile and tyrannical James for that beloved prince of our own persuasion, now seated on Britain's triple throne, if not by that imaginary hereditary right, at least by the laws of the land, and the voice of those that are above it—yea, mark me, youth, above it—the ministers of the Gospel. The pious and glorious William hath been our Saviour from the devilish practices of Popery, and the machinations of all those spurious children of Luther and of Calvin, the Seekers, the Libertines and Independents, Brownists, Separatists and Familists, Antitrinitarians, Arians, Socinians, Anti-Scripturists, Anabaptists, Antinomians, Arminians, and a myriad other teachers of heresy and preachers of schism—whilk, my brethren—my brother, I mean—may Beelzebub confound! Oh, youth, how wicked and ungracious it is in thee to reject the stately Fig-tree with its sweetness and good fruit, and raise up the ancient thorn and prickly bramble to reign over us!"

"My good sir," replied Walter, "it is but a poor specimen of Presbyterian charity this, to come hither to a dismal vault, to heap contumely on the head of the fallen, to humble one who is already humbled—to bruise the bruised. Good sir, is it kind or charitable to rail at and exult over me in this my great distress?"

At this unexpected accusation, tears started into the eyes of Ichabod Bummel, who was really a good man at heart, though his virtues were sadly obscured by the fanaticism of the times.

"Do not misunderstand me, good youth," he replied hurriedly; "and do me not this great injustice. I come in the most humble and Christian spirit, to cheer thy last hour in this gloomy hypogeum, and for that godly purpose have brought with me a copy of my Bombshell, a most sweet and savoury comforter to the afflicted mind."

He drew that celebrated quarto from his voluminous pocket, laid it on the table, and opening it at certain places, turned down the corners of the leaves. He then produced a thick little black-letter psalm-book, the board of which bore the very decided impression of a Bothwell-brig bullet; he adjusted a great pair of round horn spectacles on his long-hooked nose, and in a shrill voice began his favourite chant:

So much did he resemble the feathered type of wisdom, that Walter could scarcely repress a smile.

"Young man, wherefore dost thou not join with me?" asked the divine, raising his black eyebrows and looking at Walter alternately under, over, and through his barnacles.

"I warrant thou canst sing Claver'se and his Cavaliers, King James's March, Rub-a-Dub, and other profane ditties and camp-songs of thy wicked faction and ungodly profession," said Ichabod reproachfully.

At that moment the deep-mouthed bell of St. Giles, which seemed to swing immediately above their heads, gave one long and sonorous toll.

"It is the first hour of the last morning I shall ever spend on earth!" exclaimed Walter, starting up and striking his fetters together in the bitterness of his soul. "Oh, Lilian, Lilian, how little could we have foreseen of all this!"

"'Tis well—no tears can be more precious than these," said Mr. Bummel, who thought his exhortations had begun to prove effectual. "Soon, good youth, shalt thou reach the end of this vale of tears! Lo! thy bride already waiteth thee, and these tears——"

"You deem those of contrition and remorse. They are not. I have done nothing to repent of, or for which I ought to feel contrite. I never wronged man nor woman, though many have wronged me in more than a lifetime can repay. These tears spring only from bitterness and unavailing regret. Have I no hope of pardon? I care not for life, but my king and the son of my king require my services, and could my blood restore them I would die happy. Where is old Sir Thomas Dalyell?"

"All then are dead or in exile, and none is left to be a friend to the poor cavalier."

"True, true," replied Walter, and covering his face with his hands he stooped over the table and prayed intently.

Two o'clock struck, three and four followed, but still he remained, as Ichabod thought, absorbed in earnest prayer, and kneeling by his side, the worthy minister joined with true and pious fervour, till his patience became quite exhausted. He stirred him, and Walter, who had fallen asleep, started up.

"Thou hast slept well," said the divine, pettishly; "out of seven hours that were allotted three have already fled."

"My dear and worthy sir, you see how calm my conscience is. Perhaps it is hard to die so young; but for me life has now lost every charm. Death never has terrors to the brave. He opens the gates to a fame and a life that are eternal, and when the coffin lid is closed, sorrow and jealousy, envy and woe are excluded for ever. In four hours more mine will have closed over me. ——— Kingdoms and cities, the trees of the forest, the lakes, the rocks, and the hills themselves, have all their allotted periods of existence, and man has his; for every thing must perish—all must die and all must pass away. Oh, why then this foolish and unavailing regret about a few years more or less? ——— Front to front and foot to foot I have often met death on the field of battle, and if without flinching I have faced the volley of a whole brigade, that hurled a thousand brave spirits into eternity at once, shall I shrink from the levelled musquets of twelve base hirelings of the Stadtholder? ——— Will Lilian ever look on the grave where this heart moulders that loved her so long and so well? Oh no, for now she is the wife of another—oh, my God, another! In all wide Scotland there is not one to regret me, to shed one tear for me. I disappear from the earth like a bubble on a tide of events, leaving not one being behind me to recal my memory in fondness or regret."

Musquets rattled on the pavement of the echoing street; the door of the Iron Room opened, and the gudeman of the Tolbooth presented his stern and sinister visage.

"I am ready," replied Walter cheerfully, and, with a soldier on each side of him and followed by the clergyman, he descended the narrow circular staircase of the prison, and, issuing from an arched doorway at the foot, found himself at the end of the edifice. Here he paused and gazed calmly around him.

An early hour was chosen for his execution, that few might witness it, for there existed in Scotland a strong feeling against William's policy; the massacre of Glencoe, the successive defeats and heavy expenses of the Dutch wars rankled bitterly in the minds of the people.

The lofty streets were silent and shadowy; scarcely a footfall was heard in them, and the dun sunlight of the September morning had not sufficient heat to exhale the haze of the autumnal night.

A company of Argyle's regiment—the perpetrators of the Glencoe atrocity—clad in coarse brick-coloured uniform of the Dutch fashion, were drawn up in double ranks facing inwards on each side of the doorway. They stood with their arms reversed, and each stooped his head on his hands, which rested on the butt of his musket. At the head of this lane were four drummers with their drums muffled and craped, and a plain deal coffin carried upon the shoulders of four soldiers. Walter, as he gazed steadily along these hostile ranks, saw only the sourest fanaticism visible in every face, and in none more so than that of their commander, a hard-featured and square-shouldered personage, with a black corslet under his ample red coat, and wearing a red feather in his broad hat. He introduced himself as—

"Duncannon!" he replied; "your name is familiar to me as being the man who issued the orders for the massacre of Glencoe."

Duncannon gave Walter a steady frown in reply to his glance of undisguised hostility and contempt, and said—

"I obeyed the royal orders of King William III., to whom I say be long life—and, like thee, may all his enemies perish from Dan to Beersheba!"

"I do not acknowledge him; he hath never been crowned among us, nor sworn the oath a Scottish king should swear. Shame on you, sir, to rank this false-hearted Dutchman with our brave King William the Lion. Shame be on you, sir, and all your faction," cried Walter, holding up his fettered hands, while his cheek flushed and his eyes kindled with energy. "Let our people recollect that the last man whose limbs were crushed to a jelly by the accursed steel boots and grinding thumbscrews, was subjected to their agonizing torture by the "merciful" William of Orange—by the same wise prince by whose express orders the bravest of the northern tribes was massacred in their sleep and in cold blood! Let our brave soldiers, when the lash that drips with their blood is flaying them alive, remember that, like scourging round the fleet and keelhauling the hapless mariner, it is an introduction of the same pious and magnanimous monarch who planned, signed, and countersigned the mandate for the ruthless atrocity of Glencoe! Oh, Scotland, Scotland! disloyal and untrue to the line of your ancient kings, how long will you waste your treasure and pour forth your gallant sons to the Dutch and German wars of a brutal tyrant, who at once fears and hates and dreads, though he dare not despise you! But the hour is coming," and he shook his clenched hand and clanked his fetters like a fierce prophet—"when war, oppression, exaction, and devastation, will be the meed of the actions of to-day!"

"Silence, traitor!" exclaimed Duncannon, striking him with the hilt of his sword so severely that blood flowed from his mouth.

"Major Duncannon, thou art a coward!" said Walter, turning his eyes of fire upon him. "The brave are ever compassionate and gentle—but thou! away, man—for on thy brow is written the dark curse which the unavenged blood of Glencoe called down from the blessed God!"

"Away with him!" he cried. "Drummers, flam off—musqueteers, march!" and the procession began.

The dull rolling of the muffled drums, the regulated tap of the burial march, and the wailing of the fifes, now shrill and high, and anon sweet and low, found a deep echo in Walter's melancholy breast. Sorrowful and solemn was the measure of the Psalm, and he felt his beating heart soothed and saddened; but he could only mentally accompany the clergyman who walked bare-headed by his side, and chaunted aloud while the soldiers marched.

Walter's cheek reddened, for his fearless heart beat high, and he stepped firmly behind his coffin, the most stately in all that sad procession, though marching to that dread strain which a soldier seldom hears, his own death-march. The vast recesses of the great cathedral and the distant echoes of the central street of the city with all its diverging wynds, replied mournfully to the roll of the funeral drums.

He whose knell they rung seemed the proudest there among two hundred soldiers. Life now had nearly lost every charm, while religion, courage, and resignation had fully robbed death of all its terrors. Roused by the unusual sound, many a nightcapped citizen peered fearfully forth from his lofty dwelling; but their looks of wonder or of pity were unheeded or unseen by Walter Fenton. He saw only his own coffin borne before him and the weapons and the hands by which he was to die; but his bold spirit never quailed, and he resolved, with true Jacobite enthusiasm, to fall with honour to the cause for which he suffered.

"Halt!" cried Duncannon, and the coffin rang hollowly as it was placed beside the square stone pedestal of King Charles's statue, and Walter immediately kneeled down within it, confronting the stern Presbyterians of Argyle's regiment with an aspect of coolness and bravery that did not fail to excite their admiration and pity.

"Nay, nay, my good fellow," said Walter, waving him away; "I have faced death too often to flinch now. Major Duncannon, draw up your musqueteers, and I will show you how fearlessly a cavalier of honour can die."

While twelve soldiers were drawn up before him and loaded their muskets, Walter turned his eyes for the last time to the glorious autumnal sun, whose red morning rays were shot aslant between two lofty piles of building into the shadowy and gloomy quadrangle formed by the ancient Parliament House, the Goldsmiths' Hall, the grotesque piazzas, and the grand cathedral. He gave one rapid glance of adieu around him, and then turned towards his destroyers.

"Farewell, good youth," said Mr. Bummel, as the tears of true and heartfelt sorrow trickled over his long hooked nose. "Farewell. When He from whose hand light went forth over the land, even as the rays of yonder sun—when He, I say, returns in His glory we will meet again. Till then, farewell." Covering his face with his handkerchief, he withdrew a few paces and prayed with kind and sincere devotion.

At that moment the hoofs of a galloping horse spurred madly down the adjacent street rang through the vaults and aisles of the great church. Walter's colour changed.

Alas! it was only Lord Clermistonlee who, pale, panting, and breathless, dashed into the square to stay the execution; but the cry he would have uttered died away on his parched lips.

"He comes to exult over me," said Walter bitterly. "Behold, ignoble Lord," he exclaimed, "how a true cavalier can die! Musqueteers," he added, in his old voice of authority, "ready, blow your matches, present, God save King James the Seventh! give fire!"

The death volley rang like thunder in the still quadrangle. Four bullets flattened against the statue, eight were mortal, and with the last convulsive energy of death Walter Fenton threw his hat into the air and fell forward prostrate into his coffin a bleeding corpse.

From that hour Clermistonlee was a changed man. Though given up to dark, corroding care and moody thoughts, he lived to a great old age, and was one of those who sold his country at the union. Soon after that event he died, unregretted and unrespected, and a defaced monument in the east wall of the Greyfriars Churchyard still marks the place where he lies.

His gossip, Mersington, would no doubt have obtained a comfortable share of "the compensations" in 1707 had he not (as appears from a passage in Carstairs' State Papers) unluckily been found dead one night in the severe winter of 1700, with a half-drained mug of burnt sack clutched in his tenacious grasp.

From the moment in which, with her child in her arms, she ascended the great staircase of Bruntisfield, she was never again seen.

Every place within the mansion and without, the woods, the lake, the fields, the muir were searched, but the lady and her child were seen no more.

An impenetrable mystery cast a veil of horror over their fate; but Mr. Ichabod Bummel, and the most learned divines of a kirk that was then in the zenith of its wisdom and power, gave it as their decided opinion that they had been spirited away by the fairies; an idea that was unanimously adopted by the people; nevertheless, a pale spectre, wailing and pressing a ghastly babe to its attenuated breast, was often visible on moonlight nights, among the old oak trees, the rocky heron shaws of the Burghmuir, or the reedy rhinns of its beautiful loch, and this terrible fact was solemnly averred and duly sworn to by various decent and sponsible men, such as elders and deacons of the kirk, who chanced to journey that way after nightfall.

In latter years it was to the long gloomy avenue or immediate precincts of the ancient house, that this terrible tenant confined her midnight promenades.

Many sceptical persons, notwithstanding the assertions of the aforesaid elders and deacons, declared the story of the apparition to be downright nonsense. Many more may be disposed to do so at the present day; but we would beg them to withold their decision until they have consulted as carefully as we have done, the MSS. Session Records of Mr. Bummel's kirk, entered in his own hand, and attested by the said elders and deacons at full length.

In the year 1800, when the stately and venerable mansion of Bruntisfield was demolished, to make way for the Hospital of Gillespie, within a deep alcove, or labyrinth of stone, in the heart of its massive walls, the skeletons of a female and child were discovered; some fragments of velvet, brocade, and a gold ring were found with them.

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Scottish Cavalier: An Historical Romance, Volume 3 (of 3)

THE

SCOTTISH CAVALIER.

CHAPTER I.

LILIAN.

CHAPTER II.

HOW CLERMISTONLEE PRESSED HIS SUIT.

CHAPTER III.

CLAVERHOUSE TO THE RESCUE.

CHAPTER IV.

THE SECRET STAIR.

CHAPTER V.

THE ATTEMPT.

CHAPTER VI.

EDINBURGH—THE NIGHT OF THE REVOLUTION.

CHAPTER VII.

SACK OF HOLYROOD.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE VEILED PICTURE.

CHAPTER IX.

LOVE AND PRINCIPLE.

CHAPTER X.

THE PASS OF KILLYCRANKIE.

CHAPTER XI.

THE LAST HOUR OF DUNDEE.

CHAPTER XII.

ST. GERMAINS.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE CAVALIERS OF DUNDEE.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE 20TH OF SEPTEMBER, 1692.

CHAPTER XV.

THE EFFECT OF THE POSTSCRIPTUM.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE BATTLE OF STEINKIRKE.

CHAPTER XVII.

A DISCLOSURE.

CHAPTER XVIII.

WALTER FENTON AND THE KING.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE RETURNED EXILE.

CHAPTER XX.

THE BUBBLE BURST.

CHAPTER XXI.

LOVE AND MARRIAGE ARE TWO.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE RING AND THE SECRET.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE IRON ROOM—THE DEATH SHOT.

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Scottish Cavalier: An Historical Romance, Volume 3 (of 3)

THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER.

CHAPTER I. LILIAN.

CHAPTER II. HOW CLERMISTONLEE PRESSED HIS SUIT.

CHAPTER III. CLAVERHOUSE TO THE RESCUE.

CHAPTER IV. THE SECRET STAIR.

CHAPTER V. THE ATTEMPT.

CHAPTER VI. EDINBURGH—THE NIGHT OF THE REVOLUTION.

CHAPTER VII. SACK OF HOLYROOD.

CHAPTER VIII. THE VEILED PICTURE.

CHAPTER IX. LOVE AND PRINCIPLE.

CHAPTER X. THE PASS OF KILLYCRANKIE.

CHAPTER XI. THE LAST HOUR OF DUNDEE.

CHAPTER XII. ST. GERMAINS.

CHAPTER XIII. THE CAVALIERS OF DUNDEE.

CHAPTER XIV. THE 20TH OF SEPTEMBER, 1692.

CHAPTER XV. THE EFFECT OF THE POSTSCRIPTUM.

CHAPTER XVI. THE BATTLE OF STEINKIRKE.

CHAPTER XVII. A DISCLOSURE.

CHAPTER XVIII. WALTER FENTON AND THE KING.

CHAPTER XIX. THE RETURNED EXILE.

CHAPTER XX. THE BUBBLE BURST.

CHAPTER XXI. LOVE AND MARRIAGE ARE TWO.

CHAPTER XXII. THE RING AND THE SECRET.

CHAPTER XXIII. THE IRON ROOM—THE DEATH SHOT.

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

THE

SCOTTISH CAVALIER.

CHAPTER I.

LILIAN.

CHAPTER II.

HOW CLERMISTONLEE PRESSED HIS SUIT.

CHAPTER III.

CLAVERHOUSE TO THE RESCUE.

CHAPTER IV.

THE SECRET STAIR.

CHAPTER V.

THE ATTEMPT.

CHAPTER VI.

EDINBURGH—THE NIGHT OF THE REVOLUTION.

CHAPTER VII.

SACK OF HOLYROOD.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE VEILED PICTURE.

CHAPTER IX.

LOVE AND PRINCIPLE.

CHAPTER X.

THE PASS OF KILLYCRANKIE.

CHAPTER XI.

THE LAST HOUR OF DUNDEE.

CHAPTER XII.

ST. GERMAINS.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE CAVALIERS OF DUNDEE.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE 20TH OF SEPTEMBER, 1692.

CHAPTER XV.

THE EFFECT OF THE POSTSCRIPTUM.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE BATTLE OF STEINKIRKE.

CHAPTER XVII.

A DISCLOSURE.

CHAPTER XVIII.

WALTER FENTON AND THE KING.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE RETURNED EXILE.

CHAPTER XX.

THE BUBBLE BURST.

CHAPTER XXI.

LOVE AND MARRIAGE ARE TWO.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE RING AND THE SECRET.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE IRON ROOM—THE DEATH SHOT.