Volume Iii Part 8 (2/2)
Away with him! Away with him!”
”Lo, what am I to understand by all this?” said the friar.
”Come near unto me, thou man of mystery, that comest like one of the children of Esau, with thy cattle and thy herds, and tell unto thy servant what are these?”
p.r.i.c.ker would not, however, come nigh the friar, but still kept his distance; for against the friar's spiritual armour he durst not engage; but he called out to him, in mockery, ”I then declare unto thee, O thou great magician, who camest to cope with the prince of all magicians, Master Michael Scott, that these are thy master's yeomen whom thou leftest with him yesterday. Now, what sayest thou? Hast thou ever witnessed power like this?”
The friar lifted up his eyes to heaven, and tears fell down on his dark beard. ”O wretched man that I am!” cried he, ”why did I leave my children in the lion's den? yea, even in the den of the great lion.
Wo is me, that this breach hath been made among the followers of my Master! But there is One that can yet controul all the powers of darkness, and to Him alone must I apply without delay.”
The friar went instantly to his devotions, and performed many rites of a nature too sacred to be here minutely described; yet, after all his exorcisms, the men could not regain their natural shapes, but lay and rolled about on the valley in awful convulsions. The h.e.l.lish page, who had kept far aloof during the time of the friar's sacred appeal, now came galloping near to enjoy the convulsions of the herd, and the grief and astonishment of the friar; and after mocking for some time, in obedience to the great wizard's command, he called to the friar, and said, ”I see he that brought about this wonderful metamorphosis,--for which you shall one day be grateful,--can only effect the counter-charm. Look into the manes on their foreheads, and look narrowly;” and having said these words, he darted off towards Aikwood with the speed of lightning.
The friar did as this flying horseman had directed, and searching the long curled mane between the horns of the first monster that came to his hand, he there found st.i.tched a small scroll of parchment, neatly rolled up, and written in blood. Then he caused them to bring him fire, in which he burnt it, and presently there stood up at his hand one of Sir Ringan Redhough's warriors, in all his arms and accoutrements as he first arrived at the castle of Aikwood. ”By the life of Pharaoh!” cried the friar, ”surely this excelleth all that I beheld heretofore!”
The spell was now quickly dissolved; but no pen can do any justice to the feelings of our amazed troopers, as they again strode the green in their own forms and vigour, embracing the friar, and thanking him as their deliverer. They returned back over the ridge, not without some dreadful apprehensions, to the mill of Aikwood for their horses, but went no more in view of the portentous castle. They found their horses at good feed; and whenever Charlie saw Corby's skin, that glittered like the plumes of the raven, he cried, ”Aha, Corby lad, ye haena want.i.t either meat or drink, ye rascal! Od ye hae fared better than your master, ye c.o.c.k-luggit glooming thief; stall up, ye dog, till I caparison you, and then let us bound for the border.”
But the most curious and least suspected of all the circ.u.mstances attending the horses was, that Dan Chisholm's horse and those of his three companions, that they left stabled in the deep dell above Lindean, were all found standing at the mill among the rest. The miller could give no farther account about them, than that a lad brought them all tied to one another's tails, and said they belonged to four of the baron of Mountcomyn's men that were gone to Aikwood.
”By the Lord Soules,” cried Dan, ”then it is true that Master Michael Scott said of the devil being more of a gentleman than he had been generally represented. For all the pranks he has played us, I'll think the better of him for this the longest day I have to live. What say you to this, friend Yardbire?”
”I shall be twenty miles off Aikwood at least afore I speak another sentence about either him or some others that I ken o.' Mercy on us!
poor Tam Craik! What an end he has made wi' his fat bacon! Hech, but it be a despisable thing to rin open mouth to the--I'll no mention whae--for their greed o' meat. Some may hae gotten nae mair than what they deserved; but as for sachless Gibbie Jordan, he has been right hardly dealt wi'. My heart's unco wae for the poor laird, and I think something should be done to recover him.”
”Something _shall_ be done for him,” said the friar, and that of such momentous consequence, that, if his own iniquities keep him not in bondage, all the powers of the evil one shall be unequal to the task.”
After all these horrid perils of weird women and witchcraft thus miraculously overcome, our troop rode straight on to the camp of the Warden, and found him in the vicinity of Wooller, having come into those parts to counteract the rising about Berwick in behalf of the English garrison. And the time being at hand on which he must either do or not do, either join with heart and hand in the cause of the Douglas, or leave him to stand or fall by himself, and abide by the consequences--his impatience for the return of his men from Aikwood castle had been commensurate with the importance that he attached to their mission. But when they informed him of all the wonders they had witnessed, and the trans.m.u.tations they had seen and undergone--how the warlock and his spirits had raised the tempests, deluged the plains, levelled the forests, and cleft asunder the everlasting mountains, the baron was like one in a trance. It was long before they could make themselves accredited, or impress him with any other idea than that it was a story made up to astonish him. With the feats performed by the friar, he was particularly pleased, and from that time forth paid him more honour than he had ever been seen pay to man. But the precise meaning of the destiny, read for him out of the book of fate, puzzled and interested him most of all. It was dark and full of intricacies; and it was not till after long consultation with wise men, as well as women, that any thing like a guess could be formed of its tendency. By making words and actions to coalesce, a mode of procedure was at the last pitched on as the only one reconcileable with the predictions.
This mode will eventually appear without giving the detail at present, and the reader will then be better able to judge whether or not the Redhough and his sages understood the Master's signs and injunctions properly.
CHAPTER VI.
Here away, there away, wandering Willie, Here away, there away, haud away hame.
_Old Song._
We have now performed the waggoner's difficult and tedious task with great patience, and scarcely less discretion, having brought all the various groups of our _dramatis personae_, up to the same period of time. It now behoves us (that is, Isaac the curate and me,) to return again to the leading event, namely, the siege of Roxburgh.
The state of mind to which the two commanders were now reduced was truly pitiable. Within the castle of Roxburgh, all was sullen gloom and discontent. In one thing, and that only, were they unanimous, which was in a frantic inveteracy against the Scots; and though Musgrave, with the feelings of a man, would gladly have saved those dearest to him in life, yet he found that to have proposed such a thing as yielding to the garrison, would have been but adding fuel to flame in order to extinguish it. Their small supply soon began again to wear short; and, moreover, the privations to which they were subjected, had brought on an infectious distemper among them, of which some died every day; but every item added to their sufferings, fell into the scale against the Scots, and all the cruelties exercised by the latter, in order to break the spirits of their opponents, only militated against themselves. Opposition to the last man was a sentiment nursed in every English bosom within the garrison, with a brooding enthusiasm of delight. There can be no doubt that they felt intensely for their gallant captain, considering the dismal situation in which he stood with respect to their enemies, and the strong hold they had been enabled to keep over his heart. It was probably the burning intensity of these feelings that was the great source of their unhappiness, and gave rise to the fierce spirit of dissension that daily manifested itself. Although they detested the deed the Scots had committed in executing Sir Richard, yet they felt his death a sort of relief, as by it one-half of the cord which their hated adversaries held round the breast of their commander was broken, and there is little doubt that they wished themselves free of Lady Jane Howard, by fair and gentle means if possible, but at all events to be rid of that remaining tie, which almost maddened them to think of
There was one circ.u.mstance which of late was to all of them wholly unaccountable. As the day of the Conception of the blessed Virgin approached, the mind of Lord Musgrave, instead of becoming altogether deranged as they had foreboded, became more and more steady and collected. He watched over every part of the economy within that huge fortress, and gave his orders with punctuality and decision, although with a degree of sternness that had not previously been observed.
The dreaded day of the Conception at length arrived; and, before noon, crowds of the citizens, and people from the surrounding country, began to a.s.semble around the Scottish camp. These were forcibly kept beyond the line of circ.u.mvallation, while the regular troops were drawn up in columns both to the east and west of the fortress, and particularly round the gibbet on the Bush-Law. At eleven o'clock the Scottish trumpets sounded; the English soldiers crowded to the battlements around the western tower of the citadel, and Lord Musgrave came up among the rest, arrayed in a splendid suit of light armour, and gallantly attended.
These battlements and the new gibbet were, as before stated, right opposite to one another, and separated only by the breadth of the moat and a very small slope on the western ascent; so that every object could be distinctly seen from the one place to the other, and, by raising the voice somewhat, a conversation could be carried on across.
At the very time that Lord Musgrave thus appeared on the wall, the Lady Jane Howard and Sir _Richard_ Musgrave were introduced on the boards of the gibbet. Yes,--read it over again. I say Sir Richard Musgrave, for it was truly he. The Douglas, seeing that he could not prevail, and that the gallant youth was given up by his brother and the English to his fate, could not brook the idea of losing by his death the one-half of the influence he held over Musgrave. But that he might try it by stretching it to the very last, he clothed another culprit in Sir Richard's habiliments, tied a white cloth over his face, let him stand a proclaimed s.p.a.ce on the boards with the cord about his neck, and, at the last moment of the given time, there being no parley sounded for the delivering up of the keys of the fortress, the board sunk, and the man died; but Sir Richard was safe in hold.
He was again produced that day, being the eighth of December, along with Lady Jane. He was dressed in the suit of armour in which he fought on the day he was taken prisoner, and Lady Jane in pure snow-white robes, betokening her spotless virginity. Sir Richard's eye beamed with manly courage, but the fresh hues of the rose on the cheeks of Lady Jane had blenched, and given place to the most deadly paleness. Both hosts were deeply affected with the sight, and on this occasion both felt alike. There was not a heart amongst them that did not overflow with pity at the unhappy fate of the two youthful prisoners, whose dismal doom could now no longer be averted, unless by a sacrifice on the part of the English, with which even the most sanguine of the beleaguering army doubted their compliance.
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