Douglas dismounted, and followed his wily accomplice in silence.
In a lower hall they saw the ranks of the Brandanes drawn up, well
armed in caps of steel and shirts of mail. Their captain, making
an obeisance to Albany, seemed to desire to address him.

"What now, MacLouis?" said the Duke.

"We are informed the Duke of Rothsay has been insulted, and I can
scarce keep the Brandanes within door."

"Gallant MacLouis," said Albany, "and you, my trusty Brandanes,
the Duke of Rothsay, my princely nephew, is as well as a hopeful
gentleman can be. Some scuffle there has been, but all is appeased."

He continued to draw the Earl of Douglas forward. "You see,
my lord," he said in his ear, "that, if the word 'arrest' was to
be once spoken, it would be soon obeyed, and you are aware your
attendants are few for resistance."

Douglas seemed to acquiesce in the necessity of patience for the
time. "If my teeth," he said, "should bite through my lips, I will
be silent till it is the hour to speak out."

George of March, in the meanwhile, had a more easy task of pacifying
the Prince. "My Lord of Rothsay," he said, approaching him with
grave ceremony, "I need not tell you that you owe me something for
reparation of honour, though I blame not you personally for the
breach of contract which has destroyed the peace of my family. Let
me conjure you, by what observance your Highness may owe an injured
man, to forego for the present this scandalous dispute."

"My lord, I owe you much," replied Rothsay; "but this haughty and
all controlling lord has wounded mine honour."

"My lord, I can but add, your royal father is ill--hath swooned
with terror for your Highness's safety."

"Ill!" replied the Prince--"the kind, good old man swooned, said
you, my Lord of March? I am with him in an instant."

The Duke of Rothsay sprung from his saddle to the ground, and was
dashing into the palace like a greyhound, when a feeble grasp was
laid on his cloak, and the faint voice of a kneeling female exclaimed,
"Protection, my noble prince!--protection for a helpless stranger!"

"Hands off, stroller!" said the Earl of March, thrusting the
suppliant glee maiden aside.

But the gentler prince paused. "It is true," he said, "I have
brought the vengeance of an unforgiving devil upon this helpless
creature. O Heaven! what a life, is mine, so fatal to all who approach
me! What to do in the hurry? She must not go to my apartments. And
all my men are such born reprobates. Ha! thou at mine elbow, honest
Harry Smith? What dost thou here?"

"There has been something of a fight, my lord," answered our
acquaintance the smith, "between the townsmen and the Southland
loons who ride with the Douglas; and we have swinged them as far
as the abbey gate."

"I am glad of it--I am glad of it. And you beat the knaves fairly?"

"Fairly, does your Highness ask?" said Henry. "Why, ay! We were
stronger in numbers, to be sure; but no men ride better armed than
those who follow the Bloody Heart. And so in a sense we beat them
fairly; for, as your Highness knows, it is the smith who makes the
man at arms, and men with good weapons are a match for great odds."

While they thus talked, the Earl of March, who had spoken with
some one near the palace gate, returned in anxious haste. "My Lord
Duke!--my Lord Duke! your father is recovered, and if you haste
not speedily, my Lord of Albany and the Douglas will have possession
of his royal ear."

"And if my royal father is recovered," said the thoughtless Prince,
"and is holding, or about to hold, counsel with my gracious uncle
and the Earl of Douglas, it befits neither your lordship nor me to
intrude till we are summoned. So there is time for me to speak of
my little business with mine honest armourer here."

"Does your Highness take it so?" said the Earl, whose sanguine
hopes of a change of favour at court had been too hastily excited,
and were as speedily checked. "Then so let it be for George of
Dunbar."

He glided away with a gloomy and displeased aspect; and thus out
of the two most powerful noblemen in Scotland, at a time when the
aristocracy so closely controlled the throne, the reckless heir
apparent had made two enemies--the one by scornful defiance and
the other by careless neglect. He heeded not the Earl of March's
departure, however, or rather he felt relieved from his importunity.

The Prince went on in indolent conversation with our armourer,
whose skill in his art had made him personally known to many of
the great lords about the court.

"I had something to say to thee, Smith. Canst thou take up a fallen
link in my Milan hauberk?"

"As well, please your Highness, as my mother could take up a stitch
in the nets she wove. The Milaner shall not know my work from his
own."

"Well, but that was not what I wished of thee just now," said the
Prince, recollecting himself: "this poor glee woman, good Smith,
she must be placed in safety. Thou art man enough to be any woman's
champion, and thou must conduct her to some place of safety."

Henry Smith was, as we have seen, sufficiently rash and daring when
weapons were in question. But he had also the pride of a decent
burgher, and was unwilling to place himself in what might be thought
equivocal circumstances by the sober part of his fellow citizens.

"May it please your Highness," he said, "I am but a poor craftsman.
But, though my arm and sword are at the King's service and your
Highness's, I am, with reverence, no squire of dames. Your Highness
will find, among your own retinue, knights and lords willing enough
to play Sir Pandarus of Troy; it is too knightly a part for poor
Hal of the Wynd."

"Umph--hah!" said the Prince. "My purse, Edgar." (His attendant
whispered him.) "True--true, I gave it to the poor wench. I know
enough of your craft, sir smith, and of craftsmen in general, to
be aware that men lure not hawks with empty hands; but I suppose
my word may pass for the price of a good armour, and I will pay it
thee, with thanks to boot, for this slight service."

"Your Highness may know other craftsmen," said the smith; "but,
with reverence, you know not Henry Gow. He will obey you in making
a weapon, or in wielding one, but he knows nothing of this petticoat
service."

"Hark thee, thou Perthshire mule," said the Prince, yet smiling,
while he spoke, at the sturdy punctilio of the honest burgher; "the
wench is as little to me as she is to thee. But in an idle moment,
as you may learn from those about thee, if thou sawest it not thyself,
I did her a passing grace, which is likely to cost the poor wretch
her life. There is no one here whom I can trust to protect her
against the discipline of belt and bowstring, with which the Border
brutes who follow Douglas will beat her to death, since such is
his pleasure."

"If such be the case, my liege, she has a right to every honest
man's protection; and since she wears a petticoat--though I would
it were longer and of a less fanciful fashion--I will answer
for her protection as well as a single man may. But where am I to
bestow her?"

"Good faith, I cannot tell," said the Prince. "Take her to Sir John
Ramorny's lodging. But, no--no--he is ill at ease, and besides,
there are reasons; take her to the devil if thou wilt, but place
her in safety, and oblige David of Rothsay."

"My noble Prince," said the smith, "I think, always with reverence,
that I would rather give a defenceless woman to the care of the
devil than of Sir John Ramorny. But though the devil be a worker in
fire like myself, yet I know not his haunts, and with aid of Holy
Church hope to keep him on terms of defiance. And, moreover, how
I am to convey her out of this crowd, or through the streets, in
such a mumming habit may be well made a question."

"For the leaving the convent," said the Prince, "this good monk"
(seizing upon the nearest by his cowl)--"Father Nicholas or
Boniface--"

"Poor brother Cyprian, at your Highness's command," said the father.

"Ay--ay, brother Cyprian," continued the Prince--"yes. Brother
Cyprian shall let you out at some secret passage which he knows
of, and I will see him again to pay a prince's thanks for it."

The churchman bowed in acquiescence, and poor Louise, who, during
this debate, had looked from the one speaker to the other, hastily
said, "I will not scandalise this good man with my foolish garb:
I have a mantle for ordinary wear."

"Why, there, Smith, thou hast a friar's hood and a woman's mantle
to shroud thee under. I would all my frailties were as well shrouded.
Farewell, honest fellow; I will thank thee hereafter."

Then, as if afraid of farther objection on the smith's part, he
hastened into the palace.

Henry Gow remained stupefied at what had passed, and at finding
himself involved in a charge at once inferring much danger and
an equal risk of scandal, both which, joined to a principal share
which he had taken, with his usual forwardness, in the fray,
might, he saw, do him no small injury in the suit he pursued most
anxiously. At the same time, to leave a defenceless creature to the
ill usage of the barbarous Galwegians and licentious followers of
the Douglas was a thought which his manly heart could not brook
for an instant.

He was roused from his reverie by the voice of the monk, who,
sliding out his words with the indifference which the holy fathers
entertained, or affected, towards all temporal matters, desired
them to follow him. The smith put himself in motion, with a sigh
much resembling a groan, and, without appearing exactly connected
with the monk's motions, he followed him into a cloister, and through
a postern door, which, after looking once behind him, the priest
left ajar. Behind them followed Louise, who had hastily assumed
her small bundle, and, calling her little four legged companion,
had eagerly followed in the path which opened an escape from what
had shortly before seemed a great and inevitable danger.



CHAPTER XII.

Then up and spak the auld gudewife,
And wow! but she was grim:
"Had e'er your father done the like,
It had been ill for him."

Lucky Trumbull.


The party were now, by a secret passage, admitted within the church,
the outward doors of which, usually left open, had been closed
against every one in consequence of the recent tumult, when the
rioters of both parties had endeavoured to rush into it for other
purposes than those of devotion. They traversed the gloomy aisles,
whose arched roof resounded to the heavy tread of the armourer,
but was silent under the sandalled foot of the monk, and the light
step of poor Louise, who trembled excessively, as much from fear
as cold. She saw that neither her spiritual nor temporal conductor
looked kindly upon her. The former was an austere man, whose aspect
seemed to hold the luckless wanderer in some degree of horror, as
well as contempt; while the latter, though, as we have seen, one
of the best natured men living, was at present grave to the pitch
of sternness, and not a little displeased with having the part
he was playing forced upon him, without, as he was constrained to
feel, a possibility of his declining it.

His dislike at his task extended itself to the innocent object of
his protection, and he internally said to himself, as he surveyed
her scornfully: "A proper queen of beggars to walk the streets of
Perth with, and I a decent burgher! This tawdry minion must have as
ragged a reputation as the rest of her sisterhood, and I am finely
sped if my chivalry in her behalf comes to Catharine's ears. I had
better have slain a man, were he the best in Perth; and, by hammer
and nails, I would have done it on provocation, rather than convoy
this baggage through the city."

Perhaps Louise suspected the cause of her conductor's anxiety, for
she said, timidly and with hesitation: "Worthy sir, were it not
better I should stop one instant in that chapel and don my mantle?"

"Umph, sweetheart, well proposed," said the armourer; but the monk
interfered, raising at the same time the finger of interdiction.

"The chapel of holy St. Madox is no tiring room for jugglers and
strollers to shift their trappings in. I will presently show thee
a vestiary more suited to thy condition."

The poor young woman hung down her humbled head, and turned from
the chapel door which she had approached with the deep sense of self
abasement. Her little spaniel seemed to gather from his mistress's
looks and manner that they were unauthorised intruders on the holy
ground which they trode, and hung his ears, and swept the pavement
with his tail, as he trotted slowly and close to Louise's heels.

The monk moved on without a pause. They descended a broad flight of
steps, and proceeded through a labyrinth of subterranean passages,
dimly lighted. As they passed a low arched door, the monk turned
and said to Louise, with the same stern voice as before: "There,
daughter of folly--there is a robing room, where many before you
have deposited their vestments."

Obeying the least signal with ready and timorous acquiescence, she
pushed the door open, but instantly recoiled with terror. It was
a charnel house, half filled with dry skulls and bones.

"I fear to change my dress there, and alone. But, if you, father,
command it, be it as you will."

"Why, thou child of vanity, the remains on which thou lookest are
but the earthly attire of those who, in their day, led or followed
in the pursuit of worldly pleasure. And such shalt thou be, for all
thy mincing and ambling, thy piping and thy harping--thou, and
all such ministers of frivolous and worldly pleasure, must become
like these poor bones, whom thy idle nicety fears and loathes to
look upon."

"Say not with idle nicety, reverend father," answered the glee
maiden, "for, Heaven knows, I covet the repose of these poor bleached
relics; and if, by stretching my body upon them, I could, without
sin, bring my state to theirs, I would choose that charnel heap for
my place of rest beyond the fairest and softest couch in Scotland."

"Be patient, and come on," said the monk, in a milder tone, "the
reaper must not leave the harvest work till sunset gives the signal
that the day's toil is over."

They walked forward. Brother Cyprian, at the end of a long gallery,
opened the door of a small apartment, or perhaps a chapel, for it
was decorated with a crucifix, before which burned four lamps. All
bent and crossed themselves; and the priest said to the minstrel
maiden, pointing to the crucifix, "What says that emblem?"

"That HE invites the sinner as well as the righteous to approach."

"Ay, if the sinner put from him his sin," said the monk, whose
tone of voice was evidently milder. "Prepare thyself here for thy
journey."

Louise remained an instant or two in the chapel, and presently
reappeared in a mantle of coarse grey cloth, in which she had closely
muffled herself, having put such of her more gaudy habiliments as
she had time to take off in the little basket which had before held
her ordinary attire.

The monk presently afterwards unlocked a door which led to the
open air. They found themselves in the garden which surrounded the
monastery of the Dominicans.

"The southern gate is on the latch, and through it you can pass
unnoticed," said the monk. "Bless thee, my son; and bless thee too,
unhappy child. Remembering where you put off your idle trinkets,
may you take care how you again resume them!"

"Alas, father!" said Louise, "if the poor foreigner could supply
the mere wants of life by any more creditable occupation, she has
small wish to profess her idle art. But--"

But the monk had vanished; nay, the very door though which she had
just passed appeared to have vanished also, so curiously was it
concealed beneath a flying buttress, and among the profuse ornaments
of Gothic architecture.

"Here is a woman let out by this private postern, sure enough,"
was Henry's reflection. "Pray Heaven the good fathers never let
any in! The place seems convenient for such games at bo peep. But,
Benedicite, what is to be done next? I must get rid of this quean
as fast as I can; and I must see her safe. For let her be at heart
what she may, she looks too modest, now she is in decent dress, to
deserve the usage which the wild Scot of Galloway, or the devil's
legion from the Liddel, are like to afford her."

Louise stood as if she waited his pleasure which way to go. Her
little dog, relieved by the exchange of the dark, subterranean
vault for the open air, sprung in wild gambols through the walks,
and jumped upon its mistress, and even, though more timidly, circled
close round the smith's feet, to express its satisfaction to him
also, and conciliate his favour.

"Down, Charlot--down!" said the glee maiden. "You are glad to
get into the blessed sunshine; but where shall we rest at night,
my poor Charlot?"

"And now, mistress," said the smith, not churlishly, for it was
not in his nature, but bluntly, as one who is desirous to finish
a disagreeable employment, "which way lies your road?"

Louise looked on the ground and was silent. On being again urged to
say which way she desired to be conducted, she again looked down,
and said she could not tell.

"Come--come," said Henry, "I understand all that: I have been
a galliard--a reveller in my day, but it's best to be plain. As
matters are with me now, I am an altered man for these many, many
months; and so, my quean, you and I must part sooner than perhaps
a light o' love such as you expected to part with--a likely young
fellow."

Louise wept silently, with her eyes still cast on the ground, as
one who felt an insult which she had not a right to complain of.
At length, perceiving that her conductor was grown impatient, she
faltered out, "Noble sir--"

"Sir is for a knight," said the impatient burgher, "and noble is
for a baron. I am Harry of the Wynd, an honest mechanic, and free
of my guild."

"Good craftsman, then," said the minstrel woman, "you judge me harshly,
but not without seeming cause. I would relieve you immediately of
my company, which, it may be, brings little credit to good men,
did I but know which way to go."

"To the next wake or fair, to be sure," said Henry, roughly, having
no doubt that this distress was affected for the purpose of palming
herself upon him, and perhaps dreading to throw himself into the way
of temptation; "and that is the feast of St. Madox, at Auchterarder.
I warrant thou wilt find the way thither well enough."

"Aftr--Auchter--" repeated the glee maiden, her Southern tongue
in vain attempting the Celtic accentuation. "I am told my poor
plays will not be understood if I go nearer to yon dreadful range
of mountains."

"Will you abide, then, in Perth?"

"But where to lodge?" said the wanderer.

"Why, where lodged you last night?" replied the smith. "You know
where you came from, surely, though you seem doubtful where you
are going?"

"I slept in the hospital of the convent. But I was only admitted
upon great importunity, and I was commanded not to return."

"Nay, they will never take you in with the ban of the Douglas
upon you, that is even too true. But the Prince mentioned Sir John
Ramorny's; I can take you to his lodgings through bye streets, though
it is short of an honest burgher's office, and my time presses."

"I will go anywhere; I know I am a scandal and incumbrance. There
was a time when it was otherwise. But this Ramorny, who is he?"

"A courtly knight, who lives a jolly bachelor's life, and is master
of the horse, and privado, as they say, to the young prince."

"What! to the wild, scornful young man who gave occasion to yonder
scandal? Oh, take me not thither, good friend. Is there no Christian
woman who would give a poor creature rest in her cowhouse or barn
for one night? I will be gone with early daybreak. I will repay
her richly. I have gold; and I will repay you, too, if you will
take me where I may be safe from that wild reveller, and from the
followers of that dark baron, in whose eye was death."

"Keep your gold for those who lack it, mistress," said Henry, "and
do not offer to honest hands the money that is won by violing, and
tabouring, and toe tripping, and perhaps worse pastimes. I tell you
plainly, mistress, I am not to be fooled. I am ready to take you
to any place of safety you can name, for my promise is as strong
as an iron shackle. But you cannot persuade me that you do not know
what earth to make for. You are not so young in your trade as not
to know there are hostelries in every town, much more in a city
like Perth, where such as you may be harboured for your money, if
you cannot find some gulls, more or fewer, to pay your lawing. If
you have money, mistress, my care about you need be the less; and
truly I see little but pretence in all that excessive grief, and
fear of being left alone, in one of your occupation."

Having thus, as he conceived, signified that he was not to be
deceived by the ordinary arts of a glee maiden, Henry walked a few
paces sturdily, endeavouring to think he was doing the wisest and
most prudent thing in the world. Yet he could not help looking back
to see how Louise bore his departure, and was shocked to observe
that she had sunk upon a bank, with her arms resting on her knees
and her head on her arms, in a situation expressive of the utmost
desolation.

The smith tried to harden his heart. "It is all a sham," he said:
"the gouge knows her trade, I'll be sworn, by St. Ringan."

At the instant something pulled the skirts of his cloak; and looking
round, he saw the little spaniel, who immediately, as if to plead
his mistress's cause, got on his hind legs and began to dance,
whimpering at the same time, and looking back to Louise, as if to
solicit compassion for his forsaken owner.

"Poor thing," said the smith, "there may be a trick in this too,
for thou dost but as thou art taught. Yet, as I promised to protect
this poor creature, I must not leave her in a swoon, if it be one,
were it but for manhood's sake."

Returning, and approaching his troublesome charge, he was at once
assured, from the change of her complexion, either that she was
actually in the deepest distress, or had a power of dissimulation
beyond the comprehension of man--or woman either.

"Young woman," he said, with more of kindness than he had hitherto
been able even to assume, "I will tell you frankly how I am placed.
This is St. Valentine's Day, and by custom I was to spend it with
my fair Valentine. But blows and quarrels have occupied all the
morning, save one poor half hour. Now, you may well understand
where my heart and my thoughts are, and where, were it only in mere
courtesy, my body ought to be."

The glee maiden listened, and appeared to comprehend him.

"If you are a true lover, and have to wait upon a chaste Valentine,
God forbid that one like me should make a disturbance between you!
Think about me no more. I will ask of that great river to be my
guide to where it meets the ocean, where I think they said there
was a seaport; I will sail from thence to La Belle France, and will
find myself once more in a country in which the roughest peasant
would not wrong the poorest female."

"You cannot go to Dundee today," said the smith. "The Douglas
people are in motion on both sides of the river, for the alarm of
the morning has reached them ere now; and all this day, and the
next, and the whole night which is between, they will gather to
their leader's standard, like Highlandmen at the fiery cross. Do
you see yonder five or six men who are riding so wildly on the other
side of the river? These are Annandale men: I know them by the
length of their lances, and by the way they hold them. An Annandale
man never slopes his spear backwards, but always keeps the point
upright, or pointed forward."

"And what of them?" said the glee maiden. "They are men at arms
and soldiers. They would respect me for my viol and my helplessness."

"I will say them no scandal," answered the smith. "If you were in
their own glens, they would use you hospitably, and you would have
nothing to fear; but they are now on an expedition. All is fish
that comes to their net. There are amongst them who would take
your life for the value of your gold earrings. Their whole soul
is settled in their eyes to see prey, and in their hands to grasp
it. They have no ears either to hear lays of music or listen
to prayers for mercy. Besides, their leader's order is gone forth
concerning you, and it is of a kind sure to be obeyed. Ay, great
lords are sooner listened to if they say, 'Burn a church,' than if
they say, 'Build one.'"

"Then," said the glee woman, "I were best sit down and die."

"Do not say so," replied the smith. "If I could but get you a
lodging for the night, I would carry you the next morning to Our
Lady's Stairs, from whence the vessels go down the river for Dundee,
and would put you on board with some one bound that way, who should
see you safely lodged where you would have fair entertainment and
kind usage."

"Good--excellent--generous man!" said the glee maiden, "do this,
and if the prayers and blessings of a poor unfortunate should ever
reach Heaven, they will rise thither in thy behalf. We will meet at
yonder postern door, at whatever time the boats take their departure."

"That is at six in the morning, when the day is but young."

"Away with you, then, to your Valentine; and if she loves you, oh,
deceive her not!"

"Alas, poor damsel! I fear it is deceit hath brought thee to this
pass. But I must not leave you thus unprovided. I must know where
you are to pass the night."

"Care not for that," replied Louise: "the heavens are clear--
there are bushes and boskets enough by the river side--Charlot
and I can well make a sleeping room of a green arbour for one night;
and tomorrow will, with your promised aid, see me out of reach of
injury and wrong. Oh, the night soon passes away when there is hope
for tomorrow! Do you still linger, with your Valentine waiting for
you? Nay, I shall hold you but a loitering lover, and you know what
belongs to a minstrel's reproaches."

"I cannot leave you, damsel," answered the armourer, now completely
melted. "It were mere murder to suffer you to pass the night exposed
to the keenness of a Scottish blast in February. No--no, my word
would be ill kept in this manner; and if I should incur some risk
of blame, it is but just penance for thinking of thee, and using
thee, more according to my own prejudices, as I now well believe,
than thy merits. Come with me, damsel; thou shalt have a sure and
honest lodging for the night, whatsoever may be the consequence.
It would be an evil compliment to my Catharine, were I to leave a
poor creature to be starved to death, that I might enjoy her company
an hour sooner."

So saying, and hardening himself against all anticipations of the
ill consequences or scandal which might arise from such a measure,
the manly hearted smith resolved to set evil report at defiance,
and give the wanderer a night's refuge in his own house. It must
be added, that he did this with extreme reluctance, and in a sort
of enthusiasm of benevolence.

Ere our stout son of Vulcan had fixed his worship on the Fair Maid
of Perth, a certain natural wildness of disposition had placed him
under the influence of Venus, as well as that of Mars; and it was
only the effect of a sincere attachment which had withdrawn him
entirely from such licentious pleasures. He was therefore justly
jealous of his newly acquired reputation for constancy, which his
conduct to this poor wanderer must expose to suspicion; a little
doubtful, perhaps, of exposing himself too venturously to temptation;
and moreover in despair to lose so much of St. Valentine's Day,
which custom not only permitted, but enjoined him to pass beside
his mate for the season. The journey to Kinfauns, and the various
transactions which followed, had consumed the day, and it was now
nearly evensong time.

As if to make up by a speedy pace for the time he was compelled to
waste upon a subject so foreign to that which he had most at heart,
he strode on through the Dominicans' gardens, entered the town, and
casting his cloak around the lower part of his face, and pulling down
his bonnet to conceal the upper, he continued the same celerity of
movement through bye streets and lanes, hoping to reach his own house
in the Wynd without being observed. But when he had continued his
rate of walking for ten minutes, he began to be sensible it might
be too rapid for the young woman to keep up with him. He accordingly
looked behind him with a degree of angry impatience, which soon
turned into compunction, when he saw that she was almost utterly
exhausted by the speed which she had exerted.

"Now, marry, hang me up for a brute," said Henry to himself. "Was
my own haste ever so great, could it give that poor creature wings?
And she loaded with baggage too! I am an ill nurtured beast, that
is certain, wherever women are in question; and always sure to do
wrong when I have the best will to act right.

"Hark thee, damsel; let me carry these things for thee. We shall
make better speed that I do so."

Poor Louise would have objected, but her breath was too much
exhausted to express herself; and she permitted her good natured
guardian to take her little basket, which, when the dog beheld,
he came straight before Henry, stood up, and shook his fore paws,
whining gently, as if he too wanted to be carried.

"Nay, then, I must needs lend thee a lift too," said the smith,
who saw the creature was tired:

"Fie, Charlot!" said Louise; "thou knowest I will carry thee myself."

She endeavoured to take up the little spaniel, but it escaped
from her; and going to the other side of the smith, renewed its
supplication that he would take it up.

"Charlot's right," said the smith: "he knows best who is ablest to
bear him. This lets me know, my pretty one, that you have not been
always the bearer of your own mail: Charlot can tell tales."

So deadly a hue came across the poor glee maiden's countenance as
Henry spoke, that he was obliged to support her, lest she should
have dropped to the ground. She recovered again, however, in an
instant or two, and with a feeble voice requested her guide would
go on.

"Nay--nay," said Henry, as they began to move, "keep hold of my
cloak, or my arm, if it helps you forward better. A fair sight we
are; and had I but a rebeck or a guitar at my back, and a jackanapes
on my shoulder, we should seem as joyous a brace of strollers as
ever touched string at a castle gate.

"Snails!" he ejaculated internally, "were any neighbour to meet
me with this little harlotry's basket at my back, her dog under
my arm, and herself hanging on my cloak, what could they think
but that I had turned mumper in good earnest? I would not for the
best harness I ever laid hammer on, that any of our long tongued
neighbours met me in this guise; it were a jest would last from
St. Valentine's Day to next Candlemas."

Stirred by these thoughts, the smith, although at the risk of
making much longer a route which he wished to traverse as swiftly as
possible, took the most indirect and private course which he could
find, in order to avoid the main streets, still crowded with people,
owing to the late scene of tumult and agitation. But unhappily his
policy availed him nothing; for, in turning into an alley, he met
a man with his cloak muffled around his face, from a desire like
his own to pass unobserved, though the slight insignificant figure,
the spindle shanks, which showed themselves beneath the mantle,
and the small dull eye that blinked over its upper folds, announced
the pottingar as distinctly as if he had carried his sign in front
of his bonnet. His unexpected and most unwelcome presence overwhelmed
the smith with confusion. Ready evasion was not the property of his
bold, blunt temper; and knowing this man to be a curious observer,
a malignant tale bearer, and by no means well disposed to himself in
particular, no better hope occurred to him than that the worshipful
apothecary would give him some pretext to silence his testimony
and secure his discretion by twisting his neck round.

But, far from doing or saying anything which could warrant such
extremities, the pottingar, seeing himself so close upon his stalwart
townsman that recognition was inevitable, seemed determined it
should be as slight as possible; and without appearing to notice
anything particular in the company or circumstances in which they
met, he barely slid out these words as he passed him, without even
a glance towards his companion after the first instant of their
meeting: "A merry holiday to you once more, stout smith. What!
thou art bringing thy cousin, pretty Mistress Joan Letham, with her
mail, from the waterside--fresh from Dundee, I warrant? I heard
she was expected at the old cordwainer's."

As he spoke thus, he looked neither right nor left, and exchanging
a "Save you!" with a salute of the same kind which the smith rather
muttered than uttered distinctly, he glided forward on his way like
a shadow.

"The foul fiend catch me, if I can swallow that pill," said Henry
Smith, "how well soever it may be gilded. The knave has a shrewd
eye for a kirtle, and knows a wild duck from a tame as well as e'er
a man in Perth. He were the last in the Fair City to take sour
plums for pears, or my roundabout cousin Joan for this piece of
fantastic vanity. I fancy his bearing was as much as to say, 'I
will not see what you might wish me blind to'; and he is right to
do so, as he might easily purchase himself a broken pate by meddling
with my matters, and so he will be silent for his own sake. But whom
have we next? By St. Dunstan, the chattering, bragging, cowardly
knave, Oliver Proudfute!"

It was, indeed, the bold bonnet maker whom they next encountered,
who, with his cap on one side, and trolling the ditty of--

"Thou art over long at the pot, Tom, Tom,"

--gave plain intimation that he had made no dry meal.

"Ha! my jolly smith," he said, "have I caught thee in the manner?
What, can the true steel bend? Can Vulcan, as the minstrel says,
pay Venus back in her own coin? Faith, thou wilt be a gay Valentine
before the year's out, that begins with the holiday so jollily."

"Hark ye, Oliver," said the displeased smith, "shut your eyes and
pass on, crony. And hark ye again, stir not your tongue about what
concerns you not, as you value having an entire tooth in your head."

"I betray counsel? I bear tales, and that against my brother
martialist? I would not tell it even to my timber soldan! Why, I
can be a wild galliard in a corner as well as thou, man. And now
I think on't, I will go with thee somewhere, and we will have a
rouse together, and thy Dalilah shall give us a song. Ha! said I
not well?"

"Excellently," said Henry, longing the whole time to knock his
brother martialist down, but wisely taking a more peaceful way
to rid himself of the incumbrance of his presence--"excellently
well! I may want thy help, too, for here are five or six of the
Douglasses before us: they will not fail to try to take the wench
from a poor burgher like myself, so I will be glad of the assistance
of a tearer such as thou art."

"I thank ye--I thank ye," answered the bonnet maker; "but were
I not better run and cause ring the common bell, and get my great
sword?"

"Ay, ay, run home as fast as you can, and say nothing of what you
have seen."

"Who, I? Nay, fear me not. Pah! I scorn a tale bearer."

"Away with you, then. I hear the clash of armour."

This put life and mettle into the heels of the bonnet maker, who,
turning his back on the supposed danger, set off at a pace which
the smith never doubted would speedily bring him to his own house.

"Here is another chattering jay to deal with," thought the smith;
"but I have a hank over him too. The minstrels have a fabliau of
a daw with borrowed feathers--why, this Oliver is The very bird,
and, by St. Dunstan, if he lets his chattering tongue run on at
my expense, I will so pluck him as never hawk plumed a partridge.
And this he knows."

As these reflections thronged on his mind, he had nearly reached
the end of his journey, and, with the glee maiden still hanging on
his cloak, exhausted, partly with fear, partly with fatigue, he at
length arrived at the middle of the wynd, which was honoured with
his own habitation, and from which, in the uncertainty that then
attended the application of surnames, he derived one of his own
appellatives. Here, on ordinary days, his furnace was seen to blaze,
and four half stripped knaves stunned the neighbourhood with the
clang of hammer and stithy. But St. Valentine's holiday was an
excuse for these men of steel having shut the shop, and for the
present being absent on their own errands of devotion or pleasure.
The house which adjoined to the smithy called Henry its owner;
and though it was small, and situated in a narrow street, yet, as
there was a large garden with fruit trees behind it, it constituted
upon the whole a pleasant dwelling. The smith, instead of knocking or
calling, which would have drawn neighbours to doors and windows,
drew out a pass key of his own fabrication, then a great and
envied curiosity, and opening the door of his house, introduced
his companion into his habitation.

The apartment which received Henry and the glee maiden was the
kitchen, which served amongst those of the smith's station for the
family sitting room, although one or two individuals, like Simon
Glover, had an eating room apart from that in which their victuals
were prepared. In the corner of this apartment, which was arranged
with an unusual attention to cleanliness, sat an old woman, whose
neatness of attire, and the precision with which her scarlet plaid
was drawn over her head, so as to descend to her shoulders on
each side, might have indicated a higher rank than that of Luckie
Shoolbred, the smith's housekeeper. Yet such and no other was her
designation; and not having attended mass in the morning, she was
quietly reposing herself by the side of the fire, her beads, half
told, hanging over her left arm; her prayers, half said, loitering
upon her tongue; her eyes, half closed, resigning themselves to
slumber, while she expected the return of her foster son, without
being able to guess at what hour it was likely to happen. She
started up at the sound of his entrance, and bent her eye upon
his companion, at first with a look of the utmost surprise, which
gradually was exchanged for one expressive of great displeasure.

"Now the saints bless mine eyesight, Henry Smith!" she exclaimed,
very devoutly.

"Amen, with all my heart. Get some food ready presently, good nurse,
for I fear me this traveller hath dined but lightly."

"And again I pray that Our Lady would preserve my eyesight from
the wicked delusions of Satan!"

"So be it, I tell you, good woman. But what is the use of all this
pattering and prayering? Do you not hear me? or will you not do as
I bid you?"

"It must be himself, then, whatever is of it! But, oh! it is more
like the foul fiend in his likeness, to have such a baggage hanging
upon his cloak. Oh, Harry Smith, men called you a wild lad for
less things; but who would ever have thought that Harry would have
brought a light leman under the roof that sheltered his worthy
mother, and where his own nurse has dwelt for thirty years?"

"Hold your peace, old woman, and be reasonable," said the smith.
"This glee woman is no leman of mine, nor of any other person that
I know of; but she is going off for Dundee tomorrow by the boats,
and we must give her quarters till then."

"Quarters!" said the old woman. "You may give quarters to such cattle
if you like it yourself, Harry Wynd; but the same house shall not
quarter that trumpery quean and me, and of that you may assure
yourself."

"Your mother is angry with me," said Louise, misconstruing
the connexion of the parties. "I will not remain to give her any
offence. If there is a stable or a cowhouse, an empty stall will
be bed enough for Charlot and me."

"Ay--ay, I am thinking it is the quarters you are best used to,"
said Dame Shoolbred.

"Harkye, Nurse Shoolbred," said the smith. "You know I love you
for your own sake and for my mother's; but by St. Dunstan, who was
a saint of my own craft, I will have the command of my own house;
and if you leave me without any better reason but your own nonsensical
suspicions, you must think how you will have the door open to you
when you return; for you shall have no help of mine, I promise
you."

"Aweel, my bairn, and that will never make me risk the honest name
I have kept for sixty years. It was never your mother's custom,
and it shall never be mine, to take up with ranters, and jugglers,
and singing women; and I am not so far to seek for a dwelling, that
the same roof should cover me and a tramping princess like that."

With this the refractory gouvernante began in great hurry to adjust
her tartan mantle for going abroad, by pulling it so forwards as
to conceal the white linen cap, the edges of which bordered her
shrivelled but still fresh and healthful countenance. This done,
she seized upon a staff, the trusty companion of her journeys,
and was fairly trudging towards the door, when the smith stepped
between her and the passage.

"Wait at least, old woman, till we have cleared scores. I owe you
for fee and bountith."

"An' that's e'en a dream of your own fool's head. What fee or
bountith am I to take from the son of your mother, that fed, clad,
and bielded me as if I had been a sister?"

"And well you repay it, nurse, leaving her only child at his utmost
need."

This seemed to strike the obstinate old woman with compunction.
She stopped and looked at her master and the minstrel alternately;
then shook her head, and seemed about to resume her motion towards
the door.

"I only receive this poor wanderer under my roof," urged the smith,
"to save her from the prison and the scourge."

"And why should you save her?" said the inexorable Dame Shoolbred.
"I dare say she has deserved them both as well as ever thief deserved
a hempen collar."

"For aught I know she may or she may not. But she cannot deserve to
be scourged to death, or imprisoned till she is starved to death;
and that is the lot of them that the Black Douglas bears mal-talent
against."

"And you are going to thraw the Black Douglas for the cake of
a glee woman? This will be the worst of your feuds yet. Oh, Henry
Gow, there is as much iron in your head as in your anvil!"

"I have sometimes thought this myself; Mistress Shoolbred; but if
I do get a cut or two on this new argument, I wonder who is to cure
them, if you run away from me like a scared wild goose? Ay, and,
moreover, who is to receive my bonny bride, that I hope to bring
up the wynd one of these days?"

"Ah, Harry--Harry," said the old woman, shaking her head, "this
is not the way to prepare an honest man's house for a young bride:
you should be guided by modesty and discretion, and not by chambering
and wantonness."

"I tell you again, this poor creature is nothing to me. I wish her
only to be safely taken care of; and I think the boldest Borderman
in Perth will respect the bar of my door as much as the gate of
Carlisle Castle. I am going down to Sim Glover's; I may stay there
all night, for the Highland cub is run back to the hills, like
a wolf whelp as he is, and so there is a bed to spare, and father
Simon will make me welcome to the use of it. You will remain with
this poor creature, feed her, and protect her during the night,
and I will call on her before day; and thou mayst go with her to
the boat thyself an thou wilt, and so thou wilt set the last eyes
on her at the same time I shall."

"There is some reason in that," said Dame Shoolbred; "though why
you should put your reputation in risk for a creature that would
find a lodging for a silver twopence and less matter is a mystery
to me."

"Trust me with that, old woman, and be kind to the girl."

"Kinder than she deserves, I warrant you; and truly, though I
little like the company of such cattle, yet I think I am less like
to take harm from her than you--unless she be a witch, indeed,
which may well come to be the case, as the devil is very powerful
with all this wayfaring clanjamfray."

"No more a witch than I am a warlock," said the honest smith: "a
poor, broken hearted thing, that, if she hath done evil, has dreed
a sore weird for it. Be kind to her. And you, my musical damsel, I
will call on you tomorrow morning, and carry you to the waterside.
This old woman will treat you kindly if you say nothing to her but
what becomes honest ears."

The poor minstrel had listened to this dialogue without understanding
more than its general tendency; for, though she spoke English well,
she had acquired the language in England itself; and the Northern
dialect was then, as now, of a broader and harsher character. She
saw, however, that she was to remain with the old lady, and meekly
folding her arms on her bosom, bent her head with humility. She next
looked towards the smith with a strong expression of thankfulness,
then, raising her eyes to heaven, took his passive hand, and seemed
about to kiss the sinewy fingers in token of deep and affectionate
gratitude.

But Dame Shoolbred did not give license to the stranger's mode of
expressing her feelings. She thrust in between them, and pushing
poor Louise aside, said, "No--no, I'll have none of that work.
Go into the chimney nook, mistress, and when Harry Smith's gone,
if you must have hands to kiss, you shall kiss mine as long as
you like. And you, Harry, away down to Sim Glover's, for if pretty
Mistress Catharine hears of the company you have brought home, she
may chance to like them as little as I do. What's the matter now?
is the man demented? are you going out without your buckler, and
the whole town in misrule?"

"You are right, dame," said the armourer; and, throwing the buckler
over his broad shoulders, he departed from his house without abiding
farther question.



CHAPTER XIII.

How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills,
Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills
Their mountain pipe, so fill the mountaineers
With the fierce native daring which instils
The stirring memory of a thousand years.

BYRON.


We must now leave the lower parties in our historical drama, to
attend to the incidents which took place among those of a higher
rank and greater importance.

We pass from the hut of an armourer to the council room of a monarch,
and resume our story just when, the tumult beneath being settled,
the angry chieftains were summoned to the royal presence. They
entered, displeased with and lowering upon each other, each so
exclusively filled with his own fancied injuries as to be equally
unwilling and unable to attend to reason or argument. Albany alone,
calm and crafty, seemed prepared to use their dissatisfaction for
his own purposes, and turn each incident as it should occur to the
furtherance of his own indirect ends.

The King's irresolution, although it amounted even to timidity,
did not prevent his assuming the exterior bearing becoming his
situation. It was only when hard pressed, as in the preceding scene,
that he lost his apparent composure. In general, he might be driven
from his purpose, but seldom from his dignity of manner. He received
Albany, Douglas, March, and the prior, those ill assorted members
of his motley council, with a mixture of courtesy and loftiness,
which reminded each haughty peer that he stood in the presence of
his sovereign, and compelled him to do the beseeming reverence.

Having received their salutations, the King motioned them to be
seated; and they were obeying his commands when Rothsay entered. He
walked gracefully up to his father, and, kneeling at his footstool,
requested his blessing. Robert, with an aspect in which fondness
and sorrow were ill disguised, made an attempt to assume a look of
reproof, as he laid his hand on the youth's head and said, with a
sigh, "God bless thee, my thoughtless boy, and make thee a wiser
man in thy future years!"

"Amen, my dearest father!" said Rothsay, in a tone of feeling such
as his happier moments often evinced. He then kissed the royal hand,
with the reverence of a son and a subject; and, instead of taking
a place at the council board, remained standing behind the King's
chair, in such a position that he might, when he chose, whisper
into his father's ear.

The King next made a sign to the prior of St. Dominic to take his
place at the table, on which there were writing materials, which,
of all the subjects present, Albany excepted, the churchman was alone
able to use. The King then opened the purpose of their meeting by
saying, with much dignity:

"Our business, my lords, respected these unhappy dissensions in the
Highlands, which, we learn by our latest messengers, are about to
occasion the waste and destruction of the country, even within a
few miles of this our own court. But, near as this trouble is, our
ill fate, and the instigations of wicked men, have raised up one
yet nearer, by throwing strife and contention among the citizens
of Perth and those attendants who follow your lordships and others
our knights and nobles. I must first, therefore, apply to yourselves,
my lords, to know why our court is disturbed by such unseemly
contendings, and by what means they ought to be repressed? Brother
of Albany, do you tell us first your sentiments on this matter."

"Sir, our royal sovereign and brother," said the Duke, "being in
attendance on your Grace's person when the fray began, I am not
acquainted with its origin."

"And for me," said the Prince, "I heard no worse war cry than
a minstrel wench's ballad, and saw no more dangerous bolts flying
than hazel nuts."

"And I," said the Earl of March, "could only perceive that the
stout citizens of Perth had in chase some knaves who had assumed the
Bloody Heart on their shoulders. They ran too fast to be actually
the men of the Earl of Douglas."

Douglas understood the sneer, but only replied to it by one of
those withering looks with which he was accustomed to intimate his
mortal resentment. He spoke, however, with haughty composure.