Читать книгу The Captain of the Guard - Grant James - Страница 11

"How often is a straw, wafted by the wind, the turning point in our destiny!" says an author; "a stone cast into the water causes a ripple on the most distant shore; so the most trivial event of our lives, after a thousand ramifications, leads on to some great climax."

When the train of Douglas mounted in the court-yard of the abbot's house, Sir Malcolm Fleming of Cumbernauld came hastily from his chamber, clad in complete mail, with his helmet open; thus it revealed the pallor of his face, with the sombre gloom of his dark grey eyes, whose restless and wandering expression bore evidence of a sleepless night.

"How now, Cumbernauld," said the earl of Abercorn, "is this thy dinner-dress – art going to dine with all this old iron about thee?"

"Yes – when I dine with enemies."

"Soho, man – go to! we have no enemies," said the sneering noble; "we are all friends now, and must drink to-night to the extinction of all feuds."

"Do the countess and Lady Murielle go to this banquet?" asked the old knight, with a voice rendered husky by sorrow and surprise, as Margaret and the ladies of her train came forth with all their gorgeous dresses glittering in the sunshine.

"Of a surety they do. James Achanna bore them each a special message from the Lord Regent in the young King's name; but what in the name of old Mahoun ails thee, Sir Malcolm Fleming – art ill?"

"Ill indeed at heart, lord earl."

"And wherefore?" asked Earl James, angrily.

"Come this way apart," replied the other, drawing Abercorn aside from the throng, while his voice and expression became more sad, his lips more pale, and his manner more excited. "Listen. Last night I was in my chamber disrobing for bed; my mind was full of the doubts and misgivings that have oppressed me since we left the walls and shelter of Thrave; and just as Silver Mary – that great bell which hangs in the tower of St. Giles – tolled the last stroke of the hour of twelve, I heard a deep sigh near me."

"A sigh!" repeated the earl, becoming interested in spite of himself; "was it not the wind in an arrow-hole?"

"A sigh, loud almost as a sob! I turned – there was no one near me; but the old and gloomy arras which covered the walls was violently agitated and shaken, so that the brown moths flew out of it. The sigh was repeated; and though I know myself to be brave as most men, I felt – yet knew not why – the life-blood curdling in my heart, and, as the Scripture hath it, the hair of my flesh stood up. Then an emotion which I could not resist, like the strong power we obey in a dream, led me on. I raised the old mouldy arras – and then – then – oh what a sight saw I there!"

"What?" asked the earl, in a low voice.

The perspiration rolled in bead-like drops from the pale forehead of the old baron upon his white beard and polished cuirass, as he replied in a solemn and husky whisper, "As I live by bread which the blessed God yields, and hope to die in the faith of our fathers, I beheld a decapitated corpse, the head of which rolled past me, with winking eyes, with chattering teeth, and with features livid and convulsed, as when the headsman's axe has just severed the neck! I knew those ghastly features – knew that curly hair – I knew that comely form – "

"And," said Abercorn, growing very pale in spite of himself; "and this head was – "

"Your kinsman's – the earl of Douglas!"

"Pho!" replied Abercorn, seeming suddenly to experience great relief; "by St. Bryde, I thought you were about to say 'twas mine. Did this grim vision speak to you!"

"No – but straightway vanished – melted away, and I was left in the chamber to solitude, to fears and prayers, but not to sleep."

"'Tis well you did not see any more heads roll past in this odd fashion," said Abercorn, jibingly.

"Lord James of Abercorn," said Fleming, solemnly, "I was long your father's comrade and most trusted friend. For forty long but stirring years there came no jar between us, though ever engaged in war and tumult. Together we were wounded and taken prisoners at Homildon; together we defended this castle of Edinburgh against Henry IV. of England, and repulsed him; together we fought in France, and fell wounded side by side at Verneuil – but he, alas! mortally, when attempting to save me, and now he sleeps the sleep of death in St. Gratians of Tournay – for there I closed his eyes, and laid his well-notched sword beside him – "

"All this, and much more, have I heard a hundred times, by the winter fire, at Douglas, at Thrave, and in your own hospitable house of Cumbernauld," said Abercorn haughtily and impatiently.

"Then hear it once again, to fire your lagging zeal, mistaken man!" said Sir Malcolm, with growing excitement in his tone and suspicion in his heart; "hear it once again, to bear witness of my faith, when I feel assured that this day no banquet, no wassail, no honour or hospitality, but death and life are in the balance!"

"What a-God's name seek you?" asked James of Abercorn, through his clenched teeth; for this animated and protracted discussion had drawn about them the abbot, their host; the earl of Douglas; little Lord David, his brother; even the Countess, Murielle, and other ladies, who threw up their veils, and listened with surprise. Sir Malcolm resumed: —

"Ay, ay, young lord; since first I learned to make the sign of the cross at my auld mother's knee in the hall of Cumbernauld, among the wilds of Dunbarton, true have I been, Abercorn, to Douglas and his race; so listen to me, if you can, without that cold sneer in your eye, on your lip, and in your heart! Trust not Crichton, and trust not Livingstone, or dool and woe will come on thee and thine! Oh, if you have one drop of warm blood in your heart, join with me in urging your kinsman and chief to share my doubts of these men."

"What in the name of Mahoun am I to say?" exclaimed Abercorn, whose eyes glared with anger, while he tugged his black beard in his vexation.

"Beware ye all!" resumed the earnest old laird of Cumbernauld! "I know what a city and a court are, with their rakes and high-born harlots; their carpet-knights and fawning cut-throats; their bullies and swashbucklers – with servile bows and smiling faces – their black, bitter, false, and cowardly hearts! So here, at the eleventh hour, as it were, I, Sir Malcolm Fleming, of Biggar and Cumbernauld, the soothfast friend of Douglas, say unto ye all, go not this day to the castle of Edinburgh."

Lord Abercorn listened to all this with rage in his eye, a sneer on his lip, and perplexity on his brow; and these mingling emotions deepened when the usually haughty countess requested the old knight to rehearse the story of the midnight vision. It certainly had a serious impression upon all, for the age was full of superstition, of omens, spectres, and supernatural terrors, when the bravest men would occasionally tremble at their own shadows. Thus for a few minutes even the young earl of Douglas seemed silent and oppressed, while Murielle burst into tears, and drew down her veil.

"It is as great a pity to see a woman weep as a goose go barefoot," said Abercorn, furiously and coarsely, using an old proverb: "by our Lady of Whitekirk! I think you are all demented. Lord abbot, talk to this old ghostseer, and assure him there can be no such thing in nature as the spectre of a living man."

"But there are wraiths," said Sir Alan Lauder; "and who can deny their existence, when Scotland is filled with tales of them."

"Lord abbot," resumed Abercorn, more irritated than ever, "speak and say, I charge you, that no such things can be."

"I can assure him of no such fallacy," replied the pedantic abbot, with displeasure, as he adjusted his long-flapped calotte cap over his thin, white, silvery hair. "History, ancient and modern, teems with tales of terrible appearances. Does not Pliny the younger, in his letters, affirm, as an incontrovertible fact, that Athenodorus the philosopher, the disciple of Zeno and keeper of the royal library at Pergamus, once saw a dreadful spectre?"

"When – how?" asked the countess, impressed by the strange names which the abbot used so glibly.

"Pliny relates that Athenodorus purchased an old house in Athens, which many had refused to occupy, because it was haunted by an unquiet spirit. So Athenodorus waited courageously to see it."

"What – the house?" asked Abercorn.

"No – the spectre. Dragging a massy chain, it came at length in a shapeless and dreadful form, and commanded him to follow it. The philosopher, who, though trembling in his soul, affected to be busy at that moment, said 'Wait a little;' but the spirit rattled its rusty chain furiously, so Athenodorus arose and followed it to the marble court near which his villa stood, and, on reaching a certain spot, the apparition vanished. Athenodorus, saith Pliny, marked the place that he might know it again. On the following day he assembled the magistrates of Athens, and on digging up the soil the bones of a man with a rusty chain were found. They were publicly interred elsewhere, and from that hour his mansion was disturbed no more. Shall we question that which such men as Plutarch and Pliny have asserted to have been? Like the foul heretic Paul Crawar of Bohemia, dare you impugn that which you cannot comprehend and which you know not? Can you deny or doubt the existence of a spirit, when you cannot prove your own? In all past times, in all lands, among every kind of people, however highly civilized or however lowly savage, apparitions have been seen as warnings for good or for evil; and such will be permitted until that fell spirit whose hapless state I shall one day lay before our Holy Father be forgiven, and fear and hate and war shall be no more."

Enraged by this pedantic rebuke, the earl of Abercorn twisted his moustache, and spurred and checked his horse till it almost sprang into the air.

"Then what do you advise, my lord abbot?" asked the countess, in evident perplexity.

"That my lord your husband should hearken unto the advice of his counsellors, whom his father never slighted, but ever held with reverence."

"I thank you, lord abbot," said Fleming, pressing the abbot's hand. "Let the earl at least leave behind him the two ladies of his house, his brother Lord David, Earl James of Abercorn, and Hugh of Ormond."

"To what end?" asked the earl of Ormond.

"To gratify the prayer and anxious heart of an old friend, and that the house of Douglas may not be in an evil hour laid open to the stroke of fortune, – your father's last injunction when he lay dying at Restalrig," added Fleming to the young earl.

His marked energy and anxiety, together with the entreaties of Sir Alan Lauder and those of the Douglases of Pompherston, Strabrock, and Glendoning, made the chief pause and waver in his purpose. He said, —

"Shall I return now after having ridden to his very gates, as it were? Impossible! And the young king – what will he, what will the people say? and then the chancellor's letter flattered so suavely."

"The greater reason to distrust him," muttered the bearded knights to each other under their lifted helmets.

"Wherefore, why?" said Abercorn, burning with a rage which he could no longer dissemble, as a long-projected and carefully-developed plot seemed on the point of dissolving into air.

"Take counsel of your own brave heart, and good, my lord, run not your chief and his brother too into the lion's den. Crichton flatters to deceive!" replied Sir Malcolm Fleming.

"It may be wise, when so many seem to think so, that you should remember the last words of your father at Restalrig," said Murielle, softly touching the hand of Douglas.

"True, sweet cousin. My brother David – "

"Will go wheresoever you go," replied the brave boy, with a hand on his jewelled dagger; "neither imaginary nor real danger shall cow me."

"And I too shall go," added the earl of Ormond; "but as policy seems necessary here, let our kinsman, James of Abercorn, remain behind with the countess and Lady Murielle. Then, come what may, we leave a man able and willing to avenge us."

"Ormond speaks well and wisely," said the abbot, while a close observer might have seen the gleam of joy which passed over Abercorn's white, malignant face, on hearing a proposal so exactly to his secret wishes.

"So be it, then; I am weary of this loitering; let us begone, or the chancellor's good cheer will be chilled by the November air," said Douglas.

"'Tis well to jest," began Abercorn —

"But if Crichton wrongs me, woe to him!" cried the fiery young earl, shaking his clenched hand aloft; "he dare not —he dare not! If he doth, by my father's grave in Melrose kirk I shall level his castle of Crichton to its ground-stone!"

"William Douglas," said the countess, who had been conferring for a moment with Abercorn, "you speak as your father would have spoken; yet act warily, as he would have acted. We know not what may be the issue of a day which has commenced so ominously, and, if swords are drawn, women would but encumber you. Murielle, Lady Ormond, and I will tarry here until the banquet is over. Make fitting excuses to the regent and chancellor – say we are indisposed by our long journey, or what you will; and now let it be known, gentlemen, kinsmen, and friends, that in this matter I yield neither to the advice of my loving lord and husband, who is ever rash; nor to the advice of Sir Malcolm Fleming, who is so wary; nor to that of our lord abbot, who is ever good and true; but to the wish of Earl James of Abercorn."

Whether these words were spoken heedlessly as a sneer at the ready manner in which that noble agreed to remain behind, or in mere politeness, none could then divine; but there came a time when they were remembered by many to the disadvantage of the proud and wilful young beauty.

At that moment a man in armour with a closed helmet rode hurriedly through the archway. He was James Achanna.

"Lord earl," said he, "the chancellor awaits you without the castle gate."

"Enough, then – let us go; we should have been ringing glasses and exchanging kissing-comfits with our beloved friend the chancellor an hour since," said Douglas, lifting his plumed bonnet as he courteously kissed the hands of his wife and her sister.

He then put spurs to his horse and rode off, accompanied by his brother David, Sir Malcolm Fleming, Sir Alan Lauder, the abbot, and five hundred men led by the earl of Ormond – all completely armed and horsed.

As the clatter of their hoofs died away, a foreboding sigh came from Margaret's breast; but there was a cold though courteous smile on the lips of Lord Abercorn, as he gave her his ungloved hand and led her, with Murielle, back into the almost deserted house of the abbot.

Why was it that Margaret's heart upbraided her? She seemed still to see before her the face of that proud and handsome, noble-hearted and high-spirited cousin with whom she had shared her heart and the revenues of her princely house!..

Why was it that, as the day passed slowly on and the November sun sank in masses of foggy cloud, the earl of Abercorn, pale, excited, and abstracted, shunned his friends and paced to and fro in the abbot's garden, casting his eyes ever and anon to the summit of the fortress, which was visible above the adjacent streets?

He started! a distant hum became a confused clamour of many voices; then the galloping of horses and a rush of feet were heard.

He looked again to David tower, and from its rampart the national cross had disappeared. A black banner was floating there, and only half hoisted on the staff, – a double symbol of death!