The Fair Maid of Perth Part 57

"Old man," said Catharine, "if thou be indeed so near the day of thy deserved doom, other thoughts were far wholesomer than the vainglorious ravings of a vain philosophy. Ask to see a holy man--"

"Yes," said Dwining, scornfully, "refer myself to a greasy monk, who does not--he! he! he!--understand the barbarous Latin he repeats by rote. Such would be a fitting counsellor to one who has studied both in Spain and Arabia! No, Catharine, I will choose a confessor that is pleasant to look upon, and you shall be honoured with the office. Now, look yonder at his valiancie, his eyebrow drops with moisture, his lip trembles with agony; for his valiancie--he! he! he!--is pleading for his life with his late domestics, and has not eloquence enough to persuade them to let him slip. See how the fibres of his face work as he implores the ungrateful brutes, whom he has heaped with obligations, to permit him to get such a start for his life as the hare has from the greyhounds when men course her fairly. Look also at the sullen, downcast, dogged faces with which, fluctuating between fear and shame, the domestic traitors deny their lord this poor chance for his life. These things thought themselves the superior of a man like me! and you, foolish wench, think so meanly of your Deity as to suppose wretches like them are the work of Omnipotence!"

"No! man of evil--no!" said Catharine, warmly; "the G.o.d I worship created these men with the attributes to know and adore Him, to guard and defend their fellow creatures, to practise holiness and virtue.

Their own vices, and the temptations of the Evil One, have made them such as they now are. Oh, take the lesson home to thine own heart of adamant! Heaven made thee wiser than thy fellows, gave thee eyes to look into the secrets of nature, a sagacious heart, and a skilful hand; but thy pride has poisoned all these fair gifts, and made an unG.o.dly atheist of one who might have been a Christian sage!"

"Atheist, say'st thou?" answered Dwining. "Perhaps I have doubts on that matter--but they will be soon solved. Yonder comes one who will send me, as he has done thousands, to the place where all mysteries shall be cleared."

Catharine followed the mediciner's eye up one of the forest glades, and beheld it occupied by a body of hors.e.m.e.n advancing at full gallop. In the midst was a pennon displayed, which, though its bearings were not visible to Catharine, was, by a murmur around, acknowledged as that of the Black Douglas. They halted within arrow shot of the castle, and a herald with two trumpets advanced up to the main portal, where, after a loud flourish, he demanded admittance for the high and dreaded Archibald Earl of Douglas, Lord Lieutenant of the King, and acting for the time with the plenary authority of his Majesty; commanding, at the same time, that the inmates of the castle should lay down their arms, all under penalty of high treason.

"You hear?" said Eviot to Ramorny, who stood sullen and undecided. "Will you give orders to render the castle, or must I?"

"No, villain!" interrupted the knight, "to the last I will command you.

Open the gates, drop the bridge, and render the castle to the Douglas."

"Now, that's what may be called a gallant exertion of free will," said Dwining. "Just as if the pieces of bra.s.s that were screaming a minute since should pretend to call those notes their own which are breathed through them by a frowsy trumpeter."

"Wretched man!" said Catharine, "either be silent or turn thy thoughts to the eternity on the brink of which thou art standing."

"And what is that to thee?" answered Dwining. "Thou canst not, wench, help hearing what I say to thee, and thou wilt tell it again, for thy s.e.x cannot help that either. Perth and all Scotland shall know what a man they have lost in Henbane Dwining!"

The clash of armour now announced that the newcomers had dismounted and entered the castle, and were in the act of disarming the small garrison.

Earl Douglas himself appeared on the battlements, with a few of his followers, and signed to them to take Ramorny and Dwining into custody.

Others dragged from some nook the stupefied Bonthron.

"It was to these three that the custody of the Prince was solely committed daring his alleged illness?" said the Douglas, prosecuting an inquiry which he had commenced in the hall of the castle.

"No other saw him, my lord," said Eviot, "though I offered my services."

"Conduct us to the Duke's apartment, and bring the prisoners with us. Also should there be a female in the castle, if she hath not been murdered or spirited away--the companion of the glee maiden who brought the first alarm."

"She is here, my lord," said Eviot, bringing Catharine forward.

Her beauty and her agitation made some impression even upon the impa.s.sible Earl.

"Fear nothing, maiden," he said; "thou hast deserved both praise and reward. Tell to me, as thou wouldst confess to Heaven, the things thou hast witnessed in this castle."

Few words served Catharine to unfold the dreadful story.

"It agrees," said the Douglas, "with the tale of the glee maiden, from point to point. Now show us the Prince's apartment."

They pa.s.sed to the room which the unhappy Duke of Rothsay had been supposed to inhabit; but the key was not to be found, and the Earl could only obtain entrance by forcing the door. On entering, the wasted and squalid remains of the unhappy Prince were discovered, flung on the bed as if in haste. The intention of the murderers had apparently been to arrange the dead body so as to resemble a timely parted corpse, but they had been disconcerted by the alarm occasioned by the escape of Louise.

Douglas looked on the body of the misguided youth, whose wild pa.s.sions and caprices had brought him to this fatal and premature catastrophe.

"I had wrongs to be redressed," he said; "but to see such a sight as this banishes all remembrance of injury!"

"He! he! It should have been arranged," said Dwining, "more to your omnipotence's pleasure; but you came suddenly on us, and hasty masters make slovenly service."

Douglas seemed not to hear what his prisoner said, so closely did he examine the wan and wasted features, and stiffened limbs, of the dead body before him. Catharine, overcome by sickness and fainting, at length obtained permission to retire from the dreadful scene, and, through confusion of every description, found her way to her former apartment, where she was locked in the arms of Louise, who had returned in the interval.

The investigations of Douglas proceeded. The dying hand of the Prince was found to be clenched upon a lock of hair, resembling, in colour and texture, the coal black bristles of Bonthron. Thus, though famine had begun the work, it would seem that Rothsay's death had been finally accomplished by violence. The private stair to the dungeon, the keys of which were found at the subaltern a.s.sa.s.sin's belt, the situation of the vault, its communication with the external air by the fissure in the walls, and the wretched lair of straw, with the fetters which remained there, fully confirmed the story of Catharine and of the glee woman.

"We will not hesitate an instant," said the Douglas to his near kinsman, the Lord Balveny, as soon as they returned from the dungeon. "Away with the murderers! hang them over the battlements."

"But, my lord, some trial may be fitting," answered Balveny.

"To what purpose?" answered, Douglas. "I have taken them red hand; my authority will stretch to instant execution. Yet stay--have we not some Jedwood men in our troop?"

"Plenty of Turnbulls, Rutherfords, Ainslies, and so forth," said Balveny.

"Call me an inquest of these together; they are all good men and true, saving a little shifting for their living. Do you see to the execution of these felons, while I hold a court in the great hall, and we'll try whether the jury or the provost marshal do their work first; we will have Jedwood justice--hang in haste and try at leisure."

"Yet stay, my lord," said Ramorny, "you may rue your haste--will you grant me a word out of earshot?"

"Not for worlds!" said Douglas; "speak out what thou hast to say before all that are here present."

"Know all; then," said Ramorny, aloud, "that this n.o.ble Earl had letters from the Duke of Albany and myself, sent him by the hand of yon cowardly deserter, Buncle--let him deny it if he dare--counselling the removal of the Duke for a s.p.a.ce from court, and his seclusion in this Castle of Falkland."

"But not a word," replied Douglas, sternly smiling, "of his being flung into a dungeon--famished--strangled. Away with the wretches, Balveny, they pollute G.o.d's air too long!"

The prisoners were dragged off to the battlements. But while the means of execution were in the act of being prepared, the apothecary expressed so ardent a desire to see Catharine once more, and, as he said, for the good of his soul, that the maiden, in hopes his obduracy might have undergone some change even at the last hour, consented again to go to the battlements, and face a scene which her heart recoiled from.

A single glance showed her Bonthron, sunk in total and drunken insensibility; Ramorny, stripped of his armour, endeavouring in vain to conceal fear, while he spoke with a priest, whose good offices he had solicited; and Dwining, the same humble, obsequious looking, crouching individual she had always known him. He held in his hand a little silver pen, with which he had been writing on a sc.r.a.p of parchment.

"Catharine," he said--"he, he, he!--I wish to speak to thee on the nature of my religious faith."

"If such be thy intention, why lose time with me? Speak with this good father."

"The good father," said Dwining, "is--he, he!--already a worshipper of the deity whom I have served. I therefore prefer to give the altar of mine idol a new worshipper in thee, Catharine. This sc.r.a.p of parchment will tell thee how to make your way into my chapel, where I have worshipped so often in safety. I leave the images which it contains to thee as a legacy, simply because I hate and contemn thee something less than any of the absurd wretches whom I have hitherto been obliged to call fellow creatures. And now away--or remain and see if the end of the quacksalver belies his life."

"Our Lady forbid!" said Catharine.

"Nay," said the mediciner, "I have but a single word to say, and yonder n.o.bleman's valiancie may hear it if he will."

Lord Balveny approached, with some curiosity; for the undaunted resolution of a man who never wielded sword or bore armour and was in person a poor dwindled dwarf, had to him an air of something resembling sorcery."

"You see this trifling implement," said the criminal, showing the silver pen. "By means of this I can escape the power even of the Black Douglas."

"Give him no ink nor paper," said Balveny, hastily, "he will draw a spell."

"Not so, please your wisdom and valiancie--he, he, he!" said Dwining with his usual chuckle, as he unscrewed the top of the pen, within which was a piece of sponge or some such substance, no bigger than a pea.

"Now, mark this--" said the prisoner, and drew it between his lips.

The effect was instantaneous. He lay a dead corpse before them, the contemptuous sneer still on his countenance.

Catharine shrieked and fled, seeking, by a hasty descent, an escape from a sight so appalling. Lord Balveny was for a moment stupified, and then exclaimed, "This may be glamour! hang him over the battlements, quick or dead. If his foul spirit hath only withdrawn for a s.p.a.ce, it shall return to a body with a dislocated neck."

His commands were obeyed. Ramorny and Bonthron were then ordered for execution. The last was hanged before he seemed quite to comprehend what was designed to be done with him. Ramorny, pale as death, yet with the same spirit of pride which had occasioned his ruin, pleaded his knighthood, and demanded the privilege of dying by decapitation by the sword, and not by the noose.