THE

  YELLOW FRIGATE

  OR

  _THE THREE SISTERS_

  BY

  JAMES GRANT

  AUTHOR OF "THE ROMANCE OF WAR"

  LONDON
  GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, LIMITED
  NEW YORK: E. P. BUTTON AND CO.

INTRODUCTION.

In that broad and magnificent valley which separates chain of the
Grampians from the Ochil Mountains, close by the margin of the Allan,
and sequestered among venerable trees, lies the pleasant and peaceful
little village of Dunblane, in Scotland's elder days an old cathedral
city.  Northward of the limpid Allan lie purple heaths, black swamps,
and desert muirs.  An old bridge which spans the river, and was built
in the time of King Robert III., by "the Most Reverend Father in
God," Findlay Dermach, bishop of the see, with a few ancient houses,
having quaint chimneys and crow-stepped gables, that peep on the
steep brae-side from among the shady beeches, are all that survive of
Dunblane; but over those remains rise the grey ruins of King David's
vast cathedral, of which nothing now is standing but the roofless
nave, with its shattered aisles, and the crumbling but lofty gothic
tower.

The gleds and corbies that flap their wings between the deserted
walls; the swallows that twitter on the carved pillars, or build
their nests among the rich oakwork of the prebends' stalls, with the
grass-grown floor and empty windows of this magnificent ruin, impress
the mind of the visitor with that melancholy which is congenial to
such a place.  But it is neither the recumbent figure of a knight in
armour, with his sword and triangular shield, marking where the once
powerful Lord of Strathallan sleeps, not the burial-place of the
Dukes of Athol, blazoned with the silver star of the Murrays, that
are the most interesting features in this old ruin.

It is not the fine west window which overlooks the wooded path that
winds by the river-side, and is known as "the Good Bishop's walk,"
nor the ruined shrine where sleeps St. Blane of Bute--he whose boat
sailed upon the Clyde without sail or oar; he who (as the veracious
Breviary of Aberdeen tells us) struck fire with his fingers when the
vesper lights went out; and who raised from the dead the English heir
of Appleby and Trodyngham, that attract most particularly the
attention of visitors, but _three plain slabs_ of blue marble, that
lie side by side on the grassy floor, and nestling, as it were,
together, as if to show that those they cover had loved each other in
life too well to be separated even in death.

The fall of the ponderous and once magnificent roof; the action of
the weather, and the footsteps of visitors, have defaced the legends
that were originally carved there; but the memory of those who sleep
below these marble labs yet lingers in Dunblane and Strathearn.

Under the first lies the affianced bride of one who was a good and
valiant soldier, and faithful to his king.

Under the second lies the betrothed of a stout Scottish mariner, as
brave a fellow as ever faced salt water or cannon-shot.

Under the third sleeps the youngest--she who perhaps was the
fairest--the wife (but not the queen) of one who in his time was the
most gallant and magnificent monarch that ever wore the Scottish
diadem.

These three ladies were sisters; and their story is a strange and a
dark one.

History, tradition, and an old manuscript, that was found (no matter
when) among the Records of the Scottish Court of Admiralty, have
enabled me to lay their lives and narrative before the reader in the
following pages.

  CONTENTS.

  I. ON BOARD
  II. THE SWASHBUCKLER
  III. BONNY DUNDEE
  IV. THE SISTERS
  V. JAMES III
  VI. PALACE OF SAINT MARGARET
  VII. MARGARET DRUMMOND
  VIII. THE FISHERMAN OF BROUGHTY
  IX. THE BANE OF SCOTLAND
  X. THE BOATSWAIN'S YARN
  XI. CHAINING THE UNICORN
  XII. EMBASSY OF THE SIEUR DE MONIPENNIE
  XIII. TO SEA!
  XIV. THE OGRE OF ANGUS
  XV. CONCLAVE OF MALCONTENTS
  XVI. ANOTHER SON-IN-LAW
  XVII. THE WARLOCK OF BALWEARIE
  XVIII. FATHER AND SON
  XIX. HOW BORTHWICK FULFILLED HIS PROMISE
  XX. WOOD MEETS HOWARD
  XXI. THE PRICE OF THREE TENEMENTS
  XXII. THE SILKEN CORD
  XXIII. LORD DRUMMOND AND ROBERT BARTON
  XXIV. DAVID FALCONER
  XXV. HOWARD AND MARGARET
  XXVI. THE CHAPLAIN'S CABIN
  XXVII. THE ISLES OF THE FORTH
  XXVIII. THE FIRST SCOTTISH REVOLUTION
  XXIX. THE MARCH TO STIRLING
  XXX. THE GOOD SHIP HARRY
  XXXI. THE TORWOOD
  XXXII. THE DOUBLE BRIBE
  XXXIII. THE GREY HORSE
  XXXIV. THE BATTLE OF SAUCHIEBURN
  XXXV. THE FOUR HORSEMEN
  XXXVI. THE MILL ON THE BANNOCK
  XXXVII. THE REGICIDES
  XXXVIII. THE HOUSE OF THE BARTONS
  XXXIX. THE PRINCE AND THE ADMIRAL
  XL. CLEARED FOR ACTION
  XLI. THE ENGLISH BOAT
  XLII. THE LOVER AND THE SPY
  XLIII. THE BATTLE OF THE MAY
  XLIV. LARGO
  XLV. ST. ANTHONY'S BELL
  XLVI. THE GUNNER
  XLVII. BORTHWICK'S NEW MISSION
  XLVIII. TIB'S HOWFF
  XLIX. THE KING'S WARK
  L. THE SUMMER SPEAT
  LI. LADY EFFIE'S LETTER
  LII. THE HERMIT OF LORETTO
  LIII. THE TRYSTE AT LORETTO
  LIV. THE WEIRDWOMAN'S TREE
  LV. THE ESCAPE
  LVI. THE UNICORN LOOSE
  LVII. CAMBUSKENNETH
  LVIII. DOUBT, FEAR, AND SECRECY
  LIX. REUNITED
  LX. LONDON IN 1488
  LXI. THE ADMIRAL'S STORY--THE LEGEND OF CORA LYNN
  LXII. STORY CONTINUED--"ERIS-SKENE!"
  LXIII. THE BROKEN WEDDING-RING
  LXIV. THE BATTLE OFF FIFENESS
  LXV. THE ENGLISH PRISONERS
  LXVI. THE STANE BICKER
  LXVII. THE MAUCHLINE TOWER
  LXVIII. DUNBLANE
  LXIX. THE MIDNIGHT TRYSTE
  LXX. THE IRON BELT
  CONCLUSION
  NOTES

THE YELLOW FRIGATE

OR,

THE THREE SISTERS

CHAPTER I.

ON BOARD.

  "There was a ship at morning prime
    The Scottish shore forsook,
  And southward with a favouring gab
    Her rapid course she took:
  Her mast St. Andrew's banner bears,
    And heaven be now her speed!
  For with her goes the bravest knight
    That Scotland hath in need."
                          BALLADS AND LAYS.

By the fragment of a log-book, which was found among the MSS. just
referred to, we are informed that on Beltane day, in the year of
Grace 1488, two Scottish ships of war, the _Yellow Frigate_ and the
_Queen Margaret_, were lying becalmed off the mouth of the Tay, about
seven miles from the Gaa Sands, and three from the Inchcape Rock, the
large bell of which was heard at times, as its sonorous notes floated
over the still bosom of the water.  An abbot of St. Thomas at
Arbroath had hung it there, on a wooden frame, to indicate by night
that ghastly ridge, so long the terror of mariners; and thus as the
waves rose and fell, they swung it to and fro.  Water will convey
sound to a vast distance; thus, in the noon of a calm May day, the
notes of the Inchcape bell were distinctly heard on board of the two
ships of his Majesty James III., although they were three miles
distant from the reef.

A groundswell came off the dangerous sands of Abertay; the sails of
the caravels flapped lazily against the masts, as the hulls rolled
from side to side slowly and heavily, for there was so little wind
that neither would obey her helm, but lay like a log on this water.

The fertile shores of Fife and Angus were shrouded in hazy summer
mist, above which peeped the bare scalp of the Law of Dundee.  Noon
passed, and still the swell came rolling in long, glassy, and
monotonous ridges from the land, while the burnished sea seemed
smooth, as if coated over with oil.  The ships lay about half a mile
apart; and the _Yellow Frigate_, with which we have more particularly
to do, was nearest to the shore.

A young officer who was pacing to and fro on her poop, gazed
frequently and impatiently at the mouth of the river, and after
wearying himself by whistling for the lagging wind, tossing splinters
of lighted wood into the water, and watching anxiously the direction
taken by the puffs of smoke or steam, he suddenly slapped his hands.

"Ahoy there, mizen-top!  Barton," he exclaimed to an officer who had
ascended into the mizen-rigging, "there is a breeze setting in from
the east."

"Right, Falconer," replied the other; "I can see it curling the water
over the Inchcape; and it comes in time, for I was beginning to
bethink me of some other trade, for this of sailor requires overmuch
patience for me.  So-ho! here it comes!" he continued, while
descending the ratlins with the activity of a squirrel.  "See how the
sea wrinkles before it!"

"Now the canvas fills," said Falconer, looking aloft.

"The _Queen Margaret_ has caught it already, and now old Mathieson
squares his yards.  Aha! he is an active carle; always on the
look-out, and his messmates jump like crickets when his whistle
blows."

The person thus eulogized, we find to have been Sir Alexander
Mathieson, a rich merchant-skipper of Leith, who had become captain
of a king's ship, and won the name of "King of the Sea."

"Keep her away, timoneer," said Barton; "keep her away yet--a point
or two to the south."

"Why so," asked Falconer, "when she lies so well?"

"Because, in entering the harbour of Dundee, we must keep the north
gable of St. Clement's kirk upon the bar, and on the north-west,
right over against Broughty, else we shall run upon the Drummilaw
Sands; and then not St. Clement himself, nor his blessed anchor to
boot, would save us.  Master gunner--Willie Wad--please to inform Sir
Andrew that a breeze is springing up; but that I see nothing of my
father's ship, the _Unicorn_, at anchor in the Firth."

"Art thou sure?" said Falconer, anxiously.

"Sure!  I would know her by her red poop-lanterns and square rigging
among a thousand ships."

Robert Barton, who was captain of the ship, hastened to get sail made
on her; and as the breeze freshened, the yards were almost squared;
the notes of the Inchcape bell died away, and both vessels stood
slowly into that beautiful estuary formed by the confluence of the
Tay with the German Sea.

The sailors, who, during the calm, hud been lounging lazily on deck,
or basking in the sunshine between the brass guns, exchanged their
listlessness for activity; a smile of satisfaction spread over their
weather-beaten visages, and a hum of gladness arose from the ship.

"Now, timoneer, the breeze is more aft," cried Barton; "steer dead
for the harbour mouth."

"Soho!" said Falconer, "the _Margaret_ is coming up with us, hand
over hand."

"Fear not," replied Barton, joyously, "we shall soon leave her far
astern.  Thou knowest, Falconer, that this good caravel was built
under Sir Andrew's own eyes at the New Haven, near Leith," continued
the captain, surveying with a seaman's proverbial delight the lofty
rigging of the frigate.

"Yet, she is but a cockle-shell to the great ship of Hiero, anent
which, Father Zuill, the chaplain, told us so many wonderful things
after mass yesterday."

"If you had seen how beautifully she took the water, diving deep with
her stern, and tilting up her bow like a swan.  She is sharp as a
lance at the bows below the water line--bold above it; straight
between poop and forecastle--clean in the counter, and bolted with
copper.  By the faith of Barton, there sails not such another ship in
all Scottish waters; and I marvel mickle, if either French Francis,
or English Harry, will ever build one like her."

The ship which Captain Barton eulogised so highly would create no
small speculation in Bonny Dundee, if she and her consort were seen
standing before the wind, right up the Firth of Tay, in this year
1855; and we may imagine the criticisms of the rough old tars, who
usually congregate about the piers and rocks of Broughty Ferry.  Her
whole hull was painted _brilliant yellow_; hence the name, that has
won her a place so conspicuous in the histories of the period.

Both vessels seemed comparatively low in the waist, for their
gigantic poops and forecastles rose like wooden towers above the sea;
and to render this simile more complete, were furnished with little
wooden tourelles at the inner angles.  Elaborate carving and gorgeous
gilding covered the hulls above the water-line; and amid this,
grinned the great carthouns or forty-eight pounders; the brass
culverins and falconets, tier above tier.  The port-lids were painted
a flaming red; three gigantic lanterns, with tops of polished brass,
surmounted each of the poops, which had round their sterns and
quarters a gaudy row of painted shields, bearing the armorial blazons
of the gentlemen who served on board.  Round the butt of each mast
stood a rack of long Scottish spears and hand-guns, into the tubes of
which were inserted the hafts of Jedwood axes.

The _Yellow Caravel_ or frigate carried fifty guns; the _Margaret_,
twenty.  Both were ship rigged, with three masts, each of these being
composed of two long tapered spars, fidded at the tops, which were
clumsy and basket-like enclosures, surrounded by little embrasures,
from whence the cross-bowmen, pages, and arquebussiers, could gall
the enemy in security.  From the carved bows, the bowsprits started
up at an angle of forty-five degrees; and each had rigged thereon a
lesser or fourth mast, having a great square spritsail before.  At
the yard-_arms_ were iron hooks to grasp an enemy's rigging.  All the
sails were large and square.  At her mainmast head, each vessel
carried the flag of the admiral, a golden tree in a blue field; while
at the stern waved the blue national ensign, with the great white
cross of St. Andrew, extending from corner to corner.

The summer sun of this fair Beltane day shone joyously on the glassy
water, on the glittering hulls and snow-white canvas of these stately
caravels, as they neared those green headlands which form the
entrance to one of the noblest of the Scottish firths.

On the south the shore is bold and rocky; there, round its old peel,
now in ruins, clustered the little village of Port-on-Craig, whose
population lived by fishing and managing the boats of the ferry (the
oldest in the kingdom), which plied between Fife and the opposite
point, where, on a bare and unwooded promontory stands the Royal
Castle of Broughty, a strong, square tower, then surrounded by a
barbican and other defences, which frowned towards the ocean on the
east, defending the narrow strait from hostile fleets, and on the
west, towards a dreary salt-marsh, that stretched almost from the
outer walls to the gates of busy Dundee.

The dresses of the officers and crews of the ships of James III. were
as remarkable as the aspect of their craft; for Robert Barton, who
was sailing master or captain, and Sir David Falconer, who was
captain of the arquebussiers, wore doublets or pourpoints of grey
velvet, cut very short, with slit sleeves, to show the loose white
shirts below; their shoulders were padded out with _mahoitres_, or
large puffs; they wore tight hose of Flanders cloth, with long boots
that came up to their knees, They had swords and daggers of great
length and flat blue bonnets; at the end of his gold neckchain, the
sailor carried a whistle; but the soldier had a cross and medal; and,
as a protection from salt water, each wore an overall, or rough
surcoat of Galloway frieze, trimmed with brown fur.

The sailors wore gaberdines of the same coarse material, with fustian
breeches, blue bonnets, and shoes of undressed deerskin, which in
those days won us the strange appellation of _rough-footed Scots_.
Willie Wad, the gunner, and Archy of Anster, the boatswain, only,
wore doublets of Flemish cloth, edged with silver lace, and with the
royal crest, the crown and lion _sejant_, embroidered on the sleeves
thereof.  The arquebussiers, of whom there were a hundred and fifty
on board, wore steel casquetels, with large oval ear-plates, buff
coats, and broad military belts, which sustained their dirks,
priming-horns, bullet-bags, and the spanners of their long-barrelled
arquebusses.

Such was the general aspect of the ships and crews of his Majesty
James III.

Barton and Falconer were both stout and athletic young men, but were
somewhat different in aspect and bearing; for the former, who was a
son of the admiral, Sir Andrew Barton, or Barnton, of that Ilk in
Lothian, the wealthy Leith merchant, who had acquired a splendid
fortune, and purchased a fine estate, was a florid and jovial-looking
young seaman, with something of the Cavalier in his aspect; but
Falconer, who had no fortune but his sword, had been introduced to
the royal favour by the late Earl of Mar--the murdered favourite of
James III., who knighted the youth for his valour at the siege of
Dunbar in 1478, when but a stripling.  Thus, though a knight, and
captain of one of the king's bands, he was but the son of a poor
merchant-skipper of Borrowstoness; yet he was a handsome and a
stately youth; his eyes, hair, and complexion were dark, and his
sharply pointed mustachios stuck fiercely off on each side of his
mouth.

"A boat has shot off from Broughty," said he, shading his eyes with
his right hand; "and two stout fellows are pulling for the ship as if
their lives depended upon their speed."

"Keep to larboard of the _Margaret_," cried Barton to the timoneer;
"for she draws less water of course, and we require all the fairway
to ourselves.  Keep her away--see how the surf curls on the Gaa
Sands!"

At that moment, a door, which was studded with iron nails like that
of an old tower, opened in the after part of the poop, and the
sentinels saluted with their arquebusses as the admiral stepped on
deck, and first cast his eyes aloft and then ahead.

"Keep her full, Barton," said he, "keep her full.  So, the old Tay
now opens her arms to us! and now the spires of St. Clement and St.
Mary are in sight again.  Gadzooks, I can see the Rock of St.
Nicholas, and if I had thine eyes, Falconer, I might distinguish the
great house of Stobhall."

Falconer only twisted his mustachios, and smiled, but with a sombre
aspect.

"How, Sir Andrew," said Barton, "you think the eyes of a mariner----"

"Are but green glass when compared to those of a lover--yea I do,"
laughed the good old admiral, as he walked to the quarter, looked
over the side, and whistled to the freshening breeze; thus he failed
to observe the ill-concealed gesture of impatience that escaped Sir
David Falconer, and the bitter smile he exchanged with Barton.

Sir Andrew Wood of Largo, admiral of the fleet of James III.--the
Scottish Nelson of his time--was originally a wealthy merchant of
Leith, where in early life he was as well known in the Timber Holfe
as at Sluice and the Dam.  He had first been merely a
merchant-skipper, who fought his own way at sea, but he had done so
with such signal success, and had so frequently defeated the fleets
of Edward IV. of England, and of Alfonso, King of Portugal, and the
pirates of many nations, that he was knighted on his own deck by
James III., who never omitted an opportunity of distinguishing that
rising middle class which the feudal barons viewed with aversion and
contempt.  James further bestowed on him the noble barony of Largo,
in Fife, and he held it by the tenure that he should at all times be
ready to pilot and convey the king and queen to the famous shrine of
St. Adrian, on the Isle of May.  His Castle of Largo, a pile of great
size and strength, he built by the hands of several English, French,
and Portuguese pirates whom he had captured at sea, and whose hard
work he made the price of their liberty.

Thus he, who had commenced life as a poor sailor boy of Leith, found
himself, before his fiftieth year, a Scottish knight and baron of
Parliament; the founder of a noble family; the possessor of a stately
fortress, Laird of Largo, Easter-dron, and Newbyrne; with a coat of
arms, bearing two ships in full sail under an oak tree, in memory of
his defending the Castle of Dumbarton against an English fleet in
1481, and defeating another near the Bass a few years after--But we
anticipate.

Now, his caravels had just returned from Sluice, where he had been on
an embassy, concerning the quarrel then existing between Scotland and
the Flemings.

He was rather under than over the middle height, and somewhat stout
in body, with a round good-humoured face; his complexion was fair,
but burned to a dusky red by exposure for nearly forty years to the
sea air in many climates; his beard and mustachios were rather full,
and the former fringed his face all round, mingling with his
short-cut hair, which, though it had been dark in youth, was now
becoming grey and grizzled.

On his head was a cap of maintenance, adorned by a short red feather;
he wore a rich military belt, and a jazarine jacket of the fashion of
the late King James II.; a gorget of polished steel, having
escalloped edges, and a magnificent poniard, which he had received
from Bartolemeo Diaz, the famous Portuguese navigator, who discovered
the Cape of Good Hope.  Buff-coloured hosen encased his sturdy legs,
and he wore plain knee-boots of black leather, with high red heels.
The only indications of naval life about him were, his silver whistle
(in those days the invariable badge of rank on the ocean), with a
consecrated medal, bearing the image of Clement, the patron of
mariners; and more than these, that unmistakeable roll in his gait,
which is peculiar to all those brave and honest souls who live by
salt water.

"And so, Barton," said he, returning from the starboard quarter;
"there is no sign of thy father's ships in the Tay.  We expected to
have met them here."

"It is indeed most strange!" replied Captain Barton, giving a last
and anxious glance up the broad and shining river that opened now
before them; "but assuredly I can see no more ships in the Firth."

"Not even from the mast-head?"

"Nay, though I could see the river as far up as the Pows of Errol."

"Some service must have turned up in our absence, and while we
lingered at the Sluice," said Falconer.

"And if service was to be found," said the admiral, with honest
emphasis, "my brave auld messmate, Sir Andrew Barton, would be the
last man on the Scottish waters to keep his anchor down.  But, ho!
gadzooks, here is the captain of Broughty beginning to waste the
king's powder.  Archy of Anster, order a yeoman of the braces to
lower my pennon."

At that moment a puff of white smoke broke over the black ramparts of
Broughty, as the cannoneers saluted the admiral's well-known flag,
which was thrice lowered in reply to the compliment as the vessels
swept slowly past, and entered the broad bosom of that magnificent
river.

The tide was now beginning to ebb, and those dangerous shoals, known
as the Drummilaw Sands, were gradually appearing.

Under these heaps lie the wrecks of those Norwegian galleys which
were destroyed in a storm in the days of Duncan I., after his general
had defeated the soldiers of King Sueno in the Carse of Gowrie.
There they sank, and there the shifting sand rose like a bar at the
river mouth above their shattered hulk.

CHAPTER II.

THE SWASHBUCKLER.

  "Kind cousin Gilford, if thou lack'st good counsel
  At race, at cockpit, or at gaming table,
  Or any freak by which men cheat themselves
  As well of life as of the means to live,
  Call for assistance upon Philip Mure;
  But in all serious parley spare invoking him."
                                    AUCHINDRANE.

By this time, the boat which had shot off from the promontory on
which the fortress is situated, was alongside the _Yellow Frigate_,
which was moving slowly, almost imperceptibly, up the river, and was
now some hundred yards ahead of the _Margaret_, which was but a dull
sailer.  As the boat neared, the song chaunted by the two rowers was
heard on board.  It was a dull and monotonous chant, the constant
burden of which was,

  "Hey, the canty carles o' Dysart!
    Ho, the merry lads o' Buckhaven!
  Hey, the saucy limmers o' Largo!
    Ho, the bonnie lassies o' Leven!"

"'Tis the boat of Jamie Gair," said Barton; "the bravest fellow that
ever dipped a line in salt water; let a rope be hove to him from one
of the larboard ports."

This was immediately done; the boat (which was one of those strong
clinker-built fisher craft, which are peculiar to the Scottish
firths) sheered alongside; and the two fishermen who rowed it,
together with a gentleman, enveloped in a scarlet mantle, who had
been lounging in the stern, ascended to the maindeck, and from thence
the latter climbed by Jacob's ladder to the lofty poop, where the
admiral, his second in command, and the captain of the arquebussiers,
were surmising who the visitor might be.

"Pshaw!" said Sir Andrew, as they all retired aft; "'tis Sir Hew
Borthwick!"

"But we must not forget ourselves altogether," urged Robert Barton;
"the man is a visitor."

"True," said the admiral; "I forget."

"Welcome," said Falconer, as this visitor, not in the least daunted
by the coolness of his reception, approached them jauntily, with a
tall feather nodding in his bonnet, and an enormous sword trailing at
his heels; "welcome on board the _Yellow Frigate_."

"A dog's welcome to him," muttered Robert Barton, under his thick
mustachios; "for he is the falsest loon in all broad Scotland.  Dost
thou know, admiral, that 'tis said, this fellow, with two brother
villains in the English pay, betrayed Berwick to the King of England?"

The Admiral nodded a brief assent.

Borthwick's appearance was somewhat forbidding.  He was past forty
years of age, and had black, glossy, and fierce-looking eyes; a mouth
like an unhealed gash; ears set high on his head, black teeth, and a
stumpy beard.  He wore a faded doublet of figured satin with
_mahoitres_, that had once been cloth of gold; his feet were encased
in English boots of that absurd fashion then called duck-bill, as the
toes were like beaks, and five inches long.  A purse hung at his
girdle, and a chain encircled his neck; but rumour wickedly averred
that the former was frequently distended by pebbles, and that the
second was only brass.

When he removed his bonnet, the remains of a tonsure were visible;
for Sir Hew (the origin of whose knighthood was somewhat obscure) had
formerly been a prebend in the Cathedral of Dunblane, but forsaking
the cloister at a time when the ecclesiastical rule was considerably
relaxed, he had espoused the more congenial occupation of sharper,
bully, jockey, and swashbuckler.  Always obsequious to the rich and
noble, but supercilious to the poor and humble, or brutal whenever he
dared venture to be so he hovered like a vulture wherever the
ambulatory Court of James III. chanced to be residing.

"And now, that all ceremonious inquiries are over, may I ask,
_Master_ Borthwick, on what devil's errand thou hast boarded us?"
bluntly inquired Robert Barton, who, being less good-natured than the
bluff old admiral, was at no pains to conceal his scorn for the
swashbuckler.

The dislike was quite mutual; thus a malicious gleam lighted the eyes
of Borthwick, as he replied--

"I came on board to learn that which is of much importance to the
jovial gallants about Court; (nay, nay, Sir David Falconer, do not
laugh quite so loud if _you_ please!) whether our good friend the
admiral has been successful in his embassy to the Flemings; for since
the interdict of '66, when our vessels could no longer trade with the
ports of the Swyn, the Sluice, and the Dam, wine hath been so bad,
and so dear----"

"That you must e'en content your noble self with plain usquebaugh,"
interrupted the admiral, laughing outright at the idea of
communicating the result of his important mission to a pitiful fellow
like Borthwick.  "But canst thou tell me, sir, where are the ships of
mine old messmate, Sir Andrew Barton, and where is he?"

"The ships of Sir Andrew," replied the swashbuckler, slowly, and with
another malevolent glance at Robert Barton, "are anchored safely by
the walls of London Tower."

"And Barton----"

"Is at the bottom of the sea, I suppose."

"Borthwick!" exclaimed the admiral, in great wrath; "if thou hast
come on board to laugh at us, by Heaven's mercy, thou shalt find none
here, for I will rig thee by the earings to the spritsail yard."

"He dare not trifle with us," said Robert Barton, in a thick hoarse
voice, as his swarthy cheek grew pale; "be patient, Sir Andrew, and
let us hear what he has to say.  Hew Borthwick, thou art poor, and
lovest gold, like thy own life-blood.  I will give thee a hundred
crowns if thou speakest the truth; but I will poniard thee on this
deck, sirrah, if thou liest; so spin thy yarn, then, hand over hand;
be a man for once.  'Tis a son who asks for tidings and the safety of
his father."

"Quick!" added the testy admiral, stamping his foot; "for my arm is
somewhat longer than my patience, sir."

"Hearken," said Borthwick, with deliberation.  "On the very day you
sailed for Sluice, three months ago, the Provosts of Aberdeen and
Dundee appeared before the Parliament at Stirling (where the king was
biding) making doleful complaints anent the great loss their burghs
had suffered from the pirates of Portugal, who had seized many of
their ships and barbarously murdered the crews.  In five hours
thereafter, Sir Andrew Barton put to sea with the _Great Lion_, the
_Unicorn_ and _Little Jenny_.  He sailed towards the Tagus, and by a
herald's mouth demanded immediate justice from the Portuguese.
Alfonso V. delayed; then stout old Barton lost his temper, and after
firing a few shot at the castle of Lisbon, put to sea.  Falling in
with the identical ships which had committed the outrages complained
of by the two Provosts, he captured and sunk them, sending the heads
of their crews, daintily salted in beef barrels, to the King, at
Stirling.  Being somewhat soft-hearted, James, as you may believe,
was no way delighted by the present; but, Sir Andrew, after
cannonading every town on the coast of Portugal, as he passed it, and
after destroying every ship of that nation which he met on the high
seas, bore away for Scotland.  Alfonso complained to his good ally
the King of England; the latter made inquiries as to the most likely
route to be chosen by Sir Andrew Burton on his homeward voyage, and
despatched his high-admiral, the Lord Thomas Howard, and his brother
Edmund, with a strong fleet of the best ships London could produce,
to the Downs, as these Southerns call that part of the north sea----"

"I know, I know, off the south-east coast of England, on the Kentish
shore," said the admiral, stamping a foot impatiently; "go on,
man--go on!"

"After sweeping all the shores of Portugal, and after escaping a
frightful tempest, on Saint Swithin's day, he was descried by the
English fleet, breasting gallantly up the channel, with all sail
possible on the _Lion_, and the _Jenny_, too, which bowled on
alongside, like a little gadfly, all legs and arms, with sweeps out,
and every stitch of canvas set."

"Ay," said Robert Barton, "she was a noble little sloop, built under
my father's own eye, poor man!--Well."

"The English fleet came on in the form of a half-moon, each vessel
with a large white rod at her bowsprit, in sign of amity; but Sir
Andrew knew the Lord Howard of old; and undaunted by his array, came
on with his guns double-shotted, and all his ports open; but failing
to break through, he engaged the English admiral.  A desperate
conflict ensued, for the _Great Lion_ was hemmed in on every side,
and boarded at both stem and stern.  Through the joints of his
armour, Sir Andrew was shot by an arrow, when about to retreat by the
rigging into the main-top on his decks being taken; and just then, as
he was falling, a cannon shot swept both his legs away.  His brave
crew fought round him in a circle, and he continued to cheer and
encourage them, by blowing his whistle to the last, until they were
all slain, or taken and disarmed.  Edmund Howard, with three ships,
pursued the _Jenny_; dismasted her, and shot her sweeps away; then
she struck, and the survivors of both crews--only one hundred and
fifty poor seamen in all--were marched in chains through the streets
of London, as a spectacle to the exulting citizens.  They were then
flung, like felons, in the fortress which they name the Tower; but
after being instructed to implore their lives from the English king,
they were dismissed; and now, _Master_ Robert Barton, your father's
noble ships, the _Great Lion_ and the _Unicorn_, have the honour of
being esteemed the best in the navy of England, and display St.
George's red cross, where St. Andrew's blue ensign waved before."

"And what says our king to all this?" asked Barton, in a voice that
was rendered hoarse and tremulous by grief and passion.

"Ay," added the admiral, with a terrible frown; "what says King
James?"

"He despatched the Rothesay Herald to Windsor Castle, demanding
redress, and threatening war."

"And the Englishman answered--?"

"That the fate of pirates should not occasion disputes between
princes."

"_Pirates!_" exclaimed Robert Barton, whose rage at such an epithet
surmounted even his grief for his father's death.  Borthwick's
sinister eyes were brightened by a grim smile; but mutterings of
anger were heard among the officers and seamen, many of whom had
crowded round to hear the news from shore; and many a swarthy brow
was knit, and many a hard hand clenched: for old Andrew Barton, like
his compatriot and mess-mate, Andrew Wood, had long been the idol of
the Scottish mariners.  "_Pirates!_" reiterated Robert; "dared the
English king stigmatize by such a name a gallant merchant mariner,
who, by noble valour and honest industry, has won himself a fair
estate and spotless reputation--a knight, who received his spurs from
the hands of a queen--an admiral, second only to the Laird of Largo!"

"Second to none, my brave boy," said Sir Andrew Wood, clapping Barton
on the shoulder.  "Thy father was second to no man that sails upon
the sea; but he hath found a sailor's grave, so rest him God!  As for
pirates--Heaven will know best whether kings or those who live by
salt water are the most honest men.  Every dog hath his day; and just
now Lord Howard hath his; be patient, my boy, until our new ship, the
_Great Michael_, is off the stocks, and then we shall see whether the
Scottish or the English cross shall float highest above the water.
But tell me, Hew Borthwick, what hath been the result of all this;
for among these lubberly Flemings we learned no Scottish news."

"You all know, sir, of course," resumed the swashbuckler, assuming a
lofty and impertinent air of consequence, as he stuck his left hand
into the hilt of his sword, "that the king's eldest son, James Duke
of Rothesay, was at his birth betrothed to the Princess Cecilia of
England, daughter of the late King Edward IV.; that his brother, the
Duke of Albany, was to marry King Edward's fair young sister, the
Dowager Duchess of Burgundy; that our adorable Princess Margaret was
to marry the English Duke of Clarence; that every one was to be
married to some one else, except myself, who, in all these
illustrious alliances, had been strangely overlooked; when lo! the
brave Archibald, Earl of Angus, who is now Warden of the East and
Middle Marches, grew weary of all this traffic with England, and the
long truce to war.  To square accounts with Henry VII. for Barton's
loss, he marched ten thousand of his vassals across the Border, and
ravaged all Northumberland.  So thus, for the present, have all these
royal marriages ended--in fire and smoke--bloodshed and cold steel."

"So may they ever end when our kings look for alliances elsewhere
than on the Continent," said Sir David Falconer.

The admiral paced up and down the deck, in a bitter and thoughtful
mood, grieving for the loss of his oldest and earliest friend; one
hand he thrust into the breast of his jazarine jacket; the other
rested on the pommel of his poniard.

Relinquishing the ship to the care of others, Barton stood apart,
gazing dreamily upon the shining river, with his heart full of sad
and bitter thoughts, while involuntarily he clutched the mizen
rattlins.  His eyes were swimming; but he bit his bearded nether lip
till the blood came.  Suddenly he raised his eyes to a large mansion,
which was looming high above others, through the summer haze in which
Dundee was sleeping; and then a smile spread over his broad and
thoughtful brow.

At that moment a hand was laid upon his shoulder, he turned, and
encountered the ship's chaplain, Father Zuill, a Dominican.

"Relinquish these bitter thoughts, Barton," said he; "and come below
with me to my cabin.  There I will show thee an invention that will
avenge thy father more surely than all the cannon in Scotland--yea, a
burning-glass, that will consume a ship at the distance of a hundred
leagues."

"Right, Father Zuill," said the admiral, who did not hear, or
mistook, what the friar had said.  "God may listen to the prayers of
an honest sailor, when He turns a deaf ear to those of a king."

A few minutes after they had gone below, the friar reappeared and
ascended to the ship's waist, where Sir Hew Borthwick,
notwithstanding his knighthood, was comfortably regaling himself with
Archy of Anster and Wad the gunner, on salt beef and spiced ale at
the capstan-head.  Zuill placed a purse in his hands, and said,

"Here are the hundred crowns which Captain Barton promised thee."

"A hundred crowns!" stammered Borthwick; "'tis an enormous sum, good
father."  (And so it was in the time of James III.)

"But Barton hath a noble heart and a princely fortune," said the
chaplain, retiring hurriedly, for he had neither respect nor
admiration for an apostate priest like Borthwick.

"Ah me!" muttered the latter; "where shall I conceal this, and what
shall I do with it?  I never had such a sum before!  What a thing it
is, for a poor devil, who has not had even a black penny for ten
days, to find himself suddenly the king of a hundred crowns!  I'
faith!" he added, while concealing his prize, "'tis well that fiery
birkie Barton knoweth not by _whose_ information the Lord Howard knew
that the Scottish ships would pass the English Downs about Saint
Swithin's day."

CHAPTER III.

BONNY DUNDEE.

  "Yon is the Tay rolled down from Highland hills,
  That rests his waves, after so rude a race,
  In the fair plains of Gowrie--further westward
  Proud Stirling rises--yonder to the east,
  Dundee, the gift of God."
                                MACDUFF'S CROSS.

In that age of cold iron (for indeed we cannot call it a golden age),
when the potent and valiant knight, Sir James Scrimegeour, of Dudhope
and Glastre, Hereditary Bearer of the Royal Standard, was Constable
and Provost of the Scottish Geneva, the unexpected appearance of Sir
Andrew Wood's two stately caravels created no small commotion within
the burgh.  No sooner was notice given from the Castle of Broughty
that the Laird of Largo's ships had been seen off the Inchcape, and
were now standing up the Tay, than it spread from mouth to mouth, and
passed through the town like wildfire.

Though now the shapeless façade of many a huge linen factory, and the
tall outline of many a smoky chimney, overshadow the ground that was
covered by green fields and waving coppice in the days I write of,
"Bonny Dundee" still merits the name given it of old by the northern
clansmen--_Ail-lec_--the pleasant and the beautiful.

Spread along the sandy margin of one of our noblest rivers, and
nestling under the brow of a green and conical mountain, it was
without walls in the year 1488; but at each end had a strongly
embattled gate, which defended it on the east and west, while its
castle, of the eleventh century, which stood on an immense mass of
steep rock that overlooked the Tay, gave it additional strength, and
added a military character to the naval importance which the burgh
was acquiring by the shipping that usually crowded its harbour.  This
castle is now removed, and a broad street has been hewn through the
heart of the rock which it crowned.

Its quaint thoroughfares contained then many beautiful chapels,
convents, and monasteries; and the stately hotel of many a noble
family, with turrets and turnpike-stair, embattled porch, and
armorial bearings.  These towered above the timber-fronted and
arcaded houses of the Fluckergaitt, the Overgaitt, and other
venerable streets, whose appearance was more picturesque than their
names would import.  There our kings had a mansion named the
Whitehall, the vaults of which are yet remaining; as also had the
Lords Drummond, the Scrimegeours of Dudhope, the Barons of
Strathmartine, the powerful Earls of Angus, and the great Earl of
Crawford, who, for his valour at Blackness, in the recent struggle
between the king and nobility, had been created Duke of Montrose, and
Lord High Chamberlain of Scotland.  Many great barons of the Carse of
Gowrie also resided in Dundee, where Parliaments and Conventions have
been held; and which could then boast of the Mint of King Robert I.,
and the palace of St. Margaret, the Queen of Malcolm III.; but its
proudest objects were that broad river, which from the hills of
Strathfillan and Glendochart rolls its mighty current to the German
Sea; and its ample harbour, crowded by the high-pooped and
gaudily-painted ships of France and Norway, Sweden and Flanders.

On the afternoon of this bright Beltane day, the return of the great
naval hero from the shores of Flanders caused an unusual commotion
and satisfaction in Dundee.  The whole inhabitants were "on tiptoe,"
and a joyous murmur spread along the Mole when the well-known
caravels of Wood were seen to enter the river; for now, though the
admiral was a knight and baron of Parliament, who fought under the
king's pennon, he still dabbled a little in merchandise, which gave
him additional value in the estimation of the thrifty burgesses and
merchant traders of the town.  Thus, every ship in the harbour, from
the great argosie that traded with the Levant, down to those little
crayers or low-built smacks which are still peculiar to the Scottish
firths, hoisted her colours.  The bells in the vast tower of St. Mary
rang a merry peal; groups of old weather-beaten tars, wearing broad
blue bonnets, gaberdines of Galloway white, and enormous boots of
rough skin, assembled on the rock of St. Nicholas, and on the Mole,
which then lay to the westward thereof, to observe, and exercise
their nautical criticism on the aspect of the tall ships which,
before a gentle eastern breeze, were slowly coming abreast of the
town.  There are bluff old fellows of this kind--half man and half
fish--who, in all ages, have haunted the piers of seaport towns, and
are great, pugnacious, and, moreover obstinate authorities, in all
matters appertaining unto salt water.

Amid all the dense population so interested in the arrival of the
admiral, there were none who bent their eyes more eagerly on the
coming ships than five fair young girls who were seated on the
bartizan of a large mansion, which (after surviving nearly all its
baronial cotemporaries) still stands at the corner of Fish-street,
and the Flesher-row, which were then, as they are yet, the busiest
part of all Dundee, and contained some of the finest examples of old
Scottish street architecture.

This mansion is large and square, like a great bastel-house; and at
three of its corners has broad round towers, which are strong enough
to turn cannon balls.  The whole superstructure rests on an arcade
composed of finely-moulded elliptical arches, that spring from fluted
pilasters.*  Its arcade is partly sunk into the earth, and it is
further diminished of its original height by a slate roof sloping
down upon the walls, which of old were surmounted by a bartizan, from
whence a view could be obtained of the river to the south, and that
quaint old thoroughfare to the west, where, two hundred years before,
the schoolboy _William Wallace_, slew the son of Selby, the English
governor; but to the north the lofty mansions of the Nethergaitt shut
out the view.

* In 1808, two hundred silver coins of James VI. were found imbedded
in the wall of this fabric, which is now named King James's Custom
House, from the use to which it was last applied.

In the time of our history, this stately mansion, the stone panels of
which were covered by coats-of-arms bearing a Sleuth-hound and
shield, with three bars _wavy_, was the town residence of one of
Scotland's most powerful peers, John, Lord Drummond, of Stobhall and
that ilk, who was Baron of Concraig, Steward of Strathearn, Privy
Councillor, and had been Ambassador of James III. to England, three
years before, concerning the marriage of James, the young Duke of
Rothesay, to a princess of that kingdom; an embassy on which he
mysteriously failed.

The five fair girls who were watching the ships' approach on this
bright summer evening, were his daughters, now left entirely to their
own control; for Lord Drummond was with the king at Scone, and their
mother, Elizabeth Lindesay, of the princely House of Crawford, had
been dead three years, and lay entombed in Dunblane.

Euphemia was twenty years of age; her sisters, Sybilla and Margaret,
were respectively nineteen and eighteen; but Elizabeth and Beatrix
were little girls, and of them cotemporary history has recorded
little more than the names.

Lady Euphemia was a very handsome girl, with fine hazel eyes, and
glossy dark brown hair, which was entirely confined in one of those
cauls of gold net by which the Scottish ladies had gladly superseded
the fontanges of the preceding reign.  Over this floated a white
kerchief of the finest texture, edged with gold fringe.  Her nose was
straight; her well-defined eyebrows expressed decision; her
complexion was clear, but pale; her bust and figure were
unexceptionable, and the very elegant costume of the court of James
III.--an ermined jacquette of black velvet, with spangled skirtle and
yellow mantle, displayed them to the best advantage.  She wore
scarlet gloves from Perth, and shoes of crimson tissue.  Her whole
appearance was gaudy and brilliant; while her air was lofty and
reserved, for it was an age when pride of birth and station were
carried to an absurd extent; but in her beauty there was something
noble and majestic; and her dark hair imparted to her skin a pure and
transparent whiteness that was very striking, even in a land of fair
women.

Sybilla was just a second edition of Euphemia, but with a slight rose
tinge in her cheek, and a stature somewhat less.  Perhaps the most
charming of the three was Margaret, who was then barely eighteen, and
had soft blue eyes, a pure and delicate complexion, a profusion of
that beautiful and brightly-coloured hair for which our Scottish Mary
was so famous; and her face (though less regular than her elder
sisters) had the sweetest expression that ever Raffaelle conjured up
in the happiest moments of his artistic inspiration.  There was a
dash of thought or sadness (which you will) in Margaret's winning
smile that fascinated all, and she was the favourite of the proud and
ambitious old lord, her father.

Lizzie and Beatie were both fair-haired and happy little girls, who
inherited from their mother the blue eyes and dazzling complexions of
the Lindesays of Crawford.

The three elder ladies occupied tabourettes; their two younger
sisters alternately romped round the bartizan with a wiry otter
terrier, or nestled among the embroidered skirts of Euphemia and
Sybilla.

The rich attire of these five girls, the abundance of satin, velvet,
jewels, and embroidery which they had about them, betokened wealth;
while by their air, the carriage of their heads, the chastened
expression of their eyes, and above all by the beautiful form and
whiteness of their hands, any one might easily perceive their birth
was noble; yet their father (although the heir of a long line of
chieftains) was the first of his race who had worn a coronet.

"Oh, look at the caravels!" exclaimed little Lizzie to her sisters,
who had been doing little else for the last hour; "look, sister
Margaret," she continued, clapping her pretty hands, "see how one gay
flag runs up after another!  Dost thou see Captain Barton yet, sister
Euphemia?--or thou, Sir David Falconer, Sybilla?"

"How should we, if thou dost not?" asked Euphemia, with some asperity.

"Because you are older and bigger than me, and should of course see
farther."

"Hush, child," replied Lady Euphemia, who had frequently found little
Lizzie's powers of observation somewhat provoking; "but I _do_
think," she added, turning to Sybilla, "that I can distinguish
Falconer and Barton on the poop."

"At this distance!" said she, shading her fine hazel eyes by a small
white hand.

"Dost see a white feather waving there?"

"Euphemia, Falconer always wears a red feather in his casquetel,"
replied Lady Sybilla.

"We shall have good Father Zuill, the chaplain, visiting us ere
long," said little Sybilla, "to read us some of his wonderful stories
out of that great book, in which he writes down the miracles of St.
Clement, the mariner's patron."

Be it known, that though these charming girls could write, not one of
them ever read a book in her life; for the simple reason, that there
was not then a printed book in all the realm of Scotland, where the
noble art of printing was unknown till twenty-two years later--being
fourteen years after it was known in England.

Here little Lizzie, after terrifying her sisters by a large wasp,
which she thrust before them on her fan of feathers, threw it over
the bartizan.

"'Tis the first wasp I have seen this year," said Euphemia; "thou
shouldst have killed it, child, for that would have freed us from
foes till the end of December."

"Father Zuill told us not to believe in that superstition," said
Margaret, gently.

"Yet he believes in beads that cure blindness," said Sybilla.

"And burning-glasses that will consume a fleet at the horizon and
further," added Euphemia; "but lo you, now, the ships are about to
anchor!"

The sun was now in the westward, and a bright flood of light was
poured along the broad and beautiful river, the green banks of which
lay steeped in purple haze.  The _Yellow Frigate_ and her consort,
towering above all other craft in the harbour, were now abreast of
the mansion from whence the five daughters of the Steward of
Strathearn were observing them; and being distant only a bow-shot,
the words of command issued through the trumpet on board of both
could be distinctly heard.

There was a light wind, thus the vessels were under a press of
canvas, and formed, indeed, a noble sight, with their snow-white
sails shining above the mirror-like water, and their many-coloured
pennons streaming in the sunny air.  They elicited frequent bursts of
nautical rapture from the old Tritons who were clustered on the craig
of St. Nicholas, a sea-beaten rock, that took its name from a small
chapel dedicated to that saint, which crowned its summit.

"To your quarters, yeomen of the sheets and braces!" cried a clear
and distinct voice from the poop of the frigate.

"This is _his_ voice--that is the voice of Barton!" exclaimed
Euphemia, a glow of joy replacing the paleness of her fine face to
hear again the familiar accents of her lover--even in the hoarse
words of command.

A moment after the courses were hauled up, and the light breeze swept
through the rigging; boats were now putting off from the shore, and
the high gunnels (or _gun-walls_) of the caravels were crowded with
glad faces, and hurried but hearty recognitions of friends were
interchanged.  The seamen, clad in their grey gaberdines (each with
St. Andrew's cross sewn on the breast thereof), and their flat blue
bonnets, were seen swarming up the shrouds like bees, and displaying
themselves upon the sharply braced yards; and then, as if by the wave
of a wizard's wand, the great canvas sails disappeared, landsmen
scarcely knew how, as they were neatly and compactly handed and laid
in, revealing the taut black rigging and ponderous top-castles of the
frigate--nor was Sir Alexander Mathieson, in the _Queen Margaret_, an
instant behind the admiral in his manoeuvres.

"Stand by the anchor, lads!" shouted Barton, with a voice like a
trumpet.

"All clear--yare, yare, my hearts!" replied the boatswain, Archy
O'Anster from the forecastle, while as the frigate rounded her to,
great blue ensign flapped in the wind.

"Then let go!"

A rushing sound, as the thick rope cable swept through the
hawseholes, and a heavy plunge, as the ponderous iron anchor
disappeared into the calm flow of the river, announced that the
admiral's ship swung at her moorings in the harbour of Dundee, from
whence, four months before, she had sailed for the coast of Flanders,
as we have already mentioned, anent King James's dispute with the
merchants of the Sluice and Dam.

At that time no man was so popular in Scotland as Sir Andrew Wood,
unless we except Sir Andrew Barton; but now he was gone to his long
home, and the people looked to his old messmate to avenge him.  Three
loud cheers were given from the shore as the frigates came to anchor;
and from aloft and alow their crews responded, with the deep and
hearty shout that can only come from the throats of those who are
incessantly combating with the waves and winds.

"See, dear Lizzie," said Margaret, who, though usually silent and
languid, had partaken of the excitement and bustle caused by the
admiral's arrival, "a barge is leaving the side of the _Yellow
Frigate_."

"Oh, the bonny little barge!" exclaimed Beatrix, dancing about her,
and comparing the sixteen-oared boat to the towering caravel.

"Two gentlemen, clad in grey doublets, are in it."

"Margaret, 'tis Barton and Falconer--thou seest his red feather now,
Sybilla," said Euphemia, as she flushed again with pleasure.

"They will bring us pretty, pretty presents, will they not?" said the
younger girls, clapping their hands.

"Father Zuill promised you each a box of sweetmeats," said Margaret,
with one of her sad kind smiles.

"Captain Barton promised me a silver collar from Bruges," said little
Elizabeth.

"And David Falconer promised _me_ a carcanet of pearls, with a hood
and veil," added Beatrix, who was a year younger.

"Thou--child?" said Euphemia; "and what would _you_ do with a
carcanet, a hood and veil?"

"Wear them at mass, and in the Highgaitt, to be sure," retorted the
little dame, testily; "no one fell in love with you, sister Euphemia,
till you exchanged the coif for a hood and veil."

"Nor with Sybilla, either," added Beatrix, making common cause
against the elders; "and as for poor sister Margaret, no one has
loved her yet."

Lady Margaret grew ghastly pale, and turned away.  Sybilla, who did
not perceive this emotion, laughed; but Euphemia, who had now the
place of mother over them all, said gravely,

"You are overforward, imps.  Eight years hence it will be time enough
for Lizzie, and for you, Beatie, to think of lovers, and talk of
hoods and veils.  Marry come up! child, thou canst not spin yet!  But
see--Barton's boat hath reached the Rock of St. Nicholas."

"Alas!" said Margaret, sadly, "what evil tidings we have to give him
of his father's fate."

As the two friends sprang ashore, the old seamen who were clustered
by the chapel wall, all doffed their bonnets, and murmured a hearty
welcome.

The rock was the ancient landing-place, and lay to the westward of
the old harbour.  It was there that David, Crown Prince of Scotland,
landed on his return from the Crusades; and there, that two hundred
years after, the good Sir James Douglas embarked for Jerusalem, with
the heart of Robert Bruce; for "bonnie Dundee" is a place of many old
and many stirring memories.

"They are coming this way," said Sybilla, in a flutter; "we must
hasten to receive them."

"But, lo!--what scurvy companion do they bring with them?" added the
haughty Euphemia.

"Sir Hew Borthwick," said Lizzie, "who cheated our butler at dice,
and stole the gateward's bugle."

"_Sir!_--how can you thus pollute the title of knighthood?" asked the
eldest sister.

"But do not the people call him so?" said Margaret.

"He is a mansworn priest," continued Euphemia, "and I marvel that the
Lord Bishop of Dunblane permits him to be at liberty.  Was not Father
Arbuckle built up in the gable of Gilston kirk for the same
crime--abandoning his cloister?"

"Oh, frightful!" said the gentle Margaret, with a shudder; "'tis so
unlike _you_, dear Effie, to urge such an expiation; moreover, I do
not believe it."

"Not believe!" repeated Euphemia, as they all descended from the
bartizan by a turret stair; "has not our father told us that he saw
it done--yea, and guarded the kirk with the lances of the stewardry
for ten days; and there, in the wall, the bones of the friar, poor
man! are yet remaining.  But, hark! there are our visitors."

At that moment Sir David Falconer blew the copper horn which hung at
the tirling-pin of the house door.

CHAPTER IV.

THE SISTERS.

  "A sailor's life is a life of woe,
    He works now late, now early;
  Now up, now down, now to and fro,
    But then he takes it cheerly.
  And yet think not our fate is hard.
    Though storms at sea so treat us,
  For coming home, a sweet reward,
    With smiles our sweethearts greet us."
                                    T. DIBDIN.

In an apartment which had three large windows overlooking the river,
the ladies seated themselves in a group to await their visitors; and
two, at least, were flushed and palpitating, for they expected
acknowledged lovers.  The younger girls were all expectation too,
anticipating certain gifts or presents; Margaret, alone, was, as
usual, pale, calm, and quiet--even sad.

The lofty walls of the chamber were hung with pale brown leather,
stamped with rich golden figures; the ceiling was covered with
grotesque gilding, and upon every available place appeared the
sleuth-hound of the Drummonds, with their motto, _Gang warily_.  A
magnificent Dutch buffet, having bulbous shapen legs, and deep
recesses, stood at one end, and was surmounted by a large hound in
delft ware; a gift by which Barton, whose father brought it from
Flanders, first made an impression on the old lord's heart.  The
chairs were of oak, with crimson cushions; but the floor had no other
carpet than a matting of plaited straw.  There was a high stone
mantelpiece covered with carving; an iron grate, the enormous basket
of which (the season being summer) was filled with sea-shells, and on
each side was a sculptured niche or ambre, so common in old Scottish
houses of that age.

"Heaven be praised, our anchor hath again hold of Scottish ground!"
said Falconer, as a page conducted him and Barton up stairs.

"How so--thou art either more of a lover or less of a sailor than I,
David?"

"Nay, I am not less of a lover, but more of a soldier, perhaps,"
replied the arquebussier, "or more of a landlubber, if you will."

"Now then, little marmoset," said Barton, who perceived the page
listening, "heave ahead, if you please."

The captain of the caravel and his companion were attired just as we
have seen them on board, save that the latter had adopted an embossed
helmet, with a plume of feathers, a bright gorget, and long steel
gloves.  He looked very handsome, gay, and glittering; but honest
Barton, in whose heart the recent tidings he had received, sank deep,
looked grave and grim, though a sad smile spread over his brown and
weatherbeaten face, as he took both Lady Euphemia's hands in his, and
greeted all her sisters with warmth of heart, though perhaps with
less of formal courtesy than Falconer, who had served in the King's
Guard, and was one of those fine handsome fellows whom all women
unite in admiring; for he had a superb but native and inimitable air.
While his friend, inured to a life of hardship on the ocean, at a
time when the infancy of science trebled its dangers, was perhaps
less easy, he was not a whit less noble in manner or aspect; and the
name and wealth he inherited from his gallant father, the fighting
merchant-mariner of Leith, had gained him a place among those proud
barons, who, but for the valour by which old Andrew Barton won his
spurs, would heartily have despised the magnificent fortune and
estate acquired by his probity and care.

Poor Falconer was wont to say, that all _his_ father had left him
consisted of a rusty coat of mail, two old swords, and four or five
cordial hatreds, or feuds, to settle; all of which he had settled
honestly and manfully, twice over, on the street, or the highway,
wherever and whenever he chanced to meet with the creditors; and now
he owed no man either a blow or a bodle.

"Welcome, Robert Barton, my dream is read," said Euphemia, rising up
with a bright expression in her beautiful eyes.

"And what was thy dream, dearest Effie?" he asked in a soft voice.

"'Tis of an old saw, told me by Jamie Gair."

"The fisherman of Broughty--he boarded us as we passed the auld
craig--but what of his saw?"

  "'To dream of a ship sailing on the blue sea
  Is a sign of bright joy to thy kindred and thee;
  But to dream of a ship that lies bulged on the strand
  Is a sign that dark sorrow is almost at hand.'

"Now last night, Robert, I dreamt of thy yellow caravel sailing on
the sea (said I not so, Margaret?); and lo, thou art here!"

"And my friend Falconer, too?"

"He is, like thee, most welcome," said Lady Euphemia, offering her
pretty hand, which Falconer timidly raised to his lip, and then
approached Sybilla; but on receiving from her a significant glance,
full of prudence and love, he sighed, bowed and remained aloof; for
the passion of these two was as yet, secret, or merely a matter of
jest with some, and of speculation with others.

Falconer, brave to a fault, was poor, and had only his spurs and his
sword.  He knew this but too well, and Sybilla did not forget it.  He
had long concealed his passion; but she had soon divined it; and now
they treasured up a secret thought in the depth of their hearts, like
a dream that might never be realized; for Lord Drummond was
ambitious, and had many a time sworn, that at least "four of his
daughters should _die countesses_."  Thus Sybilla and Falconer had
found their best resort was patience or hope.

The eldest sister was a happy, rich, and beautiful _fiancée_; Sybilla
was a timid girl, loved by one who dared not avow his passion to her
family; and Lady Margaret was sad and melancholy, loved, the people
said, by many for her goodness and gentleness, but by none for her
beauty--save one, of whom more anon.  After the first compliments,
inquiries, and congratulations were over,

"Ah!  I had almost forgotten thee, little one," said Barton, kissing
the pretty Lizzie, whom he now observed hovering about him; "but here
is thy promised necklace."

"Oh, joy!" said the girl, skipping among her sisters, on receiving a
beautiful collar of Bruges silver, with a pendant of opals; "now I am
not less than my cousin Lady Egidia Crawford, who is so proud because
_her_ mother was created a duchess."

"By my faith, Barton!" said Falconer, "thou givest such magnificent
presents to Lady Lizzie, that to keep Beatie's favour, I shall be a
ruined dyvour."

"With all the rings and blessed medals these children have got, they
might open a trinket shop," said Sybilla.

"And hast thou nothing for me?" asked Beatie.

"I have the most beautiful veil that the nuns of Sluice could work;
but unfortunately, it is still on board the frigate.  To-morrow I
shall remember it better than I did in the hurry of to-day."

"To-morrow the king arrives," said Barton.

"Nay--we heard nothing of it," observed Sybilla.

"Sir Hew Borthwick, or the man so-called, informed us that the king
was coming hither from Stirling on the morrow with the young Duke of
Rothesay, and all the court."

Lady Margaret's colour heightened at this intelligence, and to
conceal her emotion, she hastened to say,

"If Borthwick said so, it must be true, for he is one who is never
far from those parasites and flatterers who crowd the court at
present."

"Moreover, he told us that certain ambassadors from France, who are
now at the constable's house in the Carse, would be presented soon
after."

"And on what mission have they come?" asked Sybilla.

"I know not; but our right honourable informant, the worthy
swashbuckler, hinted--and really this fellow often knows matters
which are far above his position--that they had come anent some royal
marriage, as the young prince's proposed alliance with the House of
England has been so fortunately broken off since my poor father's
battle in the English Channel."

Margaret trembled so excessively as Barton said this, that had the
four lovers been less occupied with each other than they were, and
had the children not been engaged with the silver collar, some of
them must have observed her singular emotion, which however
fortunately passed unnoticed.

Restrained by the presence of others, the conversation of Sybilla and
Falconer (who, had the world been his, would have given it for
liberty to press her to his breast) was confined to the merest
commonplace; but Robert Barton and Euphemia, who, by Lord Drummond
having consented that their marriage should take place in autumn,
were under very different circumstances, had retired somewhat apart.
She had passed her arm through his, and clasping her hands upon it,
was looking up fondly in his sunburned face, and was telling him in a
low and earnest voice of all she had learned concerning his father's
death off the English coast; how she had prayed for him, and had
masses said for his soul; and with an air, in which sternness,
bitterness, and tenderness were curiously mingled, the heir of Sir
Andrew Barton listened to her; for his thoughts hovered between the
bright eyes and soft accents of the fair girl by his side and the
carnage of that day's battle in the Kentish Downs, when he would have
given the best ten years of his life to have stood for an hour on his
father's deck.  In these thoughts, and in those of future vengeance,
he almost forgot that this untimely event (though it put him in
possession of a princely fortune, an estate in Lothian, and a mansion
like a baronial castle in Leith) would necessarily delay his marriage
with Lady Euphemia for many months to come.

"How happy thou art to be rich, Robert," said Falconer, as they
descended to the street, after lingering long and bidding the ladies
adieu.

"Wealth does not always bring happiness, David," replied the seaman;
"and just now I am miserable, when I reflect on how my brave old
father, and so many fine fellows, have been flung overboard, to feed
the hungry serpent of the sea."

"The ocean is wide," replied Sir David; "but thou mayst meet the Lord
Howard on it yet."

"And he is not the man to avoid me."

"I would give my right hand to be, like thee, Lord Drummond's
friend," said Falconer, bitterly, and still thinking of Sybilla.

"Without thy starboard fin, David, thou wouldst be of little use in
this world; and mayst yet be the Lord Drummond's friend without so
great a sacrifice; besides, I can foresee, that between intrigues,
mayhap invasion from abroad, and domestic rebellion, the loyal and
the good in Scotland will ere long require all their hands to keep
their heads on their shoulders."

"Dost thou think so?" asked the arquebussier, with kindling eyes.

"Yea--a child that knoweth neither how to pass a gasket or knot a
reef point, might see it."

And though no prophet, but only a blunt and plain-speaking seaman,
Robert Barton spoke of coming events with more foresight and
acuteness than he was perhaps aware of possessing.

CHAPTER V.

JAMES III.

"Who ever approached me, but for some private object, or with some
private passion to gratify?  Hatred, ambition, and cupidity form
round me a circle without issue, and as a victim is ever needed for
each violence--that victim is ever myself."--JOAN OF NAPLES.

Next day, the second of August, the sun rose above Dundee in the same
unclouded splendour, and again the green hills, the ancient burgh,
with its spires and castle, the bannered ships, and all the wide
panorama of the Tay, were mirrored in its clear and waveless depths.

Bells were tolling merrily in the tall spire of the great church,
then designated the Kirk of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Fields, as
it stood without the portes of the burgh; and a wreath of those
sacred lilies which still form the armorial bearing of Dundee,
encircled the now mouldering statue of our Lady, which, with the
little infant Jesus in her arms, has survived the storms of seven
centuries and the rough hands of the Scottish Iconoclasts, and still
adorns the western gallery of that stupendous tower which overlooks
the "_Gift of God_."

Almost drowning the peals that jangled from the belfries of the Grey
Franciscans in the Howff, the Dominicans in the Friars Vennel, the
Mathurins, and the nuns of St. Clare, the great bell of St. Mary
(which was rent when too joyous a peal was rung for Prince Charles,
in 1745,) rolled a flood of iron sound above the town, and summoned
all the burgesses to meet a monarch whom the people loved, but whom
the nobles hated--James III.--who was now approaching by the road
from Perth.

Beyond the western porte, and all the streets that led thereto, this
road was crowded by the populace; and there might be seen the
merchants and burgesses, clad in plain broadcloth, with steel-hilted
poniards in their girdles.  By law, neither they nor their wives
could wear scarlet, silk, or furring, and the females of their
families were restricted to short curches with little hoods, after
the Flemish fashion; and the ladies of poor gentlemen, whose property
was under forty pounds, had to content them with the same.  There,
too, were officials of the church, doctors, and gentlemen, (having
two hundred marks per annum,) in cloaks of scarlet, laced and furred;
and labourers, who had exchanged their work-dresses of grey frieze
and Galloway white for the holiday attire of red and green.

From the eight stone gurgoyles of the market-cross, which, as usual
in Scotland, was surmounted by a tall octagonal column, bearing the
unicorn _sejant_, resting its forepaws on the imperial scutcheon,
wine was flowing, and a noisy contest waging among the young
_gamins_, seamen, and others, who struggled and thrust each other
aside, not always with good humour, to fill their quaighs, cups, and
luggies with the generous Rhenish and claret, which gushed forth
alternately from the mouths of the dragons and wyverns; but order was
stringently kept by the constable of Dundee, Sir James of Dudhope,
who had brought into the burgh five hundred of his troopers from the
Howe of Angus--all sturdy yeomen, who wore black iron casquetels,
with oreillets over the cheeks and spikes on the top, and were armed
with that deadly weapon the ghisarma, which had been but recently
introduced.

Escorted by a numerous retinue of well armed serving men, all of whom
had _the sleuthhound_ embroidered on the sleeves of their gaberdines,
and were accoutred with jacks and bonnets of steel, two-handed
swords, and wooden targets covered with threefold hide, the daughters
of Lord Drummond, with their aunt the Duchess of Montrose, the Lady
of Strathmartine, and many other noble dames from the Carse of
Gowrie, were grouped together on horseback, awaiting the king.
Robert Barton, Sir David Falconer, and other gentlemen, attended them
on foot, and held their bridles, having assigned their own horses to
the care of the pages, who carried their swords and helmets,--for a
page was at that time indispensable to every gentleman of pretensions.

Conspicuous amid all was the old Duchess of Montrose, a tall and
noble-looking matron, whose height on horseback, when her stupendous
coif was added, became almost startling; for, like old people
generally, "being behind her age," she still retained one of those
enormous head-dresses which our ladies had copied from the French,
and which had been introduced by Isabel of Bavaria, consort of
Charles VI., who had to enlarge all the doors in the Palace of
Vincennes after the arrival of his bride.

Nor must we forget that redoubtable Knight of the Post and Chevalier
d'Industrie, Sir Hew Borthwick, who loitered near, bowing and smiling
to people who knew him not, or knowing, who disdained him.  After
completely failing to attract the attention of Falconer or Barton, he
swaggered through the crowd, clinking a pair of enormous brass spurs,
and exhibiting a new scarlet cloak, which he had procured by the
recent replenishing of his exchequer; he tilted up the tail of this
by his long sword, pointed his mustachios, and from time to time
turned up his eyes complacently, to watch the nodding of an absurdly
long feather that drooped from his head-dress; and the latter being a
velvet hat, like that of an Englishman, the people murmured, and made
angry observations about it.

The undisguised aversion and fear with which the crowd made way for
him wherever he went, were a source of satisfaction to this barefaced
charlatan, of whom we shall hear more than enough perhaps, in time to
come.  He found ample occupation in observing the brilliant group
which surrounded Margaret Carmichael of Meadowflat, the Duchess of
Montrose, and in surveying the brilliant colours of those splendid
costumes which exhibited all the frippery extravagance and coxcombry
of the time of James III.  Gold and jewels flashed on everything,
from the ladies' fair fingers to the bridles of their palfreys; but
by far the greatest number of diamonds and pearls glittered on the
long stomachers and among the braided hair of Lord Drummond's three
beautiful daughters.

Finding himself bluntly repulsed by Captain Barton and the
arquebussier, Borthwick had actually the assurance to address the
admiral, who came through the archway on horseback, surrounded by his
barge's crew, who had no other weapons than their poniards and
boat-stretchers; but a determined and hardy-looking old bodyguard
they were, with swarthy visages, long grisly beards, and broad blue
bonnets.

"Your humble servant, Sir Andrew," said the impudent swashbuckler,
elbowing a passage through them; "I dare say the folks will marvel at
this--a knight like me on foot, and thou, a seaman, on horseback."

"And how came this to pass, Sir Hew?" asked the admiral, who, being
older, had, perhaps, more complaisance or less pride than Barton or
Falconer.

"My favourite horse was shod in the quick by a villanous smith, who
is now dreeing the reward of his carelessness in the jougs at the
burgh cross."

"I congratulate you on your good fortune," said the admiral,
endeavouring to pass; "by your scarlet cloak I perceive--"

"That I have now more per annum than the Apparel Act requires: so
far, right, Sir Andrew; but, alas! an ancestor of mine lost a noble
estate by one act of indiscretion."

"Ah!--How?"

"By eating an apple," replied Borthwick, with one of his hideous
grins; "but so thou art come hither among us courtiers, admiral, to
steer by the royal smiles."

"The sailor's best compass is his conscience, messmate, and by that I
steer," retorted Wood, as he gave a peculiar wink to his coxswain;
then the Knight of the Post was gently put aside by the barge's crew,
and the old admiral alighted on foot by the side of the Duchess of
Montrose.

Around this noble matron, who was then the second lady in the realm,
the conversation was very animated; and, notwithstanding the awful
exclusiveness with which the Scottish noblesse in those days chose to
hedge themselves about, it was evident that the venerable Wood, the
gallant Barton, and the handsome arquebussier, were three centres of
attraction.

Margaret Drummond, still sad, pale, and thoughtful, paid little
attention to the buzz and bustle around her; she gazed anxiously at
the vista of the road which stretched westward past the Convent of
St. Mary Magdalene and the Tower of Blackness; a page held her
bridle; but the horses of her sisters were each held by their lovers,
with whom they were conversing in low and earnest tones.  Falconer
spoke little, yet he was, perhaps, the happiest man in Dundee, for
now he was by the side of Sybilla, and could converse with her
untrammelled by the observation of others; and as the only matron who
could control her actions knew neither of his hopes, (or, as she
would have termed it, his presumption,) many little attentions were
unheeded or unseen.

A cloud of dust that rolled along the road announced the approach of
the King, and soon a troop of nearly a hundred and fifty mounted men
was seen approaching at a rapid trot.  This cavalcade was well
mounted on horses of a breed which, at that time, was famous, a baron
of Corstorphine having improved the high Lanarkshire horses by the
introduction of some sturdy Flemish mares; thus, for hacks and
chargers, these large animals were esteemed as superior to any of the
four distinct breeds of horses belonging to the country.  All their
steeds were brilliantly caparisoned with rich saddles, housings, and
bridles, covered with fringes and tassels of silk and gold
embroidery, gilded ornaments, and armorial bearings.

On approaching the west porte of Dundee, the king and his attendants
slackened their speed to a walk, but their horses continued tossing
their proud heads and flinging the white foam from side to side.  The
monarch was unaccompanied by his queen, Margaret of Denmark and
Norway, who had departed, with many of her ladies, on a pilgrimage to
the famous shrine of St. Duthac, in Ross, then esteemed a long and
arduous journey.

James III., a tall, handsome, and athletic man, was then in his
thirty-fourth year; his complexion was of that deep brown tint which
is not usual to the islanders of Britain, and his hair was black and
curly.  When in repose, his mouth expressed the utmost sweetness of
expression, but there were times when it curled with bitterness and
suppressed passion.  His beard was closely trimmed; his air was
soldierlike; his manner dignified, at one time cold and reserved, but
at others sad, even to despondency, for he was the most unhappy of
kings.

On this day he wore a doublet of rose-coloured satin, embroidered
with damask gold, cut and lined with rose-coloured sarcenet, and
fastened by twenty-four little gold buttons.  Over this he had a
riding surtout of green velvet, laced.  On his dark locks he wore a
black velvet bonnet, with an embroidered band, a St. Andrew's cross,
and white plume; he had long riding-boots with embroidered velvet
gambadoes and gold spurs.

James, the young Duke of Rothesay, then in his seventeenth year, also
tall, and a very handsome youth, inherited his father's dark eyes and
hair; his straight nose, with its fine nostril, and his mouth, which
was like a woman's, but over it a dark mustachio was sprouting.  The
dresses of the king, the prince, and all their suite, were nearly
alike in fashion, colours, and richness, unless we except the Lord
High Treasurer, Sir William Knollis, one of the most upright and
valiant men of the age, who, as Lord of St. John of Jerusalem, and
preceptor of the religious knights of Torphichen, wore the black
dress and eight-pointed cross of Rhodez.  Around this ill-fated king
were many who were his friends, but many more who were his most
bitter enemies, and whose loyalty or treason will all be revealed in
future chapters; to wit, Sir James Shaw of Sauchie, who had been made
governor of Stirling because his father had been slain by a cannon
shot at the siege of Dunbar; Evandale, the Lord High Chancellor; Sir
Patrick Gray of Kyneff; the Lord Drummond; his brother, Sir Walter,
who was Dean of Dunblane and Lord Clerk Register; the Duke of
Montrose, who was Master of the Household and Great Chamberlain of
Scotland; Lord Lindesay of the Byres, and Archibald, _the great Earl_
of Angus, a noble then in his thirtieth year--one whose fierce and
restless ambition, indomitable pride, and vast feudal power, made him
a terror to the good king on the one hand, and to the oppressed
people on the other.  Then, he was popularly known by the sobriquet
of Bell-the-Cat, from the quaint parable spoken by him at Lauder
Bridge in that memorable raid when he hanged every favourite of James
III.; for, in his eyes, Robert Cochrane, the eminent architect, was
but a stone-cutter; Sir William Rogers, who composed many fine airs,
but a fiddler; Leonard, the engineer, was but a smith; and
Torphichen, the fencing-master, a miserable fletcher--men who
disgraced James III. by the preference which he showed for them over
a proud, barbarous, and unlettered nobility, whom, like his father,
he resolved to spare no pains to curb and to humble.  Vain thought!

This Lord of Tantallon, who was Warden of the East and Middle
Marches, and a chieftain of the powerful House of Douglas,
overshadowed even the throne by his power; for the King of Scotland
was but a laird in comparison to the great military nobles.  Angus
was dark and swarthy as a Spaniard; his hair and beard were sable,
his eyes black and sparkling, with a keen, restless, and imperious
expression.  Like his father--that valiant earl, who with ten
thousand horse, covered the retreat of M. de Brissac and the French
troops from Alnwick in 1461--he constantly wore armour, and was now
riding beside the Earl of Erroll, Lord High Constable of the kingdom,
who had come with a few lances from the Carse of Gowrie, to escort
the sovereign to Dundee.

As this brilliant and illustrious cavalcade passed through the old
moss-grown and smoke-encrusted archway which then closed the end of
the principal street, a general uncovering of heads took place, and
loud and reiterated cheers greeted James, who was beloved by the
people, especially in the towns where there was now rising a wealthy
middle class, who had no sympathy with, and who owed no fealty to,
the great barons, but were rather at enmity with them.  He who
cheered most lustily, in forcing a passage through the gate with the
courtiers, was the soi-disant Sir Hew Borthwick, who endeavoured to
place himself as near to the king or prince as Lord Erroll's lances
would permit.

On passing Sir Patrick Gray, he exchanged a glance of intelligence.

"_To-night_," said he, in a whisper.

"_Where?_" asked the Knight of Kyneff,

"_On the beach near Broughty_," replied Borthwick.  And here the
crowd pressed between them.

The king, still young and handsome, doffed his bonnet to the tall
duchess and her fair companions, and the young heir of Scotland,
whose spirited horse curvetted past them, bowed again and again to
his saddle; and though he looked anxiously amid all that glittering
group for one beloved face, by some fatality he never observed it,
and caprioled through the archway by his father's side.

Margaret Drummond, the foremost of the group, and almost unconscious
of where she was, had watched the approaching party in silence with a
beating heart.  The shadow of her hood and veil concealed her pallor
and the sad and anxious expression of her fine blue eyes.  Amid those
hundred horsemen and more who swept up to the gate, she had soon
distinguished Rothesay, and held her very breath with joy as he
passed, but alas! without observing her; and her young heart sank as
he did so; for though none knew it, save one old priest and two other
persons, the crown prince of Scotland was her wedded
_husband_--wedded at the altar of St. Blane with all the solemnity of
the ancient faith--but in secret.

Barton and Falconer were now compelled to leave the ladies, and with
many other gentlemen sprang on horseback, to accompany the admiral,
who had now joined the royal cavalcade.

The king received the fine old man with unfeigned expressions of
affection and joy; for grief soon discovers true sympathy, and
misfortune readily discerns the difference between flattery and
devotion: thus James III. always felt stronger and more confident
when such men as Sir Andrew Wood, or Lindesay and Montrose were by
his side; but such nobles as Angus and Lord Drummond were his horror
and aversion.

"There are times, my faithful friend," said he to Wood, as their
train fell back a little on entering the narrow Nethergaitt, "when I
envy thee and thy honest hearts the free and happy life they lead
upon the open sea."

"Yet a sailor's life hath its troubles and its crosses too--witness
the fate of Barton, my gude auld messmate."

"Of that, and of thy Flemish mission, we will talk at another time,"
replied the king; "let us not mar the happiness I feel at seeing
thee, honest Wood, the dearest and most faithful of my people, by
allusions to such cold and bitter subjects."

"God and St. Andrew bless your majesty!" said the admiral, whose eyes
and heart overflowed as he spoke.  "I have never done aught more than
my duty to Scotland and my king, as man and boy, for forty years,
since first I trod a deck--a puir sailor laddie, in the _Peggie_ of
Pittenweem.  I would run my head into a cannon's mouth, if by doing
so I could serve your majesty; and that, I believe, is mair than half
of these gay galliards ahead and astern of us would do; natheless
their long pedigrees and their dainty doublets, with white lace
knuckle-dabbers at the wrists."

"Some day I shall go to sea with thee, Wood," said King James, with a
melancholy smile; "for, by the soul of Bruce!  I begin to tire of
this trade of kingcraft."

"I like the land as little as a fish; but should a day of foul
weather ever come, when your majesty is safer on salt water than on
Scottish earth," said the admiral, more than divining the secret
thoughts of the king; "remember, there is a ship's company of five
hundred good men and true, under the flag of the _Yellow Frigate_,
every man of whom hath a seaman's hand and a seaman's heart, solid as
a pump-bolt, and not like a perfumed and painted courtier's, hollow
as a leather bottle, or rotten like an old pumpsucker.  Gadzooks!  I
would like to see a few of these braw gallants drifting under
close-reefed topsails, with a wind blowing hard from the east, and
the craigs of Dunnottar on their lee!"

The king sighed, and allowed the reins of his horse to drop upon its
neck.

"Your majesty is troubled," resumed the honest seaman; "but if any of
these dogfish barons have been at their auld work, just let me ken,
and, by all the serpents in the sea! they shall feel the weight of my
two-handed sword, or I shall pipe away my barge's crew with their
boat-stretchers, and they will soon clear the causeway of every lord
and loon in Dundee."

The king laughed.

"Thou art indeed an honest heart," said he; for he found that they
could converse freely, as the incessant exclamations of the people,
as they pressed along the crowded streets, concealed their
conversation from such jealous listeners as Angus and Drummond.  "A
process so summary might destroy thee, admiral, and thy bargemen too.
But indeed, Sir Andrew, I am sick of this ferocious loyalty (if I may
so term it) by which the nobles encircle me like a wall of iron.
Though short, my life has been a long and dreary labyrinth of
intrigue and civil war, of crafty councils and infernal
suggestions--a struggle between a tyrannical feudal peerage and a
gallant people, who would, and by St. Giles's bones shall yet, be
free!  The nation has placed upon my brow a crown of gold; but the
nobles have engirt my heart by a band of burning steel!"

As the king spoke in this figurative language, he glanced about him
uneasily, almost timidly, and encountered the dark and stern visage
of Angus, and the proud, inquiring eyes of Drummond but they had not
heard him, or, having done so, did not comprehend.

"I speak figuratively, admiral," said he; "but do you understand me?"

"Perfectly, your majesty," stammered Wood, as with some perplexity he
rubbed his grizzly beard; "but come, come, Sir Hew," he added, on
perceiving that worthy close to them; "ware ship--give us sea-room
here, if it please ye."

At that moment the report of cannon on the river announced that the
_Yellow Frigate_ and her consort were firing salutes, as the king and
his train halted at the old palace of St. Margaret, where the Duke of
Montrose, as Master of the Royal Household, and the Constable of
Dundee, had already alighted, and were on foot to receive him.

CHAPTER VI.

THE PALACE OF ST. MARGARET.

  "The weird wan moonlight looketh down,
  And silvers the roofs of the silent town--
  Silvers the stones of the silent street,
  That ere while echoed to busy feet."

This venerable royal residence was situated at the head of a narrow
street opening off the great thoroughfare, then called St. Margaret's
Close, though by mistake the civic authorities have now given that
name to another alley in the Nethergaitt, where stood an ancient
chapel, dedicated to the Saxon Queen-Consort of Malcolm III., who had
her dowry lands in the adjacent Howe of Angus.

By her numerous virtues, the sister of Edgar Atheling was so endeared
to the Scottish people, that every spot connected with her presence
is still remembered; thus her name was long and indissolubly
connected with this little palace at Dundee.  It was a gloomy and
massive building, which stood within a court or cloister, and had
over the central door, and all the windows, deep and low-browed
arches, covered with a profusion of catsheads and grotesque
sculpture.  These arches sprang from short, round, and massive
pillars, having escalloped capitals and zigzag mouldings.  The deeply
recessed windows were all barred with iron, glazed with lozenged
panes, painted with coats of arms and brilliant devices, designed by
Robert Cochrane, the royal architect, an artist of great taste and
talent--one of the murdered favourites of the king, who in his
foolish generosity had created him general of artillery and Earl of
Mar.

It was in this palace that in the year 1209, Alan, Lord of Galloway
and Constable of Scotland, espoused Margaret, niece of King William
the Lion.

Soon after the entrance of James III. the bells ceased to toll, and
the ship guns ceased firing; the wine and ale still poured at
intervals from the stone spouts of the Cross; but the acclamations
died away in the Nethergaitt, and soon a stillness reigned around the
small but crowded residence of the king.  A stranger could not have
imagined that a monarch and a court were there--so ominous was the
silence in that grim old Scottish palace; for James mourned over the
caprices of his nobles and the insults he had endured from them,
during his nine months' captivity in the Castle of Edinburgh, from
which he was not released until Richard III. of England interfered in
his behalf, at the head of 30,000 men.  Young Rothesay mourned over
domestic troubles, and a secret marriage which he dared not yet avow;
while a crowd of cunning favourites on one hand, and of ambitious
nobles on the other, watched like lynxes for the turning of any scale
that would prove of advantage to themselves.

Discontent was apparent everywhere in and about the court of James
III.  It was visible in the face of the king, for the recent
slaughter of his courtiers by Angus and others, against whom he was
nursing secret plans of vengeance; it was visible in the stern eyes
of the noblesse, who, by a royal edict, had been desired to forbear
wearing swords within the royal precincts--an order which they
observed by arming themselves to the teeth, and doubling the number
of their mail-clad followers; it was visible in the faces of the
merchants, _anent_ the twenty-one years' quarrel with Flanders; and
in the faces of the people, because they saw a disastrous struggle
approaching between the feudal nobles and themselves--a struggle
which the field of battle alone would decide for their future good or
evil.

That evening the king gave a banquet to his false courtiers, ad to
Admiral Wood, to Barton, and Falconer.  Lord Drummond was grand
carver, Angus grand cupbearer, and the Laird of Kyneff grand sewer,
or _asseour_; but Rothesay stole at an early period from the table,
and reached his own apartments unperceived.  There be exchanged
dresses with his faithful Lord Lindesay of the Byres; and putting on
a mask, with a shirt of mail of the finest texture under his doublet,
issued by a private gate into the main street, just as the last
shadows of the mountain that overhangs Dundee were fading away upon
the river--or rather becoming blended with the general obscurity of
the summer gloaming.

The young prince wore a casquetel, and had his sword and dagger under
the scarlet cloak of Lord Lindesay, for whom he was mistaken by the
pages, yeomen, and archers, in the neighbourhood of the palace, as he
passed into the burgh.

"Oho, my merry masquer!" said Sir Hew Borthwick, who had been
loitering near the king's residence for the livelong day, in the hope
of finding some one to drink or play with him, or from whom to pick
up any stray intelligence concerning the admiral's embassy to
Flanders, and the errand of those envoys who were now at the house of
the Provost in the Howe.  "By the Holy Kirk!  I should know that
dainty red cloak; now, were those locks black instead of brown, and
had that casquetel a feather, and those boots silver spurs instead of
gold, I would say this gallant was my good friend Lord Lindesay of
the Byres, and _not_ the young Duke of Rothesay.  But to the proof!
On my honour, I'll follow him; and if he is bent on the errand I
suppose, this night may bring another thousand of King Henry's
English pounds to my purse."  Walking very quick after the young
prince, who was carefully keeping himself under the shadows of the
darkest and least frequented streets, the spy cried aloud,

"Soho! sir--I crave pardon; but can you tell me what's o'clock?"

Annoyed by this impertinent interruption, the prince paused and laid
a hand on his sword; but being anxious to avoid a brawl, turned and
walked on at a quicker pace.  Borthwick, who was now close at his
heels, came abreast of him just at the corner of Fish-street, which
was then quite dark and destitute of lamps.

"Sir--thou with the mask," continued Borthwick; "when I ask questions
I expect to receive replies.  Will you please to give me one?"

"_There_, blockhead!" retorted the prince, furiously, as he gave him
a blow with his clenched hand which levelled the intruder in the
kennel; and as it was dealt skilfully, right under the left ear, it
was a full minute before he recovered.

Then, from the muddy street, Borthwick rose with a heart full of rage
and vengeance.  His first thought was of his soiled cloak; his second
of something else.

"'Twas the prince's voice!" said he; "I was right!  Oho!--let me
watch, and watch well.  How fortunate! the more so as I keep tryst at
Broughty to-night."

After knocking this fellow down, Rothesay hurried along the street in
the twilight.

Borthwick saw him cross it near the great mansion of Lord Drummond,
which, with its dark façade and round towers, overshadowed the narrow
way.  There he disappeared under the arcades, but whether he was
lurking among them, or had been received into some secret door,
Borthwick could not discover; yet for more than an hour he lingered
there, watching to make sure that Rothesay had really entered the
house, which he dared not approach, lest a thrust from a sword,
unseen, might reward his impertinence, from behind one of the columns
on which the superstructure stood.

At last eleven tolled from the tower of St. Mary's Church, and
remembering his appointment (of which more anon), the swashbuckler
muffled his cloak about him, and set off at a rapid pace along the
eastern road, which by the margin of the river led towards the Castle
of Broughty, the lights of which could be seen twinkling on the low
flat promontory that approaches the mouth of the Firth of Tay.

CHAPTER VII.

MARGARET DRUMMOND.

      ----They gazed upon each other,
    With swimming looks of speechless tenderness,
  Which mixed all feelings, child, friend, lover, brother,
    All that the best can mingle and express,
  When two pure hearts are poured in one another,
    And love too much, and yet cannot love less!
                                              BYRON.

In a small round chamber, really "a secret bower," of her father's
house, Margaret Drummond was seated alone.  She was half kneeling and
half reclining in an old _prie-dieu_ of oak, for she had just
concluded her prayers; and a missal, bound in velvet and gold, with a
rosary of bright amber beads, lay in her lap.

In a large holder of carved wood and brass-work, two tall candles
lighted this apartment, which was hung all round with dark-red arras.
Here was a little bed, raised scarcely a foot from the ground,
canopied by a gilded cornice with plumes of feathers, with a small
niche over the pillows, and within it stood the prettiest Madonna
that ever came out of Italy, with a little font, which always
contained some holy water.

This was Margaret's little bower, and at times her sleeping-place.
As she lay half reclined in that old and grotesque _prie-dieu_, with
her soft sad features partly hidden amid her clustering hair, her
long lashes downcast, one white hand supporting her temples, and the
other drooping by her side, she would have made a beautiful picture.
She was still as death, as she listened for every passing sound; but
all was quiet in that vast mansion, whose inmates were now retired to
rest.  For more than an hour she had watched and listened, without
hearing anything, for the old walls of the house were several feet
thick, and, together with the wainscoting and tapestry, nearly
excluded all external sound, even by day.  At last she raised her
head and listened, while her fine eyes sparkled with animation.

St. Mary's bell struck ten.

"_Ten_--and he comes not yet!" said Margaret, rising, to sink again
with a sigh into the _prie-dieu_, but almost immediately a knock was
heard at the side of the apartment, and a soft voice sang the burden
of that beautiful old song--

  "Oh, are you sleeping, Maggie,
    My ain, my dear, my winsome Maggie!
  Unbar your door, for owre the muir
    The wind blaws cauld frae Aberdaggie."

An expression of joy spread over her features; her eyes sparkled
again; her cheek flushed, and springing from the _prie-dieu_, she
raised the red arras, opened a little door by withdrawing a bar of
oak, and stooping low the young Duke of Rothesay entered from a
secret staircase, to which he alone had access, and which
communicated with the lobby of the house and its arcades below.

"Tears?" said the handsome prince, taking her tenderly in his arms,
and kissing her on the lips and on the eyes.  "Dearest, why this
emotion?"

But Margaret only sobbed, drooped her head upon his breast, and wept.

"It was my happiness to see you; but you did not observe me to-day."

"See thee, dearest Maggie," said the prince, throwing aside his
casquetel and rich mantle; "I looked all amid the glittering crowd
that stood by the western gate for thee, and thee only; but,
whichever way I turned, could see nothing save the enormous fantange
of Madam the Duchess of Montrose.  I vow it looks like a kirk
steeple!  But now," added Rothesay, with a smile of inexpressible
tenderness, "thou forgettest, I have one other little mouth to kiss."

Margaret drew back the curtain of an alcove, and there, within a
little couch, canopied by rich hangings of rose-coloured velvet, lay
a pretty child of not more than eight months old, plump, fair, and
round, with its small face and cheeks, tinted like rose-leaves,
encircled by a lace cap.  Two hands were also visible, so small and
so very diminutive, that but for their dimples they might have passed
for those of a fairy.  The prince knelt down, and while his heart
rose to his lips, kissed gently the soft warm cheek of the sleeping
baby that in after years was to be Lady Gordon of Badenoch; and after
gently closing the curtain, again he pressed Margaret to his breast,
and seated her beside him.

"Life is so sweet!" said he, "when one has something to love, and is
beloved again; and you, my Maggie, are a diamond among women."

"And thou wilt never tire of thy poor little Margaret?"

"Tire of thee?" sighed the prince, smiling; "dear Maggie, since I
knew thee I have only begun to live--to know joy.  To me it seems
that we have but one heart, one soul, and that without thee I should
now have neither.  And thou hast confided to me thy life, thy love,
thy destiny, and this dear infant, the pledge of them all.  Oh,
Margaret, without thee, how dark would this world be to Rothesay?"

"And yet, prince, for one long month we have not met."

"Why call me _prince_?  Dear Margaret, here there is no prince."

"Nor princess!" she sighed.

"There _is_--for thou art Duchess of Rothesay, and shall yet be Queen
of Scotland--even as my ancestress, Annabella Drummond, was before
thee."

"Alas, but for our unfortunate consanguinity through her, we had not
been wedded in secret, or been driven thus to commit a mortal sin.  I
had not borne this poor child unknown, or carried under my bosom a
load of grief and shame."

"Shame," reiterated Rothesay, kissing away her tears.  "Ah, Margaret,
have you forgotten that night in the cathedral at Dunblane, when we
were so solemnly united, as Father Zuill and the cathedral registrars
shall yet bear testimony in Parliament.  Ere long the Bishop of
Dunblane will bring from Rome the dispensation that shall clear us
all, and then I shall _again_ espouse thee, Margaret, with such
splendour as Scotland has not seen since Mary of Gueldres stood by
the side of James II. at the altar of the Holy Cross."

"But till then, I must live in terror, and love in secret.  Oh,
prince, had I loved thee less--had I known or foreseen--but I most
not weary thee with unavailing reproaches, prince----"

"Prince again!  Now this is most unkind.  Dear Margaret, why call me
otherwise than James Stuart--am I not thine own James?"

"Thou art, indeed, and my beloved one!" said Margaret, laying her
beautiful head on the breast of her handsome lover, with one of her
sweetest and most confiding smiles; "but do pardon me, if I say, that
there are times when I look forward and tremble--look back and weep.
There is something to me so terrible in the renewal of the old strife
between the king and the nobles.  My father, the proudest among them,
is ever muttering deep threats of vengeance against the royal
favourites, and in the quarrel which I see too surely coming, if all
the pride and ferocity of the peers are unchained against the throne,
what may be the fate of thee, of this poor tender bud, and of myself?
Oh, James, think of the many who wish for the English alliance, and
who would brush me from their path like a gossamer web!"

"Thee!" exclaimed the prince, clutching his poniard; "not Angus
himself, even in the heart of his strongest fortresses, or amid his
twenty thousand vassals, dare harbour an evil thought against the
lady Rothesay loves.  Nay, nay, Maggie, thou art sorely in error."

"At a wave from the hand of Angus, all the troopers of the east and
middle marches are in their helmets; then think of the hatred of Shaw
and Hailes--the treachery of Kyneff--the mad ambition of them all!
They are brooding over revolt--one day it will come.  Would, dear
prince, that we had never met or rather, that I had never been!"

"Still regrets," said Rothesay, impatiently.

"Pardon me, dearest, if I weary thee--I do not regret, but I fear."

"What glamour hath possessed thee to-night, Margaret? for, by the
Black Rood, I never saw thee so full of dolorous thoughts."

"An evil omen, perhaps," said Margaret, with one of her faint smiles.
"This morning, when looking for the prayers prepared for those who
are in tribulation, I thrice opened my missal at the burial service
for the dead."

"And what then?"

"Madam my aunt, the Duchess of Montrose, told me, to-day, it was a
sure sign of coming evil."

"Your aunt the Duchess of Montrose is an--old fool!" said the prince,
bluntly.

"Strife is coming--I know it," continued Margaret, emphatically; "for
I have read it in the face of my father and the faces of his friends,
when Angus, the Lords Hailes and Home, and Shaw of Sauchie, are with
him.  I have heard it in their deep whispers, and seen it in their
dark and angry glances, when Lindesay or Montrose, Gray, Ruthven,
Grahame or Maxwell, Wood of Largo, Falconer, or Barton--any who are
the king's known friends--are mentioned."

"And what matters it to us if all these high-born brawlers cut each
other's throats?  The peers of Scotland are her curse, and in all
ages have been her betrayers, and will be so until the detested brood
are rooted out.  A few names less on the peerage roll will better
enable the grain to ripen in harvest, and the people to live in
peace.  My father, the king, has taught me this lesson, and I will
never forget it.  War will come--I know it; for if we do not fight
with England, we must fight among ourselves, just, as it were, to
keep our hands in practice.  But fear not for me, Margaret, and fear
less for our little babe, for I can protect both, and must do so; for
my soul is but a ray of thine--my life, the breath of thee.  My
castle of Rothesay is thy proper dwelling, and I will place young
Lindesay in it, with five hundred of his men-at-arms."

The young prince left nothing unsaid which he thought might soothe
Margaret's fears, and remove those dreary forebodings of coming evil
in which she had indulged, and by dwelling as long as possible on the
expected return of the Bishop of Dunblane from Rome, with the
dispensation of Innocent VIII., he completely restored her to
cheerfulness; for that venerable prelate was in their secret, and had
undertaken to remove the only obstacle that prevented the public or
_state_ espousal, which Father Zuill (who, being partly a seaman, and
not over-particular) had anticipated, by performing their marriage
ceremony in secret, and thus ending for ever all those deep intrigues
by which the three Kings of England, Edward II., Richard III., and,
lastly, Henry VII., had each in succession striven to have the Crown
Prince of Scotland wedded to a princess of their families.

Though thus espoused, Rothesay and Lady Margaret were still lovers,
for both were so young, that long and frequent absences, with the
secrecy they were compelled to observe, lest the politic king, on the
one hand, or the imperious Lord Drummond on the other, should
discover their union, all tended to increase, rather than to diminish
their tender regard.

The prince remained by her side until midnight had tolled, and their
conversation was all of themselves; for so it is ever with lovers,
who would cease to be so if they tired of their theme, which "is ever
charming, ever new."

Promising to return at the same hour on the second night following,
James kissed his beautiful princess and her infant daughter, wrapped
his scarlet mantle about him, and raising the arras, slipped down the
secret stair, the concealed door of which Lady Margaret immediately
secured.

"She hath spoken truly," muttered the prince, as he turned the buckle
of his belt behind him, brought the hilt of his sword round, and
looked cautiously up and down the dark, silent, and deserted street
for the interloper by whom he had been formerly followed.  "She hath,
indeed, spoken truly.  A strife approaches that will drench the land
in blood--a strife which even I cannot avert.  This secret marriage
may destroy us both.  Dear, dear Margaret!  Like my father, a
fatality pursues me, and those who could guide us both may be the
innocent cause of undoing us all."

He hurried along the narrow and quaint old street, and, favoured by
his disguise and the watch-word, passed the sentinels, and reached
the Palace of St. Margaret unknown and undiscovered.

The unfortunate relationship which rendered a papal dispensation
necessary in those days, was caused by Rothesay's descent from
Annabella Drummond, queen of Robert III., who was a daughter of
Margaret's great-great-grandsire, Sir John Drummond of that ilk.  In
her own time, this queen had been justly celebrated for her
loveliness; for, as Cambden says, "the women of the family of
Drummond, for charming beauty and complexion, are beyond all others."

Other writers amply corroborate this, and add, that three girls more
beautiful than Euphemia, Sybilla, and Margaret Drummond had never
graced the court of a Scottish king.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE FISHERMAN OF BROUGHTY.

  Oh weel may the boatie row,
    And better may she speed;
  And weel may the boatie row,
    That wins the bairns' bread.
  I cuist my net in Largo bay,
    And fishes I caught nine;
  There's three to fry, and three to broil,
    And three to bait the line.
                            _Scots Song._

A cheerful fire burned on the hearth of Jamie Gair, the fisherman of
Broughty-point, and it seemed to burn brighter as evening deepened on
the land and sea.  The cottage, which stood within a kail-yard, the
gate of which was a pair of whale jaw-bones, consisted of a butt and
a ben,--_i.e._, an outer and inner apartment,--the latter, serving as
a kitchen, had a floor of hard-beaten clay; the walls were lined with
wood, and in the rafters were a vast quantity of lumber, boat-gear,
oars, sails, fishing-creels, bladders, floats, and other apparatus
stowed away aloft.  Half of a cart-wheel felloe formed a fender (such
as we may yet see in Scottish cottages), but the fire of bog-fir was
blazing on the hearthstone, for iron grates were then an article of
splendour and luxury.  On the wooden shelf above the fireplace stood
a little image of St. Clement, the mariner's patron, with the anchor
of his martyrdom hung about his neck; and on the back of the door a
horseshoe was nailed, with a sprig of rowan-tree, the usual
precaution against witchcraft.  From a rafter an egg was suspended by
a rope-yarn.  This was the _babys-egg_, the first laid by a pullet,
the gift of its granny, and carefully preserved, as a source of good
fortune to it in after life.

By the bright red light of the fire (which shone through a little
window upon the waters of the ferry) Jamie Gair sat mending his nets,
and affixing various large brown bladders thereto.  A red night-cap
was placed jauntily on his round curly head; the sleeves of his blue
flannel-shirt were rolled up to the elbows, displaying his brawny
arms, and, where his thick beard and whiskers did not conceal it, his
face was browned to the hue of mahogany by exposure to the weather.

Mary, his wife, a buxom dame of six-and-twenty, wearing one of those
long-eared coifs, which are still worn by old women in the Lowlands,
and a short skirted jacket, was fondling their son and heir, a baby
about a year old, to which she was merrily _lilting_ in that manner
peculiar to the women of Scotland, when a song is hummed and half
sung, while a dish of stappit-haddie (_i.e._, a haddock stuffed with
oatmeal, onions, and pepper), broiled before the fire, for breakfast
next morning, as Jamie had to start early, and now sat late in the
preparation of his nets.

Jamie had not sailed that day to the fishing-ground for various
reasons.  He had passed a stray pig on the beach; and, moreover, he
had on a pair of new boots--both ominous of a bad day's fishing, and,
perhaps, of greater evil; so he had spent the noon and evening beside
his red-cheeked Mary at the cottage, mending and thoroughly repairing
his nets for the morrow; for he believed as implicitly in these
augurs of evil as in the mark of St. Peter's thumb on the haddock,
and in the wonderful story of the twenty-four beautiful mermaids who
swam round Inchkeith, and sought in vain to tempt Abbot William of
Holyrood, who dwelt there as a hermit, to trust himself afloat on
their tails, which, happily for himself, the Abbot politely declined
to do.  Mary was pleased that he was at home, for the night was
fitful, and dark masses of cloud crossed the face of the moon, which
rose slowly above the ness of Fife.  The wind swept in sudden gusts
down the ferry, and the surf hissed as it rolled on the outer beach;
for the sand was thickly strewn with enormous whin boulders, and was
not a pistol-shot from the cottage door.

Three strange ships had been visible in the offing all day, and, as
evening fell, Jamie had observed them stealthily creeping towards the
shore; and when the gloaming came on, the head-most vessel was
perhaps not three miles from the Gaa sands.  When Jamie had scanned
her last with his nautical eye he observed her laying off and on, but
without manifesting any intention of entering the harbour or
requiring a pilot, as she never fired a gun or showed her colours.
Not a vessel had passed the ferry that day; all was quiet in the
harbour of Dundee, for the old superstition about the ill-luck of
sailing on a Friday was still devoutly believed in.

The hour was now verging on midnight.  Jamie had mended the last hole
in his nets, and the pretty Mary looked very sleepy and coy.

"Hark, gudeman," said she, interrupting her lilting, "some one tirls
the door-pin."

At that moment a loud and reiterated knocking was heard, and the
door-latch was shaken violently.  Jamie relinquished the net for a
boat-stretcher, lest the visitor might be, as he muttered, "some
ground-shark or uncanny body," and angrily opened the door, saying,--

"Wha the deil's this, makin' sic a dirdum at my door, at this time o'
nicht?"

"Sir Hew Borthwick," replied that personage, with gruff hauteur; and
Jamie perceived that he and two companions were well muffled in
cloaks, beneath which he saw their long swords and spurs glittering.
The two gentlemen were masked.  "Thou knowest me, Jamie Gair, I
think?"

"Ay, Sir Hew," replied the fisherman, doffing his night-cap, while
something of a leer twinkled in his lively grey eyes; "I took ye on
board the _Yellow Frigate_ yestreen, for which--"

"I owe thee half a lion; here it is.  Now, art willing to earn
another honest penny?"

"Troth am I, sir," replied Jamie, throwing on his storm-jacket; "I've
my gudewife and a bonnie bairn to provide for.  In what can I serve
ye, sir?"

"Take us on board the vessel that is nearest the shore, and thou
shalt have an angel."

An angel was thirteen shillings Scots--but now Jamie paused.

"A Louis, then?  Plague on't! thou sailest nigh the wind, man!"

"Come, come, fellow," said one of the masked men, imperiously, "do
not trifle, for we have not time to chaffer with such carles as thee.
Besides, this place hath a devilish odour of tar, wet twine, and old
fish baskets----"

"Wow, sir, but you've a het tongue in your head, and a dainty nose on
your face.  But it's no the money that I tak tent o'," replied Jamie,
proudly.  "The craft that was close in shore, and hugging the land a'
day, never showed her ensign; but three times lowered her boat, and
three times hoisted it on board again.  Her forecastle guns are
levelled owre the gunnel, and not through portholes, wherefore I
opine she is English; so gentlemen, I crave your pardons, but I
likena the job."

"Jamie Gair," said one of the strangers, in a hoarse whisper, "'tis
on the King's service we are boune; here are six golden lions; art
satisfied?  If not, I would not be in thy tarry boots, fellow, for
all the Howe of Angus!"

This man's voice startled Jamie, for he now recognised Sir Patrick
Gray of Kyneff, captain of the adjacent Royal Castle of Broughty--one
with whom he, a poor fisherman, dared not trifle for a moment.

"I will do your bidding, fair sir; but my neighbour is away to the
fishing-ground, whilk o' ye can handle an oar?"

"I," said Borthwick.

"And I," added Gray of Kyneff; "so let us be off, for I have not a
moment to spare."

"Gudewife, thou wilt pardon us taking Jamie away for an hour or so;
and bethink thee, dame, how many braw gauds and new kirtles these
golden lions will buy."  And with these words Gray placed in Margo's
hand six of those large gold coins of James II., which bore on one
side a lion rampant, and on the reverse, the St. Andrew's cross.
Jamie put on one of those broad blue bonnets for the manufacture of
which Dundee was even then celebrated, and after kissing the sleeping
baby, said,--

"Now, Mary, let me kiss thee, lass, frae lug to lug."

"To spare time, I shall be glad to save thee that trouble, Gair,"
said Sir Patrick Gray.

"Mony thanks, my braw gentleman," retorted Jamie, twirling the
boat-stretcher in his brawny hand; "but there are some things I like
to do for myself, and _this_ is ane o' them.  Keep a cog fu' o' het
yill on the hearth for me, Mary, gin the time I return; and now,
sirs, let's awa."

As they stumbled along the beach to the rude stone pier, where
Jamie's clinker-built boat was moored to an iron ring,

"Dost see anything of those ships?" asked Sir Patrick Gray whom Jamie
was careful not to recognise.

"The headmost craft wasna a mile frae the Buddon-ness when the
gloaming fell," replied the fisherman, looking keenly to the
eastward; "the wind was off the land then, but it veered round a
point to the north.  Wow but the moon bodes a grand haul o' herrin'
off St. Monan's the morn!  I wish I had gane to the
fishing-ground----"

"And lost these six lions--eh?  But here is thy boat, grumbler," said
the third personage, who as yet had scarcely spoken; "now let us
shove off."

"If these are English ships, sir," said Jamie, as he assisted the
three to embark, and cast off the painter, "I marvel mickle at their
impudence in being off the Tay, while Sir Andrew Wood is at anchor in
the Firth."

"Marvel at nothing; but keep thy wind for cooling thy porridge, or
for better uses," retorted the haughty Gray, rolling himself up in
his mantle, and his companion did the same, while Borthwick and Jamie
shipped their oars, and turned the boat's prow to the sea.

When the shadows of the land and the square dark keep of Broughty,
with its broad barbican and flanking towers were left behind, the
night (even while the moon was enveloped in clouds) was not so murky
that objects could not be distinguished; yet the three voyagers
looked in vain for a vestige of the ship which they expected to be
nearest the shore.  A pale stripe of white light edged the horizon,
and between it and the boat the waves were rising and falling, like
those of an inky ocean; and in that streak of sky, and between the
flying clouds, a few red, fiery stars were seen to sparkle at
intervals.  Cold currents of air swept over the estuary, bringing
that peculiar fragrance which a night breeze always bears off the
land; and the hoarse roar of the heavy surf, as it bellowed on the
rocks of Broughty Castle, and rolled far inland upon the shingly
beach to the eastward of it, could be hoard distinctly, as the boat
of Gair was pulled directly out to sea.

"Tarry a moment, Gair," said Sir Patrick Gray; "now where are those
vessels--eh?"

"You'll see them, sir, when they are lifted into the streak o' light;
there they are! awa' doon to windward."

"But what the devil is windward--which way?" asked Borthwick.

"Well mayst thou ask that, for it seems to be whichever way I turn my
face; but oho! I see them now!" added Gray--as the dark outlines of
two vessels, with all their sails set, appeared in the distant
offing, between the black vapours that seemed to rest on their
mast-heads and the darker ocean on which they floated.  "'Sdeath!
they are ten good miles off."

"Outside the Inchcape, at least, I should say," added his hitherto
silent friend.

"But where is the _Harry_--this devilish craft, which Gair says was
visible near the Buddon-ness?"

"I'll soon find out."

"What was the signal agreed upon?" whispered Gray.

"_This_," replied the other, discharging a hand-gun the air,

Almost immediately afterwards, two sparks appeared about half-a-mile
off; they brightened fast, and then two pale blue lights were seen
burning close to the edge of the water.

"'Tis the _Harry_!  Give way, Jamie--give way, Borthwick!" said Sir
Patrick.  The oars dipped into the water, and the sharp-prowed boat
shot over the waves towards the lights, which soon faded away and
expired.  The night was now intensely dark, for not a vestige of moon
was visible; but soon a noise was heard above the incessant dashing
of the sea.  It was like the flapping of a sail; and then one faint
blink of moonlight, as it broke through an opening in the clouds,
showed, close by, a large and high-pooped vessel coming suddenly to
the wind, as if the watch had descried the boat upon the water; and
this proved to be the case, for almost immediately, a voice in
English cried out,

"Boat, a-hoy!"

Gray, who answered the hail, and held the tiller, passed the fisher
boat under the towering stern of the English ship, and sheering
sharply round on her larboard side, the little craft was soon made
fast; but Jamie was commanded to remain in her, while Sir Patrick
Gray, Borthwick, and the third personage, who proved to be no other
than Sir James Shaw of Sauchie, governor of Stirling, were introduced
to the state-cabin, where, with some reluctance, we are compelled to
accompany them.

CHAPTER IX.

THE BANE OF SCOTLAND.

  "By Chericul's dark wandering streams.
    Where cane-tufts shadow all the wild;
  Sweet visions haunt my waking dreams
    Of Scotland, loved while still a child;
  Of castled rocks stupendous piled,
    By Esk or Eden's classic wave,
  When loves of youth and friendship smiled,
    Uncursed by thee, vile yellow slave!"
                                  LEYDEN: _The Gold Coin_

For many hundred years a curse, or rather a fell spirit, hovered over
Scotland, and time seems never to have lessened its force, or the
evil produced by the blighting breath of that _yellow slave_, of
which he who found a grave so far from her shore--poor Leyden, one of
the sweetest of our bards--has sung, in his beautiful Ode to an
Indian coin of gold.  This curse has been the mal-influence of a
party within the Scottish nation, whose interests were separated from
its common weal, who throve on its ruin and disgrace, and have ever
been the ready instruments of oppression, neglect, and misrule: I
mean that party distinguished in the darkest pages of our annals as
_the English fiction_--usually a band of paid traitors, whom even the
Union could not abolish; men who surrendered themselves to work out
the evil, disastrous, and insidious projects of the sister kingdom,
for the purpose of weakening the power of the Scottish people; and
thus, as Schiller says, "never has civil war embroiled the cities of
Scotland, that an Englishman has not applied a brand to the walls."

To the patricidal efforts of this faction, which for many hundred
years proved the bane of Scotland, our historians lay the blame of
every dark and disastrous transaction that blackens the page of
Scottish history.

Their intrigues brought on the troubles of Alexander III.; the
betrayal of Wallace; and that long war, which even Bannockburn did
not end; the early misfortunes of James I. and those of James III.,
when England intrigued with Albany to gain the town of Berwick, and
marry a prince of Scotland to Margaret Tudor.  We recognise the same
corrupt faction in those ignoble peers who pledged themselves to the
English king after the fight at Solway Moss, and thus broke the heart
of James V., the most splendid of our monarchs; who plunged Scotland
in bloodshed under the Regents Murray, Mar, and Morton; who betrayed
Kirkaldy of Grange, and, after a life of woe, surrendered their
sovereign to the axe of an English executioner.  Again we recognise
them, when "the master fiend, Argyle," and his compatriots, betrayed
her misguided grandson to Cromwell, and when their more sordid
successors sold their country at the Union; when they betrayed our
Darien colonists to the Spanish allies of England, and the Macdonalds
of Glencoe to the barbarous assassins of William of Orange.

Sir James Shaw of Sauchie, Sir Patrick Gray of Kyneff, and the
despicable swashbuckler, Borthwick, in the days of James III.,
represented the ignoble Scots of 1488.  They were conducted by a page
to the great cabin of the English frigate, in which several
gentlemen, all richly dressed, were lounging on the cushioned
lockers, and drinking Canary and Rochelle wine out of silver-mounted
horns.  A lamp, having a globe of pink-coloured glass, swung from a
beam, and diffused a warm light around the cabin, which was all
wainscoted, and hung with armour and weapons of various kinds.

On the entrance of the three visitors, all the English officers
withdrew, save Edmund Howard, the captain, who wore a scarlet cassock
coat, richly furred with miniver, and a diamond sword-belt; and his
secretary, Master Quentin Kraft, a London attorney, who was attired
in plain blue broadcloth, trimmed with black tape, and who
immediately produced writing materials, clean drinking horns, and
more wine.

"Welcome on board the royal ship, _Harry!_" said Edmund Howard,
bowing, without rising, while a sneer of ill-disguised contempt
curled his handsome mouth, over which hung a dark mustachio; for,
like a noble cavalier and honest mariner, he had an unmitigated
aversion to the duty on which King Henry had sent him, and for the
three Scotsmen, with whom he had to conduct a court intrigue.  "I am
glad you have come off at last; but why all rigged in armour--aloft
and alow, from head to heel, eh?"

"In Scotland, men go not abroad without their harness," replied the
Laird of Sauchie, haughtily.

"By St. George," said Howard, "four hours ago I was sick of knocking
about in the offing, and then having to creep in, like a thief in the
nightfall, between the Inchcape Rock and yonder devilish sands.  A
fine business 'twould have been to have found myself beached in the
shoal water, and just after this hot affair of ours with Sir Andrew
Barton in the Channel.  Be seated, Sir James; Sir Patrick, the Canary
stands with _you_; come to anchor, Master Borthwick--cannot you find
a seat?  By the bye, talking of Barton, I owe thee a hundred crowns,
Borthwick.  Kraft, hand this gentleman a hundred crowns, and be sure
to get his quittance for them, ere they are stowed away."

While this transaction passed, and the price of Barton's blood was
being paid to Borthwick, the two rebellious barons divested
themselves of their ample cloaks and masks, and each presented an
athletic figure, completely cased in iron, save the head, and armed
with daggers and long swords of a famous kind, then made and tempered
at Banff.

Shaw of Sauchie was older, less bloated, and less dissipated in
aspect than Gray; but he had the same cunning eyes, large mustachios,
and bullying or imperious aspect.

"Now, then, Captain Howard, let us to business," said he, filling his
wine-horn.

"Ay, to business," added Borthwick, filling his, and imitating the
nonchalance of the baron.

"Well," said Howard, "how does his Grace of Rothesay's amour proceed
(for of _that_ we have heard at the English court), and what chance
is there of his ranging up amicably alongside of a fair English
princess, yard-arm and yard-arm, with Cupid ahead?"

"Very little, I fear, since this affair with Barton."

"Barton was a brave seaman, and man of honour," said the Englishman;
"but," he added, contemptuously, "I have just paid for that piece of
sport."

"You have paid King Henry's spy," retorted Sir James Shaw, warmly;
"but remember that King James, and more than he, old Andrew Wood, and
Barton's eldest son, will amply avenge your battle in the Channel,
unless we have them both fettered, or disposed of otherwise."

"Then dispose of them, in God's name, and as many more angry Scots as
are in the same unruly mood; for King Henry wishes no more of this
work; and indeed, ere long, an ambassador will leave London, to clear
up the story of our conflict with the ships of Barton, against which,
I think, _we_ may fairly set off Lord Angus's invasion of
Northumberland."

"Well, but what is King Henry's new proposal?"

"Simply this, Sir Patrick; that by force or fraud we must either
bring off the young prince and have him wedded to the Princess
Margaret Tudor, in terms of their betrothal, or we must kidnap the