CHAPTER XXVI.
We must now turn to follow the course of the Earl of Gowrie, who hurried to horse as soon as he could force himself to part with Julia, the 28th of February, and he spared not the spur till he had reached Carlisle. The distance was not far short of a hundred miles, although knowing the country well, till he reached the borders of Cumberland he took the shortest cuts towards his destination. Nevertheless, by twelve o'clock on the following day, he had reached the city of the British chief, and halted there for three hours, to rest those horses which were capable of going on, and to purchase three or four others, to supply the place of those which were knocked up. The journey was then resumed, at a slow and orderly pace; and the earl once more approached the frontier of Scotland, on the western side. Such rapid progress as he had made during the last thirty hours was not at all suited, of course, to the habits of good Mr. Rhind; and that worthy gentleman was left behind, with a request that he would tarry for a day or two at Dunbar, and then proceed slowly to Edinburgh, preserving perfect silence as to the events which had lately taken place; which, it must be remarked, puzzled him greatly, as the earl was not inclined to enter into lengthened explanations on the subject. On the discretion of the servants who accompanied him, the earl thought he could depend; and he consequently satisfied himself with giving them merely two commands--namely, to avoid mentioning to any one their previous journey to Dunbar, and if asked what had become of the lady who had accompanied them to England, to state that he, the earl, had sent her to a place of security some way before they reached Carlisle. This having been done, they rode on towards Langholm, where the earl proposed to pass the night. On his arrival, however, at the only inn which that place contained, he found the court-yard in a bustle with numerous horses and servants, and perceived also two or three of the king's guard loitering about. The announcement that the place was quite full, therefore, did not surprise him; and, in answer to his inquiries, the host informed him that the Lord Lindores had just returned with his suite, after having visited the border that morning.
Gowrie smiled at the name of one of the especial companions of the king; and finding, in answer to a quiet inquiry, that the noble lord had arrived from Edinburgh late the night before, he was confirmed in the suspicion, that the object of Lindores' coming had been to claim the wardship of Julia in the king's name.
Innocent of all offence himself, however, he did not scruple to send up a message to the courtier nobleman, requesting that he would spare him a part of the accommodation of the inn; but one of Lord Lindores' servants had been beforehand with him in communicating his arrival, and before the host, whom Gowrie charged with his message, could leave his side, the gentleman to whom it was to be delivered was seen descending the stairs, which, as was then very customary in Scottish inns, came down at once on the outside of the house, from a covered gallery above, into the court-yard. His dress and appearance were sufficient to indicate his rank, although Gowrie had not seen him from his boyhood; but Lord Lindores, forgetting his prudence, advanced at once towards the young earl, holding out his hand, and saying, "Ah, my noble Lord of Gowrie, how goes it with your lordship? Welcome back to Scotland after a long absence."
"Many thanks, my lord," replied Gowrie, shaking hands with him. "My absence has indeed been long enough for old friends to forget me. But I find your lordship has engaged the whole house; can you not spare me a room or two?"
"I should be sadly wanting in courtesy else," replied the other, whose eye, during the whole conversation, had been wandering over Gowrie's followers. "We will put some of the men into the cottages or houses near. What will you require?"
"Only a room for myself," replied the earl, who was somewhat amused by the puzzled look upon his companion's face--"only a room for myself, and an ante-room for two or three of my servants. The rest must shift as they can. We will not put you to inconvenience."
"That will be soon arranged," replied Lord Lindores; "and as my supper will be ready in a few minutes, your lordship must honour me by partaking thereof. I will just speak a word or two to some of my men, telling them to seek lodgings elsewhere, and rejoin you in a moment."
Gowrie remained near the foot of the stairs till his return, with an air of the most perfect indifference; but he did not fail to observe what seemed eager question and answer pass between his brother peer and one of the men who had been in the court-yard when he arrived.
"Now, noble earl, permit me to show you the road," said Lord Lindores, returning; and he led the way up stairs to a small guest-chamber, prepared for the evening meal, but which was also ornamented by a truckle bed. After some ordinary compliments, Lord Lindores fell into thought for a moment or two, and then looking up, he said, "Had I not thought that your lordship would not arrive in Scotland till to-morrow, I should have prepared better for your accommodation; for, to say the truth, I was led to expect the pleasure of seeing you on the border if my business detained me here a day or two."
"Indeed! How so?" demanded Gowrie, looking up; for he, too, had fallen into thought.
"Oh, very simply," replied the other lord. "His majesty, when sending me yesterday to inquire into some of the affairs upon the border, informed me that he had had a letter from your lordship, and, as you were returning by Carlisle, I should most likely meet you somewhere here. He bade me greet you well on his part, and say that he was anxious for your arrival."
"His majesty is ever gracious," said Gowrie, drily; "I trust to kiss his hand the day after to-morrow at the farthest."
"He taught me to believe, my noble lord, that I should find a fair lady in your company," said his companion, assuming a jocular look and tone; "the most beautiful of the beautiful, I understand; a gem that you have brought us from southern lands."
"Oh, no," answered Gowrie, in a light and easy tone; "his majesty has been misled. Such a lady as you describe did travel part of the way hither under my convoy; but I left her behind before I reached Carlisle."
"Indeed!" said Lord Lindores, with a look of mortification and surprise. "But perhaps the journey was too fatiguing, and she will follow you?"
"Oh dear, no!" answered Gowrie, with a laugh. "She is very well where she is, I doubt not, and will remain there for some time."
"On my life," cried the other, resuming his jocular tone, "I think your lordship is jealous of us poor lords of Holyrood."
"To be sure I am," answered Gowrie, at once; "and fully resolved I am not to bring her to that court till I bring her as my wife. You see, my good lord, I am frank with you; but you will own that there is cause to fear that I might lose my bride, if I carried her amongst such gay cavaliers as the Lord of Lindores."
His companion, who had already seen the middle age, laughed gaily; for I know neither age nor circumstance in which vanity will not do its work. He seemed perfectly deceived, however, and indeed was so, concluding that Gowrie, from some cause, suspecting the king's purpose, had left his fair companion on the other side of the border. He was not well satisfied, indeed, with the result of his mission, for he had calculated upon gaining considerable credit with the king by skilfully executing a somewhat delicate task. Their meal passed over gaily, however; and Lindores, who was somewhat of a bon vivant, had taken care that the table should be supplied with better wine than could be procured at Langholm. Of this he partook abundantly, and hospitably pressed his guest to do the same; but Gowrie was upon his guard, and contrived to avoid the glass, without his companion noticing that such was the case. In the meantime, Lindores, imagining that each large double bottle was shared equally between him and the earl, drank more than his due proportion, and passed through most of the stages of inebriety, from loquacity to drowsiness. In the former stage, however, the wine being in and the wit out, he laughed joyously at the thought of the king's disappointment, and told his companion, as a profound secret, the end and object of his journey to the border.
On the following day early, the earl and Lord Lindores set out together for Edinburgh; but Gowrie thought fit to stop for the night at Selkirk, while his companion pushed on somewhat farther, in order to bear to the king the news of his disappointment in person. He arrived in the capital at a somewhat early hour the next day, and proceeded at once to the palace, where James's ill-humour knew no bounds.
"That is just like those Ruthvens," he said, in the presence of Sir Hugh Herries and John Ramsay, who were in the king's closet when Lindores told his story. "They are all as wise as serpents, but not as innocent as doves; and this lad is at the head of them. If he were not at heart a rebel to his own liege sovereign, wherefore should he leave the lass in England? Does it not give our good aunt Elizabeth a hold upon him, which no foreign sovereign should have over one of our subjects? Can she not twist him thereby what way she likes? Maybe his treason is already consummate, and he has left the girl behind him as a pignus or pledge for his carrying it out to our destruction. We must deal softly with him, nevertheless," he continued, seeing that his words had sunk deeply into the minds of those around him, and having, perhaps, the example of Henry II. before his eyes--"we must deal softly with him, till we find occasion against him; mind that, lads, and let not one of ye cross him, so as to make the matter into a private quarrel. He has many friends and great wealth, so we must go gently to work with him till the time comes."
Notwithstanding his injunctions to others, the king could not altogether restrain his own demeanour, but remained sullen and irritable all day. He inquired twice whether the earl had arrived in Edinburgh; and when told that he had come to the house of one of his relations, whither a number of the old friends of his family flocked to meet and congratulate him, he exclaimed, "The fickle fools! They go as blithesome to a burial."
The following morning, as he was seated with the queen, receiving some of the nobles of the court, with the Duchess of Lennox, Gowrie's sister, on one side of Anne of Denmark, and Beatrice Ruthven behind her chair, some loud shouts, uttered in the streets of the town, made themselves heard even in the royal apartments.
"What are the fools skirling at now?" cried the king; "is it another Tolbooth fray?"
"Not so, your majesty," replied Lord Inchaffray, who had just entered; "as I rode hither a moment ago, the young Earl of Gowrie was passing up the street with a large number of noble gentlemen, his friends; and some hundreds of people were running after his horse's heels, shouting and wishing him joy on his return."
James's brow darkened immediately, and lolling his tongue in his cheek, with a bitter and meaning smile, he said, loud enough for several persons to hear, "There were as many people who convoyed his father to the scaffold at Stirling."
The Duchess of Lennox instantly turned deadly pale, and fell, so that she would have struck her head against the queen's chair, had she not been caught in the arms of her sister Beatrice.
The court was immediately thrown into strange confusion; and the king, as if totally unconscious that the illness of the young duchess was produced by his own act, exclaimed, "De'il's in the woman! What's the matter with her? The rooms not so hot."
"But your majesty's words were sharp," said Beatrice; "my sister is not accustomed to hear the death of a father she loved made sport of."
"You are saucy, mistress, I think," said the king, frowning upon her.
"And your majesty unkind," said Beatrice, boldly; but Anne of Denmark interfered, and caused some of the gentlemen present to assist in conveying the duchess to another room.
James himself felt in some degree, it would appear, that he had acted in a cruel and discourteous manner, for he said, in a low but somewhat apologetic tone, "Fegs! I forgot she was the earl's daughter. One cannot always remember, in this good land of ours, who is of kin to those who have had their heads chopped off."
He then turned to other subjects, seeming soon to forget altogether what had occurred; and when, a few minutes afterwards, Gowrie himself was introduced, unconscious of all that had taken place, the king received him with the utmost cordiality and kindness, displaying remarkably, on this occasion, that detestable hypocrisy which he considered one of the essential parts of kingcraft. If anything, his manner was too condescending and gracious, approaching to a degree of familiarity more repugnant to the feelings of the young earl than haughtiness could have been. After having given him his hand to kiss, he pinched his ear, called him a truant, and insisted upon examining him in what he called the humanities, much to the annoyance of most of the gentlemen of his court, many of whom understood neither the Latin nor Greek languages, and some of whom did not understand their own. The earl's replies gave his majesty satisfaction, at least apparently; and he went so far as to pronounce him a good scholar and a credit to the country.
This gracious speech he followed up by commanding him to come to his breakfast on the following morning, and there he commenced a conversation with the earl, who was standing behind his chair, the coarseness of which, in point of language, prevents it from here being written down, but the nature of which may be divined, when I state that it referred to the murder of David Rizzio, and the fright which that horrible event had occasioned to the unfortunate Mary when about to become the mother of the very monarch who spoke.
Gowrie felt that the choice of the subject was intended as an insult to himself, from the part which his grandfather had borne in that lamentable transaction; but he repressed all angry feeling, not alone from respect for the royal authority, but also because he had a deep internal conviction that the conduct of his ancestor on that occasion could not be justified, and that the king had a fair subject of reproach against his family, which, upon every Christian principle and every honourable feeling, should have been restrained to silence, considering all that had passed since, but which might naturally be remembered, if not rankle, in a weak grovelling mind. He made no reply whatever then, and left the conversation to seek another course, when suddenly, to his surprise, Colonel Stuart entered the room, and was greeted by James as an invited guest.
The spirit of his race now rose in his bosom. He saw before him, invited apparently to meet him there that morning, the man who, when his father, after an imperious order from the king to quit the realm within fourteen days, lingered for a few hours longer at Dundee to settle the affairs of his family, and to hire a ship to carry him abroad, pursued him to the very port where he was about to embark, and brought his head to the block. His patience could not endure any more, and drawing back a step, he said, "I think, your majesty, it may be better for me now to retire."
"Come, come, my Lord Gowrie," said the king, "I will not have you look down upon Colonel Stuart. He is a worthy gentleman, and has done this crown good service. Neither will I have you seek quarrel with him in regard to passages long gone."
"Sir," answered the earl, with a low bow, "I will never seek that man, but it is not fit that he should cross my path. As to seeking quarrel with him, aquila non capit muscat. I now beseech your majesty to pardon me for retiring;" and he withdrew slowly from the royal presence.