Gowrie; or, the King's Plot.

by G. P. R. James

CHAPTER XXVIII.

It was about three o'clock in the evening when Gowrie and his sister, followed by eight or nine servants on horseback, set out from the gates of Holyrood. She looked bright and happy, and Gowrie gazed at her from time to time with a look of thoughtful affection, tracing in the beautiful young woman the same lines he well remembered in the beautiful child.

"Well, dear Beatrice," he said, "your little heart seems full of rejoicing, and your cheek looks as fresh as the rose, and your light limbs, though they be not at the largest, quite ready for any exertion that may be needed."

"Oh, I am equal to anything," said Beatrice, in the confidence of young strength and health. "I think, on this nice jennet which the queen gave me, and with you, my dear brother, by my side, I could ride over half Scotland."

"Perhaps I may try you," said Gowrie, with a smile.

"What mean you, brother mine?" asked Beatrice, gazing at him. "You look dark and mysterious."

"How far can you fly in a night, busy bee?" asked Gowrie.

"As far as a swallow," answered the young lady, looking up in his face.

But Gowrie, after a moment's thought, said, "No, sixty miles is too far; still we will go on as far as we can, and then stop for the night."

"Man of mysteries, what do you mean?" cried Beatrice, in her usual gay tone. "Whither are you going to take me? To some deep dungeon of one of your castles in the mountains, to keep me a prisoner there during your good pleasure?"

"Yes," answered Gowrie, "I am."

"But what has your poor sister done?" cried Beatrice, laughing. "I have divulged none of your secrets. I have discovered none of your plots. I am not even going to marry without your leave."

"You have asked indiscreet questions," said Gowrie, assuming a gruff tone--"indiscreet questions about a lady with black eyes. Is not that offence enough to a tyrant brother like myself?"

"Oh, I understand, dear brother--I understand. Let us get on, let us get on to-night. I long to see her, and to tell her how I will love her."

"Hush, hush, hush!" said Gowrie, in a low tone; "if you are as indiscreet as that, I will not take you. Everything," he continued, almost in a whisper, "depends upon secrecy; for I must give the king no hold upon me, Beatrice; and although, perhaps, with the explanations I can afford in regard to the wealth he supposes her to possess, he might not be so anxious to obtain her as his ward, yet I will not put it in his power to refuse me her hand, or to make it an inducement with me to do anything I think wrong."

"There you are right," answered Beatrice. "I have learned to know more of courts and kings than when you went away, Gowrie; and I would not that any one I love was in the hands of that man for all the wealth in Europe." A sort of shudder seemed to pass over her as she spoke; but, after being silent for a moment, she continued, "Do you know, Gowrie, I am very anxious for one thing, which is, that Alex should withdraw from the court. I wish you could persuade him to give up his post, and either go to travel, or betake himself to Dirleton."

Gowrie turned and gazed at her with surprise. "I am astonished, dear Beatrice," he said. "I should have thought that, in your situation at the court, you would have been right glad to have Alexander with you."

"For my own sake, I should," she answered; "and yet that is not wholly true either; for I am kept in such a constant state of anxiety, that his presence is more pain than comfort."

"But what is the cause? What has he done?" demanded her brother, with still increasing surprise. "You seemed the best friends possible."

"And so we are," replied his fair sister. "It is for him that I fear, for him that I am anxious. As to what he has done, or rather to his whole conduct, I cannot well speak of it, Gowrie. He has done nothing wrong, I do hope and believe; but he has been very imprudent. He has many great and powerful enemies. The king loves him not, and will some day or another work him ill. Sir Hugh Herries hates him mortally; and he and young John Ramsay are always bickering. Because Ramsay's education has not been equal to his own, and his manners are more rough and less polished, Alex looks down upon him, and makes him feel it. But it is the king I fear."

Gowrie asked some more questions, but he could not get a satisfactory reply; and, in the end, Beatrice said, "Ask Hume, Gowrie--ask Hume. He will tell you more about it. He must have heard and seen enough."

At this point of their conversation, however, they were interrupted by one of the men riding up and saying, "This is the road to Dirleton, my lord, which you have just passed."

"I know," answered Gowrie, with a smile. "I have not yet forgotten the way, Archy; but I have a friend whom I must see to-night. Take three of the men with you, and ride away to Dirleton. Give that letter to the countess, and assure her I will be with her the day after to-morrow. Tell her that business which she wots of calls me over into Perthshire; but that I will not spare the spur to be with her soon. The lady Beatrice goes with me, and we will join her together. There, look not surprised, but go. Leave Wilson and Nichol with me." Thus saying, the earl turned his horse, and rode away at a quicker pace towards Queensferry. "You must even abide a bit of sea, Beatrice," he said; "for we have not time to ride up the river to-night; but we shall get over in daylight."

"Oh, I mind it not," answered Beatrice. "Speed, speed, Gowrie, is the thing now. I will race with you, for all your horse's long legs."

"Spare your beast--spare your beast," replied her brother, as she was pushing her jennet into a quick canter. "You would make a bad soldier, Beatrice, and a worse courier, if you spent all your horse's strength in the beginning of a long journey. I doubt not that we could reach Kinross to-night."

"Oh, farther than that," answered Beatrice. "It is now hardly four o'clock. We shall be over the ferry in half an hour, and at Kinross by seven. We might even get on to Perth before midnight."

The earl smiled. "You miscalculate your time, little lady," he answered, "and your horse's strength, too. Besides, what should I do with you in Perth? There is nobody but Henderson and an old woman in the great house; and they'll be in bed by nine."

"Let us go to Murray's Inn, then," said his sister; "that will be open, I'll warrant. If you dare me, I'll soon show you that my calculations are correct, both as to time and the jennet. I have ridden forty miles upon her before now, Earl of Gowrie. It is you who do not know what a Scottish girl and a Spanish horse can do."

"Well, we shall see," replied the earl; and on they went.

Queensferry was soon reached, and speedily passed; and during nearly an hour longer the sun shone upon their way They had been lucky in the tide. They were lucky in the evening; for the wind, which had been high, went down before sunset, and, for an afternoon in March, the weather was mild and pleasant. Having talked of all that was sad or threatening, Beatrice's gay spirits returned in full tide; and, keeping her own jennet at a good sharp pace, she would sometimes playfully whip her brother's horse to make it go on, declaring it was the laziest beast she ever saw, or else that he was determined not to take her to Perth that night. Notwithstanding a short halt at the inn at Blair Adam--where, we are credibly informed, there has ever been an inn since the days of the arch-patriarch whose name it bears--they reached Kinross by eight o'clock, and Gowrie admitted that they could reach Perth easily, if his sister was not tired.

"I have only one objection," he said, bending down his head, and dropping his voice, "which is, that we might be detained in Perth till late to-morrow, and besides, I told the king I was not going thither. It may attract attention and create suspicion, if I either attempt to conceal myself, or hurry on instantly after my arrival. I am not very sure of Henderson's discretion."

"Nor I of his fidelity," said Beatrice. "But what do you mean, Gowrie? Is not the dear girl at Perth?"

"No; at Trochrie, in Strathbraan," replied Gowrie. "Why, I told you, silly girl, that there was no one at the great house but Henderson and some old woman."

"I thought you meant with an exception," answered Beatrice. "But, if that is the case, we had better not go there at all. I tell you what, Gowrie, I have a plan that will answer very well. Let us go to Rhynd, and then up the Tay. At Rhynd we shall find good Mr. M'Dougal, the minister, poring over his books; and right glad will he be to see the yearl and his bonny titty Beatrix; and we shall have rare bringing out of bottles and glasses; and if I am not compelled to drink some strong waters, it will be by dint of vigorous resistance. Then we shall be able to go on to-morrow without any one knowing aught about it, for M'Dougal will ask no questions, and forget we have been there the moment we are gone. I am thinking you might have taken a shorter road to Trochrie, though; but I suppose you have grown so Italianized, that you have forgotten all the byways of Scotland."

"No, no," answered Gowrie; "but I came this way, that, in case of any inquiries, we might puzzle the pursuers. The stags teach us, Beatrice, to cheat the hounds; and so we get lessons from even the beasts we hunt. But the difference is very small; and we shall arrive in good time to-morrow. I like your plan well, dear sister, if you know the way to Rhynd in the dark."

"That do I well, Gowrie," she answered. "I believe my head was intended for a geographer's, and got fixed on my shoulders by mistake. I will send it back if ever I can find the right owner."

"Ask Hume's leave first," said Gowrie. "I should think he would not like to part with it."

And on they rode through the darkness, Beatrice fully justifying the account she had given of her own geographical talents. Not a step of the way did she mistake, but even led her brother straight to the best passage of the little river which joins the Tay near Rhynd, but the name of which I forget, and thence up to the door of the minister's manse. Her reception and that of her brother was as joyous and hospitable as she had anticipated. The old man had known them both well as children, and had seen Beatrice often since. But I must not pause to give any detail of how the evening or the night passed; of how the minister brought out his choicest stores for the earl, and sought his assistance in translating a difficult passage of Hebrew; of how he lodged Beatrice in a chamber all covered over with pieces of quaint embroidery, worked by the hands of a defunct sister; or how he gave up his own room to the earl, and laid strong injunctions on his maid-servant to redd it up--otherwise make it tidy--which, to say truth, it needed not a little.

Beatrice slept soundly, and though the earl was kept awake for some time by joyful thoughts of his meeting with her he loved, they were both on horseback again within half an hour after daybreak; and the good old man, after seeing them depart, returned into his house, to spend his time, as usual, between books and bottles, sermons and good cheer. It would be difficult to say whether nature had not originally intended him for a monk, if John Knox had not been born a century too soon, and compelled, what would have made an excellent Benedictine to become a Presbyterian minister. He was a good man and a kind one, however, acting by pleasant impulses, with a great deal both of the corporeal and of the mental in his mixed nature; and, if not possessing quite sufficient of the spiritual, altogether to curb the appetites of the one part and the energies of the other, so as to leave the purely ethereal her full exercise, yet he had a great many negative virtues and some active ones, which might, in a mass, compensate for a few not very violent failings. Mr. M'Dougal's blessing, as his two young guests departed, and his prayers for a pleasant and happy journey to them, seemed granted at once. All went gaily and easily with them as they rode on; and when the castle came in sight, with the wild and romantic scenery around--somewhat bare and desolate indeed, but beautiful and characteristic, Gowrie strained his eyes eagerly forward, gazing over the dark masses of gray stone, as if he would fain have seen through them into the chambers within. By the side from which he approached, Trochrie could be seen at a considerable distance. True, it was lost again behind the shoulder of a hill very soon; but, as he gazed at the walls, he thought he saw something like a figure, clad in dark garments, move along the battlements, not of the keep or donjon, but of the lower towers, which were backed by the body of the principal building. He said not a word, for love is timid of raillery; and he feared even the gay spirit of his young sister. But the moment after his doubts were removed, for the figure at the angle of the western tower stood forth against the clear sky, and he could see her pause, and, as he thought, turn round and gaze towards the spot where he and Beatrice were riding.

"See, Beatrice, see," he cried, "she is upon the ramparts, and looking out for me, as she promised she would."

"She has nothing else to do," answered Beatrice, "except to gaze at wild moors or gray stones, or the few scanty trees left of Birnham wood. See what a difference there is between gay, wild, enthusiastic love and calm, sober sense, Gowrie. You are all in a glow because you think that she is watching for you, and, my life for it, she has been looking at the corbies building their nests, just for nothing else to look at."

"Did you not look for Hume?" asked the earl, somewhat vexed, if one must speak the truth.

"Not I," answered Beatrice. "He found me and Alex quarrelling, or rather, me scolding him, and Alex, pouting--but I do think there is a woman on the battlements; and now she is moving away again. It may be a man in a cloak, but yet it looks like a woman too.--Now don't expect her to come down and meet you at the gate or on the drawbridge, for, if she has any sense of her own dignity, and the subjection in which woman should keep man, she will remain just where she is, and know nothing of your coming till you go to tell her."

At that moment the hill hid the castle again, and when, passing some woodland, they came once more within sight of Trochrie, they were close under the walls. Gowrie looked up, but Julia was no longer to be seen; but, as he mounted the ascent, his heart beat with joyful feelings to see Beatrice's light prognostication falsified. Beneath the deep arch of the castle gateway, which stood wide open, with portcullis up and drawbridge down, stood a figure which it needed no second glance to identify. In an instant he was over the bridge, off his horse, and by her side; and as Beatrice rode up, followed by the servants, Gowrie took Julia's hand in his, and led her a step or two forward to meet his sister.

"She is not so coldhearted as you are, Beatrice," he said, gaily, "and so did come down to meet us."

But Beatrice was off her horse in a moment; and certainly her greeting of her brother's promised bride showed no great coldness of heart. Casting back the waves of her own bright brown hair, she kissed her tenderly, saying, "I have teased him sadly, dear Julia, as we came, just to prevent his impatience from breaking all bounds; but never you think that I do not love you, whatever he may say. Have I not ridden well nigh seventy miles to see you, with all the greater pleasure, because it is so secret that it feels almost like treason, which is the greatest of all possible delights to a woman. But come, let us into the castle. You have neither veil nor coif on; and the mountain air is not delicate, especially for those who have lived long in southern lands;" and twining her arm through that of her new friend, she led the way into Trochrie, with all the chambers of which she seemed well acquainted.

No servant presented himself as they went; and with open gates and lowered drawbridge, the castle seemed at the mercy of any one who might choose to attack it. Gowrie looked round with displeasure.

"This is dangerous," he said, as they walked on across the outer court. "Where are the men you brought with you, dear Julia? I should have thought that Austin would have been more careful."

"Austin is watching in the tower," said Julia; "and the women are milking in the field behind; but the rest of the men are gone out, I believe, to catch game in the valley on the other side of that great hill. We found the place scantily supplied with provisions, and they seem to have been accustomed to take such means of getting what they want."

Gowrie mused. "This was what I feared," he said; "but we must see that you are better guarded for the future, love; and I am sure my mother, if she knew the state of the castle, would have sent up all that was needful for you."

"And so she has, indeed," answered Julia. "Several horse loads arrived this very morning--everything she could think of, indeed, to while away the time; but, doubtless, the men, accustomed to a more active life than I am, and not having so much to meditate upon, find it dull."

"They must learn better," replied the earl; and with this comment, they walked on to a large chamber above, which Julia had made her sitting-room, and decked out as best she could with the books which Lady Gowrie had sent her, a lute, and a mandolin.

A slight cloud in the morning often leads in the brighter day. Gowrie was displeased with the negligence of his followers, and when they returned soon after, he reproved them sternly for their want of caution. Only two attempted to excuse themselves--the man who usually remained in charge of the castle, who, with humble tone, and with the deference of a clansman to his chief, declared that he had not been made aware of his lord's wishes or the necessity of caution; and the man, David Drummond, who had accompanied Julia thither, and who replied to his lord in a tone of dogged sullenness, which Gowrie bore with more calmness than either Julia or Beatrice had expected.

"You must be more upon your guard, Donald," he said, speaking to the first, "and, moreover, you must have some additional force here. You must call in the tenants to the guard of the castle, and never suffer it to be without ten men within at least. Give notice, too, that they be prepared on the usual signals to come in with every man that they can muster. The men of Athol, too, will come down to help you in case of need. I will write to my good sister to-night, for I know not, from moment to moment, what may happen; and it is my command to you to hold out to the last against any force which may be sent to surprise Trochrie, let it come under whatever authority it may. But we will speak more to-night before I retire to rest. David Drummond, you go with me to Perth to-morrow--be prepared."

With these words, the cloud passed away from his brow and from his mind, and the rest of the evening went by in unmixed happiness. Oh, it was a dream of delight to a spirit like that of Gowrie--or, rather it was the realization of a dream as bright as ever filled the mind of man. Often, often on their way homeward from Italy, when gazing on the fair face of her he loved with that mixture of ardent passion with the purer, the higher, the more elevating tenderness which exalts passion to the dignity of love, he had thought he saw the bright being now before him sitting with those who were bound to him by the ties of kindred and of early association and long affection, winning their love as she had won his, becoming the child of his dear mother, the sister of his sisters. And now, as she sat by Beatrice, with their fair hands often locked in each other, and their arms sometimes twined together, and their eyes gazing into each other's faces to scan the features they were so ready to love and to print on memory, till a passing blush or a gay smile was called up by the earnestness of the glance, he would almost fancy that all dark auguries were swept away, and that happiness was placed beyond the power of fate. He himself was very silent with much joy; but Beatrice spoke cheerfully, and led forth Julia's more timid but more deep-toned thoughts; and the sister gazed and smiled with strong grave interest at the fresh spirit and the eloquent originality of the brother's promised bride, and declared aloud, that it was charming, that it was unlike anything of the earth, that it was like an angel sent down now into a world of evil and of care, of which she knew nothing.

Then as the hours wore on, and night fell, and lights were lighted in the hall, Gowrie persuaded Julia to sing; and the full rich tones of the melodious voice pouring forth a finer music than was yet known in the north, filled the old hall, and made the small panes vibrate in the leaden frames, calling into being, in Beatrice's heart, deep-seated emotions, the very germs of which she knew not to exist in her bosom till occupied by the sunshine of the song. Sometimes she almost trembled as she heard, and sometimes she well nigh wept; and even the servants, lured by the sweet melody, peeped in and listened through the partly opened door.

Oh, it was a happy evening that, full of every sort of pure enjoyment, and willingly, right willingly would I pause upon it long, and tell the words of joy and hope and love that were spoken by all, and try to depict feelings that brightened the passing hour. Willingly, too, would I draw back from the darker scenes before me; willingly would I linger in the sunshine, so bright in contrast with the dark cloud coming up upon the wind. But the cloud advances--Fate is moving slowly, but inevitably, forward. It cannot be! We must on!