He spoke impatiently, but yet in perfect good-humour, and looking on his companion’s face, was startled at the expression of intense pain that was apparent in its features. ‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh’ looked like a man who had been shot through the body, and was endeavouring to hide his internal agony under an appearance of outward composure.
Inside that stalwart frame of his a terrible conflict was going on. Good feeling, manhood, a certain reflective sense of the duties of hospitality, above all, loyalty to the Queen, represented by an intense devotion to one of her maids-of-honour; all these sentiments were at war with the habits of a lifetime and the first feudal instinct of the henchman—implicit obedience to his chief. It is needless to say that the latter obtained the mastery.
Maxwell was a friend, and he had come from the immediate presence of her who was the one bright image that gladdened the man’s honest unsophisticated heart, that elevated his rude nature and gave him a glimpse of something better than clash of steel and clang of drinking cups, the excitement of a foray, and the pleasures of a debauch; but, on the other hand, Bothwell was the master whom he had venerated and obeyed from childhood; whose mandate it never occurred to him to dispute; whose will was law. The Rutherfords had served the Hepburns by flood and field as long as either family could count their line. It was not for Dick, so he thought, to be the first traitor of his race; yet he loathed his task, too, this frank-hearted borderer, and his face was very stern and his voice rung hoarse and harsh when he spoke again.
‘Ye say true, Maister Maxwell. Orders must be obeyed, Gude forgi’e us! and the Laird’s bidding must be done!’
Startled by the altered tone, Maxwell turned in his saddle, and at the same instant a thick woollen plaid, thrown over him from behind, was drawn tight across his head and face, a sword-belt was as quickly strapped round his arms above the elbows, a stout moss-trooper pinioned him on either side, two more were at his horse’s head, his weapons were secured, and he found himself, in the space of about half a minute, helpless, blindfold, half-stifled, and a prisoner!
Accustomed as he had been in his adventurous life to every sort of catastrophe, the present seemed to him the most unaccountable and startling of all. He had not witnessed the chafing warden’s interview yesterday with calm, impassible, unscrupulous Moray, nor guessed how much he had to thank his host, that imprisonment rather than death was his present fate. He knew nothing of the conclave held over their wine after he had retired last night by the three nobles, when Rothes had suggested so jovially that he might be blinded or left in a dungeon for life, or hidden out of the way altogether, in any manner that was most agreeable to his boon companions.
‘For,’ as the peer politely put it, while he filled his cup to the brim, ‘you need have no fear of inconveniencing me. We have a saying in Fife of which I have always endeavoured to uphold the truth—“Ask no questions of the Leslies, for their answers are sharp, silent, and to the point.” If he goes down a certain winding-stair in my poor house you might never hear of him again till you wanted him; and if need be, I could produce you his bones, at any rate, twenty years hence. Do not hesitate, I pray you; I am only happy to accommodate the warden. Bothwell, your good health!’
Nor had he overheard the orders accepted so unwillingly by poor ‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh’ an hour or two before dawn, nor that worthy’s eager remonstrance and extreme unwillingness to fulfil his chief’s behests. Perhaps the henchman never felt so keenly that he was a vassal as when he told off six stout jackmen for the unwelcome duty, and informed them of the catchword, ‘the Laird’s bidding,’ at which they were to muffle and pinion their prisoner.