Directing his horse's steps by the red stripes of vertical light which shone through the narrow windows of the tower that had been indicated by the stranger as the fortalice of Millheugh, Florence threaded his way along the narrow dell the leafy monarch of which was the giant oak of King Malcolm, and soon reached the outer gate of the barbican.
CHAPTER XX.
MILLHEUGH.
"Without principle, talent, or intelligence, he is ungracious as a hog, greedy as a vulture, and thievish as a jackdaw."—Humphrey Clinker.
Such, indeed, was the character of the person upon whose rustic privacy Fawside now intruded himself. The tower, though built four centuries before, by Duthac the Thane, was indicative of the character of Allan, his descendant. It was grim, narrow, and massively constructed. The walls were enormously thick; the windows were small, placed far from the floors of the chambers they lighted, and were thickly grated without and within. The stone sill of each was perforated, to permit the emission of arrows or arquebuse shot for defence; and these perforations, when not required, were, as usual in Scotland, closed temporarily by wooden plugs. A high barbican wall enclosed the court of the tower on all sides save towards the brook, the waters of which were collected to form a moat that was crossed by a drawbridge directly under the base of the keep.
The laird was coarse in manner, rough and unlettered, but subtle in spirit, strong of limb, hardy by nature, keen-eyed, and heartless. In his time he had perpetrated many outrages, but always in form of raid; and secluded in the fastnesses of Cadzow Wood, under the wing and authority of the House of Hamilton, to whom—though a fierce tyrant to others—he was a pretended slave, and (while in the pay of its enemies) a most obsequious and useful vassal, he had long eluded and braved the feeble power of the newly-created courts of law,—Scotland's last and best gift from James V. He had barbarously treated, for years, a poor girl to whom he had been handfasted, and to be rid of her, had her accused of sorcery and drowned in the Avon; nor had he even pity for her children, whom he was accused of bestowing on Anthony Gavino, chief of the Egyptians, to be made vagrants and thieves. But the greatest outrage in which he was concerned was the assassination of the gentle priest and poet, Sir James Inglis of Culross. When his accomplices fled to the Hill of Refuge at Torphichen, and claimed the sanctuary of the Preceptor and Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, he sought a safer shelter in his own barred tower, where he lurked night and day, surrounded by pikes and arquebuses, until the clamour occasioned by the sacrilege died away, or some new outrage in other quarters attracted the attention of the people.
His gatekeeper and butler, his valets and stablers, had all the aspect of brigands, gypsies, or broken troopers. Their manners were coarse and sullen, or boisterous; patched visages, blackened eyes, and broken noses, were common to them all; and when Florence, in his rich suit of half-mail, with his jewelled poniard, his inlaid petronel, and glittering spurs, was ushered into the dimly-lighted hall, they surveyed him askance, with unpleasant but meaning looks that seemed to say,—"If time and place fitted, by St. Paul, we would soon ease thee of all this bravery!"
The stone walls of the hall were lighted by four large and coarse yellow candles, that flared and sputtered in sconces of brass; but more fully by an ample fire of pine-roots and turf that blazed on the hearth under a wide-arched mantelpiece, from whence the flames cast along the paved floor a lurid glow, as from the mouth of an opened furnace. The grated windows of this hall were arched, and sunk in recesses whose depth was lost in shadow. Several old weapons, covered with rust and cobwebs, with a few tin and wooden trenchers of the plainest description, were the only ornaments or appurtenances on the walls of this rude old dwelling, while the furniture, which consisted of a table, a few forms and tripod stools, was all of common wood. The floor was strewn with dried rushes, and eight or ten men, retainers of the tower,—fellows rough, unshaven, and uncombed in aspect, clad in shabby doublets, were lounging around two who were engaged in a game of tric-trac.
They started up at the entrance of a stranger, and two others who had been asleep on the stone seats within the glowing fireplace now came forward, and cast aside the grey border plaids in which they had been muffled.
They—the latter—wore gorgets of black iron, with pyne doublets, swords, and Tyndale knives. Their steel caps and bucklers lay near. They were hardy and weatherbeaten men, but of brutal aspect; and one whose visage was rosy-red, and whose nose was like a thick cluster of red currants, proved to be no other than Symon Brodie, the drunken butler of Preston Tower, while his companion was Mungo Tenant, the warden of the same distinguished establishment. Some recollection of their faces—for Florence, when a boy, had once been unmercifully beaten by this same butler,—or of their livery and badges, caused him to be at once upon his guard, and to beware of what might ensue.