CHAPTER IX.
MISTRUST.
It will be great, thou son of pride!—I have been renowned in battle; but I never told my name to a foe.—Ossian.
Consciousness returned slowly to Florence Fawside, and when his eyes unclosed, he saw first the huge misshapen figures of a large green-and-russet-coloured tapestry, which covered the walls of a dimly-lighted room, the four carved posts of a bed, the magnificent canopy of which spread its shadow over him, and the soft laced pillows whereon his head reposed. Then he became sensible of the presence of persons moving about him on tiptoe, speaking in gentle whispers.
There were two women, young, beautiful, and richly dressed; and with them was a man whose white beard flowed over the front of his long and sable robe. Then came again the sensation of faintness—the sinking sensation of one about to die,—with the agony of his sword-wounds, which felt like the searings of a red-hot iron, when the hands of his fair attendants—soft, kind, and "tremulously gentle" hands they were—unbuttoned his doublet, untied his ruff, drew aside the breast of his lace shirt, and a handkerchief which he had thrust under it when first wounded, and which were now both soaked with blood. This caused his wounds to stream anew. He felt the current of his life gush forth, and while a faint cry of pity from a female voice came feebly to his ear, the sufferer, when making a futile effort to grasp the pocket which contained his fatal letters, became once more totally insensible.
The early dawn of a clear August morning was stealing through the iron-grated windows of the apartment in which he lay, when Florence awoke again to life, and, raising himself feebly on an elbow, looked around him.
He was in a chamber the walls of which were hung with beautiful tapestry; the ceiling was painted with mythological figures, and the oak floor was strewn with green rushes and freshly-cut flowers—for carpets were yet almost unknown in Britain. From a carved beam of oak, which crossed the ceiling transversely, hung a silver night-lamp, fed with perfumed oil, amid which the light was just expiring. In a shadowy corner of the room was an altar, bearing a glittering crucifix, before which were two flickering tapers, two vases of fresh roses, and an exquisitely-carved prie-Dieu of walnut-wood, inlaid with mother-of-pearl.
The hangings of his bed were of the finest crimson silk, festooned by gold cords and massive tassels. On one side, through the window, he could see the green northern bank of the loch which bordered the city, and through which on the night before he had striven to swim his horse; beyond it were yellow fields, green copsewood, and purple muirland, stretching to the shores of the azure Forth. On the other side were the quaint figures of the old tapestry which represented a Scottish tradition well known in the days of Hector Boece—that on the day when the battle of Bannockburn was fought and won, a knight in armour that shone with a marvellous brilliance, mounted on a black steed, all foamy with haste and bloody with spurring, appeared suddenly in the streets of Aberdeen, and with a loud voice announced Bruce's victory to the startled citizens. Passing thence to the north with frightful speed, over hill and valley, this shining warrior was seen to quit the land and spur his steed across the raging waves of the Pentland Firth, and to vanish in the mist that shrouded the northern isles. Hence some averred he was St. Magnus of Orkney, while the more aspiring maintained that he was St. Michael the Archangel.
"Where am I?" was the first mental question of the sufferer, as he pressed his hand across his swimming forehead. "My letters!" was his next thought. On a chair near him hung his doublet: he made a great effort to ascertain if they were untouched, but sank back upon his pillow, exhausted by the attempt.
Morning was far advanced when he revived again. He found something cold and sharp in flavour poured between his lips; it refreshed him, and on looking up he became inspired with new energy on seeing again the two ladies whose forms he believed last night to have been the portions of a feverish dream, or to have been conjured by his fancy from those upon the tapestry.