CHAPTER LVI.
THE UNICORN LOOSE.
Macduff. "Stands Scotland where it did?
Rosse. Alas, poor country;
Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot
Be call'd our mother, but our grave."—Macbeth,
The Lords still remained at Leith, where they took all measures and precautions necessary to strengthen their power and increase their forces, in case the missing king should appear at the head of the Highland clans, or perhaps a foreign army, to vindicate his rights and those of Scotland; for they still remembered the threats uttered by the Mareschal de Concressault in the Castle of Callender; but an end was put to all their arrangements and surmises by the discovery of James's body, which was found by the sleuth bratches of the old Steward of Menteith when tracking some robbers through the Torwood, all gashed and bloody, blanched and soiled by a week's exposure in a field-ditch near Beaton's mill on the Bannock; and now a thrill of sorrow went over all the land, for even the most barbarous of that nobility who have ever been so false, so treacherous, and so base to Scotland—who have usually been the first to abandon her on the field, and assuredly not the last to betray her in the cabinet—had not contemplated an issue so terrible!
The young prince was filled with horror and remorse, which even the tidings of Lady Margaret's safety with the Admiral could not alleviate: for now he recalled with the keenest sorrow, how bitterly he had accused his poor father of abducting her, and how, led away by passion and despair, he had permitted himself to be the tool, the dupe, and the plaything of the turbulent and ambitious noblesse.
From that hour he began to shun them, and to seek for his father's oldest and most faithful friends. The first he thought of was the trusty Laird of Largo, to whom he despatched the Snowdon Herald and Unicorn Pursuivant, announcing the awful intelligence of his royal father's murder (the news of which was already pretty well known at the court of England), and requiring his presence at Leith. Then full of rage and sorrow the Admiral put out of Largo Bay, and with all his ships and prisoners, stood with all sail set up the river, and anchored off the seaport of the capital, where all the vessels in the harbour and roadstead, showed their ensigns half hoisted—the blue Scottish flag with its white saltier, which is the groundwork of the modern Union Jack; and which is still retained unchanged by the Old Shipping Company of Leith.
The same flag was hoisted on the English prizes, one of which, say the Admiralty records, as she came abreast of the town, had her keel knocked away upon the Gunnel. The latter is a dangerous sunken rock, which is yet unmarked by a buoy, though it has only eight feet of water over it at ebb tide.
In the large hall of Barton's house at Leith, on a bright and sunny morning, the prince was again seated at the table, where a grave and melancholy council had just been held on what should now be done to heal the dissensions which were likely to break out anew, as a cry "for vengeance on the king's murderers" was going throughout the land. The council had been broken up without a decision being found. The prince was pale, sad-eyed, and downcast, and left almost alone: for in the deep recesses of the hall windows, Angus, Home, Hailes, the Heritable Forester of Drum, and others, with many lords of the noble faction, were conversing, or gazing dreamily at sunlit river, and the ships which caine to anchor near the shore.
Sir Patrick Gray of Kyneff had retired to the Castle of Broughty; Sir James Shaw of Sauchie had repaired to his fortress of Stirling, and Sir William Stirling of the Keir, animated by the same wisdom and prudence, had retreated to some fastness in the Highlands of Perthshire; while their worthy compatriot, Hew Borthwick—though as yet unsuspected and unknown—had concealed himself in Berwick, which was then garrisoned by English troops, and had been so since its betrayal by Alexander Duke of Albany, who was then an exile in France.
Above the prince's chair was a coat of the royal arms, in which the chains of the unicorns were represented loose, as we may still see them.