“Nay, he must be mad!” cried Sir Piers. “Yet I must defend my life, though it should be to the peril of his.”
But Sir Piers, who sought only to protect himself from Charley’s furious assault, accidentally failed in his very first guard. The weight of his assailant’s blow broke through it, and falling upon the Knight’s head, which had then nothing on it but a bonnet, it stretched him motionless on the sward. Charley Stewart stood for a moment to look with horror upon his work—the blood was gushing forth from the wound, and dying the white hair of him who had been his patron and friend. From that he turned and gazed upon the prostrate figure of Rosa MacDermot, who still lay in a kind of half-swoon from the effects of his violence. He felt as if his bursting heart would have forced its way through his side. Roused from his trance by the screams of the Widow MacDermot, he heard the galloping of horses approaching, and, rushing mechanically into the thickest part of the wood, he made his way towards the mountains, where night soon overtook him. Still he continued to wander on, however, without fixed intention or direction; and it was only on finding, at day-break, that he had already fled far towards the south, that, after having given due way to his affliction, he resolved to travel towards Edinburgh, to seek his father, where, as we have already seen, he ultimately arrived, weary and woe-begone.
The next morning, after Charley Stewart’s appearance in Edinburgh, his father, Sir Walter Stewart, aroused him from the deep sleep into which his fatigue of body had thrown him, and which, as it was nearly the first he had had since the sad events which had driven him from the north, even their cruel influence upon his mind could not disturb. In reply to Sir Walter’s inquiries, he gave him a brief statement of his history and his misfortunes, and his wounded spirit was soothed by the kind sympathy which Sir Walter manifested towards him.
“Charley,” said he, “thy fate hath been a cruel one, truly; but thou must bestir thee to shake off thy sorrows. Nothing better, as a cure for melancholy, than action. I have an emprise on hand, that is for thee the very medicine that thou lackest, and as it may speedily end with thee in a journey to France, as the esquire of a knight whom it will do thee much honour to serve, it is, of all others, the very best chance that could befal thee under present circumstances. But the morning wears, and we must go to work without farther loss of time.”
Sir Walter Stewart having disguised himself, and his son Charley, in broad slouched hats and cloaks, they sallied forth together. At the head of the close, they found two hacknies in the High Street, held by a single groom. They leaped into their saddles, and, without any inquiry or explanation as to whither they were bound, they rode forth together, at a gentle pace, from the southern part of the city, as if they had been bent more upon pleasure than business. They had not gone farther in that direction than just beyond the Burgh Loch, a piece of water which then occupied that extent of flat low ground now known by the name of The Meadows, when Sir Walter turned his horse’s head to the westward, and, spurring forward, he and Charley galloped together through the woodland, the groves, and the thickets, which partially covered the Burgh Muir, and gradually sweeping round at a point considerably to the westward of the Castle rock, they then pushed forward at a furious pace in a northerly direction, making straight for that part of the shore of the Firth of Forth, lying immediately to the westward of the citadel of Leith. That which is now a continuous town, was then almost a wilderness of sandy hillocks, which stretched considerably farther into the sea than the land now does, its waters having since much encroached on that part of the coast during the lapse of ages. Taking up a position on a bare elevated spot, Sir Walter looked with anxious eyes towards the road-stead. There were but few vessels there; but one seemed to be slowly coming up to her anchorage, with a fair breeze from the east, but with her sails so curtailed as betokened caution in those on board. Sir Walter seemed to eye her with peculiar interest for some time, and then he addressed a rough red-faced pilot, who was standing below on the beach, beside his boat, watching the vessel stedfastly, as if he wished to make out what sort of craft she might be.
“Is not that a foreign barque, friend?” demanded Sir Walter.
“Aye, aye, sir,” replied the pilot; “she is a furrenner. If I’m not far mista’en it’s the Garron of Burdy, Captain Davy Trummel, with wine aboard. I think I kenn her rig—and a clever rig it is, let me tell ye.”
“She seems a goodly sea-boat, well fitted to fly quickly over so long a voyage,” replied Sir Walter carelessly.
“That she is, I’ll be sworn sir,” answered the pilot. “Few in the trade can match her, I promise ye. But what strange mortals them French Munseers are after all: why they should call a vessel a Garron, the which is the swiftest bit of a craft my eyes ever came across, I can’t nowise reasonably comprehend, unless it be out of a mere spirit of contradiction. But I must call out the lads, and be off to her, for there’s the signal flying for me.”
“Thou shalt take me aboard with thee, and have something for thy guerdon,” said Sir Walter. “I would taste this Frenchman’s wines, ere the palates of the good Burghers become acquainted with them.”