The Wolfe of Badenoch: A Historical Romance of the Fourteenth Century

by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder

“Good forester,” said Assueton, “certes thou hast merited the guerdon of my best thanks for thine obliging and toilsome convoy. When I join thee again, trust me they shall be cheerfully paid thee, together with what more solid warison thou mayest see fit to accept, in token of my gratitude. Meanwhile, I beseech thee to take good charge of my brave men.”

“Nay, fear me not in that, Sir Knight,” said the forester; “they shall be well looked after, I promise thee. My men have doubtless already taken good care of them, and of their steeds too.”

Having descended the hill, they pushed their way through the opposing brushwood, and reached the bank of one of the streams, immediately above the spot where it united itself to the other. The forester indicated the ford to Assueton, and then took an abrupt leave, diving into the thicket with his two followers. [[143]]

Assueton stood for a moment on the brink of the stream before he entered, and took that opportunity of telling his two attendants to be particularly on their guard, to watch his eye, attend to his signals, and be ready to act as these might appear to suggest to them. They were also to bear in mind that for the present they were to pass as equals. He then cautiously entered the ford, and, followed by Riddel and Lindsay, soon reached the farther bank.

They now found themselves on a low grassy tongue of land, which shot out between the two streams from the woods at the base of the eminence the Castle stood on, and which, though of considerable length, was nowhere more than a few yards wide. Along this they pushed their horses, as fast as the weary animals could advance. A few trees struggled down over it at the farther extremity, where it united itself to the base of the hill; and just as they had entered among these, all their horses were at one and the same moment tumbled headlong on the ground. An instant shout arose from the thickets on either side, and about a dozen men sprang from them on the prostrate riders; and, after a short and ineffectual struggle on their part, Assueton and his two attendants were bound hand and foot, and blindfolded. All this time not a word was spoken; and excepting the shouts that were the signal of the onset, not a sound was heard. But the prey was no sooner fairly mastered, than a loud bugle blast was blown from the thickets near them, and it was immediately answered by another, that rang through the woods at some distance. The horses were then extricated from the toils of ropes which had been so treacherously though ingeniously employed to ensure their prostration, and on regaining their legs, their late riders were lifted up and laid across them like sacks, and they were led by the villains who had captured them up the steep and devious ascent, through the thick wood to the Castle. The party then entered the gateway, as Assueton judged from the noise made in raising the portcullis, and the prisoners being lifted from their horses, were carried each by two men into the main tower.

Whither they took his two attendants, Assueton had no means of guessing; but he was borne up a long and winding stair, as he supposed to the top of the building, and then through several passages. There he heard the withdrawing of rusty bolts, and the heavy creaking of hinges; and, being set down on the floor of his prison, his arms and legs were unbound, his eyes uncovered, and he was left in utter darkness and amazement.

After sitting for some moments to recover from the surprise [[144]]occasioned by this sudden and unlooked for annihilation of all his plans and of all the hopes he had cherished from them, he arose, and, before yielding to despair, groped his way to the walls, and felt them anxiously all round. Not a crevice or aperture could he discover but the doorway, and that was blocked by an impregnable door, crossed and recrossed by powerful bars of iron, so that he saw no hope of its being moved by any strength of human arm, unassisted by levers or other such instruments. The walls and floor were of the most solid masonry in every part; yet he felt the balmy air of a soft night blow upon his face, and, on looking upwards, he could just descry a faint glimmer of light, that broke with difficulty through the enormous thickness of the building, by a narrow window immediately over where he then stood. This opening, however, was quite beyond his reach, being at least a dozen feet above him.

As he moved backwards to get from under the wall where the window was, that he might obtain a better view of it, his head came in contact with something hanging behind him. He turned round, but his eyes were not yet sufficiently accustomed to the obscurity, to enable him to discover anything more than that there was some dark object suspended from above. He put up his hands to ascertain what it was, and, to his inexpressible horror, felt the stiffened legs of a corpse, which swung backwards and forwards at his touch. Bold and firm as he was, Assueton started involuntarily back, and his heart revolted at the thought that he was to be so mated for the night. He retired to a corner, where he had discovered a heap of straw with a coarse blanket, and he sat him down on it; but it immediately occurred to him that this had probably been the bed of the unfortunate man who now dangled lifeless from the centre of the vault, and he could sit on it no longer. That the poor wretch had been put to death in the very chamber which had been his prison, seemed to argue a degree of hardened cruelty and summary vengeance in those in whose power he had now himself the misfortune to be, that left him little room to hope for much mercy at their hands.

Having moved to an opposite corner, nearly under the little window, he seated himself on the floor, and gave up his mind to the full bitterness of its thoughts. The first recollection that presented itself was that of the Lady Isabelle, torn from her home, her father, and himself, by an unprincipled and abandoned villain. His reflections on this painful theme banished every thought of his own captivity, as well as every speculation as to what its result might be, excepting, indeed, in so far as it might [[145]]affect the fate of her who was now the idol of his heart. He ran over his past conduct, and seeing that he could now have no hope of being the instrument of her rescue, he blamed himself in a thousand ways. He accused himself bitterly for not having sent back a messenger from the place where he had met Sir Walter de Selby, to inform Sir Patrick Hepborne the elder of the intelligence he had obtained from the Captain of Norham; then unavailing regrets and self-accusations arose within him for having neglected to obtain more full information from Sir Walter, when he had it in his power to do so; but, above all, he cursed his folly for having abandoned his stout-hearted spearmen, who would have backed him against any foes to the last drop of their blood. He turned over the circumstances of his rencontre with the foresters, and, recalling the whole conduct of their leader, he now began to be more than half suspicious that they had played him false. This last reflection made him tremble for the fate of his people whom he had left with them; and remembering his guide’s parting assurance, “that they should be well looked after,” he felt disposed to interpret it in a very opposite sense to that he had put upon it the moment it was uttered.

He then again recurred to the Lady Isabelle. Why had he gone a-hunting on the day she was carried off, when he had been repeatedly warned, by something within his own breast, that he ought to stay at home with her? Alas! where was she now? The question was agony to him. Could she be within these walls? To know that she, indeed, really was so, would have been cheering to him even in his present state of desponding uncertainty, as it might have given him some frail hope of yet being of use to her. He listened for distant sounds. Faint female shrieks came from some part of the building far below. Again he heard them yet more distinctly; and, full of the maddening idea that they came from the Lady Isabelle, he started up, unconscious of what he was doing, flew like a madman to the door, and began beating it with his fists, screaming out, “Villains! murderers!” But his voice, and the noise of his furious knocking, returned on his ear with a deadened sound, and speedily convinced him that nothing could be heard from the lofty, solitary, and massive-walled prison in which he was immured.