The Monastery, Walter Scott [if you liked this book txt] 📗

“My lord,” said Morton, “if Sir John will ride apart with me but for one moment, I will show him such reasons as shall make him content to depart, and to refer this unhappy day's work to the judgment of the Commissioners nominated to try offences on the Border.”

He then led Sir John Foster aside, and spoke to him in this manner:—“Sir John Foster, I much marvel that a man who knows your Queen Elizabeth as you do, should not know that, if you hope any thing from her, it must be for doing her useful service, not for involving her in quarrels with her neighbours without any advantage. Sir Knight, I will speak frankly what I know to be true. Had you seized the true Piercie Shafton by this ill-advised inroad; and had your deed threatened, as most likely it might, a breach betwixt the countries, your politic princess and her politic council would rather have disgraced Sir John Foster than entered into war in his behalf. But now that you have stricken short of your aim, you may rely on it you will have little thanks for carrying the matter farther. I will work thus far on the Earl of Murray, that he will undertake to dismiss Sir Piercie Shafton from the realm of Scotland.—Be well advised, and let the matter now pass off—you will gain nothing by farther violence, for if we fight, you as the fewer and the weaker through your former action, will needs have the worse.”

Sir John Foster listened with his head declining on his breast-plate.

“It is a cursed chance,” he said, “and I shall have little thanks for my day's work.”

He then rode up to Murray, and said, that, in deference to his Lordship's presence and that of my Lord of Morton, he had come to the resolution of withdrawing himself, with his power, without farther proceedings.

“Stop there, Sir John Foster,” said Murray; “I cannot permit you to retire in safety, unless you leave some one who may be surety to Scotland, that the injuries you have at present done us may be fully accounted for—you will reflect, that by permitting your retreat, I become accountable to my Sovereign, who will demand a reckoning of me for the blood of her subjects, if I suffer those who shed it to depart so easily.”

“It shall never be told in England,” said the Warden, “that John Foster gave pledges like a subdued man, and that on the very field on which he stands victorious.—But,” he added, after a moment's pause, “if Stawarth Bolton wills to abide with you on his own free choice, I will say nothing against it; and, as I bethink me, it were better he should stay to see the dismissal of this same Piercie Shafton.”

“I receive him as your hostage, nevertheless, and shall treat him as such,” said the Earl of Murray. But Foster, turning away as if to give directions to Bolton and his men, affected not to hear this observation.

“There rides a faithful servant of his most beautiful and Sovereign Lady,” said Murray aside to Morton. “Happy man! he knows not whether the execution of her commands may not cost him his head; and yet he is most certain that to leave them unexecuted will bring disgrace and death without reprieve. Happy are they who are not only subjected to the caprices of Dame Fortune, but held bound to account and be responsible for them, and that to a sovereign as moody and fickle as her humorous ladyship herself!”

“We also have a female Sovereign, my lord,” said Morton.

“We have so, Douglas,” said the Earl,—with a suppressed sigh; “but it remains to be seen how long a female hand can hold the reins of power in a realm so wild as ours. We will now go on to Saint Mary's, and see ourselves after the state of that House.—Glendinning, look to that woman, and protect her.—What the fiend, man, hast thou got in thine arms?—an infant as I live!—where couldst thou find such a charge, at such a place and moment?”

Halbert Glendinning briefly told the story. The Earl rode forward to the place where the body of Julian Avenel lay, with his unhappy companion's arms wrapped around him like the trunk of an uprooted oak borne down by the tempest with all its ivy garlands. Both were cold dead. Murray was touched in an unwonted degree, remembering, perhaps, his own birth. “What have they to answer for, Douglas,” he said, “who thus abuse the sweetest gifts of affection?”

The Earl of Morton, unhappy in his marriage, was a libertine in his amours.

“You must ask that question of Henry Warden, my lord, or of John Knox—I am but a wild counsellor in women's matters.”

“Forward to Saint Mary's,” said the Earl; “pass the word on—Glendinning, give the infant to this same female cavalier, and let it be taken charge of. Let no dishonour be done to the dead bodies, and call on the country to bury or remove them.—Forward, I say, my masters!”