The Caged Lion, Charlotte M. Yonge [dark books to read TXT] 📗

a cowl, then the Lady of Glenuskie, a king’s grandchild, may not be disposed of, save by her royal kinsman, or by those who, woe worth the day! stand in his place.  I were no better than yon Wolf of Badenoch or the Master of Albany, did I steal a march on the Regent, and give the poor lassie to my own son!’

‘And so Lilias must pine, and Patrick wander off to the weary French war,’ sighed Malcolm; ‘and I must be scorned by my cousins whenever the House of Stewart meets together; and must strive with these fierce cruel men, that will ever be too hard for me when Patie is gone.’  His eyes filled with tears as he continued, ‘Ah! that fair chapel, with the sweet chant of the choir, the green smooth-shaven quadrangle, the calm cloister walk; there, there alone is rest.  There, one ceases to be a prey and a laughing-stock; there, one sees no more bloodshed and spulzie; there, one need not be forced to treachery or violence.  Oh, Uncle! my very soul is sick for Coldingham.  How many years will it be ere I can myself bestow my sister on Patie, and hide my head in peace!’

Before his uncle had done more than answer, ‘Nay, nay, Malcolm, these are no words for the oe of Bruce; you are born to dare as well as to suffer,’ there was an approach of footsteps, and two young people entered the hall; the first a girl, with a family likeness to Malcolm, but tall, upright, beautiful, and with the rich colouring of perfect health, her plaid still hanging in a loose swelling hood round her brilliant face and dark hair, snooded with a crimson ribbon and diamond clasp; the other, a knightly young man, of stately height and robust limbs, keen bright blue eyes and amber hair and beard, moving with the ease and grace that showed his training in the highest school of chivalry.

‘Good Uncle,’ cried the maiden in eager excitement, ‘there is a guest coming.  He has just turned over the brae side, and can be coming nowhere but here.’

‘A guest!’ cried both Malcolm and the elder knight, ‘of what kind, Lily?’

‘A knight—a knight in bright steel, and with three attendants,’ said Lilias; ‘one of Patrick’s French comrades, say I, by the grace of his riding.’

‘Not a message from the Regent, I trust,’ sighed Malcolm.  ‘Patie, oh do not lower the drawbridge, till we hear whether it be friend or foe.’

‘Nay, Malcolm, ’tis well none save friends heard that,’ said Patrick.  ‘When shall we make a brave man of you?’

‘Nevertheless, Patie,’ said the old gentleman, ‘though I had rather the caution had come from the eldest rather than the youngest head among us, parley as much as may serve with honour and courtesy ere opening the gate to the stranger.  Hark, there is his bugle.’

A certain look of nervous terror passed over young Malcolm’s face, while his sister watched full of animation and curiosity, as one to whom excitement of any kind could hardly come amiss, exclaiming, as she looked from the window, ‘Fear not, most prudent Malcolm; Father Ninian is with him: Father Ninian must have invited him.’

‘Strange,’ muttered Patrick, ‘that Father Ninian should be picking up and bringing home stray wandering land-loupers;’ and with an anxious glance at Lilias, he went forward unwillingly to perform those duties of hospitality which had become necessary, since the presence of the castle chaplain was a voucher for the guest.  The drawbridge had already been lowered, and the new-comer was crossing it upon a powerful black steed, guided by Father Ninian upon his rough mountain pony, on which he had shortly before left the castle, to attend at a Church festival held at Coldingham.

The chaplain was a wise, prudent, and much-respected man; nevertheless, young Sir Patrick Drummond felt little esteem for his prudence in displaying one at least of the treasures of the castle to the knight on the black horse.  The stranger was a very tall man, of robust and stalwart make, apparently aged about seven or eight and twenty years, clad in steel armour, enamelled so as to have a burnished blue appearance; but the vizor of the helmet was raised, and the face beneath it was a manly open face, thoroughly Scottish in its forms, but very handsome, and with short dark auburn hair, and eyes of the same peculiar tint, glancing with a light that once seen could never be forgotten; and the bearing was such, that Patrick at once growled to himself, ‘One of our haughty loons, brimful of outre cuidance; and yet how coolly he bears it off.  If he looks to find us his humble servants, he will find himself mistaken, I trow.’

‘Sir Patrick,’ said Father Ninian, who was by this time close to him, ‘let me present to you Sir James Stewart, a captive knight who is come to collect his ransom.  I fell in with him on the road, and as his road lay with mine, I made bold to assure him of a welcome from your honoured father and Lord Malcolm.’

Patrick’s face cleared.  It was no grace or beauty that he feared in any stranger, but the sheer might and unright that their Regency enabled the House of Albany to exercise over the orphans of the royal family, whose head was absent; and a captive knight could be no mischievous person.  Still this might be only a specious pretence to impose on the chaplain, and gain admittance to the castle; and Patrick was resolved to be well on his guard, though he replied courteously to the graceful bow with which the stranger greeted him, saying in a manly mellow voice and southern accent, ‘I have been bold enough to presume on the good father’s offer of hospitality, Sir.’

‘You are welcome, Sir,’ returned Patrick, taking the stranger’s bridle that he might dismount; ‘my father and my cousin will gladly further on his way a prisoner seeking freedom.’

‘A captive may well be welcome, for the sake of one prisoner,’ said his father, who had in the meantime come forward, and extended his hand to the knight, who took it, and uncovering his bright locks, respectfully said, ‘I am in the presence of the noble Tutor of Glenuskie.’

‘Even so, Sir,’ returned Sir David Drummond, who was, in fact, as his nephew’s guardian, usually known by this curious title; ‘and you here see my wards, the Lord Malcolm and Lady Lilias.  Your knighthood will make allowances for the lad, he is but home-bred.’  For while Lilias with stately grace responded to Sir James Stewart’s courtly greeting, Malcolm bashfully made an awkward bow, and seemed ready to shrink within himself, as, indeed, the brutal jests of his rude cousins had made him dread and hate the eye of a stranger; and while the knight was led forward to the hall fire, he merely pressed up to the priest, and eagerly demanded under his breath, ‘Have you brought me the book?’ but Father Ninian had only time to nod, and sign that a volume was in his bosom, before old Sir David called out, ‘What now, Malcolm, forgetting that your part is to come and disarm the knight who does you the honour to be your guest?’  And Sir Patrick rather roughly pushed him forward, gruffly whispering, ‘Leave not Lily to supply your lack of courtesy.’

Malcolm shambled forward, bewildered, as the keen auburn eye fell on him, and the cheery kindly voice said, ‘Ha! a new book—a romance?  Well may that drive out other thoughts.’

‘Had he ears to hear such a whisper?’ thought Malcolm, as he mumbled in the hoarse voice of bashful boyhood, ‘Not a romance, Sir, but whatever the good fathers at Coldingham would lend me.’

‘It is the “Itinerarium” of the blessed Adamnanus,’ replied Father Ninian, producing from his bosom a parcel, apparently done up in many wrappers, a seal-skin above all.

‘The “Itinerarium”!’ exclaimed Sir James, ‘methought I had heard of such a book.  I have a friend in England who would give many a fair rose noble for a sight of it.’

‘A friend in England!’—the words had a sinister sound to the audience, and while Malcolm jealously gathered up the book into his arms, the priest made cold answer, that the book was the property of the Monastery at Coldingham, and had only been lent to Lord Malcolm Stewart by special favour.  The guest could not help smiling, and saying he was glad books were thus prized in Scotland; but at that moment, as the sunny look shone on his face, and he stood before the fire in the close suit of chamois leather which he wore under his armour, old Sir David exclaimed, ‘Ha! never did I see such a likeness.  Patie, you should be old enough to remember; do you not see it?’

‘What should I see?  Who is he like?’ asked Patrick, surprised at his father’s manner.

‘Who?’ whispered Sir David in a lowered voice; ‘do you not see it? to the unhappy lad, the Duke of Rothsay.’

Patrick could not help smiling, for he had been scarcely seven years old at the time of the murder of the unfortunate Prince of Scotland; but a flush of colour rose into the face of the guest, and he shortly answered, ‘So I have been told;’ and then assuming a seat near Sir David, he entered into conversation with him upon the condition of Scotland at the period, inquiring into the state of many of the families and districts by name.  Almost always there was but one answer—murder—harrying—foray; and when the question followed, ‘What had the Regent done?’ there was a shrug of the shoulders, and as often Sir James’s face flushed with a dark red fire, and his hand clenched at the hilt of the sword by his side.

‘And is there not a man in Scotland left to strike for the right?’ he demanded at last; ‘cannot nobles, clergy, and burghers, band themselves in parliament to put down Albany and his bloody house, and recall their true head?’

‘They love to have it so,’ returned Sir David sadly.  ‘United, they might be strong enough; but each knows that his fellow, Douglas, Lennox, March, or Mar, would be ready to play the same game as Albany; and to raise a rival none will stir.’

‘And so,’ proceeded Sir James, bitterly, ‘the manhood of Scotland goes forth to waste itself in an empty foreign war, merely to keep France in as wretched a state of misrule as itself.’

‘Nay, nay, Sir,’ cried Patrick angrily, ‘it is to save an ancient ally from the tyranny of our foulest foe.  It is the only place where a Scotsman can seek his fortune with honour, and without staining his soul with foul deeds.  Bring our King home, and every sword shall be at his service.’

‘What, when they have all been lavished on the crazy Frenchman?’ said Sir James.

‘No, Sir,’ said Patrick, rising in his vehemence; ‘when they have been brightened there by honourable warfare, not tarnished by home barbarities.’

‘He speaks truly,’ said Sir David; ‘and though it will go to my heart to part with the lad, yet may I not say a word to detain him in a land where the contagion of violence can scarce be escaped by a brave man.’

Sir James gave a deep sigh as of pain, but as if to hinder its being remarked, promptly answered, ‘That may be; but what is to be the lot of a land whose honest men desert her cause as too evil for them, and seek out another, that when seen closer is scarce less evil?’

‘How, Sir!’ cried Patrick; ‘you a prisoner of England, yet speaking against our noble French allies, so foully trampled on?’

‘I have lived long enough in England,’ returned Sir James, ‘to think that land happiest where law is strong enough to enforce peace and order.’

‘The coward loons!’ muttered Patrick, chiefly out of the spirit of opposition.

‘You have been long in England, Sir?’ said Lilias, hoping to direct the conversation into a more peaceful current.

‘Many years, fair lady,’ he replied, turning courteously to her; ‘I was taken when I was a mere lad, but I have had gentle captors, and no over harsh prison.’

‘And has no one ransomed you?’ she asked pitifully, as one much moved by a certain patience on his brow, and in his sweet full voice.

‘No one, lady.  My uncle was but too willing that the heir should be kept aloof; and it is only now he is dead, that I have obtained leave from my friendly captor to come in search of my ransom.’

Lilias would have liked to know the amount, but it was not manners to ask, since the rate of ransom was the personal value of the knight; and her uncle put in the question, who was his keeper.

‘The Earl of Somerset,’ rather hastily answered Sir James; and then at once Lilias exclaimed, ‘Ah, Uncle, is not the King, too, in