concealed in the tiring-room, which opens off the great hall."
"Only a hundred! Are you not most rash?"
"But they are men whose forefathers for ages have eaten the bread of mine."
"You, then, deem them stedfast?"
"Stedfast and true as Rippon steel; unyielding as flint. They are to rush forth under Achanna, when the signal appears."
"Achanna," said the regent with contempt; "always Achanna. I know not how it is, but that man makes my blood to curdle."
"He is a faithful——"
"Villain," interrupted the regent, with irritation.
"True—but such villains are useful," said the chancellor quietly.
"And the signal is the black bull's head; but does not Achanna dine with us?"
"Dine!" reiterated the chancellor, with a flashing eye and a quivering lip. "He will share the banquet at all events."
"And the four bodies," said Livingstone, gnawing the ends of his grisly moustache, and looking aside, "how mean you to dispose of them?"
"Under that green turf, where even now the king is playing with his goshawk, they will sleep as soundly as if below a ton of marble in Melrose Abbey Kirk, among their lordly kin," replied the chancellor in a low whisper, and with a ghastly smile; "but hark! I hear trumpets in the streets; and here comes Gray, the Captain of the Guard."
Accoutred as we saw him yesterday, in his plumed bassinet, with its camaile and chaplet, and his rich mail with its hanging sleeves of scarlet and yellow silk, Sir Patrick Gray, happily ignorant of the dire preparations of the two statesmen, and the mine they were about to spring, made a low bow to each, with some passing remark on the auspicious beauty of the day—for the weather was as common a topic in the time of James II. as in that of his descendant, Queen Victoria.
"A cloud is coming anon, that may darken its close," said the regent, thoughtfully.
The Captain of the Guard looked upward, but the sky was cloudless, then his eye swept the horizon in vain.
"Yea, Sir Patrick," added the chancellor, who is reported to have used the same figurative language, "have you never observed that there are periods—times of our existence, when past, present, and future hopes seem to culminate in one?"
"Under favour, my lord, I do not comprehend," replied the puzzled soldier, as he played with the buckle of his belt, and thought of Murielle Douglas.
"Yes—when we seem to hold them all—the past, the present, and more especially the future, in our grasp, and yet may throw them all away. Now dost comprehend?"
"Do you mean in affairs of love, my lord?"
"Love!" reiterated the chancellor, scornfully, "nay, I think but of death," he added in a voice so stern and hollow that the soldier started, "but ere long you may, nay you shall know all I mean. Till then, God be wi' you—adieu."
And with his hands behind his back, and his eyes bent thoughtfully on the ground, Crichton slowly followed the regent into David's Tower, while the Captain of the Guard, bewildered by their strange remarks, hurried to join his hundred pikemen, who were drawn up in two ranks at the gateway which opened under the Constable's tower.
Sir John Romanno of that ilk, who commanded the fortress, had now all the king's garrison at their posts, with bills and crossbows, and the cannoneers by their guns, with lintstocks lighted.
CHAPTER X.
FOREBODINGS.
She was mounted on a milk-white steed,
And he on a dapple grey;
And a bugle-horn hung by his side,
When he lightly rode away.
Lord William looked over his right shoulder,
To see what he could see;
And lo her seven bauld brethren
Came riding owre the lee.
The Douglas Tragedie.
"How often is a straw, wafted by the wind, the turning point in our destiny!" says an author; "a stone cast into the water causes a ripple on the most distant shore; so the most trivial event of our lives, after a thousand ramifications, leads on to some great climax."
When the train of Douglas mounted in the court-yard of the abbot's house, Sir Malcolm Fleming of Cumbernauld came hastily from his chamber, clad in complete mail, with his helmet open; thus it revealed the pallor of his face, with the sombre gloom of his dark grey eyes, whose restless and wandering expression bore evidence of a sleepless night.
"How now, Cumbernauld," said the earl of Abercorn, "is this thy dinner-dress—art going to dine with all this old iron about thee?"
"Yes—when I dine with enemies."
"Soho, man—go to! we have no enemies," said the sneering noble; "we are all friends now, and must drink to-night to the extinction of all feuds."
"Do the countess and Lady Murielle go to this banquet?" asked the old knight, with a voice rendered husky by sorrow and surprise, as Margaret and the ladies of her train came forth with all their gorgeous dresses glittering in the sunshine.
"Of a surety they do. James Achanna bore them each a special message from the Lord Regent in the young King's name; but what in the name of old Mahoun ails thee, Sir Malcolm Fleming—art ill?"
"Ill indeed at heart, lord earl."
"And wherefore?" asked Earl James, angrily.
"Come this way apart," replied the other, drawing Abercorn aside from the throng, while his voice and expression became more sad, his lips more pale, and his manner more excited. "Listen. Last night I was in my chamber disrobing for bed; my mind was full of the doubts and misgivings that have oppressed me since we left the walls and shelter of Thrave; and just as Silver Mary—that great bell which hangs in the tower of St. Giles—tolled the last stroke of the hour of twelve, I heard a deep sigh near me."
"A sigh!" repeated the earl, becoming interested in spite of himself; "was it not the wind in an arrow-hole?"
"A sigh, loud almost as a sob! I turned—there was no one near me; but the old and gloomy arras which covered the walls was violently agitated and shaken, so that the brown moths flew out of it. The sigh was repeated; and though I know myself to be brave as most men, I felt—yet knew not why—the life-blood curdling in my heart, and, as the Scripture hath it, the hair of my flesh stood up. Then an emotion which I could not resist, like the strong power we obey in a dream, led me on. I raised the old mouldy arras—and then—then—oh what a sight saw I there!"
"What?" asked the earl, in a low voice.
The perspiration rolled in bead-like drops from the pale forehead of the old baron upon his white beard and polished cuirass, as he replied in a solemn and husky whisper, "As I live by bread which the blessed God yields, and hope to die in the faith of our fathers, I beheld a decapitated corpse, the head of which rolled past me, with winking eyes, with chattering teeth, and with features livid and convulsed, as when the headsman's axe has just severed the neck! I knew those ghastly features—knew that curly hair—I knew that comely form——"
"And," said Abercorn, growing very pale in spite of himself; "and this head was——"
"Your kinsman's—the earl of Douglas!"
"Pho!" replied Abercorn, seeming suddenly to experience great relief; "by St. Bryde, I thought you were about to say 'twas mine. Did this grim vision speak to you!"
"No—but straightway vanished—melted away, and I was left in the chamber to solitude, to fears and prayers,