well you did not see any more heads roll past in this odd fashion," said Abercorn, jibingly.
"Lord James of Abercorn," said Fleming, solemnly, "I was long your father's comrade and most trusted friend. For forty long but stirring years there came no jar between us, though ever engaged in war and tumult. Together we were wounded and taken prisoners at Homildon; together we defended this castle of Edinburgh against Henry IV. of England, and repulsed him; together we fought in France, and fell wounded side by side at Verneuil—but he, alas! mortally, when attempting to save me, and now he sleeps the sleep of death in St. Gratians of Tournay—for there I closed his eyes, and laid his well-notched sword beside him——"
"All this, and much more, have I heard a hundred times, by the winter fire, at Douglas, at Thrave, and in your own hospitable house of Cumbernauld," said Abercorn haughtily and impatiently.
"Then hear it once again, to fire your lagging zeal, mistaken man!" said Sir Malcolm, with growing excitement in his tone and suspicion in his heart; "hear it once again, to bear witness of my faith, when I feel assured that this day no banquet, no wassail, no honour or hospitality, but death and life are in the balance!"
"What a-God's name seek you?" asked James of Abercorn, through his clenched teeth; for this animated and protracted discussion had drawn about them the abbot, their host; the earl of Douglas; little Lord David, his brother; even the Countess, Murielle, and other ladies, who threw up their veils, and listened with surprise. Sir Malcolm resumed:—
"Ay, ay, young lord; since first I learned to make the sign of the cross at my auld mother's knee in the hall of Cumbernauld, among the wilds of Dunbarton, true have I been, Abercorn, to Douglas and his race; so listen to me, if you can, without that cold sneer in your eye, on your lip, and in your heart! Trust not Crichton, and trust not Livingstone, or dool and woe will come on thee and thine! Oh, if you have one drop of warm blood in your heart, join with me in urging your kinsman and chief to share my doubts of these men."
"What in the name of Mahoun am I to say?" exclaimed Abercorn, whose eyes glared with anger, while he tugged his black beard in his vexation.
"Beware ye all!" resumed the earnest old laird of Cumbernauld! "I know what a city and a court are, with their rakes and high-born harlots; their carpet-knights and fawning cut-throats; their bullies and swashbucklers—with servile bows and smiling faces—their black, bitter, false, and cowardly hearts! So here, at the eleventh hour, as it were, I, Sir Malcolm Fleming, of Biggar and Cumbernauld, the soothfast friend of Douglas, say unto ye all, go not this day to the castle of Edinburgh."
Lord Abercorn listened to all this with rage in his eye, a sneer on his lip, and perplexity on his brow; and these mingling emotions deepened when the usually haughty countess requested the old knight to rehearse the story of the midnight vision. It certainly had a serious impression upon all, for the age was full of superstition, of omens, spectres, and supernatural terrors, when the bravest men would occasionally tremble at their own shadows. Thus for a few minutes even the young earl of Douglas seemed silent and oppressed, while Murielle burst into tears, and drew down her veil.
"It is as great a pity to see a woman weep as a goose go barefoot," said Abercorn, furiously and coarsely, using an old proverb: "by our Lady of Whitekirk! I think you are all demented. Lord abbot, talk to this old ghostseer, and assure him there can be no such thing in nature as the spectre of a living man."
"But there are wraiths," said Sir Alan Lauder; "and who can deny their existence, when Scotland is filled with tales of them."
"Lord abbot," resumed Abercorn, more irritated than ever, "speak and say, I charge you, that no such things can be."
"I can assure him of no such fallacy," replied the pedantic abbot, with displeasure, as he adjusted his long-flapped calotte cap over his thin, white, silvery hair. "History, ancient and modern, teems with tales of terrible appearances. Does not Pliny the younger, in his letters, affirm, as an incontrovertible fact, that Athenodorus the philosopher, the disciple of Zeno and keeper of the royal library at Pergamus, once saw a dreadful spectre?"
"When—how?" asked the countess, impressed by the strange names which the abbot used so glibly.
"Pliny relates that Athenodorus purchased an old house in Athens, which many had refused to occupy, because it was haunted by an unquiet spirit. So Athenodorus waited courageously to see it."
"What—the house?" asked Abercorn.
"No—the spectre. Dragging a massy chain, it came at length in a shapeless and dreadful form, and commanded him to follow it. The philosopher, who, though trembling in his soul, affected to be busy at that moment, said 'Wait a little;' but the spirit rattled its rusty chain furiously, so Athenodorus arose and followed it to the marble court near which his villa stood, and, on reaching a certain spot, the apparition vanished. Athenodorus, saith Pliny, marked the place that he might know it again. On the following day he assembled the magistrates of Athens, and on digging up the soil the bones of a man with a rusty chain were found. They were publicly interred elsewhere, and from that hour his mansion was disturbed no more. Shall we question that which such men as Plutarch and Pliny have asserted to have been? Like the foul heretic Paul Crawar of Bohemia, dare you impugn that which you cannot comprehend and which you know not? Can you deny or doubt the existence of a spirit, when you cannot prove your own? In all past times, in all lands, among every kind of people, however highly civilized or however lowly savage, apparitions have been seen as warnings for good or for evil; and such will be permitted until that fell spirit whose hapless state I shall one day lay before our Holy Father be forgiven, and fear and hate and war shall be no more."
Enraged by this pedantic rebuke, the earl of Abercorn twisted his moustache, and spurred and checked his horse till it almost sprang into the air.
"Then what do you advise, my lord abbot?" asked the countess, in evident perplexity.
"That my lord your husband should hearken unto the advice of his counsellors, whom his father never slighted, but ever held with reverence."
"I thank you, lord abbot," said Fleming, pressing the abbot's hand. "Let the earl at least leave behind him the two ladies of his house, his brother Lord David, Earl James of Abercorn, and Hugh of Ormond."
"To what end?" asked the earl of Ormond.
"To gratify the prayer and anxious heart of an old friend, and that the house of Douglas may not be in an evil hour laid open to the stroke of fortune—your father's last injunction when he lay dying at Restalrig," added Fleming to the young earl.
His marked energy and anxiety, together with the entreaties of Sir Alan Lauder and those of the Douglases of Pompherston, Strabrock, and Glendoning, made the chief pause and waver in his purpose. He said—
"Shall I return now after having ridden to his very gates, as it were? Impossible! And the young king—what will he, what will the people say? and then the chancellor's letter flattered so suavely."
"The greater reason to distrust him," muttered the bearded knights to each other under their lifted helmets.
"Wherefore, why?" said Abercorn, burning with a rage which he could no longer dissemble, as a long-projected and carefully-developed plot seemed on the point of dissolving into air.
"Take counsel of your own brave heart, and good, my lord, run not your chief and his brother too into the lion's den. Crichton flatters to deceive!" replied Sir Malcolm Fleming.
"It may be wise, when so many seem to think so, that you should remember the last words of your father at Restalrig," said Murielle, softly touching the hand of Douglas.
"True, sweet cousin. My brother David——"
"Will go wheresoever you go," replied the brave boy, with a hand on his jewelled dagger; "neither imaginary nor real danger shall cow me."
"And I too shall go," added the earl of Ormond; "but as policy seems necessary here, let our kinsman, James of Abercorn, remain behind with the countess and Lady Murielle. Then, come what may, we leave a man able and willing to avenge us."