The Fair Maid of Perth; Or, St. Valentine's Day by Walter Scott (popular romance novels txt) 📗
- Author: Walter Scott
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“He, the youngest of the champions of Clan Chattan, being absent, I, the youngest of the Clan Quhele, may be excused from combat” said Eachin, blushing at the mean chance of safety thus opened to him.
“See now, my chief;” said Torquil, “and judge my thoughts towards thee: others might give thee their own lives and that of their sons—I sacrifice to thee the honour of my house.”
“My friend—my father,” repeated the chief, folding Torquil to his bosom, “what a base wretch am I that have a spirit dastardly enough to avail myself of your sacrifice!”
“Speak not of that. Green woods have ears. Let us back to the camp, and send our gillies for the venison. Back, dogs, and follow at heel.”
The slowhound, or lyme dog, luckily for Simon, had drenched his nose in the blood of the deer, else he might have found the glover’s lair in the thicket; but its more acute properties of scent being lost, it followed tranquilly with the gazehounds.
When the hunters were out of sight and hearing, the glover arose, greatly relieved by their departure, and began to move off in the opposite direction as fast as his age permitted. His first reflection was on the fidelity of the foster father.
“The wild mountain heart is faithful and true. Yonder man is more like the giants in romaunts than a man of mould like ourselves; and yet Christians might take an example from him for his lealty. A simple contrivance this, though, to finger a man from off their enemies’ chequer, as if there would not be twenty of the wildcats ready to supply his place.”
Thus thought the glover, not aware that the strictest proclamations were issued, prohibiting any of the two contending clans, their friends, allies, and dependants, from coming within fifty miles of Perth, during a week before and a week after the combat, which regulation was to be enforced by armed men.
So soon as our friend Simon arrived at the habitation of the herdsman, he found other news awaiting him. They were brought by Father Clement, who came in a pilgrim’s cloak, or dalmatic, ready to commence his return to the southward, and desirous to take leave of his companion in exile, or to accept him as a travelling companion.
“But what,” said the citizen, “has so suddenly induced you to return within the reach of danger?”
“Have you not heard,” said Father Clement, “that, March and his English allies having retired into England before the Earl of Douglas, the good earl has applied himself to redress the evils of the commonwealth, and hath written to the court letters desiring that the warrant for the High Court of Commission against heresy be withdrawn, as a trouble to men’s consciences, that the nomination of Henry of Wardlaw to be prelate of St. Andrews be referred to the Parliament, with sundry other things pleasing to the Commons? Now, most of the nobles that are with the King at Perth, and with them Sir Patrick Charteris, your worthy provost, have declared for the proposals of the Douglas. The Duke of Albany had agreed to them—whether from goodwill or policy I know not. The good King is easily persuaded to mild and gentle courses. And thus are the jaw teeth of the oppressors dashed to pieces in their sockets, and the prey snatched from their ravening talons. Will you with me to the Lowlands, or do you abide here a little space?”
Neil Booshalloch saved his friend the trouble of reply.
“He had the chief’s authority,” he said, “for saying that Simon Glover should abide until the champions went down to the battle.”
In this answer the citizen saw something not quite consistent with his own perfect freedom of volition; but he cared little for it at the time, as it furnished a good apology for not travelling along with the clergyman.
“An exemplary man,” he said to his friend Niel Booshalloch, as soon as Father Clement had taken leave—“a great scholar and a great saint. It is a pity almost he is no longer in danger to be burned, as his sermon at the stake would convert thousands. O Niel Booshalloch, Father Clement’s pile would be a sweet savouring sacrifice and a beacon to all decent Christians! But what would the burning of a borrel ignorant burgess like me serve? Men offer not up old glove leather for incense, nor are beacons fed with undressed hides, I trow. Sooth to speak, I have too little learning and too much fear to get credit by the affair, and, therefore, I should, in our homely phrase, have both the scathe and the scorn.”
“True for you,” answered the herdsman.
CHAPTER XXX. We must return to the characters of our dramatic narrative whom we left at Perth, when we accompanied the glover and his fair daughter to Kinfauns, and from that hospitable mansion traced the course of Simon to Loch Tay; and the Prince, as the highest personage, claims our immediate attention.
This rash and inconsiderate young man endured with some impatience his sequestered residence with the Lord High Constable, with whose company, otherwise in every respect satisfactory, he became dissatisfied, from no other reason than that he held in some degree the character of his warder. Incensed against his uncle and displeased with his father, he longed, not unnaturally, for the society of Sir John Ramorny, on whom he had been so long accustomed to throw himself for amusement, and, though he would have resented the imputation as an insult, for guidance and direction. He therefore sent him a summons to attend him, providing his health permitted; and directed him to come by water to a little pavilion in the High Constable’s garden, which, like that of Sir John’s own lodgings, ran down to the Tay. In renewing an intimacy so dangerous, Rothsay only remembered that he had been Sir Join Ramorny’s munificent friend; while Sir John, on receiving the invitation, only recollected, on his part, the capricious insults he had sustained from his patron, the loss of his hand, and the lightness with which he had treated the subject, and the readiness with which Rothsay had abandoned his cause in the matter of the bonnet maker’s slaughter. He laughed bitterly when he read the Prince’s billet.
“Eviot,” he said, “man a stout boat with six trusty men—trusty men, mark me—lose not a moment, and bid Dwining instantly come hither.
“Heaven smiles on us, my trusty friend,” he said to the mediciner. “I was but beating my brains how to get access to this fickle boy, and here he sends to invite me.”
“Hem! I see the matter very clearly,” said Dwining. “Heaven smiles on some untoward consequences—he! he! he!”
“No matter, the trap is ready; and it is baited, too, my friend, with what would lure the boy from a sanctuary, though a troop with drawn weapons waited
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