A Legend of Montrose - Sir Walter Scott (good fiction books to read .TXT) 📗

good comrades while we dwell together in this abominable pit."

"The loaf and jar of water," answered the other prisoner, "stand in the corner, two steps to your right hand. Take them, and welcome. With earthly food I have wellnigh done."

Dalgetty did not wait for a second invitation, but, groping out the provisions, began to munch at the stale black oaten loaf with as much heartiness as we have seen him play his part at better viands.

"This bread," he said, muttering (with his mouth full at the same time), "is not very savoury; nevertheless, it is not much worse than that which we ate at the famous leaguer at Werben, where the valorous Gustavus foiled all the efforts of the celebrated Tilly, that terrible old hero, who had driven two kings out of the field--namely, Ferdinand of Bohemia and Christian of Denmark. And anent this water, which is none of the most sweet, I drink in the same to your speedy deliverance, comrade, not forgetting mine own, and devoutly wishing it were Rhenish wine, or humming Lubeck beer, at the least, were it but in honour of the pledge."

While Dalgetty ran on in this way, his teeth kept time with his tongue, and he speedily finished the provisions which the benevolence or indifference of his companion in misfortune had abandoned to his voracity. When this task was accomplished, he wrapped himself in his cloak, and seating himself in a corner of the dungeon in which he could obtain a support on each side (for he had always been an admirer of elbow-chairs, he remarked, even from his youth upward), he began to question his fellow-captive.

"Mine honest friend," said he, "you and I, being comrades at bed and board, should be better acquainted. I am Dugald Dalgetty of Drumthwacket, and so forth, Major in a regiment of loyal Irishes, and Envoy Extraordinary of a High and Mighty Lord, James Earl of Montrose.--Pray, what may your name be?"

"It will avail you little to know," replied his more taciturn companion.

"Let me judge of that matter," answered the soldier.

"Well, then--Ranald MacEagh is my name--that is, Ranald Son of the Mist."

"Son of the Mist!" ejaculated Dalgetty. "Son of utter darkness, say I. But, Ranald, since that is your name, how came you in possession of the provost's court of guard? what the devil brought you here, that is to say?"

"My misfortunes and my crimes," answered Ranald. "Know ye the Knight of Ardenvohr?"

"I do know that honourable person," replied Dalgetty.

"But know ye where he now is?" replied Ranald.

"Fasting this day at Ardenvohr," answered the Envoy, "that he may feast to-morrow at Inverary; in which last purpose if he chance to fail, my lease of human service will be something precarious."

"Then let him know, one claims his intercession, who is his worst foe and his best friend," answered Ranald.

"Truly I shall desire to carry a less questionable message," answered Dalgetty, "Sir Duncan is not a person to play at reading riddles with."

"Craven Saxon," said the prisoner, "tell him I am the raven that, fifteen years since, stooped on his tower of strength and the pledges he had left there--I am the hunter that found out the wolfs den on the rock, and destroyed his offspring--I am the leader of the band which surprised Ardenvohr yesterday was fifteen years, and gave his four children to the sword."

"Truly, my honest friend," said Dalgetty, "if that is your best recommendation to Sir Duncan's favour, I would pretermit my pleading thereupon, in respect I have observed that even the animal creation are incensed against those who intromit with their offspring forcibly, much more any rational and Christian creatures, who have had violence done upon their small family. But I pray you in courtesy to tell me, whether you assailed the castle from the hillock called Drumsnab, whilk I uphold to be the true point of attack, unless it were to be protected by a sconce."

"We ascended the cliff by ladders of withies or saplings," said the prisoner, "drawn up by an accomplice and clansman, who had served six months in the castle to enjoy that one night of unlimited vengeance. The owl whooped around us as we hung betwixt heaven and earth; the tide roared against the foot of the rock, and dashed asunder our skiff, yet no man's heart failed him. In the morning there was blood and ashes, where there had been peace and joy at the sunset."

"It was a pretty camisade, I doubt not, Ranald MacEagh, a very sufficient onslaught, and not unworthily discharged. Nevertheless, I would have pressed the house from that little hillock called Drumsnab. But yours is a pretty irregular Scythian fashion of warfare, Ranald, much resembling that of Turks, Tartars, and other Asiatic people.--But the reason, my friend, the cause of this war--the TETERRIMA CAUSA, as I may say? Deliver me that, Ranald."

"We had been pushed at by the M'Aulays, and other western tribes," said Ranald, "till our possessions became unsafe for us."

"Ah ha!" said Dalgetty; "I have faint remembrance of having heard of that matter. Did you not put bread and cheese into a man's mouth, when he had never a stomach whereunto to transmit the same?"

"You have heard, then," said Ranald, "the tale of our revenge on the haughty forester?"

"I bethink me that I have," said Dalgetty, "and that not of an old date. It was a merry jest that, of cramming the bread into the dead man's mouth, but somewhat too wild and salvage for civilized acceptation, besides wasting the good victuals. I have seen when at a siege or a leaguer, Ranald, a living soldier would have been the better, Ranald, for that crust of bread, whilk you threw away on a dead pow."

"We were attacked by Sir Duncan," continued MacEagh, "and my brother was slain--his head was withering on the battlements which we scaled--I vowed revenge, and it is a vow I have never broken."

"It may be so," said Dalgetty; "and every thorough-bred soldier will confess that revenge is a sweet morsel; but in what manner this story will interest Sir Duncan in your justification, unless it should move him to intercede with the Marquis to change the manner thereof from hanging, or simple suspension, to breaking your limbs on the roue or wheel, with the coulter of a plough, or otherwise putting you to death by torture, surpasses my comprehension. Were I you, Ranald, I would be for miskenning Sir Duncan, keeping my own secret, and departing quietly by suffocation, like your ancestors before you."

"Yet hearken, stranger," said the Highlander. "Sir Duncan of Ardenvohr had four children. Three died under our dirks, but the fourth survives; and more would he give to dandle on his knee the fourth child which remains, than to rack these old bones, which care little for the utmost indulgence of his wrath. One word, if I list to speak it, could turn his day of humiliation and fasting into a day of thankfulness and rejoicing, and breaking of bread. O, I know it by my own heart? Dearer to me is the child Kenneth, who chaseth the butterfly on the banks of the Aven, than ten sons who are mouldering in earth, or are preyed on by the fowls of the air."

"I presume, Ranald," continued Dalgetty, "that the three pretty fellows whom I saw yonder in the market-place, strung up by the head like rizzer'd haddocks, claimed some interest in you?"

There was a brief pause ere the Highlander replied, in a tone of strong emotion,--"They were my sons, stranger--they were my sons!--blood of my blood--bone of my bone!--fleet of foot--unerring in aim--unvanquished by foemen till the sons of Diarmid overcame them by numbers! Why do I wish to survive them? The old trunk will less feel the rending up of its roots, than it has felt the lopping off of its graceful boughs. But Kenneth must be trained to revenge--the young eagle must learn from the old how to stoop on his foes. I will purchase for his sake my life and my freedom, by discovering my secret to the Knight of Ardenvohr."

"You may attain your end more easily," said a third voice, mingling in the conference, "by entrusting it to me."

All Highlanders are superstitious. "The Enemy of Mankind is among us!" said Ranald MacEagh, springing to his feet. His chains clattered as he rose, while he drew himself as far as they permitted from the quarter whence the voice appeared to proceed. His fear in some degree communicated itself to Captain Dalgetty, who began to repeat, in a sort of polyglot gibberish, all the exorcisms he had ever heard of, without being able to remember more than a word or two of each.

"IN NOMINE DOMINI, as we said at Mareschal-College--SANTISSMA MADRE DI DIOS, as the Spaniard has it--ALLE GUTEN GEISTER LOBEN DEN HERRN, saith the blessed Psalmist, in Dr. Luther's translation--"

"A truce with your exorcisms," said the voice they had heard before; "though I come strangely among you, I am mortal like yourselves, and my assistance may avail you in your present streight, if you are not too proud to be counselled."

While the stranger thus spoke, he withdrew the shade of a dark lantern, by whose feeble light Dalgetty could only discern that the speaker who had thus mysteriously united himself to their company, and mixed in their conversation, was a tall man, dressed in a livery cloak of the Marquis. His first glance was to his feet, but he saw neither the cloven foot which Scottish legends assign to the foul fiend, nor the horse's hoof by which he is distinguished in Germany. His first enquiry was, how the stranger had come among them?

"For," said he, "the creak of these rusty bars would have been heard had the door been made patent; and if you passed through the keyhole, truly, sir, put what face you will on it, you are not fit to be enrolled in a regiment of living men."

"I reserve my secret," answered the stranger, "until you shall merit the discovery by communicating to me some of yours. It may be that I shall be moved to let you out where I myself came in."

"It cannot be through the keyhole, then," said Captain Dalgetty, "for my corslet would stick in the passage, were it possible that my head-piece could get through. As for secrets, I have none of my own, and but few appertaining to others. But impart to us what secrets you desire to know; or, as Professor Snufflegreek used to say at the Mareschal-College, Aberdeen, speak that I may know thee."

"It is not with you I have first to do," replied the stranger, turning his light full on the mild and wasted features, and the large limbs of the Highlander, Ranald MacEagh, who, close drawn up against the walls of the dungeon, seemed yet uncertain whether his guest was a living being.

"I have brought you something, my friend," said the stranger, in a more soothing tone, "to mend your fare; if you are to die to-morrow, it is no reason wherefore you should not live to-night."

"None at all--no reason in the creation," replied the ready Captain Dalgetty, who forthwith began to unpack the contents of a small basket which the stranger had brought under his cloak, while the Highlander, either in suspicion or disdain, paid no attention to the good cheer.

"Here's to thee, my friend," said the Captain, who, having already dispatched a huge piece of roasted kid, was now taking a pull at the wine-flask. "What is