Mightiest of the beasts of chase,
That roam in woody Caledon,
Crashing the forest in his race,
The mountain bull comes thundering on!
Scott.
The evening of the day on which he left the metropolis was closing, when, after a ride of many miles, Florence found himself, with a sorely jaded horse, on the borders of the ancient forest of Cadzow, in that district which was named of old Machinshire, from the chapel of St. Machin.
The nature of the roads, which in those days were mere bridle-paths, narrow, rough, and stony, being carried straight over hill and through valley, irrespective of all local obstacles, and were rendered dangerous by the uncultivated morasses and lonely wastes they traversed, and by the fords or deep and bridgeless torrents which intersected them—the nature of such paths for travelling from Lothian to Lanarkshire, had impaired the energies of the fine charger which had been the gift of Mary of Lorraine; and, in a wild and solitary place, near which no dwelling could be perceived, and where, on all sides, nothing was visible but the great gnarled stems of the oak forest, Florence dismounted, just as the solemn gloaming drew on; and while his foam-flaked horse cropped the herbage that grew deep and rich under the shade of the trees, he sat down for a time, to consider in which direction he should seek the Tower of Millheugh, where he was to deliver the pretended court lady's letter, and wherein he mentally proposed to remain until the morrow, when he could choose a more fitting time to appear before the Regent of Scotland, one of whose country residences, the Castle of Cadzow, was but a few miles distant.
At this time the town habitation of the Hamilton family was in the Kirk-of-field Wynd at Edinburgh, a steep, narrow, and ancient street, the name of which has since been changed.
A sensation of lassitude came upon Florence, who felt weary after his long and rough ride; and as the red flush of the August sun faded away behind the purple hills, and its warm tints grew cold on the rugged stems and crisping leaves of the Druid oaks of Cadzow, his mind became impressed by the sylvan beauty and intense solitude of the scenery, and reverted to those whose faces he had that morning left behind him; and, like all who have travelled, far and rapidly, he felt the difficulty of realizing the extent of distance that actually lay between him and them. With the last light of evening lingering on his glittering coat of mail, and the bridle of his white horse drooping over his right arm, he sat under a shady oak, like a knight errant of old, waiting for adventures; but though witches and fairies remained in Scotland, the age of giants and dwarfs and genii had passed away.
He thought of his mother, pale, austere, and reproachful; loving him well, fondly,—yea, madly,—and yet, withal, so ready to peril his life in maintaining her old hereditary feud, in the fulfilment of her savage vow, and for the gratification of her morbid vengeance—a life which might yet be useful to her queen and country—a young life, which the possessor of it had suddenly found to be invested with a new charm, a hitherto unknown value; and here, drawing off his long glove, he gazed on the opal ring of Madeline—Madeline who?
"Oh, perplexity!" he exclaimed; "'tis a romance with which our coquettish French queen is amusing herself, and of which she wishes to make me and this beloved girl the hero and heroine."
And, sunk in one of those reveries so natural to a lover, when he seems to talk to, and have responses from, the object beloved; when a thousand things are said that were omitted when last with her,—for when the heart is full, thoughts come quicker than language, Fawside remained in the twilight and in the forest, with the gloaming deepening around him, heedless alike of the outlaws who were averred to make their haunt there, and of the ferocious white bulls (Bos sylvestris), the famous red-eyed, black-horned, black-hoofed, and snowy-maned mountain bison of old Caledonia, herds of which have frequented the Forest of Cadzow from pre-historic days, long anterior to the Roman invasion, down to the present time.
On every hand spread the vast wilderness of oaks, some of which still measure twenty-five and twenty-eight feet in circumference, and are of an antiquity so great that they must have witnessed the rites of the Druids; being the last remains of that immense forest which anciently covered all the south of Scotland, from the waves of the Atlantic to those of the German Ocean.
In the wildest part of this wild wood—the Caledonia Sylva—stood the tower of Allan Duthie of Millheugh, in a little dell near a ruined and mossgrown mill, the fragments of which were overshadowed by an oak of stupendous dimensions, known as King Malcolm's Tree, from the following little legend, which (as we dearly love all that pertained to Scotland "in the brave days of old") we will take the liberty of inserting here.
A few years after the fall of Macbeth and the destruction of his castle of Dunsinane, Queen Margaret, Evan, the chancellor and Christian bishop of Galloway, revealed to King Malcolm III. a design which Duthac, one of his thanes, on whom he had bestowed many favours, had formed against his life, and which he resolved to put in execution as soon as he came to court.
"Be silent," said the king, "and leave me to deal with this matter in my own way."
Ere long, the accused noble came to court with a numerous train of half-savage warriors, barelegged and barearmed, from the wilds of Galloway, and on the day thereafter, Malcolm, who was residing in the Castle of Stirling, proclaimed a great hunting-match, and set forth for Cadzow Forest to hunt the mountain bull. In the most secluded part of the wood, he contrived to separate Duthac from the rest of the royal party, and drawing him into a gloomy little dell, under the shadow of a mighty oak, he leaped from his saddle and said,—
"Thane, dismount!"
Duthac at once alighted from his saddle, which, like his bridle, was hung with little silver bells.
"Draw!" said the king sternly; but Duthac hesitated.
"Draw, lest I kill thee, by the holy St. Kessoge!—kill thee defenceless!" exclaimed the brave king, unsheathing his long cross-hilted and double-edged broadsword, which was of a fashion then, and for long after, worn by the Scots, and the guards of which were turned down for the purpose of locking in and breaking an adversary's blade.
Duthac grew pale on hearing the vow of Malcolm; for St. Kessoge was then in great repute, so much so that in the sixth century his name was the war-cry of the Scots and Irish. Casting on the ground his green hunting-mantle, which had been embroidered by the white hands of his Saxon queen, St. Margaret, the king exclaimed,—
"Thane!—behold, we are here alone, and armed alike, with none to give one aid against the other. No ear can hear, nor eye can see us, save those of God! If you are still the brave man you have approved yourself in battle against the English and the Normans, and have the courage to essay your secret purpose, attempt it now! If you deem me deserving of death, where can you deal it better, more manfully, or more opportunely, than here, in this secluded forest? You linger—you falter—you, Duthac the Thane! Hast thou prepared a poison for me?" demanded the king, with increasing energy;—"that were the treason of a woman. Wouldst thou murder me in my sleep, as Malcolm II. was slain at Glammis?—an adultress might do that. Hast thou a hidden dagger, to stab me in secret?—'twere the deed of a coward and slave; and, Duthac, I hold thee to be neither. Fight me here, hand to hand, like a soldier—like a true Scottish man, that your treason at least may be freed from a baseness that will consign you and your race to future infamy!"
Struck to the soul by this valiant and magnanimous spirit, Duthac presented his sword-hilt to Malcolm, and, kneeling before him (as Mathew Paris relates), implored pardon.
"Fear nothing, Thane," said Malcolm III., taking his hand; "for, by the Black Rood of Scotland, thou shalt suffer no evil from me. Henceforward we are comrades—we are friends, as in other days we were soothfast fellow-soldiers."
From that hour Duthac became a most faithful subject. He received from Malcolm the land whereon they stood, and in confirmation thereof his charter was touched by the silver battle-axe which our kings carried before sceptres were known (and which was long preserved in the Castle of Dunstaffnage); and from this episode the vast oak by the brook was named King Malcolm's Tree.
Duthac was slain by his side at the siege of Alnwick, and was buried in the chapel of St. Machin; but his descendants, bearing the name of Duthie, inherited the lands of Millheugh, in Cadzow, for long after the period of our story: but to resume——
The reverie of Fawside was broken by a sudden shout that rose from the dingles of the forest.
It was evidently a cry for succour; there was a rushing sound, and a riderless horse came galloping wildly past, but stopped near the grey of Fawside, who adroitly caught the bridle which was trailing on the ground, and thus arrested the steed, by skilfully securing the rein to one of its fore legs.
Again he heard the cry, and it had a strange weird sound, being like that of a man in terror or in mortal agony. Florence hastened towards the place from whence it seemed to come, and by the dim twilight, which the thick foliage of the oaks rendered yet more dusky, he perceived a man stretched on the ground, and one of the wild bulls of the district plunging at him with his wide-spread horns, which the victim strove to elude, by rolling from side to side, so that the bull beat his armed head against the earth or the roots of the trees.
"Help! for God's love and St. Mary's sake—help!" cried the dismounted man.
On seeing Florence approach, the bull, which was of vast height and bulk, and of milk-white colour, with its muzzle, horns, and hoofs of the deepest jet-black, uttered a species of grunting roar, and tossing his lion-like mane, which was white as the foam on the crest of a wave, lowered his broad head to attack this new enemy. Like that bull which bore away the fair Europa,—
"Large rolls of fat about his shoulders hung,
And to his neck the double dewlap clung;
His skin was whiter than the snow that lies
Unsullied by the breath of southern skies;
Huge shining horns on his curled forhead stand,
As polish'd and turn'd by the workman's hand."
This formidable enemy turned all his wrath on Florence; but the latter unhooked the wheel-lock petronel from his girdle, and, by a well-directed bullet shot right into the curly forehead of this king of the forest, laid him bleeding and powerless on the turf, where he lolled out his long red tongue, beat the air wildly with his hoofs for a moment, and then stretching his great bony limbs with a convulsive shudder, lay still and lifeless.
"Kind Heaven sent you just in time, fair sir; by my father's bones, 'tis the narrowest of all narrow escapes!" said the rescued man, staggering up. "That foreign firework engine of thine hath done me gude service."
Florence could now perceive that the speaker was a gentleman, apparently well up in years. His face was partly concealed by the aventayle of his helmet, which had become twisted or wedged, as he stated, by his horse having stumbled on seeing the bull, and thus thrown him against the root of a tree; but this protection for the face being partly open, Florence could perceive that his eyes were keen and fiery, and that his beard and moustache were white as winter frost.
Like all who travelled or went to any distance, however short from their own doors, in these ticklish times, he wore a suit of half-armour that reached to the knees, below which his legs were encased in long black riding-boots, which were ribbed with tempered iron.
"In the wood I outrode and missed my train, of nearly a score of horsemen," he continued; "and as the neighbourhood has an indifferent reputation for honesty, I shall be glad to remain with you, sir, till we find a place of shelter for the night; but may I ask your name?"
"You may," replied Florence, "but under favour, sir, in these times of feud and mistrust, is it safe for me, a stranger, who has no friend near but his single sword, to mention his name to one who speaks so freely of having some twenty horse or so within call?"
"You have somewhat of a foreign accent?"
"Perhaps so—I have been these seven years past in France."
"France—umph! Hence your mistrust."
"Exactly so. The land of Catholics and Huguenots, bastiles and gendarmerie, was exactly the place to teach prudence to the tongue and patience to the hand."
"Then I claim the same right to mistrust and reserve," said the stranger haughtily; "though when only man to man I see but little reason for it, especially as I am an auld carle, and thou art lithe and young."
Florence felt a glow of anger at this remark; but he thought of his letters, his recent wounds, of Bothwell, Glencairn, &c., and merely replied evasively,—
"Your horse awaits you here—so let us mount."
"Whither go you; or is that a secret too?"
"Nay—I ride for Cadzow."
"To the house of my lord regent?"——"Yes."
The stranger muttered something in the hollow of his helmet, and it was to this purpose,—
"From France, and for Cadzow! Cogsbones! can this be the Guise messenger our party wot of?"
"Go you so far?" asked Florence.
"Nay, I am only on my way to visit the house of a remote kinsman—the Laird of Millheugh."
"Indeed! I am bound for the same mansion, could I but find it. We may proceed together, and I shall trust me to your guidance."
"With pleasure."
"I have a letter for the laird from a kinsman of his, a great lady at court, and I propose to leave it at the tower to-night, that I may reach Cadzow at a more suitable hour on the morrow."
"Now, this sounds passing strange to me," said the old gentleman, peering keenly at Fawside under the peak of his helmet, and endeavouring to scan his features closely. "Millheugh hath no kinswoman at court. From whom had you the billet?"
"Champfleurie, captain of the queen's guard."
"Hah! A master in the art of intrigue, I warrant him! Let me see this note, if it please you?"
Florence placed it in the right hand of the stranger, whose left now grasped his horse's bridle.
"It bears on the seal the anchor and chevrons of Bothwell."
"Of Earl Patrick?" exclaimed Florence, changing colour.
"Yea; and his coronet, as I can see plainly enough, even by this twilight. Herein lies some mystery, but no evil, I trust; for the Lord Bothwell is my assured friend. So let us forward, for yonder are the lights in Millheugh Towershining, about a mile distant."
"A mystery, say you, sir?" reiterated Florence angrily. "I have nothing to do with court secrets; and if this laird of Champfleurie has trepanned me into one, I shall read him a severe lesson, were he the last Livingstone in Scotland. And now, sir, as I have no intention of further concealing my name, know that I am Florence Fawside of Fawside and that ilk in Lothian, and fear no man breathing!"
The stranger, with a startled air, drew back a pace, and after a pause said, in a low and changed voice,—
"I have heard of you, and of your old feud with Claude Hamilton of Preston anent the right of pasturage and forestry."
"Then you have only heard that which all in Scotland know, and that I am under vow to slay him!"
"Has this old man—for he is old, this Claude of Preston, ever given you personal cause for hatred?"
"Personally none," said Florence, with hesitation.
"And yet you hate him?"
"Yea, with an impulse that fiends alone might comprehend!" was the impetuous reply.
"Wherefore?"
"Ask my suffering mother, who reared me from infancy in this deadly hate! Ask my dead father, and ask my dead brother, who sleep together in the old aisle of Tranent Kirk, and they might tell you why! They died—those two brave and faithful ones—by Preston's bloody hands, bequeathing to me, as the chief part of mine inheritance, hatred—and well have I treasured it! This sword was my father's; this dagger was poor Willie's; and in Preston's blood I am bound by a hundred vows to dye them both!"
"He is old," said the other gravely; "I tell thee, old."
"Then Scotland can the better spare him," was the stern response.
"Enough of this," said the stranger haughtily. "I am a Hamilton; and here in Cadzow Wood, in the heart of the country of the Hamiltons, bethink you that your words are alike unwary and unwise. Here is your letter for Millheugh; and now let us proceed. I have quarrels enough of my own, without adding yours to my care."
The elderly stranger restored the sealed note to Florence, and on mounting was about to speak again, when his horse, which was still restive and unruly after the late occurrence and report of the pistol-shot, on being touched by the spur reared wildly back, and snorted as it cowered twice upon its haunches and tossed up its head; then throwing forward its fore feet, it sprang away like an arrow from a bow, and vanished with its rider in the darkened vista of the forest. Fawside's first impulse was to hallo aloud, and, for a time, to search after his new acquaintance; but this proved unavailing, for the echo of each far-stretching dingle alone replied.
"This stranger spoke truth," thought he. "I have been both unwary and unwise in disclosing my name and my feud to one I knew not—to one who proves to be a Hamilton,—and here in Cadzow Wood, too! So-ho for Millheugh; fortunately yonder are the tower lights still glinting through the foliage."
Directing his horse's steps by the red stripes of vertical light which shone through the narrow windows of the tower that had been indicated by the stranger as the fortalice of Millheugh, Florence threaded his way along the narrow dell the leafy monarch of which was the giant oak of King Malcolm, and soon reached the outer gate of the barbican.