By my faith, there be thieves i' the wood!
Soho, sir,—straightway stand, and let us see
What manner of knave or varlet you be.
Old Play.
It was fortunate for Florence that he was accompanied by the three well-armed and well-mounted burgesses of Edinburgh, as several of the Lord Bothwell's friends or allies were loitering in the Torwood, as before they had lingered in Cadzow, with intentions towards him the reverse of friendly. Thus, though the conversation of his companions concerning imports and exports, tallow, flax, and battens from Muscovy, beer from Dantzig, wines from Low Germanie, fruits from France, and so forth, or the latest whim-whams or absurdities of the provost and council of Edinburgh, did not prove very interesting to him—a lover, a youth who had lately left the gaities of Paris, the court of France, and who, since then, had been so favourably noticed by Mary of Lorraine, the most beautiful queen in the world,—their burly forms in jack and morion, their long iron-hilted swords and wheel-lock calivers were of good service in protecting his passage through the wilds of the Torwood and past the Callender, the stronghold of the Livingstones, one of whose chief men, the laird of Champfleurie, had suffered so severely at his hands. One of those who accompanied him was John Hamilton, then a well-known merchant in the West Bow, a cadet of the house of Inverwick, who afterwards fought valiantly and fell at Pinkey.
From the green depths of the Torwood, Florence gazed fondly and wistfully back to Stirling, and his soul seemed to follow his eyes, till castle, rock, and spire melted into the dusk of eve.
The castle of Callender, the seat of Alexander fifth Lord Livingstone—a stern man, of high integrity, to whom Mary of Lorraine entrusted the custody of her daughter,—was a strong tower, surrounded by a deep fosse, and had a high wall forming the outer vallium of the place; and our travellers found themselves close to it about nightfall.
"The auld lord is a rough tyke," said Dick Hackerston; "so, after what has happened to that loon Champfleurie (as ill news travel fast), we had better abide elsewhere than in the Callender."
"The Lord Livingstone bears a high repute," said Florence, "and is greatly loved and trusted by the queen."
"Though somewhat of a courtier," said Hamilton, "he is keeper of the king's forest of Torwood, and, by living among trees and wild bulls his notions have become dark and fierce. I agree wi' you, neighbour Hackerston, we'll e'en find lodgings elsewhere, or lie under the gude greenwood."
"So be it," replied Florence. "And yet, sirs, 'tis somewhat hard that you, three honest burgesses, should be shelterless on my account. Think you that the Lord Livingstone, even if he heard ere morning, which is barely possible, of my open duel with his scurvy namesake, would make common cause with him against me?"
"I would fear to trust him," replied Hackerston; "for bluid is warmer than water."
"I little like lying a night in the Torwood," said John Hamilton; "preferring my snug bit housie at the Bowhead, wi my gudewife birling her wheel in the cosy ingle, and the bairns tumbling ilk owre the other on the floor; mairowre, I am a stranger hereawa. Johnnie Faa's gang o' Egyptians are abroad; and the saints forfend that I come not to harm!"
"Why you in particular! What fear you?" asked Florence.
"Gude kens! But this morning I put on my sark with the wrong side outwards, and placed my left shoe on the right foot."
"Let us ride on to the castle of the Torwood," said Hackerston. "I ken the good dame who bides there, and have got her cramosie kirtles from France, and vessels of delft and pewter from the Flemings of the Dam. She lost her spouse in a brawl wi' the Livingstones, and may make us a' the mair welcome that one of our company has the bluid o' one o' that name on his hands. She comes o' Highland kin—Muriel Mac Ildhui, and is the last o' the Neishes, a tribe extirpated by the Mac Nabs at Lochearn. Come on, sirs; I ken the way, and can guide you there."
Putting spurs to their horses, they turned aside from the fortalice of the Lord Livingstone, which stood on the side of a green and gentle slope, and skirting a morass named Callender Bog, penetrated into a denser part of the Torwood by a path which, though apparently familiar to Hackerston, was scarcely visible to his companions, for night had closed completely in, and the pale light of the diamond-like stars was intercepted by the thick foliage of the old primeval oaks, which tossed their rustling branches in the rising wind. The rich grass that covered the path muffled, to some extent, the sound of their horses' feet; thus, on hearing voices before them,—
"Hush!" said Florence in a loud whisper; "and look to your weapons, sirs; for the Torwood has but an indifferent reputation."
He had scarcely spoken, when a clear and jolly voice was heard singing merrily a song, the chorus of which was something to this purpose:—
"Saint George he was for England,
Saint Denis was for France:
Sing Honi soit, my merry men.
Qui mal y pense!"
"Englishmen, by this light!" exclaimed Florence.
"By this murk darkness, rather!" added Hackerston, unslinging his Jethart axe from his saddlebow. "And bold fellows they must be, to chorus thus in the Torwood!"
The four travellers now hastily put on their helmets, which hitherto had been hung at the bow of their saddles, and for which, during their ride from Stirling, they had substituted bonnets of blue cloth.
"Stand, sirs!" said Florence. "Who are you!"
"Strangers," replied a voice, and then two horsemen became visible amid the gloom of the interlaced trees,—"strangers, who have lost their way in this devilish forest."
"This devilish forest belongs to the queen of Scotland; and how come you to be singing here by night?"
"By the Mass! I knew not that it was a crime to sing by night any more than to sing by day," exclaimed the other, laughing; "I do so when it listeth me."
"'Twas something unwary, at all events," continued Florence, advancing so close that he could perceive the speaker, by his air and manner, to be undoubtedly a gentleman; "but, as your song discovers your country, say, my friends, what make you here, so far from your own borders?"
"We do not yet make war," replied the other; "be assured, fair sir, we have only lost our way, and sorely lack a guide."
"For whence?"
"The highway to Berwick, to which place we belong."
"A word with you."
"Marry! sir, a score—you are welcome."
"You are perhaps ignorant of the law by which, if any Englishman comes into the kingdom of Scotland, to kirk or market, or to any other place, without a safe assurance, the warden, or any man, may make him a lawful prisoner."
"Nay, fair sir, we are not ignorant of that law, and have here a special assurance from the Scottish earl who is lord-warden of the eastern marches."
"'Tis well,—then for this night at least, we are comrades," replied Florence, giving his hand to the strangers, who were no other than Master Edward Shelly, and his companion, Master William Patten, of London; who, having mistaken the way, and being wary of exciting suspicion by inquiries, had for some hours been completely astray in the Torwood. Hackerston, who had suffered severe pecuniary losses in the war of '44, when the Duke of Somerset (then Lord Hertford) set Edinburgh on fire in eight different quarters, grumbled under his beard at this accession to their party.
"Fawside," said he, "I am a man true and faithful to God and the queen. Praised be Heaven, I have never consorted with traitors, or made tryst or truce with Englishmen——"
"Yes; but to leave strangers adrift in this wild wood, where broken men and savage bulls, yea, and wolves too, have their lair, is what an honest fellow like you would never consent to; so, lead on."
In a few minutes more, the travellers found themselves close to a small square tower, surrounded by a fosse and wall—an edifice the ruins of which still remain, and present in their aspect nothing remarkable, or different from the usual towers of Scottish landholders of limited means.
"Hallo—gate, gate, ho!" shouted Hackerston, two or three times, before a man appeared on the summit of the keep, and after counting the number of men, by the starlight, disappeared. His inspection had evidently been unsatisfactory, for he presented himself again, but lower down, on the barbican wall, and immediately above the gate, where he thrust a cresset over the parapet, at the end of a long pole, and surveyed the visitors a second time. The species of light called a cresset, was formed of a loosely-twisted rope, dipped in pitch and resin, and coiled up in a little iron basket, which swung like a trivet between the prongs of a fork. It flared on the old walls of the tower, on the keen, peering eyes and waving grey beard of the old warder, as he shaded his grim face with his weather-beaten hand, and assured himself that those who came so late, and halloed so loud, were not Livingstones bent on stouthrief and hamesücken, but real and veritable travellers, lacking food and shelter for man and horse. Apparently this second and closer scrutiny, which the desperate nature of the times required and rendered common, satisfied his scruples; the flashing cresset was withdrawn, the gate was unclosed, and Florence, with his five companions, soon found himself in the hall or chamber of dais, in the little fortalice still known as the haunted castle of the Torwood.