After riding about three leagues, they saw the castle, and a goodly one it seemed; for before it ran a river, and it had a drawbridge, whereon was a fair tower at the end.—Amadis de Gaul.
Florence now recognized the face of Edward Shelly.
"We have met before—to-day, I think, in the streets of Stirling?" said he.
"Exactly—and what then?" asked Shelly, bluntly and uneasily.
"Nothing, save that I am pleased to see in this solitary place a face that is in any way familiar to me."
Shelly bowed, and smiled pleasantly; for the errand which brought him into Scotland, and the dangerous papers with which he was entrusted—papers bearing signatures involving war, and death, and treason—kept him ever anxious, restless, and suspicious of all who approached him.
The chatelaine or mistress of the mansion—-the Lady Torwood, as she was named, though but the widow of a landed gentleman, whose possessions lay principally amid the wilds of that once extensive forest, now approached. She wore a black silk dooleweed, with a cross of white velvet sewn on the left shoulder, in memory of her deceased husband (a mark of mourning which was introduced into Scotland by the late king, on the death of his first queen Magdalene of Valois); she was young, for her years were under six-and-twenty, pale and saddened in expression. Three little children, the eldest of whom was not over three years, all clad in black dresses, each with a little white cross on the shoulder, nestled among the ample skirts of her dooleweed, and peeped in mingled alarm and wonder at the strangers, whom the lady received courteously: for in those days the halls of the landholders and the refectories of the monasteries were the halting-places of all travellers, when, neither inns nor taverns could be found; and, indeed, prejudices against the latter ran so high that acts were passed by parliament, to enforce the patronage of hostelries.
Lady Torwood's manner of receiving her visitors was singularly soft and polite; yet it was not unmixed with anxiety, for her little tower stood in a lonely place, and six well-armed strangers were not quite the kind of people a widowed mother might wish to see in that lawless time. The extreme paleness of her complexion contrasted strongly with the blackness of her smooth shining hair and the darkness of her eyes and lashes, while her figure and bearing had all that fawn-like grace which is (or was) peculiar to the women of certain northern clans in Scotland.
"We crave your pardon for this untimely intrusion, madame," said Florence, courteously, "but we have been belated and astray in the forest; and as I have had a quarrel—one of those unpleasant things that will ensue at times among armed men,—a crossing of swords, in fact, with a Livingstone, you will readily understand that my vicinity to the Callender——"
"Sirs, you are welcome here, apologies are unnecessary," replied the lady, whose accent sounded somewhat like that of a foreigner, for she belonged to a Celtic tribe, and had acquired the Lowland language as that of another people. "You have had a quarrel with a Livingstone," she continued, while her quiet dark eyes were filled by a momentary light; "that name has cost me dear indeed! but let me not think of it now. Here you are safe, sir—your names——"
"Dick Hackerston, a burgess o' Edinburgh," replied the burly proprietor of the Jethart axe; "and my friends are also free burgesses and landward merchants like mysel'. My booth is nigh unto Master Posset's lodging,—an unco' strange man he is, my lady; he cured the sair eyne o' a bairn o' mine, by rubbing them thrice wi' a grey cat's tail."
"And you, sirs?" said the lady, smiling, and turning to Shelly and Patten.
"Englishmen, of Berwick," replied the former.
"Englishmen!" reiterated the fair chatelaine, colouring—for the laws against harbouring them were so severe as to involve the highest penalties.
"Be assured, madam," replied the confident Shelly; "we travel under the lord warden's especial protection."
"And I am Florence Fawside of that ilk, in East Lothian."
"I have heard of you—at least, of your family," replied the lady, while another gleam heightened her pale and pretty face, "and of their long feud with the Hamiltons of Preston. Dearly have such feuds cost me and mine! In one, my whole race perished, save myself; and in another, I lost my dear gudeman, his brother, and many brave friends and kinsmen, leaving me a forlorn widow, with these three sakeless bairns to rear."
"Live in hope, madam," replied Florence, with something of the spirit in which his mother reared him.
"Hope?" questioned the widow sadly, as she lifted her meek eyes to his; "what hope is there for me!"
"That these children may one day avenge you!"
"Oh, sir, speak not thus," said she anxiously, while one white hand and arm went involuntarily round the curly head of her eldest little one; "forbid it, God! I hope to teach them that not unto us, but to Him alone belongeth vengeance."
"Would that my mother had reared us as this gentle woman rears her little brood!" thought Florence, struck by her resigned spirit and Madonna-like aspect; "my brother had now been spared to us,—and Madeline, my love for her had then been no secret, like a deadly sin; but, alas! my father's blood is yet upon her kinsman's sword and soul!"
These and many similar ideas passed through his mind, while refreshments were placed upon the table; a cold chine of beef, manchets, and oat cakes, with flagons of Lammas ale; and the wants of the six guests were promptly attended to by the servants of the tower, while its mistress sat by the fire, in the only arm-chair in the hall, with her feet resting on a tabourette, and her three children nestling by her side, or playing and frolicking, with the lurchers and terriers that were stretched on the hearth, which was covered by a large straw matting, the work of those tawny outlaws the Egyptians, a tribe of whom had been lurking in the Torwood since the days of their patron James IV.
The usual evening meal had long been over in Torwood Tower; thus the lady sat apart from all, but conversed freely with her unexpected guests, more especially with Florence and Shelly: but the latter, though by nature the most frank and jovial of all jovial and frank fellows, felt the peculiarity, the delicacy and danger of his situation, and thus became singularly reserved. He therefore sought to turn the conversation as much as possible from subjects likely to lead to himself, to his companion Master Patten, or to their object in venturing into Scotland, whither Englishmen seldom came in those days of war and mutual mistrust, but with harness on their backs. In that age, before the invention of newspapers, the sole means of circulating current events (all of which were unusually marvellous) were passing travellers, pardoners, and begging friars, who gave their own version of "wars and rumours of wars," of battles, of fiery dragons, of spectres, devils, omens, and other wonders, which, with an occasional miracle in church, formed the staple topics of conversation in the middle ages, and for a long time after them, in Scotland. Thus, afraid that, as a stranger and wayfarer, he might be unpleasantly questioned by the inmates of this secluded tower, and lured to admit more than prudence suggested or patience brooked, Shelly, with considerable tact, led the fair chatelaine to speak entirely of her own affairs.
"And did your husband fall in battle?" he asked, with affected sympathy.
"Nay, sir; but in one of these vile civil brawls which are socially and morally the scourge of Scotland; and which our kings have always striven, but in vain, to crush. He and his father had been long at feud with the Livingstones, about the right of forestry in the Torwood,—even as the Fawsides have been at feud with the Hamiltons anent the right of pasturage on Gladsmuir; and with the same rancour they and their armed followers fought whenever they met, afield, at market, at church, in burgh, and on highway. Many were wickedly slain, and many grievously wounded, on both sides, till once, when the late King James of blessed memory was hunting in the Torwood, and both were in attendance on him, he commanded my husband and Alexander Lord Livingstone to take each other's hands in token of perpetual amity,—and in case of refusal, he threatened to commit them to the Peel of Blackness. Slowly, unwillingly, and with no consenting souls they did so, and, with a glare of hate in their eyes, vowed a hollow friendship over a cup of wine; and merrily the good King James drained it; to them both, fondly believing, in the kindness of his heart, that he had stanched the feud for ever. A vain hope! The day was passed in the forest; many a wolf, white bull, and deer were slaughtered, and many a horse and dog were gored and disembowelled in the conflict. Night came on, and, flushed with the king's good wine, their good cheer, and the excitement of the chase, the hunters separated; and before the midhour had passed, my poor husband, when on his way home, was beset by the Livingstones, led by the laird of Champfleurie, and, failing to reach the sanctuary of St. Modan's kirk, was barbarously murdered at Callender Bog, where, three days after, his fair body, sore gashed by many a ghastly wound, and divested of baldrick, bugle, sword, and dagger, was found by our sleuth dogs;—and, woe is me! his winsome eyes had been plucked forth by the gleds or eagles. We buried him in St. Modan's kirk, and therein I founded an altar, where masses shall be said for his soul's repose so long as the world shall last, at ten marks the mass. Heaven guide that the feud may be forgotten in his early grave, for I have seen enough of such horrors in my time; and the memory of them, so far from inciting me to vengeance, like the stern lady of Fawside, fills me with dismay and woe."
"Would that my mother could hear this gentle woman speak!" thought Florence; "yet what would it avail me?"
"I come from the north country, sir," resumed the lady, her manner warming as she spoke; "from a district and of a race, where the blood of men, though shed more freely, waxes hotter than in the Lowlands here. My name is Muriel MacNeish, or MacIldhui; and I saw, in one night, all who bore my name and shared my blood, laid corpses round our hearth, as the closing scene of one of the darkest feuds that ever shed death and horror over the lovely vale of the Earn!"
To draw attention from his own affairs, Edward Shelly expressed some curiosity to hear her story; so, while Florence and his companions drew round, the Lady Muriel related the following legend, to which, from the resemblance borne by one of the characters to his mother, our hero listened with deep interest; and which, as it contains much that is private, as well as public history, we will take the liberty of rehearsing here, in our own words and in our own way.