Cast off these vile suspicions, and the fear
That makes it danger!
Southey.
The limited accommodation of this small tower could only afford two chambers for the unexpected visitors. To Florence, as a gentleman of known degree, was assigned the best; to Shelly and his companion Master Patten, as strangers and travellers, was assigned the other; while worthy Dick Hackerston and his friends, as mere "burgess bodies," or landward merchants, were left to wrap themselves in their cloaks and plaids, and to sleep on benches in the hall, after the fire had been heaped with fresh fuel, bog-wood, peat, and coal; and after the pale chatelaine and her children had withdrawn to rest.
The chamber of Florence was sombre in aspect. On one side the arras tapestry bore a representation of the Crucifixion, and before it stood a prie-dieu and kneeling-stool of black oak; on the latter lay a missal, richly gilded. The bed had four twisted spiral columns; which supported a gloomy entablature and canopy, adorned by funeral-like plumes of black feathers.
Before retiring to rest, Florence for a time found a pleasure and employment with the opal ring of Madeline, and a flame from the lamp seemed to play amid its changing hues.
In the superstition of that and preceding ages, and according to the ideas of those who practised the occult sciences, a mysterious and malignant power was believed to exist in the opal.
"Malignant!" thought he, as the dark story of the Highland feud and the memory of his mother's revengeful character occurred to him; "if it really be, that this strange stone, in which the flames seem to glow and waver, possesses any power over me, it can only be that of irresistible fatality."
When he thus spoke, or rather reflected, he seemed to hear the name and title of Madeline uttered by some one near him; or could it be the imagined echo of his own unuttered thoughts?
He paused and listened. Voices were speaking in an adjoining room; and as it was only separated by an old wainscot partition, the joints and panels of which were frail and gaping from age, he raised the arras and placed his ear close to an opening. The voices came from the chamber of the two Englishmen, whom he could perceive through the fracture in the boarding. They had not undressed, but had merely thrown off their doublets, and seemed resolved to sleep half ready for any emergency with their drawn swords beside them.
"And so the prospect alarms you, my brave bully boy?" continued Shelly, who was twisting his moustache before a mirror, and seemed to be bantering his companion.
"It doth, of a verity," replied Master Patten; "so let us pray the glorious Virgin Mary, that she keep us from witches, the Scots, and the devil!"
"Thou hast no fear of the fires in Smithfield?" said Shelly; "cogsbones! in old King Harry's time I have seen two fat citizens, and a lean apothecary from Aldgate, all burning in one blaze for saying little more. But, worthy Master Patten, when I am the husband of yonder sweet lady of Yarrow, what shall I make thee—seneschal, comptroller, or steward of the household? or would you prefer a snug place at court, where clerkly skill would avail thee? But, by St. George, thou wouldst need to sleep in a suit of mail, well tempered and graven with saintly miracles; for the avenues of a Scottish palace are well beset by swords and daggers."
"Marry come up! Master Shelly, don't talk of such things," replied Patten gravely. "By my soul, if I ever set foot in this cursed country of rough-footed and blue-capped heathens again, but under harness, may I never more see London stone or hear the bell of St. Paul's!"
"We found it more pleasant when mounting guard at Boulogne, making love to the market wenches at Calais, and playing the devil in the wine cabarets, eh? Bluff King Harry's service had more pleasantries and fewer perils than his son's—the little King Edward."
"Ugh! think of that devilish story of the Red-shanks who live but a few miles off—those Nabs or Neishes, or whatever the barbarians style themselves. Why, 'twas like the tales that old mariners tell us, at Puddle Wharf and London Bridge, of black devils and savages who dwell beyond Cape Flyaway, in the kingdom of Prester John, or in the Island of the Seven Cities, which can only be found, once in every hundred years. Nay, I shall settle me down somewhere within the sound of Bow bells, and doubt not that, for what I have done in the young king's service here in Scotland, our Lord Chancellor, Sir William Paulet, now Lord St. John of Basing (and who is to be Marquis of Winchester), or Sir William Petre, our most worthy Secretary of State, will make me some honourable provision."
"If not, mine honest Bill Patten, thou hast still thy sword and the scarlet-and-blue livery of a Boulogner; but, as I was saying, when I am fairly wedded—ha! ha! droll, is it not?—to my sweet Lady Yarrow, as the reward of my service here in Scotland——"
Florence did not wait to hear what the heedless Englishman proposed to do after this happy event; but, dropping the arras, he took his sword, and leaving the chamber, knocked roughly at the door of the two strangers, who started to their weapons before they opened it.
"Sirs," said Florence sternly, "I have discovered you to be two spies of the Protector Somerset."
"Discovered! Then you have been listening?" said Shelly with admirable coolness, though his nut-brown cheek grew pale with anger.
"How I have come to know it, matters not; but the plain fact stands manifest—you are spies!"
"Spies?" reiterated Shelly, trembling with suppressed passion.
"I have said so."
"Be wary, sir—be wary; I wear a sword."
"Edward Shelly, captain of King Henry's Boulogners, need not remind any one that he wears a sword, and can use it too. His name has found an echo even in the chambers of the Tournelles and the Louvre, where I have heard him praised as a true and valiant soldier."
"I thank you, squire—I mean, laird of Fawside—for this compliment; but——"
"To be a spy!"
"Tudieu! as we used to say at Boulogne," exclaimed Shelly furiously; "do not repeat that hateful word!—well?"
"Is to deserve the gallows."
"You are deceived, sir,—I tell you, deceived. I am no spy, by all that is sacred on earth!" replied Shelly hoarsely; for he was striving to master his pride and passion. "Remember," he added, involuntarily placing his left hand upon the secret pocket which contained his perilous despatches—"remember that you were accused of being a spy of the dukes of Guise and Mayenne."
"But falsely so."
"As I may be of being an emissary of Edward Duke of Somerset."
"Then what meaneth all I overheard about your services in Scotland—of Sir William Petre and the Lord St. John of Basing, both of whom are well-known intriguers and favourers of the mad schemes of the late King Henry?"
"'Tis exceedingly probable that they are so," replied Shelly evasively; "for you must know that one is Lord High Chancellor of England, and the other is Secretary of State."
He spoke slowly, to gain time for thought, as he felt all the perils of their position, and glanced down the dark corridor without, surmising, if he suddenly slew Fawside, how he and Patten could get out of the tower, and escape into the forest. The project seemed too desperate; for it scarcely occurred to him, when he relinquished it.
"Now, hark you, sir," said he. "To make this matter short, is it your purpose to make us prisoners?"
"No; for I would not wittingly bring two unfortunate men to a public and infamous death, more especially he of whom I heard so much in France, the brave leader of the English Boulogners."
"'Tis well, sir," replied Shelly, in a voice that seemed to falter with honest emotion. "You act generously; though, had you resolved otherwise, you had got but two dead bodies for your pains."
"Dead bodies?" queried Master Patten anxiously.
"Yes," added Shelly firmly; "for I would have run you through the heart, my friend, to seal your lips for ever; and then I would have fought to the last—yea, to the very death-gasp; for never shall a pestilent Scot fix an iron fetter on this hand, which planted the red cross of England on the Tour de l'Ordre!"
"In this chamber you have more than once to-night mentioned the name of a lady," said Florence gravely.
"Exactly; the Countess of Yarrow—bonny Madeline Home," replied Shelly gaily, and with a most provoking smile. "But what then?"
"You actually aspire to her hand,—you, a stranger, a foreigner?"
"Cogsbones! yea, to more; and who shall dare to gainsay me?"
"I do," replied Florence, who felt himself growing alternately pale and red with the anger that gathered in his heart.
"You! On what pretence or principle?"
"As her accepted lover."
"Whew!" whistled Shelly. "The deuce and the devil! Dost thou say so? Then I suppose we shall come to blows, after all."
"Not here, at least," said Florence, with the calmness of concentrated rage in his tone, though his brow was crimson and his eyes were sparkling with light; "to fight here were to destroy you and your companion. I know not on what your presumptuous aspirations are based; but if we meet not in battle ere thirty days from this be passed, I shall send my cartel to the Marshal of Berwick, and challenge you to a solemn single combat."
"Good! I am easily found when wanted for such work; and so, until that pleasant meeting be arranged——"
"Adieu, sirs."
"A good repose to you," said Shelly, closing the door of his room and carefully securing it.
"What think you of all this?" asked Patten, with some alarm and excitement in his face and manner.
"By St. John the Silent! I was beginning to think we were to prate at the door all night," yawned Shelly, with a tone of irritation, as he threw himself upon his couch, spread his mantle over him, and went to sleep with the readiness of a soldier—a readiness provoking to Master Patten, who, after their late visitor's departure, felt doubly anxious and wakeful.
In the morning, when Florence, with Hackerston, and the three burgesses, bade their farewell to Lady Muriel, and left the tower of the Torwood, they found that their two English friends (concerning whose names and purpose Florence observed a steady silence) had arisen by daylight, obtained a guide, betaken them to horse, and three hours before had disappeared by the eastern road through the forest.