What is the worst of woes that wait an age?
What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?
To view each loved one blotted from life's page,
And be on earth, alone, as I am now.
Byron.
As Florence and his companions took the same road that led towards Lothian, he reflected on all that he had heard pass between Shelly and Patten on the preceding evening; and though he humanely felt some satisfaction that they were gone, and consequently, he hoped, in safety, the circumstance of the English gentleman canvassing to his comrade so openly and confidently the prospect of his marriage with the Countess of Yarrow, occasioned ample food for reflection, and for those perplexing and annoying thoughts which suggest themselves so readily to the restless imagination of a lover.
"He has seen her, and knows she is beautiful, rich, and beloved by Mary of Lorraine," thought he; "and a mere spirit of empty bravado has made him speak thus. Madeline may be able to solve the mystery; if not, I have still my sword, and dearly shall Master Shelly pay for his empty boasting."
As they passed through Falkirk, they found the whole population of that place (then a little thatched burgh of barony) in the streets and thronging the porch of the ancient church of St. Modan, where the bell was being solemnly tolled in the old square steeple. The faces of all they met, were expressive of dismay and excitement. A dead body (of a recanted heretic, of course), which had been possessed by an evil spirit, was on that day cast thrice out of its grave, in the dark depth of which it could only be retained in peace at last by Father Andrew Haig (the last Catholic vicar of the church) placing the consecrated Host upon the coffin, and having the earth heaped over it.
This ghastly marvel furnished ample matter for conversation until the travellers passed the Almond by a boat at Temple-Liston. There the river, which is now spanned by a bridge of very ordinary dimensions, was then so broad that for centuries it was crossed by a regular ferry-boat; and as the current was swollen and rolling rapidly, some time elapsed before the little party of men and horses were safely transported to its eastern bank.
Near this ferry, upon the soft yellow moss of a long lea-rig, sat a party of ploughmen and shepherds, making a rustic banquet of rye and soft scones, with milk, curds, and clouted cream, or sourkitts, as it was named from the staved kitts in which it was held. Some of these peasants wore hoods of blue or brown cloth, buttoned under the chin, and all had the grey plaid, or one of dull striped tartan, thrown over the left shoulder. Each had a knife at his girdle, and, in the old Scotch fashion, a horn spoon, which dangled at his hood or bonnet lug. The peasant girls had their hair snooded, and were bare-legged, though their feet were encased in cuarans of untanned hide, tied with thongs above the ankle.
The morose gloom subsequent to the Reformation had not yet fallen upon the people, and this peasant group, while their herds and horses grazed near, before resuming labour in the fields, proceeded to amuse themselves with the buck-horn and corn-pipe, and danced to the music of these and the lilting of their own voices, for such were the simple manners and enjoyments of the peasantry in the olden time.
The quiet aspect of the landscape, which possessed all the tints of summer ripened and mellowed into autumn; the merry peasants dancing on the greensward; the blue river flowing in front, and the herds that dotted its banks basking in the sunshine; while on the steep beyond rose the grey turreted preceptory and Norman church of the Knights of St. John,—made Florence think with sorrow of the change a month of war and havock might work here; and full of such reflections and of his own affairs, his secret love, his hostile mother, and his unfinished feud, he listened with some impatience to the prosing of honest Dick Hackerston, who rehearsed the magnitude of his own commercial transactions, to wit, how for my lord the Abbot Ballantyne of Holyrood he sold the wool of all the sheep which ranged upon the abbey lands at Liberton and Coldbrandspath, and the skins and hides of all the animals slaughtered for the plentiful table of that great monastery; and how he bought, bartered, or procured in return, from the French, the Flemings, and the English, raisins, almonds, rice, loaf-sugar, love-apples, oranges, olives, ginger, mace, and pepper; for Master Peter Posset great boxes of dried herbs and apothecaries' stuffs; for the court ladies bales of French romances; for Ralph Riddle, of the "Golden Rose," cases of Rhenish, Malvoisie, and Gascon wines, and so forth; till our young gentleman of 1547, who felt just about as much interest in such matters as one of the present age might feel in scrip and railway shares, bank-stock and bonds, yawned with sheer weariness, when, at the west port of Edinburgh, he bade adieu to his mercantile companions, and, without halting to refresh his horse, took the road which, after passing the castles of Craigmillar and Brunstane, led direct to his own secluded home.
The shades of evening were deepening on the level but fertile landscape, on the distant hills, and on the darkening sea, when he drew up in the court of Fawside tower, and on dismounting hastened to meet his mother. With a stern lip and tearful eye she received him, and with a settled gloom, on her pale white brow; for, clad in her deepest dooleweeds, she had spent the day in prayer and meditation between the tombs Of her husband and her eldest son in the church of Tranent; and now, with a sigh of bitter impatience, she beheld poor Florence, who was oppressed by the sombre aspect of a home such as she made it, toss aside his sword and steel coursing-hat, and sink wearily and in silence into a chair near the hall fire.
"So, so, you are weary?" said she, supporting herself on her long cane with one hand, while with grim kindness she patted his head with the other. "While ye have been wandering like a fule-bairn between Edinburgh and Stirling, or Gude alane kens where, our tenants have neglected, for the first time in their lives, to bring their Lammas wheat into the barbican, whilk, as you ken, they are bound to send duly tied in a sack to you as their overlord."
"Oh, mother, heed not the Lammas wheat; anon we shall have other things to think of than the collecting of rent or kain."
"Hah!—say you so? Then the news at Edinburgh Cross——"
"Is war?"
"'Tis well! Our men have been turning to women since the fields of Ancrum and Solway. And this war is, of course, anent the marriage of a boy king and a baby queen; a brave matter, truly, for bearded men to fight about!"
"It would seem so; and now I almost begin to agree with the Lord Huntly's view of this coming strife."
"Indeed!" said his mother, with more of scorn than curiosity in her manner; "and what may his view be?"
"That he dislikes not the match."
"The false Highland limmer!" she hissed through her set teeth; "so he dislikes not the match——"
"But hates the manner of wooing."
"Now, by the souls of my ancestors who are in Heaven!" exclaimed Dame Alison, striking her long cane fiercely on the paved floor of the hall, "I love the manner of wooing, and thus may Scotland and England ever woo each other, with hands gloved and helmets barred; for I hate the accursed match, and would rather see the child Mary Stuart strangled in the cradle, and her sceptre become the heritage of Arran, than live to be the bride of the apostate Henry's son and the crowned queen of our hereditary enemies! And now, since we are talking of foemen, saw ye aught in your gowk-like rambling of the hell-brood who bide in the barred tower on yonder lea?"
"I did, mother," sighed Florence.
"Preston himself, perhaps."
"Yea, mother; thrice."
"Hath manhood gone out of the land! And ye parted, as ye met, sakeless and bloodless?"
"As you see me, mother," replied Florence, overwhelmed by the bitterness of thoughts he dared not utter.
"Saints of God!" she exclaimed, and raised her clenched hand as if she would have smote him on his sad but handsome face; then suddenly repressing the fierce impulse, she turned abruptly and left the hall.
Florence thought of the sweet merry eyes of Madeline Home; and all their memory was requisite to render life endurable with such a welcome to his mother's hearth.