Read Ebook: Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 18 by Wilson John Mackay Compiler Leighton Alexander Editor

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Ebook has 931 lines and 97506 words, and 19 pages

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THOMAS OF CHARTRES, , 1

THE FUGITIVE, , 33

THE BRIDE OF BRAMBLEHAUGH, , 63

GLEANINGS OF THE COVENANT, --

THE SURGEON'S TALES, --

THE MONOMANIAC, 127

THE FOUNDLING AT SEA, , 159

THE ASSASSIN, , 178

THE PRISONER OF WAR, , 191

WILLIE WASTLE'S ACCOUNT OF HIS WIFE, , 223

THE STONE-BREAKER, , 255

LAIRD RORIESON'S WILL, , 276

WILSON'S TALES OF THE BORDERS AND OF SCOTLAND.

THOMAS OF CHARTRES.

One morning, early in the spring of 1298, a small Scottish vessel lay becalmed in the middle of the Irish Channel, about fifteen leagues to the south of the Isle of Man. During the whole of the previous night, she had been borne steadily southward, by a light breeze from off the fast receding island; but it had sunk as the sun rose, and she was now heaving slowly to the swell, which still continued to roll onward, in long glassy ridges from the north. A thick fog had risen as the wind fell--one of those low sea fogs which, leaving the central heavens comparatively clear, hangs its dense, impervious volumes around the horizon; and the little vessel lay as if imprisoned within a circular wall of darkness, while the sun, reddened by the haze, looked down cheerily upon her from above. She was a small and very rude-looking vessel, furnished with two lug-sails of dark brown, much in the manner of a modern Dutch lugger; with a poop and forecastle singularly high, compared with her height in the waist; and with sides which, attaining their full breadth scarcely a foot over the water, sloped abruptly inwards, towards the deck, like the wall of a mole or pier. The parapet-like bulwarks of both poop and forecastle were cut into deep embrasures, and ran, like those of a tower, all around the areas they enclosed, looking down nearly as loftily on the midships as on the water. The sides were black as pitch could render them--the sails scarcely less dark; but, as if to shew man's love of the ornamental in even the rudest stage of art, a huge misshapen lion flared in vermillion on the prow, and over the stern hung the blue flag of Scotland, with the silver cross of St Andrew stretching from corner to corner.

From eight to ten seamen lounged about the decks. They were uncouth-looking men, heavily attired in jerkins and caps of blue woollen, with long, thick beards, and strongly-marked features. The master, a man considerably advanced in life--for, though his eye seemed as bright as ever, his hair and beard had become white as snow--was rather better dressed. He wore above his jerkin a short cloak of blue which confessed, in its finer texture, the superiority of the looms of Flanders over those of his own country; and a slender cord of silver ran round a cap of the same material. His nether garments, however, were coarse and rude as those of his seamen; and the shoes he wore were fashioned, like theirs, of the undressed skin of the deer, with the hair still attached; giving to the foot that brush-like appearance which had acquired to his countrymen of the age, from their more polished neighbours, the appellation of rough-footed Scots. Neither the number, nor the appearance of the crew, singular and wild as the latter was, gave the vessel aught of a warlike aspect; and yet there were appearances that might have led one to doubt whether she was quite so unprepared for attack or defence as at the first view might be premised. There ran round the butt of each mast a rack filled with spears, of more knightly appearance than could have belonged to a few rude seamen--for of some of these the handles were chased with silver, and to some there were strips of pennon attached; and a rich crimson cloak, with several pieces of mail, were spread out to the morning sun, on one of the shrouds.

The crew, we have said, were lounging about the deck, unemployed in the calm, when a strong, iron-studded door opened in the poop, and a young and very handsome man stepped forward.

"Has my unfortunate cloak escaped stain?" he said to the master. "Your sea-water is no brightener of colour."

"It will not yet much ashame you, Clelland," said the master, "even amid the gallants of France; but, were it worse, there is little fear, with these eyes of yours, of being overlooked by the ladies."

"Nay, now, Brichan, that's but a light compliment from so grave a man as you," said Clelland. "You forget how small a chance I shall have beside my cousin."

"Not jealous of the Governor, Clelland, I hope?" said the old man, gaily. "Nay, trust me, you are in little danger. Sir William is perhaps quite as handsome a man as you, and taller by the head and shoulders; but, trust me, no one will ever think of him as a pretty fellow. He stands too much alone for that. Has he risen yet?"

"Risen!--he has been with the chaplain for I know not how long. Their Latin broke in upon my dreams two hours ago. But what have we yonder, on the edge of that bank of fog! Is it one of the mermaidens you were telling me of yesterday?"

Clelland stepped up to the door in the poop, and shouted hastily to his companions within--"Strange sails in sight!--supposed enemies--it were well to don your armours." And then turning to a seaman. "Assist me, good fellow," he said, "in bracing on mine."

"Thomas of Chartres, to a certainty!" exclaimed the master--"and not a breath to bear us away! Would to heavens that I were dead and buried, or had never been born!"

"Why all this ado, Brichan?" said Clelland, who, assisted by the sailor, was coolly buckling on his mail. "It was never your wont before, to be thus annoyed by danger."

"It is not for myself I fear, noble Clelland," said the master, "if the Governor were but away and safe. But, oh, to think that the pride and stay of Scotland should fall into the merciless hands of a pirate dog! Would that my own life, and the lives of all my crew, could but purchase his safety!"

"Take heart, old man," said Clelland, with dignity. "Heaven watches over the fortunes of the Governor of Scotland; nor will it suffer him to fall obscurely by the hands of a mere plunderer of merchants and seamen.--Rax me my long spear."

As he spoke, the Governor himself stepped forward from the door in the poop, enveloped from head to foot in complete armour. He was a man of more than kingly presence--taller, by nearly a foot, than even the tallest man on deck, and broader across the shoulders by full six inches; but so admirably was his frame moulded, that, though his stature rose to the gigantic, no one could think of him as a giant. His visor was up, and exhibited a set of high handsome features, and two of the finest blue eyes that ever served as indexes to the feelings of a human soul. His chin and upper lip were thickly covered with hair of that golden colour so often sung by the elder poets; and a few curling locks of rather darker shade escaped from under his helmet. A man of middle stature and grave saturnine aspect, who wore a monk's frock over a coat of mail, came up behind him.

"What is to befall us now, cousin Clelland?" said the Governor. "Does not the truce extend over the channel, think you?"

"Ah, these are not English enemies, noble sir," replied the master. "We have fallen on the fleet of the infamous Thomas of Chartres."

"And who is Thomas of Chartres?" asked the Governor.

"A cruel and bloodthirsty pirate--the terror of these seas for the last sixteen years. Wo is me!--we have neither force enough to fight, nor wind to bear us away!"

"Two large vessels," said the Governor, stepping up to the side, "full of armed men, too; but we muster fifty, besides the sailors; and, if they attempt boarding us, it must be by boat. Is it not so, master? The calm which fixes us here, must prevent them from laying alongside and overmastering us."

"Ah, yes, noble sir," said the master; "but we see only a part of the fleet."

"Were there ten fleets," exclaimed Clelland, impatiently, "I have met with as great odds ashore--and here comes Crawford."

The door in the poop was again thrown open, and from forty to fifty warriors, in complete armour, headed by a tall and powerful-looking man, came crowding out, and then thronged around the masts, to disengage their spears. They were all robust and hardy-looking men--the flower apparently of a country side; and the coolness and promptitude with which they ranged themselves round their leader, to wait his commands, shewed that it was not now for the first time they had been called on to prepare for battle. They were, in truth, tried veterans of the long and bloody struggle which their country had maintained with Edward--men who, ere they had united under a leader worthy to command them, had resisted the enemy individually, and preserved, amid their woods and fastnesses, at least their personal independence. Such a party of such men, however great the odds opposed to them, could not, in any circumstances, be deemed other than formidable.

"We are not born for peace, countryman," said the Governor--"war follows us even here. Meanwhile, lie down, that the enemy mark not our numbers. That foremost vessel is lowering her boat, and yonder tall man in scarlet, who takes his seat in the bows, seems to be a leader."

"It is Thomas of Chartres, himself," said the master. "I know him well. Some five-and-twenty years ago, we sailed together from Palestine."

"And what," asked the Governor, "could have brought a false pirate there?"

"He was no false pirate then," replied the master, "but a true Christian knight; and bravely did he fight for the sepulchre. But, on his return to France, where he had been pledged to meet with his lady-love, he fell under the displeasure of the King, his master; and, ever since, he has been a wanderer and a pirate. You will see, as he approaches, the scallop in his basnet; and be sure he will be the first man to board us."

"Excellent," exclaimed the Governor, gaily; "we shall hold him hostage for the good behaviour of his fleet. Mark me, cousin Crawford. His barge shoves off, and the men bend to their oars. He will be here in a twinkling. Do you stand by our good Ancient--would there were but wind enough to unfurl it!--and the instant he bids us strike, why, lower it to the deck; but be as sure you hoist it again when you see him fairly aboard. And you, dear Clelland, do you take your stand here on the deck beside me, and see to it, when I am dealing with the pirate, that you keep your long spear between us and his crew. It will be strange if he boast of his victory this bout."

The men, at the command of their leader, had prostrated themselves on the deck, while his two brethren in arms, Crawford and Clelland, stationed themselves at his bidding--the one on the vessel's poop, directly under the pennon, the other at his side in the midships. The pirate's barge, glittering to the sun with arms and armour, and crowded with men, rowed lustily towards them; but, while yet a full hundred yards away, a sudden breeze from the west began to murmur through the shrouds, and the bellying sails swelled slowly over the side.

"Heaven's mercy be praised!" exclaimed the master, "we shall escape them yet. Lay her easy to the wind, good Crawford--lay her easy to the wind, and we shall bear out through them all."

"Nay, cousin, nay," said the Governor, his eyes flashing with eagerness, "the pirate must not escape us so. Lay the vessel to. Turn her head full to the wind. And you, captain, draw off your men to the hold. We must not lose our good sailors; and these woollens of yours will scarcely turn a French arrow. Nay, 'tis I who am master now"--for the old man seemed disposed to linger. "I may resign my charge, perhaps, by and by; but you must obey me now."

The master and his sailors left the deck. The barge of the pirate came sweeping onward till within two spears' length of the vessel, and then hailed her with no courtly summons of surrender. "Strike, dogs, strike! or you shall fare the worse!" It was the pirate himself who spoke, and Crawford, at his bidding, pulled down the Ancient. The barge dashed alongside. Thomas of Chartres, a very tall and very powerful man, seized hold of the bulwark rail with one hand, and bearing a naked sword in the other, leaped fearlessly aboard, within half a yard of where the Governor stood, half-concealed by the shrouds and the bulwarks. In a moment the sword was struck down, and the intruder locked in the tremendous grasp of the first champion of his time. Crawford hoisted the Ancient, yard-high, to the new-risen breeze; while Clelland struck his long spear against the pirate who had leaped on the gunwale to follow his leader, with such hearty good-will that the steel passed through targe and corselet, and he fell back a dead man into the boat. In an instant the concealed party had sprung from the deck, and fifty Scottish spears bristled over the gunwale, interposing their impenetrable hedge between the pirate crew and their leader. For a moment, the latter had striven to move his antagonist; but, powerful and sinewy as he was, he might as well have attempted to uproot an oak of an hundred summers. While yet every muscle was strained in the exertion, the Governor swung him from off his feet, suspended him at arm's length for full half a moment in the air, and then dashed him violently against the deck. A stream of blood gushed from mouth and nostril, and he lay stunned and senseless where he fell. Meanwhile, the crew of the barge, taken by surprise, and outnumbered, shoved off a boat's length beyond reach of the spears, and then rested on their oars.

"He revives," said the warrior in the monk's frock, going up to the fallen pirate. "Reiver though he be, he has fought for the holy sepulchre, and has worn golden spurs."

"I will deal with him right knightly," said the Governor. "Yield thee, Sir Thomas of Chartres," he continued, bending over the prisoner, and holding up a dagger to his face--"yield thee true hostage for the good conduct of thy fleet--or shall I call the confessor?"

"I yield me true hostage," said the fallen man. "But who art thou, terrible warrior, that o'ermasterest De Longoville of France as if he were a stripling of twelve summers? Art Wallace, the Scottish Champion!"

"Thou yieldest, De Longoville," said the Governor, "to Sir William Wallace of Elderslie. But how is it that I meet, in the infamous Thomas of Chartres, that true soldier of the Cross, De Longoville? I have heard minstrels sing of thy deeds against the Saracen, Sir Knight, while I was yet a boy; and yet here art thou now, the dread of the wandering sailor and the merchant--a chief among thieves and pirates."

"Alas! noble Wallace, thou sayest too truly," said Sir Thomas; "but yet wouldst thou deem me as worthy of pity as of censure, didst thou but know all, and the remorse I even now endure. For a full year have I determined to quit this wild, unknightly mode of life, and go a pilgrim as of old; not to fight for the sepulchre--for the battles of the Cross are over--not to fight, but to die for it. But I accept, noble champion, this my first defeat on sea, as a message from heaven. Accept of me as true soldier under thee, and I will fight for thee in thy country's quarrel, to the death."

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