Read Ebook: Mary of Lorraine by Grant James

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Ebook has 2396 lines and 139854 words, and 48 pages

"And he not here yet!" pondered the lady.

"Was about the dawning of the day, madam."

"And since then," continued the lady impatiently, "she has not passed the Inch."

"There have been no storms to delay the ship?"

"None, save that made by Girzy Gowdie, of Salt Preston, by baptising a cat in the devil's name last week, as we a' ken."

"But that storm came and went to drown a skipper of Dunbar, who had slighted her daughter."

"And yesterday," added Nurse Maude, "she did her penance under a pile o' tarred barrels on Gulane Links."

"Rightly was she served, the accursed witch!" responded Roger of Westmains, recovering the wooden cup and applying it hastily to the spiggot of the barrel, from whence he achieved a draught of ale; "for 'tis now kenned that when she rode forth on a broom stick, in the auld fashion, thrice a year, to keep the devil's sabbath at Clootie's Croft, on the Lammermuir, she left in bed beside her gudeman, a three-legged stool in the likeness of herself; and the said stool only assumed its own form when Father John of Tranent, chanced to pass that way, telling his beads, about the matin time."

"Cease this gossip, bailie," said the lady, starting again to the north window; "a horseman!--see, see!--a horseman at last is ascending the brae side."

"But he wheels off to Carberry," added the nurse, in a voice like a moan.

"Alas!" exclaimed this stern woman, as her eyes began to fill with tears--"my son; why comes he not?"

"The dogs howled the lee lang night," said the wrinkled nurse, applying her apron to her eyes; "and 'twas not for nocht that yonder howlet screamed on the cape-house head yestreen."

"What mean ye, Maud?" asked the lady sharply.

"They are kenned omens of evil."

"Of evil say ye!"

"Yes--weel awat it is!"

"Havers, Kimmer!" said the ground bailie, taking another jug of ale; "just an auld wife's havers!"

"Thou art right, Westmains," added Lady Alison; "for I have believed but little in omens since Flodden Field was stricken."

"Why since then, lady?"

"I mind it weel, for it spread from ilk shoulder to the other, covering corslet and pauldrons."

"Well, as he combed it out with a steel comb twelve inches long, and buckled on his armour, lo! there appeared before him, in the mirror--what think ye all?"

"I know not," replied the bailie, in his abstraction contriving to fill a third jug of ale; "but many strange sights were seen in those days. We a' ken o' the spectres that King James saw at Lithgow Kirk and Jeddart Ha', and of the weird spirit-herald who summoned the souls of the slain--the doomed men of the battle at Edinburgh Cross."

"But what think you my poor husband saw!"

"As I live, I know not," replied the bailie; while the hushed crowd of dependents drew near to listen.

"A mort head where his own comely face should have been!"

"Preserve us a'!"

"Our lady o' Whitehorn!"

"Say ye so, my lady?" were the varied exclamations of the servants.

"Yes!--there stood the shining reflection of his cuirass, pauldrons, and sleeves of Milan plate, just as we see them limned in yonder portrait; but the gorget was surmounted by a grinning skull. And yet he fell not with the king on that fatal ninth of September."

"God rest him now, in his grave in Tranent Kirk! He was a leal brave man, our laird!"

"True, Westmains," replied the lady, while her large black eyes kindled. "But none of his race have died a natural death--it would seem to be their doom. All, all have perished in feud or in the cause of Scotland; and though my heart would break were a hair of my Florence's head to be touched, never shall son of this house die in his bed like a fat monk of St. Mary or a lurdane burgess of Haddington."

"Thou art true to thy race, Lady Alison."

"Tell me what other news you heard, Westmains, in yonder borough town?"

"A band of abominable witches have been dancing about the market cross, as they did last Hallowe'en, with the deil, in the likeness of a hairy Hielandman, playing the pipes to them."

"Pshaw! And yet, 'tis strange--this witchcraft, like the spirit of Lollardy, seems to grow apace in the land."

"Mary of Lorraine?"

"Another, of cutting off a dead man's thumbs to make hell-broth, wherein she dipped nine elf-arrows, and shot nine o' auld Preston's kye."

"A murrain on him! Would to Heaven the hag had shot himself! But he is reserved for a better end."

"How?"

"Save us and sain us!" muttered the servants, crossing themselves--for Scotland was Catholic still, in outward form, at least, and the credulity of the people seems almost incredible now.

"The devil! say you, Roger?" asked the lady, becoming suddenly interested.

"Enough of such tidings as these; heard ye nought else at Edinburgh-Cross, Westmains?"

"Else?"

"Yes, 'tis of my son and the state I would speak,--not the wretched gossip of an ale-brewster's spence. What is the queen-mother,--what are the Regent Arran and his pestilent Hamiltons about?"

"The regent bydes him at Holyrood, the queen-mother at her house on the Castle-hill; and there seems but little love and muckle jealousy between them yet, as I learned from a proclamation anent false coining, for which I saw three Frenchmen hanged and beheaded this morning."

"Anything more?"

"Odslife! I think that was enough to see before breaking one's fast; and then their heads were spiked, where six others girn, on the Bristo Porte."

"Goose! I would thine was with them; for the news I seek oozes out of thee like blood-drops."

"And there was an Irish leper woman branded by a hot iron on both cheeks, for returning uncleansed to her own house in St. Ninian's Row."

"Oh, Westmains, my heart is heavy!" said the lady, seating herself after a pause, during which the ground bailie had filled and drained a fourth cup, to which a fifth would have succeeded had not Nurse Maud, as a hint that he had imbibed enough already, angrily driven home the spiggot: "This day is the first of August; and at noon we heard Father John of Tranerit say mass for St. Peter's benediction, that the shorn lambs might escape the danger of cold."

"Mass according to the ancient wont."

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