"A fair response," replied the beautiful lady, gaily, caressing more tenderly the bishop's hand with her velvet-like fingers, while her bright eyes beamed into his, and the night currents blew her perfumed hair across his face; "pray ask him next, what is higher than heaven."
"He who made it," replied the pilgrim, bowing low. Then the evil spirit trembled, but again asked merrily:
"What is the distance from heaven to the base of the bottomless pit?"
"Ask that question of thyself, who hast measured the distance to the full, which I never did – thou accursed spirit!" replied the pilgrim furiously, beating thrice on the door with his staff, whereupon, with a shrill shriek, the Devil vanished from the side of the terrified bishop; but his conqueror remained for a time unmoved, and then quietly disappeared, seeming to melt away before the eyes of those who saw him.
Then Adrian fell upon his knees and returned thanks to heaven, and to his patron, St. Andrew, for escaping this last and most subtle snare of the evil one.
But now he found that the morning was far advanced; that already the combined armies of the Northern kings were meeting the hordes of Athelstan in the shock of battle; and so the sainted bishop came forth with a more than usually humble and contrite heart, and, attended by his crossbearer and followers, ascended an eminence in view of the field, and then he knelt down to pray for victory over the Saxons.
There in the hollow, through which the Peffer flowed among groves of oak towards the sea, the roar of battle rang – the tumultuous shouts and yells of triumph or agony, as Scot and Pict, or the yellow-haired Saxon, closed in mortal strife; the twanging of bows, the trampling of horses, the clash of axes, swords, and maces swung on ringing bucklers; or, as the ghisarma of the Saxon, the long tuagh of the Celt, clove hauberk of rings, or helmet of steel; and amid the carnage, wherever death and slaughter were deepest, rode the royal parricide, the terrible Athelstan; "of earls the lord, of heroes the bracelet giver," as the harpers who sang his praises styled him; but he was fated never again to hear their adulous strains, or see his wooden halls of Jorvik, or York as it is named now.
Despite the valour of King Hungus and his auxiliaries, the Saxons, among whom were many thousand southern Britons, forced to military service and slavery, were gradually gaining the victory, and the Scots and Picts were giving way, when lo!
Across the eastern quarter of the blue firmament there suddenly came a thunder cloud, the hues of which alternated between deep black and brilliant purple, though its ragged borders gleamed with golden tints. Lightning was seen to flash behind it, while hoarse thunder hurtled athwart the noonday sky, and sank growling into the estuary of the Forth, beyond the Isle of May.
Then the cloud opened, and amid a blaze of such light as that which dazzled Saul on his way to Damascus, there shone above the Scottish host, with an effulgence that made their serried helmets outshine the rays of the sun, the figure of St. Andrew the Apostle, on his cross, the two trees tied like the letter X, to which he had been bound, when scourged to death at Petræa, in Achaia.
Then St. Adrian lifted up his eyes, and knew in him the pilgrim of the blackweed; the same stranger who on the preceding night had saved him from the snares of the evil one, and falling on his knees, he bowed his silver hairs in the dust.
When he looked again, cloud, figure, and cross had passed away; but inspired by this miraculous omen of victory, the Scots and Picts rushed with new vigour on the Saxons, who were soon defeated, and with dreadful slaughter.
Athelstan was unhorsed by King Hungus, who slew him on the north bank of the Peffer, at a place named unto this day Athelstansford. The Picts buried him on the field; but his head was borne upon a spear to an islet of the Forth, where it was fixed for a time, and the place was long named, from that circumstance, Ardchin-nichun, or "the head of the highest."[1]
From that day St. Andrew became the patron of the Scots and Picts, who put his cross upon their banners, and the badges of the former, the thistle, and of the latter, the rue, were interwoven in the collar of the Knights of the most Ancient Order of the Thistle, instituted in honour of this victory; and in memory of the apostles their number is restricted to the reigning sovereign and twelve companions.
Upon the cathedral of St. Andrew, Hungus bestowed "a case of gold for preserving the reliques of the saint, many chalices and basons, the image of Christ in gold, and those of the apostles in silver," and the bishop Adrian toiled more than ever in the service of God and his patron, until the year 882, when some Danish rovers attacked his hermitage on the Isle of May, and barbarously slew him with all his followers.
His coffin, of stone, is still lying there, and the fishermen of the Forth aver that at times a wondrous light shines from it. He passed away in the odour of sanctity, and Killach the Penitencer succeeded him as second bishop of the see.
Such is the legend of the cross of St. Andrew, and how it became the cognizance of the Scottish nation.
CHAPTER VIII
I LOVE YOU
I do not seek to quench your love's hot fire,
But qualify the fire's extreme rage,
Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason.
By the time when the garrulous old abbot had concluded his story the night was far advanced. The lights in the sconces and the fire had burned low, while the ladies looked pale and weary, and all who were not in immediate attendance upon the earl and countess of Douglas, prepared to seek their habitations in the city.
As these were paying their several adieux, Sir Patrick Gray came close to Murielle, and tenderly pressed her hand; but she gazed upon him with a sad and foreboding expression.
"Courage, Murielle, courage!" he whispered; "with strength and bravery on my side, with equal love and goodness on yours, our mutual stedfast faith and hope, we may yet overcome everything."
"Even the prejudices of my sister?"
"Ay, even the hatred, for such it is, of your sister, – the sombre pride and wrath of that fierce boy her husband."
"Oh, that it may be so!" she whispered, breathlessly; "but there are times when I have strange fears."
"Murielle, tide what may, remember that while life lasts I love you!"
All they could desire to say was comprised in these three very little words. Little they are, yet how much do they contain! The essence of all the love speeches, love-letters, and sonnets that have been written since the invention of letters, – since Cadmus brought his alphabet from Phœnicia into Greece. When two lovers have said these words they can only repeat them.
"I love you!" They have nothing more to say. The countess, ever watchful, had observed this brief conference, and though anger sparkled in her deep, dark eyes, she veiled it under a bright smile, and, closing her fan, gave her pretty hand to Gray, who bowed and kissed it, though the petulant earl coldly turned from him, saying: —
"Sir Patrick, fare you well until to-morrow."
"Until to-morrow," added the earl of Abercorn, with one of the strange smiles which curled his thin white lips at times, as Gray and MacLellan retired together, after gaining golden opinions in the ranks of the enemy, – to wit, the ladies of the hostile faction.
The young Captain of the Guard had the art of pleasing all – the ladies especially; and at such a time, when family feuds, pride, and hatred, were rampant passions, the art was one of no small value, though in Scotland few cared to cultivate it, for chivalry was already on the decline.
In society such as that in which we introduce him to the reader, he contrived to be, or appeared to be, friendly with those who were most averse to each other in politics and ambition; yet he neither condescended to flatter nor dissemble, but often was prudently silent, where to differ would have brought swords from their scabbards; and he assented with grace and pleasure wherever he could do so with honour.
1
Now Inchgarvie. Athelstan's grave was opened in 1832. His coffin was composed of five large pieces of freestone, and his bones measured six feet in length. The coffin was thirty inches in breadth, but only four in depth. The farm of Miracle, corrupted into