"Sure, as that the breath of Heaven is in my nostrils!"
"By the God of my kin, our task of vengeance is beginning!" cried Earl James, rising in his stirrups, and brandishing his sword; "a rope, a rope! A Douglas! a Douglas! Ho, Pompherston, Glendoning, Cairnglas, – let us hang this king's minion at the Market Cross! Gather a band – beset the house, and watch every avenue. Achanna, is there a secret stair?"
"Yes."
"Then beset it too," exclaimed the earl.
"Be that my task," replied Achanna, who with six armed men repaired to an angle of the abbot's garden, where, among a mass of ivy which shrouded the wall, he knew there was concealed a little arched postern, which formed the external avenue of one of those secret escapes with which all houses were furnished in those times of war and tumult.
Abercorn remained in his high-peaked, crimson velvet saddle, while posting his followers round the mansion; but Pompherston, Glendoning, and other armed gentlemen, with a tumultuous party of retainers, Lanarkshire pikemen, crossbowmen, and wild, half-naked Galwegians, who brandished axes, swords, and daggers, rushed up the stone stairs, and spread through the wainscoted apartments, in eager search of the object of their vengeance, for they were in such a mood for blood and slaughter, they would have slain the household cat had it, unluckily, fallen in their way.
But we must return to our luckless lover, who, suspecting nothing of all this, had long since passed into the house, where no one accosted or introduced him, so great was the confusion which already reigned there.
CHAPTER XV
A SECRET STAIR
Bluidie was the braid saddle lap,
And bluidie was the crupper;
Sae bluidie as my true love's hands,
When we sat down to supper.
"There's water in the siller dish,
Gae wash thy hands so bluidie;"
But my love wash'd in the water clear,
And never made it ruddie.
Sir Patrick Gray reached the wainscoted hall, or chamber of dais, the arched roof of which was covered, as already described, with frescoed legends of the Abbey of Tongland.
There yet stood the little Scottish harp of Murielle, and a sense of her sweet presence seemed to linger about it, with the memory of her song – "Sir Hugh le Blond." There stood the seat of her sister, the dark and beautiful Margaret, with the velvet tabourettes of her bower-maidens grouped around it. There was the chair of the young earl, with one of his leather gloves, and beside it his little Bologna spaniel asleep.
The gay groups of the other night seemed to rise before the troubled eye of Gray, as he surveyed the chamber. He sighed bitterly, and could recall with painful distinctness the faces of the unfortunate earl and the petulant boy, his brother. He forgave poor little David all his petulance now.
How difficult to realize the conviction, that within an hour he had stood by their bloody tomb – poor victims of misguided ambition, of feudal pride, and political misrule! Yet an age seemed to have elapsed since last he had seen their faces.
Suddenly he heard a light step and the rustling of a dress; a small hand drew rapidly aside the arras which covered a door, and Murielle, with bloodshot eyes and her sweet little face pale with tears and loss of sleep, rushed towards him.
"Oh, Patrick Gray, Patrick Gray!" she exclaimed, throwing herself in all the abandonment of grief into his arms, and laying her cold cheek upon his breast; "Oh my love, my heart – what new miseries, what new crimes and dangers, are these that come to cast their gloom and horror upon us?"
He endeavoured to calm and soothe her; but suddenly quitting him, she besought him to leave her, and return instantly to the castle.
"Leave you, Murielle?" he reiterated, "think of the time that has elapsed since I have seen you, conversed with you – since I have been with you alone; and think of the time that may elapse ere we meet again."
"Yet go – go," she added, clasping her hands, "if you love me, go!"
"If– ah! Murielle – "
"Leave me – shun me! this love will end in your destruction," she exclaimed with wild energy.
"I am almost inclined to stay, Murielle, and risk everything, were it but to prove how much I do love you."
"By making me miserable for ever, by seeing you perish before me – oh, even as my poor kinsmen perished!" she added in a piercing accent, while wringing her pretty hands, and half withdrawing from him.
"You are right, dear Murielle," replied the soldier gloomily: "I am in the king's service. To brave a useless danger and inevitable fate, would serve no end; yet, dearest Murielle, this interview may be our last."
"It may be – I know it in my aching heart; yet go – go, for the love of God and St. Bryde, lest some fresh crime be committed, and here. Alas! you know not Hugh of Ormond, or James of Abercorn, as I do. But why were our beloved William and David slain?"
"Blame not me, dear Murielle," said Gray, kissing her pale cheek with affectionate sorrow.
"Oh, Patrick, I do not blame you," replied Murielle, in a tone of misery.
"Indeed! Yet you see him before you, and clasp him to your heart like a wanton, while he has on his hands the blood of my husband!" exclaimed a clear and ringing voice. It was that of the scornful, the lovely and revengeful, yet superb Margaret, as she burst upon them through the parted arras, her pale cheek flushing and her dark eyes sparkling, but with more of anger than grief. "Vile assassin! come you here, stained with the blood of my Douglas – my brave, young, handsome lord and kinsman – of his poor boy-brother, and that hoary-headed baron, old Malcolm Fleming, whose sword was never idle when Scotland or her king required its service! Did it require three such heads to glut the hatred ye bear to the house of Douglas and Galloway? Speak!" she added, stamping her pretty foot imperiously on the rush-covered floor; "speak, thou king's minion and Falkland-bred loon!"
"Peace, sister," moaned Murielle, "oh peace – "
"Now, grant me patience, God!" exclaimed the furious countess, stretching her white hands upward – and supremely lovely that dark-eyed girl seemed, in her mingled grief and rage. "Go hence, I say, Murielle Douglas; let not that man contaminate you by his touch."
"Oh, sister Maggie, you know he loves me dearly, and I him."
"I know that he has been tutored well in the conventional hypocrisy of a court; and that you, Murielle, educated as you have been in our secluded castle of Thrave, are no match in art for such as he."
"Maggie," implored Murielle, beginning to writhe under her sister's severity, "he is generous as gentle, and gentle as brave!"
"But save him if you can," said Margaret, bitterly.
"There is, then, danger, madam?" said Gray, loosening his poniard in its sheath.
"Do you hear that growing clamour in the street?" exclaimed Margaret. "Sir Patrick Gray, away, I warn you. James of Abercorn, Pompherston, and others, all our most faithful followers, are around the house; if you tarry here a moment longer, they will hack you joint from joint."
"But, madame – countess – Murielle," said Gray, whose heart was swollen almost to bursting by the vituperative bitterness of Margaret, "I cannot go without a word of explanation or defence."
"We seek neither. It is enough for us to know that you stood by, in yonder royal shambles on the rock, and saw Douglas foully murdered, under tryst —stood idly by, with your sword in its sheath, and neither by word or blow sought to save the life of him whose cousin you profess to love. But doubtless, as captain of the king's hirelings, it was your duty to stand aloof, or guard the treble murder!"
"Sister," said Murielle imploringly, while her tears fell fast and hotly, "have we not heard the Abbot of Tongland and the Prior of St. Mary's Isle both preach, that man was born to evil, even as the sparks fly upward; but that with fortitude, patience, and resignation, we should bear our cross – the destiny assigned us; and what are we, to set ourselves in opposition to what they, the men of God, teach, preach, and practise?"