"All the crown-lands, the king's rents, castles, baronies, mills, mails, and fishings, cannot find dowers royal enough of these six dames, his sisters, at present. Do you understand me?"
"Not exactly. You must be more plain, my lord chancellor."
"'Tis not the first time that a king's daughter has wedded a simple knight."
"In old ballads, Sir William; and I would be a simple knight indeed to cast my eyes so high."
"The queen-mother is now the wife of the Black Knight of Lorn," said Crichton, with the air of one who finds a convincing argument.
"But he is a different man from the poor captain of the king's paid pikemen! St. Mary! a sorry figure would I cut, riding up to my father's tower-gate, with my princess behind me on a pillion, and settling there to become a scrape-trencher, while she assisted my mother in brewhouse and bakery! Take heed, chancellor; I need not be dazzled thus, to keep me faithful to my king. So, enough of this! I am not ignorant that all these princesses are promised, not to simple knights, but to foreign princes."
"Not all," said the chancellor, with an air of annoyance; "the Princess Margaret is, I know, contracted to Louis, the dauphin of France."
"A troublesome brother-in-law he might prove to the younger son of the laird of Foulis," replied Gray, laughing outright.
"The Lady Elizabeth – "
"Is contracted to the duke of Brittany; and in a month Eleonora will be the bride of Sigismund le Debonnair, archduke of Austria, and duke of all the dukes in Almaynie; while the Lady Mary will be wedded to the lord of Campvere."
"I knew not that you were so well versed in state secrets," said the chancellor coldly, with an affected smile.
"You forget, my dear Sir William, that your good lady has been my nurse."
"There is the Lady Annabelle."
"A child," said Sir Patrick, laughing louder to conceal the annoyance that rankled in his heart; "oh! oh! Sir William, I should have to wait ten years at least till my wife grew up. Dost take me for a fool, a very mooncalf, though I have listened to you? But to the point: say what service you seek of me, as I have made up my mind to leave Scotland in a month. Believe me, I need no bribe for faith and service to my king; and, as to Murielle Douglas, the wealth of Prester John of the Indies, if such a man there be, with the love of an empress, would not win me from her, though it may be that, with this gash on my face, she – she might shrink from me now."
"Did I not say that I might suit your humour and also serve the king?" asked the chancellor.
"How?"
"Hearken," said Crichton, placing a hand on the arm of Gray.
"Say on," said the latter impatiently.
"In two years from this, the king will take upon himself the government of the nation, and I shall retire me to my old castle of Crichton, in the Glen of Tync, beyond the Esk, and spend there my latter days in peace."
"The government – in 1444 – this boy?"
"The boy will then be fifteen, and he is a manly boy withal. The time is coming when he must be contracted to a foreign princess, and, through the lord of Campvere, Duke Arnold of Gueldreland has made overtures on the part of his daughter Mary, now in her ninth year. To these overtures the regent and myself, with the consent of the lords of council, have thought it meet to respond, and you shall bear our missives to the duke, who is now either in Gueldreland, in Brabant, or Burgundy, I know not which; and in due time I, with a fitting train, will set out for his capital. But promise me to be secret as you are faithful in this matter, and remember it is in the service of the king."
"In this embassy I promise to do all that may become a loyal man – save wed the Lady Mary of Gueldres herself; for, after all you have proposed, by the mass! I knew not where your generosity might end."
"Good!" replied Crichton. "To-night I ride for Stirling, to see the regent and Queen Jane; when I return, you shall have your sealed letters of credence, and Dirltoun the treasurer shall pave the way with gold."
The chancellor shook his hand with kindness, and retired, leaving the frank and single-hearted soldier to consider the journey before him; the yet greater separation by land, water, and time, it would make between himself and Murielle, and also to surmise whether the proposal merely veiled some deeper and more distant object; for, since that fatal 24th of November, Gray had ever a doubt of the regent, the chancellor, and their projects.
"He overshot the butt – his cunning hath outdone itself," muttered Gray. "Did he not think a ward of the crown would content the king's poor soldier for a bride? but a princess – ha! ha!" And he uttered a merry but scornful laugh.
As the twilight deepened, and the shores of the Forth blended in the distance with its darkening waters, he thought over all that had passed; but was not left long to his own reflections, for a grey-bearded pikeman of his guard drew back the moth-eaten arras, and announced his kinsman, Sir Thomas MacLellan, of Bombie.
CHAPTER XXI
GRAY'S DEPARTURE
Awake, awake! lover, I bring, I bring
Most gladsome news, that blissful are and sure
Of thy comfort; now laugh, and play, and sing.
Full soon thou shalt achieve thine adventure,
For in the heaven decretit is thy cure.
"Welcome, my good and merry friend!" exclaimed Gray, starting forward to greet him; – "lights, wine, and a jolly greybeard of usquebaugh," he added to his servant; – "and you have returned."
"'Tis but an hour since I alighted at an hostelry, with two hackneys, a sumpter-nag, and my best suit of armour, packed on the saddle of my black horse – you remember it – with the curtal tail."
"Your wounds – "
"Are well and whole, though, sooth to say, the two-handed whinger of John Gorm was somewhat heavy for one's patience, and cut through my chain-shirt and jack-wambeson, as if they had been pie-crust. But I am recovered now. The pure breeze that comes over the broad Solway and whistles round the turrets of old Raeberry has made me a hale man again."
"Would that I could say the same," sighed Gray.
"That slash on the face – "
"Won't please a woman's eye now, I fear me."
"But to wed one who objected thereto would be to throw one's ace in the game of matrimony," replied MacLellan, tossing upon a settle his sword, jewelled dagger, and laced mantle; "yes – even were she a princess."
"Soho, man! talk not of princesses – I have just had my choice of six."
"Six! – daughters of the queen of Elphen?"
"Nay, six of flesh and blood, and declined them all," said Gray, laughing.
"What riddle is this? – or has a fairy indeed been with you?"
"You shall hear."
Lights had now been brought, and the candles, in the brass sconces which hung on the tapestried wall, cast lines of steady radiance across the otherwise gloomy old chamber. The arras was drawn across the windows, in the gratings of which, as well as through the battlement of the tower overhead, the wind was whistling. Red and white wine, in flasks of Venetian silver, glittered on the table; and to these was added usquebaugh, in one of those stone jars which came from Flanders, and had in front a bearded mask; whence the Scottish name of "greybeard" for a whisky-jar to this day.
The friends drew their seats close to the table.
MacLellan carefully wiped the dew from his sword, a short weapon, the steel of which was embrowned – a fancy of the time (whence, perhaps, the "berry-brown blades" of old songs) – and in it were little flutes, to permit the blood to run off when used in mortal strife; for our Scottish sires studied all these little matters to a nicety. MacLellan's handsome and athletic figure was displayed to advantage in his steel cuirass and gorget, his hanging sleeves, and long black riding-boots, the tops of which were strapped to his girdle. His face was ruddy and sunburnt; his black curly hair was closely cropped, in the fashion of the time; he had a moustache, though then military men wore it seldom, and none but the old indulged in beards.