The Fair Maid of Perth; Or, St. Valentine's Day by Walter Scott (electronic reader .TXT) 📕

sake as well as thine; indeed, I have but little to say. Douglas places himself immediately at the head of his vassals. He will assemble, in the name of King Robert, thirty thousand Borderers, whom he will shortly after lead into the interior, to demand that the Duke of Rothsay receive, or rather restore, his daughter to the rank and privileges of his Duchess. King Robert will yield to any conditions which may secure peace. What will the Duke do?”

“The Duke of Rothsay loves peace,” said the Prince, haughtily; “but he never feared war. Ere he takes back yonder proud peat to his table and his bed, at the command of her father, Douglas must be King of Scotland.”

“Be it so; but even this is the less pressing peril, especially as it threatens open violence, for the Douglas works not in secret.”

“What is there which presses, and keeps us awake at this late hour? I am a weary man, thou a wounded one, and the very tapers are blinking, as if tired of our conference.”

“Tell me, then, who is it that rules this kingdom of Scotland?” said Ramorny.

“Robert, third of the name,” said the Prince, raising his bonnet as he spoke; “and long may he sway the sceptre!”

“True, and amen,” answered Ramorny; “but who sways King Robert, and dictates almost every measure which the good King pursues?”

“My Lord of Albany, you would say,” replied the Prince. “Yes, it is true my father is guided almost entirely by the counsels of his brother; nor can we blame him in our consciences, Sir John Ramorny, for little help hath he had from his son.”

“Let us help him now, my lord,” said Ramorny. “I am possessor of a dreadful secret: Albany hath been trafficking with me, to join him in taking your Grace’s life! He offers full pardon for the past, high favour for the future.”

“How, man—my life? I trust, though, thou dost only mean my kingdom? It were impious! He is my father’s brother—they sat on the knees of the same father—lay in the bosom of the same mother. Out on thee, man, what follies they make thy sickbed believe!”

“Believe, indeed!” said Ramorny. “It is new to me to be termed credulous. But the man through whom Albany communicated his temptations is one whom all will believe so soon as he hints at mischief—even the medicaments which are prepared by his hands have a relish of poison.”

“Tush! such a slave would slander a saint,” replied the Prince. “Thou art duped for once, Ramorny, shrewd as thou art. My uncle of Albany is ambitious, and would secure for himself and for his house a larger portion of power and wealth than he ought in reason to desire. But to suppose he would dethrone or slay his brother’s son—Fie, Ramorny! put me not to quote the old saw, that evil doers are evil dreaders. It is your suspicion, not your knowledge, which speaks.”

“Your Grace is fatally deluded. I will put it to an issue. The Duke of Albany is generally hated for his greed and covetousness. Your Highness is, it may be, more beloved than—”

Ramorny stopped, the Prince calmly filled up the blank: “More beloved than I am honoured. It is so I would have it, Ramorny.”

“At least,” said Ramorny, “you are more beloved than you are feared, and that is no safe condition for a prince. But give me your honour and knightly word that you will not resent what good service I shall do in your behalf, and lend me your signet to engage friends in your name, and the Duke of Albany shall not assume authority in this court till the wasted hand which once terminated this stump shall be again united to the body, and acting in obedience to the dictates of my mind.”

“You would not venture to dip your hands in royal blood?” said the Prince sternly.

“Fie, my lord, at no rate. Blood need not be shed; life may, nay, will, be extinguished of itself. For want of trimming it with fresh oil, or screening it from a breath of wind, the quivering light will die in the socket. To suffer a man to die is not to kill him.”

“True—I had forgot that policy. Well, then, suppose my uncle Albany does not continue to live—I think that must be the phrase—who then rules the court of Scotland?”

“Robert the Third, with consent, advice, and authority of the most mighty David, Duke of Rothsay, Lieutenant of the Kingdom, and alter ego; in whose favour, indeed, the good King, wearied with the fatigues and troubles of sovereignty, will, I guess, be well disposed to abdicate. So long live our brave young monarch, King David the Third!

“Ille manu fortis Anglis ludebit in hortis.”

“And our father and predecessor,” said Rothsay, “will he continue to live to pray for us, as our beadsman, by whose favour he holds the privilege of laying his grey hairs in the grave as soon, and no earlier, than the course of nature permits, or must he also encounter some of those negligences in consequence of which men cease to continue to live, and can change the limits of a prison, or of a convent resembling one, for the dark and tranquil cell, where the priests say that the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest?”

“You speak in jest, my lord,” replied Ramorny: “to harm the good old King were equally unnatural and impolitic.”

“Why shrink from that, man, when thy whole scheme,” answered the Prince, in stern displeasure, “is one lesson of unnatural guilt, mixed with short sighted ambition? If the King of Scotland can scarcely make head against his nobles, even now when he can hold up before them an unsullied and honourable banner, who would follow a prince that is blackened with the death of an uncle and the imprisonment of a father? Why, man, thy policy were enough to revolt a heathen divan, to say nought of the council of a Christian nation. Thou wert my tutor, Ramorny, and perhaps I might justly upbraid thy lessons and example for some of the follies which men chide in me. Perhaps, if it had not been for thee, I had not been standing at midnight in this fool’s guise (looking at his dress), to hear an ambitious profligate propose to me the murder of an uncle, the dethronement of the best of fathers. Since it is my fault as well as thine that has sunk me so deep in the gulf of infamy, it were unjust that thou alone shouldst die for it. But dare not to renew this theme to me, on peril of thy life! I will proclaim thee to my father—to Albany—to Scotland—throughout its length and breadth. As many market crosses as are in the land shall have morsels of the traitor’s carcass, who dare counsel such horrors to the heir of Scotland. Well hope I, indeed, that the fever of thy wound, and the intoxicating influence of the cordials which act on thy infirm brain, have this night operated on thee, rather than any fixed purpose.”

“In sooth, my lord,” said Ramorny, “if I have said any thing which could so greatly exasperate your Highness, it must have been by excess of zeal, mingled with imbecility of understanding. Surely I, of all men, am least likely to propose ambitious projects with a prospect of advantage to myself! Alas! my only future views must be to exchange