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

CHAPTER XIX. Who’s that that rings the bell? Diablos, ho! The town will rise. Othello, Act II. Scene III.

The wild rumours which flew through the town, speedily followed by the tolling of the alarm bells spread general consternation. The nobles and knights, with their followers, gathered in different places of rendezvous, where a defence could best be maintained; and the alarm reached the royal residence where the young prince was one of the first to appear, to assist, if necessary, in the defence of the old king. The scene of the preceding night ran in his recollection; and, remembering the bloodstained figure of Bonthron, he conceived, though indistinctly, that the ruffian’s action had been connected with this uproar. The subsequent and more interesting discourse with Sir John Ramorny had, however, been of such an impressive nature as to obliterate all traces of what he had vaguely heard of the bloody act of the assassin, excepting a confused recollection that some one or other had been slain. It was chiefly on his father’s account that he had assumed arms with his household train, who, clad in bright armour, and bearing lances in their hands, made now a figure very different from that of the preceding night, when they appeared as intoxicated Bacchanalians. The kind old monarch received this mark of filial attachment with tears of gratitude, and proudly presented his son to his brother Albany, who entered shortly afterwards. He took them each by the hand.

“Now are we three Stuarts,” he said, “as inseparable as the holy trefoil; and, as they say the wearer of that sacred herb mocks at magical delusion, so we, while we are true to each other, may set malice and enmity at defiance.”

The brother and son kissed the kind hand which pressed theirs, while Robert III expressed his confidence in their affection. The kiss of the youth was, for the time, sincere; that of the brother was the salute of the apostate Judas.

In the mean time the bell of St. John’s church alarmed, amongst others, the inhabitants of Curfew Street. In the house of Simon Glover, old Dorothy Glover, as she was called (for she also took name from the trade she practised, under her master’s auspices), was the first to catch the sound. Though somewhat deaf upon ordinary occasions, her ear for bad news was as sharp as a kite’s scent for carrion; for Dorothy, otherwise an industrious, faithful, and even affectionate creature, had that strong appetite for collecting and retailing sinister intelligence which is often to be marked in the lower classes. Little accustomed to be listened to, they love the attention which a tragic tale ensures to the bearer, and enjoy, perhaps, the temporary equality to which misfortune reduces those who are ordinarily accounted their superiors. Dorothy had no sooner possessed herself of a slight packet of the rumours which were flying abroad than she bounced into her master’s bedroom, who had taken the privilege of age and the holytide to sleep longer than usual.

“There he lies, honest man,” said Dorothy, half in a screeching and half in a wailing tone of sympathy—“there he lies; his best friend slain, and he knowing as little about it as the babe new born, that kens not life from death.”

“How now!” said the glover, starting up out of his bed. “What is the matter, old woman? Is my daughter well?”

“Old woman!” said Dorothy, who, having her fish hooked, chose to let him play a little. “I am not so old,” said she, flouncing out of the room, “as to bide in the place till a man rises from his naked bed—”

And presently she was heard at a distance in the parlour beneath, melodiously singing to the scrubbing of her own broom.

“Dorothy—screech owl—devil—say but my daughter is well!”

“I am well, my father,” answered the Fair Maid of Perth, speaking from her bedroom, “perfectly well, but what, for Our Lady’s sake, is the matter? The bells ring backward, and there is shrieking and crying in the streets.”

“I will presently know the cause. Here, Conachar, come speedily and tie my points. I forgot—the Highland loon is far beyond Fortingall. Patience, daughter, I will presently bring you news.”

“Ye need not hurry yourself for that, Simon Glover,” quoth the obdurate old woman; “the best and the worst of it may be tauld before you could hobble over your door stane. I ken the haill story abroad; ‘for,’ thought I, ‘our goodman is so wilful that he’ll be for banging out to the tuilzie, be the cause what it like; and sae I maun e’en stir my shanks, and learn the cause of all this, or he will hae his auld nose in the midst of it, and maybe get it nipt off before he knows what for.’”

“And what is the news, then, old woman?” said the impatient glover, still busying himself with the hundred points or latchets which were the means of attaching the doublet to the hose.

Dorothy suffered him to proceed in his task till she conjectured it must be nearly accomplished; and foresaw that; if she told not the secret herself, her master would be abroad to seek in person for the cause of the disturbance. She, therefore, halloo’d out: “Aweel—aweel, ye canna say it is me fault, if you hear ill news before you have been at the morning mass. I would have kept it from ye till ye had heard the priest’s word; but since you must hear it, you have e’en lost the truest friend that ever gave hand to another, and Perth maun mourn for the bravest burgher that ever took a blade in hand!”

“Harry Smith! Harry Smith!” exclaimed the father and the daughter at once.

“Oh, ay, there ye hae it at last,” said Dorothy; “and whose fault was it but your ain? ye made such a piece of work about his companying with a glee woman, as if he had companied with a Jewess!”

Dorothy would have gone on long enough, but her master exclaimed to his daughter, who was still in her own apartment: “It is nonsense, Catharine—all the dotage of an old fool. No such thing has happened. I will bring you the true tidings in a moment,” and snatching up his staff, the old man hurried out past Dorothy and into the street, where the throng of people were rushing towards the High Street.

Dorothy, in the mean time, kept muttering to herself: “Thy father is a wise man, take his ain word for it. He will come next by some scathe in the hobbleshow, and then it will be, ‘Dorothy, get the lint,’ and ‘Dorothy, spread the plaster;’ but now it is nothing but nonsense, and a lie, and impossibility, that can come out of Dorothy’s mouth. Impossible! Does auld Simon think that Harry Smith’s head was as hard as his stithy, and a haill clan of Highlandmen dinging at him?”

Here she was interrupted by a figure like an angel, who came wandering by her with wild eye, cheek deadly pale, hair dishevelled, and an apparent want of consciousness, which terrified the old woman out of her discontented humour.

“Our Lady bless my bairn!” said she. “What look you sae