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

Dominicans; but the ill news, which flies proverbially fast, had reached his father’s place of retirement before he himself appeared. On entering the palace and inquiring for the King, the Duke of Rothsay was surprised to be informed that he was in deep consultation with the Duke of Albany, who, mounting on horseback as the Prince left the lists, had reached the convent before him. He was about to use the privilege of his rank and birth to enter the royal apartment, when MacLouis, the commander of the guard of Brandanes, gave him to understand, in the most respectful terms, that he had special instructions which forbade his admittance.

“Go at least, MacLouis, and let them know that I wait their pleasure,” said the Prince. “If my uncle desires to have the credit of shutting the father’s apartment against the son, it will gratify him to know that I am attending in the outer hall like a lackey.”

“May it please you,” said MacLouis, with hesitation, “if your Highness would consent to retire just now, and to wait awhile in patience, I will send to acquaint you when the Duke of Albany goes; and I doubt not that his Majesty will then admit your Grace to his presence. At present, your Highness must forgive me, it is impossible you can have access.”

“I understand you, MacLouis; but go, nevertheless, and obey my commands.”

The officer went accordingly, and returned with a message that the King was indisposed, and on the point of retiring to his private chamber; but that the Duke of Albany would presently wait upon the Prince of Scotland.

It was, however, a full half hour ere the Duke of Albany appeared—a period of time which Rothsay spent partly in moody silence, and partly in idle talk with MacLouis and the Brandanes, as the levity or irritability of his temper obtained the ascendant.

At length the Duke came, and with him the lord High Constable, whose countenance expressed much sorrow and embarrassment.

“Fair kinsman,” said the Duke of Albany, “I grieve to say that it is my royal brother’s opinion that it will be best, for the honour of the royal family, that your Royal Highness do restrict yourself for a time to the seclusion of the High Constable’s lodgings, and accept of the noble Earl here present for your principal, if not sole, companion until the scandals which have been this day spread abroad shall be refuted or forgotten.”

“How is this, my lord of Errol?” said the Prince in astonishment. “Is your house to be my jail, and is your lordship to be my jailer?”

“The saints forbid, my lord,” said the Earl of Errol “but it is my unhappy duty to obey the commands of your father, by considering your Royal Highness for some time as being under my ward.”

“The Prince—the heir of Scotland, under the ward of the High Constable! What reason can be given for this? is the blighting speech of a convicted recreant of strength sufficient to tarnish my royal escutcheon?”

“While such accusations are not refuted and denied, my kinsman,” said the Duke of Albany, “they will contaminate that of a monarch.”

“Denied, my lord!” exclaimed the Prince; “by whom are they asserted, save by a wretch too infamous, even by his own confession, to be credited for a moment, though a beggar’s character, not a prince’s, were impeached? Fetch him hither, let the rack be shown to him; you will soon hear him retract the calumny which he dared to assert!”

“The gibbet has done its work too surely to leave Bonthron sensible to the rack,” said the Duke of Albany. “He has been executed an hour since.”

“And why such haste, my lord?” said the Prince; “know you it looks as if there were practice in it to bring a stain on my name?”

“The custom is universal, the defeated combatant in the ordeal of battle is instantly transferred from the lists to the gallows. And yet, fair kinsman,” continued the Duke of Albany, “if you had boldly and strongly denied the imputation, I would have judged right to keep the wretch alive for further investigation; but as your Highness was silent, I deemed it best to stifle the scandal in the breath of him that uttered it.”

“St. Mary, my lord, but this is too insulting! Do you, my uncle and kinsman, suppose me guilty of prompting such an useless and unworthy action as that which the slave confessed?”

“It is not for me to bandy question with your Highness, otherwise I would ask whether you also mean to deny the scarce less unworthy, though less bloody, attack upon the house in Couvrefew Street? Be not angry with me, kinsman; but, indeed, your sequestering yourself for some brief space from the court, were it only during the King’s residence in this city, where so much offence has been given, is imperiously demanded.”

Rothsay paused when he heard this exhortation, and, looking at the Duke in a very marked manner, replied:

“Uncle, you are a good huntsman. You have pitched your toils with much skill, but you would have been foiled, not withstanding, had not the stag rushed among the nets of free will. God speed you, and may you have the profit by this matter which your measures deserve. Say to my father, I obey his arrest. My Lord High Constable, I wait only your pleasure to attend you to your lodgings. Since I am to lie in ward, I could not have desired a kinder or more courteous warden.”

The interview between the uncle and nephew being thus concluded, the Prince retired with the Earl of Errol to his apartments; the citizens whom they met in the streets passing to the further side when they observed the Duke of Rothsay, to escape the necessity of saluting one whom they had been taught to consider as a ferocious as well as unprincipled libertine. The Constable’s lodgings received the owner and his princely guest, both glad to leave the streets, yet neither feeling easy in the situation which they occupied with regard to each other within doors.

We must return to the lists after the combat had ceased, and when the nobles had withdrawn. The crowds were now separated into two distinct bodies. That which made the smallest in number was at the same time the most distinguished for respectability, consisting of the better class of inhabitants of Perth, who were congratulating the successful champion and each other upon the triumphant conclusion to which they had brought their feud with the courtiers. The magistrates were so much elated on the occasion, that they entreated Sir Patrick Charteris’s acceptance of a collation in the town hall. To this Henry, the hero of the day, was of course invited, or he was rather commanded to attend. He listened to the summons with great embarrassment, for it may be readily believed his heart was with Catharine Glover. But the advice of his father Simon decided him. That veteran citizen had a natural and becoming deference for the magistracy of the Fair City; he entertained a high estimation of all honours which flowed from such a source, and thought that his intended son in law would do wrong not to receive them with gratitude.

“Thou must not think to absent thyself from such a solemn occasion, son Henry,” was his advice. “Sir Patrick Charteris is to be there himself, and I think it will be a rare occasion for thee to gain his goodwill. It is like he may order of thee a new suit of harness; and I myself heard worthy