The Three Perils of Man Volume I Part 4

"It's a' true that ye say, father; but we surely needna grudge an Englishman a piece o' an English cow's hip.--The beef didna cost you dear, an' there's mair where it cam frae."

The old man would not give up his point, but persisted in saying it was a dangerous experiment, and an unprofitable waste. However, in spite of his remonstrances, the board was loaded with six wooden bickers filled with beef broth, plenty of bear-meal bannocks, and a full quarter of English ox beef, to which the travellers did all manner of justice. The prince, as he called himself, was placed at the head of the table, and the young English n.o.bleman by his side. Their eyes were scarcely ever turned from one another's faces, unless in a casual hasty glance to see how others were regarding the same face. The prince had dark raven hair that parted on a brow of snow, a black liquid eye, and round lips, purer than the cherry about to fall from the tree with ripeness. He was also a degree taller than the English lord; but both of them, as well as their two pages, were lovelier than it became men to be. The troopers who attended them seemed disposed to contradict every thing that came from the adverse party, and, if possible, to broach a quarrel, had it not been for the two knights, who were all suavity, good breeding, and kindness to each other, and seemed to have formed an attachment at first sight. At length Prince Alexander inquired of his new a.s.sociate his name, and business at the Scottish court, provided, he said, that it did not require strict secrecy. The other said, he would tell him every thing truly, on condition that he would do the same: which being agreed to, the young English n.o.bleman proceeded as follows:

"My name is Lord Jasper Tudor, second son to the Earl of Pembroke. I am nearly related to the throne of England, and in high favour with the king. The wars on the Borders have greatly hara.s.sed the English dalesmen for these many years, and matters being still getting worse between the nations, the king, my cousin, has proposed to me to marry the Princess Margaret of Scotland, and obtain as her dowry a confirmation of these border lands and castles, so that a permanent peace may be established between the nations, and this b.l.o.o.d.y and desperate work cease. I am on my way to the Scottish court to see the princess, your sister; and if I find her to be as lovely and accomplished as fame speaks her, I intend to comply with the king's request, and marry her forthwith."

This speech affected the prince so much that all the guests wondered. He started to his feet, and smiling in astonishment said, "What, you? you marry m--m--my sister Margaret? She is very much beholden to you, and on my word she will see a becoming youth. But are you sure that she will accept of you for a husband?" "I have little to fear on that head," said the Lord Jasper Tudor jeeringly; "Maids are in general not much averse to marriage; and, if I am well informed, your lovely sister is as little averse to it as any of her contemporaries."

The prince blushed deep at this character of his sister, but had not a word to say.

"Pray," continued Tudor, "is she like you? If she is, I think I shall love her,--I would not have her just like you neither."

"I believe," said the prince, "there is a strong family likeness; but tell me in what features you would wish her to differ from me, and I will describe her minutely to you."

"In the first place," said the amorous and blue-ey'd Tudor, "I should like her to be a little stouter, and more manly of frame than you, and, at least, to have some appearance of a beard."

All the circle stared. "The devil you would, my lord," said Dan; "Wad ye like your wife to hae a beard, in earnest? Gude faith, an your ain war like mine, ye wad think ye had eneuch o't foreby your wife's." The prince held up his hands in astonishment, and the young English lord blushed deeper than it behoved a knight to do; but at length he tried to laugh it by, pretending that he had unwittingly said one thing when he meant the very contrary, for he wished her to be more feminine, and have less beard."--"I think that will hardly be possible," said Dan; "but perhaps there may be a hair here an' there on my lord the prince's chin, when ane comes near it. I wadna disparage ony man, far less my king's son."

"Well, my n.o.ble lord," said the prince, "your tale has not a little surprised me, as well it may. Our meeting here in like circ.u.mstances is the most curious rencounter I ever knew; for, to tell you the plain truth, I am likewise on an errand of the same import, being thus far on my way to see and court the lady Jane Howard, in order that all her wide domains may be attached to my father's kingdom, and peace and amity thereby established on the border."

"Gracious heaven!" said young Lord Tudor, "can this that I hear be true?

You? Are you on your way to my cousin, the lady Jane Howard? Why, do you not know that she is already affianced to Lord Musgrave?"

"Yes, it is certain I do; but that is one of my princ.i.p.al inducements to gain her from him; that is quite in the true spirit of gallantry; but, save her great riches, I am told she has little else to recommend her,"

said the prince.

"And, pray, how does fame report of my cousin Jane?" said Tudor.

"As of a shrew and a coquette," answered the prince; "a wicked minx, that is intemperate in all her pa.s.sions."

"It is a manifest falsehood," said Tudor, his face glowing with resentment, "I never knew a young lady so moderate and chastened in every pa.s.sion of the female heart. Her most private thoughts are pure as purity itself, and her--."

"But, begging your pardon, my lord, how can you possibly know all this?"

said the prince.

"I do know it," said the other, "it is no matter how: I cannot hear my fair cousin wronged; and I know that she will remain true to Musgrave, and have nothing to do with you."

"I will bet an earldom on that head, said the prince, "if I chuse to lay siege to her."

"Done!" said the other, and they joined hands on the bargain; but they had no sooner laid their hands into one another's than they hastily withdrew them, with a sort of trepidation, that none of the lookers on, save the two pages, who kept close by their masters, appeared to comprehend. They, too, were both mistaken in the real cause; but of that it does not behove to speak at present.

"I will let you see," said the prince, recovering himself, "that this celebrated cousin of yours shall not be so ill to win as the castle of Roxburgh; and I'll let Musgrave see for how much truth and virgin fidelity he has put his life in his hand; and when I have her I'll cage her, for I don't like her. I would give that same earldom to have her in my power to-night."

The young Lord Tudor looked about as if he meditated an escape to another part of the table; but, after a touch that his page gave him on the sleeve, he sat still, and mustered up courage for a reply.

"And pray, sir prince, what would you do with her if you had her in your power to-night?"

"Something very different from what I would do with you, my lord. But please describe her to me, for my very heart is yearning to behold her,--describe every point of her form, and lineament of her features."

"She is esteemed as very beautiful; for my part I think her but so so,"

said Tudor: "She has fair hair, light full blue eyes, and ruddy cheeks; and her brow, I believe, is as fine and as white as any brow can be."

"O frightful! what a description! what an ugly minx it must be! Fair hair! red, I suppose, or dirty dull yellow! Light blue eyes! mostly white I fancy? Ah, what a frightful immodest ape it must be! I could spit upon the huzzy!"

"Mary s.h.i.+eld us!" exclaimed young Tudor, moving farther away from the prince, and striking lightly with his hand on his doublet as if something unclean had been squirted on it. "Mary s.h.i.+eld us! What does the saucy Scot mean?"

Every one of the troopers put his hand to his sword, and watched the eye of his master. The prince beckoned to the Scots to be quiet; but Lord Tudor did no such thing, for he was fl.u.s.tered and wroth.

"Pardon me, my lord," said the prince, "I may perhaps suffer enough from the beauty and perfections of your fair cousin after I see her; you may surely allow me to deride them now. I am trying to depreciate the charms I dread. But I do not like the description of her. Tell me seriously do you not think her very intolerable?"

"I tell you, prince, I think quite otherwise. I believe Jane to be fifty times more lovely than any dame in Scotland; and a hundred times more beautiful than your tawny virago of a sister, whom I shall rejoice to tame like a spaniel. The haughty, vain, conceited, swart venom, that she should lay her commands on the Douglas to conquer or die for her! A fine presumption, forsooth! But the world shall see whether the charms of my cousin, Lady Jane Howard, or those of your grim and tawdry princess, have most power."

"Yes, they shall, my lord," said the prince: "In the mean time let us drop the subject. I see I have given you offence, not knowing that you were in love with Lady Jane, which now I clearly see to be the case.

Nevertheless, go on with the description, for I am anxious to hear all about her, and I promise to approve if there be a bare possibility of it."

"Her manner is engaging, and her deportment graceful and easy; her waist is slim, and her limbs slender and elegant beyond any thing you ever saw," said Lord Tudor.

"O shocking!" exclaimed the prince, quite forgetting himself: "Worst of all! I declare I have no patience with the creature. After such a description, who can doubt the truth of the reports about the extreme levity of her conduct? Confess now, my lord, that she is very free of her favours, and that the reason why so many young gentlemen visit her is now pretty obvious."

High offence was now manifest in Lord Jasper Tudor's look. He rose from his seat, and said in great indignation, "I did not ween I should be insulted in this guise by the meanest peasant in Scotland, far less by one of its courtiers, and least of all by a prince of the blood royal.

Yeomen, I will not, I cannot suffer this degradation. These ruffian Scots are intruders on us,--here I desire that you will expel them the house."

The Prince of Scotland was at the head of the table, Tudor was at his right hand; the rest of the English were all on that side, the Scots on the other,--their numbers were equal. Dan and his three brethren sat at the bottom of the board around the old man, who had been plying at the beef with no ordinary degree of perseverance, nor did he cease when the fray began. Every one of the two adverse parties was instantly on his feet, with his sword gleaming in his hand; but finding that the benches from which they had arisen hampered them, they with one accord sprung on the tops of these, and crossed their swords. The pages screamed like women. The two n.o.ble adventurers seemed scarcely to know the use of their weapons, but looked on with astonishment. At length the prince, somewhat collecting himself, drew out his shabby whanger, and brandished it in a most unwarlike guise, on which the blue-eyed Tudor retreated behind his attendants, holding up his hands, but still apparently intent on revenge for the vile obloquy thrown on the character of _his cousin_, Lady Jane Howard. "Tis just pe te shance she vant.i.t," said the Scot next to the prince.

"My certy, man, we'll get a paick at the louns now," said the second.

"Fat te teel's ta'en 'e bits o' vee laddies to flee a' eet abeet 'er buts o' wheers? I wudnae hae my feet i' their sheen for three plucks an a beedle," said the third.

"Thou's a' i' the wrang buox now, chaps," said the fourth. These were all said with one breath; and before the Englishmen had time to reply, clash went the swords across the table, and the third Scot, the true Aberdonian, was wounded, as were also two of the Englishmen, at the very first pa.s.s.

These matters are much sooner done than described. All this was the work of a few seconds, and done before advice could either be given or attended to. Dan now interfered with all the spirit and authority that he was master of. He came das.h.i.+ng along the middle of the board in his great war boots, striking up their swords as he came, and interposing his boardly frame between the combatants. "D--n ye a' for a wheen madcaps!" cried Dan as loud as he could bawl: "What the muckle deil's fa'en a bobbing at your midriffs now? Ye're a' my father's guests an'

mine; an', by the s.h.i.+n-banes o' Sant Peter, the first side that lifts a sword, or says a misbehadden word, my three brethren and I will tak' the tother side, an' smoor the transgressors like as mony moor-poots."

"Keep your feet aff the meat, fool," said old Pate.

"Gude sauff us!" continued Dan, "What has been said to gie ony offence?

What though the young gentlewoman dis tak a stown jink o' a' chap that's her ain sweet-heart whiles? Where's the harm in that? There's little doubt o' the thing. An' for my part, gin she didna"--

Here Dan was interrupted in his elegant harangue by a wrathful hysteric scream from young Tudor, who pulled out his whinyard, and ran at Dan, boring at him in awkward but most angry sort, crying all the while, "I will not bear this insult! Will my followers hear me traduced to my face?"

"Deil's i' e' wee but steepid laddie," said Buchan the Aberdonian; "it thinks 'at 'er preeving it to be a wheer 'e sel o't!"

Dan lifted up his heavy sword in high choler to cleave the stripling, and he would have cloven him to the belt, but curbing his wrath, he only struck his sword, which he made fly into pieces and jingle against the rafters of the house; then seizing the young adventurer by the shoulder, he s.n.a.t.c.hed him up to him on the board, where he still stood, and, taking his head below his arm, he held him fast with the one hand, making signs with the other to his brethren to join the Scots, and disarm the English, who were the aggressors both times. In the meantime, he was saying to Tudor, "Hout, hout, young master, ye hae never been o'er the Border afore; ye sude hae stayed at hame, an' want.i.t a wife till ye gathered mair rummelgumption."

The five English squires, now seeing themselves set upon by nine, yielded, and suffered themselves to be disarmed.

When Tudor came to himself, he appeared to be exceedingly grieved at his imprudence, and ready to make any acknowledgment, while the prince treated him with still more and more attention; yet these attentions were ever and anon mixed with a teazing curiosity, and a great many inquiries, that the young n.o.bleman could not bear, and did not chuse to answer.

It now became necessary to make some arrangement for the parties pa.s.sing the night. Patrick Chisholm's house had but one fire-place in an apartment which served for kitchen and hall; but it had a kind of _ben end_, as it was then, and is always to this day, denominated in that part of the country. There was scarcely room to move a foot in it; for, besides two oaken beds with rowan-tree bars, it contained five huge chests belonging to the father and his sons, that held their clothes and warlike accoutrements. The daughters of yeomen in these days did not sit at table with the men. They were the household servants. Two of Pate's daughters, who had been bustling about all the evening, conducted the two n.o.ble youths into this apartment, together with their two pages.