Chapter I: Canna Be Fashed; Or, Willie Grant's Confessions, (john Mackay (2)

He began to be ashamed of the shabbiness of his garments--the withering meaning of the word clung round him--he felt it as a festering sore eating into his very soul, and he appeared but little upon the streets. He had been several weeks without a lodging, and though it was now summer, the winds of heaven afford but a comfortless blanket for the shoulders when the midnight dews fall upon the earth. He had slept for several nights in a hayfield in the suburbs, on the Kent side of the river; and his custom was, to lift a few armfuls aside on a low rick, and laying himself down in the midst of it, gradually placing the hay over his feet, and the rest of his body, until the whole was covered. But the hay season did not last for ever; and one morning, when fast asleep in the middle of the rick, he was roused by a sudden exclamation of mingled horror and astonishment. He looked up, and beside him stood a countryman, with his mouth open, and his eyes gazing wistfully. In his hand he held a hayfork, and on the prongs of the fork was one of the skirts of poor George's coat. He gazed angrily at the countryman, and ruefully at the fragment of his unfortunate coat; and, rising, he drew round the portion of it that remained on his back, to view "the rent the envious _hayfork_ made."

"By goam! chap," said the countryman, when he regained his speech, "I have made thee a spencer; but I might have run the fork through thee, and it would have been no blame of mine."

They were leading the hay from the field, and the genius was deprived of his lodging. It was some nights after this he was wandering in the neighbourhood of Poplar, fainting and exhausted--sleeping, starting, dreaming--as he dragged his benumbed and wearied limbs along; and, as he was crossing one of the bridges over the canal, he saw one of the long fly-boats, which ply with goods to Birmingham and Manchester, lying below it. George climbed over the bridge, and dropped into the boat, and finding a quantity of painted sailcloth near the head of it, which was used as a covering for the goods, to protect them from the weather, he wrapped himself up in it, and lay down to sleep. How long he lay he know not, for he slept most soundly; and, when he awoke, he felt more refreshed than he had been for many nights. But he started as he heard the sound of voices near him; and, cautiously withdrawing the canvas from over his face, he beheld that the sun was up; and, to increase his perplexity, fields, trees, and hedges were gliding past him. While he slept, the boatmen had put the horses to the barge, and were now on their passage to Birmingham, and several miles from London; but, though they had passed and repassed the roll of canvas, they saw not, and they suspected not, that they "carried Caesar and his fortunes." George speedily comprehended his situation; and extricating his limbs from the folds of the canvas as quietly as ho could, he sprang to his feet, stepped to the side of the boat, and, with a desperate bound, reached the bank of the canal.

"Holloa!" shouted the astonished boatmen--"holloa! what have you been after?"

George made no answer, but ran with his utmost speed down the side of the canal.

"Holloa! stop thief!--stop thief!" bellowed the boatmen; and, springing to the ground, they gave chase to the genius. The boys, also, who rode the horses that dragged the boat unlinked them, and joined in the pursuit. It was a noble chase! But when George found himself pursued, he left the side of the canal, and took to the fields, clearing hedge, ditch, fence, and stone wall, with an agility that would have done credit to a first-rate hunter. The horses were at fault in following his example, and the boys gave up the chase; and when the boatmen had pursued him for the space of half-a-mile, finding they were losing ground at every step they returned, panting and breathless, to their boat. George, however, slackened his pace but little until he arrived at the Edgeware Road, and there he resumed his wonted slow and melancholy saunter, and sorrowfully returned towards London. He now, poor fellow, sometimes shut his eyes, to avoid the sight of his own shadow, which he seemed to regard as a caricature of his forlorn person; and, in truth, he now appeared miserably forlorn--I had almost said ludicrously so. His coat has been already mentioned, with its wounded elbows, and imagine it now with the skirts which had been torn away with the hayfork, when the author of an epic was nearly forked upon a cart, as he reposed in a bundle of hay--imagine now the coat with that skirt awkwardly pinned to it--fancy also that the button-holes had become useless, and that all the buttons, save two, had taken leave of his waistcoat--his trousers, also, were as smooth at the knees as though they had been glazed and hot-pressed, and they were so bare, so very bare, that the knees could almost be seen through them without spectacles. Imagine, also, that this suit had once been black, and that it had changed colours with the weather, the damp hay, the painted canvas, and the cold earth on which he slept; and add to this a hat, the brim of which was broken, and the crown fallen in--with shoes, the soles of which had departed, and the heels involuntarily gone down, as if ready to perform the service of slippers. Imagine these things, and you have a personification of George Rogers, as he now wended his weary way towards London.

He had reached the head of Oxford Street, and he was standing irresolute whether to go into the city or turn into the Park, to hide himself from the eyes of man, and to lie down in solitude with his misery, when a lady and a gentleman crossed the street to where he stood. Their eyes fell upon him--the lady started--George beheld her, and he started too--he felt his heart throb, and a blush burn over his cheek. He knew her at the first glance--it was the fair stranger--his mother's first-foot! He turned round--he hurried towards the Park--he was afraid--he was ashamed to look behind him. A thousand times had he wished to meet that lady again, and now he had met her, and he fled from her--the shame of his habiliments entered his soul. Still he heard footsteps behind him, and he quickened his pace. Ho had entered the Park, but yet he heard the sound of the footsteps following.

"Stop, young man!" cried a voice from behind him. But George walked on as though he heard it not. The word "stop!" was repeated; but, instead of doing so, he was endeavouring to hurry onward, when, as we have said, one of the shoes which had become slippers, and which, bad before, were now worse from his flight across the ploughed fields, came off, and he was compelled to stop and stoop, to put it again upon his foot, or to leave his shoe behind him. While he stopped, therefore, to get his shoe again upon his foot, the person who followed him came up--it was the gentleman whom he had seen with the fair unknown. With difficulty he obtained a promise from George that he would call upon him at his house in Pimlico in the afternoon; and when he found our genius too proud to accept of money, he thrust into the pocket of the memorable skirt, which the hayfork had torn from the parent cloth, all the silver which he had upon his person.

When the gentleman had left him, George burst into tears. They were tears of pride, of shame, and of agony.

At length, he took the silver from the pocket of his skirt; he counted it in his hand--it amounted to nearly twenty shillings. Twenty shillings will go farther in London than in any city in the world, with those who know how to spend it--but much depends upon that. By all the by-ways he could find, George winded his way down to Rosemary Lane, where the "_Black and Blue Reviver_" worketh miracles, and where the children of Israel are its high priests. Within an hour, wonderful was the metamorphosis upon the person of George Rogers. At eleven o'clock he was clothed as a beggar--at twelve he was shabby-genteel. The hat in ruins was replaced by one of a newer shape, and that had been brushed and ironed till it was as clear as a looking-glass. The skirtless coat was thrown aside for an olive-coloured one of metropolitan cut, with a velvet collar, and of which, as the Israelite who sold it said, "de _glosh_ was not off." The buttonless vest was laid aside for one of a light colour, and the place of the decayed trousers was supplied by a pair of pure white; yea, his feet were enclosed in sheep-skin shoes, which, he was assured, had never been upon foot before. Such was the change produced upon the outer man of George Rogers through twenty shillings; and, thus arrayed, with a beating and an anxious heart, he proceeded in the afternoon to the home of the beautiful stranger who had been the eventful first-foot in his father's house. As he crossed the Park by the side of the Serpentine, he could not avoid stopping to contemplate, perhaps I should say admire, the change that had been wrought upon his person, as it was reflected in the water as in a mirror. When he had arrived at Pimlico, and been ushered into the house, there was surprise on the face of the gentleman as he surveyed the change that had come over the person of his guest; but in the countenance of the young lady there was more of delight than of surprise. When he had sat with them for some time, the gentleman requested that he would favour them with his history and his adventures in London. George did so from the days of his childhood, until the day when the fair lady before him became his mother's first-foot; and he recounted also his adventures and his struggles in London, as we have related them; and, as he spoke, the lady wept. As he concluded, he said--"And, until this day, I have ever found an expression, which my uncle made in a letter, verified, that 'the moment the elbows of my coat opened, every door would shut.'"

"Your uncle!" said the gentleman, eagerly; "who is he?--what is his name?"

"He commands a vessel of his own in the merchant service," replied George, "and his name is John Rogers."

"John Rogers!" added the gentleman; "and your father's name?"

"Richard Rogers," answered George.

The young lady gazed upon him anxiously, and words seemed leaping to her tongue, when the gentleman prevented her, saying, "Isabel, love, I wish to speak with this young man in private;" and she withdrew. When they were left alone, the gentleman remained silent for a few minutes, at times gazing in the face of George, and again placing his hand upon his brow. At length he said--"I know your uncle, and I am desirous of serving you--he also will assist you, if you continue to deserve it. But you must give up book-making as a business; and you must not neglect business for book-making. You understand me. I shall give you a letter to a gentleman in the city, who will take you into his counting-house; and if, at the expiration of three months, I find your conduct has been such as to deserve my approbation, you shall meet me here again."

He then wrote a letter, which, having sealed, he put, with a purse, into the hands of George, who sat speechless with gratitude and astonishment.

On the following day, George delivered the letter to the merchant, and was immediately admitted as a clerk into his counting-house. He was ignorant of the name of his uncle's friend; and when he ventured to inquire at the merchant respecting him, he merely told him, he was one whose good opinion he would not advise him to forfeit. In this state of suspense, George laboured day by day at the desk; and although he was most diligent, active, and anxious to please, yet frequently, when he was running up figures, or making out an invoice, his secret thoughts were of the fair Isabel--the daughter of his uncle's friend, and his mother's first-foot. He regretted that he did not inform her father that he was his uncle's heir--he might then have been admitted to his house, and daily seen her on whom his thoughts dwelt. His situation was agreeable enough--it was paradise to what he had experienced; yet the three months of his probation seemed longer than twelve.

He had been a few weeks employed in the counting-house, when he received a letter from his parents. His father informed him that they had received a letter from his uncle, who was then in London; but, added he, "he has forgotten to gie us his direction, where we may write to him, or where ye may find him." His mother added an important postscript, in which she informed him that "She was sorry she was richt after a', that there wasna luck in a squintin first-foot; for he would mind o' the sailor that brought the letter, that said he was to be his uncle's heir; and now it turned out that his uncle had found an heir o' his ain."

It was the intention of George, when he had read the letter, to go to the house of his benefactor, and inquire for his uncle's address, or the name of the ship; but when he reflected that he might know neither--that he was not to return to his house for three months, nor until he was sent for--and, above all, when he thought that he was no longer his uncle's heir, and that he now could offer up no plea for looking up to the lovely Isabel--he resumed his pen with a stifled sigh, and abandoned the thought of finding out his uncle for the present.

He had been rather more than ten weeks in the office, when the unknown Isabel entered and inquired for the merchant. She smiled upon George as she passed him--the smile entered his very soul, and the pen shook in his hand. It was drawing towards evening, and the merchant requested George to accompany the young lady home. Joy and agitation raised a tumult in his breast--he seized his hat--he offered her his arm--but he scarce knew what he did. For half-an-hour he walked by her side without daring or without being able to utter a single word. They entered the Park; the lamps were lighted amidst the trees along the Mall, and the young moon shone over them. It was a lovely and an imposing scene, and with it George found a tongue. He dwelt upon the effect of the scenery--he quoted passages from his own epic--and he spoke of the time when his fair companion was his mother's first-foot. She informed him that she was then hastening to the death-bed of her grandfather, whom she believed to be the only relative that she had in life--that she arrived in time to receive his blessing, and that, with his dying breath, he told her her father yet lived--and, for the first time, she heard his name, and had found him. George would have asked what that name was, but when he attempted to do so he hesitated, and the question was left unfinished. They spoke of many things, and often they walked in silence; and it was not until the watchman called, "Past nine o'clock," that they seemed to discover that, instead of proceeding towards Pimlico, they had been walking backward and forward upon the Mall. Ho accompanied her to her father's door, and left her with his heart filled with unutterable thoughts.

The three months had not quite expired, when the anxiously-looked-for invitation arrived, and George Rogers was to dine at the house of his uncle's friend, the father of the fair Isabel. I shall not describe his feelings as he hastened along the streets towards Pimlico. He arrived at the house, and his hand shook as he reached it to the rapper. The door was opened by a strange-looking footman. George thought that he had seen him before--it was indeed a face that, if once seen, was not easily forgotten. The footman had not such large whiskers as Bill Somers, but they were of the same colour, and they certainly were the same eyes that had frightened his mother in the head of her first-foot. He was shown into a room where Isabel and her father waited to receive him. "When I last saw you, sir," said the latter, "you informed me you were the nephew of John Rogers. He finds he has no cause to be ashamed of you. George, my dear fellow, your uncle Jack gives you his hand! Isabel, welcome your cousin!"

"My cousin!" cried George.

"My cousin!" said Isabel.

What need we say more--before the New Year came, they went down to Scotland a wedded pair, to be his mother's first-foot in the farmhouse, which had been rebuilt.

THE ROMANCE OF THE SIEGE OF PERTH.

In the year 1310, King Robert Bruce had overcome many of those extraordinary difficulties that threatened to render all the efforts of mere man unavailable in regaining for Scotland that perfect liberty of which she had so long boasted, and which, though it had never been taken from her absolutely, had been, by the unwarrantable schemes and policy of the first Edward, loosened from her grasp, and lay trampled on by the fierce genius of war. Great and wonderful, however, as had already been the prowess and determination of Bruce, and successful beyond the aspirations of hope as had been his efforts in the glorious cause of his country's freedom, there was great room for question whether Scotland would even at this period have triumphed, had the sceptre of England not fallen so opportunely into the hands of the second Edward. The first and greatest of all Scotland's foes, the first Edward, had died three years before, at Burgh-upon-Sands, leaving, as Froissart informs us, his dying injunction on his son, to boil his body in a caldron, till the bones should part with the flesh, and to carry the grim relics with him into Scotland, with the condition that they should not be buried till Scotland was subdued. The legacy of dry bones, from which the spirit of the great king had departed, was apparently all of his father that the young Edward inherited; for he soon displayed so much vacillation of policy, and so little genius for war, that, if Providence had intended to work to the hands of Bruce for the salvation of his country, she could not have brought about her designs with greater effect than by giving Bruce as an enemy the young King of England. Things were going straight forward to the result of Bannockburn. Bruce had been successful almost everywhere. The clergy at Dundee had declared his right to the throne, and the injustice of the decision that gave Baliol the crown; the nobles, with the exception of Angus, Buchan, and some others, were in his favour; but, above all, the common people, in whom the true sovereignty of every country lies, had begun to see in their new king those qualities that are calculated to move the heart. The hopes of Bruce rose every hour; and, having scattered the forces of the English in every recent encounter, he saw the necessity, and felt the power, of seizing some of the walled towns that Edward had fortified with much care, as if stone and lime could bind the freedom of Scotland. The town of Perth was the one that seemed then of greatest importance, as well from its central situation between the Highlands and Lowlands, as from the state of its battlements, which were a regular fortification, with strong walls defended by high towers, and all surrounded by a broad and deep fosse.

The town had for some time been under siege, and, being one of those that Edward was determined to hold to the last, was promised succour with the first supplies that should enter the Tay. It was commanded by William Oliphant, an Anglicised Scot, who, with a firmness worthy of a better cause, had resolved to be true to the enemy of his country, and to give up the town only with his life. But his efforts were sorely thwarted by the remissness of Edward in sending provisions, and by the effects of a grievous famine, that, as a consequence of the intestine wars by which the country had been so wofully torn, was desolating the land in every quarter. He had already drained the pockets of the most wealthy of the citizens, by forcing them to supply him with money, by which he contrived to get in provisions to enable him to hold out against Bruce. Among the rest, a rich burgher from the Lower Provinces, Peter of Ghent (his latter name has not reached us) was expected to lend him a large sum of money. The Fleming was, in those days, what the Scots afterwards became--remarkable for the possession of the faculty of prudence--the legitimate offspring of the genius of merchandise. By the importation of broadcloths and armour gear, he had contrived to realise a large fortune, and was reported by the good men of Perth as one of the wealthiest merchants in the kingdom. He had only one child, a daughter, commonly known by the name of Anne of Ghent, a young creature of great beauty, and, what may appear to have been somewhat remarkable in her station, of a spirit that was deeply imbued with the love of chivalry. But we would form a very inadequate estimate of the charms of that extraordinary power which overturned kingdoms and damsels' hearts wherever its influence was felt, if we were to limit its sphere to the sons and daughters of nobility. Its principles, indeed, are found in every bosom that responds to the sentiments of love and heroism; and from the humble and beautiful Anne of Ghent, up to the noble and heroic Isabella of Buchan, the spirit burned with a fervour that was only in some accounted less strong because no opportunities wore afforded for its display.

It was not in Scotland that this spirit had been first fanned into a flame in the bosom of the fair Fleming, but in France, where the _preux chevalier_ was seen in all his pride and glory. When about sixteen years of age, she had accompanied her father to Flanders, when he resorted thither for the purpose of traffic; and, in order to gratify his daughter, of whom he was justly proud, he had taken her to Paris, to be present at a joust held before Louis IX. The display of arms on that occasion was a trial between Sir Piers Guyard and Sir William Indelgonde, the latter of whom, having defamed the mistress of the former, had been compelled, by order of Louis, to prove his assertion by the issue of a mortal combat. The battle ended by the death of Indelgonde; but what possessed greater charms to Anne than the details of the _duellum_, was the extraordinary sight she witnessed of twenty untried squires of France, all arrayed in shining coats of armour, with long flowing plumes of various colours on their glittering basnets, taking, according to the custom of these days, their first oaths, "before the peacock and the ladies," that they would not see with both eyes until they had accomplished some daring deed of arms. The gay bird of gaudy hues was brought into a large pavilion erected at the end of the arena; and, like that before which King Edward I. swore at Westminster when he denounced poor Scotland, was encircled with a thin covering of golden gauze, and placed on a tripod ornamented with many carved devices of chivalry. The squires, one by one, knelt before the bird, and recited their oaths, and then, turning round to the queens of their destinies, solicited like mendicants, with one knee on the ground, a silk riband to bind up the orb which was about to be deprived of the fair sight of their charms. Nearly opposite to where Anne sat, a very young chevalier of the name of Rolande of Leon knelt for his eye gear; and though twenty ladies of birth, all anxious that their gifts should be accepted, threw to him ribands of silk, it happened that, whether from chance or from some mysterious sympathy between the hand and eyes of the young mendicant, a narrow green stripe, that Anne in her enthusiasm tore hurriedly from her head-gear, fell into his willing grasp. When she saw the fluttering trophy in the hands of so comely a youth, she trembled with modest fear; for she knew that, as the daughter of a burgher, rich as he was, she had but a very questionable title to compete for the honours of chivalry; but, when she saw the riband bound round his head, and the helmet placed upon it, she was ready to faint outright, and it was with difficulty that she retained her position on the bench. As soon as the crowd began to move, she hastened away to join her father, who was waiting for her beyond the palisades. Next day she was on her way to Flanders, and shortly afterwards she arrived at the city of Perth.

Two or three years had now passed since the fair Fleming acted the almost involuntary part of a high lady, within the pale of the _Theatre de la chevalerie_. Living, with the rich old merchant, within the walls of a city devoted to traffic, she had had few opportunities of witnessing another show of arms. The warriors of Scotland were then holding their jousts in the open fields and thick forests; and, in place of fighting for the smiles of women, were doing battle for the liberties of their ancient and much-abused country. But the rising fame of Bruce, his brother Edward, and Douglas, and Randolph, claimed her feelings of admiration; and she would have given her rosary itself, with her jewelled cross, to have got a glimpse of men of whom all the ladies of Christendom were enamoured. She often pictured to herself, as she sat in her small parlour that fronted the city wall, their forms firmly girt with their shining armour; but a visor was never lifted up to the eye of her fancy without revealing the feature of Rolande, as she saw him kneeling at her feet for the gift he solicited and obtained. The face had been deeply imprinted in her memory, and the encircling gift which she had bestowed, seemed to connect her by some indefinable tie with one whom she might never see again, but of whom she could never cease to think. His elegant and manly form, which displayed all the graces of the accomplished man-at-arms, mixed itself with all her thoughts, and her greatest delight was to pre-figure to herself the appearance, on some occasion, of that same warrior, with his left eye bound by the badge she had given him, and a declaration on his tongue, as he knelt before her, that she had the sole power of restoring him full-orbed to the light, which he might now claim as the reward of his prowess.

Anne was thus one evening indulging in some of these reveries of a love-sick brain, when Peter of Ghent entered the room. He was dressed in his Sunday's suit, with his ample surcoat of the best broadcloth, girt round the waist with a leather belt, his broad slouched hat of felt, and boots of the old Flemish style turned down at the tops, forming altogether a favourable contrast with the roughly-clad people of those early times, when the rough hats, coarse jerkins, and untanned shoes, constituted the apparel of Scotland's sons. Anne looked up, and a slight feeling of surprise passed through her mind as she noticed him thus arrayed.

"The town is still in great danger, Anne," said he, as he took a seat by her side, at the fire of blazing faggots, that threw a bright glare over the beautiful face of his daughter. "The enemies of Edward seem to be on the increase. Dundee has surrendered, the whole of Galloway has been ravaged, and Bruce, become bolder by his success, lies looking on our good town, as the wolves of Atholl look on the sheepfold in the glen."

"If there had been lions in these parts, father," answered Anne, "I might have heard from thee a comparison more suitable to the qualities of that brave soldier."

"These words, Anne," replied Peter, "but ill become a liege woman of King Edward. This poor country cannot thrive without the protecting power of England, where more broadcloths are disposed of in one year than Scotland uses in ten. The limbs of the sturdy hills and dales men seem to spurn all modes of human comfort; yet verily the love of ease and warmth to the body is the parent of all arts and improvement; and until that begins to be felt, we can have no hope of Scotland."

Anne looked up, and smiled at this professional allusion to the source of her father's wealth.

"But I need not so speak to the pretty Anne," he added, returning her smile; "for I know that thou hast the fashionable womanish affection of these times for steel, as the commodity of man's apparel; and thereto appertaineth the subject of which I came to speak to thee. Our governor, William Oliphant--who, though a Scotchman, is as true an adherent of Edward as ever fought under the banner-borne bones of his father--wanteth a thousand Flemish nobles, to enable him to get provisions for our citizens from a Dutch galley in the Tay; and whom should he apply to for it but Peter of Ghent, who is looked upon as being the richest man of Perth?"

"And wilt thou give it him, father?" said Anne. "Of a surety, thou wilt lose it, if thou dost; for, were Perth as strong as Roxburgh, which, they say, is the strongest hold of these parts, it would not stand against such a warrior as Robert Bruce; and where wilt thou get thy money again, if the town falls into the hands of the Scots?"

"That is a good point of argument for a woman, love," replied Peter. "I fear for the old town myself; for they tell me that Bruce's fame has brought to his blue banner three French knights, with their left eyes bound up by ladies' favours, who deem that their feats of arms in an escalade of Perth may restore to them their sight. Doubtless they will fight like lions or devils; but seest thou not, that, whether I give the money or not, the town may fall, and all I have in the world may be wrenched from me by these naked caterans, to whom a single merk, albeit it were clipped to the dimensions of King David's bodles, would be a fortune?"

Anne was silent. The mention of the monoculous knights of France had driven merks and all other moneys from her mind, and she would have rejoiced to have seen Perth taken upon the instant, provided always that she were taken with it. But Peter understood not her absence of mind, and resumed his argument, on the assumption that Anne was listening with all due attention to his scheme.

"But Peter of Ghent," he again said, "never gave a silver piece, or a woollen piece either, for nothing; and, if my dutiful Anne will enter into my scheme, she may have for her consort no less a man than William Oliphant himself, the Governor of Perth, and her wedding-dress shall be of the best silks of Nismes, the richest gloves of Grenoble, and sandals from the fair of Bocaire."

This announcement of some cunning purpose of her father filled Anne with alarm. Oliphant, a dissolute man, had been sometimes in the habit of calling at the house, and she had often thought that she herself was the object of his attraction. Her father, by mentioning the French knights that fought under the banner of Bruce, had raised a hope that her chevalier of the green riband was among them, and now he had caused an alarm that might have been read in her countenance.

"William Oliphant, the Governor of Perth," she replied, as she held down her face towards the blazing faggots, "will not surely stoop to marry the daughter of a Flemish merchant."

"Money will make any man stoop, fair Anne," replied Peter. "I have heard the back armour of the bravest knight of the lists crack with the bow to Mammon, as loud as when he knelt to the peacock. A merchant knows the science of provisos, and conditions, and stipulations, and never a Scotch plack will William Oliphant get from Peter of Ghent, but upon the condition that he wed my Anne, when the town is saved from the arms of Bruce and his blind knights, and the promised succours shall arrive from England. By Saint Dennis, we may have a jolly wedding in the midst of our jubilee of liberation. What sayest, my love?"

Anne still hung down her head. She feared to oppose her father, who was indulgent to her, and had hitherto prided himself on her obedience. She was, besides, overcome with the conflicting thoughts that had been so suddenly raised in her mind by the mention of the French knights, and of this new purpose of her father, that seemed to destroy all the hopes she still entertained of one day enjoying the affections of the man who had first produced an effect upon her heart. A deep sigh escaped from her, and roused her father's suspicions of the cause of her silence.

"Speak, Anne," he said; "thou hast already captivated the governor by thy beauty, and my money will do the rest. He will be knighted by Edward, if he beat off the Bruce; and my daughter will be a lady."

"William Oliphant is not a man according to my heart, father," answered she, at last, with a trembling heart; "but might I be absolved from my engagement to marry him, if the town falls before the arms of the Scots?" she added, as she looked modestly and fearfully into his face.

"Most certainly, love," replied Peter; "and, moreover, thou shalt not be bound to Oliphant personally, for it is I that must make the condition that he will marry thee, in consideration of the loan I gave him for the good old town."

Well pleased with the dutiful answer he had got from his daughter, the worthy man of traffic sallied forth to meet, by special appointment, the governor, who anxiously waited for him in his residence. After he had gone forth, Anne bethought herself of what her fear of offending her father had wrung from her. Though timid from love and duty, she was of a noble spirit, and upheld her heart, as it recoiled from the thought of becoming the wife of a man she hated, by revolving in her mind the chances of the gallant Scots forcing the town to surrender, and relieving her from her qualified obligation. She wished all success to the chivalrous Bruce, because she loved the character of him, and the great and enthusiastic spirits who were struggling for freedom; but she was filled with a high swelling hope, that burned in her bright eye, and heaved her bosom, that her chosen knight of the lists was among the three Frenchmen, who were undergoing their probation for the honours of chivalry. At that moment, her lover was in all probability at a very short distance from her--her lady-gift still bound the flowing hair of dark auburn she had seen and admired, as it escaped from beneath his helm; her power was still exercised in occluding one of the darkest and most brilliant eyes that ever peered through the warrior's visor, and the thought of her then sitting and dreaming of him was perhaps occupying his mind, and filling his heart. Then rose the thrilling thought, that, ere another week passed over, her own hands might be required to unbind the pledge, and the light of the eye that had so long been hid from the sun, might first be thrown upon the face of her who bound it. The hazards of a siege were despised by her bold spirit, as it contemplated these glowing visions. She feared nothing for either herself or her father from men who, while they fought like lions for their country's liberty, were actuated by the high and noble spirit of chivalry. Possessing that confidence in the generosity of noble hearts which seems to be natural to lovely women, she would throw herself on the protection of Bruce himself; claiming that, she could defy all danger, from whatever quarter it might come; and her request for safety to her father would be as successful as her petition for herself. In the siege and capture of the town, her best and dearest interests were involved; for she would contemplate the success of great men fighting in a cause she loved, she would have the chance of meeting her lover, and she had the certainty of escaping the licentious Oliphant, who could not claim her, in the event of losing his treacherous cause in fighting against his country. The sounds of the clang of arms of the assailants would at that moment have been the sweetest sound she ever heard; and she drew deep sighs, as she contemplated the chances of their triumph.

Unconscious of the thoughts that were revolving in the excited mind of his daughter, Peter of Ghent walked along the streets of Perth, till he came to the residence of the governor. His mind was too much occupied on the subject of his diplomatic undertaking to allow him to notice the gazing burghers, who, from their windows, stared at the rich Fleming, and suspected that the object of his expedition was in some way connected with the perilous state of the town. He found the governor waiting for him; and, having made his bow, was soon seated by the official's fire.

"Well, Peter of Ghent," began Oliphant, "hast thou bethought thyself of my request--to give me the thousand nobles that are required for the support of the town against the arms of the Bruce, whose head deserveth a spear, alongside of that which upholdeth Wallace's on London Bridge, or whose body meriteth a cage, alongside of the Countess of Buchan's crib, in the Castle of Berwick. What sayest thou?"

"The sum thou mentionest, Sir Governor," replied the cunning burgher, "hath been laid apart for the tocher of Anne, who meriteth well of the good consideration thou hast bestowed on her. The marriage dower is a sacred gift. Dost thou think as well of her now as formerly?"

"Why, yes, Peter of Ghent, I do," replied Oliphant, who probably saw some obscure connection between Peter's sentences which the words themselves scarcely supplied. "No man with a heart could see that maiden once, and forget her ever. Less beautiful women have been the cause of the meeting of bleeding heads and sawdust; and thou wilt not be far beyond the Saracen's head of thy suspicion, if thou deemest me a lover of fair Anne of Ghent."

"That I have had a fair cause to suspect," said Peter; "and I am well entitled to opine that Anne would give her consent to my paying the sum required of me, upon the consideration that it was merely a species of foreinstalment of dowery, given for the double purpose of saving the town and securing a governor of her heart. A man that can defend, so nobly as you have done, a walled city, could keep a woman's heart in good discipline."

"A right fair point of dialects, Peter of Ghent," replied Oliphant; "but we had better speak of concernments of love after the city is saved. Let us have the nobles in the meanwhile, and we will discuss the merits of the fair Anne, when we have time and leisure to appreciate the qualities of womankind."

"Well and veritably indited," said Peter; "but it would lubricate and facilitate the gaining of Anne's consent to the payment of this money, if I could report to her that it was to be paid as a matrimonial propine to the man she loveth; and, to be honest, I cannot, of a truth, pay it, but upon that stipulation."

"And, by the honour of a governor! I am well pleased to think that I am thus estimated by so fair a creature. Let us have the money; and, if all goes well with the town, I shall look for a second tocher, of another thousand, with the hand of thy daughter."

"Concluded, Sir Governor," cried Peter, in ecstasy.

And the two sat down to finish, over a bottle of Burgundy, the details of a bargain which, on one side, was, at least, sincere; but on the other, was deemed, by those who knew the faithless character of the man, of, at least, dubious faith. Whatever sincerity, however, was felt and exhibited by Peter, in so far as concerned the governor, it was very clear that he had acted a part of true mercantile subtlety, in so far as regarded the interests of his fair daughter. Meanwhile, the money was paid, and extraordinary efforts were made by Oliphant to get foraging parties sent abroad, to procure, for the inhabitants, the necessary supplies. The motions of these troops, as well as those of the besiegers, were regularly noticed by Anne from a part of the wall to which she had access from her father's house. Her interest in the issue of the impending strife was the greatest that could be felt by woman; for it involved the dearest rights of her sex. Bound to Oliphant only in the event of his success, his defeat might bring to her the object of her affections, and she looked for every demonstration of activity on the part of Bruce as a sign of her coming liberation.

During these watchful operations of the fair Fleming, the soldiers of Bruce remained steady at their post, where they had already been for five weeks, endeavouring to prevent any supplies from being sent into the town. Their numbers as yet, however, were so few, and the fortifications of Perth so extensive, that a considerable portion of the ground surrounding the town was left under the surveillance of a species of riding patrole, which the indefatigable endeavours of Oliphant sometimes succeeded in enabling the purveyors to elude. A like good fortune did not attend some of those sent to turn the merks of Peter of Ghent into edibles; for several foragers were intercepted in their passage from the country to the besieged city. One of these--a person called Giles Mortimer--was taken before Bruce, and examined as to the state of the town's provisions.

"Well, sirrah, are these rebels still determined to hold out?" said the king.

"There are many murmurs in the town, sire," replied the man; "and were it not, as fame reporteth, that a rich citizen hath given the governor a thousand Flemish nobles, on condition that he marry his daughter, I do believe that not another noble would have been wrung from any one in the whole city."

"And what is the name of this rich citizen?" said Bruce.

"How could it be any other than Peter of Ghent?" said the man, with a smile; "for is he not the richest citizen of Perth?"

"We have heard of this same Peter of Ghent," said Bruce; "and, by our crown, we should not be ill pleased to be present at the wedding of his daughter. We have some French knights here, who would dance merrily, in honour of the fair bride. What is her name?"

"Anne of Ghent she is called," replied the man; "and, by'r lady, she might, for the matter of beauty, be the wife of a king."

"And when is the wedding to be?" rejoined Brace.

"When the governor can declare the town to be safe from the Bruce," replied the man.

"And that will be when the hares in the pass of Ben Cruachan are safe from the wolves of Lorn," replied Bruce, laughing, and looking around to his chiefs. "Now, look around you, sir, at these warriors, and after thou hast made a gauge of their numbers, and learned that every castle we have yet attempted hath fallen before us, go and tell William Oliphant that we intend to be present at his wedding with the fair Anne of Ghent, and cannot think of waiting either for the succours of King Edward, or for our own defeat. Hie thee on our message, sirrah."

The man was accordingly liberated; and Bruce, during that same day, having resolved to perform by stratagem what seemed to be impossible by the fair play of arms, took with him Sir James Douglas, and went to reconnoitre. Great and even marvellous as was the courage of these far-famed assertors of their country's freedom, it may be doubted whether their genius for daring and successful stratagem did not excel the chivalrous spirit of fair-fighting by which they were actuated to perform deeds of arms that have made the whole world ring with their fame. The capture of the peel or castle of Linlithgow, and that of Edinburgh, afterwards performed, were the most cunningly-devised pieces of military stratagem that had ever been witnessed; and the work of old Polyaenus on the warlike acts of the strategists of Greece exhibits nothing that can be compared to them. Bruce had already exhibited this talent for scheming, in the affairs of Lindon Hill and Cruachan Ben; but his powers in this respect were yet to be developed on a grander scale, and as it were by gradation, till the final triumph of Bannockburn should establish his fame for ever. The capture of Perth was one of those intermediate and probationary trials that were fitting the great master for that final and glorious display of all his talents for war; but, small as it was in comparison of what followed, it exhibited perhaps as much of his peculiar genius as had yet been shown. Accompanied by Sir James, he went, during the hours of twilight, up to the margin of the fosse.

"We must know the depth cf this miniature Styx," he said to his companion.

"But we have no measuring-rods," replied Sir James.

"By thine own St Bride! we have though," replied Bruce, smiling. "I am six feet two inches in height." And, in an instant, he was up to the neck in the water; proceeding forward he reached the bottom of the wall, and satisfied himself that all the tall men of his army might make their way through the ditch without incurring the danger of being drowned. Having ascertained this, he returned to the camp, and having provided himself and his companion (for he avoided any show of men) with scaling-ladders of ropes, they again sallied forth under the shade of the increasing darkness, and reached the spot that had already been tested. With one of the ladders in his hand, he again plunged into the water, and made a signal for Sir James to follow; but the knight wanted full two inches of the height of the king, and hesitated a moment, from a well-grounded suspicion that he would be overwhelmed. But shame mastered his scruples, and in an instant he was alongside of the king, who, however, required to seize and sustain him, to prevent his being taken off his feet by the power of the water, that was almost on a level with his lips. They paused a moment in this position, to listen if there were any sounds of stir on the walls, and, perceiving all quiet, they proceeded, and reached the bottom of the fortification. Sir James stood close to the wall, and Bruce, by the aid of some jutting stones, mounted upon his shoulders, remarking, with a quaint humour, that the knight required some weight to be placed upon him, to enable him to keep his erect position. In this strange attitude the king contrived to throw up and fix the ladders to the top of the first bartizan of the wall, and having tugged them with all his force, to ascertain their steadfastness, he came down, and was about to retrace his steps, when Sir James, who disdained to be behind even his king in feats of daring, seized the end of one of the ladders, and, mounting up, looked calmly over the top of the wall, and satisfied himself of two things--first, that the ladders were properly fixed; and, second, that their daring act had not been observed. Having descended, he was again laid hold of by the king; and they reached the bank, where they deliberately shook the water off them after the manner of water-spaniels, and returned to the camp.

Some of the heads of the army were informed of what had been done, and, next morning, after all the inhabitants of the town were astir, the clarion was sounded, loud and long, as if the city had been upon the instant to be attacked. The tents were struck; but, in place of an attack, a retreat was the order of the day, and in the course of an hour the whole Scottish host were beyond the sight of the inhabitants of Perth. The intelligence was soon therefore circulated within the city, that Bruce had given up the siege, and had departed upon some expedition of less difficulty; and the friends of Edward rejoiced that they were liberated from so fearful a foe. The communication was received by many with great rejoicings; and a courier, who arrived that same day from England, announced that Edward had despatched succours to the city, which would arrive in the Tay nearly as soon as the messenger would reach the end of his journey. To Peter of Ghent, this change of circumstances was the apparent prelude to the honours he expected to be showered upon his daughter; but Anne herself, dreaming still of her monoculous knight, and of her anticipated delivery by the champions she desired so ardently to see, looked forward with fear and trembling to the sacrifice that seemed to await her. Her watching at the city walls had been persevered in; but all her care and perspicacity had not enabled her to perceive the strange act of Bruce in suspending the ladder before sounding a retreat. The guarding of the walls was in some degree relaxed, and the inhabitants began again to go forth, and engage in their avocations. About three days afterwards, the handmaid of the fair Fleming, who was in the secret of her mistress, informed her that, as she returned from a meeting near the fortifications with her lover, a soldier, she had observed the top of a rope-ladder affixed to the lower bartizan of the west wall; but the girl's information ended with the announcement of the fact, for her simple mind had suggested no explanation of the circumstance. But to Anne's quick thought the communication presented an aspect pregnant of hope; and, having cautioned the maiden against speaking of what she had seen to any of the inhabitants, she sallied forth in the light of the moon, and by the directions of her informant soon came to the spot where the ladder was suspended. A train of reflections opened up to her the scheme of Bruce, who had, as she thought, raised the siege, to lull the inhabitants into a security which he might turn to his advantage. By some bold efforts, she reached the part of the wall to which the instrument of escalade was attached, and, in the height of her enthusiasm, she took from her dress a narrow riband, and bound it to the top of the ropes.

"The design of these bold spirits," she said, "shall not lack the inspiring gift of a woman to hail, as that favour streameth in the wind, the success of the cause that giveth freedom to their country. If Rolande de Leon may not see this, the eyes of Bruce, that are unbound, may catch a sight of the trophy; and what better evidence may he have that Anne of Ghent wisheth him triumph?"

After indulging in her short monologue, she retreated from the wall, and with some difficulty escaped the eyes of some of the neighbouring guards, as she sought with quick steps the house of her father. As she entered, Peter of Ghent looked at her as if he would have questioned her as to where she had been at so late an hour; but his mind was too much occupied by matters of greater moment.