Chapter II: Part 2

He had been found by the side of a hedge, fainting from loss of blood. A bullet had entered his arm below the shoulder--the bone was splintered; and on a surgeon's being sent for, he declared that immediate amputation was necessary. Poor Catherine and her little ones were taken into the house of a neighbour while the operation was to be performed, and even her father had not nerve to look on it. William sat calmly, and beheld the surgeon and his assistant make their preparations, and when the former took the knife in his hand, the wounded man thought not of bodily pain, but the feelings of the father and the husband gushed forth.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, "had it been my leg, it wad hae been naething; but my arm--I will be helpless for life! What am I to do now for my puir Katie and my bits o' bairns? Guid gracious! I canna beg!--and auld James, puir body, what will come owre him! Oh, sir," added he, addressing the surgeon, "I could bear to hae my arm cut through in twenty different places, were it not that it deprives me o' the power o' working for bread for my family!"

"Keep a stout heart, my good fellow," said the surgeon, as he began his task; "they will be provided for in some way."

"Grant it may be sae!" answered William; "but I see naething for as but to beg!"

I must here, however, take back my reader to 1815, and from the neighbourhood of Stirling direct their attention to Brussels and Waterloo. George Washington Nicholson, after the battle of Toulouse, had been appointed to the rank of serjeant. For several months he was an inmate in the house of a thriving merchant in Brussels; he had assisted him in his business; he, in fact, acted as his chief clerk and his confidant; he became as one of the family, and nothing was done by the Belgian trader without consulting Serjeant Nicholson.

But the fearful night of the 15th of June arrived, when the sounds of the pibroch rang through the streets of Brussels, startling soldier and citizen, and the raven and the owl were invited to a feast. The name of Napoleon was pronounced by tongues of every nation. "He comes!--he comes!" was the cry. George Nicholson was one of the first to array himself for battle, and rush forth to join his regiment. He bade a hurried farewell to his host; but there was one in the house whose hand trembled when he touched it, and on whose lips he passionately breathed his abrupt adieu. It was the gentle Louise, the sole daughter of his host.

The three following days were dreadful days in Brussels; confusion, anxiety, dismay, prevailed in every street; they were pictured in every countenance. On one hand were crowded the wounded from the battle, on the other were citizens flying from the town to save their goods and themselves, and, in their general eagerness to escape, blocking up their flight. Shops were shut, houses deserted, and churches turned into hospitals. But, in the midst of all--every hour, and more frequently--there went a messenger from the house of the merchant with whom Serjeant Nicholson had lodged, to the _Porte de Namur_, to inquire how fared it with the Highlanders, to examine the caravans with the wounded as they arrived, and to inquire at the hospitals, if _one whom Louise named_ had been brought there.

Never was a Sabbath spent in a more unchristian manner than that of the 18th June, 1815, on the plains of Waterloo. At night the news of the success of the British arrived in Brussels, and before sunrise on the following morning the merchant in whose house George Nicholson had been lodged, drove through the _Porte de Namur_, with his daughter Louise by his side. At every step of their journey appalling spectacles presented themselves before them; and, as they proceeded, they became more and more horrible. They were compelled to quit their vehicle, for the roads were blocked up, and proceeded through the forest _de Soignes_, into which many of the wounded had crawled to die, or to escape being trampled on by the pain-maddened horses. On emerging from the forest, the disgusting shambles of war, with its human carcases, its blood, its wounded, and its dying, spread all its horrors before them. From the late rains, the field was as a morass. Conquerors and the conquered were covered with mud. Here lay heaps of dead--there, soldier and citizen dug pits to bury them in crowds, and they were hurled into a common grave,

"Unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown."

Let the eyes turn where they would, there the ghastly sight of the wounded met them; nor could the ear be rendered deaf to the groans of the dying, and the cry from every quarter and in every tongue of "Water! water!"--for the wounded were perishing from thirst, and their throats were parched and their tongues dry. There, too, prowled the plunderer, robbing the dead--the new-made widow sought her husband, and the mother her son. To and fro rushed hundreds of war-horses, in foam and in agony, without curb or rider--others lay kicking and snorting on the ground, their broad chests heaving with the throes of departing life, and struggling as though they thought themselves stronger than death.

Louise and her father were shown to the positions that had been occupied by the Highland regiments. They inquired of every one whom they met, and who wore the garb of Old Scotland, if they could tell them aught of the fate of Serjeant Nicholson; but they shook their heads, and answered, "No."

Louise was a beautiful and interesting girl, and the bloom of nineteen summers blushed on her cheeks; but they were now pale, and her dark eyes were bedimmed with tears. She leaned upon her father's arm, and they were passing near a field of rye, which was trodden down as though a scythe had been passed over it. Many dead and dying Highlanders lay near it. Before them lay a wounded man, whose face was covered and disfigured with blood--he was gasping for water, and his glazed eyes were unconscious of the earnestness and affection with which they gazed on him.

"It is he!--it is he!" cried Louise.

It was indeed George Nicholson.

"He lives!--he breathes!" she continued. She bent over him--she raised his head--she applied a cordial to his lips. He swallowed it eagerly. His eyes began to move--a glow of consciousness kindled in them. With the assistance of her father, she washed and bound up his wounds, and the latter having procured a litter, he had him conveyed to his house at Brussels, and they accompanied him by the way. Louise watched over him; and in a few days his wounds were pronounced to be no longer dangerous, though he recovered slowly, and he acknowledged the affection of his gentle deliverer with the tears of gratitude and the glance of love.

As soon as he had acquired strength to use a pen, he wrote a letter to his father, but he received no answer--a second time he wrote, and the result was the same. He now believed that, because he had been a humble instrument in contributing to the fall of a man, in whose greatness his father's soul was wrapped up, he had cast him off, and disowned him.

The father of Louise obtained his discharge, and intrusted him with the management of his business. He knew that his daughter's heart was attached, with all a woman's devotedness, to the young Scotchman, and he knew that his affection for her was not less ardent. He knew also his worth; he had profited by his integrity and activity in business; and when the next anniversary of Waterloo came, he bade them be happy, and their hands were united.

There was now but one cloud which threw a shade over the felicity of George Nicholson, and that was, that he had never heard from his parents, and that his father would not acknowledge his letters; yet he suspected not the cause. Almost six years had passed since he became the husband of Louise, yet his heart yearned after the place of his birth, and in the dreams of the night his spirit revisited it. He longed once more to hear his mother's voice, to grasp his father's hand, to receive a sister's welcome. But, more than these, he was now rich, and he wished to remove them from penury, to crown their declining years with ease and with plenty; nor could a son entertain a more honourable ambition, or one more meriting the blessing of Heaven.

Taking Louise with him, they sailed from Antwerp, and in a few days arrived in London; from thence they proceeded towards the Borders, and the place of his birth. They had reached Alnwick, where they intended to remain for a few hours, and they went out to visit the castle. They had entered the square in front of the proud palace of the Percys, and in the midst of the square they observed a one-handed flute-player, with a young wife and three ragged children by his side, and the poor woman was soliciting alms for her husband's music.

The heart of Louise was touched; she had drawn out her purse, and the wife of the flute-player, with her children in her hand, modestly, and without speaking, curtsied before her.

George shook--he started--he raised his hands.

"Catherine!--my sister!--my own sister!" he exclaimed, grasping the hand of the supplicant.

"Oh, George!--my brother!" cried Catherine, and wept.

The flute-player looked around. The instrument fell from his hand.

"What!--William!--and without an arm, too!" added George, extending his hand to the musician.

Louise took the hand of her new-found sister, and smiled, and wept, and bent down, and kissed the cheeks of her children.

"My father--my mother, Catherine?" inquired George, in a tone that told how he trembled to ask the question.

She informed him of their mother's death, of their father's infirmities, and that he was then an out-door pauper in T----.

He relieved his sister's wants, and, with Louise, hastened to his birth-place. He found his father almost bedridden--a boarder at half-a-crown a-week in a miserable hovel, the occupants of which were as poor as their parish lodger. Old James was sitting reading a newspaper, which he had borrowed, when they entered; for his ruling passion remained strong in the midst of his age and infirmities. The rays of the setting sun were falling on his grey hairs. Tears had gathered in the eyes of his son, and he inquired--

"Do you know me?"

James suddenly raised his eyes--they flashed with eager joy--he dropped his paper.

"Ken ye! ken ye!--my son! my son! my lost George!" and he sank on his son's bosom.

When the first burst of joy had subsided--

"And wha is this sweet leddy?" inquired James, gazing fondly at Louise.

"Your daughter," replied George, placing her hand in his.

I need not further dwell upon the history of the Leveller. From that hour he ceased to be a pauper--he accompanied his son to Brussels, and spent the remainder of his days in peace, and amidst many of the scenes which he had long before read of with enthusiasm.

But, some reader may ask, what became of poor Catherine and her flute-player? A linendraper's shop was taken and stocked for them by her brother, and in it prosperity became a constant customer. Such is the history of James Nicholson the Leveller and his children.

THE OLD CHRONICLER'S TALES.

THE DEATH OF JAMES III.

In these enlightened times, when man has become so wise that he thinks he knows everything, it is a practice with writers of legends which border on the supernatural, to give a plausible solution of any difficulty which occurs, and to reconcile, if possible, all mysterious appearances with the ascertained and familiar ways of God's providence. We are very far from discountenancing the study of physical causes, recommended by Lord Bacon, and followed now-a-days with so much zeal, and we might say, with so much impatience of what was at one time called the wisdom of the world; but we may very humbly remark, that, as all extremes transcend truth, the stickler for the old philosophy and the exclusive supporter of the new are equally wide of their aim, if they think that these respective studies comprehend severally all the ways of Providence. The votary of superstition, who trembles at an omen, is not farther distant from the path to eternal and immutable truth, than is the conceited biped who, with rule and compass, dynamics, and differential calculus, thinks he can measure and define all the powers of nature. How little is it known to him who makes the _visible_ the measure of nature's existence and power, that every step he makes, or thinks he makes, in his progress, the farther he removes from the great landmarks of those great truths on which is founded our holy religion. James III. was killed in open day: who killed him? History is mute; but tradition is eloquent, and fearfully impressive. The reign of this unfortunate monarch was marked by more rebellion and murder than any period of the same extent in the history of Scotland. Other reigns exhibited, perhaps, more attacks on the part of England--more battles and greater devastation; but the period we have mentioned stands unrivalled for intestine commotion, faction, rebellion, plotting, and counterplotting, and all the other effects that flow from a weakly-exercised authority on the part of a king over subjects, the greater part of whom, trained to arms and tournaments, and taught to hate and despise humane attainments, could find no relief from the ennui of idleness but in the stir of strife, whether exercised against their external enemies, or their internal compeers, who stood in the way of their ambition. Many have been the complaints which Scotland has made against the invasions of England, and the sordid views of the English monarchs which produced them; but little has been said against the renegade conduct of many of her sons, who, with matricidal views, endeavoured to put an end to her independence as a nation, by leaguing with her enemies, and corrupting the loyalty of their brethren. It may be doubted whether the successive treasons and rebellions of Mar, Douglas, and Albany, and their consequent alliances with the King of England, did not produce more evil to Scotland than ever resulted from the unaided invasions of all the English monarchs together; yet such is the inconsistency of man, that, even at this day, the cadets and scions of these renegade families presume upon the honours of their birth, and get their presumption admitted and countenanced by those who would despise the industrious benefactor of his country.

There cannot be a doubt that it was entirely owing to the weakness of the third James, that the noble enemies of order and justice, the high barons, wrought so much evil to their country. A late historian, of some beauty of diction, and great command of historical erudition, but perhaps deficient in what is called the philosophy of history, has endeavoured to support James against the censures of Leslie and Buchanan; but his own narrative disproves his arguments, and leaves the responsibility of a nation's sorrow at the debit of the weakness, favouritism, and tergiversation of that unfortunate king. The rebellion at Lauder--where his favourites, Crighton the mason, Rogers the musician, and Ireland the man of letters, or rather of magic, were hanged over the buttress of the bridge--was entirely produced by the disappointment of the lords, who saw their places at court occupied by mechanics, while they, too much inclined for tumult at any rate, were left without civil distinctions and employments to occupy their minds and incline them to peace. But, although the weakness of James may have formed an excuse for the nobles to rise against him, what shall be said for the conduct of his son, James IV., who headed the subsequent rebellion against his own father, which ended so mournfully at the battle of Sauchie Burn? It was unnecessary to add the cry of public reprobation to the voice of a crying conscience; the prince conceived himself to have been the murderer of his father, and never had a day's rest or happiness on earth after the mysterious death which his rebellious conduct had produced.

We have outlived the days of superstition, and we do not, we dare not, believe what has been handed down to us on the subject of this self-imputed parricide--but we are at liberty, as veracious chroniclers of tradition, to narrate what were at one time supposed to be the ways of a mysterious Providence, in punishing the unfilial conduct of a son who, after experiencing the unlimited kindness of a parent, took into his hand arms, which, by another, though unknown hand, were used against that parent's life. Let the sceptical sons of modern philosophy repudiate our narrative, as their sublime knowledge of the workings of physical powers inclines them to shut their eyes against the dark obscure beyond. We profess to believe that negation of light is not exclusive of existences, and that, though light may be necessary to enable us to see what is permitted us to see by the decree of Him who made us, there is also ordained an alternation of darkness, whose dominion being co-extensive with the light, carries a borrowed conviction of existences, which, extended by analogy to unknown things and regions, may make us abate our scepticism and humble our pride of knowledge.

When the nobles who had committed the daring acts of rebellion and murder at the Bridge of Lauder--among whom were Lords Gray and Hailes, the Master of Hume, and Shaw of Sauchie--found that the king was not inclined to extend to them letters of pardon, they set about devising a scheme whereby they might force that safety to themselves and their property, which they had not been able to procure by entreaty and supplication. Their plan was subtle in its nature, and dexterously executed; but, like all schemes of a similar kind, failed of that success which the high hopes of political schemers point to, as the mean of their elevation to rank and power. They resolved upon taking advantage of the youth and versatility of the young prince, James, Duke of Rothsay, and endeavouring to overcome his sentiments of filial love and duty by the engrossing passion of political ambition, get him to join them in their designs against the power and authority of his father. By setting, in this way, the son against the parent, they would give weight and power to their faction, and take away the responsibility and guilt of rebellious leaders, which could not attach to operations commanded by the heir-apparent of the throne. Unfortunately the disposition of the young prince was predisposed to the reception of the insidious whisperings of ambition. All the faculties of his mind were in a high degree precocious; and his sentiments kept pace with his intellectual powers, in suggesting wishes which his abilities might gratify, and which his prudence was not able to suppress. These tendencies had, it is supposed, been noticed by the rebellious schemers, who, with the example of a prior Duke of Rothsay before them, could not well have calculated upon overcoming the instinctive feelings of a son, without some indications that these were weaker than they are even generally found to be in the sons of kings.

This plan was begun to be put into execution, by getting the prince prevailed upon to visit the Castle of Stirling, at that time under the governorship of Shaw of Sauchie. He had no sooner arrived, than a great display was made by the lords, who were assembled there for the purpose of the most obsequious homage and the most impassioned affection, with the view of stimulating those feelings of a desire of power, which already had vindicated too much force in his youthful mind. A banquet was prepared in honour of the heir-apparent, at which there were assembled almost all those nobles who stood in fear of his father, from having had a participation in the murder of the favourites at Lauder. The most fulsome flattery was poured into his youthful ear; and the conduct of his father, in resigning himself to the studies of astrology and to the power of the professors of that occult science, treated with a levity which bordered on derision and laughter. This was the true chord to strike in the heart of the prince, who, filled with the highest enthusiasm of chivalry, despised, as worthy of the supremest contempt of an honourable man-at-arms, and far more of a king, all such applications of the human intellect. He did not hesitate to declare, in the midst of the nobles, that he did not approve of the conduct of his father, who ought, as he thought, to have cultivated the knowledge of arms, and left witchcraft to old wives, and astrology to old men. These sentiments were lauded by the company, and the young man, buoyed up with the conceit of a knowledge superior to that of his father, seemed to be far advanced in the preparation he was undergoing for bolder sentiments and unfilial resolutions. Well may philosophers lament the evil nature of man. Few criminal purposes can be suggested to the human heart, without finding in its hidden recesses some chord which, with eldrich notes, gives a response often unknown to the will, but affording good proof that the attuning and predisposing power of an evil angel has been at work in that organ on which depends the salvation or perdition of mortals.

When the designing nobles saw that the young prince was so far prepared for their purposes, they got him engaged, under cover of a recess of the great hall, in a conversation with some of the leaders, and, in particular, with Gray and Hume, who took the active part in the demoralisation of the youth. The plan adopted by Gray, in conducting the conversation, was the result of experience, and the very triumph of cunning. He had noticed the self-complacent smile of the flattered prince, when the elder nobles conceded to him their opinion, and deferred a subtle point to the analysing powers of his boyish judgment; and he took advantage of the weakness of vanity, to forward his schemes of ambition.

"Your highness has doubtless been informed," said the arch diplomatist to the royal boy, "of the reason why your royal father hath refused to us, in this last parliament, the satisfaction of an act of pardon for our conduct at Lauder, now five years old--notwithstanding that we have been all that time in his power, and have not been troubled with any trial for our crime or misdemeanour."

"I have understood," said the prince, "that my father's imprisonment and misfortunes originated from the affair at Lauder. Is not that a good enough reason for refusing the pardon?"

"When I tell thee, young prince," said Gray, "that at Lauder the king lost his architect, his musician, his astrologer, and magician, all of whom I assisted in hanging over the buttress of Lauder Bridge, will your highness remain longer of opinion that our refusal of a pardon is owing to the imprisonment of the king?"

"No, my lord," replied the prince; "I believe I must renounce that opinion upon second thoughts; and I do it upon my recollection of what I have seen and heard of my father's sorrow for the fate of his favourites, and resentment against their executioners. He sigheth by night and by day for his brave and stately draughtsman, Earl Cochrane, his sweet-toned Rogers, and his erudite Ireland. I do, on my conscience, believe he sorrows more for these men than for his own imprisonment."

"And doth your highness approve or condemn our conduct, in hanging these favourites over Lauder Bridge?" said Hume.

"Why, I think a rope was too good for them, and a pardon not enough for the executioners," replied the prince; "you should have had a bounty on each head of the varlets. If my exchequer were not so empty, I would award ye a recompense myself. But I have heard that some of ye played into the hands of Gloucester, Albany, and Douglas, in that affair of Lauder. What say ye?"

"Thou hast been deceived," said Gray. "Archibald Bell-the-Cat was, doubtless, for the English king, but we stood true to our country. It was the favourites alone we wanted to punish--and we did punish them; an act which, apparently, thy father is determined not to forgive. What then are we to do? Wilt thou, the heir-apparent, stand aside and see those who freed thy father from the shackles of favouritism, and saved our country from the domination of a court of mechanics, consigned to a cruel punishment, or what is worse, to the terrors of Damocles?"

"Never!" cried the fiery youth; "I applaud your conduct, and could recommend to you some more work of the same kind; for my father has got another court of mechanics. Scarcely a nobleman is allowed to approach him. The Archbishop of St Andrew's, Schevez, has not forgotten his rudiments of astrology he learned from Spernicus at Louvaine--for the teaching of the king keeps up his own knowledge; and Cochrane, Rogers, Hemmil, Torphichen, Leonard, and Preston, whom you so beautifully suspended over the old bridge, have been replaced by others, no less elevated in their birth, and no less learned in the arts. My father is lost. Scotland is ruled by the stars. The birth of every year hath its horoscope. Chivalry declineth in the land. The glory of the Bruce is forgotten. There is much work before me, and I wish it were well begun, for I cannot doubt that by your services it will be well ended."

"Thou speakest like the wisdom of the oldest of us," said Gray; "and I am urged, by some of the concluding words of thy speech, to put a question to your highness--yet I tremble at my own boldness."

"Speak, good Gray," said the prince; "my father will not pardon you and your associates, after your work of good service is finished--I will pardon thee before thou beginnest."

"Is it the opinion of your highness," said the wily baron, "that a king who is ruled by the stars (the _moon_ as a _fixed_ one not excepted) is fit to govern this kingdom, which has heretofore obeyed the statutes of parliament and the sword of the knight?"

"Upon the honour of my order of knighthood," cried the prince, "thy question goeth home into the heart and marrow of the matter, and my answer shall not be behind it: I opine not."

"And doth not the situation in which we stand," said Hume--"we, the greater number of the nobles in the land, liable every instant to forfeit our lives to an aspect of the heavens--to be hanged for hanging the favourites of the king five years ago--render it imperative on us to seek, in the spirited and knightly heir-apparent, a substitute for him who is declared unfit to rule, without danger to the country and ruin to us?"

"Assuredly," answered the flattered prince. "If the king is not deposed, you will be deposed, and I shall be scandalised by the sight of a star-gazing king, and a host of dangling nobles at the end of ropes not so fine as the silk cords of Cochrane the mason's tent, which he requested for the special convenience of his noble craig. What will ye?"

"That thou shouldst head our party," said Gray, "and be our king in place of thy father, who is unfit to govern this kingdom, and unwilling to pardon his friends."

"I object not," replied the prince. "The king, my father, can be cared for tenderly. Let him be sent to my palace of Rothsay, where he can gaze on the heavens from sunset to sunrise, and send me daily an astrological express, to enable me to govern the kingdom by this heavenly wisdom."

"All hail, our king!" now cried the voices of a hundred knights and nobles, who, on a signal, had hurried from the table, and surrounded the prince. "All hail, James the Fourth, King of Scotland, and our lawful sovereign!"

And the whole assemblage kneeled before the young prince, who received the homage with every feeling of gratified pride.

While this extraordinary scene was in the course of being enacted, in the midst of a brilliant assemblage, and the eulogistic flattery of the interested actors, James felt no compunctions of broken filial duty and ruptured affection. Swelled with the pride of his new and suddenly-acquired honour, the thought of the price at which its confirmation must be bought--the deposition and degradation of an up-right and humane, though weak, king, and that king his father--never interfered with the flow of his gratified and excited feelings. Everything was now grand, hilarious, and hopeful; and a far vista of wise legislative and noble knightly achievements, claimed the rapt eye of his mind, when his attention could be taken off the brilliant scene before him. His experience of the mind of man and the operations of fate did not inform him that there is a mysterious agreement between the one and the other, whereby their results are mutually and wonderfully magnified, and the individual who studies himself is brought to tremble at the height of joy, as the precursor of a cause ready to plunge him into the depths of melancholy anticipation and sorrow. We are told that kings are great examples in the hands of a teaching Providence; and hence our authority for approaching, with greater confidence than we could do in relation to ordinary individuals, the cause of the change that awaited the feelings and aspirations of the young prince on the night of his anticipated honour.

About twelve o'clock he was attended to his chamber, the royal apartment of the castle, by Shaw of Sauchie, the governor, and several of the nobles, who, after conversing with him for some time, left him, locking the door after them as they departed--a measure, they explained to him, as being necessary for his own safety, in the midst of so much dissension and distrust as prevailed at that time among the nobility. The circumstance did not alarm the royal prisoner, though he could not but think it strange that, on the first night of his installation, his palace should be converted into a jail, and the king of his country should be the jail-bird of the seneschal of one of his own castles. Free of all sense of personal danger, he contemplated the temporary privation of his liberty rather with a disposition to being amused than annoyed, and lay down to court that rest which joy, equally as sorrow, banishes from the pillow of mortals. His thoughts took now a direction the very reverse of what they had followed during the day. The image of his deceased mother, Queen Margaret, forced itself on his mind. Her pious, reserved, and meek manners, with her devotion to her consort and her affection to her eldest son, all sanctified and made more lovely and interesting by her death, softened his heart, and filled his eyes with the tears of a son's love; while his undutiful conduct that night, in agreeing to the dethronement of his father, silently censured, as it appeared to be, by her gentle spirit, called up a feeling of remorse, which wrung his heart with pain, and added to the tears which he was already shedding in profusion. If left to his choice, he would now have undone what he had been so ready to perform at the request of factious and interested men; and, if the door of his apartment had not been locked, the strength of his feelings might have urged him to seek for safety and forgiveness at the feet of his injured parent.

The hour was far advanced, but the restlessness of his fevered fancy still prevented all rest. The apartment was dark, no attendant was within call, and he was necessitated, though a king, to yield obedience to a power which no mortal can resist; the feelings of love, sorrow, regret, remorse, and repentance--as applicable to the parent who was lying in a royal sepulchre, and to another who was virtually, in so far as regarded his intention, deposed and degraded--alternated, became stronger, decayed, and revived again with a painful and harassing vacillation. He heard the warder call two o'clock; again all was silent as before, and his thoughts were about to fall into the same painful train, when he heard the iron bar of the door of his apartment gently drawn, and saw enter the figure of an old man, with a long grey beard, a grey cloak, which reached to his feet, and was bound by a blue belt, and holding in his hand a taper, which, glimmering with a fitful light, exposed very imperfectly the strange and fearful-looking object who held it. James's eyes were fixed upon him intensely, and the lustreless orbs of his visiter repaid the looks with as intent a gaze, and made a thrill of superstitious terror run over his body. The figure continued the gaze as it approached the bed, which, having reached, it stood silent, holding up the lamp in the face of the trembling youth, and apparently taking care not to change the set of its features, or the direction or manner of its look. This attitude enabled James to scan narrowly the features of the individual: they appeared to be somewhat sinister, though he could not say where the precise expression lay, or what it truly was--seriousness seemed to degenerate into sternness, and that again into malignity, which was again relieved by some traces of kindness and patronising protection. A deep scar on the right cheek, and what by doctors is called a staphylomatic eye, in consequence of its resemblance to a white grape, had a great share in the production of the uncertain expression which was so difficult to read. Having thus stood for some time at the side of the bed, looking into the face of the prince, and holding the glimmering lamp so as to suit its imperfect vision, the figure lifted solemnly its left hand, and, in a low and somewhat guttural tone of voice, said--

"What is the duty of a son to a parent, of a subject to a king, of a creature to the Creator?"

James was silent; the question was threefold, and implied censure, which, co-operating with his fear, prevented reply.

"What doth he deserve," proceeded the figure, "who disobeyeth his parent, deposeth his king, and rebelleth against the laws of God?"

The terror of an apparition working on a predisposed mind was every moment receiving an augmentation of strength; and the young prince, in place of replying, grasped the bedclothes firmly around him, and eyed the speaker with nervous looks.

"Thou answerest not," continued the speaker--"and why? Pride and self-approbation are gifted with the loquacity of the joy which, they say, chattereth only when the sun shineth; but wisdom is represented by the owl, whose reign is in the still hours of night. Yesterday thou couldst speak of being a king--ay, a king over thy father and thy father's subjects--and a king in the verity of traitors' tongues thou art; yet where is thy authority, when even the tongue of royalty cleaveth slavishly to the parched mouth of the conscience-stricken, and preventeth thee from seizing these dry bones" (holding forth his hands), "and consigning this head of grey hairs to the Heading Hill of Stirling? The king or the prince who is enslaved by his conscience oweth the duties of villeinage to the worst and hardest of masters. The chain is forging, the forge is in action, the hammer and the anvil hold in their embrace the connecting link of a king's bondage. The eagle flies over Schiehallion to-day, and to-morrow the spurning pinions quiver in the grasp of the hand. The exulting, swelling heart of virtue hath not yet collapsed. There is time to rouse thyself, and throw off the tyrant whose power thou feelest even now. Return to thy allegiance. Love and obey thy father; aid him against his foes. Refuse--and be thrice miserably damned."

The figure turned, and retreated from the bed. The door was opened, shut and locked. Nothing was to be seen, and nothing heard. Roused from his fear, James sprung up, and cried--

"Whether of mortal mould, or a mere borrower on occasion of our rude forms of earth, return, and say whence thy commission, and of what import. If a mere messenger of man, I'll heed thee not; but, if thou'lt give me proof that James of Scotland, my royal father, enjoys the protection of the King of All, I'll on the instant renounce my new-born honours, hail him king, thee my good angel, and be once more plain James of Rothsay."

No answer was returned to the call of the prince; he listened for a time at the door of the apartment, and, hearing no sound, returned to bed, where, after tossing about for several hours, he fell into a sound sleep. Towards morning he dreamed that the figure again visited him, and communed with him on the crime of filial disobedience--the fancied apparition and the supposed conversation being in the dream so clearly developed, that, when he awoke, he felt the greatest difficulty in endeavouring to segregate the real from the imaginary appearances. He had even doubts whether he had actually seen the figure, or whether the first scene was not that of a dream as well as the second; and he knew of no mode other than that of having recourse to simple conviction, of satisfying himself on this interesting point. He was not contented with the proof afforded by his consciousness, the very _ne plus ultra_ of human probation, and resolved on making an application to the warder, with the view of getting some confirmation of the evidence of his senses.

He had scarcely made his resolution, when Governor Shaw unlocked the door, and entered the apartment. Full of the thoughts he had been indulging and canvassing with so much anxiety since he arose, the prince told his visiter what he thought he had seen during the night, but candidly admitted that he had had also a vision in a dream approaching so nearly to the reality of the waking sense, that he could not take upon him to say that the first appearance was _undoubtedly_ a real natural exhibition of a mortal existence. The governor listened with great attention, and anxiously inquired what was the subject of the conversation that passed between him and the old man. The prince narrated to him, as nearly as possible, the words used by the figure, and admitted that he himself had no power to reply, till after the visiter was gone and the door locked. Shaw was evidently much moved by the recital, and, in a confused and hurried manner, endeavoured to convince James that he had had a visit of nightmare--an affection with which he was probably, in consequence of his extreme youth, as yet unacquainted, but a mysterious operation of nature, quite sufficient to produce in a young and fervent mind that semi-consciousness of reality which had apparently perplexed him so much. He recommended to him to banish the affair from his mind, and, above all, to say nothing of it to the warlike nobles in the castle, whose very objection to the rule of his father was founded on the latter's faith in dreams, auguries, and astrological nostrums--a true sign of a weak intellect.

This latter part of the governor's statement, which was delivered with much gravity, produced a great effect upon the mind of James, whose contempt of his father's occult, astrological, and oneirocritical practices was the cause of his disobedience, as well as its apology. He trembled at the thought of incurring, on his own part, the censure which had been heaped on his parent, and felt anxious to escape precipitately from the subject he had broached, as well as from his own thoughts, which, mixing up reality and imagination in inextricable confusion, produced nothing but doubt, irresolution, and anxiety. If he had been anxious, on the entry of Shaw, to tell him the wonders of the night, he was now more anxious to undo what he had done, and remove from the mind of the governor any suspicion that he inherited from his father his hairbrained propensity to believe in dreams and divinations. Changing the style of his speech, as well as the expression of his countenance, he attempted to make light of his nocturnal adventure, and laughed off the clinging belief with an effort which was not unnoticed by his wily visiter. The power of early prejudices in overcoming the convictions of truth, effected a partial triumph; but there still clung to the mind of the youth a feeling of a struggling conviction, which his forced laugh and his expressed contempt of all supernatural beliefs had little power to affect. He felt, however, the necessity of maintaining absolute silence on a subject so intimately connected with his dispute with his father, and Shaw undertook to say nothing of the occurrence, which he affected to think had been properly treated by the noble mind of the young prince.

The scheme of this unnatural rebellion being persevered in with great determination and asperity, a court was held next day in the Castle of Stirling, where all the ceremonies of a royal levee were gone through with studied state and affected etiquette. The Earl of Argyle was reinstated in the office of chancellor, which had been conferred by his father on Elphinston, Bishop of Aberdeen. A negotiation was opened with the English king, Henry VII., who, having had a dispute with the old king as to the restoration of Berwick, very readily entered into the views of the son, and agreed to grant passports to his ambassadors, the Bishops of Glasgow and Dunkeld, the Earl of Argyle, Lords Lyle and Hailes, with the Master of Hume, who were, in fact, the heads of the rebellious party. The boldness of these proceedings, quadrating with the weakness of the king's actions, spread disaffection among the people of Scotland far and wide; and it was soon rumoured that the monarch, afraid of the disposition of his subjects towards the south, had proceeded to Aberdeen, and issued orders for the array of Strathearn and Angus, and all his friends in the north who still retained their allegiance. If the son soon found himself at the head of a large force in the south, the father was as successful in the north. Athole, Huntly, Crawford, and Lindsay of Byres, joined his standard; and to these were soon added Buchan, Errol, Glammis, Forbes, and Kilmaurs--so that the two ends of the kingdom were completely arrayed against each other, and the antagonist forces were headed by a father and a son.

The monarch having thus vacated the capital, and betaken himself to the north, an opportunity was held out to the son to lay siege to the Castle of Edinburgh; and orders were given to the troops to proceed in that direction. During all this time the mind of the prince had been kept up by the insidious counsels of the rebel lords, who represented the unfilial work in which he was engaged as conducive to the benefit of the kingdom, which would receive the blessings of his wise legislation. The youth was flattered by these statements; and the details of an army, by occupying his thoughts, banished from his recollection the night scene of the Castle of Stirling, which, as time aided the efforts of his sceptical wishes, gradually appeared to assume more and more the character of a false and delusive dream. Meanwhile, Hume and Hailes, and others who had been sent as ambassadors to England, returned with intelligence that Henry was favourable to their cause--a circumstance which still farther flattered the vanity of the youth, and prevented him from giving way to the feelings of instinctive duty and affection towards his father. Proceeding gradually forward, the rebel army came to Blackness, near Linlithgow, where they encamped.

The army of the king, in the meantime, came up, and the unusual sight was exhibited of two parts of a nation, headed by a father and a son, contending for a throne, arrayed against each other, with reciprocal feelings of enmity and views of mortal conflict. The benevolent heart of the father relented, and terms of accommodation, as prepared by Huntly and Errol, were sanctioned by his signature, but prevented from being properly submitted to the son by the rash conduct of Buchan, who thought he would be able to extinguish the rebellion by one blow. A skirmish was the consequence, in which the earl gained some advantage; but, though the triumph was magnified into a victory, the rebel forces were as strong as ever, while the sight of kindred blood on the swords of the warriors of either side of the field sickened the hearts of brave men, who, in other circumstances, would have been fired by the token of an advantage over an enemy. The wish for an accommodation was increased on the side of the king and his troops, and the former terms of accommodation were submitted to the rebel prince, who was still under the leading-strings of the arch traitors by whom he had been led into this unseemly and unnatural position.

The terms of accommodation were extremely favourable to the insurgent forces, as, without exacting any condition but that of laying down their arms, the king agreed to admit them to favour and grant them pardons for present and bygone offences; yet great dissension existed amongst the rebels on the subject of the acceptance of the offer of peace, and the prince, urged on by Gray, in whom he had the greatest confidence, headed the party who were inclined to stand out.

"I for one," said the youth, "receive nothing by these terms but the mighty boon of forgiveness, which will neither add to my honours nor contribute to my ambition. By being the friend of my royal father, I may be gratified by getting a view of Venus through his astrolabe; but I would rather, upon the honour of a knight, be his lieutenant in the government of this part of the planet Earth called Scotland. It is clear that my father is as unfit to rule the kingdom as was the father of the former holder of my title of Duke of Rothsay, Robert III, who made his son lieutenant-general--and why should I be debarred from what is my natural and legitimate right? It will be for the good of you all that I am appointed to that office, insomuch as the friendship of a ruler invested with all the power is better than the pardon of a king who has none."

These sentiments were opposed by many of the lords, and in particular by the Earl of Argyle.

"By these terms of accommodation," said he, "we get all we have been fighting for, or can expect from a victory gained through the blood of our countrymen and kinsmen--a free pardon for the execution of the favourites at the Bridge of Lauder, and a restoration to the favour and confidence of the king. We cannot force a lieutenantcy in favour of the prince who is at present our king, otherwise than by committing his royal father to close confinement--for what self-denying ordinance could prevent a sane and free king, not deposed by his subjects, from exercising his authority in opposition to that of a lieutenant forced upon him against his will, and acting against his wishes? The crown, as surely as a coffin, will come to one prince by the course of nature, and better wait for a regular inheritance, than anticipate a right by rebellion, spoliation, and force."

Other arguments were used by other nobles, and the convention retired to their tents without coming to any determination. The night was clear and beautiful; the sky shone with cerulean brightness; a clear full moon shot her silvery rays "over tower and tree;" and every twinkling star in the blue firmament seemed to rejoice in the opportunity of getting its weak beam thrown upon the green earth, and adding its small mite to the general exuberance of the smiles of the whole heavenly host. The noise of the convention of angry nobles having ceased, and the men, wearied by bearing arms all day, having retired to rest, there was nothing to disturb the silence which reigned coordinately with the serene light, and made the scene more impressively beautiful. When left to himself, the young prince felt the contrast between the appearance of nature, thus arrayed in her fairest smiles, and beautified by calmness and composure, and the position of a father and a son, lying in wait for an opportunity of engaging in the strife of war, and of even shedding each other's blood, by the vicarious hands of those they were leading on to the fight of kindred against kindred. His heart softened; the feelings of nature returned for a time, and vindicated the authority they should never have lost. His versatility was exclusive of a permanent establishment in his bosom of affection and duty, but it was, as it generally is, a pledge of the strength of the reigning emotion, for the time, which, in proportion to the shortness of its duration, was intense in its action, and engrossing in its extent. Having thrown himself on his couch, he resigned himself to the influence of these feelings; the poetical enthusiasm which is generated by a contemplation of nature in her beautiful moods, and, in his instance, called forth by a survey (through the opening of his tent) of the shining heavens and the sleeping earth, came in aid of the instinctive emotions which occupied his bosom; and he could not restrain the expression of what he felt.

"I have sat on the knee of him against whom I am arrayed in preparation for mortal fight, and I have seen the tear rise in his eye, as, looking first at me, and then at my departed mother (bless her pure spirit, which dwelleth in that ether!), he felt proud of the pledge of their loves, and hopeful of the virtues of a good king, to succeed him when he died. What would have been his emotions, if he had been told by some of his occult divinations that the boy he cherished and wept over would lift his hand against his life, and endeavour to pluck the crown from his living head? How dreadful, at this moment, appears to me my position and my conduct! Almost in my view, my parent lays his head on the pillow of a field-tent, uncertain whether his son and his son's friends may permit him to awake again, to view the beauties of that moon, and all that she discovers to the eye of man! Heavens! and I, conscious of my ingratitude, know its baneful effects on a parent's mind, and yet do not rise instantly and throw myself at his feet! Cruel versatility of nature under which I stand accursed! Where shall I find the elements of consistency, the true parent of happiness? Alas! I obey only the impulses of constitution. Would that, at this auspicious moment, I had an opportunity of acquiring again the matter of these terms of peace! The feelings of a son, roused by conscience, would suggest an eloquence before which all the specious views and paradoxes of Gray and Hume would disappear, like vapours before the light of that shining queen of the heavens."

He lifted his eyes as he spoke, to look again at the bright moon, and saw before him, palpable to his waking intelligence, the identical figure which had appeared to him in the Castle of Stirling. The light brought out his form in full perfection, and a long shadow thrown upon the floor of the tent gave an additional evidence of his presence; the scar upon his cheek and the staphylomatic orb were apparent, and proved his identity; and his look and manner indicated a purpose similar to that he had announced on the occasion of his prior appearance.

"He whom the gods wish to destroy," said the figure, "is first by them deprived of reason; and thy disregard of my counsel showeth that thou art bent on thine own ruin. Thy father lieth there" (pointing his finger)--"I will lead thee to his tent; and, see! there lieth beside thee on that couch a sword. What need of more? Why not in pity end his woes and life together? That bright moon will glory in the sight of a son imbruing his hand in the blood of a parent--her light will be incarnadined by the running stream of life--but water will wash the hands of the parricide. Come, follow! Dost thou hesitate? Why, then, this warlike array?"