University of Virginia Library

ACT III.

SCENE I.

—A Room in Stravithie House, near St Andrews.
Lumsdaine of Stravithie, Anstruther of Anstruther, Moneypennie of Pitmillie, Kirkaldy of Grange, Strang of Balcaskie, Carmichael of Grangemuir, Melvil of Carnbee, &c.
MONEYPENNIE.
Why, this young Sheriff makes us tarry long.
Here have we been assembled, idly looking
Out of each window, tow'rd each point of Heaven,
To spy, approaching through the white moonshine,
His horse surmounted by its loit'ring rider.
Two hours and more have we been sitting thus,
Fing'ring our buttons with impatience,
And fidgetting with very fretfulness.
I hope the devil has not caught the boy.

STRANG OF BALCASKIE.
You mean Lord Card'nal? Ay, he is the devil
Of this our district. He was born a fiend:
He shew'd his horns and hoofs ere ten months old;
He mutter'd dev'lish things ev'n in his cradle:
His schoolmaster gave him upon the palms
For being a devil, and shouted it in his face,
Before his class-mates, that he was an imp;
At which, they say, young devil turn'd round and smote
The poor man in the face for telling truth:
And since that time, the devil, much to our grief,
Hath been maturing, fatt'ning, waxing strong,
Budding huge mountainous horns of villainous pride,
Lengthening his tail, and swingeing it about,
Even in our very faces.

KIRKALDY.
Tuts! a fig
For this your great horn'd devil, with his tail!—
He is a cacodemon, I confess,
Yet small;—a skin-and-bone-enshrined imp,
Gender'd ambiguously 'tween earth and hell;
Whose neck is not so thick as not to be
Twisted about as easy as a chick's.
I wish we only had young Norman here,
He'd play the devil with this devilkin.

ANSTRUTHER.
Did he not here appoint the gath'ring-place,
And at this hour, when he should ope to us
Strange matters, and momentous to our lives?

LUMSDAINE.
I did receive a letter, We'nsday morn,
Writ by his hand, and hither carried by
A trusty post, that all the night had travell'd;
Commanding me, as I did value life,
Friends, family, or lands, t'arouse myself,
And gather to my hall, by Thursday night,
All the chief gentry of the circuit round;
There he would meet us, and unbudget things
Would make us shudder in our very shoes.

MONEYPENNIE.
It is anent Lord Card'nal, doubt it not.
Whatever of black mischief germinates
In this our shire must from his head proceed,
As from its root; a root matured and dung'd
By richest compost of malignity.
Witness how now our coast is shaken all
With terror of an English fleet at sea;
Sent by King Harry to revenge his wrongs,
In being cheated of our infant Queen,
On our King-Cardinal, who so cheated him.
His was that violation of seal'd faith,
Yet his alone shall not the suff'ring be.
We, we must pay the mulet; our homes and lands,
Exposed, unguarded, to th'enraged invader,
(Who, hoodwink'd by the blindness of his wrath,
Will reckon every house as faithless Beaton's,)
Shall soon, in fire, and blood, and rapine, make
A frightful satisfaction for his crime.
'Tis an appalling prospect for us all,
Wives, children, tenants,—

LUMSDAINE.
Ha! now here he comes!
I saw his gleaming bonnet to the moon
Wave its proud feather by the larch-trees yonder.
He comes, indeed! I hear his courser's hoofs,
Now on the pavement of my good court-yard,
Clatt'ring th'arrival. He will soon be up:
He can dishorse in twinkling of an eye;
He is the hottest blood, I think, in Scotland.
He—

Enter Norman Lesslie.
—What the deuce! what are you all about?
You idle knaves, here grubbling on your stools,
Like tailors on their bloodless boards, secure
And nothing dreading, when your heads, God wot,
Stick to your shoulders only by a tack?
Beshrew me, but you lairds of eastern Fife
Are a soft, simple, unsuspecting pack!
Give you your hounds to weary you all morn,
Hunting yourselves into an appetite;
Give you your dinner then, and then, O Lord,
Hogsheads of sack t'imparadise your heads;
With these, I doubt not, you'd be well content
To lose your heads, provided they were charged
With pleasant fumes, to charm away your feeling
Death's long sharp razor slashing through your throats!
Rouse up, ye sluggish chair-oppressing knaves,
Or else yon dog of Cardinal has you all!

LUMSDAINE.
Soft, soft, good Sheriff—Why, thou burstest in
So charged with wordy thunderbolts upon us,
We scarce can, in our thinking soberness,
Scrape up a meaning from your madding words
Here have we been awaiting you so long,
Until the room is furnaced with our breaths;
We pray you, then, in coolness tell to us
The purport of your boisterous accost.

NORMAN.
Cool, Lumsdaine, cool! He is a frost-born fool,
Who can be cool on such a theme as this—
O bloody, murd'rous, damned Cardinal!
Why, don't you see him at your very elbows,
Mitred and prank'd in purple, as he stands,
Whetting even on his holy crosier
That poniard which shall stab you one and all?
Ay, start, my lads—bestir ye to your feet—
'Tis now high time, else, by the saints of heaven!
You're in the pit of death remediless!
Here is a scroll of names—ay, look at it—
Enroll'd and stamp'd, most butcherly for death,
By his own villainous and bloody hand:
You know his character—behold it, black
As his own native hell on the pure paper;
Here is my father's name, my uncle John's,
Here mine—here faithful Raith's, and Sir James Learmont's.
(Why, where is Learmont, that he is not with you?
Has he already sought a hole wherein
To hide and burrow from Lord Card'nal's sword?)
Here is Kirkaldy's, whom he sweetly hates;
And underneath, in beautiful nice writ,
Crowded e'en to the bottom of the scroll,
Are Lumsdaine's, Monypenny's, Anstruther's,
Lindsay's, Auchmouty's, Lundin's, Lochmalony's,
Strang's, Melvil's—Marry, I'm out of breath,
Telling the roll—each man may read his own:
God help ye, look at them, ye simple fools;
A hundred names, compactly huddled in,
Making a choice luxurious bill of fare
For the grim glutton Death!

LUMSDAINE.
O monstrous! monstrous!

MELVIL.
Heaven shield us all!

STRANG OF BALCASKIE.
His kinsman Satan fang him,
Crosier and all, and bed him warm for this,
Within the hottest blankets of hell-fire!

NORMAN.
Now, 'tis no foisted thing of forgery;
'Tis genuine from the villain, uncorrupt,
And valid in its villainy; I got
The paper from my father, Earl of Rothes,
To whom it had been handed secretly
By one whose name is of authority.
Marry, ye simple ones, this deathful list
Had been consign'd to Mary of Lorraine,
By whom it had been ratified, no doubt,
With many a beck and smile, significant
Of her concurrence in the homicide.
It was found sleeping on her escritoir.—
And this is now to be your punishment,
For railing at the gentle house of Guise,
For setting Arran up as Governour,
For lauding infamous priest-plundering Harry,
For saying No, when greedy church cries Give,
For reading Bibles brought in brigs from Holland,
For dogging preachers all the country round
From ditch to ditch to catch a drib of gospel;
These are your crimes, ye wicked ones of Fife—
O what a pack of sinners in my county!

KIRKALDY.
True, we are spotted, in the eyes of church,
Like toads with freckles of uncounted sins;
We're damn'd and outlaw'd by Pope Paullus' ban;
The sooner we are slaughter'd then, the better;
Card'nal's huge hat will then predominate,
And with its broad brims overshade the land.

NORMAN.
Trow ye the trick, my lads, the stratagem
Whereby, like silly sheep from out their folds,
Ye're to be wheedled to the slaughter-house?
On Monday morn, ye know, ye all are summon'd,
By writ from Beaton's and from Arran's hand,
To meet the former at the royal park
Of Falkland, there fit measures to consult
Whereby th'exposed coasts of our fair county
May be protected from the harsh descents
Of Harry's fleetmen plundering about.
Thither you post then, by the break of day,
And there you meet Lord Card'nal with his cross,
And past'ral benediction sweetly utter'd,
Vobiscum Dominus—And by and by,
By three o'clock or so, when your are floundering
Amid the thickest of the consultation,
Down from the hills, or from the valleys up,
Comes Monsieur Lorgê with his Gallic leash
Of bloodhounds, drill'd in hunting heretics,
To touse and snap, and worry you to death;
And, backing him heroically, comes
Huge-bellied Huntly, moving in the storm
Of his own fat, with all his northern spears,
To spit those of you that shall 'scape the French:
Haply some of you may be caught alive,—
I do not know,—and sent unto the Bass,
There to scream anthems with the solan-geese;
Or, plunged into Tantallon's vaults, you may
Have time to read your Latin Test'ments through,
And over-scribble all the walls with texts:
These things I know not—haply they may be,
And haply not; but, certes, you are doom'd
All to destruction in some hideous shape;
And so the Lord have mercy on you all!

CARMICHAEL.
That mercy may be wrought upon us all,
We must be cruel, Sheriff, and put off
The gentle from our natures—

NORMAN.
That's the thing:
Tush, I'd forgot—I had not told it out;
My passion is so madly over-wrought,
It fritters into fragments my discourse—
Look here, mine honest friends, behold ye this—
[Discloses and unsheaths his dagger.
Here is a dagger, with a point as keen,
As emulous of just tyrannicide,
As was the noble Brutus's, that smote
The man that dared to domineer o'er Rome;
See it again, my friends—the very point
Seems burning, and will burn till it be dimm'd,
And drench'd within the villain's pure heart's-blood.
I swore it ere I left my father's house,
Before my father's and my mother's face,
And now I swear it here before you all,
Ev'n by the living and eternal God,
That this good poniard shall not home return
Unslaked, ungratified with Beaton's blood!
I'll seek, I'll persecute, I'll hunt him out,
Through all his crannies, chinks, and lurking-holes,
Until his Babylon shall give him up;
I am the Mede for this your proud Belshazzar.
Are ye prepared t'abet me then, like men,
Or will you sit a-soaking at your sack,
Till your shorn heads light down into your cups?
Tell me your thoughts, my merry men of Fife.

ALL.
We will assist you, Sheriff, we'll assist!

NORMAN.
Ay, now you shine—your glory now breaks out!
Well-spoken, my heroic Lairds; now, down,
Down to the dust with sack and cowardice!
To-morrow then, we must send out our scouts
Into the priestly city, Scotland's Rome,
Yon mother of red harlots, to explore
By what access to penetrate and probe
Into the bosom of our adversary.
To-morrow is a festival, we hear,
St Boniface's day, and all the prelates
Are met in convocation, to carouse
A bumper to the death of heretics;
And poor George Wishart, whose plain preacher's band
Is worth a thousand of their flapping rochets,
Is to be offer'd up a sacrifice
To this our monstrous Moloch homicide.
This great festivity will furnish us
As did Belshazzar's feasting to the Mede,
I hope, with some facility of means,
Whereby to compass what we now project.

CARMICHAEL.
I will go in and spy the town, and search
How soonest and how best t'achieve the plot.
Learmont and Lindsay both are there awaiting
The issue of the clerical convention;
With them I will confer, and having plann'd
What may seem fittest, by to-morrow's eve
I will rejoin you with intelligence.

NORMAN.
'Tis well, I think, devised; I can endure,
All hot and burning as I am with hurry,
To lie in ambuscade one day at least.
Our presence will lurk better here a while
Than in the city, where it would excite
Suspicions in the tyrant, who would straight
Thrice fortify and muffle up himself
In his impenetrable stony doublet,
So as scarce to leave a loop or button-hole
Whereby good steel might damnify his flesh.
Whereas, by loit'ring on the outskirts here,
At an hour's notice we may make incursion,
And catch him at his weakest, unawares,
When he congratulates himself as safe,
And nestles joyous in his foggy nest.
Against a foe so merciless, so mean,
May any stratagem be justified;
For virtue tolerates all tricks in war.

LUMSDAINE.
This, then, be our decision; to this close
Come our deliberations and resolves:—
Now I am glad our mouths are done with words,
For thy poor stomach's sake, which I am sure
Hath been sore punish'd by thy journeying.
'Tis a long ride from House of Leslie hither;
So let us, if you please, have sack and supper:
'Tis late indeed, but yet the jolly moon
Wants a large segment of her nightly round;
Her beams fall slanting on my western window.
We'll have large time for solace, ere my hinds
Chaunt their first whistle on fair Bannafield—
Come, let's go sup.

NORMAN.
God bless you, let's go sup!

[Exeunt omnes.

SCENE II.

—The Court of the Castle of St Andrews.
ROBIN CALDCLEUCH.

Haith, an' I'm sair haddin to my wark!—Cardinal an'
captain, principal an' prior, poor student and college-beathel,
a'now i'their beds, snifterin', snocherin', an' sleepin'
like taps, while puir Robin Caldcleuch's set here, i'this
cauld court, nae better than a cleuch, to split sticks, mak
spunks, and pack powther into pocks. It's no mickle I
mak o'roastin' heretics!—sleepless nights, het fingers,
baith scaith an' scorn; neither drink nor siller; hooted an'
peltit by thae reformin' bodies; and nae mickle esteemit
by our ain gude folk the Papists. The de'il's i'my father
an' mither, that set me up i'this scabbit trade! they meith

hae e'en made me a monk, or a little bit o'a friar, o'ony
colour. I meith hae done just as weel as Johnnie Tottis,
puir body! that gangs toutin' about the town, wi' three or
four Latin words i'his mou', and as mony stoups o'guid
drink i'his stamack. An' there's my uncle's auldest son,
Johnnie Caldcleuch, as dure a scholar as was ever at St
Leonards, an' yet maks as gude a regent as ever spat Latin
i'the face o'a puir student. I'm cheated, I may say,
o'my callin'; I meith hae e'en made as gude a shift for a
creepin', eatin' caterpillar o'the Pope, as ony deboshed
shavelin' in a'the priory. But my face, my face, has mismagilled
my fortune! I may say, the crook o'my lot's
my face; as the legs, the legs, are the crook o'puir Tam
Crookshanks, the cripple staymaker i'the Baker's-wynd.
It behooved me to be a worrikow o'some sort; and what
for no arch-roaster to the Chancellor o'Scotland, my Lord
Cardinal Primate, Legatus Natus, &c.! There's nae fear
o'me aside a man o'sae mony titles, if I dinna singe mysel
to dead the morn, helpin' the honest carle into the fire!—
But, whusht! here comes the Dean down the stair again.
He's been suppin' wi' my Lord, and now he's for aff: it's
gude time o'night; gude twa i'the mornin's a decent hour
for a Principal!

Enter Principal Annan.
PRINCIPAL ANNAN.
I hope, good headsman, you are expediting
Your apparatus for to-morrow's bout;
It is a bus'ness worthy much your care.
Are all your billets oil'd and rosin'd well?
Are all your faggots tipt with brimstone nice?
Have you some dozen pretty linen bags,
Cramm'd to the throat more full of gunpowther
Than are with gold the miser's leathern scrips?
Is the stake ready, with its iron chain,
Destin'd to hook, and gripe, and tangle in
Inextricably the dog of heretic,
Until his carcase shall amalgamate
With the coal's ashes, better far than his?
I hope, good headsman, you will top the job
With nice dexterity, sans shrug, or whine,
Or rueful look, as other hangmen do,
Screwing their hideous faces piteously
Into a ludicrous distorted grief?
So shall Lord Cardinal, and I, Principal,
Advance your head some day, and lift you high
In honour o'er your peers dishonourable.

CALDCLEUCH.

Mony braw thanks to your honour! but I had preferred
to ony gude houps o'preferment, just your sendin' out to
me, fechtin' and workin' here, a drap o'the gude drink you
an' my Lord hae been wauchtin at a'night. Folk dinna
work ony waur for a drappie; and what's gude for a Principal,
is mickle better for a puir body like me, an' please
your honour.

PRINCIPAL ANNAN.
Go to! thou gloomy demi-gorgon front!
Thou hideous scroyle! thou coffin-looking knave!
Thou pure disgrace to the sublime os!
Whose count'nance should have grown upon a stalk
Of pois'nous night-shade in a field of wheat,
To frighten frightful birds and crows away!
Go to! be sober; dip your porringer
I'th'castle well, it is too good for thee:
Between thy mouth and hand wine would revolt
Against approaching thy abhorred snout.
Go to, you rogue!—Open the postern for me;
Open, I say, the postern for me, scrub!
Scrub, Mormo, hideous fish, vile Carnifex!

CALDCLEUCH.

There, sir, there— [Opens the Postern.]
—Awa' wi' your
waddlin' worship.— [Exit Annan.]
—An' awa he gaes,
wagglin' frae side to side, as supple's drink can mak him!
—He gaed in as stiff and straught's ony ellwand; but he
gangs out as supple's a sebbie, notwithstanding his wig, an'
his principality, an' his lang-nebbit words. Honest man!
he's unca proud o'his lang words; it's a'the lear he has;
an' he maun e'en let it kythe, specially in his cups, an' afore
short-winded bodies like mysel. Had he been a man of
real lear, he'd never ca'd me Carnifex: Na, na; it's the
butcher that maks flesh—I mak ashes: the puir students
ken that. But he'll no be sae lang-nebbit wi' his words the
morn at ten o'clock, whan a'the Cardinal's gude canary's
out o'his head; he'll deal mair i'the monosyllables, as the
puir students ca' them.

[Exit.