The World's Greatest Books - Volume 7 Part 48

Amy started up at the sight of the man she deemed most odious so near her, and besought the queen to save her from "that most shameless villain!" "I shall go mad if I look longer on him."

"Beshrew me, but I think thou art distraught already," answered the queen. Then she bade Lord Hunsdon, a blunt, warm-hearted old n.o.ble, "Look to this poor distressed young woman, and let her be safely bestowed, till we require her to be forthcoming."

"By our Lady," said Hunsdon, taking in his strong arms the swooning form of Amy, "she is a lovely child! And though a rough nurse, your Grace hath given her a kind one. She is safe with me as one of my own ladybirds of daughters."

So saying he carried her off, and the queen followed him with her eye, and then turned angrily to Varney, for Leicester stared gloomily on the ground.

"Speak, Sir Richard, and explain these riddles."

"Your Majesty's piercing eye," said Varney, "has already detected the cruel malady of my beloved lady. It is the nature of persons in her disorder, so please your Grace, to be ever most inveterate in their spleen against those whom, in their better moments, they hold nearest and dearest. May your Grace then be pleased to command my unfortunate wife to be delivered into the custody of my friends?"

Leicester partly started, but making a stronger effort, he subdued his emotion, while Elizabeth answered sharply, that her own physician should report on the lady's health.

That night Leicester sought the countess in her apartment, and would have avowed his marriage to the queen, but for Varney's influence.

Finding all other argument vain, Varney finally urged that the countess was in love with Tressilian, and mentioned that he had seen him at c.u.mnor. Leicester allowed his mind to be poisoned, and was silent when, on the Queen's physician declaring Lady Varney to be sullen and the victim of fancies, Elizabeth answered, "Nay, then away with her all speed. Let Varney care for her with fitting humanity, but let them rid the castle of her forthwith."

_IV.--The Death of the Countess_

Armed with the authority of Leicester's signet-ring Varney induced the countess to leave Kenilworth for c.u.mnor, declaring that the earl had ordered it for his own safety. But no sooner was the lady gone than Leicester repented of the consent Varney had wrested from him. An interview with Tressilian and the recovery of a letter written by Amy at c.u.mnor revealed all Varney's villainy. Too late he acknowledged his marriage to the queen, and when the fury of Elizabeth's anger had somewhat subsided, she ordered Tressilian and Sir Walter Raleigh to repair at once to c.u.mnor, bring the countess to Kenilworth, and secure the body of Richard Varney, dead or alive.

But Varney's fell purpose had already decided that the countess must be got rid of. A part of the wooden gallery immediately outside her door was really a trap-door, and beneath it was an abyss dark as pitch. This trap-door remained secure in appearance even when the supports were withdrawn beneath it.

"Were the lady to attempt an escape over it," said Varney, to his accomplice Foster, who held the house by Varney's favour, "her weight would carry her down."

"A mouse's weight would do it," Foster answered.

"Why, then, she die in attempting her escape, and what could you or I help it? Let us, to bed; we will adjust our project to-morrow."

On the next day, when evening approached, Varney summoned Foster to the execution of their plan. Foster himself, as if anxious to see that the countess suffered no want of accommodations, visited her place of confinement. He was so much staggered at her mildness and patience, that he could not help earnestly recommending to her not to cross the threshold on any account until Lord Leicester should come. Amy promised that she would resign herself to her fate, and Foster returned to his hardened companion with his conscience half-eased of the perilous load that weighed on it. "I have warned her," he said; "surely in vain is the snare set in the sight of any bird!"

He left the countess's door unsecured on the outside, and, under the eye of Varney, withdrew the supports which sustained the falling trap, which, therefore, kept its level position merely by a slight adhesion.

They withdrew to wait the issue on the ground floor adjoining; but they waited long in vain.

"Perhaps she is resolved," said Foster, "to await her husband's return."

"True! Most true!" said Varney, rus.h.i.+ng out; "I had not thought of that before."

In less than two minutes, Foster, who remained behind, heard the tread of a horse in the courtyard, and then a whistle similar to that which was the earl's usual signal. The instant after the door to the countess's chamber opened, and in the same moment the trap-door gave way. There was a rus.h.i.+ng sound--a heavy fall--a faint groan, and all was over.

At the same instant Varney called in at the window, "Is the bird caught?

Is the deed done?"

"O G.o.d, forgive us!" replied Foster.

"Why, thou fool," said Varney, "thy toil is ended, and thy reward secure. Look down into the vault--what seest thou?"

"I see only a heap of clothes, like a snowdrift," said Foster. "O G.o.d, she moves her arm!"

"Hurl something down on her."

"Varney, thou art an incarnate fiend!" replied Foster. "There needs nothing more--she is gone!"

"So pa.s.s our troubles," said Varney; "I dreamed not I could have mimicked the earl's call so well."

While they were at this consultation Tressilian and Raleigh broke in upon them. Foster fled at their entrance, and escaped all search. He perished miserably in a secret pa.s.sage, behind an iron door, forgetting the key of the spring-clock, and years later his skeleton was discovered.

But Varney was taken on the spot. He made very little mystery either of the crime or of its motives--alleging that there was sufficient against him to deprive him of Leicester's confidence, and to destroy all his towering plans of ambition. "I was not born," he said, "to drag on the remainder of life a degraded outcast; nor will I so die that my fate shall make a holiday to the vulgar herd."

That night he swallowed a small quant.i.ty of strong poison, which he carried about his person, and next morning was found dead in his cell.

The news of the countess's dreadful fate put a sudden stop to the pleasures of Kenilworth. Leicester retired from court, and for a considerable time abandoned himself to his remorse. But as Varney in his last declaration had been studious to spare the character of his patron, the earl was the object rather of compa.s.sion than resentment. The queen at length recalled him to court; he was once more distinguished as a statesman and favourite; and the rest of his career is well known to history. But there was something retributive in his death, for it is believed he died by swallowing a draught of poison, designed by him for another person.

Tressilian at length embarked with his friend, Sir Walter Raleigh, for the Virginia expedition, and young in years, but old in grief, died before his day in that foreign land.

Old Mortality

"Old Mortality" and the "Black Dwarf" were published together as the first series of the "Tales of My Landlord" on December 1, 1816. The first is certainly one of the best of Scott's historical romances. It was the fourth of the "Waverley Novels," and the authors.h.i.+p was still unavowed; though Mr.

Murray, the publisher, at once declared it "must be written either by Walter Scott or the Devil." On the other hand, there were critics who did not believe the book was Sir Walter's because it lacked his "tedious descriptions." Some said openly it was the work of several hands. The study of the fierce, fanatical Covenanters in "Old Mortality" is done not only with all the author's literary genius, but a wonderful fidelity to historical truth; and while the accuracy of the portrait of Claverhouse--"Bonny Dundee"--will always be disputed, no lover of romance will question its brilliant charm. The immediate popularity of "Old Mortality" was less than many of the "Waverley Novels," only two editions, amounting to 4,000 copies, being sold in six weeks.

_I.--Tillietudlem Castle_

"Most readers," says the ma.n.u.script of Mr. Pattieson, "must have witnessed with delight the joyous burst which attends the dismissing of the village school. The buoyant spirit of childhood may then be seen to explode, as it were, in shout and song and frolic; but there is one individual who partakes of the relief, whose feelings are not so obvious, or so apt to receive sympathy--the teacher himself."

The reader may form some conception of the relief which a solitary walk, on a fine summer evening, affords to the head which has ached, and the nerves which have been shattered for so many hours in plying the irksome task of public instruction.

To me these evening strolls have been the happiest hours of an unhappy life; and it was in one of them that I met, for the first time, the religious itinerant known in various parts of Scotland by the t.i.tle of "Old Mortality." He was busily engaged in deepening with his chisel the letters of the inscription upon the monument of the slaughtered Presbyterians--those champions of the Covenant whose deeds and sufferings were his favourite theme.

For nearly thirty years this pious enthusiast visited annually the graves of those who suffered for the cause during the reigns of the last two Stuarts, most numerous in the districts of Ayr, Galloway, and Dumfries. To talk of their exploits was the delight, as to repair their monuments was the business of his life.

My readers will understand that in embodying into one narrative many of the anecdotes I derived from Old Mortality, I have endeavoured to correct and verify them from the most authentic sources of tradition afforded by the representatives of either party. Peace to their memory!

"Implacable resentment was their crime, And grievous has the expiation been."

Under the reign of the last Stuarts, frequent musters of the people, both for military exercise and for sports and pastimes, were appointed by authority, and the Sheriff of Lanark was holding the wappen-schaw of a wild district, on the day our narrative commences, May 5, 1679.

The lord-lieutenant of the country alone, who was of ducal rank, pretended to the magnificence of a wheel-carriage, but near it might be seen the erect form of Lady Margaret b.e.l.l.e.n.den on her sober palfrey, and her granddaughter; the fair-haired Edith appeared beside her aged relative like Spring, close to Winter.

Many civilities pa.s.sed between her ladys.h.i.+p and the representatives of sundry ancient royal families, and not a young man of rank pa.s.sed by them in the course of the muster, but carried himself more erect in the saddle and displayed his horsemans.h.i.+p to the best advantage in the eyes of Miss Edith b.e.l.l.e.n.den.