The Mosstrooper Part 8

Before he had time to do aught, his arms were pinioned behind his back, and three stout Englishmen had thrown themselves suddenly on Ruthven.

The a.s.sault was so unexpected and sudden that neither the Captain of Hunterspath nor Edie could offer the least resistance. Amid the jeers of their captors they were mounted on their horses. Sir Dacre de Ermstein rode up to Ruthven and whispered in his ear:

"The robber of Hunterspath shall not always prevail against the house of Ermstein."

By an ill-turn of Fortunes wheel the man who had beaten off the English foe from Hawksglen was now in the hands of that same foe--the victor led off in bonds by the vanquished!

A long night ride saw the forces of Sir Dacre de Ermstein across the Border, and on the afternoon of the following day the towers of Warkcliff Castle rose before Sir Dacre and his followers.

The Lady of Warkcliff, the childless wife of Sir Dacre de Ermstein, was sitting at her chamber window, vacantly watching the conflict that raged in the bosom of the sweet valley, between the heavy morning mists and the sun and wind. Lady de Ermstein had come of a n.o.ble English line: in her youth she had been peerless for her charms, but middle-age had reft all those youthful charms away; still, she was a stately dame, and still possessed those graces of manner which had so much enhanced her youthful beauty. But she was childless. This was the secret sorrow that preyed everlastingly upon her soul. Her husband was the last of his ancient line. With him would perish the n.o.ble house of De Ermstein, and the lordly domains of Warkcliff would pa.s.s away to the stranger.

Watching the battle in the valley between the mists and the sun and wind, she thought of that great cloud which had heavily enveloped her heart and hopes so long, which no sun, no breath of promise, would ever dissipate. Her husband burst into the chamber. His countenance was flushed, and his eye kindling, and his look elated. The lady had heard the tumult in the castle, but it only cost her a pa.s.sing thought.

"Such tidings as I have to tell, Alice!" he exclaimed, grasping her by both hands. "Such tidings as make my heart leap!"

"They are not of sorrow, then!" said the lady, with a wan smile.

"No! why of sorrow? I have won a proud triumph, Alice. Mountjoy, whom I despatched to watch the Scots at their Weaponschaw, or military muster of the s.h.i.+re, has captured the villain Somervil, the robber who keeps a tower on the Cheviot hills, who infests the whole English marches, Mountjoy has made _him_ a prisoner."

"And brought him to the castle?"

"Yes; and the mosstrooper now lies in the Donjon with iron on wrist and ankle."

"He has troubled the Border long," said the lady thoughtfully. "But you do not resolve to have his life?" she added, looking full in her husband's face.

"I have determined that he shall suffer the penalty due to his crimes," cried Sir Dacre; "and that within three days. Has he not been my relentless foe, the relentless spoliator of my lands? I never can forget that, through him, I suffered that disgraceful repulse before the tower of Hawksglen, which, but for his interposition, would have yielded to the a.s.saults of my gallant soldiers. No, no, Alice, speak not a word for him; I will hear no pet.i.tion from human lips that his life should be spared. Since the day at Hawksglen how often have my va.s.sals been plundered and slain by the mosstroopers of Hunterspath? I will not listen to appeals for mercy to this noted outlaw--this villain whose pride and boast it is to plunder the domains of Warkcliff, and mortify their lord."

"But, husband," entreated the gentle-hearted lady, "resolve upon nothing until your pa.s.sion has cooled down. Your spirits are flushed at this moment. There is no knightly virtue so brilliant as that of compa.s.sion for the vanquished foe."

"But what a foe this is, Alice," said the knight, "a mosstrooper--an outlawed and broken man--a miscreant who lives upon spoliation and rapine. _He_ can claim no compa.s.sion."

"Still, to put him to death, miscreant as he is, may bring the vengeance of his confederates on the Scottish side upon you, husband.

Consider this: his death may add another to the many grounds of feud and fray which the turbulent Scottish chiefs have against you. And we have suffered much from the hatred of the Border Scots."

"It does not move my compa.s.sion for this ruffian," returned the knight, with a dark gloom on his brow, "thus to rake up the memories of our past wrongs and sorrows. Can I forget that, through the fell hatred of some caitiff-Scot, we are this day childless and heirless?"

"Childless, indeed!" sighed the lady, as, with a burst of grief, she sank on her husband's shoulder and wept aloud.

Sir Dacre was equally affected, but he forbore all signs of woe. He essayed to soothe his weeping wife, and laid her gently into a chair.

"Ay," said the knight, as he moodily perambulated the room, "Scottish hatred has struck at the root of our house, and will behold its extinction in a few short years. The house of De Ermstein traces its long descent from the chivalrous Norman who followed the Conqueror, and shared in the perils and glories of the field of Hastings. And shall this long line terminate with _me_? Alas! my name shall be erased for ever from the princely roll of English n.o.bles."

"O, that child--that lost, lost child!" sobbed the weeping lady.

"Twenty years have deepened the sad wound of my soul!"

"Childless, heirless," resumed Sir Dacre. "And this old house to close with me? One of my ancestors received the praise of King Edward on the field of Falkirk, where the Scottish rebels were scattered; another did his devoir gallantly under bold King Hall at Agincourt; and a third stabbed down the hump-backed Richard on Bosworth. We have all our ancient baronial honours about us. But oblivion is destined to swallow up all!"

"Let this outlaw live," cried the lady, starting from the chair, and clasping her husband's hands. "Shed no blood that may cry from the ground against us. Vengeance is the prerogative of Heaven alone. We who are in the midst of sorrow, who have no prospects but dark ones, we should excel in deeds of mercy. Let him live, keep him captive all his days, but shed no blood. I implore his life, husband; I implore it from the bottom of my heart."

The knight beheld her with amazement.

"Alice," he said calmly, "your feelings overpower you. This outlaw _must_ suffer. I am here in the stead of the minister of Justice, who shall perform my duty."

CHAPTER X.

But young Beichan was a Christian born, And still a Christian was he, Which made them put him in prison strang, And cauld and hunger sair to dree, And fed on nocht but bread and water, Until the day that he mot dee.

--_Lord Beichan._

On being taken from the courtyard, Ruthven Somervil was, without delay, committed to close ward in the Donjon-keep. The armourer of the castle brought a pair of heavy chains, which he rivetted upon the prisoner's wrists and ankles, and secured the ends to a ring in the wall. The prison cell was low, small, and dark; two narrow loop-holes scarcely admitted the feeblest light. The captive heard, with a shudder, the bolts and bars drawn upon the door, and hammers driving them securely into their staples, and chains fastened across the door as an additional security.

Oppressed with the weight of his fetters, and more so by the insupportable weight of his disaster and despair, the outlaw sank down upon the floor of the cell, and lay for a long period silent and inert in body and soul. Consciousness scarce seemed within him. To look upon his motionless figure one would have thought him dead.

Almost involuntarily he raised his hand to his breast and felt, with a thrill of joy and sadness, the little reliquary found on his neck when left at the gate of Hawksglen, which still hung at his heart. For many years Elliot kept this mysterious trinket carefully locked up in his cabinet, and had refused to part with it even upon the urgent solicitations of Ruthven previous to his quitting the castle. But, after he joined the band of Hunterspath, Lady Eleanor contrived to gain possession of the trinket, unknown to her father, and, at an interview which she granted to her outlaw lover on the banks of the lake, she delivered it into his hands. Around his neck he had worn it ever since, and he was resolved to go to the grave with it. He now drew forth the little trinket, and, surveying it for a moment in the dim light, pressed it to his lips, for the sweet memory of her from whose hands he had received it as a love-gift. How his soul, as it roamed through the memories of the past, dwelt upon that meeting near the lake, as a weary traveller of the desert lingers long on the bosom of the green, shady oasis, with its glancing springs and flowing waters.

And this was an oasis in his life; before, behind, around it was all the desert in its barrenness. His soul recalled that autumn eve, with all its beauty and sweetness. Yonder shone the lake in the fading glories of the western sky. Eleanor was standing beneath the whispering shade of hazel, and he stood by her side, gazing on the fair young face that drooped with emotion; the mantling blush on the smooth cheek, the drooping of the eyelids, the bosom that heaved with sad and joyful thoughts, the lovely being whose heart was his, whose hand was pledged to him.

The captivity, the prison, the chains, the prospect of death, all were forgotten in the vision which the golden reliquary called magically into being.

But the "visioned scene" fled, like a delusive mirage, and, as it dissipated, it left the dungeon and the chains revealed and felt. The captive had left the oasis for ever, and was now in the midst of the waste, howling desert, horrors behind, and before, and around! Pent up within the four grim walls, only to be led forth to hear his doom, and thence to the place of death--a chained and powerless victim, prostrate beneath the uplifted, menacing hand of Destiny. Plunged in deepest despair, not a ray of hope could penetrate such a dungeon or such a despairing heart. The last sands of a troubled life were running out fast. And this was to be the end of him who was nursed in the lap of luxury, on whose career the crimes of others had cast a baleful influence. This the end of him who had gained fair Eleanor's heart. Alas for Eleanor!

The mental stupor returned, he lay sluggish on the ground; the little golden reliquary had lost its magic power. Like him who languished in the vaults of Chillon, he could have said--

"I had not strength to stir or strive, But felt that I was still alive."

And there was freedom on the green heights of Cheviot, on the wide Border which he rode so long, in the halls of Hunterspath, where he had defied all power and every enemy. But he was a captive, chained to the wall like a dog. The time wore by unheeded; a ray of sunlight trembled into the cell, and vanished, and the wind began to blow--the wind that sounded high on Cheviot. The captive still sat grovelling on the ground.

He had a fancy that the door of the dungeon was hammered open, that a glare of torchlight illuminated the place, that voices arose, that forms pa.s.sed before him.

"He is in despair," said one voice; and another answered: "He well may be so, for on the third morning he dies."

And then something like a laugh echoed through the cell.

"I will leave the food for him," said a voice again. "He will wake and be glad of it."

And the other voice said:

"Pity that so comely a youth should have followed the lawless career of a robber. In his King's service he might now have been a knight, and they say of him that he comes of n.o.ble blood."

"That is why our good lady pleads so strongly for his life."

"But she pleads in vain," said the other voice. "Sir Dacre's purpose is fixed. n.o.ble or ign.o.ble, this robber leader shall die; and the Border will be quiet after it. I will leave the bread and water."

And there was a drawing and hammering of bolts, and the clanking of chains, and then silence. And the captive awoke as from a dream, and saw the bread and water on the cold floor, near where he lay. The bitterness of his captivity was coming.