Chapter IV: The Bond of Manrent

Madame, who never tired of prattling, spoke again:

'The letter of my dear old friend the Duke--by-the by, does he still curl his mustachios up to his ears?--says that your father was--'

'Blane of that ilk and of Blanerne, madame, in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, Bailie of Tungland Abbey, and Captain of Carlaveroc for John Earl of Nithsdale.'

'Ma foi! he has as many guttural titles as a Spanish grandee of the first class; but pray tell me, what does that ilk mean?'

'In the Scottish language it denotes, madame, that the holder has either given his name to the territory he possesses, or has taken his name from it; moreover, that he is the head of his surname. Our old baronial houses alone bear it, for it is a custom dating from the days of king Malcolm III., and consequently is more than six hundred years old. My father's office of captainrie under the Earl of Nithsdale was, in some measure, the cause of all our misfortunes and of my exile.'

'Proceed, pray, for I am all attention.'

'He was an old adherent of the house of Nithsdale, and with the present Earl, the Lord Torthorwald, and six other gentlemen of the surnames of Maxwell, Douglas, and Blane, signed, about six years ago, a _Bond of Manrent_--'

'Excuse me, M. Blane--but I do not understand.'

'It means a bond of friendship and alliance, to the effect that they bound themselves to stand by each other, in peace and in war, in weal and woe, with all the might of their estates, castles, and retainers, in arms against all men; the cause of each to be the cause of all; and to this deed, which is now in the charter-room of Carlaveroc, they swore by their honours and souls, affixing thereto their signatures and seals.'

'This seemed somewhat like a league against the king.'

'Nay, madame, such bonds have been common in Scotland for ages, and have arisen from the wish to create a feudal relation between lords and vassals who have no affinity by tenure, and to strengthen the weak against the strong. Such leagues are certainly contrary to the laws of the land, yet they exist. But a time came to test the strength of my father's bond with the Earl of Nithsdale. King Charles being madly devoted to his father's rash project of assimilating the kirk of Scotland, in point of ceremony and in government, to the Church of England, with regular gradations of titled clergy, lately resolved, by an Act of Revocation, to resume and appropriate to the crown all the tithes and benefices which the barons and other laymen had seized during the plunder of temporalities at the Reformation; and from these he proposed to endow the intended Scottish episcopal bishoprics, deaneries, rectories, and so forth. The rage of our fiery barons was great, and their resolution was not less than their rage. There were many whose whole estates and possessions had been church property, and thus it was with us, for most of my father's barony of Blanerne had in ancient times been a fief of the Abbots of Tungland, and was of course comprehended in this new and most obnoxious resumption, though it had been a free gift to his grandfather by the Regent Lennox, and the Lords of the Congregation, for his valour at the great siege of Leith, where he routed and slew the Colonel-General of the Italian infantry.

'The intended Revocation was to be announced to the Convention of Estates by the king's representative in Scotland, the Lord High Commissioner, who was, unhappily for us, the Earl of Nithsdale; but certain of the Scottish lords and barons were determined to kill him before the assembled Parliament, and then appeal to arms rather than yield to a measure so impoverishing and obnoxious; and despite the Bond of Manrent, friendship, and alliance, which bound him with sword and service, soul and body to the Earl of Nithsdale, and to whatever cause he espoused, my father, Sir Arthur Blane, joined the resisting barons in their deadly purpose, and defied the Maxwells, at all times a desperate and a turbulent race. My father was wroth alike with the government of the kirk and kingdom under Nithsdale, and the suspicion of the Convention of Estates was first brought upon him thus:--Having inscribed above the door of his tower a legend which seemed to reflect upon the Presbyterian Kirk, he was imprisoned for a month in the castle of Lochmaben, because he did not know Latin.'

'Ma foi! a droll reason.'

'It is not to be wondered at when we all know that a few years ago Robert Earl of Orkney lost his head for the same heinous crime. My father was released, but the affront rankled in his mind. It was resolved to poniard the Lord High Commissioner on the throne, at the moment when the last word of the royal letter was read; and the contention for this desperate office--for who should _Bell-the-Cat_--was so keen, that lots were cast, and ere long the lots were reduced to two--my father, Sir Arthur Blane of Blanerne, and Sir Robert Douglas of Spot, Viscount of Belhaven, an aged peer who was stone blind, and who, in his youth, had been master of the horse to the Duke of Rothsay, a gentleman of the bedchamber to James VI., and member of the Privy Council. To him only would my father yield place, for in other years they had been old comrades and served together in France.

'So the terrible and eventful day came at last; the Parliament met at Edinburgh with unusual grandeur and gloom; four hundred representatives of the Scottish people were there, with darkened brows, with angry hearts and sharp swords by their sides. The commissioner sat upon the throne; before him lay the crown, the sword of state, the sceptre and all the royal insignia; but behind stood the blind old Viscount of Belhaven holding his velvet robes by the left hand on pretence that, being aged and infirm, he wished to be near the Lord Nithsdale. His other hand was concealed in his bosom, and firmly grasped a dagger. Beside him stood my stern father, who, that he might not be unemployed, had taken upon him the task of slaying the Viscount Ayr, whom the king had created Earl of Dumfries, and who was a warm adherent of the intended Revocation--'

'Mon Dieu!' exclaimed Madame d'Amboise; 'I never heard of all this stabbing and assassination!'

'Because, madame, the proposed tragedy went no further than this terrible tableau; for the Earl of Nithsdale had learned something of what was awaiting him and other friends of our alien king; and after proceeding with the usual business of the parliament, he closed it abruptly, without producing the letter of revocation which would have plunged all Scotland into civil war; and after despatching messengers into Nithsdale, he returned--yea almost fled--to the court at London.'

'What meant the messengers?'

'You shall hear,' said I, making a violent effort to control the rage and grief that swelled in my breast; 'within a week after the closing of parliament my poor father was found dead on the verge of Lochar-moss--pierced by three balls from an arquebuse; and on that night our tower of Blanerne was burned to the ground, and all the country around it made desolate by six hundred mosstroopers of the Maxwell clan. Breaking through them sword in hand, after seeing my only living relative, a boy-brother about six years old, perish in the flames, I reached Edinburgh to lay my complaints before the authorities, but found them all the creatures of the king--a king Scottish by birth and blood, but English by breeding, residence, and sympathy! Oh cursed be the hour when Scotland gave a king unto her enemies! I appealed to the Secretary of State, but he was my good Lord Nithsdale's fast friend and near kinsman, so he smiled in my face. I appealed to the Lord Advocate; he was my Lord Dumfries' cousin, and bade me complain to the king in London. Being a placeman and a coward, he taunted my murdered father's memory; so I smote him on the mouth with my sword-hilt--yea, smote him down as I would have done a dog, and had again to fly. Destruction and pursuit dogged me close; but aided by the kind old Duke of Lennox, a kinsman of my mother, I obtained the letter which you hold and also shipping to Havre. There I landed safely, and found lodging with a countryman of my own, an honest vintner, who met me wandering sadly and irresolutely from street to street. He accosted me, as Scotsmen always greet each other in a foreign land, for his heart warmed to the St. Andrew's cross in my bonnet--and he was more than kind to me. I then took the public messenger to Paris, agreeing for fifteen francs to have a horse, lodgings, and food on the way; but I had to give the conductor a piece of thirteen sols. I reached Paris only last night, when an honest fellow, who proved to be an Englishman and a Protestant, guided me to an hotel, the Golden Fleur-de-lys in the Rue d'Ecosse. I spent the next day in wandering about the palace and gardens of the Luxembourg and the royal library, seeing the books of miniatures done by Monsieur Robert, the garden of the Tuileries, and the church of Notre Dame, the two massy towers, the antiquity and gloom of which charmed and soothed me; but alas, madame! I felt lonely and sad amid the roar and bustle of this vast and crowded city; I was ready to weep--yea, to weep like a child, when I thought of my ruined fortunes, my blighted family, and my father's ancient tower that looked down upon the Dee, and my native hills and heather braes that were far, far away!'

'And did you travel comfortably to Paris?'

'With more frugality than comfort, madame, remembering that he who sleeps without supper awakes without debt.'

'My poor boy! you will soon learn that two things are most necessary in this good and pious city of Paris--a drawn sword and a golden wand. But tell me,' she added, with a coquettish smile, and while dropping her voice and her eyelashes together, 'are you capable of feeling a deep love?'

'Love?' I reiterated a second time, while my heart vibrated strongly, and I perceived the fair mask beside us, who had listened to all this in silence, turn away with a gesture of ineffable disdain.

'Well, well, M. Blane, I will talk to you of this another time,' said the countess, who detected this secret displeasure in her friend or companion; 'a deep love is not necessary, if you are only adequate to a little pretty wickedness, or amiable weakness, it is quite enough here--for we do not love long in these days of ours. Believe me that his Grace of Lennox shall be obeyed, and that I will leave nothing undone to find you a suitable position in France.'

'Oh madame, a thousand thanks!' I exclaimed, remembering, with something of remorse, that I had once felt considerable disdain for the character of the patroness to whom my ducal kinsman had assigned me.

'What say you to join the Duke of Lorraine?' she asked abruptly.

'Lorraine, madame?' I stammered.

'Yes.'

'He is said to be in league with the German emperor against the King of France,' said the masked lady hurriedly.

'Well, mademoiselle--and what then?'

'Ah, madame la Comtesse, do not trepan the poor youth into a service of which he is ignorant, or into a hazardous game like that now played by France and Lorraine.'

'As you please,' replied the Countess pettishly. 'Mademoiselle Marie Louise of Lorraine, the duke's only daughter and favourite child, is said to be now in Paris, and to have won over more than twenty colonels of the French army to her father's cause.'

'Pardon me, madame,' said I, 'but remember that a Scottish subject cannot serve with honour against a king of France.'

'Then your wishes--'

'Are military service under King Louis. My father served as a lieutenant in the Gensdarmes Ecossais for ten years, and fought at the siege of Rochelle, where the Huguenots insisted on holding their assembly; at the storming of the castle of Sully, and the blockade of Caumont. I should like a commission in the same force.'

'May I ask what money you have?'

'Only ten louis d'ors.'

She gave me a beautiful smile, and said,

'My dear child, you do not know that a captaincy in the Scottish gendarmerie or cuirassiers costs one hundred and eighty thousand livres, being forty-five thousand more than a troop _in any other_ regiment of horse, even the gendarmerie of Bourguignon or Flanders; a cornetcy in the Scottish troop costs sixty-two thousand livres. You must moderate your ambition, and be contented with the post of a simple cuirassier, for in the ranks of the Scottish guard, horse and foot, are none but the noblest and best blood of your own country; thus your rank and pay as a Scottish cuirassier will enable you to ruffle it in Paris with any gallant or chevalier about court. I shall send for the captain, or write to the colonel-general of the Scots in the morning, when our wishes shall be complied with--provided there be a vacancy.

'Madame,' I exclaimed, overcome by the sweetness and decision of her manner, as much as by its kindness and the brilliance of her beauty, 'the devotion of my life shall be yours.'

I drew from my finger the only jewel I possessed--the ring obtained that night so strangely and disastrously in the Place de la Grève; and as it seemed to be a valuable diamond, I was about to place it on her finger, when the sound of a carriage driven furiously up the avenue, a slamming of doors, the tramp of feet and voices of men who seemed somewhat excited, gradually approached the apartment in which we were seated. The Countess grew very pale.

'Can this be the King?' she exclaimed.

'Oh, no,' said her attendant, who trembled excessively; 'there are no torches and no musketeers; 'tis not his Majesty.'

'Away, my friend,' said the Countess, clasping her hands; and while the masked lady retired in evident alarm, I laid hand on my sword.

'Can my brother have come here at this untimeous hour?' muttered the Countess, as a servant entered with a hurried and disordered air.

'Ah, Madame la Comtesse----'

'Mon Dieu! what is the matter? Speak, Antoine--speak!'

'Your brother, madame--M. le Chevalier d'Ische--has this moment been brought hither in a fiacre almost dead, having fought with a brigand on the Quai de la Grève, and been run through the body!'

'My brother!' exclaimed Madame d'Amboise, growing pale as a lily, and turning her eyes wildly upon me; and at that moment, when I saw a wounded man borne by four servants past an opening in the parted arras, I felt as if the earth was yawning beneath my feet.

So ended my first night in the city of Paris!