is capable of all that is vile, all that is treacherous!'
'Did Ramorny do this?' said the Prince.
'He did indeed, my lord, and he dares not deny it.'
'It shall be looked to,' answered the Duke of Rothsay. 'I have ceased to love him; but he has suffered much for my sake, and I must see his services honourably requited.'
'His services! Oh, my lord, if chronicles speak true, such services brought Troy to ruins and gave the infidels possession of Spain.'
'Hush, maiden—speak within compass, I pray you,' said the Prince, rising up; 'our conference ends here.'
'Yet one word, my Lord Duke of Rothsay,' said Catharine, with animation, while her beautiful countenance resembled that of an admonitory angel. 'I cannot tell what impels me to speak thus boldly; but the fire burns within me, and will break out. Leave this castle without an hour's delay; the air is unwholesome for you. Dismiss this Ramorny before the day is ten minutes older; his company is most dangerous.'
'What reason have you for saying this?'
'None in especial,' answered Catharine, abashed at her own eagerness—'none, perhaps, excepting my fears for your safety.'
'To vague fears the heir of Bruce must not listen. What, ho! who waits without?'
Ramorny entered, and bowed low to the Duke and to the maiden, whom, perhaps, he considered as likely to be preferred to the post of favourite sultana, and therefore entitled to a courteous obeisance.
'Ramorny,' said the Prince, 'is there in the household any female of reputation who is fit to wait on this young woman till we can send her where she may desire to go?'
'I fear,' replied Ramorny, 'if it displease not your Highness to hear the truth, your household is indifferently provided in that way; and that, to speak the very verity, the glee maiden is the most decorous amongst us.'
'Let her wait upon this young person, then, since better may not be. And take patience, maiden, for a few hours.'
Catharine retired.
'So, my lord, part you so soon from the Fair Maid of Perth? This is, indeed, the very wantonness of victory.'
'There is neither victory nor defeat in the case,' returned the Prince, drily. 'The girl loves me not; nor do I love her well enough to torment myself concerning her scruples.'
'The chaste Malcolm the Maiden revived in one of his descendants!' said Ramorny.
'Favour me, sir, by a truce to your wit, or by choosing a different subject for its career. It is noon, I believe, and you will oblige me by commanding them to serve up dinner.'
Ramorny left the room; but Rothsay thought he discovered a smile upon his countenance, and to be the subject of this man's satire gave him no ordinary degree of pain. He summoned, however, the knight to his table, and even admitted Dwining to the same honour. The conversation was of a lively and dissolute cast, a tone encouraged by the Prince, as if designing to counterbalance the gravity of his morals in the morning, which Ramorny, who was read in old chronicles, had the boldness to liken to the continence of Scipio.
The banquet, nothwithstanding the Duke's indifferent health, was protracted in idle wantonness far beyond the rules of temperance; and, whether owing simply to the strength of the wine which he drank, or the weakness of his constitution, or, as it is probable, because the last wine which he quaffed had been adulterated by Dwining, it so happened that the Prince, towards the end of the repast, fell into a lethargic sleep, from which it seemed impossible to rouse him. Sir John Ramorny and Dwining carried him to his chamber, accepting no other assistance than that of another person, whom we will afterwards give name to.
Next morning, it was announced that the Prince was taken ill of an infectious disorder; and, to prevent its spreading through the household, no one was admitted to wait on him save his late master of horse, the physician Dwining, and the domestic already mentioned; one of whom seemed always to remain in the apartment, while the others observed a degree of precaution respecting their intercourse with the rest of the family, so strict as to maintain the belief that he was dangerously ill of an infectious disorder.
CHAPTER XXXII.
Far different had been the fate of the misguided heir of Scotland from that which was publicly given out in the town of Falkland. His ambitious uncle had determined on his death, as the means of removing the first and most formidable barrier betwixt his own family and the throne. James, the younger son of the King, was a mere boy, who might at more leisure be easily set aside. Ramorny's views of aggrandisement, and the resentment which he had latterly entertained against his masters made him a willing agent in young Rothsay's destruction. Dwining's love of gold, and his native malignity of disposition, rendered him equally forward. It had been resolved, with the most calculating cruelty, that all means which might leave behind marks of violence were to be carefully avoided, and the extinction of life suffered to take place of itself by privation of every kind acting upon a frail and impaired constitution. The Prince of Scotland was not to be murdered, as Ramorny had expressed himself on another occasion, he was only to cease to exist. Rothsay's bedchamber in the Tower of Falkland was well adapted for the execution of such a horrible project. A small, narrow staircase, scarce known to exist, opened from thence by a trapdoor to the subterranean dungeons of the castle, through a passage by which the feudal lord was wont to visit, in private and in disguise, the inhabitants of those miserable regions. By this staircase the villains conveyed the insensible Prince to the lowest dungeon of the castle, so deep in the bowels of the earth, that no cries or groans, it was supposed, could possibly be heard, while the strength of its door and fastenings must for a long time have defied force, even if the entrance could have been discovered. Bonthron, who had been saved from the gallows for the purpose, was the willing agent of Ramorny's unparalleled cruelty to his misled and betrayed patron.
This wretch revisited the dungeon at the time when the Prince's lethargy began to wear off, and when, awaking to sensation, he felt himself deadly cold, unable to move, and oppressed with fetters, which scarce permitted him to stir from the dank straw on which he was laid. His first idea was that he was in a fearful dream, his next brought a confused augury of the truth. He called, shouted, yelled at length in frenzy but no assistance came, and he was only answered by the vaulted roof of the dungeon. The agent of hell heard these agonizing screams, and deliberately reckoned them against the taunts and reproaches with which Rothsay had expressed his instinctive aversion to him. When, exhausted and hopeless, the unhappy youth remained silent, the savage resolved to present himself before the eyes of his prisoner. The locks were drawn, the chain fell; the Prince raised himself as high as his fetters permitted; a red glare, against which he was fain to shut his eyes, streamed through the vault; and when he opened them again, it was on the ghastly form of one whom he had reason to think dead. He sunk back in horror.
'I am judged and condemned,' he exclaimed, 'and the most abhorred fiend in the infernal regions is sent to torment me!'
'I live, my lord,' said Bonthron; 'and that you may live and enjoy life, be pleased to sit up and eat your
