carried.
Glad was Louise to escape his grasp, by slipping the knot of the riband, and leaving the little bag in the Prince's hand, as, retiring back beyond his reach, she answered, 'Nuts, my lord, of the last season.'
The Prince pulled out a handful of nuts accordingly. 'Nuts, child! they will break thine ivory teeth, hurt thy pretty voice,' said Rothsay, cracking one with his teeth, like a village schoolboy.
'They are not the walnuts of my own sunny clime, my lord,' said Louise; 'but they hang low, and are within the reach of the poor.'
'You shall have something to afford you better fare, poor wandering ape,' said the Duke, in a tone in which feeling predominated more than in the affected and contemptuous gallantry of his first address to the glee maiden.
At this moment, as he turned to ask an attendant for his purse, the Prince encountered the stern and piercing look of a tall black man, seated on a powerful iron grey horse, who had entered the court with attendants while the Duke of Rothsay was engaged with Louise, and now remained stupefied and almost turned to stone by his surprise and anger at this unseemly spectacle. Even one who had never seen Archibald Earl of Douglas, called the Grim, must have known him by his swart complexion, his gigantic frame, his buff coat of bull's hide, and his air of courage, firmness, and sagacity, mixed with indomitable pride. The loss of an eye in battle, though not perceptible at first sight, as the ball of the injured organ remained similar to the other, gave yet a stern, immovable glare to the whole aspect.
The meeting of the royal son in law with his terrible stepfather [father in law] was in circumstances which arrested the attention of all present; and the bystanders waited the issue with silence and suppressed breath, lest they should lose any part of what was to ensue.
When the Duke of Rothsay saw the expression which occupied the stern features of Douglas, and remarked that the Earl did not make the least motion towards respectful, or even civil, salutation, he seemed determined to show him how little respect he was disposed to pay to his displeased looks. He took his purse from his chamberlain.
'Here, pretty one,' he said, 'I give thee one gold piece for the song thou hast sung me, another for the nuts I have stolen from thee, and a third for the kiss thou art about to give me. For know, my pretty one, that when fair lips, and thine for fault of better may be called so, make sweet music for my pleasure, I am sworn to St. Valentine to press them to mine.'
'My song is recompensed nobly,' said Louise, shrinking back; 'my nuts are sold to a good market; farther traffic, my lord, were neither befitting you nor beseeming me.'
'What! you coy it, my nymph of the highway?' said the Prince, contemptuously. 'Know damsel, that one asks you a grace who is unused to denial.'
'It is the Prince of Scotland—the Duke of Rothsay,' said the courtiers around, to the terrified Louise, pressing forward the trembling young woman; 'you must not thwart his humor.'
'But I cannot reach your lordship,' she said, timidly, 'you sit so high on horseback.'
'If I must alight,' said Rothsay, 'there shall be the heavier penalty. What does the wench tremble for? Place thy foot on the toe of my boot, give me hold of thy hand. Gallantly done!' He kissed her as she stood thus suspended in the air, perched upon his foot and supported by his hand; saying, 'There is thy kiss, and there is my purse to pay it; and to grace thee farther, Rothsay will wear thy scrip for the day.'
He suffered the frightened girl to spring to the ground, and turned his looks from her to bend them contemptuously on the Earl of Douglas, as if he had said, 'All this I do in despite of you and of your daughter's claims.'
'By St. Bride of Douglas!' said the Earl, pressing towards the Prince, 'this is too much, unmannered boy, as void of sense as honour! You know what considerations restrain the hand of Douglas, else had you never dared —'
'Can you play at spang cockle, my lord?' said the Prince, placing a nut on the second joint of his forefinger, and spinning it off by a smart application of the thumb. The nut struck on Douglas's broad breast, who burst out into a dreadful exclamation of wrath, inarticulate, but resembling the growl of a lion in depth and sternness of expression.
'I cry your pardon, most mighty lord,' said the Duke of Rothsay, scornfully, while all around trembled; 'I did not conceive my pellet could have wounded you, seeing you wear a buff coat. Surely, I trust, it did not hit your eye?'
The prior, despatched by the King, as we have seen in the last chapter, had by this time made way through the crowd, and laying hold on Douglas's rein, in a manner that made it impossible for him to advance, reminded him that the Prince was the son of his sovereign; and the husband of his daughter.
'Fear not, sir prior,' said Douglas. 'I despise the childish boy too much to raise a finger against him. But I will return insult for insult. Here, any of you who love the Douglas, spurn me this quean from the monastery gates; and let her be so scourged that she may bitterly remember to the last day of her life how she gave means to an unrespective boy to affront the Douglas.'
Four or five retainers instantly stepped forth to execute commands which were seldom uttered in vain, and heavily would Louise have atoned for an offence of which she was alike the innocent, unconscious, and unwilling instrument, had not the Duke of Rothsay interfered.
'Spurn the poor glee woman!' he said, in high indignation; 'scourge her for obeying my commands! Spurn thine own oppressed vassals, rude earl—scourge thine own faulty hounds; but beware how you touch so much as a dog that Rothsay hath patted on the head, far less a female whose lips he hath kissed!'
Before Douglas could give an answer, which would certainly have been in defiance, there arose that great tumult at the outward gate of the monastery, already noticed, and men both on horseback and on foot began to rush headlong in, not actually fighting with each other, but certainly in no peaceable manner.
One of the contending parties, seemingly, were partizans of Douglas, known by the cognizance of the bloody heart; the other were composed of citizens of the town of Perth. It appeared they had been skirmishing in earnest when without the gates, but, out of respect to the sanctified ground, they lowered their weapons when they entered, and confined their strife to a war of words and mutual abuse.
The tumult had this good effect, that it forced asunder, by the weight and press of numbers, the Prince and Douglas, at a moment when the levity of the former and the pride of the latter were urging both to the utmost extremity. But now peacemakers interfered on all sides. The prior and the monks threw themselves among the multitude, and commanded peace in the name of Heaven, and reverence to their sacred walls, under penalty of excommunication; and their expostulations began to be listened to. Albany, who was despatched by his royal brother at the beginning of the fray, had not arrived till now on the scene of action. He instantly applied himself to Douglas, and in his ear conjured him to temper his passion.
'By St. Bride of Douglas, I will be avenged!' said the Earl. 'No man shall brook life after he has passed an affront on Douglas.'
'Why, so you may be avenged in fitting time,' said Albany; 'but let it not be said that, like a peevish woman, the Great Douglas could choose neither time nor place for his vengeance. Bethink you, all that we have laboured at is like to be upset by an accident. George of Dunbar hath had the advantage of an audience with the old man; and though it lasted but five minutes, I fear it may endanger the dissolution of your family match, which we brought about with so much difficulty. The authority from Rome has not yet been obtained.'
'A toy!' answered Douglas, haughtily; 'they dare not dissolve it.'
'Not while Douglas is at large, and in possession of his power,' answered Albany. 'But, noble earl, come with me, and I will show you at what disadvantage you stand.'
Douglas dismounted, and followed his wily accomplice in silence. In a lower hall they saw the ranks of the Brandanes drawn up, well armed in caps of steel and shirts of mail. Their captain, making an obeisance to Albany, seemed to desire to address him.
'What now, MacLouis?' said the Duke.
'We are informed the Duke of Rothsay has been insulted, and I can scarce keep the Brandanes within door.'
'Gallant MacLouis,' said Albany, 'and you, my trusty Brandanes, the Duke of Rothsay, my princely nephew, is as well as a hopeful gentleman can be. Some scuffle there has been, but all is appeased.'
He continued to draw the Earl of Douglas forward. 'You see, my lord,' he said in his ear, 'that, if the word
