He was in one of those long walks by which the Park was traversed, when he heard, first a distant rustling, then the rapid approach of hoofs shaking the firm earth on which he stood; then a distant halloo, warned by which he stood up by the side of the avenue, leaving free room for the passage of the chase. The stag, reeling, covered with foam, and blackened with sweat, his nostrils extended as he gasped for breath, made a shift to come up as far as where Nigel stood, and, without turning to bay, was there pulled down by two tall greyhounds of the breed still used by the hardy deer-stalkers of the Scottish Highlands, but which has been long unknown in England. One dog struck at the buck’s throat, another dashed his sharp nose and fangs, I might almost say, into the animal’s bowels. It would have been natural for Lord Glenvarloch, himself persecuted as if by hunters, to have thought upon the occasion like the melancholy Jacques; but habit is a strange matter, and I fear that his feelings on the occasion were rather those of the practised huntsman than of the moralist. He had no time, however, to indulge them, for mark what befell.
A single horseman followed the chase, upon a steed so thoroughly subjected to the rein, that it obeyed the touch of the bridle as if it had been a mechanical impulse operating on the nicest piece of machinery; so that, seated deep in his demipique saddle, and so trussed up there as to make falling almost impossible, the rider, without either fear or hesitation, might increase or diminish the speed at which he rode, which, even on the most animating occasions of the chase, seldom exceeded three-fourths of a gallop, the horse keeping his haunches under him, and never stretching forward beyond the managed pace of the academy. The security with which he chose to prosecute even this favourite, and, in the ordinary case, somewhat dangerous amusement, as well as the rest of his equipage, marked King James. No attendant was within sight; indeed, it was often a nice strain of flattery to permit the Sovereign to suppose he had outridden and distanced all the rest of the chase.
“Weel dune, Bash – weel dune, Battie!” he exclaimed as he came up. “By the honour of a king, ye are a credit to the Braes of Balwhither! – Haud my horse, man,” he called out to Nigel, without stopping to see to whom he had addressed himself – “Haud my naig, and help me doun out o’ the saddle – deil ding your saul, sirrah, canna ye mak haste before these lazy smaiks come up? – haud the rein easy – dinna let him swerve – now, haud the stirrup – that will do, man, and now we are on terra firma.” So saying, without casting an eye on his assistant, gentle King Jamie, unsheathing the short, sharp hanger, (couteau de chasse,) which was the only thing approaching to a sword that he could willingly endure the sight of, drew the blade with great satisfaction across the throat of the buck, and put an end at once to its struggles and its agonies.
Lord Glenvarloch, who knew well the silvan duty which the occasion demanded, hung the bridle of the king’s palfrey on the branch of a tree, and, kneeling duteously down, turned the slaughtered deer upon its back, and kept the quarree in that position, while the king, too intent upon his sport to observe any thing else, drew his couteau down the breast of the animal, secundum artem; and, having made a cross cut, so as to ascertain the depth of the fat upon the chest, exclaimed, in a sort of rapture, “Three inches of white fat on the brisket! – prime – prime – as I am a crowned sinner – and deil ane o’ the lazy loons in but mysell! Seven – aught – aught tines on the antlers. By G – d, a hart of aught tines, and the first of the season! Bash and Battie, blessings on the heart’s-root of ye! Buss me, my bairns, buss me.” The dogs accordingly fawned upon him, licked him with bloody jaws, and soon put him in such a state that it might have seemed treason had been doing its full work upon his anointed body. “Bide doun, with a mischief to ye – bide doun, with a wanion,” cried the king, almost overturned by the obstreperous caresses of the large stag-hounds. “But ye are just like ither folks, gie ye an inch and ye take an ell. – And wha may ye be, friend?” he said, now finding leisure to take a nearer view of Nigel, and observing what in his first emotion of silvan delight had escaped him, – “Ye are nane of our train, man. In the name of God, what the devil are ye?”
“An unfortunate man, sire,” replied Nigel.
“I dare say that,” answered the king, snappishly, “or I wad have seen naething of you. My lieges keep a’ their happiness to themselves; but let bowls row wrang wi’ them, and I am sure to hear of it.”
“And to whom else can we carry our complaints but to your Majesty, who is Heaven’s vicegerent over us!” answered Nigel.
“Right, man, right – very weel spoken,” said the king; “but you should leave Heaven’s vicegerent some quiet on earth, too.”
“If your Majesty will look on me,” (for hitherto the king had been so busy, first with the dogs, and then with the mystic operation of breaking, in vulgar phrase, cutting up the deer, that he had scarce given his assistant above a transient glance,) “you will see whom necessity makes bold to avail himself of an opportunity which may never again occur.”
King James looked; his blood left his cheek, though it continued stained with that of the animal which lay at his feet, he dropped the knife from his hand, cast behind him a faltering eye, as if he either meditated flight or looked out for assistance, and then exclaimed, – “Glenvarlochides! as sure as I was christened James Stewart. Here is a bonny spot of work, and me alone, and on foot too!” he added, bustling to get upon his horse.
“Forgive me that I interrupt you, my liege,” said Nigel, placing himself between the king and his steed; “hear me but a moment!”
“I’ll hear ye best on horseback,” said the king. “I canna hear a word on foot, man, not a word; and it is not seemly to stand cheek-for-chowl confronting us that gate. Bide out of our gate, sir, we charge you on your allegiance. – The deil’s in them a’, what can they be doing?”
“By the crown that you wear, my liege,” said Nigel, “and for which my ancestors have worthily fought, I conjure you to be composed, and to hear me but a moment!”
That which he asked was entirely out of the monarch’s power to grant. The timidity which he showed was not the plain downright cowardice, which, like a natural impulse, compels a man to flight, and which can excite little but pity or contempt, but a much more ludicrous, as well as more mingled sensation. The poor king was frightened at once and angry, desirous of securing his safety, and at the same time ashamed to compromise his dignity; so that without attending to what Lord Glenvarloch endeavoured to explain, he kept making at his horse, and repeating, “We are a free king, man, – we are a free king – we will not be controlled by a subject. – In the name of God, what keeps Steenie? And, praised be his name, they are coming – Hillo, ho – here, here – Steenie, Steenie!”
The Duke of Buckingham galloped up, followed by several courtiers and attendants of the royal chase, and commenced with his usual familiarity, – “I see Fortune has graced our dear dad, as usual. – But what’s this?”
“What is it? It is treason for what I ken,” said the king; “and a’ your wyte, Steenie. Your dear dad and gossip might have been murdered, for what you care.”
“Murdered? Secure the villain!” exclaimed the Duke. “By Heaven, it is Olifaunt himself!” A dozen of the hunters dismounted at once, letting their horses run wild through the park. Some seized roughly on Lord Glenvarloch, who thought it folly to offer resistance, while others busied themselves with the king. “Are you wounded, my liege – are you wounded?”
“Not that I ken of,” said the king, in the paroxysm of his apprehension, (which, by the way, might be pardoned in one of so timorous a temper, and who, in his time, had been exposed to so many strange attempts) – “Not that I ken of – but search him – search him. I am sure I saw fire-arms under his cloak. I am sure I smelled powder – I am dooms sure of that.”
Lord Glenvarloch’s cloak being stripped off, and his pistols discovered, a shout of wonder and of execration on the supposed criminal purpose, arose from the crowd now thickening every moment. Not that celebrated pistol, which, though resting on a bosom as gallant and as loyal as Nigel’s, spread such cause less alarm among knights and dames at a late high solemnity – not that very pistol caused more temporary consternation than was so groundlessly excited by the arms which were taken from Lord Glenvarloch’s person; and not Mhic-Allastar-More himself could repel with greater scorn and indignation, the insinuations that they were worn for any sinister purposes.
“Away with the wretch – the parricide – the bloody-minded villain!” was echoed on all hands; and the king, who naturally enough set the same value on his own life, at which it was, or seemed to be, rated by others, cried out, louder than all the rest, “Ay, ay – away with him. I have had enough of him and so has the country. But do him no bodily harm – and, for God’s sake, sirs, if ye are sure ye have thoroughly disarmed him, put up your swords, dirks, and skenes, for you will certainly do each other a mischief.”
There was a speedy sheathing of weapons at the king’s command; for those who had hitherto been brandishing them in loyal bravado, began thereby to call to mind the extreme dislike which his Majesty nourished against naked steel, a foible which seemed to be as constitutional as his timidity, and was usually ascribed to the brutal murder of Rizzio having been perpetrated in his unfortunate mother’s presence before he yet saw the light.
At this moment, the Prince, who had been hunting in a different part of the then extensive Park, and had received some hasty and confused information of what was going forward, came rapidly up, with one or two noblemen in his train, and amongst others Lord Dalgarno. He sprung from his horse and asked eagerly if his father were wounded.
“Not that I am sensible of, Baby Charles – but a wee matter exhausted, with struggling single-handed with the assassin. – Steenie, fill up a cup of wine – the leathern bottle is hanging at our pommel. – Buss me, then, Baby Charles,” continued the monarch, after he had taken this cup of comfort; “O man, the Commonwealth and you have had a fair escape from the heavy and bloody loss of a dear father; for we are pater patriae, as weel as pater familias. -Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus tarn cari capitis!-Woe is me, black cloth would have been dear in England, and dry een scarce!”
And, at the very idea of the general grief which must have attended his death, the good-natured monarch cried heartily himself.
“Is this possible?” said Charles, sternly; for his pride was hurt at his father’s demeanour on the one hand, while on the other, he felt the resentment of a son and a subject, at the supposed attempt on the king’s life. “Let some one speak who has seen what happened – My Lord of Buckingham!”
“I cannot say my lord,” replied the Duke, “that I saw any actual violence offered to his Majesty, else I should have avenged him on the spot.”
“You would have done wrong, then, in your zeal, George,” answered the Prince; “such offenders were better left to be dealt with by the laws. But was the villain not struggling with his Majesty?”
“I cannot term it so, my lord,” said the Duke, who, with many faults, would have disdained an untruth; “he seemed to desire to detain his Majesty, who, on the contrary, appeared to wish to mount his horse; but they have found pistols on his person, contrary to the proclamation, and, as it proves to be by Nigel Olifaunt, of whose ungoverned disposition your Royal Highness has seen some samples, we seem to be justified in apprehending the worst.”
“Nigel Olifaunt!” said the Prince; “can that unhappy man so soon have engaged in a new trespass? Let me see those pistols.”
“Ye are not so unwise as to meddle with such snap-haunces, Baby Charles?” said James – “Do not give him them, Steenie – I command you on your allegiance! They may go off of their own accord, whilk often befalls. – You will do it, then? – Saw ever a man sic wilful bairns as we are cumbered with! – Havena we guardsmen and soldiers enow, but you must unload the weapons yoursell – you, the heir of our body and dignities, and sae mony men around that are paid for venturing life in our cause?”
But without regarding his father’s exclamations, Prince Charles, with the obstinacy which characterised him in trifles, as well as matters of consequence, persisted in unloading the pistols with his own hand, of the double bullets with which each was charged. The hands of all around were held up in astonishment at the horror of the crime supposed to have been intended, and the escape which was presumed so narrow.
Nigel had not yet spoken a word – he now calmly desired to be heard.
“To what purpose?” answered the Prince coldly. “You knew yourself accused of a heavy offence, and, instead of rendering yourself up to justice, in terms of the proclamation, you are here found intruding yourself on his Majesty’s presence, and armed with unlawful weapons.”
“May it please you, sir,” answered Nigel, “I wore these unhappy weapons for my own defence; and not very many hours since they were necessary to protect the lives of others.”
“Doubtless, my lord,” answered the Prince, still calm and unmoved, – “your late mode of life, and the associates with whom you have lived, have made you familiar with scenes and weapons of violence. But it is not to me you are to plead your cause.”
“Hear me – hear me, noble Prince!” said Nigel, eagerly. “Hear me! You – even you yourself – may one day ask to be heard, and in vain.”
“How, sir,” said the Prince, haughtily – “how am I to construe that, my lord?”
“If not on earth, sir,” replied the prisoner, “yet to Heaven we must all pray for patient and favourable audience.”
“True, my lord,” said the Prince, bending his head with haughty acquiescence; “nor would I now refuse such audience to you, could it avail you. But you shall suffer no wrong. We will ourselves look into your case.”
“Ay, ay,” answered the king, “he hath made appellatio ad Casarem– we will interrogate Glenvarlochides ourselves, time and place fitting; and, in the meanwhile, have him and his weapons away, for I am weary of the sight of them.”
In consequence of directions hastily given, Nigel was accordingly removed from the presence, where, however, his words had not altogether fallen to the ground. “This is a most strange matter, George,” said the Prince to the favourite; “this gentleman hath a good countenance, a happy presence, and much calm firmness in his look and speech. I cannot think he would attempt a crime so desperate and useless.”
“I profess neither love nor favour to the young man,” answered Buckingham, whose high-spirited ambition bore always an open character: “but I cannot but agree with your Highness, that our dear gossip hath been something hasty in apprehending personal danger from him.”
“By my saul, Steenie, ye are not blate, to say so!” said the king. “Do I not ken the smell of pouther, think ye? Who else nosed out the Fifth of November, save our royal selves? Cecil, and Suffolk, and all of them, were at fault, like sae mony mongrel tikes, when I puzzled it out: and trow ye that I cannot smell pouther? Why, ‘sblood, man, Joannes Barclaius thought my ingine was in some measure inspiration, and terms his history of the plot, Series patefacti divinitus parricidii; and Spondanus, in like manner, saith of us, Divinitus evasit.”
“The land was happy in your Majesty’s escape,” said the Duke of Buckingham, “and not less in the quick wit which tracked that labyrinth of treason by so fine and almost invisible a clew.”
“Saul, man, Steenie, ye are right! There are few youths have sic true judgment as you, respecting the wisdom of their elders; and, as for this fause, traitorous smaik, I doubt he is a hawk of the same nest. Saw ye not something papistical about him? Let them look that he bears not a crucifix, or some sic Roman trinket, about him.”
“It would ill become me to attempt the exculpation of this unhappy man,” said Lord Dalgarno, “considering the height of his present attempt, which has made all true men’s blood curdle in their veins. Yet I cannot avoid intimating, with all due submission to his Majesty’s infallible judgment, in justice to one who showed himself formerly only my enemy, though he now displays himself in much blacker colours, that this Olifaunt always appeared to me more as a Puritan than as a Papist.”
“Ah, Dalgarno, art thou there, man?” said the king. “And ye behoved to keep back, too, and leave us to our own natural strength and the care of Providence, when we were in grips with the villain!”
“Providence, may it please your most Gracious Majesty, would not fail to aid, in such a strait, the care of three weeping kingdoms,” said Lord Dalgarno.
“Surely, man – surely,” replied the king – “but a sight of your father, with his long whinyard, would have been a blithe matter a short while syne; and in future we will aid the ends of Providence in our favour, by keeping near us two stout beef-eaters of the guard. – And so this Olifaunt is a Puritan? – not the less like to be a Papist, for all that – for extremities meet, as the scholiast proveth. There are, as I have proved in my book, Puritans of papistical principles – it is just a new tout on an old horn.”
Here the king was reminded by the Prince, who dreaded perhaps that he was going to recite the whole Basilicon Doron, that it would be best to move towards the Palace, and consider what was to be done for satisfying the public mind, in whom the morning’s adventure was likely to excite much speculation. As they entered the gate of the Palace, a female bowed and presented a paper, which the king received, and, with a sort of groan, thrust it into his side pocket. The Prince expressed some curiosity to know its contents. “The valet in waiting will tell you them,” said the king, “when I strip off my cassock. D’ye think, Baby, that I can read all that is thrust into my hands? See to me, man” – (he pointed to the pockets of his great trunk breeches, which were stuffed with papers) – “We are like an ass – that we should so speak – stooping betwixt two burdens. Ay, ay, Asinus fortis accumbens inter terminos, as the Vulgate hath it – Ay, ay, Vidi terrain quod esset optima, et supposui humerum ad portandum, et factus sum tributis serviens – I saw this land of England, and became an overburdened king thereof.”
“You are indeed well loaded, my dear dad and gossip,” said the Duke of Buckingham, receiving the papers which King James emptied out of his pockets.
“Ay, ay,” continued the monarch; “take them to you per aversionem, bairns – the one pouch stuffed with petitions, t’other with pasquinadoes; a fine time we have on’t. On my conscience, I believe the tale of Cadmus was hieroglyphical, and that the dragon’s teeth whilk he sowed were the letters he invented. Ye are laughing, Baby Charles? – Mind what I say. – When I came here first frae our ain country, where the men are as rude as the weather, by my conscience, England was a bieldy bit; one would have thought the king had little to do but to walk by quiet waters, per aquam refectionis. But, I kenna how or why, the place is sair changed – read that libel upon us and on our regimen. The dragon’s teeth are sown, Baby Charles; I pray God they bearna their armed harvest in your day, if I suld not live to see it. God forbid I should, for there will be an awful day’s kemping at the shearing of them.”
“I shall know how to stifle the crop in the blade, – ha, George?” said the Prince, turning to the favourite with a look expressive of some contempt for his father’s apprehensions, and full of confidence in the superior firmness and decision of his own counsels.
While this discourse was passing, Nigel, in charge of a pursuivant-at-arms, was pushed and dragged through the small town, all the inhabitants of which, having been alarmed by the report of an attack on the king’s life, now pressed forward to see the supposed traitor. Amid the confusion of the moment, he could descry the face of the victualler, arrested into a stare of stolid wonder, and that of the barber grinning betwixt horror and eager curiosity. He thought that he also had a glimpse of his waterman in the green jacket.
He had no time for remarks, being placed in a boat with the pursuivant and two yeomen of the guard, and rowed up the river as fast as the arms of six stout watermen could pull against the tide. They passed the groves of masts which even then astonished the stranger with the extended commerce of London, and now approached those low and blackened walls of curtain and bastion, which exhibit here and there a piece of ordnance, and here and there a solitary sentinel under arms, but have otherwise so little of the military terrors of a citadel. A projecting low-browed arch, which had loured over many an innocent, and many a guilty head, in similar circumstances, now spread its dark frowns over that of Nigel. The boat was put close up to the broad steps against which the tide was lapping its lazy wave. The warder on duty looked from the wicket, and spoke to the pursuivant in whispers. In a few minutes the Lieutenant of the Tower appeared, received, and granted an acknowledgment for the body of Nigel, Lord Glenvarloch.