Part 2 / Act 1 — SCENE V.

A Hall in the Castle.

Enter Aubery.

AUBERY (sings.)

Farewell! farewell! sweet day, adieu!

The sun that’s fading fast to view,

And sinks so lone in Arran’s wave,

Will rise to gild the patriot’s grave.

Yes! fare-thee-well! sweet day, farewell!

The evening chimes so softly swell:

Those silver chimes the patriot hears

Will be the last he lists in tears.

Enter Golding.

How goes it, Golding? you look very sad.

GOLDING.

The prisoner died

Last night of hunger, after he had gnaw’d

124His hand off, save what dangled in the chains.

Poor man! three weary days he was forgotten;

’Tis horrible—most horrible, and proves

Our cannibal nature. For, alas! I’ve heard,

That in the flowery vale of Annandale,

In ancient times, there dwelt a savage people

Call’d Ordovitians, who devour’d their prisoners;

And that the monstrous wives of such sad husbands

Slew them, if they forsook the battle-field,

Or were defeated.

AUBERY.

Tush, man! the event

I could have prophesied. Last night, on guard,

A little bird came flirting in my ears,

Like that thou bearest now. Bethought me, then,

The soul of man will enter into birds;

And it were heaven to the poor wretch who pines

His better part of life in the damp Keep

Half rotten above earth; yes! it were heaven

To leave his chains behind, and fly away,

And mingle with the mountain breeze, and be

A thing of liberty. I often wish

I were a tuneful linnet, that might fly

Unknown, to nestle on the shady Pease,

And serenade my Flora when she goes

To milk the kye on those romantic banks.

125GOLDING.

Pshaw, Aubery, away with love-sick nonsense!

But, ha! I feel a tear start in mine eye,

What of the bird?—

AUBERY.

I turn’d and gazed; and, lo! the Fleming’s tower

Appear’d on fire, (even as that beauteous chapel

Seen in the wayward walks of Hawthornden

When Roslin’s lords do pay the debt of nature;)

While I distinctly heard the clash of chains

And pond’rous armour.

GOLDING.

Probable, most probable!

The armourers were at work; yet, ’tis most sad

To be pent up within these walled towns,

And fed on horse-flesh, till the leprosy

Do rot us out. Oh! for that glorious time

When, led by Douglas ’gainst Osmyn the Moor,

I first adventured in the Holy Land:

Then I was young, and burn’d for scenes of arms,

And deem’d the soldier’s life a pleasant pastime

For gallant, generous hearts that loved adventure,

Its darker parts conceal’d in the back-ground.

Then at our tinel we had spice and wine,

Trumpets and timbrels, while the choicest flowers

Of chivalry sat round the warrior’s banquet;

126Graced with those dark-eyed dames, nearer allied

To Sol than those our frigid climes produce;

Beautiful, mellow, yielding as their fruit,

With hearts as cheerful as their cloudless skies;

Yes! Aubery, then the poorest sentinel

Fed like a prince, glutting the raven War

With choicest cookery.

AUBERY.

Pshaw! kickshaws and trifles;

My bag of oatmeal now would bring content,

Could I enjoy it in a peaceful shade

With Flora, and her sister Innocence.

My light iron girdle, now it lacketh flour,

Is like a body parted with the soul,

Or like our hide-form’d cauldrons void of venison.

GOLDING.

O Aubery! Aubery!

Your wit is like St Bothan’s crystal spring,

That never fogs or freezes! always pure.

AUBERY.

Heavens! for the festival of good St Cuthbert,

That we might hamstring the five harts of Selkirk

Upon their march to holy Coldingham,

To feed the greasy monks, who lacketh not.

GOLDING.

Oh! some of those fat beevies were delightful,

127Which we took up in our Northumbrian raid,

And left upon the south banks of the Wear,

To feed the glutton English. But the Douglas

Liked better to destroy than eat their cattle.

Had we such leaders now, we would not starve,

While the poor burghers, Nebuchadnezzar-like,

Feed on the grass. I have not had a morsel

Free from loath’d putrefaction this bless’d month.

What boots it, then, in hungry times like these

To rear up popinjays? I’ll teach an art,

Taught by an English archer, for that bird;

Wrestle a fall with thee; and he who wins

Shall banquet on the prize.

AUBERY.

’Twere better not,

Perhaps the bird contains the prisoner’s soul!

GOLDING.

So much the better; double meals are sweet

In hungry times like these. A portly priest,

A flesher, or a tapster; each were good;

Now, for the glorious attitude of man.

[Golding places himself in the wrestler’s first

position. While they wrestle, the bird is put

below a cap. Aubery is thrown.

The prize is mine! There, Aubery, thou liest

Flat as a flounder on thy spacious back,

128Which might serve Thimble for a shaping-board.

[Takes up the bird, squeezes it, and while retiring

exclaims,

’Twill make a precious meal! [Exit Golding.

AUBERY (recovering.)

Marry, it will.

I did intend it for another purpose;

To stuff it for my Flora. Devil choke thee,

No good will come of such begotten gear.

[Exit Aubery.

Enter Ambrose, (who had observed them unseen) in the costume of one of the Town Waits; viz. a large blue cloak, faced with gold lace, and a cocked hat trimmed with the same embroidery.

AMBROSE.

Precious fools! thus to wrangle for jackdaws, when perhaps a piece of winged iron next moment brings their billet of reckoning. The true saying, that every bullet has its billet, supports me amidst the cracking of culverins, and the pouting of battering-rams, that shake the masonry of our ramparts like an earthquake; but I must not forget the purport of my ambassadorship. Ambrose Carmichael, town fiddler, town crier, and grave-digger, at your service, has the honour to 129be the bearer of a billet to the governor; herein shewing, that ambassadors are but letter-carriers, and letter-carriers but pigeons. Hush! May not these important services of mine in canny moments, hitch me into a captaincy of the town-guard. My mother was a sensible woman in her day and generation: she always said Ambrose would either be a little man or a great man; so, guess ye to which my prepondering genius has a tendency. [Exit Ambrose.

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