Bru. Do you know them?
Luc. No, sir; their hats are plucked about their brows,
And half their faces buried in their cloaks,
That by no means I may discover them
By any marks of favor.—Julius C?sar.
The shadows of an early evening, in the ungenial month of March, were already gathering among the narrow streets and wynds of the Scottish metropolis. There was a melancholy air of solitude about the grim and dusky edifices, which towered to the height of twelve or thirteen stories against the gray horizon. No lights streamed from the casements, no voices sounded in loud revelry or chastened merriment from the dwellings of the gloomy quarter in which the scene of our narrative is laid. The cheerless aspect of the night, together with the drizzling rain, which fell in silent copiousness, had banished every human being from the streets; and, except the smoke which eddied from the dilapidated chimneys, and was instantly beat down to earth by the violence of the shower, there was no sign of any other inhabitants, than the famished dogs which were snarling over the relics of some thrice-picked bone. Suddenly the sharp clatter of hoofs, in rapid motion over the broken pavement, rose above the splashing of the flooded gutters, betokening the approach of men; and ere a minute had elapsed two horsemen, gallantly mounted, rode hotly up the street. The foremost bestriding, with the careless ease of an accomplished rider, a jennet, whose thin jaws, expanded nostril, and flashing eye, no less than the deerlike springiness of its gait, and its unrivalled symmetry, proclaimed it sprung from the best blood of the desert, was of a figure that could not be looked upon, however slightly, without awakening a sense of324 interest, perhaps of admiration, in all beholders.
His countenance, of an oval form, and of a darker hue than the blue-eyed sons of northern latitudes are wont to exhibit—the full and somewhat wild expression of his dark eye, the melancholy smile which played upon his curling lip, pencilled mustache, and the peaked beard—contributing to form a face that Antonio Vandyke would have loved to paint, and after ages to admire, when invested with the life of his rich coloring. His dress of russet velvet slashed with satin, his feathered cap, with its gay fanfaronaE and enamelled medal, his jeweled rapier, and the bright spurs in his falling buskins, were well adapted to the agile limbs and slender, though symmetrical proportions of the horseman.
E The Fanfarona was a richly-fashioned chain of goldsmith’s work, not worn about the neck, but twisted in two or more circuits around the rim of the cap, or bonnet, and terminating in a heavy medal. It was probably of Spanish origin, but was much in vogue in the courts of Mary and Elizabeth.
The second rider was a boy, whose black and scarlet liveries—the well-known colors of all servitors of the Scottish crown—were but imperfectly hidden by the frieze cloak which had been cast over them, evidently for the purposes of concealment, rather than of comfort; yet he, too, like the gallant whom he followed—if any faith was to be placed in the evidence of raven hair and olive complexion—owed his birth to some more southern clime.
After winding rapidly through several dim and unfrequented lanes, the leading horseman, checking his speed, gazed around him with a doubtful and bewildered eye.
“Madre di Dio,” he exclaimed at length, “what a night is here; a thousand curses on this learned fool, that he must dwell in such a den of thieves as this; or rather a thousand curses on the blind and heretical Scots, that drive a man of wisdom, beyond their shallow comprehension, to bed with the very outcasts of society. Pietro, what ho!” and he raised his325 voice above the key in which he had pitched his soliloquy, “knowest thou the dwelling of this sage—this Johan Damietta? methought that I had noted the spot, yet have these sordid lanes banished the recollection. Presto, time fails already.”
Without uttering a syllable in reply, the page sprung from his horse, and pointed to the doorway of a mansion, dilapidated even more than those in its vicinity, yet bearing in its site the marks of having been constructed in former days for the residence of some proud baron. Nor even now—although all the appliances of comfort were utterly neglected, although the casements were void of glass, and the chimneys sent up no volumes from a cheerful hearth—were the external defences of the pile forgotten; heavy bars of iron crossed and recrossed the deep-set embrasure which once had held the windows, and the oaken gate was clenched with many a massive nail and plate of rusted iron. The cavalier alighted, cast the rein to his servitor, and with the single word “Prudence,” ascended the stone steps, and struck thrice at measured intervals upon the wicket with his rapier’s hilt. The door flew open, but without the agency, as it appeared, of any living being, and, as the visiter entered, was closed again behind him with a heavy crash.
A narrow passage was before him, scarcely rendered visible by the flickering light of a cresset suspended from the ceiling, and nourished, as it seemed, with spirit, rather than with the richer food of oil. Uncertain, however, as was the illumination, it served to show a second door, even more strongly constructed than the first, fronting the intruder at the distance of some ten paces; while the wall, perforated with loops for musketry, or more probably, if the remote antiquity of the building were considered, for arrows, proved that the hostile intruder had effected but little in forcing his way through the outward326 entrance. It would be wrong, in the description of this difficult passage, to omit the mention of certain orifices, or slits, extending in length from the floor even to the ceiling of the side-walls, but not exceeding a single inch in width, as they may tend perhaps to cast some light upon an invention of the darkest ages of Scottish history, the reality of which has been considered doubtful by acute antiquarians. From the upper extremity of these slits protruded on either side the blades of six enormous swords, which, being placed alternately, and worked by some concealed machinery, must inevitably hew to atoms, when once set in motion, any obstacle to their appalling sway. This was the dreaded swordmill first discovered by the wizard baron Soulis, and thence invested with superstitious error, which was needless, at the least, when the actual horrors of the engine were considered. It is, however, probable, that these gigantic relics of an earlier age were no longer capable of being rendered available at the period of which we write; at all events they hung in rusty blackness, suspended like the sword of Damocles above the head of the intruder, rendering his position awful, at least, if not in reality insecure.
Notwithstanding the warlike and turbulent character of Scotland during the reign of Mary, there was nevertheless enough of the uncommon in the defences of this dark and dangerous entrance to have riveted the attention of a man less anxiously engaged than was the foreign cavalier. Apparently undismayed by the wild contrivances around him, the gallant strode forward to repeat his signal on the inner wicket, when a broad glare of crimson light, produced by some chemical preparation, considered in that dark age supernatural, was shot into his very face from an aperture above, clearly displaying to some concealed observer the form and features of his visiter.
“Ha!” cried a voice so shrill and grating as to produce a painful impression on the nerves of the hearer. “Thou art327 come hither, Sir Italian; enter, then—enter in the name of Albunazar!—enter, the hour is propitious, and thou art waited for!”
The door revolved noiselessly on its hinges, and a few steps brought the Italian to the chamber of the sage. It was a small and central cell, without the slightest visible communication with the outward air. Books of strange characters and instruments of singular device were scattered on the floor, the tables, and the seats; astrolabes, globes of the terrestrial and celestial world, crucibles, and vials of rare and potent mixtures, lay beside discolored bones, reptiles, and loathsome things from tropical climes, some stuffed, and others carefully preserved in spirit. A huge furnace glimmered in the corner, covered with vessels containing, doubtless, alembics of unearthly power; a large black cat—to which inoffensive animal wild notions of infernal origin were then attached—and a gigantic owl, perched on a fleshless skull, completed the ornaments of this receptacle of superstitious quackery, which was rendered as light as day by the aid of some composition, burning in a lamp so brilliantly as to dazzle the firmest eye. In the midst of this confused assemblage of things, useless and revolting alike to reason and humanity, the master-spirit of his tribe was seated—a small old man, whose massive forehead, pencilled with the deep lines of thought, would have betokened a profound and powerful mind, had not the quick flash of the small and deeply-seated eye belied, by its crafty and malignant glances, all symptoms of a noble nature.
“Hail, Signor David!” he said, but without raising his eyes from the retort over which he was poring. “Hail! methought that thou didst hold the wisdom of the sage mere quackery! Ha! out upon such changeful, feather-pated knaves, who scoff before men at that which they respect—ay, which they tremble at in private!—tremble! well mayst thou tremble—for thy328 doom is fixed! See,” he cried, in a fearfully unnatural tone, as he raised the metallic rod with which he had been stirring the contents of the glass vessel, and exhibited it dripping with some crimson-colored liquid—“see! it is gore—thy gore, Signor David!—ha, ha, ha!” and he laughed with fiendish glee at the evident discomposure of his guest.
“Nay, nay, good father—” he began, when the other cut him off abruptly—
“‘Good father!’—ha, ha, ha! Good devil! Fool, dost think that thou canst change the destinies that were eternal, before so vain a thing as thou wast in existence, by thine unmeaning flatteries? I spit upon such courtesies! ‘Good father!’ listen to my words, and mark if I be good. Thou hast risen by meanness, and flattery, and cringing, and vice; thou hast disgraced thy rise by insolence and folly—weak, drivelling folly; and thou shalt fall—ha, ha, ha!—fall like a dog! Look to thyself!—‘Good father!’ Begone, or thou shalt hear more, and that which thou wilt like even less than this—begone!”
“I meant not to offend thee,” replied the astonished courtier, “and I pray thee be not distempered. I have broken in on thy retirement to witness that unearthly skill of which men speak, and I would ask of thee in courtesy mine horoscope, that I may so report thee—”
“Thou! thou report me, David Rizzio! the wire-pinching, sonned-jingling, base-born scullion, report of Johan Damietta! Get thee away! I know thee! Begone—nay, if thou wilt have it, listen: bloody shall be thine end, and base. A bastard foeman is in thy house of life. Tremble at the name—”
“Rather,” interrupted the Italian, enraged at the language of the conjurer, “rather let that bastard tremble at the name of Rizzio; and thou, old man, I leave thee as I came, undaunted by thy threats, and unconvinced by thy jugglery.”
329 “To-night! to-night!” hissed the old man, in notes of horrible malignity—“to-night shalt thou know if Damietta be a juggler! If thou wouldst live—for I would have thee live, poor worm—fly from the hatred of the Scottish nobles!—away!”
“Know’st thou,” asked Rizzio, tauntingly, “a Scottish proverb—if not, I will instruct thee—framed, if I read it rightly, to express the character of their own factious brawlers? ‘The bark is aye waur than the bite.’ Adieu, old man! to-morrow thou shalt learn if Rizzio fears or thee or thy most doughty brawlers.”
“Ha, ha, ha!—to-morrow! mark that—to-morrow!” and a yell of laughter burst from every corner of the chamber; the mixture in the retort exploded with a stunning crash, the lights were extinguished, and, without being aware of the manner of his exit, the royal secretary found himself beyond the outer gate of the wizard’s dwelling, with a throbbing pulse and swimming brain, but still, to do him justice, undismayed by that which his naturally incredulous and sneering turn of mind, rather than any clear conviction of the truth, led him to consider as a mere imposture.
Without replying a syllable to the inquiries of the terrified page, who had heard the frightful sounds within, he flung himself into his saddle, plunged the rowels into the flanks of the jennet until she reared and plunged with terror, and dashed homeward at a fearful rate through alleys now as dark as midnight. Nor did he draw his bridle till he had passed the guarded portals of the palace, and galloped into the inmost court of Holyrood: there indeed he checked his courser with a violence which almost hurled her on her haunches, sprang from her back, and, without looking round, hurried into the most private entrance, and disappeared.
Scarcely had he passed through the gateway, and ere yet............