Death distant?— No, alas! he’s ever with us,

And shakes the dart at us in all our actings:

He lurks within our cup, while we’re in health;

Sits by our sick-bed, mocks our medicines;

We cannot walk, or sit, or ride, or travel,

But Death is by to seize us when he lists.

The Spanish Father .

From the agitating scene in the Queen’s presence-chamber, the Lady of Lochleven retreated to her own apartment, and ordered the steward to be called before her.

“Have they not disarmed thee, Dryfesdale?” she said, on seeing him enter, accoutred, as usual, with sword and dagger.

“No!” replied the old man; “how should they?— Your ladyship, when you commanded me to ward, said nought of laying down my arms; and, I think none of your menials, without your order, or your son’s, dare approach Jasper Dryfesdale for such a purpose.— Shall I now give up my sword to you?— it is worth little now, for it has fought for your house till it is worn down to old iron, like the pantler’s old chipping knife.”

“You have attempted a deadly crime — poison under trust.”

“Under trust?— hem!— I know not what your ladyship thinks of it, but the world without thinks the trust was given you even for that very end; and you would have been well off had it been so ended as I proposed, and you neither the worse nor the wiser.”

“Wretch!” exclaimed the lady, “and fool as well as villain, who could not even execute the crime he had planned!”

“I bid as fair for it as man could,” replied Dryfesdale; “I went to a woman — a witch and a Papist — If I found not poison, it was because it was otherwise predestined. I tried fair for it; but the half-done job may be clouted, if you will.”

“Villain! I am even now about to send off an express messenger to my son, to take order how thou shouldst be disposed of. Prepare thyself for death, if thou canst.”

“He that looks on death, Lady,” answered Dryfesdale, “as that which he may not shun, and which has its own fixed and certain hour, is ever prepared for it. He that is hanged in May will eat no flaunes 33 in midsummer — so there is the moan made for the old serving-man. But whom, pray I, send you on so fair an errand?”

“There will be no lack of messengers,” answered his mistress.

“By my hand, but there will,” replied the old man; “your castle is but poorly manned, considering the watches that you must keep, having this charge — There is the warder, and two others, whom you discarded for tampering with Master George; then for the warder’s tower, the bailie, the donjon — five men mount each guard, and the rest must sleep for the most part in their clothes. To send away another man, were to harass the sentinels to death — unthrifty misuse for a household. To take in new soldiers were dangerous, the charge requiring tried men. I see but one thing for it — I will do your errand to Sir William Douglas myself.”

“That were indeed a resource!— And on what day within twenty years would it be done?” said the Lady.

“Even with the speed of man and horse,” said Dryfesdale; “for though I care not much about the latter days of an old serving-man’s life, yet I would like to know as soon as may be, whether my neck is mine own or the hangman’s.”

“Holdest thou thy own life so lightly?” said the Lady.

“Else I had reckoned more of that of others,” said the predestinarian —“What is death?— it is but ceasing to live — And what is living?— a weary return of light and darkness, sleeping and waking, being hungered and eating. Your dead man needs neither candle nor can, neither fire nor feather-bed; and the joiner’s chest serves him for an eternal frieze-jerkin.”

“Wretched man! believest thou not that after death comes the judgment?”

“Lady,” answered Dryfesdale, “as my mistress, I may not dispute your words; but, as spiritually speaking, you are still but a burner of bricks in Egypt, ignorant of the freedom of the saints; for, as was well shown to me by that gifted man, Nicolaus Schoefferbach, who was martyred by the bloody Bishop of Munster, he cannot sin who doth but execute that which is predestined, since —”

“Silence!” said the Lady, interrupting him,—“Answer me not with thy bold and presumptuous blasphemy, but hear me. Thou hast been long the servant of our house —”

“The born servant of the Douglas — they have had the best of me — I served them since I left Lockerbie: I was then ten years old, and you may soon add the threescore to it.”

“Thy foul attempt has miscarried, so thou art guilty only in intention. It were a deserved deed to hang thee on the warder’s tower; and yet in thy present mind, it were but giving a soul to Satan. I take thine offer, then — Go hence — here is my packet — I will add to it but a line, to desire him to send me a faithful servant or two to complete the garrison. Let my son deal with you as he will. If thou art wise, thou wilt make for Lockerbie so soon as thy foot touches dry land, and let the packet find another bearer; at all rates, look it miscarries not.”

“Nay, madam,” replied he —“I was born, as I said, the Douglas’s servant, and I will be no corbie-messenger in mine old age — your message to your son shall be done as truly by me as if it concerned another man’s neck. I take my leave of your honour.”

The Lady issued her commands, and the old man was ferried over to the shore, to proceed on his extraordinary pilgrimage. It is necessary the reader should accompany him on his journey, which Providence had determined should not be of long duration.

On arriving at the village, the steward, although his disgrace had transpired, was readily accommodated with a horse, by the Chamberlain’s authority; and the roads being by no means esteemed safe, he associated himself with Auchtermuchty, the common carrier, in order to travel in his company to Edinburgh.

The worthy waggoner, according to the established customs of all carriers, stage-coachmen, and other persons in public authority, from the earliest days to the present, never wanted good reasons for stopping upon the road, as often as he would; and the place which had most captivation for him as a resting-place was a change-house, as it was termed, not very distant from a romantic dell, well known by the name of Keirie Craigs. Attractions of a kind very different from those which arrested the progress of John Auchtermuchty and his wains, still continue to hover round this romantic spot, and none has visited its vicinity without a desire to remain long and to return soon.

Arrived near his favourite howss , not all the authority of Dryfesdale (much diminished indeed by the rumours of his disgrace) could prevail on the carrier, obstinate as the brutes which he drove, to pass on without his accustomed halt, for which the distance he had travelled furnished little or no pretence. Old Keltie, the landlord, who had bestowed his name on a bridge in the neighbourhood of his quondam dwelling, received the carrier with his usual festive cordiality, and adjourned with him into the house, under pretence of important business, which, I believe, consisted in their emptying together a mutchkin stoup of usquebaugh. While the worthy host and his guest were thus employed, the discarded steward, with a double portion of moroseness in his gesture and look, walked discontentedly into the kitchen of the place, which was occupied but by one guest. The stranger was a slight figure, scarce above the age of boyhood, and in the dress of a page, but bearing an air of haughty aristocratic boldness and even insolence in his look and manner, that might have made Dryfesdale conclude he had pretensions to superior rank, had not his experience taught him how frequently these airs of superiority were assumed by the domestics and military retainers of the Scottish nobility.—“The pilgrim’s morning to you, old sir,” said the youth; “you come, as I think, from Lochleven Castle — What news of our bonny Queen?— a fairer dove was never pent up in so wretched a dovecot.”

“They that speak of Lochleven, and of those whom its walls contain,’ answered Dryfesdale,” speak of what concerns the Douglas; and they who speak of what concerns the Douglas, do it at their peril.”

“Do you speak from fear of them, old man, or would you make a quarrel for them?— I should have deemed your age might have cooled your blood.”

“Never, while there are empty-pated coxcombs at each corner to keep it warm.”

“The sight of thy gray hairs keeps mine cold,” said the boy, who had risen up and now sat down again.

“It is well for thee, or I had cooled it with this holly-rod,” replied the steward. “I think thou be’st one of those swash-bucklers, who brawl in alehouses and taverns; and who, if words were pikes, and oaths were Andrew Ferraras, would soon place the religion of Babylon in the land once more, and the woman of Moab upon the throne.”

“Now, by Saint Bennet of Seyton,” said the youth, “I will strike thee on the face, thou foul-mouthed old railing heretic!”

“Saint Bennet of Seyton,” echoed the steward; “a proper warrant is Saint Bennet’s, and for a proper nest of wolf-birds like the Seytons!— I will arrest thee as a traitor to King James and the good Regent.— Ho! John Auchtermuchty, raise aid against the King’s traitor!”

So saying, he laid his hand on the youth’s collar, and drew his sword. John Auchtermuchty looked in, bu............