In winter’s tedious nights, sit by the fire,

With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales

Of woeful ages, long ago betid:

And, ere thou bid goodnight, to quit their grief,

Tell thou the lamentable fall of me.

King Richard II Act V. Scene I.

Far different had been the fate of the misguided heir of Scotland from that which was publicly given out in the town of Falkland. His ambitious uncle had determined on his death, as the means of removing the first and most formidable barrier betwixt his own family and the throne. James, the younger son of the King, was a mere boy, who might at more leisure be easily set aside. Ramorny’s views of aggrandisement, and the resentment which he had latterly entertained against his masters made him a willing agent in young Rothsay’s destruction. Dwining’s love of gold, and his native malignity of disposition, rendered him equally forward. It had been resolved, with the most calculating cruelty, that all means which might leave behind marks of violence were to be carefully avoided, and the extinction of life suffered to take place of itself by privation of every kind acting upon a frail and impaired constitution. The Prince of Scotland was not to be murdered, as Ramorny had expressed himself on another occasion, he was only to cease to exist. Rothsay’s bedchamber in the Tower of Falkland was well adapted for the execution of such a horrible project. A small, narrow staircase, scarce known to exist, opened from thence by a trapdoor to the subterranean dungeons of the castle, through a passage by which the feudal lord was wont to visit, in private and in disguise, the inhabitants of those miserable regions. By this staircase the villains conveyed the insensible Prince to the lowest dungeon of the castle, so deep in the bowels of the earth, that no cries or groans, it was supposed, could possibly be heard, while the strength of its door and fastenings must for a long time have defied force, even if the entrance could have been discovered. Bonthron, who had been saved from the gallows for the purpose, was the willing agent of Ramorny’s unparalleled cruelty to his misled and betrayed patron.

This wretch revisited the dungeon at the time when the Prince’s lethargy began to wear off, and when, awaking to sensation, he felt himself deadly cold, unable to move, and oppressed with fetters, which scarce permitted him to stir from the dank straw on which he was laid. His first idea was that he was in a fearful dream, his next brought a confused augury of the truth. He called, shouted, yelled at length in frenzy but no assistance came, and he was only answered by the vaulted roof of the dungeon. The agent of hell heard these agonizing screams, and deliberately reckoned them against the taunts and reproaches with which Rothsay had expressed his instinctive aversion to him. When, exhausted and hopeless, the unhappy youth remained silent, the savage resolved to present himself before the eyes of his prisoner. The locks were drawn, the chain fell; the Prince raised himself as high as his fetters permitted; a red glare, against which he was fain to shut his eyes, streamed through the vault; and when he opened them again, it was on the ghastly form of one whom he had reason to think dead. He sunk back in horror.

“I am judged and condemned,” he exclaimed, “and the most abhorred fiend in the infernal regions is sent to torment me!”

“I live, my lord,” said Bonthron; “and that you may live and enjoy life, be pleased to sit up and eat your victuals.”

“Free me from these irons,” said the Prince, “release me from this dungeon, and, dog as thou art, thou shalt be the richest man in Scotland.”

“If you would give me the weight of your shackles in gold,” said Bonthron, “I would rather see the iron on you than have the treasure myself! But look up; you were wont to love delicate fare — behold how I have catered for you.”

The wretch, with fiendish glee, unfolded a piece of rawhide covering the bundle which he bore under’ his arm, and, passing the light to and fro before it, showed the unhappy Prince a bull’s head recently hewn from the trunk, and known in Scotland as the certain signal of death. He placed it at the foot of the bed, or rather lair, on which the Prince lay.

“Be moderate in your food,” he said; “it is like to be long ere thou getst another meal.”

“Tell me but one thing, wretch,” said the Prince. “Does Ramorny know of this practice?”

“How else hadst thou been decoyed hither? Poor woodcock, thou art snared!” answered the murderer.

With these words, the door shut, the bolts resounded, and the unhappy Prince was left to darkness, solitude, and misery. “Oh, my father!— my prophetic father! The staff I leaned on has indeed proved a spear!”

We will not dwell on the subsequent hours, nay, days, of bodily agony and mental despair.

But it was not the pleasure of Heaven that so great a crime should be perpetrated with impunity.

Catharine Glover and the glee woman, neglected by the other inmates, who seemed to be engaged with the tidings of the Prince’s illness, were, however, refused permission to leave the castle until it should be seen how this alarming disease was to terminate, and whether it was actually an infectious sickness. Forced on each other’s society, the two desolate women became companions, if not friends; and the union drew somewhat closer when Catharine discovered that this was the same female minstrel on whose account Henry Wynd had fallen under her displeasure. She now heard his complete vindication, and listened with ardour to the praises which Louise heaped on her gallant protector. On the other hand, the minstrel, who felt the superiority of Catharine’s station and character, willingly dwelt upon a theme which seemed to please her, and recorded her gratitude to the stout smith in the little song of “Bold and True,” which was long a favourite in Scotland.

Oh, bold and true,

In bonnet blue,

That fear or falsehood never knew,

Whose heart was loyal to his word,

Whose hand was faithful to his sword —

Seek Europe wide from sea to sea,

But bonny blue cap still for me!

I’ve seen Almain’s proud champions prance,

Have seen the gallant knights of France,

Unrivall’d with the sword and lance,

Have seen the sons of England true,

Wield the brown bill and bend the yew.

Search France the fair, and England free,

But bonny blue cap still for me!

In short, though Louise’s disreputable occupation would have been in other circumstances an objection to Catharine’s voluntarily frequenting her company, yet, forced together as they now were, she found her a humble and accommodating companion.

They lived in this manner for four or five days, and, in order to avoid as much as possible the gaze, and perhaps the incivility, of the menials in the offices, they prepared their food in their own apartment. In the absolutely necessary intercourse with domestics, Louise, more accustomed to expedients, bolder by habit, and desirous to please Catharine, willingly took on herself the trouble of getting from the pantler the materials of their slender meal, and of arranging it with the dexterity of her country.

The glee woman had been abroad for this purpose upon the sixth day, a little before noon; and the desire of fresh air, or the hope to find some sallad or pot herbs, or at least an early flower or two, with which to deck their board, had carried her into the small garden appertaining to the castle. She re-entered her apartment in the tower with a countenance pale as ashes, and a frame which trembled like an aspen leaf. Her terror instantly extended itself to Catharine, who could hardly find words to ask what new misfortune had occurred.

“Is the Duke of Rothsay dead?”

“Worse! they are starving him alive.”

“Madness, woman!”

“No — no — no — no!” said Louise, speaking under her breath, and huddling her words so thick upon each other that Catharine could hardly catch the sense. “I was seeking for flowers to dress your pottage, because you said you loved them yesterday; my poor little dog, thrusting himself into a thicket of yew and holly bushes that grow out of some old ruins close to the castle wall, came back whining and howling. I crept forward to see what might be the cause — and, oh! I heard a groaning as of one in extreme pain, but so faint, that it seemed to arise out of the very depth of the earth. At length, I found it proceeded from a small rent in the wall, covered with ivy; and when I laid my ear close to the opening, I could hear the Prince’s voice distinctly say, ‘It cannot now last long’— and then it sunk away in something like a prayer.”

“Gracious Heaven! did you speak to him?”

“I said, ‘Is it you, my lord?’ and the answer was, ‘Who mocks me with that title?’ I asked him if I could help him, and he answered with a voice I shall never forget, ‘Food — food! I die of famine!’ So I came hither to tell you. What is to be done? Shall we alarm the house?”

“Alas! that were more likely to destroy than to aid,” said Catharine.

“And what then shall we do?” said Louise.

“I know not yet,” said Catharine, prompt and bold on occasions of moment, though yielding to her companion in ingenuity of resource on ordinary occasions: “I know not yet, but something we will do: the blood of Bruce shall not die unaided.”

So saying, she seized the small cruise which contained their soup, and the meat of which it was made, wrapped some thin cakes which she had baked into the fold of her plaid, and, beckoning her companion to follow with a vessel of milk, also part of their provisions, she hastened towards the garden.

“So, our fair vestal is stirring abroad?” said the only man she met, who was one of the menials; but Catharine passed on without notice or reply, and gained the little garden without farther interruption.

Louise indicated to her a heap of ruins, which, covered with underwood, was close to the castle wall. It had probably been originally a projection from the building; and the small fissure, which communicated with the dungeon, contrived for air, had terminated within it. But the aperture had been a little enlarged by decay, and admitted a dim ray of light to its recesses, although it could not be observed by those who visited the place with torchlight aids.

“Here is dead silence,” said Catharine, after she had listened attentively for a moment. “Heaven and earth, he is gone!”

“We must risk something,” said her companion, and ran her fingers over the strings of her guitar.

A sigh was the only answer from the depth of the dungeon. Catharine then ventured to speak. “I am here, my lord — I am here, with food and drink.”

“Ha! Ramorny! The jest comes too late; I am dying,” was the answer.

“His brain is turned, and no wonder,” thought Catharine; “but whilst there is life, there may be hope.”

“It is I, my lord, Catharine Glover. I have food, if I could pass it safely to you.”

“Heaven bless thee, maiden! I thought the pain was over, but it glows again within me at the name of food.”

“The food is here, but how — ah, how can I pass it to you? the chink is so narrow, the wall is so thick! Yet there is a remedy — I have it. Quick, Louise; cut me a willow bough, the tallest you can find.”

The glee maiden obeyed, and, by means of a cleft in the top of the wand, Catharine transmitted several morsels of the soft cakes, soaked in broth, which served at once for food and for drink.

The unfortunate young man ate little, and with difficulty, but prayed for a thousand blessings on the head of his comforter. “I had destined thee to be the slave of my vices,” he said, “and yet thou triest to become the preserver of my life! But away, and save thyself.”

“I will return with food as I shall see opportunity,” said Catharine, just as the glee maiden plucked her sleeve and desired her to be silent and stand close.

Both crouched among the ruins, and they heard the voices of Ramorny and the mediciner in close conversation.

“He is stronger than I thought,” said the former, in a low, croaking tone. “How long held out Dalwolsy, when the knight of Liddesdale prisoned him in his castle of Hermitage?”

“For a fortnight,” answered Dwining; “but he was a strong man, and had some assistance by grain which fell from a granary above his prison house.”

“Were it not better end the matter more speedily? The Black Douglas comes this way. He is not in Albany’s secret. He will demand to see the Prince, and all must be over ere he comes.”

They passed on in their dark and fatal conversation.

“Now gain we the tower,” said Catharine to her companion, when she saw they had left the garden. “I had a plan of escape for myself; I will turn it into one of rescue for the Prince. The dey woman enters the castle about vesper time, and usually leaves her cloak in the passage as she goes into the pantlers’ office with the milk. Take thou the cloak, muffle thyself close, and pass the warder boldly; he is usually drunken at that hour, and thou wilt go as the dey woman unchallenged through gate and along bridge, if thou bear thyself with confidence. Then away to meet the Black Douglas; he is our nearest and only aid.”

“But,” said Louise, “is he not that terrible lord who threatened me with shame and punishment?”

“Believe it,” said Catharine, “such as thou or I never dwelt an hour in the Douglas’s memory, either for good or evil. Tell him that his son in law, the Prince of Scotland dies — treacherously famished — in Falkland Castle, and thou wilt merit not pardon only, but reward.”

“I care not for reward,” said Louise; “the deed will reward itself. But methinks to stay is more dangerous than to go. Let me stay, then, and nourish the unhappy Prince, and do you depart to bring help. If they kill me before you return, I leave you my poor lute, and pray you to be kind to my poor Charlot.”

“No, Louise,” replied Catharine, “you are a more privileged and experienced wanderer than I— do you go; and if you find me dead on your return, as may well chance, give my poor father this ring and a lock of my hair, and say, Catharine died in endeavouring to save the blood of Bruce. And give this other lock to Henry; say, Catharine thought of him to the last, and that, if he has judged her too scrupulous touching the blood of others, he will then know it was not because she valued her own.”

They sobbed in each other’s arms, and the intervening hours till evening were spent in endeavouring to devise some better mode of supplying the captive with nourishment, and in the construction of a tube, composed of hollow reeds, slipping into each other, by which liquids might be conveyed to him. The bell of the village church of Falkland tolled to vespers. The dey, or farm woman, entered with her pitchers to deliver the milk for the family, and to hear and tell the news stirring. She had scarcely entered the kitchen when the female minstrel, again throwing herself in Catharine’s arms, and assuring her of her unalterable fidelity, crept in silence downstairs, the little dog under her arm. A moment after, she was seen by the breathless Catharine, wrapt in the dey woman’s cloak, and walking composedly across the drawbridge.

“So,” said the warder, “you return early tonight, May Bridget? Small mirth towards in the hall — ha, wench! Sick times are sad times!”

“I have forgotten my tallies,” said the ready witted French woman, “and will return in the skimming of a bowie.”

She went onward, avoiding the village of Falkland, and took a footpath which led through the park. Catharine breathed freely, and blessed God when she saw her lost in the distance. It was another anxious hour for Catharine which occurred before the escape of the fugitive was discovered. This happened so soon as the dey girl, having taken an hour to perform a task which ten minutes might have accomplished, was about to return, and discovered that some one had taken away her grey frieze cloak. A strict search was set on foot; at length the women of the house remembered the glee maiden, and ventured to suggest her as one not unlikely to exchange an old cloak for a new one. The warder, strictly questioned, averred he saw the dey woman depart immediately after vespers; and on this being contradicted by the party herself, he could suggest, as the only alternative, that it must needs have been the devil.

As, however, the glee woman could not be found, the real circumstances of the case were easily guessed at; and the steward went to inform Sir John Ramorny and Dwining, who were now scarcely ever separate, of the escape of one of their female captives. Everything awakens the suspicions of the guilty. They looked on each other with faces of dismay, and then went together to the humble apartment of Catharine, that they might take her as much as possible by surprise while they inquired into the facts attending Louise’s disappearance.

“Where is your companion, young woman?” said Ramorny, in a tone of austere gravity.

“I have no companion here,” answered Catharine.

“Trifle not,” replied the knight; “I mean the glee maiden, who lately dwelt in this chamber with you.”

“She is gone, they tell me,” said Catharine —“gone about an hour since.”

“And whither?” said Dwining.

“How,” answered Catharine, “should I know which way a professed wanderer may choose to travel? She was tired no doubt of a solitary life, so different from the scenes of feasting and dancing which her trade leads her to frequent. She is gone, and the only wonder is that she should have stayed so long.”

“This, then,” said Ramorny, “is all you have to tell us?”

“All that I have to tell you, Sir John,” answered Catharine, firmly; “and if the Prince himself inquire, I can tell him no more.”

“There is little danger of his again doing you the honour to speak to you in person,” said Ramorny, “even if Scotland should escape being rendered miserable by the sad event of his decease.”

“Is the Duke of Rothsay so very ill?” asked Catharine.

“No help, save in Heaven,” answered Ramorny, looking upward.

“Then may there yet be help there,” said Catharine. “if human aid prove unavailing!”

“Amen!” said Ramorny, with the most determined gravity; while Dwining adopted a face fit to echo the feeling, though it seemed to cost him a painful struggle to suppress his sneering yet soft laugh of triumph, which was peculiarly excited by anything having a religious tendency.

“And it is men — earthly men, and not incarnate devils, who thus appeal to Heaven, while they are devouring by inches the life blood of their hapless master!” muttered Catharine, as her two baffled inquisitors left the apartment. “Why sleeps the thunder? But it will roll ere long, and oh! may it be to preserve as well as to punish!”

The hour of dinner alone afforded a space when, all in the castle being occupied with that meal, Catharine thought she had the best opportunity of venturing to the breach in the wall, with the least chance of being observed. In waiting for the hour, she observed some stir in the castle, which had been silent as the grave ever since the seclusion of the Duke of Rothsay. The portcullis was lowered and raised, and the creaking of the machinery was intermingled with the tramp of horse, as men at arms went out and returned with steeds hard ridden and covered with foam. She observed, too, that such domestics as she casually saw from her window were in arms. All this made her heart throb high, for it augured the approach of rescue; and besides, the bustle left the little garden more lonely than ever. At length the hour of noon arrived; she had taken care to provide, under pretence of her own wishes, which the pantler seemed disposed to indulge, such articles of food as could be the most easily conveyed to the unhappy captive. She whispered to intimate her presence; there was no answer; she spoke louder, still there was silence.

“He sleeps,” she muttered these words half aloud, and with a shuddering which was succeeded by a start and a scream, when a voice replied behind her:

“Yes, he sleeps; but it is for ever.”

She looked round. Sir John Ramorny stood behind her in complete armour, but the visor of his helmet was up, and displayed a countenance more resembling one about to die than to fight. He spoke with a grave tone, something between that of a calm observer of an interesting event and of one who is an agent and partaker in it.

“Catharine,” he said, “all is true which I tell you. He is dead. You have done your best for him; you can do no more.”

“I will not — I cannot believe it,” said Catharine. “Heaven be merciful to me! it would make one doubt of Providence, to think so great a crime has been accomplished.”

“Doubt not of Providence, Catharine, though it has suffered the profligate to fall by his own devices. Follow me; I have that to say which concerns you. I say follow (for she hesitated), unless you prefer being left to the mercies of the brute Bonthron and the mediciner Henbane Dwining.”

“I will follow you,” said Catharine. “You cannot do more to me than you are permitted.”

He led the way into the tower, and mounted staircase after staircase and ladder after ladder.

Catharine’s resolution failed her. “I will follow no farther,” she said. “Whither would you lead me? If to my death, I can die here.”

“Only to the battlements of the castle, fool,” said Ramorny, throwing wide a barred door which opened upon the vaulted roof of the castle, where men were bending mangonels, as they called them (military engines, ............