by G. A. Henty
“God bless him!” Archie said fervently. “Should he ever come to Aberfilly the warmest corner by the fire, the fattest capon, and the best stoop of wine from the cellar shall be his so long as he lives. Why, but for him, Lady Marjory, you might have worn out months of your life in prison, and have been compelled at last to wed your cousin. I should have been a miserable man for life.”
The girl laughed.
“I would have given you a week, Sir Archie, and no more; that is the extreme time which a knight in our days can be expected to mourn for the fairest lady; and now,” she went on, changing the subject, “think you we shall reach the pass across the Grampians before night?”
“If all goes well, lady, and your feet will carry you so far, we shall be there by eventide. Unless by some chance encounter we need have no fear whatever of pursuit. It will have been daylight before the news of your flight fairly spread through the country, though, doubtless, messengers were sent off at once in all directions; but it would need an army to scour these woods, and as they know not whether we have gone east, west, north, or south, the chance is faint indeed of any party meeting us, especially as we have taken so straight a line that they must march without a pause in exactly the right direction to come up with us.”
At nightfall the party camped again on the slope of the Grampians, and the following morning crossed by the pass of Killiecrankie and made toward Perth.
The next night Marjory slept in a peasant’s cottage, Archie and his companions lying down without. Wishing to avoid attention, Archie purchased from the peasant the Sunday clothes of his daughter, who was about the same age and size as Marjory.
When they reached Perth he bought a strong horse, with saddle and pillion; and with Marjory behind him, and his band accompanying him on foot, he rode for Stirling. When he neared the town he heard that the king was in the forest of Falkirk, and having consulted Marjory as to her wishes rode directly thither.
Bruce, with his followers, had arrived but the day before, and had taken up his abode at the principal house of a village in the forest. He came to the door when he heard the trampling of a horse.
“Ah! Sir Archie, is it you safely returned, and, as I half expected, a lady?”
“This, sire,” Archie said, dismounting, “is Mistress Marjory MacDougall, of whom, as you have heard me say, I am the devoted knight and servant. She has been put in duress by Alexander of Lorne because in the first place she was a true Scots woman and favoured your cause, and because in the second place she refused to espouse his son John. I have borne her away from the convent of St. Kenneth, and as I used no force in doing so no sacrilege has been committed. I have brought her to you in all honour and courtesy, as I might a dear sister, and I now pray you to place her under the protection of the wife of one of your knights, seeing that she has no friends and natural protectors here. Then, when she has time to think, she must herself decide upon her future.”
The king assisted Marjory to dismount.
“Fair mistress,” he said, “Sir Archibald Forbes is one of the bravest and truest of my knights, and in the hands of none might you more confidently place your honour. Assuredly I will do as he asks me, and will place you under the protection of Dame Elizabeth Graham, who is now within, having ridden hither to see her husband but this morning. But I trust,” he added, with a meaning smile, “that you will not long require her protection.”
The king entered the house with Marjory, while Archie, with his band, rejoined the rest of his party, who were still with the king. After having seen that the wants of those who had accompanied him had been supplied he returned to the royal quarters. The king met him at the door, and said, with a merry smile on his face:
“I fear me, Sir Archie, that all my good advice with regard to Mistress Mary Kerr has been wasted, and that you are resolved to make this Highland damsel, the niece of my arch enemy Alexander of Lorne, your wife.”
“If she will have me,” Archie said stoutly, “such assuredly, is my intent; but of that I know nothing, seeing that, while she was under my protection, it would have been dishonourable to have spoken of love; and I know nought of her sentiments toward me, especially seeing that she herself did not, as I had hoped, send for me to come to her aid, and was indeed mightily indignant that another should have done so in her name.”
“Poor Sir Archie!” the king laughed. “Though a man, and a valorous one in stature and in years, you are truly but a boy yet in these matters. It needed but half an eye to see by the way she turned pale and red when you spoke to her that she loves you. Now look you, Sir Archie,” he went on more seriously; “these are troubled days, and one knows not what a day may bring forth. Graham’s tower is neither strong nor safe, and the sooner this Mistress Marjory of yours is safely in your stronghold of Aberfilly the better for both of you, and for me also, for I know that you will be of no more good to me so long as your brain is running on her. Look you now, she is no longer under your protection, and your scruples on that head are therefore removed; best go in at once and ask her if she will have you. If she says, ‘Yes,’ we will ride to Glasgow tomorrow or next day. The bishop shall marry you, and I myself will give you your bonny bride. This is no time for wasting weeks with milliners and mantua makers. What say you?”
“Nothing would more surely suit my wishes, sire,” Archie said; “but I fear she will think me presumptuous.”
“Not a bit of it,” the king laughed. “Highland lassies are accustomed to sudden wooing, and I doubt not that when she freed you last autumn from Dunstaffnage her mind was just as much made up as yours is as to the state of her heart. Come along, sir.”
So saying, the king passed his arm through that of Archie, and drew him into the house. In the room which they entered Marjory was sitting with Lady Graham. Both rose as the king entered.
“My Lady Graham,” the king said, “this my good and faithful knight Sir Archie Forbes, whose person as well as repute is favourably known to you, desires to speak alone with the young lady under your protection. I may say he does so at my special begging, seeing that at times like these the sooner matters are put in a straight course the better. Will you let me lead you to the next room while we leave the young people together?”
“Marjory,” Archie said, when he and the girl were alone, “I fear that you will think my wooing rude and hasty, but the times must excuse it. I would fain have waited that you might have seen more of me before I tried my fate; but in these troubled days who can say where I may be a week hence, or when I can see you again were I once separated from you! Therefore, dear, I speak at once. I love you, Marjory, and since the day when you came like an angel into my cell at Dunstaffnage I have known that I loved you, and should I never see you again could love none other. Will you wed me, love?”
“But the king tells me, Sir Archie,” the girl said, looking up with a half smile, “that he wishes you to wed the Lady Mary Kerr.”
“It is a dream of the good king,” Archie said, laughing, “and he is not in earnest about it. He knows that I have never set eyes on the lady or she on me, and he was but jesting when he said so to you, having known from me long ago that my heart was wholly yours.”
“Besides,” the girl said hesitating, “you might have objected to wed Mistress Kerr because her father was an enemy of yours.”
“Why dwell upon it?” Archie said a little impatiently. “Mistress Kerr is nothing in the world to me, and I had clean forgotten her very existence, when by some freak or other she sent her retainers to fight under my command. She may be a sweet and good lady for what I know; she may be the reverse. To me she is absolutely nothing; and now, Marjory, give me my answer. I love you, dear, deeply and truly; and should you say, ‘Yes,’ will strive all my life to make you happy.”
“One more question, Archie, and then I will answer yours. Tell me frankly, had I been Mary Kerr instead of Marjory MacDougall, could you so far forget the ancient feud between the families as to say to me, ‘I love you.’”
Archie laughed.
“The question is easily answered. Were you your own dear self it would matter nought to me were your name Kerr, or MacDougall, or Comyn, or aught else. It is you I love, and your ancestors or your relations matter to me not one single jot.”
“Then I will answer you,” the girl said, putting her hand in his. “Archie Forbes, I love you with my whole heart, and have done so since I first met you; but,” she said, drawing back, as Archie would have clasped her in his arms, “I must tell you that you have been mistaken, and that it is not Marjory MacDougall whom you would wed, but Mary, whom her uncle Alexander always called Marjory, Kerr.”
“Marjory Kerr!” Archie repeated, in astonishment.
“Yes, Archie, Marjory or Mary Kerr. The mistake was none of my making; it was you called me MacDougall; and knowing that you had reason to hate my race I did not undeceive you, thinking you might even refuse the boon of life at the hands of a Kerr. But I believed that when you thought it over afterwards you would suspect the truth, seeing that it must assuredly come to your ears if you spoke of your adventure, even if you did not already know it, that Sir John Kerr and Alexander of Lorne married twin sisters of the house of Comyn. You are not angry, I hope, Archie?”
“Angry!” Archie said, taking the girl, who now yielded unresistingly, in his arms. “It matters nothing to me who you were; and truly I am glad that the long feud between our houses will come to an end. My conscience, too, pricked me somewhat when I heard that by the death of your brother you had succeeded to the estates, and that it was in despite of a woman, and she a loyal and true hearted Scotswoman, that I was holding Aberfilly. So it was you sent the retainers from Ayr to me?”
“Yes,” Marjory replied. “Father Anselm carried my orders to them. I longed to know that they were fighting for Scotland, and was sure that under none could they be better led.”
“And you have told the king who you are?” Archie asked.
“Yes,” the girl said, “directly we entered.”
“And you agree that we shall be married at once at Glasgow, as the king has suggested to me?”
“The king said as much to me,” Marjory said, colouring; “but oh! Archie, it seems dreadful, such an unseemly bustle and haste, to be betrothed one day and married the next! Whoever heard of such a thing?”
“But the circumstances, Marjory, are exceptional. We all carry our lives in our hands, and things must be done which at another time would seem strange. Besides, what advantage would there be in waiting? I should be away fighting the English, and you would see no more of me. You would not get to know me better than you do now.”
“Oh! it is not that, Archie.”
“Nor is it anything else,” Archie said smiling, “but just surprise. With the King of Scotland to give you away and the Bishop of Glasgow to marry you, none can venture to hint that there is anything that is not in the highest degree orthodox in your marriage. Of course I shall have to be a great deal away until the war is over and Scotland freed of her tyrants. But I shall know that you are safe at Aberfilly, which is quite secure from any sudden attack. You will have my mother there to pet you and look after you in my absence, and I hope that good Father Anselm will soon find his way there and take up his abode. It is the least he can do, seeing that, after all, he is responsible for our marriage, and having, as it were, delivered you into my hands, ought to do his best to make you happy in your captivity.”
Marjory raised no further objection. She saw, in truth, that, having once accepted Archie Forbes as her husband, it was in every way the best plan for her to marry him without delay, since she had no natural protectors to go to, and her powerful relations might stir up the church to view her evasion from the convent as a defiance of its authority.
Upon the following day the king moved with his force to Glasgow, which had already been evacuated by the English garrison, and the next morning Marjory—for Archie through life insisted upon calling her by the pet name under which he had first known her—was married to Sir Archibald Forbes. The Bruce gave her away, and presented her with a splendid necklet of pearls. His brother Edward, Sir James Douglas, and other companions of Archie in the field also made the bride handsome presents. Archie’s followers from Aberfilly and the contingent from Marjory’s estates in Ayr were also present, together with a crowd of the townspeople, for Archie Forbes, the companion of Wallace, was one of the most popular characters in Scotland, and the good city of Glasgow made a fete of his marriage.
Suddenly as it was arranged, a number of the daughters of the wealthiest citizens attired in white attended the bride in procession to the altar. Flowers were strewn and the bride and bridegroom were heartily cheered by a concourse of people as they left the cathedral.
The party then mounted, and the king, his brother, Sir James Douglas, and some other knights, together with a strong escort, rode with them to Aberfilly. Archie had despatched a messenger to his mother with the news directly the arrangements had been made; and all was prepared for their coming. The tenants had assembled to give a hearty welcome to their lord and new mistress. Dame Forbes received her as she alighted from the pillion on which she had ridden behind Archie, and embraced her tenderly.
It was the dearest wish of her life that Archie should marry; and although, when she first heard the news, she regretted in her heart that he should have chosen a Kerr, still she saw that the union would put an end to the long feud, and might even, in the event of the final defeat of Bruce, be the means of safety for Archie himself and security for his possessions.
She soon, however, learned to love Marjory for herself, and to be contented every way with her son’s choice. There was high feasting and revelry at Aberfilly that evening. Bonfires were burned in the castle yard, and the tenants feasted there, while the king and his knights were entertained in the hall of the castle.
The next morning the king and his companions again mounted and rode off. Sir James Douglas was going south to harry Galloway and to revenge the assaults which the people had made upon the king. There was a strong English force there under Sir Ingram Umfraville and Sir John de St. John.
“I will give you a week, Sir Archie, to take holiday, but can spare you no longer. We have as yet scarce begun our work, for well nigh every fortress in Scotland is in English hands, and we must take as many of them as we can before Edward moves across the Border again.”
“I will not outstay the time,” Sir Archie said. “As we arranged last night, I will march this day week with my retainers to join Sir James Douglas in Galloway.”
CHAPTER XXI
The Siege of Aberfilly
Punctual to his agreement, Archie Forbes marched south with his retainers. He was loath, indeed, to leave Marjory, but he knew well that a long time indeed must elapse before he could hope to settle down quietly at home, and that it was urgent to hurry on the work at once before the English made another great effort to stamp out the movement. Marjory did not attempt to induce him to overstay his time. She was too proud of his position as one of the foremost knights of Scotland to say a word to detain him from the field. So she bade him adieu with a brave face, reserving her tears until after he had ridden away.
It had been arranged that Archie should operate independently of Douglas, the two joining their forces only when threatened by overwhelming numbers or when any great enterprise was to be undertaken. Archie took with him a hundred and fifty men from his estates in Lanark and Ayr. He marched first to Loudon Hill, then down through Cumnock and the border of Carrick into Galloway. Contrary to the usual custom, he enjoined his retainers on no account to burn or harry the villages and granges.
“The people,” he said, “are not responsible for the conduct of their lords, and as I would not see the English harrying the country round Aberfilly, so I am loath to carry fire and sword among these poor people. We have come hither to punish their lords and to capture their castles. If the country people oppose us we must needs fight them; but beyond what is necessary for our provisions
let us take nothing from them, and show them, by our conduct, that we hold them to be Scotchmen like ourselves, and that we pity rather than blame them, inasmuch as by the orders of their lords they are forced to fight against us.”
Archie had not advanced more than a day’s march into Galloway when he heard that Sir John de St. John was marching with four hundred men-at-arms to meet him.
There were no better soldiers in the following of Bruce than the retainers of Aberfilly and Glen Cairn. They had now for many years been frequently under arms, and were thoroughly trained to fight together. They had the greatest confidence in themselves and their leader, and having often with their spears withstood the shock of the English chivalry, Archie knew that he could rely upon them to the fullest. He therefore took up a position on the banks of a river where a ford would enable the enemy to cross. Had he been less confident as to the result he would have defended the ford, which could be only crossed by two horsemen abreast. He determined, however, to repeat the maneuver which had proved so successful at Stirling Bridge, and to let half of the enemy cross before he fell upon them.
The ground near the river was stony and rough. Great boulders, which had rolled from the hillside, were thickly scattered about it, and it would be difficult for cavalry to charge up the somewhat steeply sloping ground in anything like unbroken order.
With eighty of his men Archie took up a position one hundred yards back from the stream. With great exertions some of the smaller boulders were removed, and rocks and stones were piled to make a wall on either flank of the ground, which, standing two deep, he occupied. The remaining seventy men he divided equally, placing one company under the command of each of his two faithful lieutenants, Andrew Macpherson and William Orr. These took post near the river, one on each side of the ford, and at a distance of about one hundred yards therefrom. Orr’s company were hidden among some bushes growing by the river. Macpherson’s lay down among the stones and boulders, and were scarce likely to attract the attention of the English, which would naturally be fixed upon the little body drawn up to oppose them in front. The preparations were scarcely completed when the English were seen approaching. They made no halt at the river, but at once commenced crossing at the ford, confident in their power to overwhelm the little body of Scots, whose number had, it seemed to them, been exaggerated by the fears of the country people. As soon as a hundred of the men-at-arms had passed, their leader marshalled them in line, and with level spears charged up the slopes against Archie’s force. The great boulders broke their ranks, and it was but in straggling order that they reached the narrow line of Scottish spears. These they in vain endeavoured to break through. Their numbers were of no avail to them, as, being on horseback, but twenty men at a time could attack the double row of spearmen. While the conflict was at its height Archie’s trumpet was sounded, for he saw that another hundred men had now crossed the ford.