‘Then,’ said the counterfeit prince, ‘I shall leave all my attendants to assist you save my page – we two must pursue our journey with all expedition. All that is required of you is to deliver the prisoners safe to the Douglas. I will despatch a message to him by the way, apprising him of the circumstances.’
The Lady Margaret and her page then mounted their palfreys and rode off without delay; but, instead of taking the road by Gorranberry, as they had proposed over night, they scoured away at a light gallop down the side of the Teviot. At the town of Hawick she caused her page, who was her chief waiting-maid and confidant, likewise in boy’s clothes, to cut out her beautiful fleece of black hair, that glittered like the wing of the raven, being determined to attend in disguise the issue of the contest. She then procured a red curled wig, and dressing herself in a Highland garb, with a plumed bonnet, tartan jacket and trowsers, and Highland hose and brogues, her appearance was so completely altered, that even no one who had seen her the day before, in the character of the prince her brother, could possibly have known her to be the same person; and leaving her page near the camp to await her private orders, she rode straight up to head-quarters by herself.
Being examined as she passed the outposts, she said she brought a message to Douglas of the greatest importance, and that it was from the court; and her address being of such a superior cast, every one furthered her progress till she came to the captain’s tent. Scarcely did she know him – care, anxiety, and watching had so worn him down; and her heart was melted when she saw his appearance. Never, perhaps, could she have been said to have loved him till that moment; but seeing what he had suffered for her sake, the great stake he had ventured, and the almost hopeless uncertainty that appeared in every line of his face, raised in her heart a feeling unknown to her before; and highly did that heart exult at the signal advantage that her good fortune had given him over his rival. Yet she determined on trying the state of his affections and hopes. Before leaving Hawick, she had written a letter to him, inclosing a lock of her hair neatly plaited; but this letter she kept back in order to sound her lover first without its influence. He asked her name and her business. She had much business, she said, but not a word save for his private ear. Douglas was struck with the youth’s courtly manner, and looked at him with a dark searching eye – ‘I have no secrets,’ said he, ‘with these my kinsmen: I desire, before them, to know your name and business.’
‘My name,’ said the princess pertly, ‘is Colin Roy M’Alpin – I care not who knows my name; but no word further of my message do I disclose save to yourself.’
‘I must humour this pert stripling,’ said he, turning to his friends; ‘if his errand turns out to be one of a trivial nature, and that does not require all this ceremony, I shall have him horse-whipped.’
With that the rest of the gentlemen went away, and left the two by themselves. Colin, as we must now, for brevity’s sake, term the princess, was at first somewhat abashed before the dark eye of Douglas, but soon displayed all the effrontery that his assumed character warranted, if not three times more.
‘Well, now, my saucy little master, Colin Roy M’Alpin, please condescend so far as to tell me whence you are, and what is your business here – this secret business, of such vast importance.’
‘I am from court, my lor’; from the Scottish court, an’t please you, my lor’; but not directly as a body may say – my lor’; not directly – here – there – south – west – precipitately, incontrovertibly, ascertaining the scope and bearing of the progressive advance of the discomfiture and gradual wreck of your most flagrant and preposterous undertaking.’
‘The devil confound the impertinent puppy!’
‘Hold, hold, my lor’, I mean your presumptuous and foolhardy enterprise, first in presuming to the hand of my mistress, the king’s daughter – my lovely and queenly mistress; and then in foolhardily running your head against the walls of Roxburgh to attain this, and your wit and manhood against the superior generalship of a Musgrave.’
‘By the pock-net of St Peter, I will cause every bone in your body to be basted to powder, you incorrigible pedant and puppy!’ said the Douglas; and seizing him by the collar of the coat, he was about to drag him to the tent-door and throw him into the air.
‘Hold, my lor’; please keep off your rough uncourtly hands till I deliver the credentials of my mistress.’
‘Did you say that you were page to the Princess Margaret? Yes, surely you are, I have erst seen that face, and heard that same flippant tongue. Pray, what word or token does my dear and sovereign lady send me?’
‘She bade me say, that she does not approve of you at all, my lor’: – that, for her sake, you ought to have taken this castle many days ago. And she bade me ask you why you don’t enter the castle by the gate, or over the wall, or under the hill, which is only a sand one, and hang up all the Englishmen by the necks, and send the head of Philip Musgrave to his saucy dame? – She bade me ask you why you don’t, my lor’?’
‘Women will always be women,’ said Douglas surlily to himself: ‘I thought the princess superior to her sex, but––’
‘But! but what, my lor’? Has she not good occasion for displeasure? She bade me tell you that you don’t like her; – that you don’t like her half so well as Musgrave does his mistress – else why don’t you do as much for her? He took the castle for the sake of his mistress, and for her sake he keeps it in spite of you. Therefore she bade me tell you, that you must go in and beat the English, and take the castle from them; for she will not suffer it that Lady Jane Howard shall triumph over her.’
‘Tell her in return,’ said Douglas, ‘that I will do what man can do; and when that is done, she shall find that I neither will be slack in requiring the fulfilment of her engagement, nor in performing my own. If that womanish tattling be all that you have to say – begone: the rank of your employer protects you.’
‘Hold, my lor’, she bade me look well, and tell her what you were like, and if I thought you changed since I waited on you at court. On my conscience you look very ill. These are hard ungainly features of yours. I’ll tell her you look very shabby, and very surly, and that you have lost all heart. But oh, my lor’, I forgot she bade me tell you, that if you found you were clearly beat, it would be as well to draw off your men and abandon the siege; and that she would, perhaps, in pity, give you a moiety of your lands again.’
‘I have no patience with the impertinence of a puppy, even though the messenger of her I love and esteem above all the world. Get you hence.’
‘Oh, my lor’, I have not third done yet. But, stay, here is a letter I had almost forgot.’
Douglas opened the letter. Well he knew the hand; there were but few in Scotland who could write, and none could write like the princess. It contained a gold ring set with rubies, and a lock of her hair. He kissed them both; and tried the ring first on the one little finger, and then on the other, but it would scarcely go over the nail; so he kissed them again, and put them in his bosom. He then read to himself as follows:
‘MY GOOD LORD – I enclose you two love-tokens of my troth; let them be as beacons to your heart to guide it to deeds of glory and renown. For my sake put down these English. Margaret shall ever pray for your success. Retain my page Colin near your person. He is true-hearted, and his flippancy affected. Whatever you communicate to him will be safely transmitted to
‘MARGARET.’
It may well be supposed how Colin watched the emotions of Douglas while reading this heroic epistle; and, in the true spirit of the age, they were abundantly extravagant. He kissed the letter, hugged it in his bosom, and vowed to six or seven saints to do such deeds for his adored and divine princess as never were heard or read of.
‘Now, my good lor,’ said the page, ‘you must inform me punctually what hopes you have of success, and if there is any thing wanting that the kingdom can afford you.’
‘My ranks are too thin,’ replied the Douglas; ‘and I have engaged to take it with my own vassals.