Magdalen Hepburn, a story of the Scottish Reformation. By the Author of 'Passages in the Life of Mrs. Margaret Maitland'

Front matter

A STORY OP THE SCOTTISH REFORMATION. BT THE AUTHOR OF " PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF MES. MARGARET MAITLAND," " ADAM GB.AEME," &C. " Things now That bear a weighty and a serious brow. Sad, high, and working, full of state and woe, Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow, We now present. Those that can pity, here May, if they think it well, let fall a tear; The subject will deserve it. Such, as give Their money out of hope, they may believe, May here find truth too Therefore as you are known The first and happiest hearers of the town, Be sad, as we would make you; Think ye see The very persons of our noble story, As they were living." PEOLOGDE TO EING HSNRY VIII. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1854. LONDON : GROVE AND SON, PEINTEKS, 22, HARP LANE, TOWER STREET, CUT.

Chapter I

" A chieftain's daughter seemed the maid." Lady of the Lake. " Mistress Maidlin is called to the hall." " Sirrah, do your errand with reverence," exclaimed with some vehemence a grave per son of middle age, seated on a stool in Magdalen Hepburn's withdrawing room. " The lady is not used to such rude vassals ; madam, your father's messenger — " " I do my lord's bidding, not my lady's," said the retainer, hastily clutching off, and vol. I. §c b throwing on again, his cap with its badge and feather, " Mistress, so please you, you are called to the hall." The young lady of Lammerstane, made a little bow, grave and dignified as of a queen on her throne, nor rose from her seat, upon the brief elevation of the dais, even when the step of the man at arms had ceased to ring through the echoes of the dim arched passage which separated this room from the hall.

Like a prison, or still more like the deep • shaft of a well, these high, dark, undecorated walls rise up a grim oppressive enclosure for the sweet youth far down here under the lofty roof. One small square window, set in the centre of the great blank of wall opposite the dais, throws down the waning afternoon light over the heads of the tenants of this apartment, lighting on the stooping forehead of a young girl some fifteen years old, who kneels before a desk reading aloud, aud burrowing into the farthest gloomy corner, as if it knew of, and had descried, some hidden treasure there. The dais itself is strewed with rushes — you can see by the tinge of rusty brown upon them the season of the year ; and it is no easy mat ter up here among the Lammermuirs, to find the daily supply of these, which Isobel Lauder weaves together devoutly with her own austere and loving hands, for her young lady's carpet.

Drawn as close to the edge of this elevation as decorum and Isobel will permit, is the young lady's heavy oaken chair, and on it— dark-eyed, meditative, with a good deal of unconscious natural dignity, and no small share of a girl's half conscious, half-embarrassed stateliness, which she is ready to smile at herself, resenting haughtily, however, any other's smiles — Mag dalen Hepburn sits at her embroidery, listening to the reader, her sweet young lips apart, her B head thrown back a little, her hand lingering upon the frame, waiting, half-risen from her seat the while, to hear the last verse, which the young reader, unconsciously lifting her hand to delay her mistress, hurries that she may hear. The reading desk, a heavy piece of furni ture, uncouthly carved, has been drawn close to the dais.

A fair, serious face, with regular placid features, and long falling curls of fair hair, a slight erect figure, clad in home-spun grey, relieved by nothing but a small close white ruff round the delicate throat, has the reader, kneeling here upon her footstool. On a higher stool, not far off, in front of the fire place, where a damp log struggles to burn, Isobel Lauder sits with her distaff, listening with an earnest composure, much different from the Slight excitement of her daughter Alice, who reads, and the animated interest of their youthful mistress. Subdued into the deeper gravity of experience, you find in these same regular, almost faultless, features of Isobel, a faculty of restraining and concealing all ex pression which her young daughter has not yet reached; but the face, with its calm so briety, its perfect outline and natural com posure, is the same in both.

Magdalen Hep burn, test her by all acknowledged standards, has no chance for beauty in comparison with these " her women" — yet strangely enough, turning from the statue like repose of these fair features, her face flashes on you in triumph, a world apart from theirs. And Isobel Lauder, who frets her own child's peaceful spirit with constant comment and caution, looks with a reverential love, whicli is almost adoration, upon her other nursling's less obedient life. A long black gown, with hanging sleeves, close to the throat, and a couvrechef of pure linen, shading her well complexioned cheek, and falling in not un graceful folds upon her shoulders, add to the natural dignity of Isobel's tall figure. There is something half-amusing in the pantomime of which these three all execute their part, for Isobel's spindle is arrested on the floor, and her half-smiling gesture summons the young lady to obedience of her father's message.

" I go — I go," cried Magdalen, impatiently springing from her chair, " but my father, I wot, has nothing in the hall that will charm me like Alice, and Davie Lyndsay. Fie on you, Isobel !■ — I would not break upon Alice, when she reads, for Gifford and the Tyne." " And I might be all the slower, if I had no other child," said the sober Isobel. " Lady Maidlin, your father waits." " I am no Lady Maidlin — I am only a poor knight's daughter, and Isobel Lauder's child — that is, I am lady to my father's men-at-arms, so please you," said Magdalen, sweeping a so lemn curtsey before her stately waiting woman, " but not to mine own; — Alice says never a word. The good mother at St. Mary's would honour Alice — they will call her Sister Pa tience, when she is professed." ** " If I knew not with all your dafling, the root of the matter was in you," — said Isobel, rising.

"Whither?" " Only to open the door for my lady," said the careful monitress, with a return curtsey of gravity and decorum. The young lady laughed and obeyed. Gaily through the passage, dark and narrow, with its heavy vaulted roof, and iron-barred loop-hole high in the wall, the light foot of Magdalen Hepburn, in the girlish, half-dancing measure of involuntary gladness, rung pleasant echoes into the gloomy corners, across which her presence flitted like a sunbeam. But Magdalen paused in time to loop up on her arm the wide skirt of her upper garment, revealing a pretty glimpse of the brave kirtle beneath, and to subdue her pace into the necessary stateliness which became the young Lady of Lammerstane, before she entered her father's presence. Sir Roger Hepburn, it is true, cared very little for all this dignity on the part of the young and motherless mistress of his lonely household ; but Magdalen, newly returned from her convent, and fortified by the constant exhortations of her " gentle woman," took state upon her unconsciously, though with various little girlish demonstra tions of the same, not necessary at all seasons, such as sometimes awed, and sometimes moved into outbursts of ridicule the something uncultivated knight retainer, who held Lammer stane tower a feoff from the House of Bothwell, the head of his name.

Not so lofty in appearance, because a much larger apartment than Magdalen's bower, which was divided from it in fact only by oaken panels, a temporary partition, the walls of the chief apartment of the tower sparkled with arms, arranged with some attempt at orna ment. Deep -set in the strong masonry were those high square windows, through which the light came, checked and shadowed by the heavy iron bars, which lowered upon you with a fierce suggestiveness, like armed foes looking in. A long oaken table, not without trace of many a rude feast, stood at the upper end of the apartment, and cold upon the floor rang even those light steps of the Lady Maidlin, which the archer Simon, from the forest, who is a verser as much as a bowman, vows to be like B the fairy footsteps with their silver bells, or the tinkle of those sweet drops from the spring of St. Mary's, which make music like a harp in the glen.

But bare and rude as is the aspect of the hall, that dark ruddy glow of light from the blazing fir-logs on the hearth brightens its dim atmosphere into warmth and comfort. The spring begins to bud in the valleys of Lothian, but the winds are chill here, at the foot of Lammer Law, from which, over many a mile of gradual descent, we look sheer down upon the German sea. Spearhead and partisan, gorget and breast-plate, draw lines of glimmering light, ruddy and warm, and variable, along the walls, and with a flash of wavering illumination, the fire lights upon some noble deer-hounds on the hearth, and seated full in its glow, the master of the same. Nigh seventy years old, with moustache and beard snow-white, you scarce can reconcile the laughing blue of Sir Roger's honest eyes, and the curls of grizzled hair upon his brow with his years, or with those tokens of his years upon his chin and lip.

But the frame of the old knight owns the chill of age ; over the buff coat, stained with its old habitual breast-plate, it comforts him now to fold this furred gown, a fitter defence upon an old man's breast. On the leathern cushion of a stool beside him lies the sword which it still pleases him to have at his hand— but by the hearth of Lammerstane he wears no weapon, save the dagger, which serves many a peaceful pur pose — and covers his head with a velvet bonnet, brave with its gold chain and medal, which throws into ruddy shadow at this moment the old man's open brow. Carelessly thrown into a great chair near him, a young ecclesiastic, spurred and booted, with little of the churchman in his appear ance, save what this long black cassock gives him — holding up his delicate hands in the fire light, looking at them — looking at the dog which now and then he disturbs out of its rest with his foot — looking anywhere, in short, but at the person whom he addresses — talks in an indifferent tone, but with considerable volubility the news of the time.

With an eager interest Sir Roger listens, the light shift ing and changing on his face as he sways slightly back and forward in earnest attention, and no one hears the entering step of Mag dalen, save grey old Yarrow yonder, pricking his ear upon the hearth. " Aha !" said Magdalen, " they told me of no stranger;" but it availed her nothing the rustle of her long garment as she let it fall from her hand, in her stately progress from the door. Neither the old man nor the young observed her, and it was not till she had reached her father's side, and drawn up to her tallest, stood somewhat haughtily beside him, that Sir Roger's " Hush, child !" and the careless salutation of the churchman, owned her presence. Girlish pique and mortification had almost tempted her to sweep away again, stately and indignant — but news from the coujrt, news from the world, which lay so far away from the frowning gate of Lammerstane, and the glittering eye of the young sub-prior ofColdingham, which told of something deeper than his careless tone evinced, fascinated her reluctant attention.

Patting monotonously with her little foot on the hearth, reaching up her little hand to the ledge of the great chimney-arch within which she stood, the light flashing upon her down cast face, her cambric ruff, and close fitting gown, among the folds of whose long skirt, her other hand half-buried itself unconsciously, holding up the heavy drapery, it was a pretty sight to look on Magdalen Hepburn, with this slight pout of girlish displeasure on her full curved lip, and the growing eagerness with which she raised her startled head to listen, though her eyes were bent upon the ground. " The Regent hath had grace to see how far his evil inclination has quickened heresy," said the churchman in a voice of greater interest. " You have heard my tidings, Sir knight, and I must have your help ere long, as holy church is dear to you.

There is that in my saddle-bags will scare these preaching varlets from Lothian for ever and a day." " You maun e'en do your war yourself, boy, if words are the weapons," said Sir Roger with a laugh, which showed him not perfectly at ease. " My day of sword and buckler is well-nigh ended, but none shall say of Roger of Lammerstane that he left a knight's arms for a priest's. You shall have a listed field in this very hall, if you will, and I promise you every shepherd and ewe-milker on the Lammermuirs will throng to the tournament ; yourself, Master Everard — I cry your pardon, holy and worshipful — have a pretty flow of discourse, as I can witness, and as for these same Lollard knaves, the stream hath no end. So forth with your challenge, say I ! — -out with your stoutest lance — your longest sword — aye, good father, even with your saddle-bags — and success to the better man in a fair field.

Hey, Sir sub-prior ! think ye there are in this country, who will dare to lift your glove?" " When I am mine own advocate, fear not I shall hold my ground," said the young man haughtily ; " but here I stand, her unworthy son, for holy church, and a loftier quarrel. The church condescends not to such unseemly contest. Judge by your carnal chivalry, Sir Knight — do you fight with every varlet that defies your authority ? Good faith, poor wretch, the Massymore, and a leathern thong would be all his listed field — yet you put our glorious immaculate mother, spouse of Christ, on such ground as these wandering rogues ; out upon them, pestilent rebels! a holy church and a wise state thrusts forth the infected member, that the innocent flock may go free. Also be it known to you," continued the churchman, raising himself in his chair, " I have power to demand from all the faithful such aid as my office needs, to be refused at the proper peril of vassal and lord from whom I ask in vain."

The old knight pushed back hastily his bonnet from his brow, the quick resentment of his rank and race crimsoning his furrowed forehead, but sufficient time had elapsed be fore he spoke to throw a cloud of caution over his displeasure, though not to check his indignation. " I had given your arguments weight but for your threat," said Sir Roger, with dignity. " Much I have heard of holy church, and how, despite her silken hand, she hath an armed heel to crush her foes withal; but by my faith I never dreamt — I who brought back the stricken bands of Bothwell masterless from fatal Flodden — to make a prey on men who wear no swords — your patience, boy — per chance on bairns and women such as I have heard of in other lands, steady to their faith. Your father and I were sworn brothers, Eve rard Hay — nay sub-prior, priest, holy father, I reck not how they name thee —but trust me, Roger Hepburn will never call thee Captain, if the Regent's signet were in thy saddle-bags !"

And the old man pushed back his chair from the hearth, and again drew his bonnet over his flushed brow. Magdalen had changed her position, but not her attitude. Gliding unobserved from the broad fireplace, she stood in the shadow behind her father's seat, and Magdalen's frame quivered with her eager listening, though she did not dare to betray her anxiety by so much as lifting her eyes. " You were my father's companion in arms, I would not exercise my power to trouble you," said the young man, pointedly. The knight of Lammerstane drew up his aged figure proudly from his seat, lifted his bonnet, and with a stately bow, which, if it were of thanks or of derision, his visitor was puzzled to discriminate, threw on his cap again, and resumed his seat. " Nor am I of those, who war on boys and women," continued the ecclesiastic, embarrassed, but speedily recovering himself.

" My quarry is worth the striking — my hawk flies high, Sir Roger — though ye think, ye cavaliers of the world, that a churchman's wings are dipt, so that he cannot soar ; what think ye of Knox, the apostate priest, he who was with the arch heretic, Wishart, till he had but barely time to escape his fate? — I trow it waits for him soon or syne. I will break up a nest of blasphemy when I seize this mouthpiece of Satan ; and Paul Hepburn, of Langley — I owe him a stroke of old; there is stuff in such a man to pervert a township. I will leave the old wife by her hearth, the shepherd on the bent, if you will : so the loons pay their dues, and are man nerly, they may think as they will for me — I strike at the head — ah, ha, Sir knight, 'tis the true trick of war." And a fierce glow of excitement kindled on the young man's cheek, as he bent forward to wards the fireplace with a laugh which made the hearts of his hearers cold — but the subprior did not see the shadow, no longer with any pretence of majesty, but with a foot like a spirit, swift and silent, which passed out ( from the heavy door, when the knight of Lammerstone called on his servants to spread the table for the evening meal.

Chapter II

" Thus was it with my lady, who would have flown if she might ; — as for me I paced forth soberly, for I was old ; — and so we did our errand, nor stayed for thought." Old Play. Magdalen Hepburn was only sixteen; with a step like a startled deer she fled through the passage, through her own sitting-room, past the astonished Isobel and Alice, who sprang from her knees as her mistress entered— into a little chamber opening from the larger apartment, which was Magdalen's sleeping-room. Here she paused a moment, pressing her hands upon her panting breast to take breath, and then as rapidly as before hastened to shake out of its folds a great cloak of homespun wopllen stuff, which she wrapped about her. It was dark by this time, and only a very dim gleam from the fire of the larger apartment was thrown into Magdalen's inner chamber.

The stately Isobel put aside her distaff, and rose from her stool with a look of alarm, but neither mother nor daughter ventured on the first surprise to intrude upon the young lady's retirement, though the pale cheek, the flashing eye, and parted lips of which she had caught a glimpse as Magdalen passed, told Isobel of some rare agitation, such as had never stirred the girlish heart of her young charge before. "Lady Maidlin has done on her French head, mother ; I see her shadow glimmering on the wall — and now her mantle — what can it be?" But while Isobel hesitated at the open door, which showed her nothing save the darkness of the little room, and its window glancing with the cold sky of night, and softly called on " Lady Maidlin, Lady Maidlin ! " Mag dalen herself stood in the doorway.

Her pretty velvet hood pointing upon her forehead, after the fashion which did not then bear hapless Mary Stewart's name, enclosed a pale face, all moving and trembling with intense and still emotion, and the hand with which she clasped her cloak shook with eager ness and haste : without a word Isobel began to put on the wimple which had been lying on her knee on the fire-side seat. " Alice, my hood and my mantle," said Isobel. " Lady Maidlin, I grieve that you tarry for me — I kent not your pleasure." The words startled the young lady into consciousness of their presence. " They will mark us, if I go attended," said Magdalen. " Let me forth alone, Isobel — it is life or death — the sub-prior will slay Paul Hepburn — they say he is a heretic. Isobel, I will not be stayed — let me go, let me go."

" You must not go, the whole household will mark you," cried Isobel, throwing clown the mantle which her daughter brought to her. " Lady Maidlin, your father has bidden spread the table — I heard his call — the sub-prior will not go forth to-night. Take thought - take time — cannot I your truewoman do this office. Paul Hepburn is a noble gentleman, but mai dens of degree must not be lavish of their presence. It is a fitter office for me than for Lady Maidlin ; so please you I will go when they sup at the great table, and all the house is astir. They will say, Isobel hath stolen forth to a preaching — by the same token the word is to be read in Miles Dunbar's cottage to-night— it is but travelling a mile further. My lady, be content at home, and make Isobel your messenger ; she has served your race in ■matters of life and death before."

With the blood one moment quite forsaking her pallid cheek and brow — the next rushing back in a burning flush of maidenly pride and shame — with fear, anxiety, injured feeling, resentment, and the unwilling humility of a child, contending in her variable face, Mag dalen heard this to an end — then she stood for a moment irresolute. " Paul Hepburn is my kinsman," she said, at length, a flush of bright colour crossing her cheek, though her eye met unabashed, the glance of Isobel Lauder's steady eye ; " and I had known but little of the Holy Gospel if he had thought a child un worthy of his kindness, as well he might, I tell you, if wisdom is aught. But I will wait, as you say, till they are at table ; my father vol. i. c will make excuse for me. Isobel, .you are not to hinder me. He is brave, he would heed nothing of your warning — it needs that I should go, who heard and saw ; and Alice goes with you to the reading, Isobel," continued Magdalen, in a softening tone, " why should not poor Maidlin, who can go neither to kirk nor market in her own mother's hand ?

I would you had but heard this sub-prior with his knaves, and his varlets, and his apostates — and my good father bidding him challenge them to a tilting in the hall." " Now grace be with us," said Isobel ; " did the knight trow the reverend preachers were men to lift spear or sword." " Not so," said Magdalen, a faint smile crossing her face, though her hands still sought the clasp of her mantle, and now and then her quick glance at the door and eager look of listening, bore witness that her anxiety was unabated; "it was logic and argument my father meant, not spear or sword." " And what said the proud priest?" ex claimed Isobel ; " I would I did but see any one of them in hand with godly Master Knox, or such as he — but truly they are wiser in their generation. What answer did he make, dear child?"

" I hear a step without," cried Magdalen, hurriedly. " Alack, alack ! if I have lost mine errand — Isobel !" But Isobel, the instant her young lady spoke, had left the room to make investigation. With a scared face, Magdalen listened. " Lady Maidlin, God is over all," said the grave Alice, who had not ventured to speak hitherto. " Please you, I think He will keep His own servant, though the heathen rage — therefore we should be calm — for the Scripture i> says — c2 " I pray thee, hush, Alice," cried Mag dalen, impatiently ; " pity me, I know it all — but if I be too late!—" " It is only Simon the bowman, with a sheaf of arrows," said Isobel. " Wait in your chamber, Lady Maidlin, till he has begun to tell his news, and then we may go forth un noticed. Alice, thou must miss the reading this night, poor bairn ; keep thee here, and let no gossips in for any fleeching — bid them hush — if Maisdry or Lilias would come in to thee — lest the lady hear."

" But when I well know the lady is abroad," said the serious Alice ; " Mother, I dare not say a lie." "Did I bid thee, my own bairn?" said Isobel, drawing her child close to her with tender tears. " Now heaven pardon me for leasing, or putting evil in thy sweet heart ! Thou wilt do what is best, I know, and think good thoughts, and pray for thy lady and thy mother, and God's persecuted word. I know thou mindest all the hymns and holy texts that sister Bridget taught thee. A precious Christian mother, Alice, light in a dark place — now sit down on thy stool while I go to see after Simon, and think of us, child, in thy prayers." A moment after this farewell, you could not have fancied the composed woman, her mantle enveloping her whole person, her wimple concealing the lower part of her face, and her " French head" of a sober wifely fashion, less graceful than her lady's, shading her placid features, capable of any such effusion of tenderness.

The girl sat down upon her low stool by the dim, slow-burning fire, and bending her head into her hands, fixed the steadfast gaze of meditation upon the sullen red of the embers, and the blinks of fitful flame. Her mother passed by her coming and going, without so much as a glance. What are the thoughts of this little maiden, Alice, fifteen years old, in this dusky chamber of dais, in the tower of Lammerstane, in the year of our Lord, 1547? Do you think they are labouring to unravel that crabbed design for her tapestry, which Alice stumbled at this morning? Do you think they are launching forth into the glorious unknown world which she has seen only from these moorland heights far off, or through the grated convent windows of St. Mary's — where, indeed, there was little but the gloomy Bass, or a passing boat upon the Firth to see?

Not so. If a momentary fancy, astray and truant, wile her eye into the youthful paradise of dreams, Alice calls it carnal, and sighs over her wandering heart. These thoughts of her's reach high as the heavens in their journeys. The things which angels desire to look into, are those that fill the meditative mind of this grave child. Simply she believes what all the world, one time or other, proclaims with voice of anguish — that all the world is vanity — and Alice muses like a sage upon the eternal verities which in that age were so tangible and real, as it is hard with our life-long familiarity to feel them at all times — ponders upon the heaven, which sooth to say, she has more true report and knowledge of, than of the earth she lives in — and gives up the world with devotion, renouncing its pomps and pleasures from the bottom of her simple heart.

Sometimes a vision of the stake, the piled faggots, the terrified crowd, and the fiery passage to the skies, which many a noble heart has taken since Alice first drew breath, inspire this young soul with a solemn enthu siasm. And such are the girl's musings, bending over the half-lighted hearth. But Magdalen Hepburn in the dark sits on the window-seat of cold uncushioned stone, with very different thoughts. Magdalen's little inner-room is thrust into the wall, where the tower fronts to a precipice — the dark, almost perpendicular, descent of a narrow ravine, which parts the lesser hill on which stands her father's tower, from the bare peak of Lammer Law ; and here where no attack can be made, the window is larger, lower, and slightly rounded, throwing in on summer days an exuberance of light, almost too much for this small room.

Through these crossed and leaded panes, you can see nothing but the dark side of Lammer Law, some wan moonlight trembling on it, and itself looking all the darker for the light — and above, a glimpse of wintry sky, paled with a few faint stars. Leaning her head upon the heavy mullion, her shoulders curved, her arms crossed on her breast, and a great fever swelling within, in this new roused and startled heart, Magdalen closes her eyes to the darkness — opens them again as if they could aid her listening, and longs and trembles for the signal to go forth. Eager with the first impatience of youth to rush away upon her errand, quivering with the ex citement of a fiery temper, which cannot calcu late probabilities, but leaps at apprehension of a hundred evil chances to make her mission vain — ready to chide at Isobel — to denounce the enemy to his face — and again with no wish but this overwhelming one, to warn and succour her kinsman, the young lady weeps, and dashes off her tears — trembles, and with sudden heroism scorns herself for trembling, and would fain, but for very shame, rise up c to pace the room with irrestrainable impatience, as Sir Roger, when he is roused, paces the echoing hall.