Unfortunately, the King and Arran, with much of the Court, had a few days before gone to hunt in Ettrick Forest, deep in the Borders, lodging at the Castle of Newark. For some unexplained reason, two days later, Patrick had followed them thither, which was not his usual practice, leaving David behind to deal with many unresolved matters. Hence the latter's hurried dash after his brother. At an hour's notice he had set out, and got as far as Borthwick that same night.
What Patrick might do, what the King might be able to do, in the circumstances, David did not know. But assuredly something must be attempted, some forceful representations made to Elizabeth. She wanted this Protestant alliance; pressure could be exerted over that, surely?
It was early evening before David reached Newark, in the fair valley of Yarrow – only to find that Patrick was elsewhere. The King was there, and most of his following, though Arran was absent too. He had gone to Ferniehirst Castle, near Jedburgh, where the laird was his close friend Andrew Kerr, Scots Warden of the Middle March. The seasonal formal meeting of the English and Scots Wardens of the Border Marches was to take place in two days' time, when all current Border disputes were discussed and if possible resolved, and it was presumed that Arran had gone to talk over certain outstanding issues beforehand. It was also presumed that the Master of Gray had followed him to Ferniehirst.
Though tired, after borrowing a fresh horse David set off again forthwith, cursing these delays which might mean much to his trapped and threatened Queen. He headed south-eastwards now, over into the vale of Ettrick and on beyond, climbing into high ground, till the late summer darkness enfolded nun and he slept briefly at the remote upland village of Ashkirk. Off early in the morning, once more, he rode through empty hills of grass and gorse, down to the great trough of Teviotdale at Denholm-on-the-Green, to turn eastwards, under the graceful peak of Ruberslaw, through the Turnbull country. He reached Ferniehirst's grey strength soon after mid-day.
Once again he was disappointed. Patrick was not here either, had never been here. Arran he saw, with Kerr and some of his cronies, and a new light'o'love, the Lady Hester Murray. But the Master of Gray was neither present nor expected.
At a loss, David racked his brains. Where could his brother have gone? What errand had he been on? Where might he look for him now; amidst these green hills, with his fateful tidings? He had no pointer to guide him, save for the fact that his brother had indeed called at Newark and on leaving there had been assumed to be coming here to Ferniehirst Which meant that at least he must have started by turning in a south-easterly direction. So Patrick must have intended to turn up the Ettrick valley, or else cross over into Teviotdale as he himself had done. The Ettrick led nowhere, save by a high and difficult pass into Eskdale and the west; if Patrick had wanted to go in that direction, surely he would have taken the shorter and easier route up Yarrow? So the chances were that it was Tevoit. Back whence he had come. David turned his horse.
It was late afternoon when, at Denholm again, after asking fruitlessly at tower and cot-house all the way up, the village blacksmith gave him what might be the clue that he sought The man knew nothing about the Master of Gray, but Logan of Restalrig and a small troop had stopped at his smithy the previous afternoon, with a horse that had cast its shoe. To David's eager description of his brother, the man had nodded and agreed that there had been a Frenchified gentleman with Logan – who was of course well-known in the Borders. They had left Denholm for the south, by the drove road which led through Rule Water.
And now David drove his jaded mount fast and free. The road before him plunged deep into the wild Cheviots, which constituted the Border between Scotland and England Only two routes led out of Rule Water -both to high passes into England One, to the east, was the well-known passage of the Redes wire, on Cuter Fell; the other, to the west'was the lonely pass of the Deadwater, at the head of Tyne.
At a tumbledown herd's cabin where the drove-roads forked, many miles on, the savage-looking occupant admitted to David that a party of riders had taken the route to Deadwater early
that morning.
What in Heaven's name brought Patrick to these lonely fastnesses? And in Robert Logan's company. When Restalrig came on the scene, violent action of some kind usually followed
His route, the only route, now lay along an ancient Roman road, ever climbing across the desolate uplands which heaped themselves in heathery billows around the mass of mighty Peel Fell. This was the Debatable Land, where no king ruled, unless he be an Armstrong or a Turnbull chief, and the only law was that of cold steel and hot blood. Men seldom rode this country alone, and David loosened his sword in its scabbard uneasily.
Darkness overtook him high on the swelling flank of Peel Fell, but he still pressed on, the Roman road a clear straight gash in the shadowy hillside before him. And halfway down the long slope beyond, into the valley of the infant Tyne, he saw the red gleam of camp-fires. Weary horse and rider made for them, thankful, but wary also.
David was challenged fiercely by a heavily-armed sentinel while still some distance from the fires, and relievedly discovered the man to be none other than the dark mosstrooper who had once helped release a bound stag on the heights of
Ruthven in tar Perthshire. Companionably he clapped the visitor's drooping shoulder, and brought him stumbling to the circle of the firelight.
Perhaps a score of men lay asleep, wrapped in cloaks and plaids. But around the fire a group still sat, in talk. His brother was there, and Logan. It was not at them, however, that David stared, but at the Lord Home, the Earl of Mar, the Earl of Bothwell, and – yes, the Master of Glamis.
The mosstrooper had not been the only link with Ruthven.
'Lord – Davy! What… what in the fiend's name is the meaning of this?' Patrick cried, starting up, and less than welcoming.
David felt like asking the same question. 'I have a message,' he said. 'An important message. On a private matter.' He said no more, for these men were the Queen's enemies. They looked at him suspiciously, inimically.
Patrick frowned, shrugged, and then bowed to his companions round the fire.' Gentlemen – if you will excuse me…?'
Patrick listened to his brother's tidings almost impatiently. As David stressed the seriousness of the Queen's case, the other interrupted.
'Yes, yes, man – but there is no need to come running after me with it, thus. She has brought it on herself. It can wait…'
'It cannot wait, Patrick, I tell you, the English Parliament is demanding her trial, for treason. Allow them to start that, and no protests will avail anything – for they must finish the business or be made to look fools. This folly must be stopped before it starts.'
'How think you that I am to stop it? Is their Parliament to listen to me? Halt their courses because I forbid it? What can I do? Or even the King?'
'You can do much – you and the King. I think. You have the means, in this alliance. You yourself negotiated its terms. Elizabeth wants it, and so no doubt does her Parliament. Send swift word that Scotland cannot proceed with it whilst her Queen is unlawfully charged with a treason which she could not commit…'
'But, Lord – she probably was deep in this plot I She has been in many another.'
'Mary would never countenance the assassination of Elizabeth. But even so -!'
'She countenanced the assassination of her own husband, Darnley!' Patrick asserted grimly.
That was never proved. Do you credit the words of dastards like Morton and Archie Douglas? But that is not the issue, Patrick. Can the crowned monarch of one realm be accused of treason against that of another? It is impossible. Indeed, how can a king or a queen commit treason, at all? Treason is for subjects. This trial would be no trial, but a savagery. A savagery against a poor, defenceless lady. And an insult to Scotland, also.'
'Ah well, Davy-I will think of it. Consider the matter…'
David gripped the other's arm. 'Brother, you will do more than that!' he said, low-voiced, tense. 'And swiftly. You can and you wi
ll! You recollect what I said yon time…?'
'Mary Stuart has smitten you crazy, man!'
'Call it that, if you will. But act, Patrick. For Mary. Or, in my own way I will act for her! And forthwith.'
His brother sighed, and shrugged that one shoulder. 'Very well. I should have done what I could anyway, of course… but without these dramatics! Now – these lords are becoming restive. I must go back to them. Tell them something to keep them quiet. But not this, of Mary…'
'No – for these are no friends of the Queen's! These indeed are her enemies. The King's enemies, too – the men who held him fast at Ruthven. You keep strange company, I think, Patrick, for one of the King's ministers? And a strange meeting-place!'
'Your comments on the matter must await another occasion, Davy,' his brother declared coolly. 'Meantime, I would prefer that you hold your tongue before them.'
'You need not fear-I wish no dealings with them. My wonder is that you do. The last time I saw the Master of Glamis, both of you had swords in your hands!'
'That was long ago – and some of us at least have learned some wisdom since then! These men are not the King's enemies. Indeed, they may be more than useful in the King's service. We want our Scotland united, do we not? How else shall the realm flourish? I could not speak with them, save thus in secret and just over the English march, for Arran would have the heads off each of them if he could.'
Did not Elizabeth agree to remove these lords deep into her own country? It would seem that she failed in her undertaking…'
'Enough, man! I tell you, another time.' Patrick took a pace away, and then paused. 'How did you find me here?' he asked, of a sudden thought 'None could have told you…?' 'Say that I smelt you out I have a good nose for some things, brother! But do not let me keep you from… your friends!' David, with arrears of sleep to make up, did not awake next morning until Patrick roused him with the word that they would be off shortly. By which time the exiled lords had disappeared.
The mist-shrouded desolate hills of the watershed where Tynedale and Liddesdale were born effectually kept their secret.
Patrick was almost his usual unruffled sunny self this morning. Indeed he was never the man to bear a grudge or to sulk, and David, less admirable in this respect, as usual grew to feel himself to be in the wrong, somehow. Riding north again, between the boisterously hearty Logan and his smiling brother, he contributed little to the good company.
Where the drove roads joined, near the headwaters of Rule and Jed, the company turned to the right, eastwards. To David's prompt query, it was pointed out that this was the way to Ferniehirst. Patrick required a word with Arran, and the Chancellor was reliably reported to be at present keeping company with Dand Kerr of Ferniehirst To David's remonstrance that it was the King whom they should be hastening to see, on Mary's behalf; Patrick countered that James could be persuaded to any suitable course of action much more readily than could his Chancellor; and since any effective move would require the Council's backing, it was only elementary common sense to convince its President first
When, at the lonely upland peel-tower and church of Southdean, they turned still further back into the south, to face the great hills again, David fretted. His brother explained patiently that, since this was the day of the half-yearly meeting between the Scots and English Wardens of the Marches, and Arran was almost certain to accompany Kerr the Scots Warden to the assembly place at the Redeswire, they would save time by seeking him there rather than awaiting him at Ferniehirst Castle. This, of course, sounded true enough. Perhaps David Gray was hopelessly suspicious by nature.
It was nearly noon before, climbing the long, long flank of Carter Fell, their track brought them out on to the level tract of tussocky grassland, high on the very roof of the Debatable Land where the River Rede grew out of a bog, and where tradition ordained the meeting of the two countries' representatives. Already the greensward was astir with men, and while from a distance it seemed no more than a milling crowd of men, horses and banners, closer inspection revealed that, though there was some small fraternisation, on the whole a long narrow gap split the two companies, so that one faced south and the other north.
The Earl of Arran was easily found, his banner fluttering near that of Kerr and indeed just opposite that of Sir John Foster the English Warden. As the newcomers rode up, the two Wardens were sitting their horses a few yards apart, and hearing the case of one Heron, an Englighman, who was claiming the return of certain cattle lifted from his land by a Turnbull of Rulehead; he was not objecting to the principle of cattle-reiving, since this was normal Border usage, but asserting that although he had paid an appropriate mail for his beasts' return, Turnbull had in fact retained the cattle Turnbull, for his part, vowed that he had never received the mail, and Heron's emissary must have stolen it This hundrum case, of which no doubt there would be a score of others similar, was exciting very little attention from the throng of lairds, squires, farmers, mosstroopers and men-at-arms, though there was nevertheless a general watchful tension on all hands, for these brief truces on the Border by no means always passed off without violence, and only ten years before, on this same venue, a full-scale battle had developed, with numerous slain on both sides, known as the Raid of the Redeswire.
Patrick went to talk to Arran, Logan found numerous cronies of his own, and David, still starved of sleep, lay down amongst the tussocks a little clear of the crowd – and did not remain awake for more than a few seconds.
For how long he slept he did not know. He was awakened by a great hullabaloo – bawling, cursing, the clash of steel and the neighing of horses. Everywhere around him men were running, drawing swords and whingers as they ran, some already mounted, some afoot
Rubbing his eyes, David stared. It.seemed to be a general melee. The two Wardens were in the middle of it, the English one at least shouting, gesticulating, seeking to order his men back, but with little apparent success. Any spark was enough to cause a conflagration on such an occasion. The whistle of an arrow Winging past his head and plunging into the soft ground behind with a phut, jerked David out of his dazed preoccupation. He ran for his horse nearby, and vaulted into the saddle.
Mounted, he could see better. Though a lot of swords were drawn, the actual fighting seemed to be confined mainly to a comparatively small group. In towards the centre of this Sir
John Foster, his standard-bearer at his side, was fighting his way, beating right and left with the flat ofhis own sword, ordering men apart Kerr of Ferniehirst, however, his Scots counterpart appeared less anxious to intervene, sitting his horse further back, grim-faced. Blood was already flowing. David counted three men squirming on the grass, transfixed by long-shafted arrows – all on the Scots side.
He looked about for Patrick, but could not see him amongst the tossing plumes, rearing horses and brandished swords and lances. Logan, he thought – Logan was the man to stop this, if he would, with his tough mosstroopers and strong Border reputation. Where was Logan…?
Anxiously he searched for his brother and their cousin. He saw Arran, looking alarmed, shouting something to Kerr, and that man at length plunging forward with his bodyguard of men-at-arms to the aid of the English Warden. He saw Scott of Harden in the thick of it, striving to drive back his own folk. And suddenly, in the press of the English, he glimpsed another face that he knew and that gave him pause – that of Home of Bonkyldean. He had seen this man only the night before, at Patrick's camp, one of the exiled Lord Home's lairds and companions. What was he doing on the wrong side of this scuffle – and with blood on his upraised sword?
Then David perceived Patrick and Logan, with the latter's men in a solid phalanx, boring their way into the melee, shouting 'A Logan! A Logan!' and scattering men like chaff on every side. David spurred to join them, his sheathed sword drawn. Scot and Englishman alike they beat aside lustily, and none might penetrate their tight spearhead formation. These were the experts.
This vigorous if belated intervention, added to the effo
rts of Foster and Kerr and Harden, turned the tide. Indeed, in a few hectic minutes it was all over. Angry men were pressed back to their own sides of the score in the turf that marked the actual Border-line, nursing their wounds, shaking their fists, and hurling bloody threats. But these were mere echoes; the storm was past
What had provoked it, nobody seemed to know for sure. There were half-a-dozen wrathful assertions. The Scots were unanimous that it was amongst their ranks that men had fallen first – shot by unheralded English arrows. Sir John Foster denied this, swearing that his friend, the Lord Russell, had been the first to fall, quite close to his side. And, sure enough, amongst the actually few slain lay the handsome son of the Earl ofBedfbrd, with an arrow projecting from between his shoulder-blades. David, had his opinion been asked, would have said that he had been shot from behind, whilst facing the north.
By mutual consent me meeting broke up without more ado, even though its business was by no means finished; the atmosphere was no longer conducive to negotiation and sweet reasonableness. Not that anyone took the disturbance seriously, for on the Borders violence was the rule rather than the exception. It was just unfortunate that amongst the casualities should have been an earl's son, all agreed.
Just how unfortunate that fact was, few however could have guessed.
David himself, two days later, copied out the letter to be sent to Elizabeth, signed by James, protesting in dignified terms at the proposed trial of the Queen of Scots, insisting upon the impossibility of a charge of treason being levelled against a crowned monarch, and indicating that unfortunately, whilst any suggestion of such a trial remained, the Scots Privy Council would most assuredly refuse to consider the ratification of the proposed Protestant alliance. David indeed actually adjusted some of the wording himself, to his brother's mild amusement, for the King's signature, and helped impressively to seal and despatch by urgent courier the precious document. He did not see, however, the private letter which Patrick sent by the same courier.
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