Now have you reft me from my staff, my guide,
Who taught my youth, as men teach untamed falcons,
To use my strength discreetly — I am reft
Of comrade and of counsel.
Old play.
In the gray of the next morning’s dawn, there was a loud knocking at the gate of the hostelrie; and those without, proclaiming that they came in the name of the Regent, were instantly admitted. A moment or two afterwards, Michael Wing-the-wind stood by the bedside of our travellers.
“Up! up!” he said, “there is no slumber where Murray hath work ado.”
Both sleepers sprung up, and began to dress themselves.
“You, old friend,” said Wing-the-wind to Adam Woodcock, “must to horse instantly, with this packet to the Monks of Kennaquhair; and with this,” delivering them as he spoke, “to the Knight of Avenel.”
“As much as commanding the monks to annul their election, I’ll warrant me, of an Abbot,” quoth Adam Woodcock, as he put the packets into his bag, “and charging my master to see it done — To hawk at one brother with another, is less than fair play, methinks.”
“Fash not thy beard about it, old boy,” said Michael, “but betake thee to the saddle presently; for if these orders are not obeyed, there will be bare walls at the Kirk of Saint Mary’s, and it may be at the Castle of Avenel to boot; for I heard my Lord of Morton loud with the Regent, and we are at a pass that we cannot stand with him anent trifles.”
“But,” said Adam, “touching the Abbot of Unreason — what say they to that outbreak — An they be shrewishly disposed, I were better pitch the packets to Satan, and take the other side of the Border for my bield.”
“Oh, that was passed over as a jest, since there was little harm done.— But, hark thee, Adam,” continued his comrade, “if there was a dozen vacant abbacies in your road, whether of jest or earnest, reason or unreason, draw thou never one of their mitres over thy brows.— The time is not fitting, man!— besides, our Maiden longs to clip the neck of a fat churchman.”
“She shall never sheer mine in that capacity,” said the falconer, while he knotted the kerchief in two or three double folds around his sunburnt bull-neck, calling out at the same time, “Master Roland, Master Roland, make haste! we must back to perch and mew, and, thank Heaven, more than our own wit, with our bones whole, and without a stab in the stomach.”
“Nay, but,” said Wing-the-wind, “the page goes not back with you; the Regent has other employment for him.”
“Saints and sorrows!” exclaimed the falconer —“Master Roland Graeme to remain here, and I to return to Avenel!— Why, it cannot be — the child cannot manage himself in this wide world without me, and I question if he will stoop to any other whistle than mine own; there are times I myself can hardly bring him to my lure.”
It was at Roland’s tongue’s end to say something concerning the occasion they had for using mutually each other’s prudence, but the real anxiety which Adam evinced at parting with him, took away his disposition to such ungracious raillery. The falconer did not altogether escape, however, for, in turning his face towards the lattice, his friend Michael caught a glimpse of it, and exclaimed, “I prithee, Adam Woodcock, what hast thou been doing with these eyes of thine? They are swelled to the starting from the socket!”
“Nought in the world,” said he, after casting a deprecating glance at Roland Graeme, “but the effect of sleeping in this d — ned truckle without a pillow.”
“Why, Adam Woodcock, thou must be grown strangely dainty,” said his old companion; “I have known thee sleep all night with no better pillow than a bush of ling, and start up with the sun, as glegg as a falcon; and now thine eyes resemble ——”
“Tush, man, what signifies how mine eyes look now?” said Adam —“let us but roast a crab-apple, pour a pottle of ale on it, and bathe our throats withal, thou shalt see a change in me.”
“And thou wilt be in heart to sing thy jolly ballad about the Pope,” said his comrade.
“Ay, that I will,” replied the falconer, “that is, when we have left this quiet town five miles behind us, if you will take your hobby and ride so far on my way.”
“Nay, that I may not,” said Michael —“I can but stop to partake your morning draught, and see you fairly to horse — I will see that they saddle them, and toast the crab for thee, without loss of time.”
During his absence the falconer took the page by the hand —“May I never hood hawk again,” said the good-natured fellow, “if I am not as sorry to part with you as if you were a child of mine own, craving pardon for the freedom — I cannot tell what makes me love you so much, unless it be for the reason that I loved the vicious devil of a brown galloway nag whom my master the Knight called Satan, till Master Warden changed his name to Seyton; for he said it was over boldness to call a beast after the King of Darkness ——”
“And,” said the page, “it was over boldness in him, I trow, to call a vicious brute after a noble family.”
“Well,” proceeded Adam, “Seyton or Satan, I loved that nag over every other horse in the stable —— There was no sleeping on his back — he was for ever fidgeting, bolting, rearing, biting, kicking, and giving you work to do, and maybe the measure of your back on the heather to the boot of it all. And I think I love you better than any lad in the castle, for the self-same qualities.”
“Thanks, thanks, kind Adam. I regard myself bound to you for the good estimation in which you hold me.”
“Nay, interrupt me not,” said the falconer —“Satan was a good nag — But I say I think I shall call the two eyases after you, the one Roland, and the other Graeme; and while Adam Woodcock lives, be sure you have a friend — Here is to thee, my dear son.”
Roland most heartily returned the grasp of the hand, and Woodcock, having taken a deep draught, continued his farewell speech.
“There are three things I warn you against, Roland, now that you art to tread this weary world without my experience to assist you. In the first place, never draw dagger on slight occasion — every man’s doublet is not so well stuffed as a certain abbot’s that you wot of. Secondly, fly not at every pretty girl, like a merlin at a thrush — you will not always win a gold chain for your labour — and, by the way, here I return to you your fanfarona — keep it close, it is weighty, and may benefit you at a pinch more ways than one. Thirdly, and to conclude, as our worthy preacher says, beware of the pottle-pot — it has drenched the judgment of wiser men than you. I could bring some instances of it, but I dare say it needeth not; for if you should forget your own mishaps, you will scarce fail to remember mine — And so farewell, my dear son.”
Roland returned his good wishes, and failed not to send his humble duty to his kind Lady, charging the falconer, at the same time, to express his regret that he should have offended her, and his determination so to bear him in the world that she would not be ashamed of the generous protection she had afforded him.
The falconer embraced his young friend, mounted his stout, round-made, trotting-nag, which the serving-man, who had attended him, held ready at the door, and took the road to the southward. A sullen and heavy sound echoed from the horse’s feet, as if indicating the sorrow of the good-natured rider. Every hoof-tread seemed to tap upon Roland’s heart as he heard his comrade withdraw with so little of his usual alert activity, and felt that he was once more alone in the world.
He was roused from his reverie by Michael Wing-the-wind, who reminded him that it was necessary they should instantly return to the palace, as my Lord Regent went to the Sessions early in the morning. They went thither accordingly, and Wing-the-wind, a favourite old domestic, who was admitted nearer to the Regent’s person and privacy, than many whose posts were more ostensible, soon introduced Graeme into a small matted chamber, where he had an audience of the present head of the troubled State of Scotland. The Earl of Murray was clad in a sad-coloured morning-gown, with a cap and slippers of the same cloth, but, even in this easy deshabillé, held his sheathed rapier in his hand, a precaution which he adopted when receiving strangers, rather in compliance with the earnest remonstrances of his friends and partisans, than from any personal apprehensions of his own. He answered with a silent nod the respectful obeisance of the page, and took one or two turns through the small apartment in silence, fixing his keen eye on Roland, as if he wished to penetrate into his very soul. At length he broke silence.
“Your name is, I think, Julian Graeme?”
“Roland Graeme, my lord, not Julian,” replied the page.
“Right — I was misled by some trick of my memory — Roland Graeme, from the Debateable Land.— Roland, thou knowest the duties which belong to a lady’s service?”
“I should know them, my lord,” replied Roland, “having been bred so near the person of my Lady of Avenel; but I trust never more to practise them, as the Knight hath promised ——”
“Be silent, young man,” said the Regent, “I am to speak, and you to hear and obey. It is necessary that, for some space at least, you shall again enter into the service of a lady, who, in rank, hath no equal in Scotland; and this service accomplished, I give thee my word as Knight and Prince, that it shall open to you a course of ambition, such as may well gratify the aspiring wishes of one whom circumstances entitle to entertain much higher views than thou. I will take thee into my household and near to my person, or, at your own choice, I will give you the command of a foot-company — either is a preferment which the proudest laird in the land might be glad to ensure for a second son.”
“May I presume to ask, my lord,” said Roland, observing the Earl paused for a reply, “to whom my poor services are in the first place destined?”
“You will be told hereafter,” said the Regent; and then, as if overcoming some internal reluctance to speak farther himself, he added, “or why should I not myself tell you, that you are about to enter into the service of a most illustrious — most unhappy lady — into the service of Mary of Scotland.”
“Of the Queen, my lord!” said the page, unable to suppress his surprise.
“Of her who was the Queen!” said Murray, with a singular mixture of displeasure and embarrassment in his tone of voice. “You must be aware, young man, that her son reigns in her stead.”
He sighed from an emotion, partly natural, perhaps, and partly assumed.
“And am I to attend upon her Grace in her place of imprisonment, my lord?” again demanded the page, with a straightforward and hardy simplicity, which somewhat disconcerted the sage and powerful statesman.
“She is not imprisoned,” answered Murray, angrily; “God forbid she should — she is only sequestered from state affairs, and from the business of the public, until the world be so effectually settled, that she may enjoy her natural and uncontrolled freedom, without her royal disposition being exposed to the practices of wicked and designing men. It is for this purpose,” he added, “that while she is to be furnished, as right is, with such attendance as may befit her present secluded state, it becomes necessary that those placed around her, are persons on whose prudence I can have reliance. You see, therefore, you are at once called on to discharge an office most honourable in itself, and so to discharge it that you may make a friend of the Regent of Scotland. Thou art, I have been told, a singularly apprehensive youth; and I perceive by thy look, that thou dost already understand what I would say on this matter. In this schedule your particular points of duty are set down at length — but the sum required of you is fidelity — I mean fidelity to myself and to the state. You are, therefore, to watch every attempt which is made, or inclination displayed, to open any communication with any of the lords who have become banders in the west — with Hamilton, Seyton, with Fleming, or the like. It is true that my gracious sister, reflecting upon the ill chances that have happened to the state of this poor kingdom, from evil counsellors who have abused her royal nature in time past, hath determined to sequestrate herself from state affairs in future. But it is our duty, as acting for and in the name of our infant nephew, to guard against the evils which may arise from any mutation or vacillation in her royal resolutions. Wherefore, it will be thy duty to watch, and report to our lady mother, whose guest our sister is for the present, whatever may infer a disposition to withdraw her person from the place of security in which she is lodged, or to open communication with those without. If, however, your observation should detect any thing of weight, and which may exceed mere suspicion, fail not to send notice by an especial messenger to me directly, and this ring shall be thy warrant to order horse and men on such service.— And now begone. If there be half the wit in thy head that there is apprehension in thy look, thou fully comprehendest all that I would say — Serve me faithfully, and sure as I am belted earl, thy reward shall be great.”
Roland Graeme made an obeisance, and was about to depart.
The Earl signed to him to remain. “I have trusted thee deeply,” he said, “young man, for thou art the only one of her suite who has been sent to her by my own recommendation. Her gentlewomen are of her own nomination — it were too hard to have barred her that privilege, though some there were who reckoned it inconsistent with sure policy. Thou art young and handsome. Mingle in their follies, and see they cover not deeper designs under the appearance of female levity — if they do mine, do thou countermine. For the rest, bear all decorum and respect to the person of thy mistress — she is a princess, though a most unhappy one, and hath been a queen! though now, alas! no longer such! Pay, therefore, to her all honour and respect, consistent with thy fidelity to the King and me — and now, farewell.— Yet stay — you travel with Lord Lindesay, a man of the old world, rough and honest, though untaught; see that thou offend him not, for he is not patient of raillery, and thou, I have heard, art a crack-halter.” This he said with a smile, then added, “I could have wished the Lord Lindesay’s mission had been intrusted to some other and more gentle noble.”
“And wherefore should you wish that, my lord?” said Morton, who even then entered the apartment; “the council have decided for the best — we have had but too many proofs of this lady’s stubbornness of mind, and the oak that resists the sharp steel axe, must be riven with the rugged iron wedge.— And this is to be her page?— My Lord Regent hath doubtless instructed you, young man, how you shall guide yourself in these matters; I will add but a little hint on my part. You are going to the castle of a Douglas, where treachery never thrives — the first moment of suspicion will be the last of your life. My kinsman, William Douglas, understands no raillery, and if he once have cause to think you false, you will waver in the wind from the castle battlements ere the sun set upon his anger.— And is the lady to have an almoner withal?”
“Occasionally, Douglas,” said the Regent; “it were hard to deny the spiritual consolation which she thinks essential to her salvation.”
“You are ever too soft hearted, my lord — What! a false priest to communicate her lamentations, not only to our unfriends in Scotland, but to the Guises, to Rome, to Spain, and I know not where!”
“Fear not,” said the Regent, “we will take such order that no treachery shall happen.”
“Look to it then.” said Morton; “you know my mind respecting the wench you have consented she shall receive as a waiting-woman — one of a family, which, of all others, has ever been devoted to her, and inimical to us. Had we not been wary, she would have been purveyed of a page as much to her purpose as her waiting-damsel. I hear a rumour that an old mad Romish pilgrimer, who passes for at least half a saint among them, was employed to find a fit subject.”
“We have escaped that danger at least,” said Murray, “and converted it into a point of advantage, by sending this boy of Glendinning’s — and for her waiting-damsel, you cannot grudge her one poor maiden instead of her four noble Marys and all their silken train?”
“I care not so much for the waiting-maiden,” said Morton, “but I cannot brook the almoner — I think priests of all persuasions are much like each other — Here is John Knox, who made such a noble puller-down, is ambitious of becoming a setter-up, and a founder of schools and colleges out of the Abbey lands, and bishops’ rents, and other spoils of Rome, which the nobility of Scotland have won with their sword and bow, and with which he would endow new hives to sing the old drone.”
“John is a man of God,” said the Regent, “and his scheme is a devout imagination.”
The sedate smile with which this was spoken, left it impossible to conjecture whether the words were meant in approbation, or in derision, of the plan of the Scottish Reformer. Turning then to Roland Graeme, as if he thought he had been long enough a witness of this conversation, he bade him get him presently to horse, since my Lord of Lindesay was already mounted. The page made his reverence, and left the apartment.
Guided by Michael Wing-the-wind, he found his horse ready saddled and prepared for the journey, in front of the palace porch, where hovered about a score of men-at-arms, whose leader showed no small symptoms of surly impatience.
“Is this the jackanape page for whom we have waited thus long?” said he to Wing-the-wind.—“And my Lord Ruthven will reach the castle long before us.”
Michael assented, and added, that the boy had been detained by the Regent to receive some parting instructions. The leader made an inarticulate sound in his throat, expressive of sullen acquiescence, and calling to one of his domestic attendants, “Edward,” said he, “take the gallant into your charge, and let him speak with no one else.”
He then addressed, by the title of Sir Robert, an elderly and respectable-looking gentleman, the only one of the party who seemed above the rank of a retainer or domestic, and observed, that they must get to horse with all speed.
During this discourse, and while they were riding slowly along the street of the suburb, Roland had time to examine more accurately the looks and figure of the Baron, who was at their head.
Lord Lindesay of the Byres was rather touched than stricken with years. His upright stature and strong limbs, still showed him fully equal to all the exertions and fatigues of war. His thick eyebrows, now partially grizzled, lowered over large eyes full of dark fire, which seemed yet darker from the uncommon depth at which they were set in his head. His features, naturally strong and harsh, had their sternness exaggerated by one or two scars received in battle. These features, naturally calculated to express the harsher passions, were shaded by an open steel cap, with a projecting front, but having no visor, over the gorget of which fell the black and grizzled beard of the grim old Baron, and totally hid the lower part of his face. The rest of his dress was a loose buff-coat, which had once been lined with silk and adorned with embroidery, but which seemed much stained with travel, and damaged with cuts, received probably in battle. It covered a corslet, which had once been of polished steel, fairly gilded, but was now somewhat injured with rust. A sword of antique make and uncommon size, framed to be wielded with both hands, a kind of weapon which was then beginning to go out of use, hung from his neck in a baldrick, and was so disposed as to traverse his whole person, the huge hilt appearing over his left shoulder, and the point reaching well-nigh to the right heel, and jarring against his spur as he walked. This unwieldy weapon could only be unsheathed by pulling the handle over the left shoulder — for no human arm was long enough to draw it in the usual manner. The whole equipment was that of a rude warrior, negligent of his exterior even to misanthropical sullenness; and the short, harsh, haughty tone, which he used towards his attendants, belonged to the same unpolished character.
The personage who rode with Lord Lindesay, at the head of the party, was an absolute contrast to him, in manner, form, and features. His thin and silky hair was already white, though he seemed not above forty-five or fifty years old. His tone of voice was soft and insinuating — his form thin, spare, and bent by an habitual stoop — his pale cheek was expressive of shrewdness and intelligence — his eye was quick though placid, and his whole demeanour mild and conciliatory. He rode an ambling nag, such as were used by ladies, clergymen, or others of peaceful professions — wore a riding habit of black velvet, with a cap and feather of the same hue, fastened up by a golden medal — and for show, and as a mark of rank rather than for use, carried a walking-sword, (as the short light rapiers were called,) without any other arms, offensive or defensive.
The party had now quitted the town, and proceeded, at a steady trot, towards the west.— As they prosecuted their journey, Roland Graeme would gladly have learned something of its purpose and tendency, but the countenance of the personage next to whom he had been placed in the train, discouraged all approach to familiarity. The Baron himself did not look more grim and inaccessible than his feudal retainer, whose grisly beard fell over his mouth like the portcullis before the gate of a castle, as if for the purpose of preventing the escape of any word, of which absolute necessity did not demand the utterance. The rest of the train seemed under the same taciturn influence, and journeyed on without a word being exchanged amongst them — more like a troop of Carthusian friars than a party of military retainers. Roland Graeme was surprised at this extremity of discipline; for even in the household of the Knight of Avenel, though somewhat distinguished for the accuracy with which decorum was enforced, a journey was a period of license, during which jest and song, and every thing within the limits of becoming mirth and pastime were freely permitted. This unusual silence was, however, so far acceptable, that it gave him time to bring any shadow of judgment which he possessed to council on his own situation and prospects, which would have appeared to any reasonable person in the highest degree dangerous and perplexing.
It was quite evident that he had, through various circumstances not under his own control, formed contradictory connexions with both the contending factions, by whose strife the kingdom was distracted, without being properly an adherent of either. It seemed also clear, that the same situation in the household of the deposed Queen, to which he was now promoted by the influence of the Regent, had been destined to him by his enthusiastic grandmother, Magdalen Graeme; for on this subject, the words which Morton had dropped had been a ray of light; yet it was no less clear that these two persons, the one the declared enemy, the other the enthusiastic votary, of the Catholic religion,— the one at the head of the King’s new government, the other, who regarded that government as a criminal usurpation — must have required and expected very different services from the individual whom they had thus united in recommending. It required very little reflection to foresee that these contradictory claims on his services might speedily place him in a situation where his honour as well as his life might be endangered. But it was not in Roland Graeme’s nature to anticipate evil before it came, or to prepare to combat difficulties before they arrived. “I will see this beautiful and unfortunate Mary Stewart,” said he, “of whom we have heard so much, and then there will be time enough to determine whether I will be kingsman or queensman. None of them can say I have given word or promise to either of their factions; for they have led me up and down like a blind Billy, without giving me any light into what I was to do. But it was lucky that grim Douglas came into the Regent’s closet this morning, otherwise I had never got free of him without plighting my troth to do all the Earl would have me, which seemed, after all, but foul play to the poor imprisoned lady, to place her page as an espial on her.”
Skipping thus lightly over a matter of such consequence, the thoughts of the hare-brained boy went a wool-gathering after more agreeable topics. Now he admired the Gothic towers of Barnbougle, rising from the seabeaten rock, and overlooking one of the most glorious landscapes in Scotland — and now he began to consider what notable sport for the hounds and the hawks must be afforded by the variegated ground over which they travelled — and now he compared the steady and dull trot at which they were then prosecuting their journey, with the delight of sweeping over hill and dale in pursuit of his favourite sports. As, under the influence of these joyous recollections, he gave his horse the spur, and made him execute a gambade, he instantly incurred the censure of his grave neighbour, who hinted to him to keep the pace, and move quietly and in order, unless he wished such notice to be taken of his eccentric movements as was likely to be very displeasing to him.
The rebuke and the restraint under which the youth now found himself, brought back to his recollection his late good-humoured and accommodating associate and guide, Adam Woodcock; and from that topic his imagination made a short flight to Avenel Castle, to the quiet and unconfined life of its inhabitants, the goodness of his early protectress, not forgetting the denizens of its stables, kennels, and hawk-mews. In a brief space, all these subjects of meditation gave way to the resemblance of that riddle of womankind, Catherine Seyton, who appeared before the eye of his mind — now in her female form, now in her male attire — now in both at once — like some strange dream, which presents to us the same individual under two different characters at the same instant. Her mysterious present also recurred to his recollection — the sword which he now wore at his side, and which he was not to draw save by command of his legitimate Sovereign! But the key of this mystery he judged he was likely to find in the issue of his present journey.
With such thoughts passing through his mind, Roland Graeme accompanied the party of Lord Lindesay to the Queen’s-Ferry, which they passed in vessels that lay in readiness for them. They encountered no adventure whatever in their passage, excepting one horse being lamed in getting into the boat, an accident very common on such occasions, until a few years ago, when the ferry was completely regulated. What was more peculiarly characteristic of the olden age, was the discharge of a culverin at the party from the battlements of the old castle of Rosythe, on the north side of the Ferry, the lord of which happened to have some public or private quarrel with the Lord Lindesay, and took this mode of expressing his resentment. The insult, however, as it was harmless, remained unnoticed and unavenged, nor did any thing else occur worth notice until the band had come where Lochleven spread its magnificent sheet of waters to the beams of a bright summer’s sun.
The ancient castle, which occupies an island nearly in the centre of the lake, recalled to the page that of Avenel, in which he had been nurtured. But the lake was much larger, and adorned with several islets besides that on which the fortress was situated; and instead of being embosomed in hills like that of Avenel, had upon the southern side only a splendid mountainous screen, being the descent of one of the Lomond hills, and on the other was surrounded by the extensive and fertile plain of Kinross. Roland Graeme looked with some degree of dismay on the water-girdled fortress, which then, as now, consisted only of one large donjon-keep, surrounded with a court-yard, with two round flanking-towers at the angles, which contained within its circuit some other buildings of inferior importance. A few old trees, clustered together near the castle, gave some relief to the air of desolate seclusion; but yet the page, while he gazed upon a building so sequestrated, could not but feel for the situation of a captive Princess doomed to dwell there, as well as for his own. “I must have been born,” he thought, “under the star that presides over ladies and lakes of water, for I cannot by any means escape from the service of the one, or from dwelling in the other. But if they allow me not the fair freedom of my sport and exercise, they shall find it as hard to confine a wild-drake, as a youth who can swim like one.”
The band had now reached the edge of the water, and one of the party advancing displayed Lord Lindesay’s pennon, waving it repeatedly to and fro, while that Baron himself blew a clamorous blast on his bugle. A banner was presently displayed from the roof of the castle in reply to these signals, and one or two figures were seen busied as if unmooring a boat which lay close to the islet.
“It will be some time ere they can reach us with the boat,” said the companion of Lord Lindesay; “should we not do well to proceed to the town, and array ourselves in some better order, ere we appear before ——”
“You may do as you list, Sir Robert,” replied Lindesay, “I have neither time nor temper to waste on such vanities. She has cost me many a hard ride, and must not now take offence at the threadbare cloak and soiled doublet that I am arrayed in. It is the livery to which she has brought all Scotland.”
“Do not speak so harshly,” said Sir Robert; “if she hath done wrong, she hath dearly abied it; and in losing all real power, one would not deprive her of the little external homage due at once to a lady and a princess.”
“I say to you once more, Sir Robert Melville,” replied Lindesay, “do as you will — for me, I am now too old to dink myself as a gallant to grace the bower of dames.”
“The bower of dames, my lord!” said Melville, looking at the rude old tower —“is it yon dark and grated castle, the prison of a captive Queen, to which you give so gay a name?”
“Name it as you list,” replied Lindesay; “had the Regent desired to send an envoy capable to speak to a captive Queen, there are many gallants in his court who would have courted the occasion to make speeches out of Amadis of Gaul, or the Mirror of Knighthood. But when he sent blunt old Lindesay, he knew he would speak to a misguided woman, as her former misdoings and her present state render necessary. I sought not this employment — it has been thrust upon me; and I will not cumber myself with more form in the discharge of it, than needs must be tacked to such an occupation.”
So saying, Lord Lindesay threw himself from horseback, and wrapping his riding-cloak around him, lay down at lazy length upon the sward, to await the arrival of the boat, which was now seen rowing from the castle towards the shore. Sir Robert Melville, who had also dismounted, walked at short turns to and fro upon the bank, his arms crossed on his breast, often looking to the castle, and displaying in his countenance a mixture of sorrow and of anxiety. The rest of the party sate like statues on horseback, without moving so much as the points of their lances, which they held upright in the air.
As soon as the boat approached a rude quay or landing-place, near to which they had stationed themselves, Lord Lindesay started up from his recumbent posture, and asked the person who steered, why he had not brought a larger boat with him to transport his retinue.
“So please you,” replied the boatman, “because it is the order of our lady, that we bring not to the castle more than four persons.”
“Thy lady is a wise woman,” said Lindesay, “to suspect me of treachery!— Or, had I intended it, what was to hinder us from throwing you and your comrades into the lake, and filling the boat with my own fellows?”
The steersman, on hearing this, made a hasty signal to his men to back their oars, and hold off from the shore which they were approaching.
“Why, thou ass,” said Lindesay, “thou didst not think that I meant thy fool’s head serious harm? Hark thee, friend — with fewer than three servants I will go no whither — Sir Robert Melville will require at least the attendance of one domestic; and it will be at your peril and your lady’s to refuse us admission, come hither as we are, on matters of great national concern.”
The steersman answered with firmness, but with great civility of expression, that his orders were positive to bring no more than four into the island, but he offered to row back to obtain a revisal of his orders.
“Do so, my friend,” said Sir Robert Melville, after he had in vain endeavoured to persuade his stubborn companion to consent to a temporary abatement of his train, “row back to the castle, sith it will be no better, and obtain thy lady’s orders to transport the Lord Lindesay, myself, and our retinue hither.”
“And hearken,” said Lord Lindesay, “take with you this page, who comes as an attendant on your lady’s guest.— Dismount, sirrah,” said he, addressing Roland, “and embark with them in that boat.”
“And what is to become of my horse?” said Graeme; “I am answerable for him to my master.”
“I will relieve you of the charge,” said Lindesay; “thou wilt have little enough to do with horse, saddle, or bridle, for ten years to come — Thou mayst take the halter an thou wilt — it may stand thee in a turn.”
“If I thought so,” said Roland — but he was interrupted by Sir Robert Melville, who said to him good-humouredly, “Dispute it not, young friend — resistance can do no good, but may well run thee into danger.”
Roland Graeme felt the justice of what he said, and, though neither delighted with the matter or manner of Lindesay’s address, deemed it best to submit to necessity, and to embark without farther remonstrance. The men plied their oars. The quay, with the party of horse stationed near it, receded from the page’s eyes — the castle and the islet seemed to draw near in the same proportion, and in a brief space he landed under the shadow of a huge old tree which overhung the landing place. The steersman and Graeme leaped ashore; the boatmen remained lying on their oars ready for farther service.
Could valour aught avail or people’s love,
France had not wept Navarre’s brave Henry slain;
If wit or beauty could compassion move,
The rose of Scotland had not wept in vain.
Elegy in a Royal Mausoleum. Lewis.
At the gate of the court-yard of Lochleven appeared the stately form of the Lady Lochleven, a female whose early charms had captivated James V., by whom she became mother of the celebrated Regent Murray. As she was of noble birth (being a daughter of the house of Mar) and of great beauty, her intimacy with James did not prevent her being afterwards sought in honourable marriage by many gallants of the time, among whom she had preferred Sir William Douglas of Lochleven. But well has it been said
——“Our pleasant vices
Are made the whips to scourge us”——
The station which the Lady of Lochleven now held as the wife of a man of high rank and interest, and the mother of a lawful family, did not prevent her nourishing a painful sense of degradation, even while she was proud of the talents, the power, and the station of her son, now prime ruler of the state, but still a pledge of her illicit intercourse. “Had James done to her,” she said, in her secret heart, “the justice he owed her, she had seen in her son, as a source of unmixed delight and of unchastened pride, the lawful monarch of Scotland, and one of the ablest who ever swayed the sceptre.” The House of Mar, not inferior in antiquity or grandeur to that of Drummond, would then have also boasted a Queen among its daughters, and escaped the stain attached to female frailty, even when it has a royal lover for its apology. While such feelings preyed on a bosom naturally proud and severe, they had a corresponding effect on her countenance, where, with the remains of great beauty, were mingled traits of inward discontent and peevish melancholy. It perhaps contributed to increase this habitual temperament, that the Lady Lochleven had adopted uncommonly rigid and severe views of religion, imitating in her ideas of reformed faith the very worst errors of the Catholics, in limiting the benefit of the gospel to those who profess their own speculative tenets.
In every respect, the unfortunate Queen Mary, now the compulsory guest, or rather prisoner, of this sullen lady, was obnoxious to her hostess. Lady Lochleven disliked her as the daughter of Mary of Guise, the legal possessor of those rights over James’s heart and hand, of which she conceived herself to have been injuriously deprived; and yet more so as the professor of a religion which she detested worse than Paganism.
Such was the dame, who, with stately mien, and sharp yet handsome features, shrouded by her black velvet coif, interrogated the domestic who steered her barge to the shore, what had become of Lindesay and Sir Robert Melville. The man related what had passed, and she smiled scornfully as she replied, “Fools must be flattered, not foughten with.— Row back — make thy excuse as thou canst — say Lord Ruthven hath already reached this castle, and that he is impatient for Lord Lindesay’s presence. Away with thee, Randal — yet stay — what galopin is that thou hast brought hither?”
“So please you, my lady, he is the page who is to wait upon ——”
“Ay, the new male minion,” said the Lady Lochleven; “the female attendant arrived yesterday. I shall have a well-ordered house with this lady and her retinue; but I trust they will soon find some others to undertake such a charge. Begone, Randal — and you” (to Roland Graeme) “follow me to the garden.”
She led the way with a slow and stately step to the small garden, which, enclosed by a stone wall ornamented with statues, and an artificial fountain in the centre, extended its dull parterres on the side of the court-yard, with which it communicated by a low and arched portal. Within the narrow circuit of its formal and limited walks, Mary Stewart was now learning to perform the weary part of a prisoner, which, with little interval, she was doomed to sustain during the remainder of her life. She was followed in her slow and melancholy exercise by two female attendants; but in the first glance which Roland Graeme bestowed upon one so illustrious by birth, so distinguished by her beauty, accomplishments, and misfortunes, he was sensible of the presence of no other than the unhappy Queen of Scotland.
Her face, her form, have been so deeply impressed upon the imagination, that even at the distance of nearly three centuries, it is unnecessary to remind the most ignorant and uninformed reader of the striking traits which characterize that remarkable countenance, which seems at once to combine our ideas of the majestic, the pleasing, and the brilliant, leaving us to doubt whether they express most happily the queen, the beauty, or the accomplished woman. Who is there, that, at the very mention of Mary Stewart’s name, has not her countenance before him, familiar as that of the mistress of his youth, or the favourite daughter of his advanced age? Even those who feel themselves compelled to believe all, or much, of what her enemies laid to her charge, cannot think without a sigh upon a countenance expressive of anything rather than the foul crimes with which she was charged when living, and which still continue to shade, if not to blacken, her memory. That brow, so truly open and regal — those eyebrows, so regularly graceful, which yet were saved from the charge of regular insipidity by the beautiful effect of the hazel eyes which they overarched, and which seem to utter a thousand histories — the nose, with all its Grecian precision of outline — the mouth, so well proportioned, so sweetly formed, as if designed to speak nothing but what was delightful to hear — the dimpled chin — the stately swan-like neck, form a countenance, the like of which we know not to have existed in any other character moving in that class of life, where the actresses as well as the actors command general and undivided attention. It is in vain to say that the portraits which exist of this remarkable woman are not like each other; for, amidst their discrepancy, each possesses general features which the eye at once acknowledges as peculiar to the vision which our imagination has raised while we read her history for the first time, and which has been impressed upon it by the numerous prints and pictures which we have seen. Indeed we cannot look on the worst of them, however deficient in point of execution, without saying that it is meant for Queen Mary; and no small instance it is of the power of beauty, that her charms should have remained the subject not merely of admiration, but of warm and chivalrous interest, after the lapse of such a length of time. We know that by far the most acute of those who, in latter days, have adopted the unfavourable view of Mary’s character, longed, like the executioner before his dreadful task was performed, to kiss the fair hand of her on whom he was about to perform so horrible a duty.
Dressed, then, in a deep mourning robe, and with all those charms of face, shape, and manner, with which faithful tradition has made each reader familiar, Mary Stewart advanced to meet the Lady of Lochleven, who, on her part, endeavoured to conceal dislike and apprehension under the appearance of respectful indifference. The truth was, that she had experienced repeatedly the Queen’s superiority in that species of disguised yet cutting sarcasm, with which women can successfully avenge themselves, for real and substantial injuries. It may be well doubted, whether this talent was not as fatal to its possessor as the many others enjoyed by that highly gifted, but most unhappy female; for, while it often afforded her a momentary triumph over her keepers, it failed not to exasperate their resentment; and the satire and sarcasm in which she had indulged were frequently retaliated by the deep and bitter hardships which they had the power of inflicting. It is well known that her death was at length hastened by a letter which she wrote to Queen Elizabeth, in which she treated her jealous rival, and the Countess of Shrewsbury, with the keenest irony and ridicule.
As the ladies met together, the Queen said, bending her head at the same time, in return to the obeisance of the Lady Lochleven, “We are this day fortunate — we enjoy the company of our amiable hostess at an unusual hour, and during a period which we have hitherto been permitted to give to our private exercise. But our good hostess knows well she has at all times access to our presence, and need not observe the useless ceremony of requiring our permission.”
“I am sorry my presence is deemed an intrusion by your Grace,” said the Lady of Lochleven. “I came but to announce the arrival of an addition to your train,” motioning with her hand towards Roland Graeme; “a circumstance to which ladies are seldom indifferent.”
“Oh! I crave your ladyship’s pardon; and am bent to the earth with obligations for the kindness of my nobles — or my sovereigns, shall I call them?— who have permitted me such a respectable addition to my personal retinue.”
“They have indeed studied, Madam,” said the Lady of Lochleven, “to show their kindness towards your Grace — something at the risk perhaps of sound policy, and I trust their doings will not be misconstrued.”
“Impossible!” said the Queen; “the bounty which permits the daughter of so many kings, and who yet is Queen of the realm, the attendance of two waiting-women and a boy, is a grace which Mary Stewart can never sufficiently acknowledge. Why! my train will be equal to that of any country dame in this your kingdom of Fife, saving but the lack of a gentleman-usher, and a pair or two of blue-coated serving-men. But I must not forget, in my selfish joy, the additional trouble and charges to which this magnificent augmentation of our train will put our kind hostess, and the whole house of Lochleven. It is this prudent anxiety, I am aware, which clouds your brows, my worthy lady. But be of good cheer; the crown of Scotland has many a fair manor, and your affectionate son, and my no less affectionate brother, will endow the good knight your husband with the best of them, ere Mary should be dismissed from this hospitable castle from your ladyship’s lack of means to support the charges.”
“The Douglasses of Lochleven, madam,” answered the lady, “have known for ages how to discharge their duty to the State, without looking for reward, even when the task was both irksome and dangerous.”
“Nay! but, my dear Lochleven,” said the Queen, “you are over scrupulous — I pray you accept of a goodly manor; what should support the Queen of Scotland in this her princely court, saving her own crown-lands — and who should minister to the wants of a mother, save an affectionate son like the Earl of Murray, who possesses so wonderfully both the power and inclination?— Or said you it was the danger of the task which clouded your smooth and hospitable brow?— No doubt, a page is a formidable addition to my body-guard of females; and I bethink me it must have been for that reason that my Lord of Lindesay refused even now to venture within the reach of a force so formidable, without being attended by a competent retinue.”
The Lady Lochleven started, and looked something surprised; and Mary suddenly changing her manner from the smooth ironical affectation of mildness to an accent of austere command, and drawing up at the same time her fine person, said, with the full majesty of her rank, “Yes! Lady of Lochleven; I know that Ruthven is already in the castle, and that Lindesay waits on the bank the return of your barge to bring him hither along with Sir Robert Melville. For what purpose do these nobles come — and why am I not in ordinary decency apprised of their arrival?”’
“Their purpose, madam,” replied the Lady of Lochleven, “they must themselves explain — but a formal annunciation were needless, where your Grace hath attendants who can play the espial so well.”
“Alas! poor Fleming,” said the Queen, turning to the elder of the female attendants, “thou wilt be tried, condemned, and gibbeted, for a spy in the garrison, because thou didst chance to cross the great hall while my good Lady of Lochleven was parleying at the full pitch of her voice with her pilot Randal. Put black wool in thy ears, girl, as you value the wearing of them longer. Remember, in the Castle of Lochleven, ears and tongues are matters not of use, but for show merely. Our good hostess can hear, as well as speak, for us all. We excuse your farther attendance, my lady hostess,” she said, once more addressing the object of her resentment, “and retire to prepare for an interview with our rebel lords. We will use the ante-chamber of our sleeping apartment as our hall of audience. You, young man,” she proceeded, addressing Roland Graeme, and at once softening the ironical sharpness of her manner into good-humoured raillery, “you, who are all our male attendance, from our Lord High Chamberlain down to our least galopin, follow us to prepare our court.”
She turned, and walked slowly towards the castle. The Lady of Lochleven folded her arms, and smiled in bitter resentment, as she watched her retiring steps.
“The whole male attendance!” she muttered, repeating the Queen’s last words, “and well for thee had it been had thy train never been larger;” then turning to Roland, in whose way she had stood while making this pause, she made room for him to pass, saying at the same time, “Art thou already eaves-dropping? follow thy mistress, minion, and, if thou wilt, tell her what I have now said.”
Roland Graeme hastened after his royal mistress and her attendants, who had just entered a postern-gate communicating betwixt the castle and the small garden. They ascended a winding-stair as high as the second story, which was in a great measure occupied by a suite of three rooms, opening into each other, and assigned as the dwelling of the captive Princess. The outermost was a small hall or ante-room, within which opened a large parlour, and from that again the Queen’s bedroom. Another small apartment, which opened into the same parlour, contained the beds of the gentlewomen in waiting.
Roland Graeme stopped, as became his station, in the outermost of these apartments, there to await such orders as might be communicated to him. From the grated window of the room he saw Lindesay, Melville, and their followers disembark; and observed that they were met at the castle gate by a third noble, to whom Lindesay exclaimed, in his loud harsh voice, “My Lord of Ruthven, you have the start of us!”
At this instant, the page’s attention was called to a burst of hysterical sobs from the inner apartment, and to the hurried ejaculations of the terrified females, which led him almost instantly to hasten to their assistance. When he entered, he saw that the Queen had thrown herself into the large chair which stood nearest the door, and was sobbing for breath in a strong fit of hysterical affection. The elder female supported her in her arms, while the younger bathed her face with water and with tears alternately.
“Hasten, young man!” said the elder lady, in alarm, “fly — call in assistance — she is swooning!”
But the Queen ejaculated in a faint and broken voice, “Stir not, I charge you!— call no one to witness — I am better — I shall recover instantly.” And, indeed, with an effort which seemed like that of one struggling for life, she sate up in her chair, and endeavoured to resume her composure, while her features yet trembled with the violent emotion of body and mind which she had undergone. “I am ashamed of my weakness, girls,” she said, taking the hands of her attendants; “but it is over — and I am Mary Stewart once more. The savage tone of that man’s voice — my knowledge of his insolence — the name which he named — the purpose for which they come — may excuse a moment’s weakness, and it shall be a moment’s only.” She snatched from her head the curch or cap, which had been disordered during her hysterical agony, shook down the thick clustered tresses of dark brown which had been before veiled under it — and, drawing her slender fingers across the labyrinth which they formed, she arose from the chair, and stood like the inspired image of a Grecian prophetess in a mood which partook at once of sorrow and pride, of smiles and of tears. “We are ill appointed,” she said, “to meet our rebel subjects; but, as far as we may, we will strive to present ourselves as becomes their Queen. Follow me, my maidens,” she said; “what says thy favourite song, my Fleming?
‘My maids, come to my dressing-bower,
And deck my nut-brown hair;
Where’er ye laid a plait before,
Look ye lay ten times ‘mair.’
“Alas!” she added, when she had repeated with a smile these lines of an old ballad, “violence has already robbed me of the ordinary decorations of my rank; and the few that nature gave me have been destroyed by sorrow and by fear.” Yet while she spoke thus, she again let her slender fingers stray through the wilderness of the beautiful tresses which veiled her kingly neck and swelling bosom, as if, in her agony of mind, she had not altogether lost the consciousness of her unrivalled charms. Roland Graeme, on whose youth, inexperience, and ardent sense of what was dignified and lovely, the demeanour of so fair and high-born a lady wrought like the charm of a magician, stood rooted to the spot with surprise and interest, longing to hazard his life in a quarrel so fair as that which Mary Stewart’s must needs be. She had been bred in France — she was possessed of the most distinguished beauty — she had reigned a Queen and a Scottish Queen, to whom knowledge of character was as essential as the use of vital air. In all these capacities, Mary was, of all women on the earth, most alert at perceiving and using the advantages which her charms gave her over almost all who came within the sphere of their influence. She cast on Roland a glance which might have melted a heart of stone. “My poor boy,” she said, with a feeling partly real, partly politic, “thou art a stranger to us — sent to this doleful captivity from the society of some tender mother, or sister, or maiden, with whom you had freedom to tread a gay measure round the Maypole. I grieve for you; but you are the only male in my limited household — wilt thou obey my orders?”
“To the death, madam,” said Graeme, in a determined tone.
“Then keep the door of mine apartment,” said the Queen; “keep it till they offer actual violence, or till we shall be fitly arrayed to receive these intrusive visiters.”
“I will defend it till they pass over my body,” said Roland Graeme; any hesitation which he had felt concerning the line of conduct he ought to pursue being completely swept away by the impulse of the moment.
“Not so, my good youth,” answered Mary; “not so, I command. If I have one faithful subject beside me, much need, God wot, I have to care for his safety. Resist them but till they are put to the shame of using actual violence, and then give way, I charge you. Remember my commands.” And, with a smile expressive at once of favour and of authority, she turned from him, and, followed by her attendants, entered the bedroom.
The youngest paused for half a second ere she followed her companion, and made a signal to Roland Graeme with her hand. He had been already long aware that this was Catherine Seyton — a circumstance which could not much surprise a youth of quick intellects, who recollected the sort of mysterious discourse which had passed betwixt the two matrons at the deserted nunnery, and on which his meeting with Catherine in this place seemed to cast so much light. Yet such was the engrossing effect of Mary’s presence, that it surmounted for the moment even the feelings of a youthful lover; and it was not until Catherine Seyton had disappeared, that Roland began to consider in what relation they were to stand to each other. “She held up her hand to me in a commanding manner,” he thought; “perhaps she wanted to confirm my purpose for the execution of the Queen’s commands; for I think she could scarce purpose to scare me with the sort of discipline which she administered to the groom in the frieze-jacket, and to poor Adam Woodcock. But we will see to that anon; meantime, let us do justice to the trust reposed in us by this unhappy Queen. I think my Lord of Murray will himself own that it is the duty of a faithful page to defend his lady against intrusion on her privacy.”
Accordingly, he stepped to the little vestibule, made fast, with lock and bar, the door which opened from thence to the large staircase, and then sat himself down to attend the result. He had not long to wait — a rude and strong hand first essayed to lift the latch, then pushed and shook the door with violence, and, when it resisted his attempt to open it, exclaimed, “Undo the door there, you within!”
“Why, and at whose command,” said the page, “am I to undo the door of the apartments of the Queen of Scotland?”
Another vain attempt, which made hinge and bolt jingle, showed that the impatient applicant without would willingly have entered altogether regardless of his challenge; but at length an answer was returned.
“Undo the door, on your peril — the Lord Lindesay comes to speak with the Lady Mary of Scotland.”
“The Lord Lindesay, as a Scottish noble,” answered the page, “must await his Sovereign’s leisure.”
An earnest altercation ensued amongst those without, in which Roland distinguished the remarkable harsh voice of Lindesay in reply to Sir Robert Melville, who appeared to have been using some soothing language —“No! no! no! I tell thee, no! I will place a petard against the door rather than be baulked by a profligate woman, and bearded by an insolent footboy.”
“Yet, at least,” said Melville, “let me try fair means in the first instance. Violence to a lady would stain your scutcheon for ever. Or await till my Lord Ruthven comes.”
“I will await no longer,” said Lindesay; “it is high time the business were done, and we on our return to the council. But thou mayest try thy fair play, as thou callest it, while I cause my train to prepare the petard. I came hither provided with as good gunpowder as blew up the Kirk of Field.”
“For God’s sake, be patient,” said Melville; and, approaching the door, he said, as speaking to those within, “Let the Queen know, that I, her faithful servant, Robert Melville, do entreat her, for her own sake, and to prevent worse consequences, that she will undo the door, and admit Lord Lindesay, who brings a mission from the Council of State.”
“I will do your errand to the Queen,” said the page, “and report to you her answer.”
He went to the door of the bedchamber, and tapping against it gently, it was opened by the elderly lady, to whom he communicated his errand, and returned with directions from the Queen to admit Sir Robert Melville and Lord Lindesay. Roland Graeme returned to the vestibule, and opened the door accordingly, into which the Lord Lindesay strode, with the air of a soldier who has fought his way into a conquered fortress; while Melville, deeply dejected, followed him more slowly.
“I draw you to witness, and to record,” said the page to this last, “that, save for the especial commands of the Queen, I would have made good the entrance, with my best strength, and my best blood, against all Scotland.”
“Be silent, young man,” said Melville, in a tone of grave rebuke; “add not brands to fire — this is no time to make a flourish of thy boyish chivalry.”
“She has not appeared even yet,” said Lindesay, who had now reached the midst of the parlour or audience-room; “how call you this trifling?”
“Patience, my lord,” replied Sir Robert, “time presses not — and Lord Ruthven hath not as yet descended.”
At this moment the door of the inner apartment opened, and Queen Mary presented herself, advancing with an air of peculiar grace and majesty, and seeming totally unruffled, either by the visit, or by the rude manner in which it had been enforced. Her dress was a robe of black velvet; a small ruff, open in front, gave a full view of her beautifully formed chin and neck, but veiled the bosom. On her head she wore a small cap of lace, and a transparent white veil hung from her shoulders over the long black robe, in large loose folds, so that it could be drawn at pleasure over the face and person. She wore a cross of gold around her neck, and had her rosary of gold and ebony hanging from her girdle. She was closely followed by her two ladies, who remained standing behind her during the conference. Even Lord Lindesay, though the rudest noble of that rude age, was surprised into something like respect by the unconcerned and majestic mien of her, whom he had expected to find frantic with impotent passion, or dissolved in useless and vain sorrow, or overwhelmed with the fears likely in such a situation to assail fallen royalty.
“We fear we have detained you, my Lord of Lindesay,” said the Queen, while she curtsied with dignity in answer to his reluctant obeisance; “but a female does not willingly receive her visiters without some minutes spent at the toilette. Men, my lord, are less dependant on such ceremonies.”
Lord Lindesay, casting his eye down on his own travel-stained and disordered dress, muttered something of a hasty journey, and the Queen paid her greeting to Sir Robert Melville with courtesy, and even, as it seemed, with kindness. There was then a dead pause, during which Lindesay looked towards the door, as if expecting with impatience the colleague of their embassy. The Queen alone was entirely unembarrassed, and, as if to break the silence, she addressed Lord Lindesay, with a glance at the large and cumbrous sword which he wore, as already mentioned, hanging from his neck.
“You have there a trusty and a weighty travelling companion, my lord. I trust you expected to meet with no enemy here, against whom such a formidable weapon could be necessary? it is, methinks, somewhat a singular ornament for a court, though I am, as I well need to be, too much of a Stuart to fear a sword.”
“It is not the first time, madam,” replied Lindesay, bringing round the weapon so as to rest its point on the ground, and leaning one hand on the huge cross-handle, “it is not the first time that this weapon has intruded itself into the presence of the House of Stewart.”
“Possibly, my lord,” replied the Queen, “it may have done service to my ancestors — Your ancestors were men of loyalty”
“Ay, madam,” replied he, “service it hath done; but such as kings love neither to acknowledge nor to reward. It was the service which the knife renders to the tree when trimming it to the quick, and depriving it of the superfluous growth of rank and unfruitful suckers, which rob it of nourishment.”
“You talk riddles, my lord,” said Mary; “I will hope the explanation carries nothing insulting with it.”
“You shall judge, madam,” answered Lindesay. “With this good sword was Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, girded on the memorable day when he acquired the name of Bell-the-Cat, for dragging from the presence of your great grandfather, the third James of the race, a crew of minions, flatterers, and favourites whom he hanged over the bridge of Lauder, as a warning to such reptiles how they approach a Scottish throne. With this same weapon, the same inflexible champion of Scottish honour and nobility slew at one blow Spens of Kilspindie, a courtier of your grandfather, James the fourth, who had dared to speak lightly of him in the royal presence. They fought near the brook of Fala; and Bell-the-Cat, with this blade, sheared through the thigh of his opponent, and lopped the limb as easily as a shepherd’s boy slices a twig from a sapling.”
“My lord,” replied the Queen, reddening, “my nerves are too good to be alarmed even by this terrible history — May I ask how a blade so illustrious passed from the House of Douglas to that of Lindesay?— Methinks it should have been preserved as a consecrated relic, by a family who have held all that they could do against their king, to be done in favour of their country.”
“Nay, madam,” said Melville, anxiously interfering, “ask not that question of Lord Lindesay — And you, my lord, for shame — for decency — forbear to reply to it.”
“It is time that this lady should hear the truth,” replied Lindesay.
“And be assured,” said the Queen, “that she will be moved to anger by none that you can tell her, my lord. There are cases in which just scorn has always the mastery over just anger.”
“Then know,” said Lindesay, “that upon the field of Carberry-hill, when that false and infamous traitor and murderer, James, sometime Earl of Bothwell, and nicknamed Duke of Orkney, offered to do personal battle with any of the associated nobles who came to drag him to justice, I accepted his challenge, and was by the noble Earl of Morton gifted with his good sword that I might therewith fight it out — Ah! so help me Heaven, had his presumption been one grain more, or his cowardice one grain less, I should have done such work with this good steel on his traitorous corpse, that the hounds and carrion-crows should have found their morsels daintily carved to their use !”
The Queen’s courage well-nigh gave way at the mention of Bothwell’s name — a name connected with such a train of guilt, shame, and disaster. But the prolonged boast of Lindesay gave her time to rally herself, and to answer with an appearance of cold contempt —“It is easy to slay an enemy who enters not the lists. But had Mary Stewart inherited her father’s sword as well as his sceptre, the boldest of her rebels should not upon that day have complained that they had no one to cope withal. Your lordship will forgive me if I abridge this conference. A brief description of a bloody fight is long enough to satisfy a lady’s curiosity; and unless my Lord of Lindesay has something more important to tell us than of the deeds which old Bell-the-Cat achieved, and how he would himself have emulated them, had time and tide permitted, we will retire to our private apartment, and you, Fleming, shall finish reading to us yonder little treatise Des Rodomontades Espagnolles .”
“Tarry, madam,” said Lindesay, his complexion reddening in his turn, “I know your quick wit too well of old to have sought an interview that you might sharpen its edge at the expense of my honour. Lord Ruthven and myself, with Sir Robert Melville as a concurrent, come to your Grace on the part of the Secret Council, to tender to you what much concerns the safety of your own life and the welfare of the State.”
“The Secret Council?” said the Queen; “by what powers can it subsist or act, while I, from whom it holds its character, am here detained under unjust restraint? But it matters not — what concerns the welfare of Scotland shall be acceptable to Mary Stewart, come from whatever quarter it will — and for what concerns her own life, she has lived long enough to be weary of it, even at the age of twenty-five.— Where is your colleague, my lord?— why tarries he?”
“He comes, madam,” said Melville, and Lord Ruthven entered at the instant, holding in his hand a packet. As the Queen returned his salutation she became deadly pale, but instantly recovered herself by dint of strong and sudden resolution, just as the noble, whose appearance seemed to excite such emotions in her bosom, entered the apartment in company with George Douglas, the youngest son of the Knight of Lochleven, who, during the absence of his father and brethren, acted as Seneschal of the Castle, under the direction of the elder Lady Lochleven, his father’s mother.
I give this heavy weight from off my head,
And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand;
With mine own tears I wash away my balm,
With mine own hand I give away my crown,
With mine own tongue deny my sacred state,
With mine own breath release all duteous oaths.
Richard II.
Lord Ruthven had the look and bearing which became a soldier and a statesman, and the martial cast of his form and features procured him the popular epithet of Greysteil, by which he was distinguished by his intimates, after the hero of a metrical romance then generally known. His dress, which was a buff-coat embroidered, had a half-military character, but exhibited nothing of the sordid negligence which distinguished that of Lindesay. But the son of an ill-fated sire, and the father of a yet more unfortunate family, bore in his look that cast of inauspicious melancholy, by which the physiognomists of that time pretended to distinguish those who were predestined to a violent and unhappy death.
The terror which the presence of this nobleman impressed on the Queen’s mind, arose from the active share he had borne in the slaughter of David Rizzio; his father having presided at the perpetration of that abominable crime, although so weak from long and wasting illness, that he could not endure the weight of his armour, having arisen from a sick-bed to commit a murder in the presence of his Sovereign. On that occasion his son also had attended and taken an active part. It was little to be wondered at, that the Queen, considering her condition when such a deed of horror was acted in her presence, should retain an instinctive terror for the principal actors in the murder. She returned, however, with grace the salutation of Lord Ruthven, and extended her hand to George Douglas, who kneeled, and kissed it with respect; the first mark of a subject’s homage which Roland Graeme had seen any of them render to the captive Sovereign. She returned his greeting in silence, and there was a brief pause, during which the steward of the castle, a man of a sad brow and a severe eye, placed, under George Douglas’s directions, a table and writing materials; and the page, obedient to his mistress’s dumb signal, advanced a large chair to the side on which the Queen stood, the table thus forming a sort of bar which divided the Queen and her personal followers from her unwelcome visitors. The steward then withdrew after a low reverence. When he had closed the door behind him, the Queen broke silence —“With your favour, my lords, I will sit — my walks are not indeed extensive enough at present to fatigue me greatly, yet I find repose something more necessary than usual.”
She sat down accordingly, and, shading her cheek with her beautiful hand, looked keenly and impressively at each of the nobles in turn. Mary Fleming applied her kerchief to her eyes, and Catherine Seyton and Roland Graeme exchanged a glance, which showed that both were too deeply engrossed with sentiments of interest and commiseration for their royal mistress, to think of any thing which regarded themselves.
“I wait the purpose of your mission, my lords,” said the Queen, after she had been seated for about a minute without a word-being spoken,—“I wait your message from those you call the Secret Council.-I trust it is a petition of pardon, and a desire that I will resume my rightful throne, without using with due severity my right of punishing those who have dispossessed me of it.”
“Madam,” replied Ruthven, “it is painful for us to speak harsh truths to a Princess who has long ruled us. But we come to offer, not to implore, pardon. In a word, madam, we have to propose to you on the part of the Secret Council, that you sign these deeds, which will contribute greatly to the pacification of the State, the advancement of God’s word, and the welfare of your own future life.”
“Am I expected to take these fair words on trust, my lord? or may I hear the contents of these reconciling papers, ere I am asked to sign them?”
“Unquestionably, madam; it is our purpose and wish, you should read what you are required to sign,” replied Ruthven.
“Required?” replied the Queen, with some emphasis; “but the phrase suits well the matter-read, my lord.”
The Lord Ruthven proceeded to read a formal instrument, running in the Queen’s name, and setting forth that she had been called, at an early age, to the administration of the crown and realm of Scotland, and had toiled diligently therein, until she was in body and spirit so wearied out and disgusted, that she was unable any longer to endure the travail and pain of State affairs; and that since God had blessed her with a fair and hopeful son, she was desirous to ensure to him, even while she yet lived, his succession to the crown, which was his by right of hereditary descent. “Wherefore,” the instrument proceeded, “we, of the motherly affection we bear to our said son, have renounced and demitted, and by these our letters of free good-will, renounce and demit, the Crown, government, and guiding of the realm of Scotland, in favour of our said son, that he may succeed to us as native Prince thereof, as much as if we had been removed by disease, and not by our own proper act. And that this demission of our royal authority may have the more full and solemn effect, and none pretend ignorance, we give, grant, and commit, fall and free and plain power to our trusty cousins, Lord Lindesay of the Byres, and William Lord Ruthven, to appear in our name before as many of the nobility, clergy, and burgesses, as may be assembled at Stirling, and there, in our name and behalf, publicly, and in their presence, to renounce the Crown, guidance, and government of this our kingdom of Scotland.”
The Queen here broke in with an air of extreme surprise. “How is this, my lords?” she said: “Are my ears turned rebels, that they deceive me with sounds so extraordinary?— And yet it is no wonder that, having conversed so long with rebellion, they should now force its language upon my understanding. Say I am mistaken, my lords — say, for the honour of yourselves and the Scottish nobility, that my right trusty cousins of Lindesay and Ruthven, two barons of warlike fame and ancient line, have not sought the prison-house of their kind mistress for such a purpose as these words seem to imply. Say, for the sake of honour and loyalty, that my ears have deceived me.”
“No, madam,” said Ruthven gravely, “your ears do not deceive you — they deceived you when they were closed against the preachers of the evangele, and the honest advice of your faithful subjects; and when they were ever open to flattery of pickthanks and traitors, foreign cubiculars and domestic minions. The land may no longer brook the rule of one who cannot rule herself; wherefore, I pray you to comply with the last remaining wish of your subjects and counsellors, and spare yourself and us the farther agitation of matter so painful.”
“And is this all my loving subjects require of me, my lord?” said Mary, in a tone of bitter irony. “Do they really stint themselves to the easy boon that I should yield up the crown, which is mine by birthright, to an infant which is scarcely more than a year old — fling down my sceptre, and take up a distaff — Oh no! it is too little for them to ask — That other roll of parchment contains something harder to be complied with, and which may more highly task my readiness to comply with the petitions of my lieges.”
“This parchment,” answered Ruthven, in the same tone of inflexible gravity, and unfolding the instrument as he spoke, “is one by which your grace constitutes your nearest in blood, and the most honourable and trustworthy of your subjects, James, Earl of Murray, Regent of the kingdom during the minority of the young King. He already holds the appointment from the Secret Council.”
The Queen gave a sort of shriek, and, clapping her hands together, exclaimed, “Comes the arrow out of his quiver?— out of my brother’s bow?— Alas! I looked for his return from France as my sole, at least my readiest, chance of deliverance.— And yet, when I heard he had assumed the government, I guessed he would shame to wield it in my name.”
“I must pray your answer, madam,” said Lord Ruthven, “to the demand of the Council.”
“The demand of the Council!” said the Queen; “say rather the demand of a set of robbers, impatient to divide the spoil they have seized. To such a demand, and sent by the mouth of a traitor, whose scalp, but for my womanish mercy, should long since have stood on the city gates, Mary of Scotland has no answer.”
“I trust, madam,” said Lord Ruthven, “my being unacceptable to your presence will not add to your obduracy of resolution. It may become you to remember that the death of the minion, Rizzio, cost the house of Ruthven its head and leader. My father, more worthy than a whole province of such vile sycophants, died in exile, and broken-hearted.”
The Queen clasped her hands on her face, and, resting her arms on the table, stooped down her head and wept so bitterly, that the tears were seen to find their way in streams between the white and slender fingers with which she endeavoured to conceal them.
“My lords,” said Sir Robert Melville, “this is too much rigour. Under your lordship’s favour, we came hither, not to revive old griefs, but to find the mode of avoiding new ones.”
“Sir Robert Melville,” said Ruthven, “we best know for what purpose we were delegated hither, and wherefore you were somewhat unnecessarily sent to attend us.”
“Nay, by my hand,” said Lord Lindesay, “I know not why we were cumbered with the good knight, unless he comes in place of the lump of sugar which pothicars put into their wholesome but bitter medicaments, to please a froward child — a needless labour, methinks, where men have the means to make them swallow the physic otherwise.”
“Nay, my lords,” said Melville, “ye best know your own secret instructions. I conceive I shall best obey mine in striving to mediate between her Grace and you.”
“Be silent, Sir Robert Melville,” said the Queen, arising, and her face still glowing with agitation as she spoke. “My kerchief, Fleming — I shame that traitors should have power to move me thus.— Tell me, proud lords,” she added, wiping away the tears as she spoke, “by what earthly warrant can liege subjects pretend to challenge the rights of an anointed Sovereign — to throw off the allegiance they have vowed, and to take away the crown from the head on which Divine warrant hath placed it?”
“Madam,” said Ruthven, “I will deal plainly with you. Your reign, from the dismal field of Pinkie-cleugh, when you were a babe in the cradle, till now that ye stand a grown dame before us, hath been such a tragedy of losses, disasters, civil dissensions, and foreign wars, that the like is not to be found in our chronicles. The French and English have, with one consent, made Scotland the battle-field on which to fight out their own ancient quarrel.— For ourselves every man’s hand hath been against his brother, nor hath a year passed over without rebellion and slaughter, exile of nobles, and oppressing of the commons. We may endure it no longer, and therefore, as a prince, to whom God hath refused the gift of hearkening to wise counsel, and on whose dealings and projects no blessing hath ever descended, we pray you to give way to other rule and governance of the land, that a remnant may yet be saved to this distracted realm.”
“My lord,” said Mary, “it seems to me that you fling on my unhappy and devoted head those evils, which, with far more justice, I may impute to your own turbulent, wild, and untameable dispositions — the frantic violence with which you, the Magnates of Scotland, enter into feuds against each other, sticking at no cruelty to gratify your wrath, taking deep revenge for the slightest offences, and setting at defiance those wise laws which your ancestors made for stanching of such cruelty, rebelling against the lawful authority, and bearing yourselves as if there were no king in the land; or rather as if each were king in his own premises. And now you throw the blame on me — on me, whose life has been embittered — whose sleep has been broken — whose happiness has been wrecked by your dissensions. Have I not myself been obliged to traverse wilds and mountains, at the head of a few faithful followers, to maintain peace and put down oppression? Have I not worn harness on my person, and carried pistols at my saddle; fain to lay aside the softness of a woman, and the dignity of a Queen, that I might show an example to my followers?”
“We grant, madam,” said Lindesay, “that the affrays occasioned by your misgovernment, may sometimes have startled you in the midst of a masque or galliard; or it may be that such may have interrupted the idolatry of the mass, or the jesuitical counsels of some French ambassador. But the longest and severest journey which your Grace has taken in my memory, was from Hawick to Hermitage Castle; and whether it was for the weal of the state, or for your own honour, rests with your Grace’s conscience.”
The Queen turned to him with inexpressible sweetness of tone and manner, and that engaging look which Heaven had assigned her, as if to show that the choicest arts to win men’s affections may be given in vain. “Lindesay,” she said, “you spoke not to me in this stern tone, and with such scurril taunt, yon fair summer evening, when you and I shot at the butts against the Earl of Mar and Mary Livingstone, and won of them the evening’s collation, in the privy garden of Saint Andrews. The Master of Lindesay was then my friend, and vowed to be my soldier. How I have offended the Lord of Lindesay I know not, unless honours have changed manners.”
Hardhearted as he was, Lindesay seemed struck with this unexpected appeal, but almost instantly replied, “Madam, it is well known that your Grace could in those days make fools of whomever approached you. I pretend not to have been wiser than others. But gayer men and better courtiers soon jostled aside my rude homage, and I think your Grace cannot but remember times, when my awkward attempts to take the manners that pleased you, were the sport of the court-popinjays, the Marys and the Frenchwomen.”
“My lord, I grieve if I have offended you through idle gaiety,” said the Queen; “and can but say it was most unwittingly done. You are fully revenged; for through gaiety,” she said with a sigh, “will I never offend any one more.”
“Our time is wasting, madam,” said Lord Ruthven; “I must pray your decision on this weighty matter which I have submitted to you.”
“What, my lord!” said the Queen, “upon the instant, and without a moment’s time to deliberate?— Can the Council, as they term themselves, expect this of me?”
“Madam,” replied Ruthven, “the Council hold the opinion, that since the fatal term which passed betwixt the night of King Henry’s murder and the day of Carberry-hill, your Grace should have held you prepared for the measure now proposed, as the easiest escape from your numerous dangers and difficulties.”
“Great God!” exclaimed the Queen; “and is it as a boon that you propose to me, what every Christian king ought to regard as a loss of honour equal to the loss of life!— You take from me my crown, my power, my subjects, my wealth, my state. What, in the name of every saint, can you offer, or do you offer, in requital of my compliance?”
“We give you pardon,” answered Ruthven, sternly —“we give you space and means to spend your remaining life in penitence and seclusion — we give you time to make your peace with Heaven, and to receive the pure Gospel, which you have ever rejected and persecuted.”
The Queen turned pale at the menace which this speech, as well as the rough and inflexible tones of the speaker, seemed distinctly to infer —“And if I do not comply with your request so fiercely urged, my lord, what then follows?”
She said this in a voice in which female and natural fear was contending with the feelings of insulted dignity.— There was a pause, as if no one cared to return to the question a distinct answer. At length Ruthven spoke: “There is little need to tell to your Grace, who are well read both in the laws and in the chronicles of the realm, that murder and adultery are crimes for which ere now queens themselves have suffered death.”
“And where, my lord, or how, found you an accusation so horrible, against her who stands before you?” said Queen Mary. “The foul and odious calumnies which have poisoned the general mind of Scotland, and have placed me a helpless prisoner in your hands, are surely no proof of guilt?”
“We need look for no farther proof,” replied the stern Lord Ruthven, “than the shameless marriage betwixt the widow of the murdered and the leader of the band of murderers!— They that joined hands in the fated month of May, had already united hearts and counsel in the deed which preceded that marriage but a few brief weeks.”
“My lord, my lord!” said the Queen, eagerly, “remember well there were more consents than mine to that fatal union, that most unhappy act of a most unhappy life. The evil steps adopted by sovereigns are often the suggestion of bad counsellors; but these counsellors are worse than fiends who tempt and betray, if they themselves are the first to call their unfortunate princes to answer for the consequences of their own advice.— Heard ye never of a bond by the nobles, my lords, recommending that ill-fated union to the ill-fated Mary? Methinks, were it carefully examined, we should see that the names of Morton and of Lindesay, and of Ruthven, may be found in that bond, which pressed me to marry that unhappy man.— Ah! stout and loyal Lord Herries, who never knew guile or dishonour, you bent your noble knee to me in vain, to warn me of my danger, and wert yet the first to draw thy good sword in my cause when I suffered for neglecting thy counsel! Faithful knight and true noble, what a difference betwixt thee and those counsellors of evil, who now threaten my life for having fallen into the snares they spread for me!”
“Madam,” said Ruthven, “we know that you are an orator; and perhaps for that reason the Council has sent hither men, whose converse hath been more with the wars, than with the language of the schools or the cabals of state. We but desire to know if, on assurance of life and honour, ye will demit the rule of this kingdom of Scotland?”
“And what warrant have I,” said the Queen, “that ye will keep treaty with me, if I should barter my kingly estate for seclusion, and leave to weep in secret?”
“Our honour and our word, madam,” answered Ruthven.
“They are too slight and unsolid pledges, my lord,” said the Queen; “add at least a handful of thistle-down to give them weight in the balance.”
“Away, Ruthven,” said Lindesay; “she was ever deaf to counsel, save of slaves and sycophants; let her remain by her refusal, and abide by it!”
“Stay, my lord,” said Sir Robert Melville, “or rather permit me to have but a few minutes’ private audience with her Grace. If my presence with you could avail aught, it must be as a mediator — do not, I conjure you, leave the castle, or break off the conference, until I bring you word how her Grace shall finally stand disposed.”
“We will remain in the hall,” said Lindesay, “for half an hour’s space; but in despising our words and our pledge of honour, she has touched the honour of my name — let her look herself to the course she has to pursue. If the half hour should pass away without her determining to comply with the demands of the nation, her career will be brief enough.”
With little ceremony the two nobles left the apartment, traversed the vestibule, and descended the winding-stairs, the clash of Lindesay’s huge sword being heard as it rang against each step in his descent. George Douglas followed them, after exchanging with Melville a gesture of surprise and sympathy.
As soon as they were gone, the Queen, giving way to grief, fear, and agitation, threw herself into the seat, wrung her hands, and seemed to abandon herself to despair. Her female attendants, weeping themselves, endeavoured yet to pray her to be composed, and Sir Robert Melville, kneeling at her feet, made the same entreaty. After giving way to a passionate burst of sorrow, she at length said to Melville, “Kneel not to me, Melville — mock me not with the homage of the person, when the heart is far away — Why stay you behind with the deposed, the condemned? her who has but few hours perchance to live? You have been favoured as well as the rest; why do you continue the empty show of gratitude and thankfulness any longer than they?”
“Madam,” said Sir Robert Melville, “so help me Heaven at my need, my heart is as true to you as when you were in your highest place.”
“True to me! true to me!” repeated the Queen, with some scorn; “tush, Melville, what signifies the truth which walks hand in hand with my enemies’ falsehood?— thy hand and thy sword have never been so well acquainted that I can trust thee in aught where manhood is required — Oh, Seyton, for thy bold father, who is both wise, true, and valiant!”
Roland Graeme could withstand no longer his earnest desire to offer his services to a princess so distressed and so beautiful. “If one sword,” he said, “madam, can do any thing to back the wisdom of this grave counsellor, or to defend your rightful cause, here is my weapon, and here is my hand ready to draw and use it.” And raising his sword with one hand, he laid the other upon the hilt.
As he thus held up the weapon, Catherine Seyton exclaimed, “Methinks I see a token from my father, madam;” and immediately crossing the apartment, she took Roland Graeme by the skirt of the cloak, and asked him earnestly whence he had that sword.
The page answered with surprise, “Methinks this is no presence in which to jest — Surely, damsel, you yourself best know whence and how I obtained the weapon.”
“Is this a time for folly?” said Catherine Seyton; “unsheathe the sword instantly!”
“If the Queen commands me,” said the youth, looking towards his royal mistress.
“For shame, maiden!” said the Queen; “wouldst thou instigate the poor boy to enter into useless strife with the two most approved soldiers in Scotland?”
“In your Grace’s cause,” replied the page, “I will venture my life upon them!” And as he spoke, he drew his weapon partly from the sheath, and a piece of parchment, rolled around the blade, fell out and dropped on the floor. Catherine Seyton caught it up with eager haste.
“It is my father’s hand-writing,” she said, “and doubtless conveys his best duteous advice to your Majesty; I know that it was prepared to be sent in this weapon, but I expected another messenger.”
“By my faith, fair one,” thought Roland, “and if you knew not that I had such a secret missive about me, I was yet more ignorant.”
The Queen cast her eye upon the scroll, and remained a few minutes wrapped in deep thought. “Sir Robert Melville,” she at length said, “this scroll advises me to submit myself to necessity, and to subscribe the deeds these hard men have brought with them, as one who gives way to the natural fear inspired by the threats of rebels and murderers. You, Sir Robert, are a wise man, and Seyton is both sagacious and brave. Neither, I think, would mislead me in this matter.”
“Madam,” said Melville, “if I have not the strength of body of the Lord Herries or Seyton, I will yield to neither in zeal for your Majesty’s service. I cannot fight for you like these lords, but neither of them is more willing to die for your service.”
“I believe it, my old and faithful counsellor,” said the Queen, “and believe me, Melville, I did thee but a moment’s injustice. Read what my Lord Seyton hath written to us, and give us thy best counsel.”
He glanced over the parchment, and instantly replied,—“Oh! my dear and royal mistress, only treason itself could give you other advice than Lord Seyton has here expressed. He, Herries, Huntly, the English ambassador Throgmorton, and others, your friends, are all alike of opinion, that whatever deeds or instruments you execute within these walls, must lose all force and effect, as extorted from your Grace by duresse, by sufferance of present evil, and fear of men, and harm to ensue on your refusal. Yield, therefore, to the tide, and be assured, that in subscribing what parchments they present to you, you bind yourself to nothing, since your act of signature wants that which alone can make it valid, the free will of the granter.”
“Ay, so says my Lord Seyton,” replied Mary; “yet methinks, for the daughter of so long a line of sovereigns to resign her birthright, because rebels press upon her with threats, argues little of royalty, and will read ill for the fame of Mary in future chronicles. Tush! Sir Robert Melville, the traitors may use black threats and bold words, but they will not dare to put their hands forth on our person.”
“Alas! madam, they have already dared so far and incurred such peril by the lengths which they have gone, that they are but one step from the worst and uttermost.”
“Surely,” said the Queen, her fears again predominating, “Scottish nobles would not lend themselves to assassinate a helpless woman?”
“Bethink you, madam,” he replied, “what horrid spectacles have been seen in our day; and what act is so dark, that some Scottish hand has not been found to dare it? Lord Lindesay, besides his natural sullenness and hardness of temper, is the near kinsman of Henry Darnley, and Ruthven has his own deep and dangerous plans. The Council, besides, speak of proofs by writ and word, of a casket with letters — of I know not what.”
“Ah! good Melville,” answered the Queen, “were I as sure of the even-handed integrity of my judges, as of my own innocence — and yet ——”
“Oh! pause, madam,” said Melville; “even innocence must sometimes for a season stoop to injurious blame. Besides, you are here —”
He looked round, and paused.
“Speak out, Melville,” said the Queen, “never one approached my person who wished to work me evil; and even this poor page, whom I have today seen for the first time in my life, I can trust safely with your communication.”
“Nay, madam,” answered Melville, “in such emergence, and he being the bearer of Lord Seyton’s message, I will venture to say, before him and these fair ladies, whose truth and fidelity I dispute not — I say I will venture to say, that there are other modes besides that of open trial, by which deposed sovereigns often die; and that, as Machiavel saith, there is but one step betwixt a king’s prison and his grave.”
“Oh I were it but swift and easy for the body,” said the unfortunate Princess, “were it but a safe and happy change for the soul, the woman lives not that would take the step so soon as I— But, alas! Melville, when we think of death, a thousand sins, which we have trod as worms beneath our feet, rise up against us as flaming serpents. Most injuriously do they accuse me of aiding Darnley’s death; yet, blessed Lady! I afforded too open occasion for the suspicion — I espoused Bothwell.”
“Think not of that now, madam,” said Melville, “think rather of the immediate mode of saving yourself and son. Comply with the present unreasonable demands, and trust that better times will shortly arrive.”
“Madam,” said Roland Graeme, “if it pleases you that I should do so, I will presently swim through the lake, if they refuse me other conveyance to the shore; I will go to the courts successively of England, France, and Spain, and will show you have subscribed these vile instruments from no stronger impulse than the fear of death, and I will do battle against them that say otherwise.”
The Queen turned her round, and with one of those sweet smiles which, during the era of life’s romance, overpay every risk, held her hand towards Roland, but without “speaking a word. He kneeled reverently, and kissed it, and Melville again resumed his plea.
“Madam,” he said, “time presses, and you must not let those boats, which I see they are even now preparing, put forth on the lake. Here are enough of witnesses — your ladies — this bold youth — myself, when it can serve your cause effectually, for I would not hastily stand committed in this matter — but even without me here is evidence enough to show, that you have yielded to the demands of the Council through force and fear, but from no sincere and unconstrained assent. Their boats are already manned for their return — oh! permit your old servant to recall them.”
“Melville,” said the Queen, “thou art an ancient courtier — when didst thou ever know a Sovereign Prince recall to his presence subjects who had parted from him on such terms as those on which these envoys of the Council left us, and who yet were recalled without submission or apology?— Let it cost me both life and crown, I will not again command them to my presence.”
“Alas! madam, that empty form should make a barrier! If I rightly understand, you are not unwilling to listen to real and advantageous counsel — but your scruple is saved — I hear them returning to ask your final resolution. Oh! take the advice of the noble Seyton, and you may once more command those who now usurp a triumph over you. But hush! I hear them in the vestibule.”
As he concluded speaking, George Douglas opened the door of the apartment, and marshalled in the two noble envoys.
“We come, madam,” said the Lord Ruthven, “to request your answer to the proposal of the Council.”
“Your final answer,” said Lord Lindesay; “for with a refusal you must couple the certainty that you have precipitated your fate, and renounced the last opportunity of making peace with God, and ensuring your longer abode in the world.”
“My lords,” said Mary, with inexpressible grace and dignity, “the evils we cannot resist we must submit to — I will subscribe these parchments with such liberty of choice as my condition permits me. Were I on yonder shore, with a fleet jennet and ten good and loyal knights around me, I would subscribe my sentence of eternal condemnation as soon as the resignation of my throne. But here, in the Castle of Lochleven, with deep water around me — and you, my lords, beside me,— I have no freedom of choice.— Give me the pen, Melville, and bear witness to what I do, and why I do it.”
“It is our hope your Grace will not suppose yourself compelled by any apprehensions from us,” said the Lord Ruthven, “to execute what must be your own voluntary deed.”
The Queen had already stooped towards the table, and placed the parchment before her, with the pen between her fingers, ready for the important act of signature. But when Lord Ruthven had done speaking, she looked up, stopped short, and threw down the pen. “If,” she said, “I am expected to declare I give away my crown of free will, or otherwise than because I am compelled to renounce it by the threat of worse evils to myself and my subjects, I will not put my name to such an untruth — not to gain full possession of England, France, and Scotland!— all once my own, in possession, or by right.”
“Beware, madam,” said Lindesay, and, snatching hold of the Queen’s arm with his own gauntleted hand, he pressed it, in the rudeness of his passion, more closely, perhaps, than he was himself aware of,—“beware how you contend with those who are the stronger, and have the mastery of your fate!”
He held his grasp on her arm, bending his eyes on her with a stern and intimidating look, till both Ruthven and Melville cried shame; and Douglas, who had hitherto remained in a state of apparent apathy, had made a stride from the door, as if to interfere. The rude Baron then quitted his hold, disguising the confusion which he really felt at having indulged his passion to such extent, under a sullen and contemptuous smile.
The Queen immediately began, with an expression of pain, to bare the arm which he had grasped, by drawing up the sleeve of her gown, and it appeared that his gripe had left the purple marks of his iron fingers upon her flesh —“My lord,” she said, “as a knight and gentleman, you might have spared my frail arm so severe a proof that you have the greater strength on your side, and are resolved to use it — But I thank you for it — it is the most decisive token of the terms on which this day’s business is to rest.— I draw you to witness, both lords and ladies,” she said, “showing the marks of the grasp on her arm, “that I subscribe these instruments in obedience to the sign manual of my Lord of Lindesay, which you may see imprinted on mine arm.”27
Lindesay would have spoken, but was restrained by his colleague Ruthven, who said to him, “Peace, my lord. Let the Lady Mary of Scotland ascribe her signature to what she will, it is our business to procure it, and carry it to the Council. Should there be debate hereafter on the manner in which it was adhibited, there will be time enough for it.”
Lindesay was silent accordingly, only muttering within his beard, “I meant not to hurt her; but I think women’s flesh be as tender as new-fallen snow.”
The Queen meanwhile subscribed the rolls of parchment with a hasty indifference, as if they had been matters of slight consequence, or of mere formality. When she had performed this painful task, she arose, and, having curtsied to the lords, was about to withdraw to her chamber. Ruthven and Sir Robert Melville made, the first a formal reverence, the second an obeisance, in which his desire to acknowledge his sympathy was obviously checked by the fear of appearing in the eyes of his colleagues too partial to his former mistress. But Lindesay stood motionless, even when they were preparing to withdraw. At length, as if moved by a sudden impulse, he walked round the table which had hitherto been betwixt them and the Queen, kneeled on one knee, took her hand, kissed it, let it fall, and arose —“Lady,” he said, “thou art a noble creature, even though thou hast abused God’s choicest gifts. I pay that devotion to thy manliness of spirit, which I would not have paid to the power thou hast long undeservedly wielded — I kneel to Mary Stewart, not to the Queen.”
“The Queen and Mary Stewart pity thee alike, Lindesay,” said Mary — “alike thee pity, and they forgive thee. An honoured soldier hadst thou been by a king’s side — leagued with rebels, what art thou but a good blade in the hands of a ruffian?— Farewell, my Lord Ruthven, the smoother but the deeper traitor.— Farewell, Melville — Mayest thou find masters that can understand state policy better, and have the means to reward it more richly, than Mary Stewart.— Farewell, George of Douglas — make your respected grand-dame comprehend that we would be alone for the remainder of the day — God wot, we have need to collect our thoughts.”
All bowed and withdrew; but scarce had they entered the vestibule, ere Ruthven and Lindesay were at variance. “Chide not with me, Ruthven,” Lindesay was heard to say, in answer to something more indistinctly urged by his colleague —“Chide not with me, for I will not brook it! You put the hangman’s office on me in this matter, and even the very hangman hath leave to ask some pardon of those on whom he does his office. I would I had as deep cause to be this lady’s friend as I have to be her enemy — thou shouldst see if I spared limb and life in her quarrel.”
“Thou art a sweet minion,” said Ruthven, “to fight a lady’s quarrel, and all for a brent brow and a tear in the eye! Such toys have been out of thy thoughts this many a year.”
“Do me right, Ruthven,” said Lindesay. “You are like a polished corslet of steel; it shines more gaudily, but it is not a whit softer — nay, it is five times harder than a Glasgow breastplate of hammered iron. Enough. We know each other.”
They descended the stairs, were heard to summon their boats, and the Queen signed to Roland Graeme to retire to the vestibule, and leave her with her female attendants.
Give me a morsel on the greensward rather,
Coarse as you will the cooking — Let the fresh spring
Bubble beside my napkin — and the free birds
Twittering and chirping, hop from bough to bough,
To claim the crumbs I leave for perquisites —
Your prison feasts I like not.
The Woodsman, a drama.
A recess in the vestibule was enlightened by a small window, at which Roland Graeme stationed himself to mark the departure of the lords. He could see their followers mustering on horseback under their respective banners — the western sun glancing on their corslets and steel-caps as they moved to and fro, mounted or dismounted, at intervals. On the narrow space betwixt the castle and the water, the Lords Ruthven and Lindesay were already moving slowly to their boats, accompanied by the Lady of Lochleven, her grandson, and their principal attendants. They took a ceremonious leave of each other, as Roland could discern by their gestures, and the boats put oft from their landing-place; the boatmen stretched to their oars, and they speedily diminished upon the eye of the idle gazer, who had no better employment than to watch their motions. Such seemed also the occupation of the Lady Lochleven and George Douglas, who, returning from the landing-place, looked frequently back to the boats, and at length stopped as if to observe their progress under the window at which Roland Graeme was stationed.— As they gazed on the lake, he could hear the lady distinctly say, “And she has bent her mind to save her life at the expense of her kingdom?”
“Her life, madam!” replied her son; “I know not who would dare to attempt it in the castle of my father. Had I dreamt that it was with such purpose that Lindesay insisted on bringing his followers hither, neither he nor they should have passed the iron gate of Lochleven castle.”
“I speak not of private slaughter, my son, but of open trial, condemnation, and execution; for with such she has been threatened, and to such threats she has given way. Had she not more of the false Gusian blood than of the royal race of Scotland in her veins, she had bidden them defiance to their teeth — But it is all of the same complexion, and meanness is the natural companion of profligacy.— I am discharged, forsooth, from intruding on her gracious presence this evening. Go thou, my son, and render the usual service of the meal to this unqueened Queen.”
“So please you, lady mother,” said Douglas,” I care not greatly to approach her presence.”
“Thou art right, my son; and therefore I trust thy prudence, even because I have noted thy caution. She is like an isle on the ocean, surrounded with shelves and quicksands; its verdure fair and inviting to the eye, but the wreck of many a goodly vessel which hath approached it too rashly. But for thee, my son, I fear nought; and we may not, with our honour, suffer her to eat without the attendance of one of us. She may die by the judgment of Heaven, or the fiend may have power over her in her despair; and then we would be touched in honour to show that in our house, and at our table, she had had all fair play and fitting usage.”
Here Roland was interrupted by a smart tap on the shoulders, reminding him sharply of Adam Woodcock’s adventure of the preceding evening. He turned round, almost expecting to see the page of Saint Michael’s hostelry. He saw, indeed, Catherine Seyton; but she was in female attire, differing, no doubt, a great deal in shape and materials from that which she had worn when they first met, and becoming her birth as the daughter of a great baron, and her rank as the attendant on a princess. “So, fair page,” said she, “eaves-dropping is one of your page-like qualities, I presume.”
“Fair sister,” answered Roland, in the same tone, “if some friends of mine be as well acquainted with the rest of our mystery as they are with the arts of swearing, swaggering, and switching, they need ask no page in Christendom for farther insight into his vocation.”
“Unless that pretty speech infer that you have yourself had the discipline of the switch since we last met, the probability whereof I nothing doubt, I profess, fair page, I am at a loss to conjecture your meaning. But there is no time to debate it now — they come with the evening meal. Be pleased, Sir Page, to do your duty.”
Four servants entered bearing dishes, preceded by the same stern old steward whom Roland had already seen, and followed by George Douglas, already mentioned as the grandson of the Lady of Lochleven, and who, acting as seneschal, represented, upon this occasion, his father, the Lord of the Castle. He entered with his arms folded on his bosom, and his looks bent on the ground. With the assistance of Roland Graeme, a table was suitably covered in the next or middle apartment, on which the domestics placed their burdens with great reverence, the steward and Douglas bending low when they had seen the table properly adorned, as if their royal prisoner had sat at the board in question. The door opened, and Douglas, raising his eyes hastily, cast them again on the earth, when he perceived it was only the Lady Mary Fleming who entered.
“Her Grace,” she said, “will not eat to-night.”
“Let us hope she may be otherwise persuaded,” said Douglas; “meanwhile, madam, please to see our duty performed.”
A servant presented bread and salt on a silver plate, and the old steward carved for Douglas a small morsel in succession from each of the dishes presented, which he tasted, as was then the custom at the tables of princes, to which death was often suspected to find its way in the disguise of food.
“The Queen will not then come forth to-night?” said Douglas.
“She has so determined,” replied the lady.
“Our farther attendance then is unnecessary — we leave you to your supper, fair ladies, and wish you good even.”
He retired slowly as he came, and with the same air of deep dejection, and was followed by the attendants belonging to the castle. The two ladies sate down to their meal, and Roland Graeme, with ready alacrity, prepared to wait upon them. Catherine Seyton whispered to her companion, who replied with the question spoken in a low tone, but looking at the page —“Is he of gentle blood and well nurtured?”
The answer which she received seemed satisfactory, for she said to Roland, “Sit down, young gentleman, and eat with your sisters in captivity.”
“Permit me rather to perform my duty in attending them,” said Roland, anxious to show he was possessed of the high tone of deference prescribed by the rules of chivalry towards the fair sex, and especially to dames and maidens of quality.
“You will find, Sir Page,” said Catherine, “you will have little time allowed you for your meal; waste it not in ceremony, or you may rue your politeness ere tomorrow morning.”
“Your speech is too free, maiden,” said the elder lady; “the modesty of the youth may teach you more fitting fashions towards one whom today you have seen for the first time.”
Catherine Seyton cast down her eyes, but not till she had given a single glance of inexpressible archness towards Roland, whom her more grave companion now addressed in a tone of protection.
“Regard her not, young gentleman — she knows little of the world, save the forms of a country nunnery — take thy place at the board-end, and refresh thyself after thy journey.”
Roland Graeme obeyed willingly, as it was the first food he had that day tasted; for Lindesay and his followers seemed regardless of human wants. Yet, notwithstanding the sharpness of his appetite, a natural gallantry of disposition, the desire of showing himself a well-nurtured gentleman, in all courtesies towards the fair sex, and, for aught I know, the pleasure of assisting Catherine Seyton, kept his attention awake, during the meal, to all those nameless acts of duty and service which gallants of that age were accustomed to render. He carved with neatness and decorum, and selected duly whatever was most delicate to place before the ladies. Ere they could form a wish, he sprung from the table, ready to comply with it — poured wine — tempered it with water — removed the exchanged trenchers, and performed the whole honours of the table, with an air at once of cheerful diligence, profound respect, and graceful promptitude.
When he observed that they had finished eating, he hastened to offer to the elder lady the silver ewer, basin, and napkin, with the ceremony and gravity which he would have used towards Mary herself. He next, with the same decorum, having supplied the basin with fair water, presented it to Catherine Seyton. Apparently, she was determined to disturb his self-possession, if possible; for, while in the act of bathing her hands, she contrived, as it were by accident, to flirt some drops of water upon the face of the assiduous assistant. But if such was her mischievous purpose she was completely disappointed; for Roland Graeme, internally piquing himself on his self-command, neither laughed nor was discomposed; and all that the maiden gained by her frolic was a severe rebuke from her companion, taxing her with mal-address and indecorum. Catherine replied not, but sat pouting, something in the humour of a spoilt child, who watches the opportunity of wreaking upon some one or other its resentment for a deserved reprimand.
The Lady Mary Fleming, in the mean-while, was naturally well pleased with the exact and reverent observance of the page, and said to Catherine, after a favourable glance at Roland Graeme,—“You might well say, Catherine, our companion in captivity was well born and gentle nurtured. I would not make him vain by my praise, but his services enable us to dispense with those which George Douglas condescends not to afford us, save when the Queen is herself in presence.”
“Umph! I think hardly,” answered Catherine. “George Douglas is one of the most handsome gallants in Scotland, and ’tis pleasure to see him even still, when the gloom of Lochleven Castle has shed the same melancholy over him, that it has done over every thing else. When he was at Holyrood who would have said the young sprightly George Douglas would have been contented to play the locksman here in Lochleven, with no gayer amusement than that of turning the key on two or three helpless women?— a strange office for a Knight of the Bleeding Heart — why does he not leave it to his father or his brothers?”
“Perhaps, like us, he has no choice,” answered the Lady Fleming. “But, Catherine, thou hast used thy brief space at court well, to remember what George Douglas was then.”
“I used mine eyes, which I suppose was what I was designed to do, and they were worth using there. When I was at the nunnery, they were very useless appurtenances; and now I am at Lochleven, they are good for nothing, save to look over that eternal work of embroidery.”
“You speak thus, when you have been but a few brief hours amongst us — was this the maiden who would live and die in a dungeon, might she but have permission to wait on her gracious Queen?”
“Nay, if you chide in earnest, my jest is ended,” said Catherine Seyton. “I would not yield in attachment to my poor god-mother, to the gravest dame that ever had wise saws upon her tongue, and a double-starched ruff around her throat — you know I would not, Dame Mary Fleming, and it is putting shame on me to say otherwise.”
“She will challenge the other court lady,” thought Roland Graeme; “she will to a certainty fling down her glove, and if Dame Mary Fleming hath but the soul to lift it, we may have a combat in the lists!”— but the answer of Lady Mary Fleming was such as turns away wrath.
“Thou art a good child,” she said, “my Catherine, and a faithful; but Heaven pity him who shall have one day a creature so beautiful to delight him, and a thing so mischievous to torment him — thou art fit to drive twenty husbands stark mad.”
“Nay,” said Catherine, resuming the full career of her careless good-humour, “he must be half-witted beforehand, that gives me such an opportunity. But I am glad you are not angry with me in sincerity,” casting herself as she spoke into the arms of her friend, and continuing, with a tone of apologetic fondness, while she kissed her on either side of the face; “you know, my dear Fleming, that I have to contend with both my father’s lofty pride, and with my mother’s high spirit — God bless them! they have left me these good qualities, having small portion to give besides, as times go — and so I am wilful and saucy; but let me remain only a week in this castle, and oh, my dear Fleming, my spirit will be as chastised and humble as thine own.”
Dame Mary Fleming’s sense of dignity, and love of form, could not resist this affectionate appeal. She kissed Catherine Seyton in her turn affectionately; while, answering the last part of her speech, she said, “Now Our Lady forbid, dear Catherine, that you should lose aught that is beseeming of what becomes so well your light heart and lively humour. Keep but your sharp wit on this side of madness, and it cannot but be a blessing to us. But let me go, mad wench — I hear her Grace touch her silver call.” And, extricating herself from Catherine’s grasp, she went towards the door of Queen Mary’s apartment, from which was heard the low tone of a silver whistle, which, now only used by the boatswains in the navy, was then, for want of bells, the ordinary mode by which ladies, even of the very highest rank, summoned their domestics. When she had made two or three steps towards the door, however, she turned back, and advancing to the young couple whom she left together, she said, in a very serious though a low tone, “I trust it is impossible that we can, any of us, or in any circumstances, forget, that, few as we are, we form the household of the Queen of Scotland; and that, in her calamity, all boyish mirth and childish jesting can only serve to give a great triumph to her enemies, who have already found their account in objecting to her the lightness of every idle folly, that the young and the gay practised in her court.” So saying, she left the apartment.
Catherine Seyton seemed much struck with this remonstrance — She suffered herself to drop into the seat which she had quitted when she went to embrace Dame Mary Fleming, and for some time rested her brow upon her hands; while Roland Graeme looked at her earnestly, with a mixture of emotions which perhaps he himself could neither have analysed nor explained. As she raised her face slowly from the posture to which a momentary feeling of self-rebuke had depressed it, her eyes encountered those of Roland, and became gradually animated with their usual spirit of malicious drollery, which not unnaturally excited a similar expression in those of the equally volatile page. They sat for the space of two minutes, each looking at the other with great seriousness on their features, and much mirth in their eyes, until at length Catherine was the first to break silence.
“May I pray you, fair sir,” she began, very demurely, “to tell me what you see in my face to arouse looks so extremely sagacious and knowing as those with which it is your worship’s pleasure to honour me? It would seem as if there were some wonderful confidence and intimacy betwixt us, fair sir, if one is to judge from your extremely cunning looks; and so help me, Our Lady, as I never saw you but twice in my life before.”
“And where were those happy occasions,” said Roland, “if I may be bold enough to ask the question?”
“At the nunnery of St. Catherine’s,” said the damsel, “in the first instance; and, in the second, during five minutes of a certain raid or foray which it was your pleasure to make into the lodging of my lord and father, Lord Seyton, from which, to my surprise, as probably to your own, you returned with a token of friendship and favour, instead of broken bones, which were the more probable reward of your intrusion, considering the prompt ire of the house of Seyton. I am deeply mortified,” she added, ironically, “that your recollection should require refreshment on a subject so important; and that my memory should be stronger than yours on such an occasion, is truly humiliating.”
“Your own, memory is not so exactly correct, fair mistress,” answered the page, “seeing you have forgotten meeting the third, in the hostelrie of St. Michael’s, when it pleased you to lay your switch across the face of my comrade, in order, I warrant, to show that, in the house of Seyton, neither the prompt ire of its descendants, nor the use of the doublet and hose, are subject to Salique law, or confined to the use of the males.”
“Fair sir,” answered Catherine, looking at him with great steadiness, and some surprise, “unless your fair wits have forsaken you, I am at a loss what to conjecture of your meaning.”
“By my troth, fair mistress,” answered Roland, “and were I as wise a warlock as Michael Scott, I could scarce riddle the dream you read me. Did I not see you last night in the hostelrie of St. Michael’s?— Did you not bring me this sword, with command not to draw it save at the command of my native and rightful Sovereign? And have I not done as you required me? Or is the sword a piece of lath — my word a bulrush — my memory a dream — and my eyes good for nought — espials which corbies might pick out of my head?”
“And if your eyes serve you not more truly on other occasions than in your vision of St. Michael,” said Catherine, “I know not, the pain apart, that the corbies would do you any great injury in the deprivation — But hark, the bell — hush, for God’s sake, we are interrupted.—”
The damsel was right; for no sooner had the dull toll of the castle bell begun to resound through the vaulted apartment, than the door of the vestibule flew open, and the steward, with his severe countenance, his gold chain, and his white rod, entered the apartment, followed by the same train of domestics who had placed the dinner on the table, and who now, with the same ceremonious formality, began to remove it.
The steward remained motionless as some old picture, while the domestics did their office; and when it was accomplished, every thing removed from the table, and the board itself taken from its tressels and disposed against the wall, he said aloud, without addressing any one in particular, and somewhat in the tone of a herald reading a proclamation, “My noble lady, Dame Margaret Erskine, by marriage Douglas, lets the Lady Mary of Scotland and her attendants to wit, that a servant of the true evangele, her reverend chaplain, will to-night, as usual, expound, lecture, and catechise, according to the forms of the congregation of gospellers.”
“Hark you, my friend, Mr. Dryfesdale,” said Catherine, “I understand this announcement is a nightly form of yours. Now, I pray you to remark, that the Lady Fleming and I— for I trust your insolent invitation concerns us only — have chosen Saint Peter’s pathway to Heaven, so I see no one whom your godly exhortation, catechise, or lecture, can benefit, excepting this poor page, who, being in Satan’s hand as well as yourself, had better worship with you than remain to cumber our better-advised devotions.”
The page was well-nigh giving a round denial to the assertions which this speech implied, when, remembering what had passed betwixt him and the Regent, and seeing Catherine’s finger raised in a monitory fashion, he felt himself, as on former occasions at the Castle of Avenel, obliged to submit to the task of dissimulation, and followed Dryfesdale down to the castle chapel, where he assisted in the devotions of the evening.
The chaplain was named Elias Henderson. He was a man in the prime of life, and possessed of good natural parts, carefully improved by the best education which those times afforded. To these qualities were added a faculty of close and terse reasoning; and, at intervals, a flow of happy illustration and natural eloquence. The religious faith of Roland Graeme, as we have already had opportunity to observe, rested on no secure basis, but was entertained rather in obedience to his grandmother’s behests, and his secret desire to contradict the chaplain of Avenel Castle, than from any fixed or steady reliance which he placed on the Romish creed. His ideas had been of late considerably enlarged by the scenes he had passed through; and feeling that there was shame in not understanding something of those political disputes betwixt the professors of the ancient and the reformed faith, he listened with more attention than it had hitherto been in his nature to yield on such occasions, to an animated discussion of some of the principal points of difference betwixt the churches. So passed away the first day in the Castle of Lochleven; and those which followed it were, for some time, of a very monotonous and uniform tenor.
’Tis a weary life this —
Vaults overhead, and grates and bars around me,
And my sad hours spent with as sad companions,
Whose thoughts are brooding: o’er their own mischances,
Far, far too deeply to take part in mine.
The Woodsman.
The course of life to which Mary and her little retinue were doomed, was in the last degree secluded and lonely, varied only as the weather permitted or rendered impossible the Queen’s usual walk in the garden or on the battlements. The greater part of the morning she wrought with her ladies at those pieces of needlework, many of which still remain proofs of her indefatigable application. At such hours the page was permitted the freedom of the castle and islet; nay, he was sometimes invited to attend George Douglas when he went a-sporting upon the lake, or on its margin; opportunities of diversion which were only clouded by the remarkable melancholy which always seemed to brood on that gentleman’s brow, and to mark his whole demeanour,— a sadness so profound, that Roland never observed him to smile, or to speak any word unconnected with the immediate object of their exercise.
The most pleasant part of Roland’s day, was the occasional space which he was permitted to pass in personal attendance on the Queen and her ladies, together with the regular dinner-time, which he always spent with Dame Mary Fleming and Catharine Seyton. At these periods, he had frequent occasion to admire the lively spirit and inventive imagination of the latter damsel, who was unwearied in her contrivances to amuse her mistress, and to banish, for a time at least, the melancholy which preyed on her bosom. She danced, she sung, she recited tales of ancient and modern times, with that heartfelt exertion of talent, of which the pleasure lies not in the vanity of displaying it to others, but in the enthusiastic consciousness that we possess it ourselves. And yet these high accomplishments were mixed with an air of rusticity and harebrained vivacity, which seemed rather to belong to some village maid, the coquette of the ring around the Maypole, than to the high-bred descendant of an ancient baron. A touch of audacity, altogether short of effrontery, and far less approaching to vulgarity, gave as it were a wildness to all that she did; and Mary, while defending her from some of the occasional censures of her grave companion, compared her to a trained singing-bird escaped from a cage, which practises in all the luxuriance of freedom, and in full possession of the greenwood bough, the airs which it had learned during its earlier captivity.
The moments which the page was permitted to pass in the presence of this fascinating creature, danced so rapidly away, that, brief as they were, they compensated the weary dulness of all the rest of the day. The space of indulgence, however, was always brief, nor were any private interviews betwixt him and Catharine permitted, or even possible. Whether it were some special precaution respecting the Queen’s household, or whether it were her general ideas of propriety, Dame Fleming seemed particularly attentive to prevent the young people from holding any separate correspondence together, and bestowed, for Catharine’s sole benefit in this matter, the full stock of prudence and experience which she had acquired, when mother of the Queen’s maidens of honour, and by which she had gained their hearty hatred. Casual meetings, however, could not be prevented, unless Catherine had been more desirous of shunning, or Roland Graeme less anxious in watching for them. A smile, a gibe, a sarcasm, disarmed of its severity by the arch look with which it was accompanied, was all that time permitted to pass between them on such occasions. But such passing interviews neither afforded means nor opportunity to renew the discussion of the circumstances attending their earlier acquaintance, nor to permit Roland to investigate more accurately the mysterious apparition of the page in the purple velvet cloak at the hostelrie of Saint Michael’s.
The winter months slipped heavily away, and spring was already advanced, when Roland Graeme observed a gradual change in the manners of his fellow-prisoners. Having no business of his own to attend to, and being, like those of his age, education, and degree, sufficiently curious concerning what passed around, he began by degrees to suspect, and finally to be convinced, that there was something in agitation among his companions in captivity, to which they did not desire that he should be privy. Nay, he became almost certain that, by some means unintelligible to him, Queen Mary held correspondence beyond the walls and waters which surrounded her prison-house, and that she nourished some secret hope of deliverance or escape. In the conversations betwixt her and her attendants, at which he was necessarily present, the Queen could not always avoid showing that she was acquainted with the events which were passing abroad in the world, and which he only heard through her report. He observed that she wrote more and worked less than had been her former custom, and that, as if desirous to lull suspicion asleep, she changed her manner towards the Lady Lochleven into one more gracious, and which seemed to express a resigned submission to her lot. “They think I am blind,” he said to himself, “and that I am unfit to be trusted because I am so young, or it may be because I was sent hither by the Regent. Well!— be it so — they may be glad to confide in me in the long run; and Catherine Seyton, for as saucy as she is, may find me as safe a confidant as that sullen Douglas, whom she is always running after. It may be they are angry with me for listening to Master Elias Henderson; but it was their own fault for sending me there, and if the man speaks truth and good sense, and preaches only the word of God, he is as likely to be right as either Pope or Councils.”
It is probable that in this last conjecture, Roland Graeme had hit upon the real cause why the ladies had not intrusted him with their councils. He had of late had several conferences with Henderson on the subject of religion, and had given him to understand that he stood in need of his instructions, although he had not thought there was either prudence or necessity for confessing that hitherto he had held the tenets of the Church of Rome.
Elias Henderson, a keen propagator of the reformed faith, had sought the seclusion of Lochleven Castle, with the express purpose and expectation of making converts from Rome amongst the domestics of the dethroned Queen, and confirming the faith of those who already held the Protestant doctrines. Perhaps his hopes soared a little higher, and he might nourish some expectation of a proselyte more distinguished in the person of the deposed Queen. But the pertinacity with which she and her female attendants refused to see or listen to him, rendered such hope, if he nourished it, altogether abortive.
The opportunity, therefore, of enlarging the religious information of Roland Graeme, and bringing him to a more due sense of his duties to Heaven, was hailed by the good man as a door opened by Providence for the salvation of a sinner. He dreamed not, indeed, that he was converting a Papist, but such was the ignorance which Roland displayed upon some material points of the reformed doctrine, that Master Henderson, while praising his docility to the Lady Lochleven and her grandson, seldom failed to add, that his venerable brother, Henry Warden, must be now decayed in strength and in mind, since he found a catechumen of his flock so ill-grounded in the principles of his belief. For this, indeed, Roland Graeme thought it was unnecessary to assign the true reason, which was his having made it a point of honour to forget all that Henry Warden taught him, as soon as he was no longer compelled to read it over as a lesson acquired by rote. The lessons of his new instructor, if not more impressively delivered, were received by a more willing ear, and a more awakened understanding, and the solitude of Lochleven Castle was favourable to graver thoughts than the page had hitherto entertained. He wavered yet, indeed, as one who was almost persuaded; but his attention to the chaplain’s instructions procured him favour even with the stern old dame herself; and he was once or twice, but under great precaution, permitted to go to the neighbouring village of Kinross, situated on the mainland, to execute some ordinary commission of his unfortunate mistress.
For some time Roland Graeme might be considered as standing neuter betwixt the two parties who inhabited the water-girdled Tower of Lochleven; but, as he rose in the opinion of the Lady of the Castle and her chaplain, he perceived, with great grief, that he lost ground in that of Mary and her female allies.
He came gradually to be sensible that he was regarded as a spy upon their discourse, and that, instead of the ease with which they had formerly conversed in his presence, without suppressing any of the natural feelings of anger, of sorrow, or mirth, which the chance topic of the moment happened to call forth, their talk was now guardedly restricted to the most indifferent subjects, and a studied reserve observed even in their mode of treating these. This obvious want of confidence was accompanied with a correspondent change in their personal demeanor towards the unfortunate page. The Queen, who had at first treated him with marked courtesy, now scarce spoke to him, save to convey some necessary command for her service. The Lady Fleming restricted her notice to the most dry and distant expressions of civility, and Catherine Seyton became bitter in her pleasantries, and shy, cross, and pettish, in any intercourse they had together. What was yet more provoking, he saw, or thought he saw, marks of intelligence betwixt George Douglas and the beautiful Catherine Seyton; and, sharpened by jealousy, he wrought himself almost into a certainty, that the looks which they exchanged, conveyed matters of deep and serious import. “No wonder,” he thought, “if, courted by the son of a proud and powerful baron, she can no longer spare a word or look to the poor fortuneless page.”
In a word, Roland Graeme’s situation became truly disagreeable, and his heart naturally enough rebelled against the injustice of this treatment, which deprived him of the only comfort which he had received for submitting to a confinement in other respects irksome. He accused Queen Mary and Catherine Seyton (for concerning the opinion of Dame Fleming he was indifferent) of inconsistency in being displeased with him on account of the natural consequences of an order of their own. Why did they send him to hear this overpowering preacher? The Abbot Ambrosius, he recollected, understood the weakness of their Popish cause better, when he enjoined him to repeat within his own mind, aves , and credos , and paters , all the while old Henry Warden preached or lectured, that so he might secure himself against lending even a momentary ear to his heretical doctrine. “But I will endure this life no longer,” said he to himself, manfully; “do they suppose I would betray my mistress, because I see cause to doubt of her religion?— that would be a serving, as they say, the devil for God’s sake. I will forth into the world — he that serves fair ladies, may at least expect kind looks and kind words; and I bear not the mind of a gentleman, to submit to cold treatment and suspicion, and a life-long captivity besides. I will speak to George Douglas tomorrow when we go out a-fishing.”
A sleepless night was spent in agitating this magnanimous resolution, and he arose in the morning not perfectly decided in his own mind whether he should abide by it or not. It happened that he was summoned by the Queen at an unusual hour, and just as he was about to go out with George Douglas. He went to attend her commands in, the garden; but as he had his angling-rod in his hand, the circumstance announced his previous intention, and the Queen, turning to the Lady Fleming, said, “Catherine must devise some other amusement for us, ma bonnie amie ; our discreet page has already made his party for the day’s pleasure.”
“I said from the beginning,” answered the Lady Fleming, “that your Grace ought not to rely on being favoured with the company of a youth who has so many Huguenot acquaintances, and has the means of amusing himself far more agreeably than with us.”
“I wish,” said Catherine, her animated features reddening with mortification, “that his friends would sail away with him for good, and bring us in return a page (if such a thing can be found) faithful to his Queen and to his religion.”
“One part of your wishes may be granted, madam,” said Roland Graeme, unable any longer to restrain his sense of the treatment which he received on all sides; and he was about to add, “I heartily wish you a companion in my room, if such can be found, who is capable of enduring women’s caprices without going distracted.” Luckily, he recollected the remorse which he had felt at having given way to the vivacity of his temper upon a similar occasion; and, closing his lips, imprisoned, until it died on his tongue, a reproach so misbecoming the presence of majesty.
“Why do you remain there,” said the Queen, “as if you were rooted to the parterre?”
“I but attend your Grace’s commands,” said the page.
“I have none to give you — Begone, sir.”
As he left the garden to go to the boat, he distinctly heard Mary upbraid one of her attendants in these words:—“You see to what you have exposed us!”
This brief scene at once determined Roland Graeme’s resolution to quit the castle, if it were possible, and to impart his resolution to George Douglas without loss of time. That gentleman, in his usual mood of silence, sate in the stern of the little skiff which they used on such occasions, trimming his fishing-tackle, and, from time to time, indicating by signs to Graeme, who pulled the oars, which way he should row. When they were a furlong or two from the castle, Roland rested on the oars, and addressed his companion somewhat abruptly,—“I have something of importance to say to you, under your pleasure, fair sir.”
The pensive melancholy of Douglas’s countenance at once gave way to the eager, keen, and startled look of one who expects to hear something of deep and alarming import.
“I am wearied to the very death of this Castle of Lochleven,” continued Roland.
“Is that all?” said Douglas; “I know none of its inhabitants who are much better pleased with it.”
“Ay, but I am neither a native of the house, nor a prisoner in it, and so I may reasonably desire to leave it.”
“You might desire to quit it with equal reason,” answered Douglas, “if you were both the one and the other.”
“But,” said Roland Graeme, “I am not only tired of living in Lochleven Castle, but I am determined to quit it.”
“That is a resolution more easily taken than executed,” replied Douglas.
“Not if yourself, sir, and your Lady Mother, choose to consent,” answered the page.
“You mistake the matter, Roland,” said Douglas; “you will find that the consent of two other persons is equally essential — that of the Lady Mary your mistress, and that of my uncle the Regent, who placed you about her person, and who will not think it proper that she should change her attendants so soon.”
“And must I then remain whether I will or no?” demanded the page, somewhat appalled at a view of the subject, which would have occurred sooner to a person of more experience.
“At least,” said George Douglas, “you must will to remain till my uncle consents to dismiss you.”
“Frankly,” said the page, “and speaking to you as a gentleman who is incapable of betraying me, I will confess, that if I thought myself a prisoner here, neither walls nor water should confine me long.”
“Frankly,” said Douglas, “I could not much blame you for the attempt; yet, for all that, my father, or uncle, or the earl, or any of my brothers, or in short any of the king’s lords into whose hands you fell, would in such a case hang you like a dog, or like a sentinel who deserts his post; and I promise you that you will hardly escape them. But row towards Saint Serf’s island — there is a breeze from the west, and we shall have sport, keeping to windward of the isle, where the ripple is strongest. We will speak more of what you have mentioned when we have had an hour’s sport.”
Their fishing was successful, though never did two anglers pursue even that silent and unsocial pleasure with less of verbal intercourse.
When their time was expired, Douglas took the oars in his turn, and by his order Roland Graeme steered the boat, directing her course upon the landing-place at the castle. But he also stopped in the midst of his course, and, looking around him, said to Graeme, “There is a thing which I could mention to thee; but it is so deep a secret, that even here, surrounded as we are by sea and sky, without the possibility of a listener, I cannot prevail on myself to speak it out.”
“Better leave it unspoken, sir,” answered Roland Graeme, “if you doubt the honour of him who alone can hear it.”
“I doubt not your honour,” replied George Douglas; “but you are young, imprudent, and changeful.”
“Young,” said Roland, “I am, and it may be imprudent — but who hath informed you that I am changeful?”
“One that knows you, perhaps, better than you know yourself,” replied Douglas.
“I suppose you mean Catherine Seyton,” said the page, his heart rising as he spoke; “but she is herself fifty times more variable in her humour than the very water which we are floating upon.”
“My young acquaintance,” said Douglas, “I pray you to remember that Catherine Seyton is a lady of blood and birth, and must not be lightly spoken of.”
“Master George of Douglas,” said Graeme, “as that speech seemed to be made under the warrant of something like a threat, I pray you to observe, that I value not the threat at the estimation of a fin of one of these dead trouts; and, moreover, I would have you to know that the champion who undertakes the defence of every lady of blood and birth, whom men accuse of change of faith and of fashion, is like to have enough of work on his hands.”
“Go to,” said the Seneschal, but in a tone of good-humour, “thou art a foolish boy, unfit to deal with any matter more serious than the casting of a net, or the flying of a hawk.”
“If your secret concern Catherine Seyton,” said the page, “I care not for it, and so you may tell her if you will. I wot she can shape you opportunity to speak with her, as she has ere now.”
The flush which passed over Douglas’s face, made the page aware that he had alighted on a truth, when he was, in fact, speaking at random; and the feeling that he had done so, was like striking a dagger into his own heart. His companion, without farther answer, resumed the oars, and pulled lustily till they arrived at the island and the castle. The servants received the produce of their spoil, and the two fishers, turning from each other in silence, went each to his several apartment.
Roland Graeme had spent about an hour in grumbling against Catherine Seyton, the Queen, the Regent, and the whole house of Lochleven, with George Douglas at the head of it, when the time approached that his duty called him to attend the meal of Queen Mary. As he arranged his dress for this purpose, he grudged the trouble, which, on similar occasions, he used, with boyish foppery, to consider as one of the most important duties of his day; and when he went to take his place behind the chair of the Queen, it was with an air of offended dignity, which could not escape her observation, and probably appeared to her ridiculous enough, for she whispered something in French to her ladies, at which the lady Fleming laughed, and Catherine appeared half diverted and half disconcerted. This pleasantry, of which the subject was concealed from him, the unfortunate page received, of course, as a new offence, and called an additional degree of sullen dignity into his mien, which might have exposed him to farther raillery, but that Mary appeared disposed to make allowance for and compassionate his feelings.
With the peculiar tact and delicacy which no woman possessed in greater perfection, she began to soothe by degrees the vexed spirit of her magnanimous attendant. The excellence of the fish which he had taken in his expedition, the high flavour and beautiful red colour of the trouts, which have long given distinction to the lake, led her first to express her thanks to her attendant for so agreeable an addition to her table, especially upon a jour de jeune ; and then brought on inquiries into the place where the fish had been taken, their size, their peculiarities, the times when they were in season, and a comparison between the Lochleven trouts and those which are found in the lakes and rivers of the south of Scotland. The ill humour of Roland Graeme was never of an obstinate character. It rolled away like mist before the sun, and he was easily engaged in a keen and animated dissertation about Lochleven trout, and sea trout, and river trout, and bull trout, and char, which never rise to a fly, and par, which some suppose infant salmon, and herlings , which frequent the Nith, and vendisses , which are only found in the Castle-Loch of Lochmaben; and he was hurrying on with the eager impetuosity and enthusiasm of a young sportsman, when he observed that the smile with which the Queen at first listened to him died languidly away, and that, in spite of her efforts to suppress them, tears rose to her eyes. He stopped suddenly short, and, distressed in his turn, asked, “If he had the misfortune unwittingly to give displeasure to her Grace?”
“No, my poor boy,” replied the Queen; “but as you numbered up the lakes and rivers of my kingdom, imagination cheated me, as it will do, and snatched me from these dreary walls away to the romantic streams of Nithsdale, and the royal towers of Lochmaben.— O land, which my fathers have so long ruled! of the pleasures which you extend so freely, your Queen is now deprived, and the poorest beggar, who may wander free from one landward town to another, would scorn to change fates with Mary of Scotland!”
“Your highness,” said the Lady Fleming, “will do well to withdraw.”
“Come with me, then, Fleming,” said the Queen, “I would not burden hearts so young as these are, with the sight of my sorrows.”
She accompanied these words with a look of melancholy compassion towards Roland and Catherine, who were now left alone together in the apartment.
The page found his situation not a little embarrassing; for, as every reader has experienced who may have chanced to be in such a situation, it is extremely difficult to maintain the full dignity of an offended person in the presence of a beautiful girl, whatever reason we may have for being angry with her. Catherine Seyton, on her part, sate still like a lingering ghost, which, conscious of the awe which its presence imposes, is charitably disposed to give the poor confused mortal whom it visits, time to recover his senses, and comply with the grand rule of demonology by speaking first. But as Roland seemed in no hurry to avail himself of her condescension, she carried it a step farther, and herself opened the conversation.
“I pray you, fair sir, if it may be permitted me to disturb your august reverie by a question so simple,— what may have become of your rosary?”
“It is lost, madam — lost some time since,” said Roland, partly embarrassed and partly indignant.
“And may I ask farther, sir,” said Catherine, “why you have not replaced it with another?— I have half a mind,” she said, taking from her pocket a string of ebony beads adorned with gold, “to bestow one upon yon, to keep for my sake, just to remind you of former acquaintance.”
There was a little tremulous accent in the tone with which these words were delivered, which at once put to flight Roland Graeme’s resentment, and brought him to Catherine’s side; but she instantly resumed the bold and firm accent which was more familiar to her. “I did not bid you,” she said, “come and sit so close by me; for the acquaintance that I spoke of, has been stiff and cold, dead and buried, for this many a day.”
“Now Heaven forbid!” said the page, “it has only slept, and now that you desire it should awake, fair Catherine, believe me that a pledge of your returning favour —”
“Nay, nay,” said Catherine, withholding the rosary, towards which, as he spoke, he extended his hand, “I have changed my mind on better reflection. What should a heretic do with these holy beads, that have been blessed by the father of the church himself?”
Roland winced grievously, for he saw plainly which way the discourse was now likely to tend, and felt that it must at all events be embarrassing. “Nay, but,” he said, “it was as a token of your own regard that you offered them.”
“Ay, fair sir, but that regard attended the faithful subject, the loyal and pious Catholic, the individual who was so solemnly devoted at the same time with myself to the same grand duty; which, you must now understand, was to serve the church and Queen. To such a person, if you ever heard of him, was my regard due, and not to him who associates with heretics, and is about to become a renegado.”
“I should scarce believe, fair mistress,” said Roland, indignantly, “that the vane of your favour turned only to a Catholic wind, considering that it points so plainly to George Douglas, who, I think, is both kingsman and Protestant.”
“Think better of George Douglas,” said Catherine, “than to believe —” and then checking herself, as if she had spoken too much, she went on, “I assure you, fair Master Roland, that all who wish you well are sorry for you.”
“Their number is very few, I believe,” answered Roland, “and their sorrow, if they feel any, not deeper than ten minutes’ time will cure.”
“They are more numerous, and think more deeply concerning you, than you seem to be aware,” answered Catherine. “But perhaps they think wrong — You are the best judge in your own affairs; and if you prefer gold and church-lands to honour and loyalty, and the faith of your fathers, why should you be hampered in conscience more than others?”
“May Heaven bear witness for me,” said Roland, “that if I entertain any difference of opinion — that is, if I nourish any doubts in point of religion, they have been adopted on the conviction of my own mind, and the suggestion of my own conscience!”
“Ay, ay, your conscience — your conscience!” repeated she with satiric emphasis; “your conscience is the scape-goat; I warrant it an able one — it will bear the burden of one of the best manors of the Abbey of Saint Mary of Kennaquhair”, lately forfeited to our noble Lord the King, by the Abbot and community thereof, for the high crime of fidelity to their religious vows, and now to be granted by the High and Mighty Traitor, and so forth, James Earl of Murray, to the good squire of dames Roland Graeme, for his loyal and faithful service as under-espial, and deputy-turnkey, for securing the person of his lawful sovereign, Queen Mary.”
“You misconstrue me cruelly,” said the page; “yes, Catherine, most cruelly — God knows I would protect this poor lady at the risk of my life, or with my life; but what can I do — what can any one do for her?”
“Much may be done — enough may be done — all may be done — if men will be but true and honourable, as Scottish men were in the days of Bruce and Wallace. Oh, Roland, from what an enterprise you are now withdrawing your heart and hand, through mere fickleness and coldness of spirit!”
“How can I withdraw,” said Roland, “from an enterprise which has never been communicated to me?— Has the Queen, or have you, or has any one, communicated with me upon any thing for her service which I have refused? Or have you not, all of you, held me at such distance from your counsels, as if I were the most faithless spy since the days of Ganelon?” 28
“And who,” said Catherine Seyton, “would trust the sworn friend, and pupil, and companion, of the heretic preacher Henderson? ay — a proper tutor you have chosen, instead of the excellent Ambrosius, who is now turned out of house and homestead, if indeed he is not languishing in a dungeon, for withstanding the tyranny of Morton, to whose brother the temporalities of that noble house of God have been gifted away by the Regent.”
“Is it possible?” said the page; “and is the excellent Father Ambrose in such distress?”
“He would account the news of your falling away from the faith of your fathers,” answered Catherine, “a worse mishap than aught that tyranny can inflict on himself.”
“But why,” said Roland, very much moved, “why should you suppose that — that — that it is with me as you say?”
“Do you yourself deny it?” replied Catherine; “do you not admit that you have drunk the poison which you should have dashed from your lips? — Do you deny that it now ferments in your veins, if it has not altogether corrupted the springs of life?— Do you deny that you have your doubts, as you proudly term them, respecting what popes and councils have declared it unlawful to doubt of?— Is not your faith wavering, if not overthrown?— Does not the heretic preacher boast his conquest?— Does not the heretic woman of this prison-house hold up thy example to others?— Do not the Queen and the Lady Fleming believe in thy falling away?— And is there any except one — yes, I will speak it out, and think as lightly as you please of my good-will — is there one except myself that holds even a lingering hope that you may yet prove what we once all believed of you?”
“I know not,” said our poor page, much embarrassed by the view which was thus presented to him of the conduct he was expected to pursue, and by a person in whom he was not the less interested that, though long a resident in Lochleven Castle, with no object so likely to attract his undivided attention, no lengthened interview had taken place since they had first met,—“I know not what you expect of me, or fear from me. I was sent hither to attend Queen Mary, and to her I acknowledge the duty of a servant through life and death. If any one had expected service of another kind, I was not the party to render it. I neither avow nor disclaim the doctrines of the reformed church.— Will you have the truth?— It seems to me that the profligacy of the Catholic clergy has brought this judgment on their own heads, and, for aught I know, it may be for their reformation. But, for betraying this unhappy Queen, God knows I am guiltless of the thought. Did I even believe worse of her, than as her servant I wish — as her subject I dare to do — I would not betray her — far from it — I would aid her in aught which could tend to a fair trial of her cause.”
“Enough! enough!” answered Catherine, clasping her hands together; “then thou wilt not desert us if any means are presented, by which, placing our Royal Mistress at freedom, this case may be honestly tried betwixt her and her rebellious subjects?”
“Nay — but, fair Catherine,” replied the page, “hear but what the Lord of Murray said when he sent me hither.”—
“Hear but what the devil said,” replied the maiden, “rather than what a false subject, a false brother, a false counsellor, a false friend, said! A man raised from a petty pensioner on the crown’s bounty, to be the counsellor of majesty, and the prime distributor of the bounties of the state;— one with whom rank, fortune, title, consequence, and power, all grew up like a mushroom, by the mere warm good-will of the sister, whom, in requital, he hath mewed up in this place of melancholy seclusion — whom, in farther requital, he has deposed, and whom, if he dared, he would murder!”
“I think not so ill of the Earl of Murray,” said Roland Graeme; “and sooth to speak,” he added, with a smile, “it would require some bribe to make me embrace, with firm and desperate resolution, either one side or the other.”
“Nay, if that is all,” replied Catherine Seyton, in a tone of enthusiasm, “you shall be guerdoned with prayers from oppressed subjects — from dispossessed clergy — from insulted nobles — with immortal praise by future ages — with eager gratitude by the present — with fame on earth, and with felicity in heaven! Your country will thank you — your Queen will be debtor to you — you will achieve at once the highest from the lowest degree in chivalry — all men will honour, all women will love you — and I, sworn with you so early to the accomplishment of Queen Mary’s freedom, will — yes, I will — love you better than — ever sister loved brother!” “Say on — say on!” whispered Roland, kneeling on one knee, and taking her hand, which, in the warmth of exhortation, Catherine held towards him.
“Nay,” said she, pausing, “I have already said too much — far too much, if I prevail not with you — far too little if I do. But I prevail,” she continued, seeing that the countenance of the youth she addressed returned the enthusiasm of her own —“I prevail; or rather the good cause prevails through its own strength — thus I devote thee to it.” And as she spoke she approached her finger to the brow of the astonished youth, and, without touching it, signed the cross over his forehead — stooped her face towards him, and seemed to kiss the empty space in which she had traced the symbol; then starting up, and extricating herself from his grasp, darted into the Queen’s apartment.
Roland Graeme remained as the enthusiastic maiden had left him, kneeling on one knee, with breath withheld, and with eyes fixed upon the space which the fairy form of Catherine Seyton had so lately occupied. If his thoughts were not of unmixed delight, they at least partook of that thrilling and intoxicating, though mingled sense of pain and pleasure, the most over-powering which life offers in its blended cup. He rose and retired slowly; and although the chaplain Mr. Henderson preached on that evening his best sermon against the errors of Popery, I would not engage that he was followed accurately through the train of his reasoning by the young proselyte, with a view to whose especial benefit he had handled the subject.
And when love’s torch hath set the heart in flame,
Comes Seignor Reason, with his saws and cautions,
Giving such aid as the old gray-beard Sexton,
Who from the church-vault drags the crazy engine,
To ply its dribbling ineffectual streamlet
Against a conflagration.
Old play.
In a musing mood, Roland Graeme upon the ensuing morning betook himself to the battlements of the Castle, as a spot where he might indulge the course of his thick-coming fancies with least chance of interruption. But his place of retirement was in the present case ill chosen, for he was presently joined by Mr. Elias Henderson.
“I sought you, young man,” said the preacher, “having to speak of something which concerns you nearly.”
The page had no pretence for avoiding the conference which the chaplain thus offered, though he felt that it might prove an embarrassing one.
“In teaching thee, as far as my feeble knowledge hath permitted, thy duty towards God,” said the chaplain, “there are particulars of your duty towards man, upon which I was unwilling long or much to insist. You are here in the service of a lady, honourable as touching her birth, deserving of all compassion as respects her misfortunes, and garnished with even but too many of those outward qualities which win men’s regard and affection. Have you ever considered your regard to this Lady Mary of Scotland, in its true light and bearing?”
“I trust, reverend sir,” replied Roland Graeme, “that I am well aware of the duties a servant in my condition owes to his royal mistress, especially in her lowly and distressed condition.”
“True,” answered the preacher; “but it is even that honest feeling which may, in the Lady Mary’s case, carry thee into great crime and treachery.”
“How so, reverend sir?” replied the page; “I profess I understand you not.”
“I speak to you not of the crimes of this ill-advised lady,” said the preacher; “they are not subjects for the ears of her sworn servant. But it is enough to say, that this unhappy person hath rejected more offers of grace, and more hopes of glory, than ever were held out to earthly princes; and that she is now, her day of favour being passed, sequestered in this lonely castle, for the common weal of the people of Scotland, and it may be for the benefit of her own soul.”
“Reverend sir,” said Roland, somewhat impatiently, “I am but too well aware that my unfortunate mistress is imprisoned, since I have the misfortune to share in her restraint myself — of which, to speak sooth, I am heartily weary.”
“It is even of that which I am about to speak,” said the chaplain, mildly; “but, first, my good Roland, look forth on the pleasant prospect of yonder cultivated plain. You see, where the smoke arises, yonder village standing half hidden by the trees, and you know it to be the dwelling-place of peace and industry. From space to space, each by the side of its own stream, you see the gray towers of barons, with cottages interspersed; and you know that they also, with their household, are now living in unity; the lance hung upon the wall, and the sword resting in its sheath. You see, too, more than one fair church, where the pure waters of life are offered to the thirsty, and where the hungry are refreshed with spiritual food.— What would he deserve, who should bring fire and slaughter into so fair and happy a scene — who should bare the swords of the gentry and turn them against each other — who should give tower and cottage to the flames, and slake the embers with the blood of the indwellers?— What would he deserve who should lift up again that ancient Dagon of Superstition, whom the worthies of the time have beaten down, and who should once more make the churches of God the high places of Baal?”
“You have limned a frightful picture, reverend sir,” said Roland Graeme; “yet I guess not whom you would charge with the purpose of effecting a change so horrible.”
“God forbid,” replied the preacher, “that I should say to thee, Thou art the man.— Yet beware, Roland Graeme, that thou, in serving thy mistress, hold fast the still higher service which thou owest to the peace of thy country, and the prosperity of her inhabitants; else, Roland Graeme, thou mayest be the very man upon whose head will fall the curses and assured punishment due to such work. If thou art won by the song of these sirens to aid that unhappy lady’s escape from this place of penitence and security, it is over with the peace of Scotland’s cottages, and with the prosperity of her palaces — and the babe unborn shall curse the name of the man who gave inlet to the disorder which will follow the war betwixt the mother and the son.”
“I know of no such plan, reverend sir,” answered the page, “and therefore can aid none such.— My duty towards the Queen has been simply that of an attendant; it is a task, of which, at times, I would willingly have been freed; nevertheless —”
“It is to prepare thee for the enjoyment of something more of liberty,” said the preacher, “that I have endeavoured to impress upon you the deep responsibility under which your office must be discharged. George Douglas hath told the Lady Lochleven that you are weary of this service, and my intercession hath partly determined her good ladyship, that, as your discharge cannot be granted, you shall, instead, be employed in certain commissions on the mainland, which have hitherto been discharged by other persons of confidence. Wherefore, come with me to the lady, for even today such duty will be imposed on you.”
“I trust you will hold me excused, reverend sir,” said the page, who felt that an increase of confidence on the part of the Lady of the Castle and her family would render his situation in a moral view doubly embarrassing, “one cannot serve two masters — and I much fear that my mistress will not hold me excused for taking employment under another.”
“Fear not that,” said the preacher; “her consent shall be asked and obtained. I fear she will yield it but too easily, as hoping to avail herself of your agency to maintain correspondence with her friends, as those falsely call themselves, who would make her name the watchword for civil war.”
“And thus,” said the page, “I shall be exposed to suspicion on all sides; for my mistress will consider me as a spy placed on her by her enemies, seeing me so far trusted by them; and the Lady Lochleven will never cease to suspect the possibility of my betraying her, because circumstances put it into my power to do so — I would rather remain as I am.”
There followed a pause of one or two minutes, during which Henderson looked steadily in Roland’s countenance, as if desirous to ascertain whether there was not more in the answer than the precise words seemed to imply. He failed in this point, however; for Roland, bred a page from childhood, knew how to assume a sullen pettish cast of countenance, well enough calculated to hide all internal emotions.
“I understand thee not, Roland,” said the preacher, “or rather thou thinkest on this matter more deeply than I apprehended to be in thy nature. Methought, the delight of going on shore with thy bow, or thy gun, or thy angling-rod, would have borne away all other feelings.”
“And so it would,” replied Roland, who perceived the danger of suffering Henderson’s half-raised suspicions to become fully awake,—“I would have thought of nothing but the gun and the oar, and the wild water-fowl that tempt me by sailing among the sedges yonder so far out of flight-shot, had you not spoken of my going on shore as what was to occasion burning of town and tower, the downfall of the evangele, and the upsetting of the mass.”
“Follow me, then,” said Henderson, “and we will seek the Lady Lochleven.”
They found her at breakfast with her grandson George Douglas.—“Peace be with your ladyship!” said the preacher, bowing to his patroness; “Roland Graeme awaits your order.”
“Young man,” said the lady, “our chaplain hath warranted for thy fidelity, and we are determined to give you certain errands to do for us in our town of Kinross.”
“Not by my advice,” said Douglas, coldly.
“I said not that it was,” answered the lady, something sharply. “The mother of thy father may, I should think, be old enough to judge for herself in a matter so simple.— Thou wilt take the skiff, Roland, and two of my people, whom Dryfesdale or Randal will order out, and fetch off certain stuff of plate and hangings, which should last night be lodged at Kinross by the wains from Edinburgh.”
“And give this packet,” said George Douglas, “to a servant of ours, whom you will find in waiting there.— It is the report to my father,” he added, looking towards his grandmother, who acquiesced by bending her head.
“I have already mentioned to Master Henderson,” said Roland Graeme, “that as my duty requires my attendance on the Queen, her Grace’s permission for my journey ought to be obtained before I can undertake your commission.”
“Look to it, my son,” said the old lady, “the scruple of the youth is honourable.”
“Craving your pardon, madam, I have no wish to force myself on her presence thus early,” said. Douglas, in an indifferent tone; “it might displease her, and were no way agreeable to me.”
“And I,” said the Lady Lochleven, “although her temper hath been more gentle of late, have no will to undergo, without necessity, the rancour of her wit.”
“Under your permission, madam,” said the chaplain, “I will myself render your request to the Queen. During my long residence in this house she hath not deigned to see me in private, or to hear my doctrine; yet so may Heaven prosper my labours, as love for her soul, and desire to bring her into the right path, was my chief desire for coming hither.”
“Take care, Master Henderson,” said Douglas, in a tone which seemed almost sarcastic, “lest you rush hastily on an adventure to which you have no vocation — you are learned, and know the adage, Ne accesseris in consilium nisi vocatus .— Who hath required this at your hand?”
“The Master to whose service I am called,” answered the preacher, looking upward,—“He who hath commanded me to be earnest in season and out of season.”
“Your acquaintance hath not been much, I think, with courts or princes,” continued the young Esquire.
“No, sir,” replied Henderson, “but like my Master Knox, I see nothing frightful in the fair face of a pretty lady.”
“My son,” said the Lady of Lochleven, “quench not the good man’s zeal — let him do the errand to this unhappy Princess.”
“With more willingness than I would do it myself,” said George Douglas. Yet something in his manner appeared to contradict his words.
The minister went accordingly, followed by Roland Graeme, and, demanding an audience of the imprisoned Princess, was admitted. He found her with her ladies engaged in the daily task of embroidery. The Queen received him with that courtesy, which, in ordinary cases, she used towards all who approached her, and the clergyman, in opening his commission, was obviously somewhat more embarrassed than he had expected to be.—“The good Lady of Lochleven — may it please your Grace —”
He made a short pause, during which Mary said, with a smile, “My Grace would, in truth, be well pleased, were the Lady Lochleven our good lady — But go on — what is the will of the good Lady of Lochleven?”
“She desires, madam,” said the chaplain, “that your Grace will permit this young gentleman, your page, Roland Graeme, to pass to Kinross, to look after some household stuff and hangings, sent hither for the better furnishing your Grace’s apartments.”
“The Lady of Lochleven,” said the Queen, “uses needless ceremony, in requesting our permission for that which stands within her own pleasure. We well know that this young gentleman’s attendance on us had not been so long permitted, were he not thought to be more at the command of that good lady than at ours.— But we cheerfully yield consent that he shall go on her errand — with our will we would doom no living creature to the captivity which we ourselves must suffer.”
“Ay, madam,” answered the preacher, “and it is doubtless natural for humanity to quarrel with its prison-house. Yet there have been those, who have found, that time spent in the house of temporal captivity may be so employed as to redeem us from spiritual slavery.”
“I apprehend your meaning, sir,” replied the Queen, “but I have heard your apostle — I have heard Master John Knox; and were I to be perverted, I would willingly resign to the ablest and most powerful of heresiarchs, the poor honour he might acquire by overcoming my faith and my hope.”
“Madam,” said the preacher, “it is not to the talents or skill of the husbandman that God gives the increase — the words which were offered in vain by him whom you justly call our apostle, during the bustle and gaiety of a court, may yet find better acceptance during the leisure for reflection which this place affords. God knows, lady, that I speak in singleness of heart, as one who would as soon compare himself to the immortal angels, as to the holy man whom you have named. Yet would you but condescend to apply to their noblest use, those talents and that learning which all allow you to be possessed of — would you afford us but the slightest hope that you would hear and regard what can be urged against the blinded superstition and idolatry in which you are brought up, sure am I, that the most powerfully-gifted of my brethren, that even John Knox himself, would hasten hither, and account the rescue of your single soul from the nets of Romish error —”
“I am obliged to you and to them for their charity,” said Mary; “but as I have at present but one presence-chamber, I would reluctantly see it converted into a Huguenot synod.”
“At least, madam, be not thus obstinately blinded in your errors! Hear one who has hungered and thirsted, watched and prayed, to undertake the good work of your conversion, and who would be content to die the instant that a work so advantageous for yourself and so beneficial to Scotland were accomplished — Yes, lady, could I but shake the remaining pillar of the heathen temple in this land — and that permit me to term your faith in the delusions of Rome — I could be content to die overwhelmed in the ruins!”
“I will not insult your zeal, sir,” replied Mary, “by saying you are more likely to make sport for the Philistines than to overwhelm them — your charity claims my thanks, for it is warmly expressed and may be truly purposed — But believe as well of me as I am willing to do of you, and think that I may be as anxious to recall you to the ancient and only road, as you are to teach me your new by-ways to paradise.”
“Then, madam, if such be your generous purpose,” said Henderson, eagerly, “— what hinders that we should dedicate some part of that time, unhappily now too much at your Grace’s disposal, to discuss a question so weighty? You, by report of all men, are both learned and witty; and I, though without such advantages, am strong in my cause as in a tower of defence. Why should we not spend some space in endeavouring to discover which of us hath the wrong side in this important matter?”
“Nay,” said Queen Mary, “I never alleged my force was strong enough to accept of a combat en champ clos , with a scholar and a polemic. Besides, the match is not equal. You, sir, might retire when you felt the battle go against you, while I am tied to the stake, and have no permission to say the debate wearies me.— I would be alone.”
She curtsied low to him as she uttered these words; and Henderson, whose zeal was indeed ardent, but did not extend to the neglect of delicacy, bowed in return, and prepared to withdraw.
“I would,” he said, “that my earnest wish, my most zealous prayer, could procure to your Grace any blessing or comfort, but especially that in which alone blessing or comfort is, as easily as the slightest intimation of your wish will remove me from your presence.”
He was in the act of departing, when Mary said to him with much courtesy, “Do me no injury in your thoughts, good sir; it may be, that if my time here be protracted longer — as surely I hope it will not, trusting that either my rebel subjects will repent of their disloyalty, or that my faithful lieges will obtain the upper hand — but if my time be here protracted, it may be I shall have no displeasure in hearing one who seems so reasonable and compassionate as yourself, and I may hazard your contempt by endeavouring to recollect and repeat the reasons which schoolmen and councils give for the faith that is in me,— although I fear that, God help me! my Latin has deserted me with my other possessions. This must, however, be for another day. Meanwhile, sir, let the Lady of Lochleven employ my page as she lists — I will not afford suspicion by speaking a word to him before he goes.— Roland Graeme, my friend, lose not an opportunity of amusing thyself — dance, sing, run, and leap — all may be done merrily on the mainland; but he must have more than quicksilver in his veins who would frolic here.”
“Alas! madam,” said the preacher, “to what is it you exhort the youth, while time passes, and eternity summons? Can our salvation be insured by idle mirth, or our good work wrought out without fear and trembling?”
“I cannot fear or tremble,” replied the Queen; “to Mary Stewart such emotions are unknown. But if weeping and sorrow on my part will atone for the boy’s enjoying an hour of boyish pleasure, be assured the penance shall be duly paid.”
“Nay, but, gracious lady,” said the preacher, “in this you greatly err;— our tears and our sorrows are all too little for our own faults and follies, nor can we transfer them, as your church falsely teaches, to the benefit of others.”
“May I pray you, sir,” answered the Queen, “with as little offence as such a prayer may import, to transfer yourself elsewhere? We are sick at heart, and may not now be disposed with farther controversy — and thou, Roland, take this little purse;” (then, turning to the divine, she said, showing its contents,) “Look, reverend sir,— it contains only these two or three gold testoons, a coin which, though bearing my own poor features, I have ever found more active against me than on my side, just as my subjects take arms against me, with my own name for their summons and signal.— Take this purse, that thou mayest want no means of amusement. Fail not — fail not to bring met back news from Kinross; only let it be such as, without suspicion or offence, may be told in the presence of this reverend gentleman, or of the good Lady Lochleven herself.”
The last hint was too irresistible to be withstood; and Henderson withdrew, half mortified, half pleased, with his reception; for Mary, from long habit, and the address which was natural to her, had learned, in an extraordinary degree, the art of evading discourse which was disagreeable to her feelings or prejudices, without affronting those by whom it was proffered.
Roland Graeme retired with the chaplain, at a signal from his lady; but it did not escape him, that as he left the room, stepping backwards, and making the deep obeisance due to royalty, Catherine Seyton held up her slender forefinger, with a gesture which he alone could witness, and which seemed to say, “Remember what has passed betwixt us.”
The young page had now his last charge from the Lady of Lochleven. “There are revels,” she said, “this day at the village — my son’s authority is, as yet, unable to prevent these continued workings of the ancient leaven of folly which the Romish priests have kneaded into the very souls of the Scottish peasantry. I do not command thee to abstain from them — that would be only to lay a snare for thy folly, or to teach thee falsehood; but enjoy these vanities with moderation, and mark them as something thou must soon learn to renounce and contemn. Our chamberlain at Kinross, Luke Lundin,— Doctor, as he foolishly calleth himself,— will acquaint thee what is to be done in the matter about which thou goest. Remember thou art trusted — show thyself, therefore, worthy of trust.”
When we recollect that Roland Graeme was not yet nineteen, and that he had spent his whole life in the solitary Castle of Avenel, excepting the few hours he had passed in Edinburgh, and his late residence at Lochleven, (the latter period having very little served to enlarge his acquaintance with the gay world.) we cannot wonder that his heart beat, high with hope and curiosity, at the prospect of partaking the sport even of a country wake. He hastened to his little cabin, and turned over the wardrobe with which (in every respect becoming his station) he had been supplied from Edinburgh, probably by order of the Earl of Murray. By the Queen’s command he had hitherto waited upon her in mourning, or at least in sad-coloured raiment. Her condition, she said, admitted of nothing more gay. But now he selected the gayest dress his wardrobe afforded; composed of scarlet slashed with black satin, the royal colours of Scotland — combed his long curled hair — disposed his chain and medal round a beaver hat of the newest block; and with the gay falchion which had reached him in so mysterious a manner, hung by his side in an embroidered belt, his apparel, added to his natural frank mien and handsome figure, formed a most commendable and pleasing specimen of the young gallant of the period. He sought to make his parting reverence to the Queen and her ladies, but old Dryfesdale hurried him to the boat.
“We will have no private audiences,” he said, “my master; since you are to be trusted with somewhat, we will try at least to save thee from the temptation of opportunity. God help thee, child,” he added, with a glance of contempt at his gay clothes, “an the bear-ward be yonder from Saint Andrews, have a care thou go not near him.”
“And wherefore, I pray you?” said Roland.
“Lest he take thee for one of his runaway jackanapes,” answered the steward, smiling sourly.
“I wear not my clothes at thy cost,” said Roland indignantly.
“Nor at thine own either, my son” replied the steward, “else would thy garb more nearly resemble thy merit and thy station.”
Roland Graeme suppressed with difficulty the repartee which arose to his lips, and, wrapping his scarlet mantle around him, threw himself into the boat, which two rowers, themselves urged by curiosity to see the revels, pulled stoutly towards the west end of the lake. As they put off, Roland thought he could discover the face of Catherine Seyton, though carefully withdrawn from observation, peeping from a loophole to view his departure. He pulled off his hat, and held it up as a token that he saw and wished her adieu. A white kerchief waved for a second across the window, and for the rest of the little voyage, the thoughts of Catherine Seyton disputed ground in his breast with the expectations excited by the approaching revel. As they drew nearer and nearer the shore, the sounds of mirth and music, the laugh, the halloo, and the shout, came thicker upon the ear, and in a trice the boat was moored, and Roland Graeme hastened in quest of the chamberlain, that, being informed what time he had at his own disposal, he might lay it out to the best advantage.
Room for the master of the ring, ye swains,
Divide your crowded ranks — before him march
The rural minstrelsy, the rattling drum,
The clamorous war-pipe, and far-echoing horn.
Rural Sports .— Somerville.
No long space intervened ere Roland Graeme was able to discover among the crowd of revellers, who gambolled upon the open space which extends betwixt the village and the lake, a person of so great importance as Dr. Luke Lundin, upon whom devolved officially the charge of representing the lord of the land, and who was attended for support of his authority by a piper, a drummer, and four sturdy clowns armed with rusty halberds, garnished with party-coloured ribbons; myrmidons who, early as the day was, had already broken more than one head in the awful names of the Laird of Lochleven and his chamberlain.29
As soon as this dignitary was informed that the castle skiff had arrived, with a gallant, dressed like a lord’s son at the least, who desired presently to speak to him, he adjusted his ruff and his black coat, turned round his girdle till the garnished hilt of his long rapier became visible, and walked with due solemnity towards the beach. Solemn indeed he was entitled to be, even on less important occasions, for he had been bred to the venerable study of medicine, as those acquainted with the science very soon discovered from the aphorisms which ornamented his discourse. His success had not been equal to his pretensions; but as he was a native of the neighbouring kingdom of Fife, and bore distant relation to, or dependence upon, the ancient family of Lundin of that Ilk, who were bound in close friendship with the house of Lochleven, he had, through their interest, got planted comfortably enough in his present station upon the banks of that beautiful lake. The profits of his chamberlainship being moderate, especially in those unsettled times, he had eked it out a little with some practice in his original profession; and it was said that the inhabitants of the village and barony of Kinross were not more effectually thirled (which may be translated enthralled) to the baron’s mill, than they were to the medical monopoly of the chamberlain. Wo betide the family of the rich boor, who presumed to depart this life without a passport from Dr. Luke Lundin! for if his representatives had aught to settle with the baron, as it seldom happened otherwise, they were sure to find a cold friend in the chamberlain. He was considerate enough, however, gratuitously to help the poor out of their ailments, and sometimes out of all their other distresses at the same time.
Formal, in a double proportion, both as a physician and as a person in office, and proud of the scraps of learning which rendered his language almost universally unintelligible, Dr. Luke Lundin approached the beach, and hailed the page as he advanced towards him.—“The freshness of the morning upon you, fair sir — You are sent, I warrant me, to see if we observe here the regimen which her good ladyship hath prescribed, for eschewing all superstitious observances and idle anilities in these our revels. I am aware that her good ladyship would willingly have altogether abolished and abrogated them — But as I had the honour to quote to her from the works of the learned Hercules of Saxony, omnis curatio est vel canonica vel coacta ,— that is, fair sir, (for silk and velvet have seldom their Latin ad unguem ,) every cure must be wrought either by art and induction of rule, or by constraint; and the wise physician chooseth the former. Which argument her ladyship being pleased to allow well of, I have made it my business so to blend instruction and caution with delight — fiat mixtio , as we say — that I can answer that the vulgar mind will be defecated and purged of anile and Popish fooleries by the medicament adhibited, so that the primae vice being cleansed, Master Henderson, or any other able pastor, may at will throw in tonics, and effectuate a perfect moral cure, tuto, cito, jucunde .”
“I have no charge, Dr. Lundin,” replied the page —
“Call me not doctor,” said the chamberlain, “since I have laid aside my furred gown and bonnet, and retired me into this temporality of chamberlainship.”
“Oh, sir,” said the page, who was no stranger by report to the character of this original, “the cowl makes not the monk, neither the cord the friar — we have all heard of the cures wrought by Dr. Lundin.”
“Toys, young sir — trifles,” answered the leech with grave disclamation of superior skill; “the hit-or-miss practice of a poor retired gentleman, in a short cloak and doublet — Marry, Heaven sent its blessing — and this I must say, better fashioned mediciners have brought fewer patients through — lunga roba corta scienzia , saith the Italian — ha, fair sir, you have the language?”
Roland Graeme did not think it necessary to expound to this learned Theban whether he understood him or no; but, leaving that matter uncertain, he told him he came in quest of certain packages which should have arrived at Kinross, and been placed under the chamberlain’s charge the evening before.
“Body o’ me!” said Doctor Lundin, “I fear our common carrier, John Auchtermuchty, hath met with some mischance, that he came not up last night with his wains — bad land this to journey in, my master; and the fool will travel by night too, although, (besides all maladies from your tussis to your pestis , which walk abroad in the night-air,) he may well fall in with half a dozen swash-bucklers, who will ease him at once of his baggage and his earthly complaints. I must send forth to inquire after him, since he hath stuff of the honourable household on hand — and, by our Lady, he hath stuff of mine too — certain drugs sent me from the city for composition of my alexipharmics — this gear must be looked to.— Hodge,” said he, addressing one of his redoubted body-guard, “do thou and Toby Telford take the mickle brown aver and the black cut-tailed mare, and make out towards the Kerry-craigs, and see what tidings you can have of Auchtermuchty and his wains — I trust it is only the medicine of the pottle-pot, (being the only medicamentum which the beast useth,) which hath caused him to tarry on the road. Take the ribbons from your halberds, ye knaves, and get on your jacks, plate-sleeves, and knapskulls, that your presence may work some terror if you meet with opposers.” He then added, turning to Roland Graeme, “I warrant me, we shall have news of the wains in brief season. Meantime it will please you to look upon the sports; but first to enter my poor lodging and take your morning’s cup. For what saith the school of Salerno?
Poculum, mane haustum,
Restaurat naturam exhaustam.“
“Your learning is too profound for me,” replied the page; “and so would your draught be likewise, I fear.”
“Not a whit, fair sir — a cordial cup of sack, impregnated with wormwood, is the best anti-pestilential draught; and, to speak truth, the pestilential miasmata are now very rife in the atmosphere. We live in a happy time, young man,” continued he, in a tone of grave irony, “and have many blessings unknown to our fathers — Here are two sovereigns in the land, a regnant and a claimant — that is enough of one good thing — but if any one wants more, he may find a king in every peel-house in the country; so if we lack government, it is not for want of governors. Then have we a civil war to phlebotomize us every year, and to prevent our population from starving for want of food — and for the same purpose we have the Plague proposing us a visit, the best of all recipes for thinning a land, and converting younger brothers into elder ones. Well, each man in his vocation. You young fellows of the sword desire to wrestle, fence, or so forth, with some expert adversary; and for my part, I love to match myself for life or death against that same Plague.”
As they proceeded up the street of the little village towards the Doctor’s lodgings, his attention was successively occupied by the various personages whom he met, and pointed out to the notice of his companion.
“Do you see that fellow with the red bonnet, the blue jerkin, and the great rough baton in his hand?— I believe that clown hath the strength of a tower — he has lived fifty years in the world, and never encouraged the liberal sciences by buying one penny-worth of medicaments.— But see you that man with the facies hippocratica ?” said he, pointing out a thin peasant, with swelled legs, and a most cadaverous countenance; “that I call one of the worthiest men in the barony — he breakfasts, luncheons, dines, and sups by my advice, and not without my medicine; and, for his own single part, will go farther to clear out a moderate stock of pharmaceutics, than half the country besides.— How do you, my honest friend?” said he to the party in question, with a tone of condolence.
“Very weakly, sir, since I took the electuary,” answered the patient; “it neighboured ill with the two spoonfuls of pease-porridge and the kirnmilk.”
“Pease-porridge and kirnmilk! Have you been under medicine these ten years, and keep your diet so ill?— the next morning take the electuary by itself, and touch nothing for six hours.”— The poor object bowed, and limped off.
The next whom the Doctor deigned to take notice of, was a lame fellow, by whom the honour was altogether undeserved, for at sight of the mediciner, he began to shuffle away in the crowd as fast as his infirmities would permit.
“There is an ungrateful hound for you,” said Doctor Lundin; “I cured him of the gout in his feet, and now he talks of the chargeableness of medicine, and makes the first use of his restored legs to fly from his physician. His podagra hath become a chiragra , as honest Martial hath it — the gout has got into his fingers, and he cannot draw his purse. Old saying and true,
Praemia cum poscit medicus, Sathan est.
We are angels when we come to cure — devils when we ask payment — but I will administer a purgation to his purse I warrant him. There is his brother too, a sordid chuff.— So ho, there! Saunders Darlet! you have been ill, I hear?”
“Just got the turn, as I was thinking to send to your honour, and I am brawly now again — it was nae great thing that ailed me.”
“Hark you, sirrah,” said the Doctor, “I trust you remember you are owing to the laird four stones of barleymeal, and a bow of oats; and I would have you send no more such kain-fowls as you sent last season, that looked as wretchedly as patients just dismissed from a plague-hospital; and there is hard money owing besides.”
“I was thinking, sir,” said the man, more Scotico , that is, returning no direct answer on the subject on which he was addressed, “my best way would be to come down to your honour, and take your advice yet, in case my trouble should come back.”
“Do so, then, knave,” replied Lundin, “and remember what Ecclesiasticus saith —‘Give place to the physician-let him not go from thee, for thou hast need of him.’”
His exhortation was interrupted by an apparition, which seemed to strike the doctor with as much horror and surprise, as his own visage inflicted upon sundry of those persons whom he had addressed.
The figure which produced this effect on the Esculapius of the village, was that of a tall old woman, who wore a high-crowned hat and muffler. The first of these habiliments added apparently to her stature, and the other served to conceal the lower part of her face, and as the hat itself was slouched, little could be seen besides two brown cheek-bones, and the eyes of swarthy fire, that gleamed from under two shaggy gray eyebrows. She was dressed in a long dark-coloured robe of unusual fashion, bordered at the skirts, and on the stomacher, with a sort of white trimming resembling the Jewish phylacteries, on which were wrought the characters of some unknown language. She held in her hand a walking staff of black ebony.
“By the soul of Celsus,” said Doctor Luke Lundin, “it is old Mother Nicneven herself — she hath come to beard me within mine own bounds, and in the very execution of mine office! Have at thy coat, Old Woman, as the song says — Hob Anster, let her presently be seized and committed to the tolbooth; and if there are any zealous brethren here who would give the hag her deserts, and duck her, as a witch, in the loch, I pray let them in no way be hindered.”
But the myrmidons of Dr. Lundin showed in this case no alacrity to do his bidding. Hob Anster even ventured to remonstrate in the name of himself and his brethren. “To be sure he was to do his honour’s bidding; and for a’ that folks said about the skill and witcheries of Mother Nicneven, he would put his trust in God, and his hand on her collar, without dreadour. But she was no common spaewife, this Mother Nicneven, like Jean Jopp that lived in the Bricrie-baulk. She had lords and lairds that would ruffle for her. There was Moncrieff of Tippermalloch, that was Popish, and the laird of Carslogie, a kend Queen’s man, were in the fair, with wha kend how mony swords and bucklers at their back; and they would be sure to make a break-out if the officers meddled with the auld Popish witch-wife, who was sae weel friended; mair especially as the laird’s best men, such as were not in the castle, were in Edinburgh with him, and he doubted his honour the Doctor would find ower few to make a good backing, if blades were bare.”
The doctor listened unwillingly to this prudential counsel, and was only comforted by the faithful promise of his satellite, that “the old woman should,” as he expressed it, “be ta’en canny the next time she trespassed on the bounds.”
“And in that event,” said the Doctor to his companion, “fire and fagot shall be the best of her welcome.”
This he spoke in hearing of the dame herself, who even then, and in passing the Doctor, shot towards him from under her gray eyebrows a look of the most insulting and contemptuous superiority.
“This way,” continued the physician, “this way,” marshalling his guest into his lodging,—“take care you stumble not over a retort, for it is hazardous for the ignorant to walk in the ways of art.”
The page found all reason for the caution; for besides stuffed birds, and lizards, and snakes bottled up, and bundles of simples made up, and other parcels spread out to dry, and all the confusion, not to mention the mingled and sickening smells, incidental to a druggist’s stock in trade, he had also to avoid heaps of charcoal crucibles, bolt-heads, stoves, and the other furniture of a chemical laboratory.
Amongst his other philosophical qualities, Doctor Lundin failed not to be a confused sloven, and his old dame housekeeper, whose life, as she said, was spent in “redding him up,” had trotted off to the mart of gaiety with other and younger folks. Much chattering and jangling therefore there was among jars, and bottles, and vials, ere the Doctor produced the salutiferous potion which he recommended so strongly, and a search equally long and noisy followed, among broken cans and cracked pipkins, ere he could bring forth a cup out of which to drink it. Both matters being at length achieved, the Doctor set the example to his guest, by quaffing off a cup of the cordial, and smacking his lips with approbation as it descended his gullet.— Roland, in turn, submitted to swallow the potion which his host so earnestly recommended, but which he found so insufferably bitter, that he became eager to escape from the laboratory in search of a draught of fair water to expel the taste. In spite of his efforts, he was nevertheless detained by the garrulity of his host, till he gave him some account of Mother Nicneven.
“I care not to speak of her,” said the Doctor, “in the open air, and among the throng of people; not for fright, like yon cowardly dog Anster, but because I would give no occasion for a fray, having no leisure to look to stabs, slashes, and broken bones. Men call the old hag a prophetess — I do scarce believe she could foretell when a brood of chickens will chip the shell — Men say she reads the heavens — my black bitch knows as much of them when she sits baying the moon — Men pretend the ancient wretch is a sorceress, a witch, and, what not — Inter nos , I will never contradict a rumour which may bring her to the stake which she so justly deserves; but neither will I believe that the tales of witches which they din into our ears are aught but knavery, cozenage, and old women’s fables.”
“In the name of Heaven, what is she then,” said the page, “that you make such a stir about her?”
“She is one of those cursed old women,” replied the Doctor, “who take currently and impudently upon themselves to act as advisers and curers of the sick, on the strength of some trash of herbs, some rhyme of spells, some julap or diet, drink or cordial.”
“Nay, go no farther,” said the page; “if they brew cordials, evil be their lot and all their partakers!”
“You say well, young man,” said Dr. Lundin; “for mine own part, I know no such pests to the commonwealth as these old incarnate devils, who haunt the chambers of the brain-sick patients, that are mad enough to suffer them to interfere with, disturb, and let, the regular process of a learned and artificial cure, with their sirups, and their julaps, and diascordium, and mithridate, and my Lady What-shall-call’um’s powder, and worthy Dame Trashem’s pill; and thus make widows and orphans, and cheat the regular and well-studied physician, in order to get the name of wise women and skeely neighbours, and so forth. But no more on’t — Mother Nicneven 30 and I will meet one day, and she shall know there is danger in dealing with the Doctor.”
“It is a true word, and many have found it,” said the page; “but under your favour, I would fain walk abroad for a little, and see these sports.”
“It is well moved,” said the Doctor, “and I too should be showing myself abroad. Moreover the play waits us, young man-today, totus mundus agit histrionem .”— And they sallied forth accordingly into the mirthful scene.
See on yon verdant lawn, the gathering crowd
Thickens amain; the buxom nymphs advance,
Usher’d by jolly clowns; distinctions cease,
Lost in the common joy, and the bold slave
Leans on his wealthy master unreproved.
Rural Games .— Somervillle.
The re-appearance of the dignified Chamberlain on the street of the village was eagerly hailed by the revellers, as a pledge that the play, or dramatic representation, which had been postponed owing to his absence, was now full surely to commence. Any thing like an approach to this most interesting of all amusements, was of recent origin in Scotland, and engaged public attention in proportion. All other sports were discontinued. The dance around the Maypole was arrested — the ring broken up and dispersed, while the dancers, each leading his partner by the hand, tripped, off to the silvan theatre. A truce was in like manner achieved betwixt a huge brown bear and certain mastiffs, who were tugging and pulling at his shaggy coat, under the mediation of the bear-ward and half a dozen butchers and yeomen, who, by dint of staving and tailing , as it was technically termed, separated the unfortunate animals, whose fury had for an hour past been their chief amusement. The itinerant minstrel found himself deserted by the audience he had collected, even in the most interesting passage of the romance which he recited, and just as he was sending about his boy, with bonnet in hand, to collect their oblations. He indignantly stopped short in the midst of Rosewal and Lilian , and, replacing his three-stringed fiddle, or rebeck, in its leathern case, followed the crowd, with no good-will, to the exhibition which had superseded his own. The juggler had ceased his exertions of emitting flame and smoke, and was content to respire in the manner of ordinary mortals, rather than to play gratuitously the part of a fiery dragon. In short, all other sports were suspended, so eagerly did the revellers throng towards the place of representation.
They would err greatly, who should regulate their ideas of this dramatic exhibition upon those derived from a modern theatre; for the rude shows of Thespis were far less different from those exhibited by Euripides on the stage of Athens, with all its magnificent decorations and pomp of dresses and of scenery. In the present case, there were no scenes, no stage, no machinery, no pit, box, and gallery, no box-lobby; and, what might in poor Scotland be some consolation for other negations, there was no taking of money at the door. As in the devices of the magnanimous Bottom, the actors had a greensward plot for a stage, and a hawthorn bush for a greenroom and tiring-house; the spectators being accommodated with seats on the artificial bank which had been raised around three-fourths of the playground, the remainder being left open for the entrance and exit of the performers. Here sate the uncritical audience, the Chamberlain in the centre, as the person highest in office, all alive to enjoyment and admiration, and all therefore dead to criticism.
The characters which appeared and disappeared before the amused and interested audience, were those which fill the earlier stage in all nations — old men, cheated by their wives and daughters, pillaged by their sons, and imposed on by their domestics, a braggadocia captain, a knavish pardoner or quaestionary, a country bumpkin and a wanton city dame. Amid all these, and more acceptable than almost the whole put together, was the all-licensed fool, the Gracioso of the Spanish drama, who, with his cap fashioned into the resemblance of a coxcomb, and his bauble, a truncheon terminated by a carved figure wearing a fool’s cap, in his hand, went, came, and returned, mingling in every scene of the piece, and interrupting the business, without having any share himself in the action, and ever and anon transferring his gibes from the actors on the stage to the audience who sate around, prompt to applaud the whole.
The wit of the piece, which was not of the most polished kind, was chiefly directed against the superstitious practices of the Catholic religion; and the stage artillery had on this occasion been levelled by no less a person than Doctor Lundin, who had not only commanded the manager of the entertainment to select one of the numerous satires which had been written against the Papists, (several of which were cast in a dramatic form,) but had even, like the Prince of Denmark, caused them to insert, or according to his own phrase, to infuse here and there, a few pleasantries of his own penning, on the same inexhaustible subject, hoping thereby to mollify the rigour of the Lady of Lochleven towards pastimes of this description. He failed not to jog Roland’s elbow, who was sitting in state behind him, and recommend to his particular attention those favourite passages. As for the page, to whom, the very idea of such an exhibition, simple as it was, was entirely new, he beheld it with the undiminished and ecstatic delight with which men of all ranks look for the first time on dramatic representation, and laughed, shouted, and clapped his hands as the performance proceeded. An incident at length took place, which effectually broke off his interest in the business of the scene.
One of the principal personages in the comic part of the drama was, as we have already said, a quaestionary or pardoner, one of those itinerants who hawked about from place to place relics, real or pretended, with which he excited the devotion at once, and the charity of the populace, and generally deceived both the one and the other. The hypocrisy, impudence, and profligacy of these clerical wanderers, had made them the subject of satire from the time of Chaucer down to that of Heywood. Their present representative failed not to follow the same line of humour, exhibiting pig’s bones for relics, and boasting the virtues of small tin crosses, which had been shaken in the holy porringer at Loretto, and of cockleshells, which had been brought from the shrine of Saint James of Compostella, all which he disposed of to the devout Catholics at nearly as high a price as antiquaries are now willing to pay for baubles of similar intrinsic value. At length the pardoner pulled from his scrip a small phial of clear water, of which he vaunted the quality in the following verses:—
Listneth, gode people, everiche one
For in the londe of Babylone,
Far eastward I wot it lyeth,
And is the first londe the sonne espieth,
Ther, as he cometh fro out the sé;
In this ilk londe, as thinketh me,
Right as holie legendes tell.
Snottreth from a roke a well,
And falleth into ane bath of ston,
Where chaste Susanne, in times long gon,
Wax wont to wash her bodie and lim
Mickle vertue hath that streme,
As ye shall se er that ye pas,
Ensample by this little glas —
Through nightés cold and dayés hote
Hiderward I have it brought;
Hath a wife made slip or side,
Or a maiden stepp’d aside,
Putteth this water under her nese,
Wold she nold she, she shall snese.
The jest, as the reader skilful in the antique language of the drama must at once perceive, turned on the same pivot as in the old minstrel tales of the Drinking Horn of King Arthur, and the Mantle made Amiss. But the audience were neither learned nor critical enough to challenge its want of originality. The potent relic was, after such grimace and buffoonery as befitted the subject, presented successively to each of the female personages of the drama, not one of whom sustained the supposed test of discretion; but, to the infinite delight of the audience, sneezed much louder and longer than perhaps they themselves had counted on. The jest seemed at last worn threadbare, and the pardoner was passing on to some new pleasantry, when the jester or clown of the drama, possessing himself secretly of the phial which contained the wondrous liquor, applied it suddenly to the nose of a young woman, who, with her black silk muffler, or screen drawn over her face, was sitting in the foremost rank of the spectators, intent apparently upon the business of the stage. The contents of the phial, well calculated to sustain the credit of the pardoner’s legend, set the damsel a-sneezing violently, an admission of frailty which was received with shouts of rapture by the audience. These were soon, however, renewed at the expense of the jester himself, when the insulted maiden extricated, ere the paroxysm was well over, one hand from the folds of her mantle, and bestowed on the wag a buffet, which made him reel fully his own length from the pardoner, and then acknowledge the favour by instant prostration.
No one pities a jester overcome in his vocation, and the clown met with little sympathy, when, rising from the ground, and whimpering forth his complaints of harsh treatment, he invoked the assistance and sympathy of the audience. But the Chamberlain, feeling his own dignity insulted, ordered two of his halberdiers to bring the culprit before him. When these official persons first approached the virago, she threw herself into an attitude of firm defiance, as if determined to resist their authority; and from the sample of strength and spirit which she had already displayed, they showed no alacrity at executing their commission. But on half a minute’s reflection, the damsel changed totally her attitude and manner, folded her cloak around her arms in modest and maiden-like fashion, and walked of her own accord to the presence of the great man, followed and guarded by the two manful satellites. As she moved across the vacant space, and more especially as she stood at the footstool of the Doctor’s judgment-seat, the maiden discovered that lightness and elasticity of step, and natural grace of manner, which connoisseurs in female beauty know to be seldom divided from it. Moreover, her neat russet-coloured jacket, and short petticoat of the same colour, displayed a handsome form and a pretty leg. Her features were concealed by the screen; but the Doctor, whose gravity did not prevent his pretensions to be a connoisseur of the school we have hinted at, saw enough to judge favourably of the piece by the sample.
He began, however, with considerable austerity of manner.—“And how now, saucy quean!” said the medical man of office; “what have you to say why I should not order you to be ducked in the loch, for lifting your hand to the man in my presence?”
“Marry,” replied the culprit, “because I judge that your honour will not think the cold bath necessary for my complaints.”
“A pestilent jade,” said the Doctor, whispering to Roland Graeme; “and I’ll warrant her a good one — her voice is as sweet as sirup.— But, my pretty maiden,” said he, “you show us wonderful little of that countenance of yours — be pleased to throw aside your muffler.”
“I trust your honour will excuse me till we are more private,” answered the maiden; “for I have acquaintance, and I should like ill to be known in the country as the poor girl whom that scurvy knave put his jest upon.”
“Fear nothing for thy good name, my sweet little modicum of candied manna,” replied the Doctor, “for I protest to you, as I am Chamberlain of Lochleven, Kinross, and so forth, that the chaste Susanna herself could not have snuffed that elixir without sternutation, being in truth a curious distillation of rectified acetum , or vinegar of the sun, prepared by mine own hands — Wherefore, as thou sayest thou wilt come to me in private, and express thy contrition for the offence whereof thou hast been guilty, I command that all for the present go forward as if no such interruption of the prescribed course had taken place.”
The damsel curtsied and tripped back to her place. The play proceeded, but it no longer attracted the attention of Roland Graeme.
The voice, the figure, and what the veil permitted to be seen of the neck and tresses of the village damsel, bore so strong a resemblance to those of Catherine Seyton, that he felt like one bewildered in the mazes of a changeful and stupifying dream. The memorable scene of the hostelrie rushed on his recollection, with all its doubtful and marvellous circumstances. Were the tales of enchantment which he had read in romances realized in this extraordinary girl? Could she transport herself from the walled and guarded Castle of Lochleven, moated with its broad lake, (towards which he cast back a look as if to ascertain it was still in existence,) and watched with such scrupulous care as the safety of a nation demanded?— Could she surmount all these obstacles, and make such careless and dangerous use of her liberty, as to engage herself publicly in a quarrel in a village fair? Roland was unable to determine whether the exertions which it must have cost her to gain her freedom or the use to which she had put it, rendered her the most unaccountable creature.
Lost in these meditations, he kept his gaze fixed on the subject of them; and in every casual motion, discovered, or thought he discovered, something which reminded him still more strongly of Catherine Seyton. It occurred to him more than once, indeed, that he might be deceiving himself by exaggerating some casual likeness into absolute identity. But then the meeting at the hostelrie of Saint Michael’s returned to his mind, and it seemed in the highest degree improbable, that, under such various circumstances, mere imagination should twice have found opportunity to play him the selfsame trick. This time, however, he determined to have his doubts resolved, and for this purpose he sate during the rest of the play like a greyhound in the slip, ready to spring upon the hare the instant that she was started. The damsel, whom he watched attentively lest she should escape in the crowd when the spectacle was closed, sate as if perfectly unconscious that she was observed. But the worthy Doctor marked the direction of his eyes, and magnanimously suppressed his own inclination to become the Theseus to this Hippolyta, in deference to the rights of hospitality, which enjoined him to forbear interference with the pleasurable pursuits of his young friend. He passed one or two formal gibes upon the fixed attention which the page paid to the unknown, and upon his own jealousy; adding, however, that if both were to be presented to the patient at once, he had little doubt she would think the younger man the sounder prescription. “I fear me,” he added, “we shall have no news of the knave Auchtermuchty for some time, since the vermin whom I sent after him seem to have proved corbie-messengers. So you have an hour or two on your hands, Master Page; and as the minstrels are beginning to strike up, now the play is ended, why, an you incline for a dance, yonder is the green, and there sits your partner — I trust you will hold me perfect in my diagnostics, since I see with half an eye what disease you are sick of, and have administered a pleasing remedy.
“Discernit sapiens res (as Chambers hath it) quas confundit asellus .”
The page hardly heard the end of the learned adage, or the charge which the Chamberlain gave him to be within reach, in case of the wains arriving suddenly, and sooner than expected — so eager he was at once to shake himself free of his learned associate, and to satisfy his curiosity regarding the unknown damsel. Yet in the haste with which he made towards her he found time to reflect, that, in order to secure an opportunity of conversing with her in private, he must not alarm her at first accosting her. He therefore composed his manner and gait, and advancing with becoming self-confidence before three or four country-fellows who were intent on the same design, but knew not so well how to put their request into shape, he acquainted her that he, as the deputy of the venerable Chamberlain, requested the honour of her hand as a partner.
“The venerable Chamberlain,” said the damsel frankly, reaching the page her hand, “does very well to exercise this part of his privilege by deputy; and I suppose the laws of the revels leave me no choice but to accept of his faithful delegate.”
“Provided, fair damsel,” said the page, “his choice of a delegate is not altogether distasteful to you.”
“Of that, fair sir,” replied the maiden, “I will tell you more when we have danced the first measure.”
Catherine Seyton had admirable skill in gestic lore, and was sometimes called on to dance for the amusement of her royal mistress. Roland Graeme had often been a spectator of her skill, and sometimes, at the Queen’s command, Catherine’s partner on such occasions. He was, therefore, perfectly acquainted with Catherine’s mode of dancing; and observed that his present partner, in grace, in agility, in quickness of ear, and precision of execution, exactly resembled her, save that the Scottish jig, which he now danced with her, required a more violent and rapid motion, and more rustic agility, than the stately pavens, lavoltas, and courantoes, which he had seen her execute in the chamber of Queen Mary. The active duties of the dance left him little time for reflection, and none for conversation; but when their pas de deux was finished, amidst the acclamations of the villagers, who had seldom witnessed such an exhibition, he took an opportunity, when they yielded up the green to another couple, to use the privilege of a partner and enter into conversation with the mysterious maiden, whom he still held by the hand.
“Fair partner, may I not crave the name of her who has graced me thus far?”
“You may,” said the maiden; “but it is a question whether I shall answer you.”
“And why?” asked Roland.
“Because nobody gives anything for nothing — and you can tell me nothing in return which I care to hear.”
“Could I not tell you my name and lineage, in exchange for yours?” returned Roland.
“No!” answered the maiden, “for you know little of either.”
“How?” said the page, somewhat angrily.
“Wrath you not for the matter,” said the damsel; “I will show you in an instant that I know more of you than you do of yourself.”
“Indeed,” answered Graeme; “for whom then do you take me?”
“For the wild falcon,” answered she, “whom a dog brought in his mouth to a certain castle, when he was but an unfledged eyas — for the hawk whom men dare not fly, lest he should check at game, and pounce on carrion — whom folk must keep hooded till he has the proper light of his eyes, and can discover good from evil.”
“Well — be it so,” replied Roland Graeme; “I guess at a part of your parable, fair mistress mine — and perhaps I know as much of you as you do of me, and can well dispense with the information which you are so niggard in giving.”
“Prove that,” said the maiden, “and I will give you credit for more penetration than I judged you to be gifted withal.”
“It shall be proved instantly,” said Roland Graeme. “The first letter of your name is S, and the last N.”
“Admirable,” said his partner, “guess on.”
“It pleases you today,” continued Roland, “to wear the snood and kirtle, and perhaps you may be seen tomorrow in hat and feather, hose and doublet.”
“In the clout! in the clout! you have hit the very white,” said the damsel, suppressing a great inclination to laugh.
“You can switch men’s eyes out of their heads, as well as the heart out of their bosoms.”
These last words were uttered in a low and tender tone, which, to Roland’s great mortification, and somewhat to his displeasure, was so far from allaying, that it greatly increased, his partner’s disposition to laughter. She could scarce compose herself while she replied, “If you had thought my hand so formidable,” extricating it from his hold, “you would not have grasped it so hard; but I perceive you know me so fully, that there is no occasion to show you my face.”
“Fair Catherine,” said the page, “he were unworthy ever to have seen you, far less to have dwelt so long in the same service, and under the same roof with you, who could mistake your air, your gesture, your step in walking or in dancing, the turn of your neck, the symmetry of your form — none could be so dull as not to recognize you by so many proofs; but for me, I could swear even to that tress of hair that escapes from under your muffler.”
“And to the face, of course, which that muffler covers,” said the maiden, removing her veil, and in an instant endeavouring to replace it. She showed the features of Catherine; but an unusual degree of petulant impatience inflamed them, when, from some awkwardness in her management of the muffler, she was unable again to adjust it with that dexterity which was a principal accomplishment of the coquettes of the time.
“The fiend rive the rag to tatters!” said the damsel, as the veil fluttered about her shoulders, with an accent so earnest and decided, that it made the page start. He looked again at the damsel’s face, but the information which his eyes received, was to the same purport as before. He assisted her to adjust her muffler, and both were for an instant silent. The damsel spoke first, for Roland Graeme was overwhelmed with surprise at the contrarieties which Catherine Seyton seemed to include in her person and character.
“You are surprised,” said the damsel to him, “at what you see and hear — But the times which make females men, are least of all fitted for men to become women; yet you yourself are in danger of such a change.”
“I in danger of becoming effeminate!” said the page.
“Yes, you, for all the boldness of your reply,” said the damsel. “When you should hold fast your religion, because it is assailed on all sides by rebels, traitors, and heretics, you let it glide out of your breast like water grasped in the hand. If you are driven from the faith of your fathers from fear of a traitor, is not that womanish?— If you are cajoled by the cunning arguments of a trumpeter of heresy, or the praises of a puritanic old woman, is not that womanish?— If you are bribed by the hope of spoil and preferment, is not that womanish?— And when you wonder at my venting a threat or an execration, should you not wonder at yourself, who, pretending to a gentle name and aspiring to knighthood, can be at the same time cowardly, silly, and self-interested!”
“I would that a man would bring such a charge,” said the page; “he should see, ere his life was a minute older, whether he had cause to term me coward or no.”
“Beware of such big words,” answered the maiden; “you said but anon that I sometimes wear hose and doublet.”
“But remain still Catharine Seyton, wear what you list,” said the page, endeavouring again to possess himself of her hand.
“You indeed are pleased to call me so,” replied the maiden, evading his intention, “but I have many other names besides.”
“And will you not reply to that,” said the page, “by which you are distinguished beyond every other maiden in Scotland?”
The damsel, unallured by his praises, still kept aloof, and sung with gaiety a verse from an old ballad,
“Oh, some do call me Jack, sweet love,
And some do call me Gill;
But when I ride to Holyrood,
My name is Wilful Will.”
“Wilful Will” exclaimed the page, impatiently; “say rather Will o’ the Wisp — Jack with the Lantern — for never was such a deceitful or wandering meteor!”
“If I be such,” replied the maiden, “I ask no fools to follow me — If they do so, it is at their own pleasure, and must be on their own proper peril.”
“Nay, but, dearest Catherine,” said Roland Graeme, “be for one instant serious.”
“If you will call me your dearest Catherine, when I have given you so many names to choose upon,” replied the damsel, “I would ask you how, supposing me for two or three hours of my life escaped from yonder tower, you have the cruelty to ask me to be serious during the only merry moments I have seen perhaps for months?”
“Ay, but, fair Catherine, there are moments of deep and true feeling, which are worth ten thousand years of the liveliest mirth; and such was that of yesterday, when you so nearly —”
“So nearly what?” demanded the damsel, hastily.
“When you approached your lips so near to the sign you had traced on my forehead.”
“Mother of Heaven!” exclaimed she, in a yet fiercer tone, and with a more masculine manner than she had yet exhibited,-“Catherine Seyton approach her lips to a man’s brow, and thou that man!— vassal, thou liest!”
The page stood astonished; but, conceiving he had alarmed the damsel’s delicacy by alluding to the enthusiasm of a moment, and the manner in which she had expressed it, he endeavoured to falter forth an apology. His excuses, though he was unable to give them any regular shape, were accepted by his companion, who had indeed suppressed her indignation after its first explosion —“Speak no more on’t,” she said. “And now let us part; our conversation may attract more notice than is convenient for either of us.”
“Nay, but allow me at least to follow you to some sequestered place.”
“You dare not,” replied the maiden.
“How,” said the youth, “dare not? where is it you dare go, where I dare not follow?”
“You fear a Will o’ the Wisp,” said the damsel; “how would you face a fiery dragon, with an enchantress mounted on its back?”
“Like Sir Eger, Sir Grime, or Sir Greysteil,” said the page; “but be there such toys to be seen here?”
“I go to Mother Nicneven’s,” answered the maid; “and she is witch enough to rein the horned devil, with a red silk thread for a bridle, and a rowan-tree switch for a whip.”
“I will follow you,” said the page.
“Let it be at some distance,” said the maiden.
And wrapping her mantle round her with more success than on her former attempt, she mingled with the throng, and walked towards the village, heedfully followed by Roland Graeme at some distance, and under every precaution which he could use to prevent his purpose from being observed.
Yes, it is he whose eyes look’d on thy childhood,
And watch’d with trembling hope thy dawn of youth,
That now, with these same eyeballs dimm’d with age,
And dimmer yet with tears, sees thy dishonour.
Old play.
At the entrance of the principal, or indeed, so to speak, the only street in Kinross, the damsel, whose steps were pursued by Roland Graeme, cast a glance behind her, as if to be certain he had not lost trace of her and then plunged down a very narrow lane which ran betwixt two rows of poor and ruinous cottages. She paused for a second at the door of one of those miserable tenements, again cast her eye up the lane towards Roland, then lifted the latch, opened the door, and disappeared from his view.
With whatever haste the page followed her example, the difficulty which he found in discovering the trick of the latch, which did not work quite in the usual manner, and in pushing open the door, which did not yield to his first effort, delayed for a minute or two his entrance into the cottage. A dark and smoky passage led, as usual, betwixt the exterior wall of the house, and the hallan , or clay wall, which served as a partition betwixt it and the interior. At the end of this passage, and through the partition, was a door leading into the ben , or inner chamber of the cottage, and when Roland Graeme’s hand was upon the latch of this door, a female voice pronounced, “Benedictus qui veniat in nomine Domini, damnandus qui in nomine inimici. ” On entering the apartment, he perceived the figure which the chamberlain had pointed out to him as Mother Nicneven, seated beside the lowly hearth. But there was no other person in the room. Roland Graeme gazed around in surprise at the disappearance of Catherine Seyton, without paying much regard to the supposed sorceress, until she attracted and riveted his regard by the tone in which she asked him —“What seekest thou here?”
“I seek,” said the page, with much embarrassment; “I seek —”
But his answer was cut short, when the old woman, drawing her huge gray eyebrows sternly together, with a frown which knitted her brow into a thousand wrinkles, arose, and erecting herself up to her full natural size, tore the kerchief from her head, and seizing Roland by the arm, made two strides across the floor of the apartment to a small window through which the light fell full on her face, and showed the astonished youth the countenance of Magdalen Graeme.—“Yes, Roland,” she said, “thine eyes deceive thee not; they show thee truly the features of her whom thou hast thyself deceived, whose wine thou hast turned into gall, her bread of joyfulness into bitter poison, her hope into the blackest despair — it is she who now demands of thee, what seekest thou here?— She whose heaviest sin towards Heaven hath been, that she loved thee even better than the weal of the whole church, and could not without reluctance surrender thee even in the cause of God — she now asks you, what seekest thou here?”
While she spoke, she kept her broad black eye riveted on the youth’s face, with the expression with which the eagle regards his prey ere he tears it to pieces. Roland felt himself at the moment incapable either of reply or evasion. This extraordinary enthusiast had preserved over him in some measure the ascendency which she had acquired during his childhood; and, besides, he knew the violence of her passions and her impatience of contradiction, and was sensible that almost any reply which he could make, was likely to throw her into an ecstasy of rage. He was therefore silent; and Magdalen Graeme proceeded with increasing enthusiasm in her apostrophe —“Once more, what seek’st thou, false boy?— seek’st thou the honour thou hast renounced, the faith thou hast abandoned, the hopes thou hast destroyed?— Or didst thou seek me, the sole protectress of thy youth, the only parent whom thou hast known, that thou mayest trample on my gray hairs, even as thou hast already trampled on the best wishes of my heart?”
“Pardon me, mother,” said Roland Graeme; “but, in truth and reason, I deserve not your blame. I have been treated amongst you — even by yourself, my revered parent, as well as by others — as one who lacked the common attributes of free-will and human reason, or was at least deemed unfit to exercise them. A land of enchantment have I been led into, and spells have been cast around me — every one has met me in disguise — every one has spoken to me in parables — I have been like one who walks in a weary and bewildering dream; and now you blame me that I have not the sense, and judgment, and steadiness of a waking, and a disenchanted, and a reasonable man, who knows what he is doing, and wherefore he does it. If one must walk with masks and spectres, who waft themselves from place to place as it were in vision rather than reality, it might shake the soundest faith and turn the wisest head. I sought, since I must needs avow my folly, the same Catherine Seyton with whom you made me first acquainted, and whom I most strangely find in this village of Kinross, gayest among the revellers, when I had but just left her in the well-guarded castle of Lochleven, the sad attendant of an imprisoned Queen-I sought her, and in her place I find you, my mother, more strangely disguised than even she is.”
“And what hadst thou to do with Catherine Seyton?” said the matron, sternly; “is this a time or a world to follow maidens, or to dance around a Maypole? When the trumpet summons every true-hearted Scotsman around the standard of the true sovereign, shalt thou be found loitering in a lady’s bower?”
“No, by Heaven, nor imprisoned in the rugged walls of an island castle!” answered Roland Graeme: “I would the blast were to sound even now, for I fear that nothing less loud will dispel the chimerical visions by which I am surrounded.”
“Doubt not that it will be winded,” said the matron, “and that so fearfully loud, that Scotland will never hear the like until the last and loudest blast of all shall announce to mountain and to valley that time is no more. Meanwhile, be thou but brave and constant — Serve God and honour thy sovereign — Abide by thy religion — I cannot — I will not — I dare not ask thee the truth of the terrible surmises I have heard touching thy falling away — perfect not that accursed sacrifice — and yet, even at this late hour, thou mayest be what I have hoped for the son of my dearest hope — what say I? the son of my hope — thou shalt be the hope of Scotland, her boast and her honour!— Even thy wildest and most foolish wishes may perchance be fulfilled — I might blush to mingle meaner motives with the noble guerdon I hold out to thee — It shames me, being such as I am, to mention the idle passions of youth, save with contempt and the purpose of censure. But we must bribe children to wholesome medicine by the offer of cates, and youth to honourable achievement with the promise of pleasure. Mark me, therefore, Roland. The love of Catherine Seyton will follow him only who shall achieve the freedom of her mistress; and believe, it may be one day in thine own power to be that happy lover. Cast, therefore, away doubt and fear, and prepare to do what religion calls for, what thy country demands of thee, what thy duty as a subject and as a servant alike require at your hand; and be assured, even the idlest or wildest wishes of thy heart will be most readily attained by following the call of thy duty.”
As she ceased speaking, a double knock was heard against the inner door. The matron hastily adjusting her muffler, and resuming her chair by the hearth, demanded who was there.
“Salve in nomine sancto ,” was answered from without.
“Salvete et vos ,” answered Magdalen Graeme.
And a man entered in the ordinary dress of a nobleman’s retainer, wearing at his girdle a sword and buckler —“I sought you,” said he, “my mother, and him whom I see with you.” Then addressing himself to Roland Graeme, he said to him, “Hast thou not a packet from George Douglas?”
“I have,” said the page, suddenly recollecting that which had been committed to his charge in the morning, “but I may not deliver it to any one without some token that they have a right to ask it.”
“You say well,” replied the serving-man, and whispered into his ear, “The packet which I ask is the report to his father — will this token suffice?”
“It will,” replied the page, and taking the packet from his bosom, gave it to the man.
“I will return presently,” said the serving-man, and left the cottage.
Roland had now sufficiently recovered his surprise to accost his relative in turn, and request to know the reason why he found her in so precarious a disguise, and a place so dangerous —“You cannot be ignorant,” he said, “of the hatred that the Lady of Lochleven bears to those of your — that is of our religion — your present disguise lays you open to suspicion of a different kind, but inferring no less hazard; and whether as a Catholic, or as a sorceress, or as a friend to the unfortunate Queen, you are in equal danger, if apprehended within the bounds of the Douglas; and in the chamberlain who administers their authority, you have, for his own reasons, an enemy, and a bitter one.”
“I know it,” said the matron, her eyes kindling with triumph; “I know that, vain of his school-craft, and carnal wisdom, Luke Lundin views with jealousy and hatred the blessings which the saints have conferred on my prayers, and on the holy relics, before the touch, nay, before the bare presence of which, disease and death have so often been known to retreat.— I know he would rend and tear me; but there is a chain and a muzzle on the ban dog that shall restrain his fury, and the Master’s servant shall not be offended by him until the Master’s work is wrought. When that hour comes, let the shadows of the evening descend on me in thunder and in tempest; the time shall be welcome that relieves my eyes from seeing guilt, and my ears from listening to blasphemy. Do thou but be constant — play thy part as I have played and will play mine, and my release shall be like that of a blessed martyr whose ascent to heaven angels hail with psalm and song, while earth pursues him with hiss and with execration.”
As she concluded, the serving-man again entered the cottage, and said, “All is well! the time holds for tomorrow night.”
“What time? what holds?” exclaimed Roland Graeme; “I trust I have given the Douglas’s packet to no wrong —”
“Content yourself, young man,” answered the serving-man; “thou hast my word and token.”
“I know not if the token be right,” said the page; “and I care not much for the word of a stranger.”
“What,” said the matron, “although thou mayest have given a packet delivered to thy charge by one of the Queen’s rebels into the hand of a loyal subject — there were no great mistake in that, thou hot-brained boy!”
“By Saint Andrew, there were foul mistake, though,” answered the page; “it is the very spirit of my duty, in this first stage of chivalry, to be faithful to my trust; and had the devil given me a message to discharge, I would not (so I had plighted my faith to the contrary) betray his counsel to an angel of light.”
“Now, by the love I once bore thee,” said the matron, “I could slay thee with mine own hand, when I hear thee talk of a dearer faith being due to rebels and heretics, than thou owest to thy church and thy prince!”
“Be patient, my good sister,” said the serving-man; “I will give him such reasons as shall counterbalance the scruples which beset him —— the spirit is honourable, though now it may be mistimed and misplaced.— Follow me, young man.”
“Ere I go to call this stranger to a reckoning,” said the page to the matron, “is there nothing I can do for your comfort and safety?”
“Nothing,” she replied, “nothing, save what will lead more to thine own honour;— the saints who have protected me thus far, will lend me succour as I need it. Tread the path of glory that is before thee, and only think of me as the creature on earth who will be most delighted to hear of thy fame.— Follow the stranger — he hath tidings for you that you little expect.”
The stranger remained on the threshold as if waiting for Roland, and as soon as he saw him put himself in motion, he moved on before at a quick pace. Diving still deeper down the lane, Roland perceived that it was now bordered by buildings upon the one side only, and that the other was fenced by a high old wall, over which some trees extended their branches. Descending a good way farther, they came to a small door in the wall. Roland’s guide paused, looked around an instant to see if any one were within sight, then taking a key from his pocket, opened the door and entered, making a sign to Roland Graeme to follow him. He did so, and the stranger locked the door carefully on the inside. During this operation the page had a moment to look around, and perceived that he was in a small orchard very trimly kept.
The stranger led him through an alley or two, shaded by trees loaded with summer-fruit, into a pleached arbour, where, taking the turf-seat which was on the one side, he motioned to Roland to occupy that which was opposite to him, and, after a momentary silence, opened the conversation as follows: “You have asked a better warrant than the word of a mere stranger, to satisfy you that I have the authority of George of Douglas for possessing myself of the packet intrusted to your charge.”
“It is precisely the point on which I demand reckoning of you,” said Roland. “I fear I have acted hastily; if so, I must redeem my error as I best may.”
“You hold me then as a perfect stranger?” said the man. “Look at my face more attentively, and see if the features do not resemble those of a man much known to you formerly.”
Roland gazed attentively; but the ideas recalled to his mind were so inconsistent with the mean and servile dress of the person before him, that he did not venture to express the opinion which he was irresistibly induced to form.
“Yes, my son,” said the stranger, observing his embarrassment, “you do indeed see before you the unfortunate Father Ambrosius, who once accounted his ministry crowned in your preservation from the snares of heresy, but who is now condemned to lament thee as a castaway!”
Roland Graeme’s kindness of heart was at least equal to his vivacity of temper — he could not bear to see his ancient and honoured master and spiritual guide in a situation which inferred a change of fortune so melancholy, but throwing himself at his feet, grasped his knees and wept aloud.
“What mean these tears, my son?” said the Abbot; “if they are shed for your own sins and follies, surely they are gracious showers, and may avail thee much — but weep not, if they fall on my account. You indeed see the Superior of the community of Saint Mary’s in the dress of a poor sworder, who gives his master the use of his blade and buckler, and, if needful, of his life, for a coarse livery coat and four marks by the year. But such a garb suits the time, and, in the period of the church militant, as well becomes her prelates, as staff, mitre, and crosier, in the days of the church’s triumph.”
“By what fate,” said the page —“and yet why,” added he, checking himself, “need I ask? Catherine Seyton in some sort prepared me for this. But that the change should be so absolute — the destruction so complete!”—
“Yes, my son,” said the Abbot Ambrosius, “thine own eyes beheld, in my unworthy elevation to the Abbot’s stall, the last especial act of holy solemnity which shall be seen in the church of Saint Mary’s, until it shall please Heaven to turn back the captivity of the church. For the present, the shepherd is smitten — ay, well-nigh to the earth — the flock are scattered, and the shrines of saints and martyrs, and pious benefactors to the church, are given to the owls of night, and the satyrs of the desert.”
“And your brother, the Knight of Avenel — could he do nothing for your protection?”
“He himself hath fallen under the suspicion of the ruling powers,” said the Abbot, “who are as unjust to their friends as they are cruel to their enemies. I could not grieve at it, did I hope it might estrange him from his cause; but I know the soul of Halbert, and I rather fear it will drive him to prove his fidelity to their unhappy cause, by some deed which may be yet more destructive to the church, and more offensive to Heaven. Enough of this; and now to the business of our meeting.— I trust you will hold it sufficient if I pass my word to you that the packet of which you were lately the bearer, was designed for my hands by George of Douglas?”
“Then,” said the page, “is George of Douglas ——”
“A true friend to his Queen, Roland; and will soon, I trust, have his eyes opened to the errors of his (miscalled) church.”
“But what is he to his father, and what to the Lady of Lochleven, who has been as a mother to him?” said the page impatiently.
“The best friend to both, in time and through eternity,” said the Abbot, “if he shall prove the happy instrument for redeeming the evil they have wrought, and are still working.”
“Still,” said the page, “I like not that good service which begins in breach of trust.”
“I blame not thy scruples, my son,” said the Abbot; “but the time which has wrenched asunder the allegiance of Christians to the church, and of subjects to their king, has dissolved all the lesser bonds of society; and, in such days, mere human ties must no more restrain our progress, than the brambles and briers which catch hold of his garments, should delay the path of a pilgrim who travels to pay his vows.”
“But, my father,”— said the youth, and then stopt short in a hesitating manner.
“Speak on, my son,” said the Abbot; “speak without fear.”
“Let me not offend you then,” said Roland, “when I say, that it is even this which our adversaries charge against us; when they say that, shaping the means according to the end, we are willing to commit great moral evil in order that we may work out eventual good.”
“The heretics have played their usual arts on you, my son,” said the Abbot; “they would willingly deprive us of the power of acting wisely and secretly, though their possession of superior force forbids our contending with them on terms of equality. They have reduced us to a state of exhausted weakness, and now would fain proscribe the means by which weakness, through all the range of nature, supplies the lack of strength and defends itself against its potent enemies. As well might the hound say to the hare, use not these wily turns to escape me, but contend with me in pitched battle, as the armed and powerful heretic demand of the down-trodden and oppressed Catholic to lay aside the wisdom of the serpent, by which alone they may again hope to raise up the Jerusalem over which they weep, and which it is their duty to rebuild — But more of this hereafter. And now, my son, I command thee on thy faith to tell me truly and particularly what has chanced to thee since we parted, and what is the present state of thy conscience. Thy relation, our sister Magdalen, is a woman of excellent gifts, blessed with a zeal which neither doubt nor danger can quench; but yet it is not a zeal altogether according to knowledge; wherefore, my son, I would willingly be myself thy interrogator, and thy counsellor, in these days of darkness and stratagem.”
With the respect which he owed to his first instructor, Roland Graeme went rapidly through the events which the reader is acquainted with; and while he disguised not from the prelate the impression which had been made on his mind by the arguments of the preacher Henderson, he accidentally and almost involuntarily gave his Father Confessor to understand the influence which Catherine Seyton had acquired over his mind.
“It is with joy I discover, my dearest son,” replied the Abbot, “that I have arrived in time to arrest thee on the verge of the precipice to which thou wert approaching. These doubts of which you complain, are the weeds which naturally grow up in a strong soil, and require the careful hand of the husbandman to eradicate them. Thou must study a little volume, which I will impart to thee in fitting time, in which, by Our Lady’s grace, I have placed in somewhat a clearer light than heretofore, the points debated betwixt us and these heretics, who sow among the wheat the same tares which were formerly privily mingled with the good seed by the Albigenses and the Lollards. But it is not by reason alone that you must hope to conquer these insinuations of the enemy: It is sometimes by timely resistance, but oftener by timely flight. You must shut your ears against the arguments of the heresiarch, when circumstances permit you not to withdraw the foot from his company. Anchor your thoughts upon the service of Our Lady, while he is expending in vain his heretical sophistry. Are you unable to maintain your attention on heavenly objects — think rather on thine own earthly pleasures, than tempt Providence and the Saints by giving an attentive ear to the erring doctrine — think of thy hawk, thy hound, thine angling rod, thy sword and buckler — think even of Catherine Seyton, rather than give thy soul to the lessons of the tempter. Alas! my son, believe not that, worn out with woes, and bent more by affliction than by years, I have forgotten the effect of beauty over the heart of youth. Even in the watches of the night, broken by thoughts of an imprisoned Queen, a distracted kingdom, a church laid waste and ruinous, come other thoughts than these suggest, and feelings which belonged to an earlier and happier course of life. Be it so — we must bear our load as we may: and not in vain are these passions implanted in our breast, since, as now in thy case, they may come in aid of resolutions founded upon higher grounds. Yet beware, my son — this Catherine Seyton is the daughter of one of Scotland’s proudest, as well as most worthy barons; and thy state may not suffer thee, as yet, to aspire so high. But thus it is — Heaven works its purposes through human folly; and Douglas’s ambitious affection, as well as thine, shall contribute alike to the desired end.”
“How, my father,” said the page, “my suspicions are then true!— Douglas loves ——”
“He does; and with a love as much misplaced as thine own; but beware of him — cross him not — thwart him not.”
“Let him not cross or thwart me,” said the page; “for I will not yield him an inch of way, had he in his body the soul of every Douglas that has lived since the time of the Dark Gray Man.” 31
“Nay, have patience, idle boy, and reflect that your suit can never interfere with his.— But a truce with these vanities, and let us better employ the little space which still remains to us to spend together. To thy knees, my son, and resume the long-interrupted duty of confession, that, happen what may, the hour may find in thee a faithful Catholic, relieved from the guilt of his sins by authority of the Holy Church. Could I but tell thee, Roland, the joy with which I see thee once more put thy knee to its best and fittest use! Quid dicis, mi fili? ”
“Culpas meas ” answered the youth; and according to the ritual of the Catholic Church, he confessed and received absolution, to which was annexed the condition of performing certain enjoined penances.
When this religious ceremony was ended, an old man, in the dress of a peasant of the better order, approached the arbour, and greeted the Abbot.—“I have waited the conclusion of your devotions,” he said, “to tell you the youth is sought after by the chamberlain, and it were well he should appear without delay. Holy Saint Francis, if the halberdiers were to seek him here, they might sorely wrong my garden-plot — they are in office, and reck not where they tread, were each step on jessamine and clovegilly-flowers.”
“We will speed him forth, my brother,” said the Abbot; “but alas! is it possible that such trifles should live in your mind at a crisis so awful as that which is now impending?”
“Reverend father,” answered the proprietor of the garden, for such he was, “how oft shall I pray you to keep your high counsel for high minds like your own? What have you required of me, that I have not granted unresistingly, though with an aching heart?”
“I would require of you to be yourself, my brother,” said the Abbot Ambrosius; “to remember what you were, and to what your early vows have bound you.”
“I tell thee, Father Ambrosius,” replied the gardener, “the patience of the best saint that ever said pater-noster, would be exhausted by the trials to which you have put mine — What I have been, it skills not to speak at present-no one knows better than yourself, father, what I renounced, in hopes to find ease and quiet during the remainder of my days — and no one better knows how my retreat has been invaded, my fruit-trees broken, my flower-beds trodden down, my quiet frightened away, and my very sleep driven from my bed, since ever this poor Queen, God bless her, hath been sent to Lochleven.— I blame her not; being a prisoner, it is natural she should wish to get out from so vile a hold, where there is scarcely any place even for a tolerable garden, and where the water-mists, as I am told, blight all the early blossoms — I say, I cannot blame her for endeavouring for her freedom; but why I should be drawn into the scheme — why my harmless arbours, that I planted with my own hands, should become places of privy conspiracy-why my little quay, which I built for my own fishing boat, should have become a haven for secret embarkations — in short, why I should be dragged into matters where both heading and hanging are like to be the issue, I profess to you, reverend father, I am totally ignorant.”
“My brother,” answered the Abbot, “you are wise, and ought to know —”
“I am not — I am not — I am not wise,” replied the horticulturist, pettishly, and stopping his ears with his fingers —“I was never called wise but when men wanted to engage me in some action of notorious folly.”
“But, my good brother,” said the Abbot —
“I am not good neither,” said the peevish gardener; “I am neither good nor wise — Had I been wise, you would not have been admitted here; and were I good, methinks I should send you elsewhere to hatch plots for destroying the quiet of the country. What signifies disputing about queen or king,— when men may sit at peace — sub umbra vitis sui? and so would I do, after the precept of Holy Writ, were I, as you term me, wise or good. But such as I am, my neck is in the yoke, and you make me draw what weight you list.— Follow me, youngster. This reverend father, who makes in his jackman’s dress nearly as reverend a figure as I myself, will agree with me in one thing at least, and that is, that you have been long enough here.”
“Follow the good father, Roland,” said the Abbot, “and remember my words — a day is approaching that will try the temper of all true Scotsmen — may thy heart prove faithful as the steel of thy blade!”
The page bowed in silence, and they parted; the gardener, notwithstanding his advanced age, walking on before him very briskly, and muttering as he went, partly to himself, partly to his companion, after the manner of old men of weakened intellects —“When I was great,” thus ran his maundering, “and had my mule and my ambling palfrey at command, I warrant you I could have as well flown through the air as have walked at this pace. I had my gout and my rheumatics, and an hundred things besides, that hung fetters on my heels; and, now, thanks to Our Lady, and honest labour, I can walk with any good man of my age in the kingdom of Fife — Fy upon it, that experience should be so long in coming!”
As he was thus muttering, his eye fell upon the branch of a pear-tree which drooped down for want of support, and at once forgetting his haste, the old man stopped and set seriously about binding it up. Roland Graeme had both readiness, neatness of hand, and good nature in abundance; he immediately lent his aid, and in a minute or two the bough was supported, and tied up in a way perfectly satisfactory to the old man, who looked at it with great complaisance. “They are bergamots,” he said, “and if you will come ashore in autumn, you shall taste of them — the like are not in Lochleven Castle — the garden there is a poor pin-fold, and the gardener, Hugh Houkham, hath little skill of his craft — so come ashore, Master Page, in autumn, when you would eat pears. But what am I thinking of — ere that time come, they may have given thee sour pears for plums. Take an old man’s advice, youth, one who hath seen many days, and sat in higher places than thou canst hope for — bend thy sword into a pruning-hook, and make a dibble of thy dagger — thy days shall be the longer, and thy health the better for it,— and come to aid me in my garden, and I will teach thee the real French fashion of imping , which the Southron call graffing. Do this, and do it without loss of time, for there is a whirlwind coming over the land, and only those shall escape who lie too much beneath the storm to have their boughs broken by it.”
So saying, he dismissed Roland Graeme, through a different door from that by which he had entered, signed a cross, and pronounced a benedicite as they parted, and then, still muttering to himself, retired into the garden, and locked the door on the inside.
Pray God she prove not masculine ere long!
King Henry VI .
Dismissed from the old man’s garden, Roland Graeme found that a grassy paddock, in which sauntered two cows, the property of the gardener, still separated him from the village. He paced through it, lost in meditation upon the words of the Abbot. Father Ambrosius had, with success enough, exerted over him that powerful influence which the guardians and instructors of our childhood possess over our more mature youth. And yet, when Roland looked back upon what the father had said, he could not but suspect that he had rather sought to evade entering into the controversy betwixt the churches, than to repel the objections and satisfy the doubts which the lectures of Henderson had excited. “For this he had no time,” said the page to himself, “neither have I now calmness and learning sufficient to judge upon points of such magnitude. Besides, it were base to quit my faith while the wind of fortune sets against it, unless I were so placed, that my conversion, should it take place, were free as light from the imputation of self-interest. I was bred a Catholic — bred in the faith of Bruce and Wallace — I will hold that faith till time and reason shall convince me that it errs. I will serve this poor Queen as a subject should serve an imprisoned and wronged sovereign — they who placed me in her service have to blame themselves — who sent me hither, a gentleman trained in the paths of loyalty and honour, when they should have sought out some truckling, cogging, double-dealing knave, who would have been at once the observant page of the Queen, and the obsequious spy of her enemies. Since I must choose betwixt aiding and betraying her, I will decide as becomes her servant and her subject; but Catherine Seyton — Catherine Seyton, beloved by Douglas and holding me on or off as the intervals of her leisure or caprice will permit — how shall I deal with the coquette?— By heaven, when I next have an opportunity, she shall render me some reason for her conduct, or I will break with her for ever!”
As he formed this doughty resolution, he crossed the stile which led out of the little enclosure, and was almost immediately greeted by Dr. Luke Lundin.
“Ha! my most excellent young friend,” said the Doctor, “from whence come you?— but I note the place.— Yes, neighbour Blinkhoolie’s garden is a pleasant rendezvous, and you are of the age when lads look after a bonny lass with one eye, and a dainty plum with another. But hey! you look subtriste and melancholic — I fear the maiden has proved cruel, or the plums unripe; and surely I think neighbour Blinkhoolie’s damsons can scarcely have been well preserved throughout the winter — he spares the saccharine juice on his confects. But courage, man, there are more Kates in Kinross; and for the immature fruit, a glass of my double distilled aqua mirabilis — probatum est .”
The page darted an ireful glance at the facetious physician; but presently recollecting that the name Kate, which had provoked his displeasure, was probably but introduced for the sake of alliteration, he suppressed his wrath, and only asked if the wains had been heard of?
“Why, I have been seeking for you this hour, to tell you that the stuff is in your boat, and that the boat waits your pleasure. Auchtermuchty had only fallen into company with an idle knave like himself, and a stoup of aquavitae between them. Your boatmen lie on their oars, and there have already been made two wefts from the warder’s turret to intimate that those in the castle are impatient for your return. Yet there is time for you to take a slight repast; and, as your friend and physician, I hold it unfit you should face the water-breeze with an empty stomach.”
Roland Graeme had nothing for it but to return, with such cheer as he might, to the place where his boat was moored on the beach, and resisted all offer of refreshment, although the Doctor promised that he should prelude the collation with a gentle appetizer — a decoction of herbs, gathered and distilled by himself. Indeed, as Roland had not forgotten the contents of his morning cup, it is possible that the recollection induced him to stand firm in his refusal of all food, to which such an unpalatable preface was the preliminary. As they passed towards the boat, (for the ceremonious politeness of the worthy Chamberlain would not permit the page to go thither without attendance,) Roland Graeme, amidst a group who seemed to be assembled around a party of wandering musicians, distinguished, as he thought, the dress of Catherine Seyton. He shook himself clear from his attendant, and at one spring was in the midst of the crowd, and at the side of the damsel. “Catherine,” he whispered, “is it well for you to be still here?— will you not return to the castle?”
“To the devil with your Catherines and your castles!” answered the maiden, snappishly; “have you not had time enough already to get rid of your follies? Begone! I desire not your farther company, and there will be danger in thrusting it upon me.”
“Nay — but if there be danger, fairest Catherine,” replied Roland; “why will you not allow me to stay and share it with you?”
“Intruding fool,” said the maiden, “the danger is all on thine own side — the risk in, in plain terms, that I strike thee on the mouth with the hilt of my dagger.” So saying, she turned haughtily from him, and moved through the crowd, who gave way in some astonishment at the masculine activity with which she forced her way among them.
As Roland, though much irritated, prepared to follow, he was grappled on the other side by Doctor Luke Lundin, who reminded him of the loaded boat, of the two wefts, or signals with the flag, which had been made from the tower, of the danger of the cold breeze to an empty stomach, and of the vanity of spending more time upon coy wenches and sour plums. Roland was thus, in a manner, dragged back to his boat, and obliged to launch her forth upon his return to Lochleven Castle.
That little voyage was speedily accomplished, and the page was greeted at the landing-place by the severe and caustic welcome of old Dryfesdale. “So, young gallant, you are come at last, after a delay of six hours, and after two signals from the castle? But, I warrant, some idle junketing hath occupied you too deeply to think of your service or your duty. Where is the note of the plate and household stuff?— Pray Heaven it hath not been diminished under the sleeveless care of so young a gad-about!”
“Diminished under my care, Sir Steward!” retorted the page angrily; “say so in earnest, and by Heaven your gray hair shall hardly protect your saucy tongue!”
“A truce with your swaggering, young esquire,” returned the steward; “we have bolts and dungeons for brawlers. Go to my lady, and swagger before her, if thou darest — she will give thee proper cause of offence, for she has waited for thee long and impatiently.”
“And where then is the Lady of Lochleven?” said the page; “for I conceive it is of her thou speakest.”
“Ay — of whom else?” replied Dryfesdale; “or who besides the Lady of Lochleven hath a right to command in this castle?”
“The Lady of Lochleven is thy mistress,” said Roland Graeme; “but mine is the Queen of Scotland.”
The steward looked at him fixedly for a moment, with an air in which suspicion and dislike were ill concealed by an affectation of contempt. “The bragging cock-chicken,” he said, “will betray himself by his rash crowing. I have marked thy altered manner in the chapel of late — ay, and your changing of glances at meal-time with a certain idle damsel, who, like thyself, laughs at all gravity and goodness. There is something about you, my master, which should be looked to. But, if you would know whether the Lady of Lochleven, or that other lady, hath a right to command thy service, thou wilt find them together in the Lady Mary’s ante-room.”
Roland hastened thither, not unwilling to escape from the ill-natured penetration of the old man, and marvelling at the same time what peculiarity could have occasioned the Lady of Lochleven’s being in the Queen’s apartment at this time of the afternoon, so much contrary to her usual wont. His acuteness instantly penetrated the meaning. “She wishes,” he concluded, “to see the meeting betwixt the Queen and me on my return, that she may form a guess whether there is any private intelligence or understanding betwixt us — I must be guarded.”
With this resolution he entered the parlour, where the Queen, seated in her chair, with the Lady Fleming leaning upon the back of it, had already kept the Lady of Lochleven standing in her presence for the space of nearly an hour, to the manifest increase of her very visible bad humour. Roland Graeme, on entering the apartment, made a deep obeisance to the Queen, and another to the Lady, and then stood still as if to await their farther question. Speaking almost together, the Lady Lochleven said, “So, young man, you are returned at length?”
And then stopped indignantly short, while the Queen went on without regarding her —“Roland, you are welcome home to us — you have proved the true dove and not the raven — Yet I am sure I could have forgiven you, if, once dismissed, from this water-circled ark of ours, you had never again returned to us. I trust you have brought back an olive-branch, for our kind and worthy hostess has chafed herself much on account of your long absence, and we never needed more some symbol of peace and reconciliation.”
“I grieve I should have been detained, madam,” answered the page; “but from the delay of the person intrusted with the matters for which I was sent, I did not receive them till late in the day.”
“See you there now,” said the Queen to the Lady Lochleven; “we could not persuade you, our dearest hostess, that your household goods were in all safe keeping and surety. True it is, that we can excuse your anxiety, considering that these august apartments are so scantily furnished, that we have not been able to offer you even the relief of a stool during the long time you have afforded us the pleasure of your society.”
“The will, madam,” said the lady, “the will to offer such accommodation was more wanting than the means.”
“What!” said the Queen, looking round, and affecting surprise, “there are then stools in this apartment — one, two — no less than four, including the broken one — a royal garniture!— We observed them not — will it please your ladyship to sit?”
“No, madam, I will soon relieve you of my presence,” replied the Lady Lochleven; “and while with you, my aged limbs can still better brook fatigue, than my mind stoop to accept of constrained courtesy.”
“Nay, Lady of Lochleven, if you take it so deeply,” said the Queen, rising and motioning to her own vacant chair, “I would rather you assumed my seat — you are not the first of your family who has done so.”
The Lady of Lochleven curtsied a negative, but seemed with much difficulty to suppress the angry answer which rose to her lips.
During this sharp conversation, the page’s attention had been almost entirely occupied by the entrance of Catherine Seyton, who came from the inner apartment, in the usual dress in which she attended upon the Queen, and with nothing in her manner which marked either the hurry or confusion incident to a hasty change of disguise, or the conscious fear of detection in a perilous enterprise. Roland Graeme ventured to make her an obeisance as she entered, but she returned it with an air of the utmost indifference, which, in his opinion, was extremely inconsistent with the circumstances in which they stood towards each other.—“Surely,” he thought, “she cannot in reason expect to bully me out of the belief due to mine own eyes, as she tried to do concerning the apparition in the hostelry of Saint Michael’s — I will try if I cannot make her feel that this will be but a vain task, and that confidence in me is the wiser and safer course to pursue.”
These thoughts had passed rapidly through his mind, when the Queen, having finished her altercation with the Lady of the castle, again addressed him —“What of the revels at Kinross, Roland Graeme? Methought they were gay, if I may judge from some faint sounds of mirth and distant music, which found their way so far as these grated windows, and died when they entered them, as all that is mirthful must — But thou lookest as sad as if thou hadst come from a conventicle of the Huguenots!”
“And so perchance he hath, madam,” replied the Lady of Lochleven, at whom this side-shaft was lanched. “I trust, amid yonder idle fooleries, there wanted not some pouring forth of doctrine to a better purpose than that vain mirth, which, blazing and vanishing like the crackling of dry thorns, leaves to the fools who love it nothing but dust and ashes.”
“Mary Fleming,” said the Queen, turning round and drawing her mantle about her, “I would that we had the chimney-grate supplied with a fagot or two of these same thorns which the Lady of Lochleven describes so well. Methinks the damp air from the lake, which stagnates in these vaulted rooms, renders them deadly cold.”
“Your Grace’s pleasure shall be obeyed,” said the Lady of Lochleven; “yet may I presume to remind you that we are now in summer?”
“I thank you for the information, my good lady,” said the Queen; “for prisoners better learn their calender from the mouth of their jailor, than from any change they themselves feel in the seasons.— Once more, Roland Graeme, what of the revels?”
“They were gay, madam,” said the page, “but of the usual sort, and little worth your Highness’s ear.”
“Oh, you know not,” said the Queen, “how very indulgent my ear has become to all that speaks of freedom and the pleasures of the free. Methinks I would rather have seen the gay villagers dance their ring round the Maypole, than have witnessed the most stately masques within the precincts of a palace. The absence of stone-wall — the sense that the green turf is under the foot which may tread it free and unrestrained, is worth all that art or splendour can add to more courtly revels.”
“I trust,” said the Lady Lochleven, addressing the page in her turn, “there were amongst these follies none of the riots or disturbances to which they so naturally lead?”
Roland gave a slight glance to Catherine Seyton, as if to bespeak her attention, as he replied,—“I witnessed no offence, madam, worthy of marking — none indeed of any kind, save that a bold damsel made her hand somewhat too familiar with the cheek of a player-man, and ran some hazard of being ducked in the lake.”
As he uttered these words he cast a hasty glance at Catherine; but she sustained, with the utmost serenity of manner and countenance, the hint which he had deemed could not have been thrown out before her without exciting some fear and confusion.
“I will cumber your Grace no longer with my presence,” said the Lady Lochleven, “unless you have aught to command me.”
“Nought, our good hostess,” answered the Queen, “unless it be to pray you, that on another occasion you deem it not needful to postpone your better employment to wait so long upon us.”
“May it please you,” added the Lady Lochleven, “to command this your gentleman to attend us, that I may receive some account of these matters which have been sent hither for your Grace’s use?”
“We may not refuse what you are pleased to require, madam,” answered the Queen. “Go with the lady, Roland, if our commands be indeed necessary to thy doing so. We will hear tomorrow the history of thy Kinross pleasures. For this night we dismiss thy attendance.”
Roland Graeme went with the Lady of Lochleven, who failed not to ask him many questions concerning what had passed at the sports, to which he rendered such answers as were most likely to lull asleep any suspicions which she might entertain of his disposition to favour Queen Mary, taking especial care to avoid all allusion to the apparition of Magdalen Graeme, and of the Abbot Ambrosius. At length, after undergoing a long and somewhat close examination, he was dismissed with such expressions, as, coming from the reserved and stern Lady of Lochleven, might seem to express a degree of favour and countenance.
His first care was to obtain some refreshment, which was more cheerfully afforded him by a good-natured pantler than by Dryfesdale, who was, on this occasion, much disposed to abide by the fashion of Pudding-burn House, where
They who came not the first call.
Gat no more meat till the next meal.
When Roland Graeme had finished his repast, having his dismissal from the Queen for the evening, and being little inclined for such society as the castle afforded, he stole into the garden, in which he had permission to spend his leisure time, when it pleased him. In this place, the ingenuity of the contriver and disposer of the walks had exerted itself to make the most of little space, and by screens, both of stone ornamented with rude sculpture, and hedges of living green, had endeavoured to give as much intricacy and variety as the confined limits of the garden would admit.
Here the young man walked sadly, considering the events of the day, and comparing what had dropped from the Abbot with what he had himself noticed of the demeanour of George Douglas. “It must be so,” was the painful but inevitable conclusion at which he arrived. “It must be by his aid that she is thus enabled, like a phantom, to transport herself from place to place, and to appear at pleasure on the mainland or on the islet.— It must be so,” he repeated once more; “with him she holds a close, secret, and intimate correspondence, altogether inconsistent with the eye of favour which she has sometimes cast upon me, and destructive to the hopes which she must have known these glances have necessarily inspired.” And yet (for love will hope where reason despairs) the thought rushed on his mind, that it was possible she only encouraged Douglas’s passion so far as might serve her mistress’s interest, and that she was of too frank, noble, and candid a nature, to hold out to himself hopes which she meant not to fulfil. Lost in these various conjectures, he seated himself upon a bank of turf which commanded a view of the lake on the one side, and on the other of that front of the castle along which the Queen’s apartments were situated.
The sun had now for some time set, and the twilight of May was rapidly fading into a serene night. On the lake, the expanded water rose and fell, with the slightest and softest influence of a southern breeze, which scarcely dimpled the surface over which it passed. In the distance was still seen the dim outline of the island of Saint Serf, once visited by many a sandalled pilgrim, as the blessed spot trodden by a man of God — now neglected or violated, as the refuge of lazy priests, who had with justice been compelled to give place to the sheep and the heifers of a Protestant baron.
As Roland gazed on the dark speck, amid the lighter blue of the waters which surrounded it, the mazes of polemical discussion again stretched themselves before the eye of the mind. Had these men justly suffered their exile as licentious drones, the robbers, at once, and disgrace, of the busy hive? or had the hand of avarice and rapine expelled from the temple, not the ribalds who polluted, but the faithful priests who served the shrine in honour and fidelity? The arguments of Henderson, in this contemplative hour, rose with double force before him; and could scarcely be parried by the appeal which the Abbot Ambrosius had made from his understanding to his feelings,— an appeal which he had felt more forcibly amid the bustle of stirring life, than now when his reflections were more undisturbed. It required an effort to divert his mind from this embarrassing topic; and he found that he best succeeded by turning his eyes to the front of the tower, watching where a twinkling light still streamed from the casement of Catherine Seyton’s apartment, obscured by times for a moment as the shadow of the fair inhabitant passed betwixt the taper and the window. At length the light was removed or extinguished, and that object of speculation was also withdrawn from the eyes of the meditative lover. Dare I confess the fact, without injuring his character for ever as a hero of romance? These eyes gradually became heavy; speculative doubts on the subject of religious controversy, and anxious conjectures concerning the state of his mistress’s affections, became confusedly blended together in his musings; the fatigues of a busy day prevailed over the harassing subjects of contemplation which occupied his mind, and he fell fast asleep.
Sound were his slumbers, until they were suddenly dispelled by the iron tongue of the castle-bell, which sent its deep and sullen sounds wide over the bosom of the lake, and awakened the echoes of Bennarty, the hill which descends steeply on its southern bank. Roland started up, for this bell was always tolled at ten o’clock, as the signal for locking the castle gates, and placing the keys under the charge of the seneschal. He therefore hastened to the wicket by which the garden communicated with the building, and had the mortification, just as he reached it, to hear the bolt leave its sheath with a discordant crash, and enter the stone groove of the door-lintel. “Hold, hold,” cried the page, “and let me in ere you lock the wicket.” The voice of Dryfesdale replied from within, in his usual tone of embittered sullenness, “The hour is passed, fair master — you like not the inside of these walls — even make it a complete holiday, and spend the night as well as the day out of bounds.”
“Open the door,” exclaimed the indignant page, “or by Saint Giles I will make thy gold chain smoke for it!”
“Make no alarm here,” retorted the impenetrable Dryfesdale, “but keep thy sinful oaths and silly threats for those that regard them — I do mine office, and carry the keys to the seneschal.— Adieu, my young master! the cool night air will advantage your hot blood.”
The steward was right in what he said; for the cooling breeze was very necessary to appease the feverish fit of anger which Roland experienced, nor did the remedy succeed for some time. At length, after some hasty turns made through the garden, exhausting his passion in vain vows of vengeance, Roland Graeme began to be sensible that his situation ought rather to be held as matter of laughter than of serious resentment. To one bred a sportsman, a night spent in the open air had in it little of hardship, and the poor malice of the steward seemed more worthy of his contempt than his anger. “I would to God,” he said, “that the grim old man may always have contented himself with such sportive revenge. He often looks as he were capable of doing us a darker turn.” Returning, therefore, to the turf-seat which he had formerly occupied, and which was partially sheltered by a trim fence of green holly, he drew his mantle around him, stretched himself at length on the verdant settle, and endeavoured to resume that sleep which the castle bell had interrupted to so little purpose.
Sleep, like other earthly blessings, is niggard of its favours when most courted. The more Roland invoked her aid, the farther she fled from his eyelids. He had been completely awakened, first, by the sounds of the bell, and then by his own aroused vivacity of temper, and he found it difficult again to compose himself to slumber. At length, when his mind — was wearied out with a maze of unpleasing meditation, he succeeded in coaxing himself into a broken slumber. This was again dispelled by the voices of two persons who were walking in the garden, the sound of whose conversation, after mingling for some time in the page’s dreams, at length succeeded in awaking him thoroughly. He raised himself from his reclining posture in the utmost astonishment, which the circumstance of hearing two persons at that late hour conversing on the outside of the watchfully guarded Castle of Lochloven, was so well calculated to excite. His first thought was of supernatural beings; his next, upon some attempt on the part of Queen Mary’s friends and followers; his last was, that George of Douglas, possessed of the keys, and having the means of ingress and egress at pleasure, was availing himself of his office to hold a rendezvous with Catherine Seyton in the castle garden. He was confirmed in this opinion by the tone of the voice, which asked in a low whisper, “whether all was ready?”