The Queen and her brother sat in grave deliberation in her Majesty’s private apartment. Moray’s face betrayed, under its usual composure, a sense of triumph and satisfaction. The scheming earl had succeeded in bringing about an interview, from which he expected great things, forgetting, as such intriguers often do, the frank nature of his sister, and the uncompromising character of the churchman whom he wished her to conciliate. He glanced anxiously now and then at the timepiece, for men of his stamp have scant leisure to spare, and something like a smile overspread his features as he detected a bustle in the ante-room which indicated an arrival.
Mary seemed absent and depressed. With her cheek leaning on her hand, she had listened to her brother’s arguments like one whose thoughts are far away. She was already conscious that the burden of state-craft was too heavy for her to bear; her young head and heart, too, were aching under the weight and restrictions of a crown.
She looked up with a weary sigh when the door opened, and a staid usher, too long schooled at court to betray surprise, whatever he might feel, announced the entrance of Mr John Knox.
The Reformer advanced with the grave, dignified air that was habitual to him, and that sprang from no advantages of bodily presence, but from the consciousness of unshaken integrity within. His flowing beard and long black gown accorded well with the severe and thoughtful brow. For an instant, as he lifted his eyes to the beautiful face of his sovereign, they shone with an expression of pity and admiration, that softened his whole countenance; but the gleam was transient, soon to make way for an increased rigidity of demeanour, as the churchman recalled the sacred nature of his office, and the interests he felt commissioned to represent.
The Queen rose when he entered and greeted him courteously. They formed a strange contrast, that pair of disputants; icy winter and leafy June, the budding hawthorn and the gnarled oak-branch, the smiling sunbeam and the keen north blast, could not have been more different. For a moment they were silent, and scanned each other narrowly. Her Majesty, as became her rank, was the first to speak.
‘I have summoned you, Master Knox,’ said she, ‘for that I would not willingly mistrust a friend without an explanation, or condemn a subject unheard. There is sedition abroad in Scotland, and those in whom a Queen should put her confidence conspire to bring her authority to nought. Master Knox, Master Knox! can you answer to your sovereign the heavy charges brought against you?’
‘To my Sovereign, and to hers,’ replied the Reformer, pointing upward. ‘Confront me with mine accusers, madam, and I will put them to open shame.’
‘Nay,’ resumed the Queen, glancing at her brother as if for support, ‘I can judge of your sedition for myself. Have you not written a book expressly to overthrow my just government, wherein the casuistry and lore for which you are celebrated have been employed for the worse purpose; but which, nevertheless, I will commission the most learned men in Europe to refute? Have you not stirred up rebellion, and even caused bloodshed, in England, to sap the very foundations of my throne? Have you not practised the black unhallowed art of magic, rather than leave a stone unturned to further your cruel and undutiful enmity against me, your Queen?’
‘Madam,’ replied the preacher, not without a certain sarcastic admiration in his tone, ‘you are skilled in the knowledge of the schools, and for a gentlewoman tolerably familiar with the laws of logic and the rules of disputation. I will answer your charges categorically and in order. If to teach the word of truth to the discomfiture of idolatry; if to exhort the multitude to that worship of the Spirit which is alone acceptable in the sight of Heaven; if to fulfil the commission of my Master by waging war to death against the Roman Antichrist, to hew down root and branch, and cast into the fire the deadly upas-tree—its breviaries, its scapularies, its masses, its mummeries, its rank blasphemous ceremonials: if this be sedition and rebellion, I plead guilty. If princes are not better served by those who have cast off the yoke of the popish despot, and if subjects are not more loyal who fear God and honour the king, than those who flatter the crown and obey the crozier—if your Grace have not more cheerful homage from your free Scottish people than ever your fathers enjoyed from our priest-ridden forebears—I plead guilty. If mine enemies can prove that one drop of blood hath ever been shed by my influence or my consent, if they can deny that wherever I have lived, at Geneva, in England, at Berwick, and now in Edinburgh, it has been my constant endeavour to inculcate the doctrines of “peace and good-will,” and God hath so blessed my labours that they have borne fruit an hundredfold—I plead guilty. With regard to the charge of magic, I can the more easily bear the brunt of that indictment when I mind me that my Master while on earth was taxed with the same accusation. What said the priests? the priests, madam, who like your own were fain to own all the wealth and power of earth at the loss of heaven—“He casteth out devils,” said they, “by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils.” So far as I have striven to walk in the footsteps of my Master—so far as my weak unworthy efforts have been directed to follow His example—to this also I plead guilty. But if these charges fail, as fail they must when your Grace brings your own clear-sighted reason to bear upon them, the verdict will be “not guilty,” and the accusation of rebellion and sedition falls to the ground.’
Mary had been listening with obvious impatience and no very close attention. She had perhaps made up her mind beforehand. She had again seated herself, and tapped the floor fretfully with her foot, glancing occasionally at her brother as if to ascertain his opinion of the controversy. Moray looked on with the calm approval of a partisan, who thinks his own man is getting the best of it. When Knox paused, the Queen broke in with unusual vehemence.
‘And the book? At least you cannot deny the book, nor its object, nor its reflections on my mother and myself. Even the nice casuistry of Master Knox cannot refine away his authorship of that “First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women.” Oh! it is a worthy title for a worthy production! and, in any other country under heaven but this, it would have brought its writer to the block. By the crown I wear, in a parallel case, my cousin of England would have had it burnt by the common hangman!’
She breathed quick, and gesticulated more than was her wont. She was lashing herself into anger, the gentle Queen, as she thought of her own weakness and Elizabeth Tudor’s strength. Knox met her glance unmoved. When thus embarked on the tide of argument, he was no more to be influenced by force than persuasion; the softest eyes that ever smiled, and the sternest brows that ever frowned, were alike to him. In the pride of his calling, and the fierce delight of disputation, a man of marble within and without.
‘As to the book that so angers your Majesty,’ said he, ‘I own to it freely. Yes, I wrote it deliberately, and on reflection; nor is there a position laid down, nor an argument adduced in the whole of it, that I fear to establish and substantiate before any ten of the most learned men in Europe!’
‘Then you maintain that I have no just authority even over my own subjects?’ urged the Queen, with difficulty keeping back her tears.
‘These are all fair matters for dispute, madam,’ was his reply. ‘The learned may surely be suffered to discuss such questions unmolested, when they refrain from putting their theories of good government into practice. Plato himself, as I need scarcely remind your Majesty, argued the necessity of many reforms fundamentally opposed to the very principles of the commonwealth in which he lived. The litera scripta manet indeed, madam; but it is for future generations; and no book written, if left unfortified by persecution, ever yet subverted the authority existent at the time it was composed, and against which it may seem to have been aimed. Besides, madam,’ added the churchman, warming into good-humour as he got into the full swing of his oratory, ‘my book was not directed so much against yourself as your namesake, the bloody Jezebel of England, with her wicked satellites, godless Gardiner and blaspheming Bonner, the one on her right hand, and the other on her left! Had I meant to have troubled your estate, madam, would I not have chosen a more fitting time, and a weaker breach in the defences, for my assault?’
‘But at least,’ resumed Mary, a little mollified by this admission, ‘ye cannot deny that ye have taught the people to follow a religion different from that of their prince. How is this to be reconciled with the divine command that subjects should obey their rulers? I cannot wrestle with you in argument, Master Knox; I am but a foolish woman after all; yet here, methinks, I have you on the hip.’
He paused a moment, like a true rhetorician, gratified at an opposition he deemed worthy to be controverted.
‘The objection, madam,’ he answered, ‘is a fair one; yet thus do I demolish it. True religion, it cannot be disputed, cometh from God, and not from the king, else why are we enjoined but to honour the latter, whilst we are to fear, and consequently obey, the former? This is the argument positive. Of the negative, I can produce instances in abundance. The following may be thought sufficient:—The Hebrews were not to conform to the idolatry of Pharaoh or the self-glorification of Nebuchadnezzar the King, nor were the primitive Christians to practise the degrading superstitions of the Roman Emperors.’
‘Good,’ replied Mary; ‘yet we read not that Jew or Christian was justified in resisting with the sword.’
‘The Almighty had not seen fit to give them the power,’ answered Knox.
‘Then you hold that subjects are entitled to take up arms against their sovereign,’ proceeded Mary. ‘In good faith, Master Knox, this is a dangerous doctrine even in these lawless times.’
‘Extreme means are allowable in extreme cases,’ was his reply; ‘the father hath authority over his family, but if the father be seized with madness, it is lawful for the children to rise up against him, and, stripping him of his power, to place him under constraint, for his safety and their own. So is it with princes, madam; and that prince who goeth about in his frenzy to commit iniquity, must be disarmed, deposed, and cast into prison until he hath been brought to a more sober mind, and disciplined to submission under the will of Heaven.’
It was a bold argument to propound in a royal palace in the presence of majesty itself. The Queen looked at her brother, astonished and aghast. True to his part, Moray assumed an air of profound reflection and conviction after mature thought. Again Mary felt goaded to irritation as she wondered how Elizabeth would have brooked a similar discussion, but she commanded herself with a strong effort, and shifted her ground for a new attack.
‘And where shall we find this will of Heaven declared,’ argued the Queen, ‘or who shall decide between you and me when each interprets differently the same command?’
‘The words of Scripture and the ordinances of the Church are sufficient for our guidance,’ replied the preacher.
‘But your Church is not mine’, retorted the Queen. ‘I believe in my heart the Church of Rome to be the true Church of God.’
‘Your will, madam,’ said the other, ‘cannot impose a reason, neither doth opinion constitute argument; I am fully prepared to bear witness against the Scarlet Woman whom ye would fain substitute for the pure Spouse: but I will employ the weapons of controversy, in which mine adversaries are so skilled, to do battle for the right. I will undertake to prove, against the strongest of your priestly disputants, that the Romish Church hath more degenerated from the truth and purity of apostolic teaching, than the Jews from the ordinances handed down to them by their first lawgivers—Moses and Aaron—when they shouted to the Roman governor that he should crucify the innocent, and let Barabbas go free.’
‘My conscience tells me it is not so,’ answered Mary. ‘I cannot contend with you in argument, as it is neither my profession nor my pleasure; but I have read and studied and formed my own conclusions. Why should not my views be as clear as yours, or may we not both be right?’
‘Impossible!’ thundered Knox. ‘Ye shall come out from the ungodly, and shall not be partakers with them—no, not of one single drop in the cup of their abominations. There is but one straight path for monarch and subject, the queen on her throne and the beggar at the gate. I tell you, madam, that if you deviate from it one hair’s-breadth, you shall be lost in the howling wilderness, and become the prey of the raging lion. I will not concede to you one jot nor one tittle; I will prove to you that your tenets are false, your practice sinful, and your ceremonials blasphemous. Stone by stone will I destroy the edifice that priestly ambition hath raised on the foundations of corruption, and cemented with the blood of the prophets from time to time, even unto this day. First of all, I will demolish the very keystone on which the whole fabric rests; I will cast down the idol and trample it under my feet; I will testify in the face of all men against the gross and godless mummery of the mass.’
Mary looked shocked and a little scared at his vehemence; she was irritated, too, by this unscrupulous attack on all she held most sacred, but she controlled herself, and only replied, quietly—
‘Abuse is not argument, Master Knox; neither are assertions of much weight until they are proved.’
He settled his gown on his shoulders, and spreading his hands before him, proceeded to demonstrate his propositions in the manner that had become habitual to him in the pulpit, checking off the main points of his argument on his fingers as he proceeded.
‘Ye maintain the mass,’ said he, ‘to be a sacrifice, and, as such, to be holy in itself, for that things are sanctified which have been once placed upon the altar! Ye argue that in the Scriptures are to be found antitypes that shall support this doctrine, and that Melchizedek, when he brought out bread and wine before Abraham, prefigured the offering which ye now esteem to be the holiest of mysteries. I will not pause to discuss with one of your Majesty’s learning the object with which Melchizedek brought forth these provisions, nor the arguments which may be produced for and against the probability that he simply offered them as refreshment to Abraham and his company. We will let this be for the present, and proceed at once to the very root and core of the matter. Ye shall observe, madam, that of sacrifices, there are two kinds—the sacrifices of propitiation, and the sacrifices of thanksgiving—the propitiatoriæ and the eucharistiæ. Now, with regard to the former,’——
‘Hold, sir!’ interrupted the Queen, much to the divine’s disappointment. ‘Now ye are launched on the depths of controversial divinity, which are too profound for me, and ye would fain confuse and overwhelm me with your learned Latin terms; I pray your mercy. Under favour, I shall find those who are better capable than I am of holding their ground in argument against Master Knox.’
‘So be it, madam,’ answered the Reformer, proudly; ‘as in the dark ages our ancestors feared not to encounter the strongest champions armed with fleshly weapons in the lists, so shall I be found, I humbly trust, prompt at the hour of trial to do battle in the cause of truth.’
‘Those champions, at least, turned not their weapons against a weak, helpless woman,’ replied Mary, in a tone of considerable exasperation. ‘When they opposed their sovereign, it was to resist tyranny and oppression: not to deprive him of his dignity, and even curtail him of his very amusements. They fronted him boldly in the field, but they would have scorned to wound him in his tenderest feelings, or to attack him in the privacy of his household.’
‘Your Majesty’s shaft is well aimed,’ replied Knox; ‘yet doth it rebound harmless from the armour of duty in which the minister of the Word is encased. It is my calling, madam, to reprove sin from the pulpit, whether it be found rearing its head on high in the palace, or crawling among the sewers of the street. I tell you, Mary Stuart, that the day will come when your masques and your music and your mummeries shall be recorded against you in such characters of fire as roused Belshazzar and his nobles from their last revelry on earth. In your feastings and fiddlings and dancings, do ye remember the dance of death, down which ye are footing it so thoughtlessly? When your ears are tickled by the foolish squeaking of your lutes, your rebecks, or your virginals, do ye reflect on the awful blast of the last trumpet, and the wail of perdition coming up from the lake of fire?’
‘Then you esteem a simple, innocent measure to be an unpardonable sin?’ retorted the Queen, in high scorn. ‘Master Knox, Master Knox! is there not a certain virtue called Charity, without which all the others are of no avail?’
‘The guilt of the action, madam,’ answered he, argumentatively, ‘depends on the motive of the dancer. David, indeed, leaped and danced before the ark; but it was in pious zeal and singleness of heart. Not so, that child of sin, the daughter of Herodias, graceful and fierce-hearted as the panther, when she danced off the head of John the Baptist. Think ye, madam, that the walls of Holyrood will shelter the guilty more securely than the roof of Antipas? Think ye that can be but a harmless folly in the Queen of Scotland, which entailed the curse of blood on that flaunting minion who so charmed and cozened the Tetrarch of Galilee?’
‘And you dare compare me to her!’ exclaimed Mary, rising from her chair with flashing eyes. ‘This is too much! Moray! Brother! I appeal to you! This is too much!’
And turning away she covered her face with both hands and burst into tears.
Even Knox could not see her thus, unmoved. He hastened to explain away all that was most offensive in his allusions. As far as lay in his uncompromising nature, he strove to modify the virulence of his declamation.
‘Nay, madam,’ said he, ‘to be effectual the remedies of the physician must be unpalatable; but I mean not to offend your Majesty, not to be guilty of any disrespect towards your person. I would that you could see many matters in another and a clearer light, for your own welfare and that of your people. It is my zeal for your Majesty’s happiness here and hereafter that makes me so stern and so unpleasant a counsellor. I will fulfil my duty even at the risk of your Majesty’s displeasure, and yet it grieves me in my human weakness to see your fair face sad. It is my daily prayer that Mary Stuart should be brought into the right path. I am an old man, madam, if not in years, in labour and bodily infirmities. I am no courtier, ye know right well. Believe me, I cherish no disloyalty towards your person. I would fain see you a happy triumphant monarch, the joy of your people, the hope and stay of the godly, a fruitful branch in the vineyard, and a second Deborah in Israel!’
The Queen was easily mollified. A bright smile dried the tears on her face, and she stretched her hand graciously to the zealous Reformer.
‘Ye shall advise with me from time to time, Master Knox,’ said she. ‘If I cannot compete with you in argument, I can at least equal you in truth and sincerity, and a good-will to that which is right.’
The churchman’s stern nature was moved. He bent over the hand she gave him, and made as though he would have touched it with his lips; then dropped it somewhat awkwardly, and resumed with a little embarrassment.
‘I am at your Majesty’s service always, second only to His whose minister I am. Yet I beseech you to dismiss me. I may tarry no longer; even now I shall be blamed that I am not at my book.’
‘Ye cannot be always at your book,’ replied the Queen, smiling. ‘Doth not Solomon tell us, “there is a time for all things?”’
‘Even so, madam,’ answered Knox, moving respectfully towards the door; ‘yet must Time himself be seized by the forelock, for his poll is bald behind. Master Buchanan would not fail to remind your Majesty—
The Queen either imperfectly heard or did not perfectly understand, for she bowed her farewell without replying; but Moray, pondering on the adage, shook his head as he murmured more to himself than to her—
‘There is a time even for seizing the time; and it is but an indiscreet haste that would pluck the pear before it is ripe!’
As Knox traversed the ante-room in leaving the royal audience chamber, he found the Maries sitting at work in that apartment, and paused for an instant on his way through, to contemplate that which was in truth a sufficiently pleasing scene. The ladies were seated in different attitudes at their embroidery, and although, doubtless, they had been in the full tide of conversation previously, there was a profound silence at the moment of his entrance.
Wistfully, nay sadly, with the concerned air of one who looks on a bed of lilies that he foresees are to be withered at night by the early frost, the preacher gazed for an instant on this bevy of beauty ere he uncovered his head to salute them. In doing so, his cap slipped out of his hand to the ground, and it was curious to observe the behaviour of the Maries at this juncture. It is needless to state that Master Knox enjoyed but a small share of popularity amongst these ladies. As the official reprover of all their gaieties and amusements, it may easily be understood that they looked on him with no approving eye, and that if they had one favourite aversion at the court, next to a wet Valentine’s Day, it was Master John Knox.
Though of active habits, the great Reformer was somewhat stiff and enfeebled with rheumatism; he stooped with difficulty, and for a while could not recover his lost head-gear.
Mistress Beton, sitting bolt upright, looked straight beyond him at the opposite wall with the air of being as unconscious of his presence as Mary Hamilton really was. The latter had indeed been all the morning immersed in a brown study from which it seemed impossible to extricate her. Mistress Carmichael was not in the best of humours, and it may be observed that her fair brow had of late been continually clouded, and her eyes full of tears, without apparent cause. She made not the slightest movement of assistance in the old man’s favour, and even whispered something to Mary Seton with marked and offensive indifference; but the latter, springing gaily from her chair, picked up the fallen skull-cap and returned it to its owner with a pleasant smile, which, saucy as it was, brightened her whole face, like a sunbeam.
‘I thank thee, fair mistress,’ said Knox. ‘These old limbs of mine are stiff now, and the time is not far off when they shall be motionless for evermore. Your knees are young and supple; the more cause have you to be thankful and to bend them while you can in prayer.’
‘The neck may be stiff as well as the knees,’ answered Mary Seton, glancing meaningly towards the Queen’s chamber. ‘I hope my loyalty may outlast my lissomeness, if I live to be as old as your reverence!’
He smiled on her sorrowfully yet kindly.
‘The young,’ said he, ‘think that they are to live for ever, and the old hope still to live a few years longer. Fair mistress, fear God, do your duty, and snap your fingers at the chances of life.’
Mistress Beton here interposed with stately scorn.
‘We shall scarce take lessons of Master Knox,’ said she, ‘in our duty towards the Queen. Under favour, sir, we need none of your reverence’s teaching in loyalty and obedience.’
He turned good-humouredly towards her, still smiling.
‘Ye are angry with me, fair ladies,’ said he, ‘and why? Because I am too old to learn your courtly graces, and too honest to use your courtly terms? Because I call a fig a fig, when I see one, and a spade a spade. Nay, ye should rather prize and cherish one who can look even on your beauty without his eyes being dazzled, and tell you the truth for your salvation, rather than a lie for your ruin.’
‘Ye speak fairly,’ answered Mary Seton, who in virtue of her previous civility seemed to have constituted herself in some sort his protectress. ‘Yet I warrant me ye spake not so tenderly to her Majesty even now. I marvel that ye are not abashed to look thus boldly in the face of an anointed Queen!’
‘Nay, young lady,’ answered the preacher, in a tone of pleasant humour, ‘why should the fair face of a gentlewoman frighten me, who have fronted many angry men? Think ye a bonny brow, unscored by guilt, can be an object of terror, whether it be crowned with a circle of gold like hers, or a wealth of bright hair like your own? No, no, the old man can neither be coaxed nor frightened from doing his duty.’
The Maries looked from one to the other in uncertainty. Knox had obviously gained their attention, and he added a few words with a good motive.
‘I tell ye the truth, fair ladies,’ said he, preparing to withdraw. ‘Better take it from me than the truth-teller to whom ye must listen some day, whether ye will or no. Ay! what a goodly life were this if it could last for ever, or if we might but pass to heaven with all this gay gear; but out upon the knave death! that cometh whether we will or no, and strippeth us of all, and taketh us we know not where! Prepare yourselves for him now, fair ladies, while he is afar, so when he cometh ye shall be found watching, and may laugh in his face.’
His admonition was well meant and received with sufficient decorum, but the impression soon faded away, for he had not been gone five minutes ere they fell to discussing his outward appearance, the severity of his manners, the fashion of his garments, and the general unloveliness of his demeanour.
CHAPTER XIX.
John Knox went back to his studies and his labours. The Queen and her Maries betook themselves to the duties of adornment and the preparations for a journey. The court was about to move for a season to the pleasant seaside town of St Andrews, in Fife, a favourite resort with her Majesty, and much affected by the household, as their sojourn in the old episcopal city was marked by a gaiety and freedom from restraint exceedingly welcome both to the sovereign and her court. The cavalcade moved off in high spirits. It was but a small party, consisting at the most of not more than twenty equestrians, including the four maids-of-honour, and the more immediate attendants on the person of royalty. Horses stamped and snorted, and shook their bridles merrily, as they were mounted at the palace gates to move on in gay procession down the winding causeway that led towards the Firth. Feathers waved, spurs jingled, men’s voices rose in merriment, and the soft laughter of women floated like music on the pure calm air. The dames of Queen Mary’s household, like their mistress, were skilful horsewomen, yet it was wonderful how many of those little attentions, which are so delightful to render and so welcome to receive, they exacted from the cavaliers who accompanied them. Horses were insufficiently bitted, saddles insecurely girthed, housings unbecomingly disposed; it seemed as if each of the fair travellers had reason to complain of her groom’s negligence or incapacity, yet they bore it with exemplary good humour notwithstanding. Even Mary Carmichael, after refusing assistance from every gentleman in turn, and bending her pretty fingers backward against an obstinate buckle, was fain to apply to Walter Maxwell for his help; and although it was rendered in the gravest and coldest manner possible, thanked him with a bright and kindly smile. It was, perhaps, the most provoking way to treat him. Had she quarrelled with him outright, he would have known how to act, for he was hurt and angered to the depths of his loyal and resolute heart, but this off-hand good humour was irritating in the extreme. It was treating him like a child, he thought, and he chafed under it inwardly, the while the girl herself was only striving to avoid a final rupture, and longing to be friends with him as before.
‘Do you journey with us to St Andrews?’ said she, glancing timidly at his immovable face; ‘or do you return to Holyrood from the waterside?’ and her heart beat faster while she waited for his answer.
‘As the Queen shall direct,’ he replied, it must be admitted, not with his natural sincerity. ‘I confess I am profoundly indifferent myself.’ He spoke in a hard, dry tone, and she made her horse bound forward from his side, and bent her head down to caress the animal, till her bright hair mingled with its mane.
The others rode gaily on, talking and laughing joyfully, all but the Queen. Mary Stuart was a thought paler than her wont, and unusually silent and preoccupied. Was it that her remonstrances of Master Knox had sunk into her heart? or was she overladen with the cares of her kingdom? or was there some feeling of pity and compunction gnawing her, foreign to the weightier considerations of religion and policy, yet, perhaps, keener and more engrossing than these? Whatever might be the reason, she, who was generally so eager, so buoyant, on an expedition like this, now rode listlessly and carelessly with her hand resting idly on her knee, and her rein lying loosely on her horse’s neck. ‘Black Agnes,’ however, by no means shared the dejection of her mistress. That favourite palfrey, a gift from her brother Moray, and called after the famous Agnes of Dunbar, who was Countess of Moray in her own right, was in the highest spirits at her release from the stable, and, sharing the mettle of the tameless heroine whose name she bore, was no eligible conveyance for an inattentive horsewoman. Ere the gleaming waters of the Firth were in sight, the black mare shied at a beggar on the road-side, and swerved from him with such activity, that Mary, unprepared as she was, must have been unseated had a dexterous hand not seized her bridle-rein at the decisive moment, and a ready arm supported her till she regained her balance in the saddle.
‘It is the last service I may render my Queen,’ said Chastelâr’s low, sad voice in her ear. ‘O madam, send me not away from you, I beseech you!’
She knew he was in the cavalcade, indeed she had never retracted the permission originally given, that he should accompany the court to St Andrews, and perhaps something had told her he was not riding very far off, although she had resolved to treat him henceforth with enforced coldness and reserve. As she turned to thank him now, and marked his gallant bearing, the skill with which he rode his mettled chestnut horse, the bravery of his apparel, the respectful deference of his manner, and the pale worn face that told of so much sorrow and suffering, the Queen’s heart swelled with that remorseful pity which is not many degrees removed from a softer feeling.
‘You must leave me now,’ she said, hurriedly. ‘I will tell you more when we are embarked. You shall come to me then for your last directions, Chastelâr, and to bid me farewell!’
‘Is there no hope?’ he asked, in a low stifled whisper.
‘None,’ she answered, firmly, in the same guarded tone. ‘O Chastelâr! I pity you,’ she added, while the tears sprang to her eyes; ‘from my heart I pity you; but it must be so.’
He fell back quietly and humbly. Mary put ‘Black Agnes’ into a gallop, and the cavalcade were soon engaged in all the bustle of embarkation at the waterside.
It was Valentine’s Day, and the weather was indeed in unison with that mild and popular saint. It was one of those soft pleasant days, with a calm atmosphere and a serene though clouded sky, that come in the early spring to remind us of the principles of growth and fragrance still existing, though dormant, in the bosom of the teeming earth. The russet sward was saturated with moisture, and not a bud had yet started into life, not a snowdrop lifted its gentle head on the southern side of the sleeping braes and shaws, heavy with the promise of another year. Ashore, the rooks were flocking to the fresh-turned glebe, where the bright ploughshare, sticking in the furrow, marked that the half-day’s work was done; while, on the broad Firth, soft and smooth and white as milk, the dark sea-bird rode calm and motionless, as if at anchor, poised on the surface of his home; the distant mountains loomed grand and dim and sullen, the nearer points and promontories shot sharply out into the water, clearly defined against the sheeted level of the Firth; the very tide seemed but to heave and sob at intervals, lapping drowsily against the dripping sea-weed on the rocks. It was a scene of beauty, but beauty of a softening, saddening tendency, and all on board were fain to acknowledge its melancholy influence and partake in the depression it produced.
The sturdy boatmen bent to their oars; the courtiers, disposed in different attitudes, appeared chiefly intent on arriving at the termination of their voyage; and Mary, sitting in the stern of the boat, dipped her hand idly in the water, silent and gazing downwards, in obvious disquietude of mind.
Chastelâr watched the Queen with eager eyes. After a while he struck a few notes on the lute, without which he seldom travelled; and observing that this, as usual, was the signal for general attention, and that Mary did not seem to disapprove, proceeded to play a mournful melody, which, as it rose and fell, he accompanied in apparent abstraction with his voice.
As he concluded, even the rough boatmen looked from one to the other in undisguised approval. Never insensible to the charms of music have been these bold sons of the sea. To this day they are persuaded that the silver shoals of herring are attracted by harmonious sounds, and they dredge for oysters with a low monotonous chant, that they believe peculiarly grateful to that retiring zoophyte. Long after Chastelâr’s last notes had died gradually out over the silent waters, they laid to their oars with a will, and seemed to pull their long sweeping strokes in measured cadence to the unforgotten strain. The Maries, too, applauded enthusiastically, all but one, and she was weeping in silence, because her heart was full.
In the stern of the boat, a wide roomy shallop, pulled by some six or eight oars, the Queen sat apart from the rest of the company. More than once she had glanced at Chastelâr while he sung, and varying expressions, none of them in keeping with the serene sky overhead, had crossed her brow. After he had finished, she remained silent for several minutes, absorbed in deep reflection. By degrees, as they approached the opposite shore of Burntisland, and the hills of Fife began to rise clear and brown above the black, jagged rocks and level strips of white sand that edged the water’s margin, the attention of Her Majesty’s train became diverted to the different objects around, and anon a shoal of porpoises, tumbling to windward in grotesque succession, drew them, with many exclamations of wonder and amusement, to the bows.
None were now left in the stern of the boat save the Queen and the steersman. That ancient Triton’s whole attention was riveted, seaman-like, on the shallows they were nearing, where, for the first time during their passage, the rolling waves were breaking languidly into surf. Chastelâr remained in the place he had never quitted, his eyes fixed on the Queen’s face. She beckoned him to approach, and in an instant he was at her side.
‘We remain at Burntisland to-night,’ said Mary, in a low measured voice that seemed the result either of extreme indifference or perfect self-command. ‘In the morning we shall ride on to St Andrews. I have a packet that must be delivered without delay at Dunfermline. Can I depend upon you to undertake its safe arrival there before to-morrow’s dawn?’
He assented eagerly. This was no such distant banishment! He should be under the same sky, within a day’s journey! The light of hope shone over his face, but while the Queen proceeded in those dry, chilling tones, it faded as it came.
‘You will ride thence to Stirling, where you will remain until you receive instructions from Maitland or Melvil. They will be accompanied by letters for the French Court, and on the instant of their receipt you will depart for Paris. Chastelâr, I depend upon your obedience—you will not fail me.’
The cold drops stood on his forehead. It was in a broken, hollow voice that he replied—
‘My life is in your hands. Do with me what you will!’
Again her kindly heart smote her sore. It was a fearful gift this charm that she possessed. It was a dreadful responsibility thus to hold the happiness of a human being, so to speak, in her hand. Could she dash it to pieces without some tinge of pity and remorse? She resumed her task very sadly and unwillingly.
‘It is better,’ said she, ‘that this should be done at once. Queen though she be, nay, because she is a Queen, Mary Stuart may not listen for a moment to the voice of her own feelings, nor the impulse of her own heart, pitying as it does those who are in trouble, though their sufferings and their sorrows spring from their own deed. Nay,’ she added, seeing him about to speak, and deprecating his words, as it were, with a gentle, almost a caressing gesture of her white hand, ‘there is nothing you can urge that shall induce me to alter my determination. A woman’s heart is weak, but her will is iron as a man’s. It must be so, Chastelâr, for your own sake—and—and for mine!’
‘O God!’ he exclaimed, in an agony like a man writhing under a death-blow. ‘Have pity—have pity! Anything but this—any disgrace, any punishment, any ordeal. But oh! think of the forlorn, despairing prayer, “Entreat me not to leave thee!”’
The tears dropped fast from her eyes, and the beautiful face quivered in its struggle to be firm. What was that to him? He could only think her hard, unfeeling as the seaboard rock. She yielded not an inch.
‘It must be so,’ she repeated; ‘loyal and true, you will not fail me at last!’
His eyes flashed with anger. Man’s nature can scarce endure great sorrow without a tinge of resentment.
‘Loyalty and truth are soon forgotten in the absent,’ said he, bitterly. ‘Lip-service and flattery are more welcome to princes. I cannot refuse to make room for a newer favourite!’
She smiled on him gentle and forgiving through her tears.
‘You are unjust,’ she said, ‘and unkind; you know it is not so; and when you are far off it will be your punishment to think that you could have spoken such words to me to-day.’
The reaction of his feelings was frightful: he put his hand to his throat as if he was choking, and gasped out in broken syllables—
‘Forgive me! only forgive me before I go out from the light into eternal darkness and despair!’
‘Obedience?’ she asked in her turn, looking wistfully at the shore, which they were now approaching; and on their arrival at which, something perhaps warned her that she must take her last leave of Chastelâr and his unselfish, unexacting devotion.
‘To the death!’ he replied; and even while he spoke the boatmen shipped their oars, and those who were forward leaped out waist-deep in water, to steady the shallop for the disembarkation of the ladies.
This was no such easy task. In these days people walk from a roomy steamer roofed in and glazed like a conservatory, across a platform securely railed on to a substantial stone-built quay that reaches a quarter of a mile out into the Firth, and renders them as independent of tide as the vessel herself does of weather; save for the slight oscillation caused by the motive power, a blind man, unless in a gale of wind, would never know that he had left terra firma. But even within the recollection of those now scarce past middle age, the crossing of the Firth was an affair of considerable discomfort, if not a little danger. The state of the tide was of paramount importance; the transit in an open boat, generally of the smallest and craziest description, to the steamer moored half-a-mile off, was in itself a voyage of no slight apprehension to the timid, especially if the wind had been blowing for two or three days steadily from the east: and the disembarkation on the northern side was, if possible, worse; the boat had to be beached with practised dexterity not to capsize altogether, and under the most favourable circumstances the pursuing waves were pretty sure to come dashing in over her stern, wetting to the skin those unwary passengers who had not taken refuge at the prow.
At low water also a considerable journey had to be made which partook of the discomforts both of land and sea, inasmuch as it was performed in the ungainly fashion termed by schoolboys ‘pick-a-back,’ on the shoulders of veteran boatmen wading knee-deep through the surf. To a heavy weight and a timid rider this mode of progression was also not without its terrors, for if the bearer, generally old and often infirm, made the slightest false step, a very complete ducking was the inevitable result.
In this hazardous mode it was necessary to land the Queen and her ladies on their arrival at Burntisland: the scene was one of bustle, dash, and excitement, none the less picturesque for the hard-weather appearance of the boatmen and the gaudy dresses of the fishermen’s wives and daughters, who came down in numbers to welcome their Sovereign, and shrank not from criticising in loud ear-piercing tones the personal appearance of the party, and the whole details of the proceeding.
The horses that had been conveyed across in the boat accompanying the Queen’s, splashed one after another into the water, amidst shouts of laughter, and half-swam, half-scrambled ashore as they might. The retainers and men-at-arms jeered each other merrily as they waded through the waves, or wrung the wet from their boots and clothing on the sand; the female spectators screamed out their advice and opinions, fluttering aloof shrill and pertinacious as the sea-mews themselves; whilst white-headed urchins ran hither and thither through the crowd, devising impossible jobs which they professed their readiness to perform for the smallest remuneration in copper. But the Queen’s shallop excited the interest and attention of all.
One by one the ladies were received into the arms of their attending boatmen, to be conveyed tenderly and carefully ashore. In right of his years, his experience, his patriarchal dignity, and his solemn demeanour, the oldest of these boatmen was entrusted with the person of the Queen. He was a stalwart, fine old man, broad in the shoulders, deep in the chest, large of stature, and strong of limb. He took Mary in his arms as if she had been a baby, and waded with her deliberately through the surf; another score of yards, and she would have been safe on land; but whether the veteran had been celebrating his prospective distinction by deep potations of alcohol, or whether his toil-worn frame failed him at the pinch, or whether it was indeed by one of those fatalities for which it is impossible to account, he made a false step, a fruitless effort to recover it, and but for prompt assistance must have precipitated his royal burden before him into the water.
Need we say that it was Chastelâr who was at hand to save; that it was his grasp which plucked the Queen from her falling supporter at this critical juncture; and that for a few blissful moments, worth to his delirious fancy whole ages of torture, the love-stricken poet for the first and last time bore the precious form of Mary Stuart in his arms?
Slowly, carefully, gently, he waded with her to the land; not a word was spoken—not a look exchanged; the Queen’s face was cold and impassive as marble, and Chastelâr, in the tumult of his love and his despair, was conscious but of one frantic wish, that the waves would rise over their heads and cover them, and they might be at rest fathom-deep down there together for evermore.