The episode of idolatry and madness was fast drawing to a close. When the Queen and her household went to establish themselves in the lodging where they designed to pass the night, Chastelâr remained on the beach, apparently unconscious of all about him, gazing out to seaward, as a man does who is utterly lost to the interests and occupations of the shore. Amongst the many mysterious sympathies that connect natural objects so inexplicably with the mind, there is a strange affinity between human sorrow and the watery element—be it the gentle ripple of a running stream, or the dash and recoil of the mounting wave breaking on the beach, or the dark-blue line of a sea-horizon clear against the sky.
There is some morbid attraction to mortal grief in the contemplation of each of these; there is something that takes man out of himself, and though it speaks not of hope or consolation, seems to promise oblivion and repose at last. Ay, we love to prate of the beauties of nature, to enlarge upon the pleasures of smiling skies and gorgeous landscapes and magnificent scenery. Are we quite honest about the effect produced by such objects? and can we declare that they create sensations of unmixed gratification? On the contrary, most of us, if sincere, will confess that when we were happy, we took very little notice of them; and it was but in some keen, hopeless sorrow we turned to nature for an anodyne, and found she added sharpness to our pangs and mocked us with a smile as she poured fresh venom into the wound. No; if we would be consoled, we must look to where the running stream loses itself in the ocean that we have never seen; we must carry our thoughts athwart the far horizon in search of the eternal shore; we must strain our eyes to pierce the smiling heaven, and catch if but a glimpse of the undying world beyond.
Chastelâr paced to and fro upon the sand with all the worst passions of our nature tearing at a heart that yet seemed formed for better things. Utterly undisciplined in his wild, imaginative character, he had never prepared himself for such complete desolation as this. For many years, more than he now dared count, the smiles of that beautiful Queen had been to him dearer than the very air he breathed. A less enthusiastic temperament would have asked itself long ago to what result this abject service, this blind adoration, could eventually lead, and would, at least, have prepared for the final shock, which it required little sagacity to foresee must sooner or later tumble the magic edifice to the ground; but Chastelâr’s was a character that never stops to count the cost.
There was to him an unspeakable joy in the very abandonment of his attachment, in the lavish devotion which only asked to be received without return. Full of a generous fire kindled in his own ardent imagination, and nourished by those seductive follies which constituted the very essence of an age of chivalry, it seemed to him as rich a happiness to cherish his hopeless attachment for the Queen, as it would have seemed to a coarser and stronger mind to possess itself of Mary’s heart and person. The poet never dreamed the time could come when he should be told that even this self-sacrifice was unwelcome; that for one unguarded word, wrung from him by the very depth and tenderness of his feelings, he should be banished from her presence, and that she who was the light of his eyes should herself determine that he must look upon her no more.
Presently the devil got into his heart; the rebellious spirit, that is never so strong as when men feel they have been virtuous and self-denying in vain, rose tumultuous now, all the fiercer for having been kept down so long, and urged the counsels of despair. Of what availed his old and faithful service, his constancy, his loyalty, his obedience, and truth? She flung them away as nothing, and less than nothing; she could take his warm fresh heart from him when it suited her, as a mere matter of pastime, and squeezing it, as one would squeeze an orange, give it him back again when she had no further use for it, all withered and empty, the very essence of its existence gone.
Queen though she were, she had no right to do this. She forbade him her presence! He would see her whether she would or no! He had done with obedience now, and discretion and consideration! He would speak to Mary Stuart once more, if all the devils in hell rose to prevent it!
Turning on his steps he strode fiercely along the now solitary shore in the direction of the hamlet of Burntisland, where the Queen was to pass the night. Already the day was waning, and the evening mist, gathering from the eastward, crept slowly up the margin of the Firth. A light drizzling rain had also begun to fall, and the sea-gulls, no longer floating in repose, were screaming and turning restlessly on the wing, as they flitted to and fro in search of shelter for the night. Boatmen and fishwives had betaken themselves to their homes, and none were left to witness the gestures of anger and despair with which the unhappy Chastelâr accompanied his racking, maddening thoughts. He wrapped his cloak round him, and walked faster and faster as he began to shape his resolve.
But within a short distance of the hamlet he met a figure approaching him through the increasing gloom: a female figure cloaked and hooded, walking swiftly, yet with smooth, majestic gait, and of a stature that seemed unusually lofty in that uncertain light. For an instant the blood gathered round his heart as a possibility flashed across him that even in his madness he could scarcely dare believe. In that space of time a thousand frantic surmises swept through his brain. Reaction, remorse, a woman’s pity, and a woman’s tenderness, overriding all, even the reserve and dignity of a Queen. But the foolish fancies died out rapidly as they arose, for the figure stopped, handed him in silence a small packet tied round with a morsel of silk (he could notice such a trifle even then), and while she threw back her hood with a gesture of relief, the clear, guileless eyes of Mary Hamilton looked him sadly and inquiringly in the face.
She spoke not for a while; she seemed to stop and take breath; then she said, very quietly and coldly—
‘The Queen bade me bring you this. She says it must be forwarded without delay.’
He bowed courteously. He had recovered himself now, for he had a scheme in view, and shaping it out rapidly in his working brain, he bethought him that here was an unconscious instrument which he might turn to good account.
‘How did you know where to find me?’ he asked, forcing himself to smile.
A bright blush swept over the maid-of-honour’s forehead, but she paled again almost immediately as she replied—
‘I saw you from our window walking on the shore. I knew it was you, and I asked to bring the packet myself because they tell me you are going away to-night, and I was anxious to bid you farewell.’
This was a great deal for Mary Hamilton to say. No successful gallant could have wrung such an avowal from her lips; but the keen eye of affection had told her that Chastelâr was dejected and unhappy; so she longed to console him and speak kindly to him ere he went away.
Should he not have pitied her? He who knew what it was to love in vain? Of all women on earth he should have spared her; but the devil had entered into him and he saw in this pure, unselfish affection a way to his own object; so she, too, must be sacrificed without remorse. What did it matter? Was he alone to suffer and be trampled under foot?
‘It was good of you, Mistress Hamilton,’ he replied, with a soft glance from his dark eyes, that made her flush and tremble where she stood. ‘Few but yourself would have been so considerate, and I should have valued the kindness as much from none. Shall I leave one person at Court to regret me when I am gone?’
‘More than that,’ she answered, hurriedly, and scarce knowing what she said, ‘there will be no music for us now, at least none worth listening to. The Queen said so herself—and—and—are you not coming back again?’
‘Never!’ he replied, darkly; and then, seeing her scared and troubled face, adding, with a laugh, ‘Never is a long word, is it not? and who can tell in such a country as this what a few months may bring? But I shall be absent a weary while, Mistress Hamilton, and I cannot bear unkindness from those I love. I would not willingly be forgotten and supplanted by newer faces.’
Her eloquent eyes told him that was impossible, but she dared not trust herself to speak.
‘Will you think of me when I am gone?’ he proceeded, in a lower tone, and pressing nearer his companion’s side. ‘When you are feasting merrily at Holyrood, and enjoying dance and song and revelry, will you not keep one little corner in your heart for the absent who used to do all in his poor power to make your time pass pleasantly, who will be thinking every hour so sadly and longingly of you?’
Even in the midst of her astonished happiness she experienced a shadowy misgiving that it was too good to be real; but she could only reply—
‘You must think very poorly of us all, Chastelâr, if you imagine we could ever forget you.’
‘It is not distance that can separate those who care for each other,’ resumed the poet, dreamily; ‘after all, it is thought that unites soul to soul; that sea-bird’s wing would droop ere he had traversed a thousand miles of ocean, and yet twice the distance separates the lover from his mistress no more than a score of yards and a brick wall. He can be with her in spirit, although his body may be at the uttermost end of the earth. Nevertheless, for all this, Mistress Hamilton, it grieves me sore to bid you farewell.’
She could have listened to him for an hour; she loved to hang on his musical accents, and drink in the tones of his rich, southern voice; above all, were such sentiments as these congenial to her own lofty conceptions of an ideal, and her trusting, clinging heart.
He was pitiless; he went on speaking low and hurriedly—
‘We may not meet again for many, many months—perhaps never in this world. Do you think I am a man of marble that I cannot feel? Do you think mine is a happy lot, thus to leave all I value or esteem and take not even hope with me into exile? Mary Hamilton, you will not refuse me what I ask you on such a day as this?’
‘I would give my life for yours,’ she answered, scarce above her breath. ‘What is it you would have me do?’
‘Listen,’ he replied. ‘I must be in the saddle soon after nightfall. For reasons I cannot explain to you, it must be supposed by the household that I have departed at sun-down. My very life is in danger, if I am known to have remained. I cannot tell you why. Do you trust me?’
She bowed her head.
‘I trust you,’ she answered, very quietly, and he needed only to look in her face for confirmation of her words.
‘Then grant me my request,’ he resumed. ‘It is a foolish fancy of mine, but you at least cannot blame, though you may scoff at it. There is one person whom I must see the very last before I depart. One face of which I must take the picture with me, into banishment, engraven on my heart, one hand of which the farewell pressure must remain on mine till we meet again. An hour after supper I will be at the door of the small garden into which your apartments open. You will meet me there for the last, last time?’
She looked a good deal frightened and discomposed.
‘But I shall not be dismissed so soon,’ she urged, ‘and if I am absent they will come to look for me everywhere, and oh! I ought not! I ought not!’
He was prepared for her objection—he knew the Queen’s habit so well—this was exactly what he wanted.
‘Nay, then,’ he resumed, ‘I will ask you to risk nothing for my sake; and yet, see the last of the dear face, I must and will. The days are short now. It is already twilight, and it will be as dark as midnight in an hour. I will go make my preparations for departure. Do you, as you enter, unlock the garden-door and take the key with you; it cannot then be fastened from the inside. I will conceal myself amongst the shrubs and wait for you there. As soon as you are dismissed for the night you can come out and bid me farewell.’
‘It is better not,’ she murmured, in sad perturbation. She could not bear to refuse him, and yet all her womanly feelings revolted at the clandestine nature of such a proceeding. ‘We are close at home now. All good attend you, Chastelâr. I will pray for you night and morning—farewell!’
She gave him her hand, as if to take her final leave, but she had not the heart to withdraw it at once. It lingered long and lovingly in his clasp.
‘Mary!’ said he, and the dear name came so tenderly off his lips. ‘Mary! you will not let me part from you thus?’
‘I will do as you wish,’ was all she answered, once more dropping the hood over her face and hurrying away. They were within a stone’s throw of the Queen’s lodging, and it was already time for her to resume her duties. Her mind was in a sad tumult when she left him. She felt she was going to do wrong, deliberately wrong; yet how could she refuse him? She loved him so, and he was going away!
With a wicked smile, suggestive of anything but mirth or happiness, engraven, as it were, on his countenance, Chastelâr strode up the narrow street to the stable in which his trusty chestnut was disposed. This animal was a gift from the Queen, and valued accordingly. We would fain describe him from his velvet muzzle to his flinty hoofs, for where shall we find so seductive a theme as the beauty of a horse? but will only observe that he was in every respect a fitting present from royalty. The Frenchman ordered his favourite to be saddled with considerable parade, and spoke loudly of the journey before him. Then, ostentatiously assuming his arms and valise, mounted and rode away in the direction of Dunfermline, followed, as his figure disappeared in the gloom, by the admiring glances of such ostlers and retainers as his noisy departure had gathered to observe him.
For a mile or so he proceeded along the coast, and then, turning off the horse-track into the recess of an old quarry, dismounted and fastened his horse to the roots of a whin-bush, growing from the chinks in the cold blue stone. For all his feverish excitement, he disposed the animal in a nook sheltered from the chill east wind, and taking his own cloak from about him cast it over the flanks of his dumb friend. Then, with a farewell pat, he returned on foot the way he had come, rapidly and breathlessly, never stopping till he reached the hamlet of Burntisland, and saw the lights twinkling once more in the Queen’s lodging.
He stole softly to the garden-gate, of which he had spoken to Mary Hamilton. It opened noiselessly to his push. By this time it was quite dark, and on entering the enclosure he found no necessity for concealment amongst the scanty shrubs it contained. Here he drew off his heavy horseman’s boots with extreme caution, and thus, with his rapier at his side, and his pistols in his belt, took up his position close against the door of the house, which opened outwards.
Here he waited, watched, and listened. A drizzling rain was falling, and the wind was very keen, but, though stripped to his doublet and hose, Chastelâr was unconscious of the weather. Had he been immersed in snow, he could scarce have felt cold while that fever burned and raged so fiercely at his heart.
CHAPTER XXI.
The Queen’s supper and the couchée which succeeded it seemed endless. Her Majesty, though by no means in her usual spirits, eating but little, and scarcely speaking at all, was yet none the more disposed to dismiss her ladies and betake herself to repose. Mary Hamilton, with flushed cheeks and unsettled gestures, busied herself about every arrangement she could think of that should further the process of retiring for the night, till even the Queen, rousing from her meditations, taxed her with being fatigued after her ride, and did not scruple to hint at the remarkable restlessness of her demeanour. After this she controlled herself, indeed, with an effort; but felt the while, that if the suspense continued much longer it would drive her mad.
It was Mary Seton’s turn and hers to put the Queen to bed; and the gossiping propensities of the former, whose lively disposition never acknowledged fatigue or low spirits, did by no means conduce to the despatch of matters. For reasons of her own, too, this young lady chose to ask a series of questions concerning the Earl of Bothwell, and the probability of his returning to Court, interspersed with remarks on that nobleman and his borderers and his enemies—all delivered with considerable freedom and a flippancy peculiar to herself. The Queen, who seemed to-night more or less impatient of every subject broached, at length called her a ‘saucy chatterbox,’ and bade her good-humouredly ‘hold her tongue.’ As usual, the reproof only produced a merry smile and a provoking little grimace, at which Her Majesty could not forbear laughing, though she looked sadder than ever a moment afterwards.
Wearily the minutes passed on. Mary Hamilton had never before thought royalty so exacting, or an attendance on her own dear mistress so tiresome. One by one the Queen’s garments had to be taken off, folded up and disposed, each in its proper place; then the loose flowing gown was brought her by the senior maid-of-honour, and the junior let down the long, rich hair that covered her more nobly than the mantle of royalty itself. While Mistress Seton combed and stroked those chestnut tresses carefully, Mistress Hamilton brought a basin and ewer, offering it on her knees; after which ceremony, it was her duty to place an ivory crucifix, and a small lamp, with the Queen’s breviary, on the table by her bed-side; then she handed Her Majesty’s beautiful rosary, consisting of beads of sandal-wood, inlaid with silver, and Mary Stuart betook her, after the manner of the ancient faith, to those devotions she never neglected in her chequered life, and that served her so nobly in the hour of trial with which it closed.
The maids-of-honour retired. Mary Seton would fain have prolonged the conversation, even on the threshold of their mutual chamber. She was never tired, not she! but her friend, vowing she had forgotten something in the supper-room, hurried away down-stairs, with a feeling of intense relief, and yet horribly frightened and uncomfortable, as she fled like a lapwing along the dark passages towards the garden.
The servants and retainers had all gone to their repose, wearied with the toils of the day, and anticipating an early start on the morrow. Even in that small house there was something gloomy and alarming in the profound silence. Mary Hamilton, while conscious of the purity of her motives, trembled, as innocence always does tremble, far more violently than guilt; and it was with a beating heart and quick-coming breath that she reached the door, and, unfastening it gently, peered out into the thick darkness beyond.
For a minute or two she waited, listening anxiously. Not a sound was to be heard but the dull beat of the tide upon the shore. Then she advanced a few paces into the garden, now that it seemed likely to elude her, more resolved upon the interview than she could have believed possible a short while ago. The small rain struck chill against her face, and she strained her eyes in vain to pierce the surrounding gloom.
Had she turned round at this moment, she might perhaps have faintly distinguished a dark shadow that passed swiftly from behind the door, and entered the house by the passage she had just quitted.
But she was intent only on Chastelâr. She stepped softly to the garden door, and peeped into the sandy lane on which it opened. Here there was a little more light, and she could see some ten or a dozen paces to right and left. No living object was discernible; the rain fell faster, and the tide moaned and gurgled in its ebb and flow against the shallow beach.
Mary Hamilton was puzzled and distressed. An hour ago she would have hailed as an unspeakable relief the news that Chastelâr had actually gone without further parley, but now that she had been schooling herself and stringing her nerves for an interview, it was provoking that so much agitation should be wasted for nothing; it seemed hard and cruel not to see him just once again.
She ventured on a gentle cough; a timid whisper, very soft and cautious; there was no result. At last she spoke his name out loud, and then, half-frightened and a good deal disappointed, made her way back into the house, barring the door after her with as little noise as her trembling hands would permit.
Poor Mary Hamilton! In that dark passage she paused to lay her head against the wall and weep. She dared not return at once to the chamber which she shared with her comrades, in case any one of them should be awake. She felt she could not brook observation or remark on her streaming eyes and agitated looks. As the tears flowed silently, they did her so much good! For weeks the girl had been living in a morbid state of overstrung excitement. Continually in the presence of the man she loved, and that man gifted with many brilliant qualities exceedingly attractive to the female heart; never convinced of his preference, yet suspecting it from a thousand trifles that she naturally interpreted in her own favour; living in an atmosphere of alternate hope and fear, exposed to the daily charm of his person, his conversation, his musical talents, and his warm foreign cordiality, it was no wonder that she hailed as a blissful relief the certainty which she was persuaded had burst upon her to-day, even though accompanied by the miserable conviction that she must bid him a long, perhaps a hopeless farewell. The sweet and the bitter were strangely mingled in the cup she had drained so eagerly—the cup that slakes, but never quenches thirst. She was so relieved, and yet so troubled; so proud, and yet so fearful; so happy, yet so sad.
What could a poor woman do but droop her head and weep her heart out, simply because she was a woman?
Suddenly she started as if she had been shot. A loud shriek, followed by a succession of outcries for assistance in the Queen’s voice, rang through the small house, and were quickly followed by the scuffling of feet, the banging of doors, and the tumult of many tongues, in which the shrill tones of the maids-of-honour predominated. Lights were already glancing in the passages; women in white, with pale, scared faces, and half-dressed men but half-awake, snatching at whatever weapons came to hand, rushed to and fro tumultuously; everybody seemed exceedingly alarmed and excited, but none to know the least what was the matter. All this Mary Hamilton observed as we see things in a dream, while she rushed up-stairs, and dashed unhesitatingly into the Queen’s chamber.
The sight that met her there arrested her as if by magic on the threshold. In the twinkling of an eye, the warm impulsive woman seemed frozen into a statue.
Pale as her night gear, breathless and trembling, while she clung to her brother’s shoulder for support, yet with the ‘Stuart frown’ stamped sternly on her brow, the Queen was gazing in fear and anger on the dark figure of a man who stood with his arms folded, in the corner of the apartment. That man, calm, erect, defiant, almost sublime in the intrepidity with which he confronted threatening brows and levelled weapons (for already the royal retainers were filling the place), was Chastelâr. Mary Hamilton turned sick and giddy while she looked. The Queen raved and shook, and seemed half-mad with fear and shame; her ladies crowded about her in helpless astonishment and dismay, while the servants and men-at-arms glanced from one to another, utterly at their wit’s end. Except the fatal cause himself of all this disturbance, Moray alone seemed to retain his presence of mind. Alternately, he soothed his frantic sister, and gave directions to the astonished bystanders.
‘Stab him!’ exclaimed the Queen, pointing with shaking hand at the unfortunate man who stood there, so pale, so calm, offering no attempt at escape or resistance. ‘Brother, for the honour of our house, put your sword through him, an’ ye be half a Stuart. Let him not live an hour to boast of this daring, this atrocious insult. Oh, it is too much—too much!’
The Queen covered her face with both hands, completely overcome; her beautiful hair, escaping from the ribbon which confined it, fell over her shoulders to her waist.
Chastelâr looked proudly and lovingly at her even then. Madman! even then!
‘Nay, madam,’ urged Moray, with soothing accents, ‘bethink you, I beseech your Grace. In the name of prudence and discretion, bid me not dip my hands in the blood of this man. Remember, you have yourself treated him with over-courtesy and kindness, to the offence of your nobility, and, pardon me for saying it, to the scandal of the Court. Reflect, madam, what shall the world think of it when they hear that a queen’s musician was found in a queen’s bed-chamber, and put to death lest he should tell the tale.’
The Queen raised her head with flashing eyes.
‘You dare to shield him, Moray! You! my own blood!’ she vociferated. ‘On your allegiance, I charge you. What! You will never let him speak! To the death with him on the spot!’
But Moray knew the pliant and forgiving nature of her with whom he had to deal.
‘Nay, madam,’ said the prudent earl, ‘patience; I entreat you, patience; the unhappy man is clearly distraught; let us not shed his blood unwittingly. He shall be brought to justice, and punished according to his deserving; so shall his treason be sufficiently expiated by death. Remove him,’ he added, speaking composedly to the men-at-arms, who crowded round the door. ‘Bind him forthwith, and let him be placed securely in ward.’
Chastelâr still remained perfectly immovable; never once had he taken his eyes off the Queen’s face; never once had the strange longing, loving gaze, with its dash of wild triumph and its depth of intense affection, faded or varied for an instant. While they bound him fast, drawing a girdle tight round his arms above the elbow, he neither seemed to feel the pressure, nor to be conscious of the indignity; while they pressed round him and hustled him from the room, his looks never strayed for an instant from the Queen.
All this Mary Hamilton saw as if in a trance. Though every stroke of her pulse beat with a loud stupefying clang upon her brain, she knew that this was reality, that this was truth, that there was no hope of awaking to find it all a dream; but when Chastelâr reached the door, and beholding the Queen no longer seemed roused to consciousness at last, she met his eye for the first time, and the whole hopeless misery of her situation rushed upon her at once.
He smiled on her very sadly and kindly; there was a pitying, remorseful expression in his face—a wistful, mournful tenderness in his glance: she could bear it no longer, and she fainted dead away upon the floor.
CHAPTER XXII.
Although the gayest of the gay, where revelry was in the ascendant, and gifted with that tameless courage and those qualities of endurance which were the characteristics of her family, alas! too often proved in the reverses of that ill-fated line, Mary Stuart was subject to constitutional fits of dejection, the more painful that she struggled bravely against the incubus; and, however much it may have darkened her spirits, never suffered it to affect her temper. The Queen was always kind, considerate, and smiling towards her household, even while her eyes were full of tears, and her heart was sore with undefined anxieties and anticipations of evil for which she saw no obvious cause. Her Majesty was generally more free from such depressing influences at St Andrews than elsewhere. The keen sea-breezes of that bracing locality seemed to have a favourable effect upon her health, and she enjoyed, above all things, the absence of state and ceremony, on which she specially insisted in the old cathedral town. Fond as she was of the saddle, it was a great pleasure to the beautiful Queen to gallop over the spacious sands that skirt St Andrews Bay, where she could enjoy a stretch of two miles and more, to the mouth of the river Eden, careering along on the firm hard surface, with the spray of the German Ocean wet on her cheek, and her horse’s feet splashing amongst the spent waves of the receding tide. Then she delighted to fly her hawk at the wild fowl abounding a mile or so inland, returning by the well-known chain of grassy, sandy hillocks, that are there called links, and devoted in modern times by the Scottish gentry to their national recreation of golf. Sometimes crossing the Eden at the shallows near its mouth, she would roam over the waste of low grounds that stretch to the northward, perhaps as far as a small straggling hamlet, in days of old a Roman settlement, defended by one of their masterly encampments, and called by the legions, Lochores—a Latinism which the Scottish peasant of to-day reproduces in the name of Leuchars.
Then, on her return from these joyous expeditions to the small house in the South Street, selected for her own royal residence, she gathered her few intimates and friends around her, and passed the evenings in amusement and hilarity, from which the very name of business was rigidly excluded.
To one who was so staunch a supporter of the faith in which she had been brought up, not the least attractive feature in this picturesque town was its beautiful cathedral, that goodly edifice which the over-zealous followers of John Knox thought it no sacrilege to devastate, and of which a fine ruin alone remains to suggest to us what it must once have been.
The antiquary prowling about the moss-grown flag-stones that pave its aisles, or prying into nooks and corners of sinking buttress and mouldering walls, finds memory sharpened and curiosity stimulated at every turn. The philosopher, contemplating the length and breadth of that spacious area, heretofore rich with the decorations of architecture, and glowing in the pomp and pageantry of Romish piety, recalls the solemn music, the swinging censers, the carven images, the twinkling lights, the florid altar, the gilded crozier, and the mitred abbot, with his train of monks and choristers winding solemnly up the dusky nave. He speculates, half-pitying, half-sneering, on the various modes in which men offer their homage to the true God—the Mollah exhorting the faithful Moslem from a minaret, the priest pattering Latin in a corner before a crucifix, the precentor’s nasal psalmody quivering within the unsightly walls of a Presbyterian meeting-house—and he reflects that the forms of religion change like the fashion of a garment, and that the offertory of yesterday becomes the superstition of to-day, and the mummery of to-morrow; but the Christian, looking upward to that ruined arch, through the stained glass of which, as through a prism, the light was wont to stream with rainbow colouring, sees the blue sky of heaven smiling changeless in its span, and rejoices to believe that clear as the blessed light of day is the light of piety, penetrating the disguises and the ceremonials and the ignorant prejudices of weak humanity, like the sunshine that vivifies as surely the dusky slab lurking in the gloomiest corner of the cathedral, as the fresh daisy raising its head on the free mountain side. What matters the fashion of the cup, chased in gold, or of broken pottery, so the parched lips can but drain their fill of the waters of life?
It was the Queen’s habit to devote the early part of the day to such affairs of state as would not excuse neglect, even at St Andrews, and to the usual household duties, which every lady in the land, royalty included, then found to occupy a considerable portion of her time. At twelve, she dined temperately and hastily, after which she mounted her horse, and, accompanied by as small a retinue as possible, devoted the afternoon to exercise and amusement.
It was on the second day after her arrival at St Andrews that she agreed to Mary Hamilton’s request, who begged that she might be allowed to accompany her mistress in the daily ride. The Queen had seen with concern the sad change that had come over her favourite’s looks, and although surprised at this departure from her usual habits (for the maid-of-honour was a timid and unskilful horsewoman), willingly acceded to a proposal that promised to bring back the colour to her cheek and the light to her eye. With a couple of men-at-arms and a page, as their sole escort, they left the town by its southern gate, taking the horse track that led to the broad expanse of Magus-Muir, a locality destined in subsequent troubles to obtain an odious celebrity for the murder of Archbishop Sharpe at the hands of the Covenanters, but only interesting to Mary and her courtiers that it was rich in an abundance of wild fowl.
Chastelâr had been already tried on the charge of high treason, and sentenced to death; he was to be beheaded the following morning at daybreak. It was perhaps natural that neither Mary nor her maid-of-honour should have exchanged a syllable concerning his fate.
The Queen was riding ‘Black Agnes.’ As soon as they were clear of the town, she put her horse into a gallop, and never drew bridle for several miles. It did not, however, escape her Majesty’s observation that the animal on which Mary Hamilton was mounted, a bay of great strength and spirit, usually uncontrollable by the gentle hand of a lady, was going in a perfectly docile and collected form; also, that the girl seemed to-day perfectly free from the timidity which commonly left her miles behind her mistress in these scampers across a country. They had already lost sight of the sea, and had gained a wild inland district of moss and moor, varied here and there with patches of cultivation, and interspersed with a few fir-trees of stunted growth, and an occasional cairn of stones breaking the level sky-line, when the Queen pulled up at the top of an acclivity, and pointing to a solitary horseman stationed, as if expecting them, at the foot of the slope, observed to her companion, with a wild attempt at cheerfulness obviously forced—
‘You scarcely thought, Mary, I was entrapping you to witness a rendezvous. It is a romantic spot for the purpose, nevertheless, and yonder is the gallant who has kept tryst with me as he promised, faithfully enough.’
Mary Hamilton would have felt it an unspeakable relief to have burst into tears. The whole fabric of her morning’s work was swept away by the sight of that plain dark figure, so stationary yonder on his horse. She would have given her life for half-an-hour’s conversation with the Queen alone, although (strange inconsistency) she dared not ask her indulgent mistress point-blank to accord her that trifling favour, and now, this hateful stranger would probably hang about them all day, and to-morrow it would be too late. A thousand shadowy and incongruous impossibilities crossed her brain, too, at the same moment, all turning upon the one sickening certainty, that even while she grasped at their consolations, she felt too surely it would be out of mortal power to avert. She answered with a ghastly smile that startled the Queen, and totally unconscious of what she said the while—
‘Let us go to meet him, madam; it may be that he can give us some hope.’
Mary stared at her attendant vaguely, and shook her head, then, putting her horse in motion, descended the slope towards the solitary traveller, flushing a brace of wary old moor-fowl and a curlew, while she plunged and scrambled with characteristic fearlessness through the broken ground that intervened.
The horseman dismounted as she approached, and did her homage with a grave dignified air, not without something of caustic humour that recognised the peculiarity of the situation.
‘I might not fail to do your Grace’s bidding,’ said he, ‘even in so light a matter, as to see you fly your hawk on Magus-Muir, but in good faith, madam, a younger cavalier could scarce have ridden harder than I have done since sunrise, and my old bones ache to some purpose for my punctuality.’
‘Nay, Master Knox,’ answered the Queen, with marked favour, ‘those of your blood have been ever willing to set foot in stirrup at the bidding of the Stuart, and I have been taught to believe that a black cassock may cover as stout a heart and as loyal as a steel breastplate. Behold, I have here a fitting reward for your punctuality, to be given with the cordial good wishes of your Queen.’
Thus speaking, Mary drew from her bosom a crystal watch of curious and elaborate workmanship, large, substantial, and of considerable thickness, but esteemed a triumph of mechanical ingenuity, and presented it to the gratified Churchman, with a charm of manner that increased the value of the gift a thousand fold.
He bowed low over the royal hand that proffered so flattering a favour, and mounted his horse once more with an air of extreme satisfaction and the ready alacrity of a youth.
So far all was progressing smoothly, but Mary Stuart, judging of the human temperament by her own, was persuaded that the exhilarating influence of a gallop would produce the mollifying results she desired, and render even stern John Knox malleable to the purpose she had in view.
‘Ye are not so strict,’ said Mary, ‘but that ye like well to see a fair flight, and I have a hawk here, Master Knox, that hath not her equal on the wing this side the sea; nay,’ she added playfully, as he seemed about to excuse himself, and muttered something of ‘business’ and ‘distance,’ ‘ye have thought fit to reprove all my other amusements, my feastings, and fiddlings, and masquings, and such-like, nor have I borne you any grudge, for that I believed you to be sincere, but ye love a good horse well I know, and can reclaim a hawk, for all your solemn bearing and grave studies, with the best of us. By these gloves, I will never forgive you, an’ ye join not my pastime to-day.’
Thus speaking, the Queen signed to her page, who came up with a beautiful falcon on his wrist. The bird was transferred to Her Majesty, and seemed to shake its bells more gaily, and raise its hooded head more proudly, as though it knew and loved the hand that sleeked its neck-plumage with so gentle a caress.
The churchman was nothing loth. Despite a weak frame and failing health, his bold ardent nature, the same disposition that under different circumstances would have made him a soldier, a statesman, an explorer, or an adventurer, bade him take delight in the free air of the moorland and the stride of a good horse. He settled himself in the saddle, gathered his reins, and professed his readiness to attend Her Majesty.
‘These creatures,’ said he, arguing down some scruples of his own which much enhanced the promised gratification, ‘are given for our lawful recreation. Man is doubtless lord over the beasts of the field. I will stay to witness one flight of that long-winged falcon; ’tis a goodly bird indeed if I know aught of the craft. One flight, and so crave your Majesty’s licence to depart.’
The Queen smiled her assent, and galloped merrily on to a waste marshy surface, where the tramp of their horses ere long flushed a wisp of wild-fowl, and Mary, throwing her hawk in the air, was soon scouring over the moor at a break-neck pace, her eyes fixed on the sky, and her whole attention absorbed by the gyrations of her favourite.
John Knox, too, casting aside for the moment his cares and responsibilities, entered into the sport with the eagerness of a boy. It was seldom indeed that zealous man shared in any of the lighter amusements of the time; but in pleasure as in business, whatever he found to do Master Knox went about with his whole heart and soul. The wrinkles seemed to smooth themselves on his brow as the wild wind swept back his thin gray locks, and he felt ten years younger, while the blood leapt warm in every pulse, and he urged his steed forward with leg and rein in the excitement of the flight.
Mary Hamilton rode like a woman in a dream. The bay horse, accustomed to fret and chafe under the restraining influence of the bit, seemed bewildered by his unusual freedom. He had plunged and bounded away with his head in the air, according to his wont, prepared for a contest in which he was sure to obtain the mastery, and he may or may not have been disappointed to find that his rider’s carelessness of consequences exceeded his own, and that he was suffered to exhaust his mettle far more rapidly than he expected. With a stony white face, and her abundant hair streaming over her shoulders, the maid-of-honour sat back in the saddle, and flew along at a pace that even ‘Black Agnes’ could not surpass, unconscious apparently of amusement, or danger, or excitement, or anything but the relief afforded to her mental anguish by the physical sense of being carried with such velocity through the air. When the mallard was struck to earth at last, and the horses were pulled up, with panting sides and dilated nostrils, and wild eyes all a-glow with excitement, the Queen gazed on her reckless attendant in surprise, and even the severe Reformer remonstrated with her, Popish damsel though she were, for the utter disregard in which she seemed to hold that white neck of hers, and the probability of breaking it in such a headlong career.
‘Fair mistress,’ quoth Master Knox, ‘there is reason in all things; over-caution supposes want of faith, but the contrary extreme, such as you have exhibited to-day, denotes presumption and fool-hardiness. You are young; humanly speaking you have many years before you. You would not willingly be cut off like a flower in its bloom. Why should you thus risk your life as if there was no to-morrow?’
She did not seem to hear him. She answered nothing, but the last word of his sentence seemed to strike some chord within her, for she turned away muttering below her breath, ‘To-morrow. It will be too late to-morrow,’ and clasped her hands upon her breast as if in pain. John Knox did not observe her, for his attention was now taken up by the Queen, who seeing in his face, which was bright with repressed excitement, that the propitious moment had arrived, motioned him to her side, and moving her palfrey out of ear-shot of the others, broached the subject that had led her to invite him thus to join in her favourite amusement.
‘I have brought ye a long ride, Master Knox,’ she said, ‘and I would ye could return and taste a cup of sack at our poor lodging in St Andrews, but I know your busy avocations, and that ye will not willingly be absent from Edinburgh a day longer than is necessary. Ere you depart, I would fain ask your opinion on a subject of toleration.’
At the ominous word, the divine’s whole countenance changed as the sky changes after a chance blink of sunshine in December. The clouds of controversy gathered on his brow, and suspicion gleamed in his cold piercing eyes. The Queen saw the storm brewing, and added, with a pleading sweetness few men would have been able to resist, ‘The sun smiles on all alike; the blessed rain of heaven falls on the just and on the unjust. Which of us shall penetrate our neighbour’s motives, or judge our neighbour’s heart?’
‘Ye shall have no dealings with the ungodly,’ replied Knox, hastily, with an instinctive prescience of what was coming; ‘the Amalekite is to be smitten root and branch till he be destroyed out of the land. But I anticipate your Grace, and have not yet been favoured with your commands.’
He took himself up shortly, as though aware and a little ashamed of his ill-manners. The Queen, reining in her horse, proceeded with great earnestness.
‘The spring is now approaching, and you know with what devotion we, of the Catholic faith, look forward to the solemnities of Easter. I am not ashamed to solicit your interest that my fellow-religionists should be suffered to observe that festival with their accustomed ceremonies unmolested. I know too well the feelings of the party who call themselves the Reformed Church. I know (none better, and ye cannot deny that I have reason) Master Knox’s influence with that powerful majority, and his sovereign entreats him thus in confidence to exert it in the cause of charity and peace and good-will amongst men.’
It was a powerful appeal from a monarch to a subject, especially under the peculiar circumstances of the moment. Riding alone over the breezy upland with that beautiful woman, under the exciting influence of wild scenery and an inspiriting gallop, the heart softened by the smile of nature, and the blood tingling with exercise, few men but would have found it impossible to resist a suppliant, who was at the same time a Queen, and such a Queen. Loyalty demanded obedience, self-interest whispered the advantages of royal favour, and the impolicy of refusing a sovereign, ambition drew a dazzling picture of the eventual triumph of the cause wrought out by the judicious concessions of one man alone, and that man venerated as the great pillar of Protestantism in Europe; but conscience thundered ‘No;’ and to do Knox justice, he never wavered nor hesitated for an instant. His lineaments looked more rugged, his brow more uncompromising than usual, when he rejoined—
‘Your Grace has addressed me frankly, and as frankly I reply to you. If by holding up my finger I could retain for the Church of Rome any one of the privileges that are daily and hourly slipping from her grasp, if by so doing I could relieve her from one of the least of the indignities or calamities which are surely gathering round her head from the four quarters of heaven, see, madam, as I ride here a living man before you, I would keep it clenched down by force till the nail grew through the palm of my hand! I am a soldier, I will not desert my banner; I am an heir, I will not alienate my birthright; I am an honest man, I will do my duty at all hazards, in the face of every prince in Europe.’
He looked sublime while he spoke; the weak, ungainly figure reared itself in the saddle with all the pride of a Colossus, and never a belted earl could have borne a nobler front in coronet and ermine than did that minister of the Church in the fearless integrity of his purpose. Mary grew pale with anger and disappointment; nevertheless she had long since learned the painful lesson of self-control, and she forced herself to speak calmly, while her very blood was boiling within.
‘Would ye refuse to others the liberty of worship ye exact for yourselves? Would ye persecute men who differ from you only in their mode of worship, more ruthlessly than the pagan emperors persecuted those early Christians who were our teachers as well as yours? Bethink ye, Master Knox, this is a world of change. The old faith hath many staunch supporters still. Men’s minds may alter as they have altered ere now, and those who are all-powerful to-day may find themselves petitioners for mercy to-morrow. Is it well to exasperate beyond endurance those who may in their turn come to have the upper hand?’
The implied threat was injudicious and ill-timed; she would have done better, knowing with whom she had to deal, either to have given vent to her indignation and defied him outright, or to have repressed it altogether; but she was only a woman after all, and womanlike, could not entirely separate the two sensations of anger and fear, so she adopted those half-measures to which her sex is fain to have recourse in a difficulty, and roused his spirit while she tried to work upon his apprehensions.
‘I defy the Romish Antichrist as I defy the principle of evil itself,’ replied Knox, with kindling eyes and excited gestures. ‘Am I watchman set upon a hill, and shall I leave my post because the enemy is at hand? Am I a shepherd in the wilderness, and shall I abandon my flock because the storm is gathering on the horizon? No, madam, once again I tell you that if you count on my allegiance in this matter, I renounce it; if you depend on my loyalty, I am a rebel!’
‘It seems so,’ she replied very coldly, and yet there was a tone of utter sadness and desolation in her voice that smote on the Churchman’s heart. With looks of tender pity and concern, such as a father bends upon a favourite child, he would have argued with her once more, would fain have expounded to her the fallacies of her doctrines, and recalled her from the way which he conscientiously believed to be the very high road to destruction; but as is often the case in such disputes, the more one yielded the more the other encroached, and she cut him short with haughty impatience, reining in her horse, and pointing with outstretched arm towards the south.
‘Yonder lies your homeward way, Master Knox,’ said the Queen, ‘and here is mine; I sent for you to listen to my proposals, not to hear your pulpit declamations at secondhand. When next we meet, others may have found means to tame that haughty spirit, and the avowed rebel may be glad to solicit pardon from his sovereign. I have no further need of you; you may depart!’
The dismissal was as peremptory as it was unceremonious; though burning to reply and charged with argument, he could not pretend to misunderstand it, and unwillingly withdrew. Ere the tramp of his horse had died out on the heathery sward, Mary burst into a passion of tears which she could no longer control; then bending her head low to her horse’s neck, put ‘Black Agnes’ once more to her speed, and followed by her attendants, galloped off in the direction of St Andrews.
Independent of her own private sorrows and distresses, the Queen’s political position was at this time one of peculiar difficulty and anxiety. A sincere Catholic, and consequently, from the very nature of her faith, an ardent upholder of its infallibility, and advocate for proselytism, she was compelled by the exigencies of her station to give countenance to its most determined foes. Not only did she see its tenets repudiated by the great majority of her people, but the very toleration they extorted for themselves, was denied to her, and it was a subject of open discontent that the Mass, which had been suppressed elsewhere, was suffered to be performed in the Queen’s own chapel at Holyrood. The very adviser on whom she placed the utmost reliance, her half-brother, the Earl of Moray, was the chief support of the Protestant party in her kingdom. And although Seton and a few more of her nobility remained secretly attached to the old faith, their number was comparatively trifling, and their zeal scarcely proof against the temptations of ambition and self-interest.
Then, as if her difficulties were not sufficiently perplexing without foreign interference, her relatives, the Guises, lost no opportunity of reminding her that they looked to her alone for the restoration of the Religion in Scotland, and eventually over the whole of Britain; whilst a strong party in Spain furnishing her, for aid, with nothing but unasked advice, actually reproached her for lukewarmness in the cause to which she was sacrificing day by day her authority, her comfort, her very safety, and to which she was so sincerely attached, that, rather than resign it, she would have lost, as she afterwards did lose, her crown, ay, and the head that it encircled.
The insults levelled at her person, through her belief, constantly goaded her to anger, which prudential considerations urged her to suppress; and when pictures were paraded before her in the streets, ridiculing all that she held most sacred, and priests maltreated in her own chapel for the performance of their ritual and hers, it is painful to imagine the feelings of a sensitive woman and a Queen compelled to forego her revenge, and even to court the favour of those undutiful subjects who had originated such overt and outrageous scandal.
No wonder she galloped on with burning cheeks and swelling heart, reflecting only on the failure of her benevolent scheme so thwarted by the obstinate integrity of Knox, and insensible as the very horse that carried her to the beautiful scene opened out at her very feet.
Before her lay the noble sweep of St Andrew’s Bay, framed, as it were, in its golden sands, that stretched far to the north along the coast of Forfarshire, till their tawny line was lost in the distant ocean at the jutting promontory of the Red-head. Clear against the blue expanse, clotted here and there with a white sail, rose the delicate pinnacles of the cathedral, supported on the right by the bluff square tower of St Regulus, firm and massive like some bold champion, proud yet careful of his charge. On the left, far out into the water, stood the sea-girt defences of the castle, while between these prominent objects many a graceful arch and pointed spire denoted the churches and colleges adorning that stronghold of learning and piety, refining the taste with their exalted beauty, whilst they carried the eye upwards towards heaven. Below these, the smiling town, with its white houses and gardens scattered more and more as they neared the water, straggled downwards to the beach; and, beyond all, the broad sea lay, calm and mighty in the serenity of its majestic repose.
On her bridle-hand, Mary might have scanned the wide champaign of two counties, through which two rivers ran in parallel lines to the ocean, the intermediate space dotted with woods and rich in cultivation, the river Eden gleaming like silver in the foreground, the smoke of Dundee floating white against the dark heights of Forfarshire, as it followed the downward current of the Tay, and in the far distance, the dim outline of the noble Grampians, losing their misty tops amongst the clouds that streaked the placid sky.
Yet Mary marked nothing of this. With a flushed cheek, with a drooping head, and, oh! with a cruel sorrow at her heart, she galloped on, and never checked her pace, nor addressed her attendants, till she reached the gate of the ecclesiastical city once more.
Then she drew rein, and as they rode together up the South Street, she blamed herself that she had not sooner observed and taken pity on Mary Hamilton’s obvious exhaustion both of mind and body.
The bay-horse was, ere this, reduced to a state of abject submission and docility; the bridle, on which he was wont to strain so eagerly, lay loose upon his neck, and he seemed to be looking about for his stable with a very wistful expression of fatigue and discomfiture; but his rider’s face was pale and rigid, while her eye was wide open, and her mouth firmly set; she seemed unconscious of all that was passing around her, and disclosed that vacant, yet pitiful expression of face which is only to be seen in those who walk in their sleep, or who are undergoing some racking torture of mind by which their outer faculties are benumbed.
‘You are weary, child,’ said the Queen, kindly. ‘I should have remembered you are not so indefatigable a rider as myself. Well, we are at home now, and I shall not require you again this evening.’
So speaking, the Queen leapt lightly from her palfrey, and flung the rein to the attending page, but as she did so she looked once more in the face of Mary Hamilton, who was dismounting, and something she saw there made her start back, and exclaim in an agitated whisper—
‘What is it, child? You frighten me! What is it?’
The other found her voice at last, but it came husky and broken to her lips.
‘For mercy sake, madam!’ said she, ‘let me unrobe you, my kind mistress, do not deny me this one favour! Let me unrobe you, and alone.’
The Queen, though still startled, blushed vividly as something crossed her mind, that yet seemed partly to reassure her, and she beckoned her maid-of-honour to follow as she entered her private apartments, then dismissing her other attendants, threw herself into a chair, and with the colour not yet faded from her brow, bade Mary Hamilton unburthen herself of this dreadful grief that was weighing on her mind.
A burst of hysterical weeping was the result, but it calmed and relieved the sufferer, until she could find words in which to offer her petition and tell her pitiful tale. Women are wonderfully patient of such affections in their own sex, and the harshest of them will be gentle and considerate with one of these outbreaks that they have agreed to call ‘nervous attacks.’ Much more so, kindly Mary Stuart; soothing her attendant like a child, she soon restored her to sufficient composure to make intelligible the boon she had all day been striving to entreat. What this was an hour or two would disclose. In the meantime, the Queen and her maiden sat whispering in the darkening twilight, till the shafts and pinnacles of the neighbouring cathedral loomed grim and fantastic in the shadows of nightfall, and the light in the sacristan’s window told that the time of vespers was already past.
At the same hour, John Knox, riding steadily along the road to Edinburgh, was beguiling the gloomy journey with a proud recollection of his resistance to the Queen’s advances, sternly reminding his conscience that animosity to the Papists was a Christian’s duty, and that forgiveness was no Christian virtue to one of another faith.
And Chastelâr in his dungeon was preparing for death by reflection on the pitiless beauty of her in whose face he would never look again.