The wind was rising out at sea with fitful sullen moans; the town of St Andrews was wrapped in thick darkness, save that at long intervals a light glimmered from some lofty window, showing where the pale student bent over his weary labour; the gathering waves rolled in with increasing volume, breaking heavily against the rocky base of the old castle; but the sentinel at its eastern angle, though he felt the spray wet on his face, could not distinguish the white surf leaping and boiling down yonder in the dark gulf at his feet; the vaulted chambers, the winding stairs and gloomy corridors of that stronghold were cold and dismal enough; but what of the dungeons down below the water-line, where the light of day had never penetrated yet, where the salt froth oozed and trickled from the bare rock, and the clammy slime stood on its chill surface, like the death-drops on the brow of a corpse? Ay, what of the dungeons? Ask those who were forced down the narrow stair with pinioned arms and muffled faces, knowing that their feet would never ascend the slippery steps again! Ask those who were immured in narrow cells, hollowed like living sepulchres from the rock, and so built in that the soul, indeed, might, but the body never could, escape from its imprisonment! Ask those who were let down by a cord into the black, loathsome pit from which they never came out alive! The answer may, perhaps, some day be spoken in tones of thunder before earth and heaven.
Even now they tell you how the marks of blood remain in evidence on that accursed keep; how the very stones bear witness to a foul and murderous deed, none the less guilty that victim and perpetrators were equally steeped to the lips in homicide and crime; that it was the accomplishment of Divine vengeance and the fulfilment of a martyr’s prophecy.
When the proud cardinal, leaning over his window to behold the frightful holocaust at his ease, smiled bitterly on George Wishart at the stake, did not his heart sink within him to hear the martyr’s solemn denunciation?
‘David Beatoun, though the flames shall lick up my blood, yet shall thine remain to stain the very wall on which thou leanest, as a witness against thee till the day of judgment!’
When the Laird of Grange and the two Leslies dragged their enemy from his bed and slew him at that very window, must not remorse have whispered in the moment of despair that there is a retribution even here on earth? and when we learn that the fierce murderers did actually hang his body over the wall as a butcher hangs a carcase in the shambles, till the blood soaked and sank into the very stone-work, and that centuries have not washed out its stains, what can we say but that the Divine will doth not always postpone justice to a future world, and that Divine vengeance seldom fails to work out its own precept, ‘whoso sheddeth man’s blood by man shall his blood be shed.’
The only cheerful apartment in the castle was the guard-room; although the night was dark and stormy, the wind sighing, and the waves beating without, a huge wood-fire blazed and crackled in the ample chimney, reddening the weather-beaten faces of the men-at-arms, and glancing fitfully from their shining head-pieces and bright steel corslets. Small care had these rude hearts for the weather without or the woe within; the spray might dash against their casement, and the weary prisoner moan his wrongs in the neighbouring cell.
‘What would you have? ’tis but the fortune of war,’ quoth the soldier; ‘my luck to-day, yours to-morrow; a bed of heather for this one, a lair of straw for that; a free discharge and a fresh enlistment at last. Put another log on the fire; I wish we had got something more to drink.’
Their captain sat somewhat apart, his head resting on his hand, and his sheathed broadsword lying idle on the floor. As the flame flickered on his forehead a frown seemed to pass and repass across its surface, but his eyes were intently fixed on the red glow of the embers, and perhaps he was drawing pictures that had no semblance of reality in their glare.
A moody man of late was Alexander Ogilvy; once the best of comrades, and the blithest of merry-makers, he was becoming captious, contradictory, and quarrelsome. The hand stole to the sword-hilt now on the lightest word of provocation, and although he was still ready to pledge his brethren-in-arms with the wine cup, it seemed to be no longer the desire of good fellowship that stimulated him, but a fierce morose thirst that he was resolved to slake in gloomy defiance.
Perhaps some of the phantoms he was watching in the fire might have accounted for this untoward change in the young soldier; perhaps it was not pleasant to picture to himself in those glowing depths the stately figure of Mary Beton, with her flowing skirts and quivering ruff, bending her lofty head so graciously towards a sharp spare man, in gorgeous apparel, with a clever face and a sneer, that if Ogilvy had ever formed any idea of Mephistopheles, would have presented to his mind’s eye the very expression of that sarcastic personage; perhaps it did not enhance the harmony of the group to recognise in the hottest corner a figure bearing a grotesque resemblance to himself, watching the pair with jealous supervision, and presenting the undignified, if not ridiculous exterior, of one who runs second in the race of love.
With a movement of impatience he drove his heavy heel against the logs, dispelling the whole representation at a blow, and causing the fire to burn out fiercely, and the sparks to fly in thousands up the chimney.
At this moment a man-at-arms entered the guard-room, and approaching his captain informed him that two persons at the gate demanded admittance.
‘Impossible,’ said Ogilvy; ‘the wicket is locked, and the watch set; bid them go to the devil.’
‘One of them bears the Queen’s signet,’ answered the man, ‘though she winna let it out of her hand. I doubt it’s one of the leddies,’ he added, ‘an’ I ken the tither yane fine; it’s daft James Geddes, the fule.’
This altered matters considerably. The royal signet-ring was esteemed a voucher for any one who bore it, and all guards, warders, and such officers of the sovereign, had strict orders to consider it in the light of a direct communication from Majesty itself. So Ogilvy, taking down a torch from the wall, proceeded to the wicket in person.
On arriving there, he encountered a female figure, cloaked and hooded, that after a moment’s hesitation he recognised as Mary Hamilton, and half-watching over her, half-sheltering himself behind her, much after the manner of a faithful dog, but with less expression of countenance than that sagacious animal, the ungainly figure and broad unmeaning face of James Geddes, the fool.
Ogilvy knew the maid-of-honour personally well enough; also, on the universal principle (for though she was not the rose to him, she had been near the rose), he was disposed to oblige her for the sake of Mary Beton, and bowing courteously, begged to know if she had any authority, at that late hour, to enter the castle.
‘I have come to visit a prisoner,’ replied she in a hard-set voice, showing him at the same time the Queen’s signet-ring, which James Geddes watched as if he expected the captain of the guard would swallow it at a gulp.
Ogilvy bowed and withdrew the many bolts and bars that secured the wicket, then calling a soldier to fasten them again, preceded his visitors along the vaulted passage that led from the entrance to the guard-room. Mary Hamilton shuddered as she heard the gate clang to behind her; and the fool looked more than half-inclined to draw back and abandon his adventure at the outset, but a glance at his protectress reassured the latter, and the former, seeming, as it were, by a violent effort to adopt a fresh part, assumed an air of gaiety and carelessness strangely at variance with her bloodless face and horror-stricken eyes.
Arrived in the light of the guard-room, she produced an ample stone-bottle from beneath her cloak, and placed it on the rude oak table.
‘The Queen has not sent me to visit her brave soldiers empty-handed,’ said she, with a wild, dreary smile. ‘While I am about Her Majesty’s business, I hope they will drink Her Majesty’s health.’
The fool’s eyes glistened at the sight of the liquor, but once more he glanced at Mary Hamilton, as the well-trained dog looks at its owner ere he ventures to touch the tempting morsel placed before him. The soldiers gathered round with well-pleased faces; the bonds of discipline were not at that period drawn so tightly as at present, and a carouse was a sufficiently acceptable variety to the monotony of a night on guard. Ogilvy, too, who might, under other circumstances, have objected to such an employment of those he commanded, for the reason we have before hinted at, was unwilling to disoblige one of the maids-of-honour, and set the example himself by filling a cup to the brim with the strong fiery liquor, and emptying it to the Queen’s health. James Geddes prepared to make sport for the rude soldiery, and one and all disposed themselves around the table for an hour or two of conviviality.
The fool, although habitually not averse to imbibing as much drink as he could honestly come by, seemed, on the present occasion, unusually cautious in his potations, and whilst he encouraged the laughing soldiers to drink deep from the stone jar, only put his own lips to the cup that was freely offered him, and for once appeared resolved to keep his poor faculties as keenly as possible on the alert. He glanced, too, ever and anon, at the door by which Mary Hamilton had left the guard-room, and seemed to watch and listen attentively for the slightest noise.
It was painful to see the gleams of anxiety that broke at intervals through the dense stupidity of his broad flat face. At such times his countenance again assumed the wistful sagacity of a dumb animal, and instinct seemed to warn him that he must summon all his faculties to meet some vague catastrophe for which his reason was unable to prepare.
The soldiers jested with the poor half-witted creature according to their wont, and as their draughts began to ascend into the brain, proceeded to coarse practical jokes, and much boisterous mirth, of which his infirmities were made the butt. James Geddes, however, never relaxed from his vigilance. Sometimes a lurid gleam shone for an instant in his eyes as a grossly offensive insult penetrated even his obtuse nature, and occasionally he gave vent to his feelings by a low moaning noise, and the rocking of his body to and fro, as was his custom when more than commonly irritated or distressed; but he was always careful to fill the soldiers’ cups for them to the brim—was always watchful of the demeanour and presence of their commander; and whilst his glance wandered furtively to the door, his whole attention seemed painfully on the stretch to catch the sounds of that voice which it was his nature to obey with the attachment and fidelity of a dog.
Mary Hamilton, after exchanging a few words, in a low tone, with the captain of the guard, in which an acute observer might have detected successively the accents of remonstrance, entreaty, and command, had produced a small lamp from beneath her cloak, and lit it at Ogilvy’s torch; then taking a key from his hand, which he seemed to deliver very unwillingly, proceeded alone towards the dungeon, casting over her shoulder one glance at the fool, in which caution was speakingly impressed as she departed. The soldiers were already launched on their carouse, and Ogilvy, though he seemed watchful and restless, often starting from his seat, and taking short turns up and down the guard-room, joined at intervals in their revelry.
The maid-of-honour stepped cautiously down the winding-stair that led to the dungeon. Mary Hamilton had nerved herself for the undertaking on which she had embarked, and now that she was fairly within the dreaded Castle of St Andrews, the agitation which had rendered her so helpless all day, had given place to the calm, resolute bearing of one who is prepared to succeed in a hazardous enterprise, or die in the attempt. It was, indeed, a trying situation for a young tender-hearted woman. The man she loved lay in that loathsome dungeon, condemned to die; she believed that she alone could save him. She had the means and the opportunity; all must depend on her courage and presence of mind. Yes, she would save him, and her reward would be to see him prostrate himself at the feet of another! It was a bitter thought, and yet she never wavered for an instant.
As she reached the door of his cell, she thought she heard his voice, the well-known voice, rich and melodious even here, and the sound of her own name made her pause and listen. He was consoling himself in his prison, this man who was to die on the morrow, with the illusions of his art. He had composed a ballad, of which her name was the refrain, and was singing it himself in his cell.
She heard it every word, and for a time her composure gave way. A burst of passionate weeping relieved her, and, drying her eyes, she unlocked the door and entered the dungeon.
The light she carried streamed on Chastelâr’s figure, dressed in the very clothes in which she had seen him taken. He was half-sitting, half-lying, in the extreme corner where the stone was dryest, and took no notice of her entrance, thinking it was the jailer, but continued to hum the air he had just been singing. When he lifted his eyes, however, and recognised his visitor, he rose at once, with his habitual courtesy, and bade her welcome to his habitation, laughing pleasantly the while.
‘You find me poorly lodged, Mistress Hamilton,’ said the poet; ‘and although I live in a castle I am but scantily provided with room. It is not for long, however, as to-morrow morning, I am informed, they mean to remove me to a narrower chamber still.’
She could not bear to see him thus; again the warm tears filled her eyes as she gasped—
‘The doom has gone forth; I heard of it to-day; there is but one chance left.’
He smiled a sweet sad smile.
‘I have done with chances now,’ said he; ‘I set my all on one cast, and I do not complain that the luck has gone against me. It was kind of you to come and visit me, Mary’—he dwelt fondly on the name and repeated it more than once—‘I was thinking of you even when you appeared. I was wishing I could see you once more. What of the Queen?’ he added, with an eager glance. ‘Is she here at St Andrews?’
‘She sent me to you this very night,’ replied the other. ‘What I do is by her command, and according to her directions. You shall not die, Chastelâr; she bade me save you, and we have the means; only be obedient, and, above all, keep silent.’
His whole face lighted up as he seized her hand and covered it with kisses. Life was sweet to the poet, with his warm impulsive nature and his glowing hopes; all the more so when he learned that he would owe that life to the favour of the Queen. He listened eagerly while the maid-of-honour detailed to him the proposed manner of his escape, which, indeed, seemed feasible enough. She hoped, through the potency of the brandy which she had left behind her in the guard-room, and with the assistance of her half-witted confederate, to bring the soldiers to a state of hilarity at which the eye is not very keen, nor the suspicions very easily aroused; while in her whispered conversation with Ogilvy she had already, with the unscrupulous shrewdness of a woman, made use of his attachment to Mary Beton to win him half over to her enterprise. She calculated, at least, on his ignoring her proceedings; she then proposed to dress Chastelâr in her own hood and mantle, which, as their statures were not very dissimilar, would form a thorough disguise, and she had sedulously tutored James Geddes, who took an unaccountable delight in the whole proceeding, to conduct the captive to the gate with the same deference and care as if it were herself. It was difficult to make the faithful fool understand this part of the plan, but she had instilled it into him at last. He was to encourage the inebriety of the men-at-arms to the utmost of his power, and directly Ogilvy’s back was turned to go his rounds, which something she had told him would induce the captain to do at an earlier hour than usual, James Geddes was to return to the dungeon and summon the visitor to depart. Chastelâr, in Mary Hamilton’s clothes, would then accompany him to the gate, and she herself would remain a prisoner in his place.
‘And when they find you here,’ exclaimed the poet, all his generous impulses protesting against such an arrangement, ‘think of Ogilvy’s rage! think of the rude drunken soldiers! It cannot, it shall not be! Your life would have to pay the penalty.’
‘And I would give my life freely for yours,’ she replied, a bright smile breaking over her face, causing her to look for the first time to-night like the Mary Hamilton he remembered in the Queen’s chamber, when all was so different and so happy.
‘For mine!’ he repeated, with a sadly troubled face. ‘Oh, too late! too late!’
‘Do not say so,’ she continued, speaking very rapidly and eagerly, with her slender fingers grasping the prisoner’s arm like a vice. ‘I would not have told you this but that we shall never meet again. The very terms on which the Queen yielded to my entreaties were these: That you leave Scotland within twenty-four hours, and pledge your honour never to enter Mary Stuart’s dominions more. Oh, if you knew how I knelt and prayed and pleaded ere I could wring from her the token that gave me access here; if you could have seen her angry frown while I implored, or heard the cold resolute voice in which she said at last, “I consent, but only on these terms, that I never behold him more,” you would have pitied me, Chastelâr; you should pity me now, for though I have saved your life, oh, I am very, very miserable.’
Again she burst into a fit of weeping, the hot tears fell upon his hand, but he heeded them not; he scarce seemed conscious of the devoted broken-hearted woman trembling there before him; the Queen’s words struck like a poniard to his heart, and he was mad! love-mad once more!
He broke rudely from his companion; he flung her hand from his arm, as if the touch were a viper’s; his eye glared, and he ground his teeth together in the agony of a wounded spirit, and a pride humbled to the dust.
‘I scorn her mercy!’ he shouted, in wild frantic tones; ‘I renounce her pardon, and I refuse her terms! Tell Mary Stuart, from me, from Chastelâr, who will be led out to die at sunrise to-morrow, that the last words he said were these: “If every one of these hairs were a life”’—he passed his fingers while he spoke through the abundance of his dark clustering locks—‘“I would lose them all ere I would accept the smallest, lightest token of the Queen’s favour. Because I have dared to love her more dearly than man ever loved woman here on earth; because I love her wildly, fondly, madly still.” Ha, ha! she cannot rob me of that! Queen though she be, she cannot recall the past! Mary, Mary! ere to-morrow’s sun be set, that cold heart shall ache, as it hath never ached yet, and Chastelâr will have had his revenge!’
And now the pure unselfish nature of Mary Hamilton’s character rose superior to the crisis. Another who had loved him less would have turned away in wrathful scorn, and left him to his fate: not so that gentle, faithful heart; on her knees she besought him to listen to reason, to yield himself to her guidance, to accept of life for her sake.
The moments were very precious. Already James Geddes was beating impatiently at the door, warning them that he had fulfilled his ministering in the guard-room, and that Ogilvy was absent for the nonce. She clung to him—she urged him—she implored him, and the man was obdurate, pitiless of himself as of her, hardened in his despair, reckless, miserable, and resolved to die.
How many before and since have been like him! How many have turned obstinately from the pleasant easy path of safety and contentment, to reach wildly at the impossible, scaling the slippery crag just so high as shall dash them to pieces in their fall! There are spirits that seem ever destined to be striving after the unattainable, doomed in a punishment more cruel than that of Tantalus to thirst for a mirage that is never even within the bounds of hope. Be it love, wealth, ambition, their craving seems to be in its very nature insatiable, and, perhaps, even were the wildest and most extravagant of their desires to be granted, they would but turn aside indifferently, as if success must needs be loathsome, and long incontinently for something else that could never be their own.
It is well for the philosopher who has learned to create for himself his life’s essentials. Blessed is the barmecide who can make believe that the tasteless water from his earthen pitcher is a draught of nectar from a cup of gold. But woe to the sanguine enthusiast who cannot be convinced that ‘half a loaf is better than no bread;’ the fool who shouts—‘all or none,’ for his war-cry, while he runs a tilt against the invincible windmill of conventionalism, and getting, as he deserves, none instead of all, has every bone in his body broken into the bargain for his pains.
Mary Hamilton pleaded for dear life; far dearer, indeed, was that life to her than her own. James Geddes, hearing her sobs and broken accents, became so importunate at the door of the cell, that one or two drunken soldiers from the guard-room, aroused by the noise, came loitering down the dungeon stair; and, at the same moment, Ogilvy, not in the best of humours, returned from his rounds, and the last chance was gone for evermore.
Whether the captain had met with any disappointment in visiting the different posts under his charge, or whether he had reason to suppose that his midnight walk was to be more agreeable than usual, and felt aggrieved to find its dulness unrelieved by any variety, it is not our province to inquire; but he certainly showed more zeal for discipline than on his departure, and entering Chastelâr’s cell in person, after kicking poor Geddes away with a bitter curse, ordered the maid-of-honour imperatively to be gone, and summoned two of the soberest men-at-arms to mount sentry for the rest of the night at the head of the stair.
Mary Hamilton neither screamed, nor fainted, nor wept. She knew that all was over now, and accepted the inevitable catastrophe with that resignation which Providence seems to bestow in mercy on those who are destined to endure great suffering. She bent over Chastelâr’s hand as she bade him a silent farewell, and though her lips moved as if in prayer, not a sound escaped them. Then she raised her head proudly, and walked rigidly and slowly out of the cell, less like a living being than a figure set in motion by mechanical means. The boisterous men-at-arms, in the guard-room, stood aside, respectfully, to let her pass; and James Geddes, as he followed her, cowered and shook with a mysterious fear.
But Chastelâr, in the selfishness of his great love, so strong even at the threshold of the grave, scarcely noticed her; nay, he even called out to her as she departed with a message for the Queen. The ruling passion was, indeed, strong in death. As his short and brilliant life had been valued only for her sake, so she was his last thought now that he stood on the brink of eternity.
‘Tell her,’ he said, ‘that I commend me to her with my last breath. Thank her for all her kindness and the mercy she would have shown me even to-night, but say that I choose to die rather than be banished from her presence, and so Chastelâr bids her farewell,—the fairest, the proudest, and the best beloved princess under heaven!’
He seemed composed, even cheerful. To all appearance, the man was in possession of his faculties and in his right mind, yet these were the last words Chastelâr ever spoke on earth.
CHAPTER XXIV.
The morning broke dull and gloomy; the wind that had been blowing steadily all night had subsided towards dawn, but a chill easterly breeze was still creeping in from seaward, and a light vapour rested on the surface of the ocean, beneath which the lead-coloured waves rose and sank in the sullen monotony of a ground swell. Little by little the cheerless dawn stole imperceptibly over the rugged bluffs and scaurs that to the northward formed a bulwark for the town, and disclosed at every minute new rents and fissures in their sea-worn sides—new wisps of dripping sea-weed trailing in ungainly streaks across their slippery surface; the ebbing tide, too, receding as though unwillingly, with many a landward leap and backward whirl, disclosed here and there round black rocks, peering like the heads of sea-monsters above the restless waters, while a solitary sea-mew, turning on its white wing downward from the cliff, screamed, as it were, in disappointment of its fishing after the storm.
The castle walls rose sullenly against the misty sky; black, massive, and impenetrable, they suggested no feelings but those of inhospitable and uncompromising grandeur. Their battlements, weather-stained with the gales of centuries, frowned dark defiance down on the ruffled ocean, and the royal flag, with the golden lion of Scotland ramping in its folds, half-unfurled and dripping with last night’s brine, flapped drearily and heavily in the fitful breeze.
To and fro for a space of some twenty yards under the wall, a female figure was pacing with swift irregular steps, and her fingers twining convulsively as she held her hands clasped together before her. Mantle and dress were wet and disordered from the inclemency of the past night, but the hood of the former covered her to the brows, and it was only by the lower part of her white, rigid face, that a passer-by, had there been one at that early hour, could have recognised Mary Hamilton.
In a sheltered corner, screened from the wind by a massive buttress, cowered the ungainly figure of James Geddes; rocking himself backwards and forwards, he moaned as if in pain, and blew upon his cold fingers, huddling himself together for warmth the while, but his eyes travelled wistfully after Mary Hamilton as she walked, and though she seemed unconscious of his presence, they never quitted her figure for a moment.
Once, when close to him, she paused in a listening attitude, and he took courage to address her, whining like a troubled child—
‘Will ye no gang hame? will ye no gang hame? ’Tis cauld and dreary biding here for sunrise. I’m wantin’ hame; I’m wantin’ hame!’
She started violently when he spoke; but, turning from him in impatience, only walked backwards and forwards faster than before.
And now a dull knocking might be heard in the square of the castle, and the noise, as of heavy beams put in motion, broke the stillness of the early morning. At each fresh sound, Mary Hamilton stopped in her walk, and started on again as if goaded to exertion by internal agony; the fool shivering and moaning in his corner, yet still watching her intently, at length rocked himself off into a fitful half-slumber, waking up at intervals to implore his unheeding companion to go home.
Within the castle preparations were already making for some grave and unusual event. The soldiers, though flushed and fevered after their debauch, yet preserved an ominous silence, and betrayed on their coarse faces an expression of pity and dismay. Ogilvy himself looked pale and sorrowful. Once when he caught sight of a sharp, polished instrument, propped carefully that its edge should not be frayed against a corner, a tear might have been seen to steal down the captain’s cheek till it hung in his heavy moustache; but his voice was gruffer than usual, as he gave some necessary order a minute afterwards, ashamed, doubtless, as men commonly are, of those emotions which betray that they have a heart.
Two or three workmen had been already admitted at the wicket, and were taking advantage of the increasing light to erect an ominous fabric of boards and scaffolding in the centre of the Castle square. They went about their job in a prompt business-like manner enough, but they spoke in whispers, and when a basket of sawdust was brought out, it was disposed almost reverently in its place. After this a taint of death seemed to pervade the atmosphere, and one of the artificers, a strapping young fellow, six feet high, had recourse to a dram of strong waters on the spot.
Down below in his dungeon, Chastelâr was asleep. Strange as it may appear, men always do sleep before execution. Be it that the faculties are so completely worn out by the wear and tear of anxiety that usually precedes condemnation, or be it another instance of the Divine mercy which would fain shorten that time of agony to the sufferer, such is the fact; and, in the last moments of criminals, it is almost invariably the case that body and soul both taste their last repose on earth, ere the one sleeps and the other wakes for all eternity.
What were the poet’s dreams in that short welcome rest? Did he anticipate the great change, and fancy his spirit already free from its prison, wandering through those unknown regions which good Eneas, and rich Tullus and Ancus, and your grandfather and mine, and a host of those we both knew and valued, and would have followed into any danger, or on any expedition, have ere this thoroughly explored—to which you and I, though we think so little about it, are bound just as surely and inevitably, and with which to-morrow, or the day after, or this time next year, we may be familiarly acquainted? Or did he retrograde to the past, and revel and ruffle it at Holyrood once more, riding the sorrel horse alongside of ‘Black Agnes,’ and sunning himself in the bright eyes of the Maries, and above all the smiles of her their peerless Queen? Perhaps a vision of that face he had worshipped so fondly shone on him for the last time kindlier and lovelier than it had ever appeared in reality, and to wake from such a dream as that was so bitter that even death became welcome as promising sleep again.
The knocking on the scaffolding failed to arouse him, and when Ogilvy went gently into his cell with a torch, the soldier passed the light half-pitifully, half-admiringly, over the manly face that could look so calm and peaceful at such a time.
And in the royal house in the south street, within a culverin’s distance of the castle, were all the inmates sleeping soundly at the dawn of that gloomy morning? Was that a bed of rest, on each post of which was carved a crown, and at the head of which the arms of Scotland were emblazoned so richly in embroidery and cloth of gold? Was the lovely face, so flushed and troubled, thus buried in the pillows to exclude the light of day; were the white hands pressed against the throbbing temples and covering the beautiful little ears, in dread of the morning gun which would be fired at sunrise, and tell that all was over?
It was no fault of Mary Stuart’s that Chastelâr was doomed. All that lay in her power had been done to save him; all that royal dignity and womanly shame would permit. Perhaps she believed him to have escaped even at the last; she would hardly guess at such infatuation as he had shown even in him, and yet the victim’s sleep had probably been far sounder than hers for whom he was about to die.
Lights were burning in the Queen’s chamber, heavy curtains at the window excluded the faintest glimpse of dawn, yet she was turning and tossing restlessly on her couch, while Chastelâr was pacing in grave composure up the dungeon-stair that led into the gray morning, the last he would see on earth.
But one bed, at least, in the royal house remained cold and unoccupied—Mary Hamilton had never returned home all night. Under the castle wall she kept her weary watch; and, as the dawn widened into day, she was still pacing hurriedly up and down, up and down, and at every fresh turn casting a horror-stricken look towards the sky.
Presently the mist rolled slowly away, curling downwards from the heights of Craigton and the bleak outline of Drum-Carro Hill, disclosing the bare and cheerless table-land that forms the eastern boundary of Fife. The changing wind cleared the loaded atmosphere, and glimpses of blue became apparent through the fleecy vapours dispersing rapidly as they were driven out to sea; already the beams of morning were gilding the sands of the bay, and two or three fishing-boats, hoisting their white sails, were putting out hopefully from the shore; the cheery voices of the sailors came pleasantly over the water, and reached the ears of the watcher under the castle wall. Still the hood was drawn over her face; still she paced with that monotonous tread up and down, up and down; still the poor fool, crouching under his buttress, moaned and rocked and shivered, urging pitifully that he was ‘wantin’ hame—wantin’ hame.’
Then, though the castle yet remained a huge black mass in deep shadow, spire and pinnacle on the cathedral began to blush and glow in the morning sun; presently, when Mary Hamilton turned in her walk, her eye was dazzled by his horizontal beams streaming along a pathway of molten gold as he rose cloudless from the sea. Retracing her steps, she saw the whole massive building before her shine out at once in a flood of warm yellow light; then she stopped short, bending forward with her hand outstretched, and listening eagerly.
Comforted by the warmth, the fool rose from his lair and rubbed his hands together, with an attempt at cheerfulness, shifting alternately from one foot to the other in a kind of measured dance, and striving in his vacant, half-witted manner to attract the attention of his companion.
She neither moved nor noticed him; still in the same attitude, with her neck bent forward, her hand stretched out, and the lower part of her face visible beneath her hood, white and rigid as if cut from marble.
He pulled her cloak impatiently—‘Come awa’ hame,’ he whimpered like a child left alone in the dark. ‘I’m feared here—I’m feared here; it’s no sae canny sin’ the dawn.
He crooned this doggerel over twice or thrice, pointing at the same time to the wet sand below them, and the black shining rocks left bare by the ebb; but she never answered him, for ere he was silent the heavy boom of a culverin broke on the morning’s stillness, and a wreath of white smoke, rising above the walls of the castle, floated calmly and peacefully out to sea. The fool cowered down and hid his face in his hands. She did not start—she did not shriek, nor faint, nor quiver; but she threw her hood back and looked wildly upwards, gasping for air; then, as the rising sun shone on her bare head, Mary Hamilton’s raven hair was all streaked and patched with gray.
CHAPTER XXV.
While the grass was growing tall and rank on Chastelâr’s grave, the beauty that had bewildered and destroyed him was unconsciously sowing dissensions and intrigues in half the courts of Europe.
Not only on the southern side of the Tweed did every turbulent noble and ambitious statesman look to Mary Stuart’s marriage as, in one way or other, a stepping-stone to his own aggrandisement, but each of the numerous parties in the state was prepared to put forward and support its candidate for her hand, totally irrespective of the lovely Queen’s personal feelings and predilections. Austria, Savoy, Spain, had also their claimants for the desired alliance; and it would be difficult to calculate the multiplicity of schemes and combinations originating in the desire of possessing the heiress to two kingdoms, and the most fascinating woman of the age.
Perhaps the proposed union with the Crown-Prince of Spain was, of all matrimonial overtures, the most unpopular in Great Britain; and the Protestant party, now completely in the ascendant both in England and Scotland, would have resorted to the strongest measures rather than submit to such an arrangement.
All the engines of an unscrupulous diplomacy were ready to be put in motion for the purpose of thwarting Don Carlos, and over-reaching his emissaries. Nor were Elizabeth and her agents likely to be restrained by any over-refinement of delicacy in a matter which concerned the stability of the English Queen’s power, and the very existence of her government.
In the meantime, Mary and her maidens floated, so to speak, on the surface of all this turbulence and vexation, as the sea-bird floats with unruffled plumage on the restless waves. Their life was indeed one of constant variety and adventure, for their royal Mistress was too thorough a Stuart not to identify herself with all the difficulties and troubles of her kingdom, whilst the bonds of affection which riveted her attendants to her service were but drawn closer every day, by the dangers and hardships they shared in their huntings and progresses and judicial proceedings, through the length and breadth of Scotland.
Nevertheless, winter after winter found them established once more, over their peaceful embroidery, at Holyrood; beautiful and merry and unchanged as ever—all but one.
Mary Hamilton, though she still showed the same unbounded devotion to her mistress, the same sweetness of disposition towards her companions was cruelly altered now.
It is very sad to read in any human face the unerring symptoms of a broken heart; to watch the eye sinking, the cheek falling, and the lines about the mouth deepening day by day; to note the listless step, the morbid craving for solitude, the painful shrinking from all that is bright and beautiful—from a strain of sweet music, a gleam of spring sunshine, or the laugh of a happy child, as the aching eye shrinks from light, and, above all, the dreary smile that seems to protest patiently against the torture, while the sufferer is kind and forgiving still. We are almost tempted to ask, why should there be such sorrow here on earth? But we are satisfied and reassured, recalling a certain pledge that cannot deceive, remembering who it was that declared in mercy and sympathy—‘Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted.’
Her companions could not fail to notice the change that was thus wasting the very existence of their favourite, and each, in her own way, strove to show her fellow-feeling and her concern. Mary Carmichael was, perhaps, the least demonstrative of the three; but this young lady had of late been extremely engrossed with her own affairs, and seemed to acquire additional hardness of character and reserve of demeanour day by day. Her interviews with the stranger in the Abbey-garden, always clandestine, and always affectionate, took place at regular intervals; and she seldom saw Walter Maxwell now, avoiding, indeed, every occasion of meeting him, and treating him, when they did happen to be together, with a coldness and displeasure, which he was the last man on earth to accept with resignation, and which was gradually, but surely, estranging his affection from her altogether. He did not see the longing looks that followed him when his back was turned; he did not hear the sigh that rose so wearily to her lips when she was alone; he only thought her fickle, heartless, ungenerous, and unjust, determined to have nothing more to do with her, felt hurt and angry, yet very much ashamed of himself for entertaining either of these sentiments on her account.
All this time Mr Randolph had not been idle at the Court of Holyrood, fulfilling his ministering with a tact and energy peculiarly his own, and valued as they deserved by his bustling mistress and her astute adviser, the celebrated Cecil. Wherever there was an intrigue brewing, the English ambassador was not to be satisfied until he was at the bottom of it; wherever there was a mystery he sifted it thoroughly; analysing with diplomatic chemistry its component parts, and amalgamating the whole into a confusion worse confounded when he had done with it.
The many marriage proposals to the Queen kept his hands full, and the contradictory orders he received from his sovereign, who, with all her great qualities, was sufficiently a woman never to be quite sure of her own mind for two consecutive days, by no means tended to simplify or facilitate the duties of his office. Nevertheless he found time to press his suit ardently with Mary Beton, insinuating himself sufficiently into her affections to worm out of her all the intelligence he could possibly obtain, yet with characteristic caution never failing to stop short of the boundary beyond which he must compromise or embarrass himself. And yet Mr Randolph, with his clever scheming, well-balanced mind, and his thoroughly disciplined heart, was but human after all: none other was so pleasant to him as this daily duty of making love to Mary Beton; her dignity and her beauty gratified his fastidious taste, and her obvious admiration of himself could not but make an impression on his callous heart.
Sometimes, even over him, the hardened man of the world, stole a soft vision of something better than ciphers, and protocols, and despatches—of pleasant words and loving looks, and little children and a home; but a moment of reflection brushed all such weaknesses from his path, and the perusal of a state-paper from Cecil soon restored him to his philosophy. Then he remembered that in a career like his every stepping-stone to greatness must be prized and used only as such; however fair its polish, however valuable its quality, it must be crushed under his heel to gain a firmer foot-hold, and spurned in turn when done with, for his upward spring to the next. Randolph sought out tools for his own purpose in all directions; when he failed to find an appropriate instrument, he shaped one to his hand for himself.
Now it had not escaped the watchful eyes of Mistress Beton that a certain stranger, with whom Mary Carmichael seemed extremely intimate, came and went at stated intervals to and from the Court. With all her vigilance, however, she had never been able to discover the exact object of these frequent visits. Had she been satisfied that it was a simple love affair, she might, indeed, on her own responsibility, have stifled the whole proceeding by authority; but a hint to that effect hazarded to the Queen had been so coldly received as to convince her that the intrigue, whatever might be its object, was carried on with Mary’s cognisance and approval.
More than any of the other maids-of-honour, Mistress Carmichael had free liberty to come and go as she chose. On occasion she was closeted secretly with her mistress; and more than once these private consultations were known to have been preceded or followed by an assignation with the mysterious stranger. Mary Beton could not make it out; she was satisfied that her junior had a lover who was deeply engaged in a political intrigue. She must have been more or less than woman had her curiosity not been aroused and her disapprobation excited. It was a relief to tell Randolph of her suspicions, and a pleasure to listen to the eloquence of his gratitude for the confidence thus reposed in him. In consequence of these disclosures the diplomatist resolved to cultivate a greater familiarity with Maxwell, of whom he had never entirely lost sight, and whose honest nature he doubted not he could mould to his own purposes; the more so that, in common with the rest of the Court, he was aware of Walter’s feelings towards Mary Carmichael, which the lover believed to be inscrutably hidden in his own heart.
To a cynical disposition it is no small amusement to watch the demeanour of an offended swain. Women, who are hypocrites from the cradle, manage to conceal their feelings creditably enough, and we may take leave to doubt whether these feelings themselves are so engrossing as they would have the other sex believe; but a man, one of the Lords of the Creation, who ‘dotes yet doubts, suspects yet strongly loves,’ is an object that may at least be termed deplorable, if not ridiculous. He always over-acts his part so completely, his affection of indifference is so transparent, his bearing of scrupulous courtesy and offended dignity so ludicrous, and his sudden fits of remorse so unaccountable, that the world in general contemplates him with comical surprise, and the object herself regards him with secret triumph and outward contempt.
‘Treat a woman frankly,’ quoth Lovelace, in his treatise on this difficult topic, ‘and, strange as it may at first sight appear, like a rational creature. This course is sure to produce a misunderstanding; but remember the sooner there is a trial of strength the better. Afterwards, if you cannot preserve a bonâ fide and complete indifference, take care to absent yourself from the subject under treatment. It is indispensable never to appear at a disadvantage. If elsewhere, the subject, whose imagination is vivid, will picture you as more pleasingly employed than in its society. This rouses emulation and stimulates self-esteem, of both which qualities it possesses a large share. When it is satisfied you can do perfectly well without it; if it has the slightest inclination to be tamed, it will come to the hand of its own accord; if it has not, all your pains are but labour thrown away, and only render you less fitted to cope with such other subjects of the species as it may seem desirable to reduce to obedience. Always remember this, that the men whom women love best are those over whom they have the least influence, and of whom they stand somewhat in awe.’
Is Lovelace right? We have quoted from memory, but such is the gist of his theory, the truth of which our own observations of such matters would lead us to concede; the difficulty seems to be in reducing it to practice. The generous nature is more willing to give than to receive, and takes all the shame and all the suffering ungrudgingly on its own shoulders.