The four borderers rode up the High Street of Edinburgh in the warm afternoon sun, and their leader, fortified doubtless by the sprig of witch-elm in his head-piece, and inspirited by his arrival at the Scotch capital, looked about him with the gleeful curiosity of a schoolboy on a holiday.
On any other occasion, though troops of armed horsemen were by no means a rare sight on the causeway, so well-mounted and stalwart a little party would have received their share of admiration; but to-day no man had eyes to spare for any other object than a brilliant group of foot-passengers surrounding two commanding figures, which neither their own nor any other country in Europe could have matched.
No more in widow’s weeds, but bright and beautiful in all the freshness of her own charms, set off by the splendour of her dress, Mary Stuart walked by her young husband, the beau ideal of a monarch’s bride: her husband de facto if not de jure, for a private marriage some weeks since in Riccio’s apartments had united the destinies of the lovers, and paved the way for that public ceremony which should confer on the fortunate young noble the crown-matrimonial of Scotland.
Alas for Mary Stuart! even in those happy days of courtship, which for most women glow so brightly; immediately before and after the nuptial tie she was doomed to many anxieties and misgivings, originating in the ungovernable temper of the very man for whose sake she had braved Elizabeth of England’s displeasure, affronted a large and powerful party of her subjects, perhaps even stifled and eradicated certain deep though unacknowledged memories in her own heart. Although with the utmost haste Darnley had been created Earl of Ross, he was dissatisfied that he had not been immediately raised to the Dukedom of Albany, and vented his displeasure in no measured language even on her from whose open hand he received all the benefits he enjoyed, and whose beauty alone, bending so tenderly over himself, should have commanded his entire allegiance.
Perhaps the Queen loved him none the worse for his petulance at first; perhaps it was not till long afterwards, when unlimited indulgence and increasing depravity had fostered the spoiled and wayward youth into a reckless and unfeeling profligate, that she may have contrasted Darnley’s open insults and avowed indifference with the devotion of other worshippers, who, however faulty in many respects, had never failed in faith and loyalty towards her.
Darnley’s exterior was indeed beautiful exceedingly, but it covered a disposition in which there were no brilliant qualities of the head to counterbalance the evil of the heart. The Earl of Ross was unfortunate in the possession of dishonesty without craft, indecision without foresight, and obstinacy without energy. Like a woman, he could not restrain his tongue; unlike a woman, he never knew the exact range and precision with which that organ is able to direct its shafts.
Even on his sick-bed at Stirling, when it was first obvious to him that he had won his way into his Sovereign’s good graces, and that a little time and care could not but make the game his own,—even then, when it was essentially important to cement friendships and conciliate differences in every direction, he contrived to affront the two most formidable men in Scotland and purchase their enmity for life. To the Duke of Chatelhêrault, simply because he heard that nobleman was opposed to Her Majesty’s immediate marriage, he sent his defiance from his sick-bed, not couched in the language of knightly courtesy, which shows a gracious respect even for a mortal foe, but threatening to ‘knock his old pate as soon as he should be well enough.’
We may imagine how such a message would be received by one who boasted he was the proudest peer in Europe. But an observation he made concerning the Earl Moray, and which did not fail to reach the latter’s ears, was even more ill-advised in its tendency and unfortunate in its results.
Scanning a map of Scotland, some one pointed out to him the vast estates of the Queen’s half-brother, and the inconsiderate youth exclaimed hastily—
‘This is too much by half!’
So untoward a remark was of course repeated to Moray, who received the information with his usual grave smile, and never made further allusion to it. So much the worse. He had forgotten it none the less for that, and it may be those half-dozen words one day cost Mary Stuart a husband and Scotland a king.
Meantime, who so brave in apparel or so débonnaire in demeanour as the young Lord Darnley? The eyes of all Edinburgh are upon him as he paces along so proudly by the side of their ‘bonny Queen.’ His dress, as it is fit, is one blaze of splendour; the materials indeed are unpaid for, and the jewels are mostly love-gifts from his Sovereign, yet they set off none the worse his lofty stature and his graceful form. The women look after him admiringly; the men’s gaze is as usual riveted on the beautiful being who walks by his side. Mary Stuart has never shown to more advantage than to-day. It is not the stately folds of the damask dress, nor the delicate edging of scalloped lace, nor the rich mantle of glowing cramoisie that enthral the eyes in an irresistible spell; nor needs it that massive bracelet hanging from her shapely arm, which men say dark Lord Ruthven fabricated for a love-charm, with Satan standing over him while he worked, to account for Mary’s influence; they need but to look on the bright smile and the deep, loving eyes turned in pride and tenderness upon her husband, and they feel in their inmost hearts that there is no witchery in all the lore of gramarye to equal the resistless power that lurks in a fond and trusting woman’s face.
Darnley has turned back for an instant to exchange some light jest with one of the maids-of-honour; it must be of a strangely confusing nature to account for the vivid blush that has come over Mary Seton, dyeing her fair skin perfectly crimson from the roots of her hair to the hem of her bodice. ‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh,’ riding up the street and watching intently the motions of the royal party, does not perceive it for the simple and somewhat paradoxical reason that, although he has been hoping to see her the whole way from Hermitage, no sooner has he caught her eye than his own glance is immediately withdrawn. He turns deadly pale, too, and the hand which guides his charger’s rein trembles in every fibre; the good horse bends his neck and collects himself, expectant of some further indication after this unusual touch.
Perhaps, poor Dick, with all his courage, might have ridden on into Fife without more parley, so helpless and abashed had he suddenly become, but that the Queen’s quick glance observed the cognisance of the Hepburn as he rode by, even recognised the tall retainer’s face, and could have accosted him by name. There was a faint flush on Mary’s brow as she stopped her company and bade the borderer approach. Dick was off his horse in an instant, and the courtiers could not but admire his magnificent form as he strode up to them in his clanging armour, manning himself for the effort, now he was in for it, with his natural audacity. Mary Seton did not fail to remark, with no displeased eye, that even Darnley, tall as he was, stood half a hand’s-breadth lower than the henchman.
‘What news from Hermitage, good fellow?’ said the Queen, accepting Dick’s awkward homage with gracious courtesy. ‘How fares it with our Lord Warden yonder on the Marches? Mayhap he is coming northward with the main body, of which you are but the vanguard?’
She spoke with something of flutter and hurry that was scarce natural to her. Perhaps she wished the retainer to know that she bore his sullen lord no ill-will; perhaps she even expected her vassal to return to her feet in penitence and contrition; perhaps in her woman’s heart, even now she could not but revert to the old times, when Bothwell’s haste regarded neither pace nor horseflesh to gallop on far ahead of his following, only to be the first to kneel at his Queen’s feet and touch the hem of her garment.
Dick answered stoutly, though in some confusion—
‘The Laird’s no ailing in body, Your Grace, though he wad be nane the waur to be whiles in the saddle a wee thing. The Hepburns’ feet aye become steel stirrups better than velvet mules.[12] He’s less wise-like than ordinar’,’ added Dick, with a shrewd glance in Her Majesty’s face; ‘but I’m thinkin’ he’ll bide in Liddesdale a whiley yet.’
[12] Slippers.
Mary laughed good-humouredly. It did not seem to displease her that Bothwell should be sullen and dispirited. Yet she bore him no grudge for it, obviously; rather the contrary.
‘The Liddesdale lads are aye welcome at Holyrood,’ said she frankly, and with the Scottish accent she knew how to assume so gracefully. ‘Take a Stuart’s word for it,’ she added, giving him at the same time her hand to kiss, ‘both for yourself and your chief.’
‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh’ kissed the beautiful hand with the devotion of a worshipper to a saint; but his eyes wandered beyond the royal form and sought that of a lady in her train.
At this moment Darnley came up from behind and accosted the henchman with his usual overbearing assumption of manner.
‘How now, whom have we here, my fair cousin?’ said the young noble, flinging a contemptuous glance at the borderer. ‘An ambassador from Limbo Castle, sometimes called Hermitage, by his crest! Accredited messenger from all the thieves and sorners in the Debateable Land. How ranges the price of good nags on the Border, knave? The nights are moonless just now, though they be something short; the droves should be coming in pretty fast from Cumberland.’
The moss-trooper’s eye brightened.
‘If it was Her Grace’s wish,’ said he, looking respectfully towards the Queen, ‘we could bring the wale[13] o’ the countryside up to Holyrood in a fortnight from this day. Lord Scrope rides a soar gelding,’ he added, warming with the congenial subject, ‘that steps as daintily as a bird lights on a bough. Forbye the colour would become rarely Her Grace’s housings and foot-mantle. If I might make so bold, I wad engage he should be in Her Majesty’s stable or he was weel missed at Warkworth. I wad send ain o’ my lads back for him this very night!’
[13] Pick.
Darnley burst into a loud mocking laugh.
‘A thorough moss-trooper,’ he exclaimed, ‘rider, jackman, plunderer, thief; call them what you will, they are all alike; fit followers of such a chief. Were I king of Scotland I would have the halters off the horses and put them on the men, and string them up in rows with this tall knave at their head, not forgetting his worthy master, the leader of the gang.’
The young man spoke in laughing boisterous accents that might be taken either for jest or earnest, but the borderer’s face flushed dark-red, and the fingers of his left hand closed like a vice upon his sheathed sword.
‘If ever you are king of Scotland,’ said he, ‘may ye die no less noble a death than him who lay by the Till, yon summer’s evening, with the proudest an’ the bauldest an’ the best down about him like trees felled in a rank; and wha but the borderers sleepin’, man by man, at gentle King James’s feet! It sets a Scottish lord ill to speak again’ them that keeps the Scottish line, an’ warst of all a limber lad like your honour (no offence to ye), that’s got soldier written on his brow, and swordsman marked on every yane o’ his lang limbs.’
The compliment to his personal appearance, always an acceptable offering to Darnley, modified whatever he might have considered offensive in the henchman’s plain-speaking. The Queen, too, who had listened to the colloquy with obvious displeasure and some uneasiness, now laid her hand on the arm of her consort and motioned him to proceed with their walk. The latter felt in his girdle for a couple of gold pieces, which were not, however, forthcoming, then with a careless laugh and a whisper in Riccio’s ear, nodded insolently to the borderer, and passed on with Mary and her train.
One of these, however, lingered a few paces in the rear. Dick’s face grew very pale once more when Mistress Seton turned back and accosted him with her own bright glance and her own merry smile.
‘You are slow of speech,’ said she, ‘I know of old, though prompt in deed, and as true as the steel in your belt. Is it not so?’
His lips were white and dry. He could not answer in words, but his affirmative gesture was more convincing than a hundred oaths.
She laid her hand on his. Through the steel gauntlet that light touch thrilled in every vein and fibre of the giant.
‘You will tell me the truth,’ she proceeded. ‘What of Walter Maxwell? We have had no tidings of him since the morning he rode away from Holyrood, weeks and months ago!’
It speaks well for Mary Seton’s good nature that the subject uppermost in her mind was one which she believed so vitally affected the welfare of her friend. It was as much kindliness of disposition as female curiosity that riveted her attention on the borderer’s reply.
Dick’s face became a study of self-reproach and embarrassment while he related the treachery of which Walter had been the victim; neither concealing nor palliating his own share in the business, which seemed to himself the less black that it was taken in compliance with his chief’s orders, and for which his listener either forgot or neglected to reprove him. It is impossible to take the same interest in other people’s matters that we do in our own, and what a world of confusion we should have if the confidants and go-betweens in a love-affair were as much agitated as the principals.
Mary Seton heard him calmly enough, and then proceeded to interrogate him about Bothwell. The henchman’s answers concerning his chief seemed to afford her matter both of surprise and gratification. The earl was evidently in a state of discomfort and restlessness that must be reported at once to the Queen, who had always betrayed extraordinary interest in everything connected with Hermitage or the Borders, and his rude follower seemed to have observed and analysed his feelings with a sagacity that must have been strangely sharpened by some influence from without.
If there was a more triumphant sparkle in Mary Seton’s eye, a tinge of deeper colour on her cheek, as she reflected on the nature of that influence, who shall blame her? Was she not a woman; and is it not a woman’s instinct, like a cat’s, to tease and tantalise her prey to the utmost? Though the mouse be as big as an elephant, it is such fun to tempt him with the prospect of indulgence, or even liberty, and then sweep him irresistibly back again with one stroke of the cruel velvet paw.
Mary Seton smiled within herself, and felt twice as big as the great borderer trembling there before her. With a whole budget of news gained for her Sovereign, she reverted to the topic most interesting to her comrade.
‘You think, then, that he is alive, though in close ward?’ she asked. ‘They are cruel folk, I have heard say, the “lightsome Leslies.” I would poor Walter were safe out of their hands!’
Dick had found his voice at last:
‘And safe he shall be!’ was his reply, ‘before another week has passed over his head. It may tak’ time, an’ it may tak’ skill, an’ it may tak’ twa or three men’s lives, but we’ll ha’ Maister Maxwell oot ’gin we ding doon Lesly itsel’, an’ mak’ a low[14] that’ll light up the twa Lommonds and the tae half o’ the kingdom of Fife! That’s what I’m here for now.’
[14] Flame.
She looked at him archly:
‘Was that all that brought you to Edinburgh?’ said she.
Again something seemed to choke the man-at-arms and prevent his reply. At last he spoke in a hoarse whisper—
‘I was fain to see the Court once more—and the Queen-and—and—yersel’, Mistress Seton! I’ll no win back to Liddesdale, I’m thinkin’; but I’ll tak’ the brunt o’ it bra’ an’ easy the noo, sin I’ve seen ye to wish ye farewell.’
Something in his tone so tender, so hopeless, and so respectful, touched the girl to the heart. She laid her hand once more in his, and he wrung it hard in his own strong fingers, but did not even presume to put it to his lips. Only as she turned away to join the Queen, a low stifled sob smote upon her ear, and looking back she beheld the borderer standing as if spell-bound on the spot where she had left him. The next moment he was in the saddle, and as he passed her moving up the street after the others, he detached the sprig of witch-elm from his morion and cast it at her feet ere he galloped off.
Mary Seton’s eyes filled with tears while she picked it up, and Dick’s honest heart would have leapt with joy, notwithstanding his forebodings, could he have seen her hide it away carefully and tenderly in her bosom. When she rejoined the royal party, Riccio’s sharp countenance wore a look of curiosity, for his quick eye detected that she had been weeping; but the Queen called her to her side, and soothed and caressed her, speaking in gentle, loving tones, like a mother to a child.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Long weeks of solitary confinement in a dungeon, dark and damp and dismal, nourished on bread and water, and cheered only by the periodical visits of an asthmatic jailer, appointed to that post because fit for nothing else, would destroy the courage of most men, as it would sap their bodily health and vigour. Walter Maxwell had need of all his strength of mind, all his natural qualities of bravery and endurance, to resist the influence of his imprisonment, ere he had spent many weeks in the strong room of Leslie House. This place of confinement, paved and walled with stone, lighted by but one window, narrow and iron-barred, communicated with a winding staircase, and a long gloomy subterranean passage terminating in a wicket, which opened on a pleasaunce and flower-garden. Prisoners might thus be smuggled in or out of the Leslies’ stronghold without exciting observation; and unless the Lord of Rothes was much belied, this facility of ingress was used for a variety of purposes, foreign to its original object. On summer evenings, ’tis said, the flutter of a farthingale might sometimes be seen emerging from its dark recesses, while lighter steps and merrier voices than were likely to belong to a permanent prisoner echoed in the damp underground passage leading in and out of Leslie House. Under these circumstances, bars were sometimes left undrawn and locks unturned, nor was Walter ignorant of the occasional negligence in which lay his only chance of escape.
The old jailer, too, albeit short in temper as in wind, was not entirely destitute of compassion for a hungry and thirsty man. After the first fortnight, and when he found that his lord gave no orders for Maxwell to be starved to death, he brought him on rare occasions a morsel of venison, or even a flask of wine, mollified as it would seem by the courage and good-humour with which his charge bore the rigours of captivity.
Then old Ralph, as he was called, would sometimes put down his pitcher and his keys to remain for a few minutes’ conversation, or what he considered such, being indeed a monologue on his own grievances, his own infirmities, and, when in high good-humour, his youthful prowess and general accomplishments. These occasional visits were as beneficial to Maxwell’s moral condition as the meat and wine were to his physical man.
After a week or two without exchanging a word with a fellow-creature, the stupidest of companions is welcomed like an angel from heaven, the dreariest platitudes fall like spring showers upon a desert soil. Maxwell really rejoiced in the visits of his jailer, looking forward to them as the sole events of his long, uninteresting day, and old Ralph began to take a great pride and pleasure in the prisoner who greeted him so warmly, and showed himself such an accomplished listener. By degrees the warder became confidential, not to say indiscreet, though the last idea in his mind was to favour his prisoner’s escape. Indeed he could not afford to part with him, and, little by little, Maxwell, with his energies aroused, and his intellects sharpened by the emergency of his case, made himself familiar with the arrangements of the castle, and the details, of which he hoped to take advantage at some future time.
The sensations of a prisoner enduring solitary confinement have been so often analysed and described, that it is needless to enlarge upon them here. Without some distant hope of escape, without some definite point for the mind to rest on, the infliction would become unbearable, and end probably in insanity. Maxwell, however, possessed one of those dogged, resolute dispositions, not uncommon amongst his countrymen, which, like iron at the forge, become only harder and harder the more heavily they are struck. From the first moment of his entrance, bound and blindfolded into the Leslies’ stronghold, he had determined to escape. That he was not to be put to death he argued from the pains that had been taken to kidnap him; and the knowledge that ‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh,’ notwithstanding his apparent treachery, was still his friend at heart, was a vague source of comfort and re-assurance. The hours, marked only by the shadows on the blank and dreary wall, were indeed long—oh! so long!—but the continued effort to keep mind and body in a condition to take advantage of any chance that might offer, served almost in lieu of an occupation and a pursuit.
The prisoner would force himself to pace the narrow limits of his cell for hours at a time, that he might not lose the wind and strength so necessary to that problematical flight which was the one fixed idea of his brain.
By degrees Walter observed that the precautions taken for his security became more and more relaxed. With all his senses sharpened by constant watching, he could hear the door, at the foot of the winding-stair which led to the subterranean passage, although carefully locked at sun-down, grating ajar on its hinges during the day, could detect the summer air stealing even to his remote dungeon, denoting that the door into the garden was also unfastened. By dint of constant attention he became satisfied at last that if he could but break out to the top of the stairs any time before nightfall during the summer afternoon, he might, at least, reach the garden without hindrance. Once there, though ignorant of the locality, he trusted to the chapter of accidents to make his escape into the open country beyond.
The first object was as far as possible to hoodwink Ralph, and that worthy’s implicit confidence in the quiet demeanour of his charge would go far towards assisting him in his scheme; then, when the jailer was thrown completely off his guard, a bold stroke would effect at least the first stage of the project. We do not affirm that the idea of springing on his keeper, who, although armed, might have been overpowered by a younger and a stronger man, and beating out his brains with his own keys, did not present itself to Walter’s mind, but such a measure was wholly repugnant to his character, and he resolved to attain freedom without shedding the blood of the old man who had mitigated, as far as he could, the rigour of his captivity.
By little and little the prisoner had discovered that no amount of outcry or disturbance in the dungeon could be heard without; of this he had satisfied himself by a series of experiments. This was always a step gained in the furtherance of his plan.
Fortunately for himself, also, Maxwell was a large-boned man, especially in the wrists. Every set of fetters in the castle had been successively tried on him and found too tight; so for a time he had been bound hand and foot with ropes; but on his complaining that these cut him, they had been withdrawn, and his limbs suffered to remain at liberty.
So all the fine summer days, when the June roses were blooming without, and the June grass growing, and the June birds singing on the tree, while within the rat and the spider were the only living creatures, and a green slime on the wall the only vegetable production, Maxwell was preparing his escape, and biding his time patiently for a favourable opportunity to put it in execution.
When Ralph used to bring his prisoner a draught of wine, he would sometimes, if in a particularly good humour, condescend to stay for a few minutes and help him to partake of it. On these occasions Maxwell, by a studiously quiet and even languid demeanour, contrived to throw his jailer completely off his guard.
One day he requested the wine might be left with him to cheer his solitude when his agreeable friend was gone; another time he complained of indisposition, but thought he might relish a cup towards nightfall. By degrees he collected a Scottish pint or so of strong red wine in a stone jar that he had begged might be applied to the purpose.
The weather was very hot; even in a dungeon its inmate could tell that the summer sun was glowing bright and fierce without. Old Ralph arrived, according to custom, with his prisoner’s afternoon meal, and sat himself down on the stone floor like a man thoroughly overcome with his exertions.
‘Take a draught of wine, man,’ said Maxwell, pointing to the jar; ‘’t the coolest place in the castle here, and by St Andrew the prisoner hath the best of it to-day.’
The old man smiled grimly; then he took a hearty pull, as desired, and set the vessel down with a sigh of great satisfaction.
‘An old man’s bluid aye wants warmin’,’ said he, looking pensively into the vessel the while; ‘but I’ve kent it far hotter ower sea. When I was in Flanders wi’ Norman Leslie, ye ken;—aye! he was a wild lad, Norman, but a bra’ soldier, fair sir, a bra’ soldier as ever belted on a brand!—aweel, whan I was in Flanders wi’ Norman——;’ and forthwith the old man embarked upon a long story of which gallant Norman Leslie was the hero, moistening his narrative at frequent intervals with draughts of the strong red wine, and Maxwell watched with strung nerves and beating heart, how his eye grew dimmer and his speech more laboured as the tale progressed and the contents of the vessel waned.
Nevertheless the door was locked on the inside, and the jailer’s fingers kept an instinctive grasp upon his keys. Once, catching Maxwell’s eye fixed on these implements, he shifted them suddenly into the hand farthest from his prisoner, although in the act he interrupted himself in an elaborate description of a certain blue velvet surcoat, by which Norman Leslie set much store, and did not again recover the thread of his recollections until he had discovered that the wine was done, and it was time for him to be gone.
But it was obviously necessary to lull his suspicions and induce him to remain a few minutes longer.
‘I should like to hear how that surcoat was finished and embroidered,’ said Maxwell, with an affectation of interest. ‘The time of my release is drawing near,’ he added, ‘and when I go out I should wish to have one of the same colour and conceit.’
He spoke in so matter-of-fact a tone that old Ralph was thrown completely off his guard.
‘Oot!’ said he, ‘it’s the first time ever I heard it, lad. I’ll no say but I’ll miss ye! Oot! Gude presairve us! Was there ever the like o’ that?’
‘I told you when I came in,’ replied his prisoner, yawning and stretching himself lazily the while, ‘the full turn will be out the day after to-morrow at noon.’
Old Ralph laid down his keys and scratched his head.
That instant Maxwell pounced upon them like a tiger. Almost with the same motion he seized the old man round the body, completely pinioning him, heavy and powerful as he was, till he had sent him staggering to the farthest extremity of the cell. Then, with one rapid turn of the key, that key at which he had often looked so longingly, and of which he knew every ward, he was through the door, as rapidly he locked and bolted it on the outside. His hand never trembled; his nerves were as true to him now in the moment of success as they had been through all the dangers and disasters he had overcome.
‘Ah!’ thought Maxwell, as he sped down the winding-stair like a lapwing, ‘you may holloa your heart out, as many a poor prisoner has done before, but nobody will come near you till supper-time. If you get not free for a week you’ll have had a lighter captivity than mine. And now for liberty and life, and—Mary Carmichael!’
He believed he had schooled himself to think of her no more, but she came back to him with the first gleam of the summer sun, the first breath of the summer air.
There is no catastrophe of grief or discomfiture so staggering to the nervous system as the shock of a great relief or a great joy. You shall attend the sick-bed of one nearest and dearest to you for days together, and see the life that is more precious than your very heart’s blood ebbing away, as it were, inch by inch, and drop by drop, yet your eyes are dry; though your brain feels strangely hot and seared, your hand is steady, your tread firm, and your pulse regular. The moment on which hang the issues of life and eternity comes at last. The silent strife is waged between sleep and death, and the gentle conqueror triumphs by a hair’s breadth. Never prone to give his opinion rashly, the doctor tells you that the dear one has escaped ‘out of danger, he is happy to inform you,’ and you wring his hand fiercely, but something gripping at your throat forbids you to speak your thanks. Then the tears gush freely to your eyes; then the strong frame shakes and quivers in every fibre, and down upon your knees you kneel before your God, even if you never knelt before. So in all the relations of life; the moment of success is the touchstone to the human character. It is far more rare to find men bear prosperity with equanimity than adversity. We have all heard of people going mad for joy.
For an instant, Walter Maxwell had to pause and collect his energies, manning himself as though about to undergo some formidable trial, when he found he was at least on the outside of that door which he had contemplated such a weary while as the bar between himself and freedom. Stealthily, and with a keen sense of delight, so overpowering as to be almost painful, he pushed open the iron wicket at the foot of the staircase and emerged into the garden beyond.
It was intoxicating to drink in the warm fragrance of the summer air at every pore. It was bewildering, from sheer delight, to feel the eyes ache in that dazzling sunshine, glowing on leaf and flower, whitening the gravel walk and the castle wall in its blinding glare. The prisoner paused in a corner of the passage ere he came forth, accustoming sight and faculties by degrees to the rapturous change.
Then he stole out and looked about him, taking in, with keen and wary eye, the features of the surrounding scene. Well he knew that in such a stronghold as that of the powerful Rothes his escape had only just begun.
He found himself in a beautiful little garden, neatly kept and tastefully laid out. Casting a hasty glance upward, he ascertained that he was overlooked by no windows from the castle; three sides of this parterre were bounded by the great blank walls of the house, the fourth was shut in by a dark impervious hedge of yews. With stealthy, hasty steps he was soon on the farther side of this leafy screen and traversing a bowling-green on which the bowls dotted the level surface at irregular intervals—denoting that a game had been recently interrupted—he emerged upon a beautiful little wilderness of shrubs and flowers beyond.
Three or four vases and a fountain adorned this exterior pleasure-ground, and the gigantic beeches of Leslie, perhaps the finest trees of Scotland, shaded it with their dark gleaming foliage. It looked like a paradise to the emancipated prisoner; but, alas, a paradise from which there was no escape! Surrounded by the outer wall of the castle, any biped, unprovided with wings, seemed as much a captive in those sunny glades as in the darkest recesses of the dungeon. How Maxwell envied the butterfly soaring into the air so freely over that smooth and cruel wall! It would be hard to turn back now after tasting even for five minutes the delights of liberty.
Casting about with anxious eyes and a fast-beating heart for some means, however desperate, of egress, he espied a portion of the masonry in which certain irregularities would admit of his climbing to within a few feet of the coping. At this very place, too, a friendly beech somewhat overhung the garden so that one of its branches drooped downwards inside the wall.
With a run and a bound, like that of a wild cat, he swarmed up its slippery surface and succeeded in reaching the pendant branch. It was a desperate exertion of strength, and the pain that shot across his chest warned Maxwell how an ounce more of weight would have turned the scale in the effort by which he swung himself into the tree. Once there, he paused to take breath, and looked back into the garden from which he had so happily escaped. What was his dismay to observe, for the first time, a tall stalwart man in the guise of a labourer, shuffling into his jerkin, and making for the house!
‘Of course,’ thought Maxwell, with a curse on his own stupidity that he had not perceived the man sooner, ‘to give the alarm and turn out the retainers for pursuit!’
In truth there was nothing for it now but to slip down from the tree and trust to a light pair of heels and the chapter of accidents.
Already his legs were clear of the branches, and he was meditating a drop of some four or five yards upon the sward, when he drew them up again with wondrous precipitation, for the tread of feet through the grass, and the sound of voices in earnest conclave, warned him that he was hemmed in and beset on this side as well as the other.
Close under the tree, in which he couched like some hunted animal, three gallants halted and carried on their conversation in the deep, low, earnest tones of men who discuss those matters on which they have bound themselves to secrecy, and which the bird of the air itself is not to overhear.
Splendidly dressed, although half-armed—for a Scottish noble loved not to be utterly defenceless, even in the heart of his own residence, and the company of his staunchest friends—Maxwell recognised them at once, for three of the most powerful men in the kingdom—the wariest of statesmen, the darkest of intriguers, the most reckless of conspirators.
Not one of the three would have scrupled to cut the throat of an unwelcome eavesdropper on the spot, whether or not he thought a word of their conversation was overheard or understood. That ‘makin’ sicker’ has been a favourite expedient in the annals of our northern politicians ever since Kirkpatrick left the Red Comyn weltering in his blood on the steps of the altar.
It was an unpleasant predicament for poor Walter. What could he do but hide himself up among the branches, keep quiet and listen, expecting besides every moment that the alarm of his escape would be given from the castle?
The little conclave continued their conversation eagerly, and as they stood beneath his hiding-place, Maxwell had ample leisure to observe the faces and bearing of his Queen’s three worst and most pitiless enemies.
Rothes was, as usual, gay and careless in demeanour; his handsome face flushed with wine, was not out of keeping with the disordered bravery of his apparel. He could break his jest on treason as on any other crime; could pass through life and its most important avocations as though it were but one long feverish debauch in which the merriest and wildest roisterer bore his part the best.
Argyle, who repressed his host’s ill-timed mirth whenever opportunity offered, and listened attentively to the calm, measured accents of the third person present, seemed thoughtful and ill-at-ease. Though of a courageous character, his was a nature that weighs well every scheme on which it enters, and loves not to put forth its full powers unless it sees its way clearly to success. He could not go hand over head into a plot like Rothes, simply for the excitement and amusement of the turmoil.
Grave in demeanour as the man to whom he was now listening so attentively, and not unlike him in character, he was yet far inferior in foresight and acuteness, above all in that mysterious force of will which bends and warps more pliant natures to its own ends. Maxwell, watching him intently from the tree, could not but mark how scruple after scruple disappeared, how gradually and completely conviction seemed to steal over his countenance, as he followed, step by step, and argument by argument, the bent of that master-mind which formed the third and dominant element in the conclave.
And who was this third conspirator, this evil spirit so much mightier and so much more daring than the two it controlled? Who, but Moray, the Queen’s half-brother? Staid, quiet, composed as usual; less splendidly dressed, less energetic in gesture, less striking in appearance than either of his companions, yet obviously the leader whom they trusted implicitly and obeyed without remorse.
One more faithful adherent to the House of Leslie completed the party. His honest face and loyal courage seemed strangely out of place where treason was brewing; a large handsome bloodhound kept close at the heel of Rothes, poking his wet nose at intervals into his master’s hand.
Even in the extremity at which he found himself, Maxwell could not forbear contrasting the surrounding scene with the principal actors. The white stems of the beeches shone like silver in the glowing afternoon sun, while thrush and blackbird carolled gaily from the deep rich screen of their heavy foliage. Life and light, beauty and fragrance filled the atmosphere, peace and prosperity smiled around; white sheep were feeding on a grassy slope over against him between the trees; red roses blooming and clustering around steeped his senses in their perfumes; the bee hummed drowsily by in the warm still air; overhead the swallows flitted to and fro against the blue laughing sky; and there, at his feet, within a spear’s length of him, frowned the three dark pitiless faces, while Moray’s measured voice unfolded the plot that chilled his very blood, though it roused his vindictive hatred, as he listened.
Not one of the others drank in every syllable as did that eager fugitive, crouching like a wild cat along the arm of the old beech tree.
‘I tell ye, gentlemen, it cannot fail,’ said the degenerate Stuart, with more earnestness than usual; ‘the net is so spread that fly which way she will, the bird cannot but find herself within its meshes. I can tell ye for as certain as if I heard her say so now, that she leaves Perth after dinner to-morrow and rides to Callander, for the young Livingstone’s baptism, direct; she will have no following beyond her personal attendants, and some twenty or thirty spears. Your Leslies, my lord, may surely make account of these.’
He turned to Rothes while he spoke; the latter answered with a savage laugh, and the bloodhound murmured simultaneously a deep angry growl.
‘Why, “Hubert” seems to be of the same opinion,’ pursued Moray, carelessly patting the dog’s wide forehead, a liberty ‘Hubert’ seemed hugely inclined to resent. ‘But I always counsel force enough in these little matters of necessity. “Never stretch your hand out farther than you can draw it back again,” says our Scottish proverb; and “Never strike at your foe if your arm be not long enough to reach him,” say those who know how to make war with prudence and moderation. Nay, I would have no risk run of failure or miscarriage for want of an odd score or two of horsemen. What say you, my lord of Argyle?’
That nobleman pondered a few moments ere he replied.
‘My following moves forward to-night. I shall find four hundred spears at the Paren-Well to-morrow ere the sun has gone down two hours from the meridian.’
‘Good!’ answered Moray, nodding his head. ‘And you, Rothes? The Leslies are sure to be swarming when there is aught stirring that promises a fight or a capture.’
‘You shall count them yourself to-morrow, at sunrise, before we march,’ answered the other, gaily. ‘If you drink a cup to-night, at supper, for every hundred men, your brain, my good Lord James, will hardly be so clear in the morning as you like to keep it when there is business to be done. Be quiet, “Hubert!” the fiend’s in the dog! What? down, man! art thou bewitched?’
The bloodhound’s bristles were rising fiercer and fiercer, and he growled ominously as he snuffed the air with his broad black nostrils.
‘Then this is the plan of the campaign,’ resumed Moray. ‘Argyle’s forces and your own join at the Paren-Well, and in that lone district ye may dispose them to advantage, and keep the greater part out of sight from the Perth road. To avoid suspicion, I would counsel that ye do not anticipate the hour of rendezvous. My imprudent sister might be informed even when some miles upon her journey, and turn back. When Her Grace’s palfrey enters the pass at the Paren-Well, fourscore men-at-arms can do the business readily enough. If there is any attempt at resistance, another troop or two may strike in. Be careful to keep a large force fresh to protect Her Grace’s sacred person when taken. I have arranged for her lodging to-morrow night with her kinswoman at Loch-Leven Castle. For the lady-faced lord, if not knocked o’ the head in the skirmish, he must be disposed elsewhere. You shall have him at Leslie, Rothes, an’ ye will, though I doubt you and Darnley are but unfriends at heart. We will meet in Edinburgh next week to consult on state affairs; but to-morrow, being Sabbath, I have thought well to explain my views to you both to-day. Gentlemen, I think we understand each other?’
Argyle murmured an assent. Rothes laughed again somewhat dangerously.
‘If there is any resistance?’ said he.
‘I will not have a hair of Her Grace’s head ruffled, or a fold of her dress,’ replied Moray, firmly. ‘For the escort, they must be overpowered, of course; but Her Grace’s person shall be respected, and her immediate attendants.’
‘You promised me the Maries!’ urged Rothes, reproachfully; ‘come, man, you shall not go back from your word; you promised me the whole four, or at least my pick of them. I would not have gone into it, but for the saucy Seton; and that sunny, silent lass—how call you her?—Carmichael! I have ordered all sorts of toys to be here, expressly for them, to-morrow. Down, “Hubert!” be quiet, man!’
Maxwell’s blood boiled within him, and he griped the branch of the beech as if it had been the last speaker’s throat. Meantime ‘Hubert’ had been baying furiously, glaring upwards into the tree with flaming eyes, and springing furiously against the trunk.
‘The Maries must take their chance,’ replied Moray, in the same quiet tones. ‘If Her Grace be safe, I shall ask no questions. That dog hath cause for his uneasiness, my lord; take my word for it, we have been overheard. He scents a fresh foot in our neighbourhood.’
With a great oath Rothes drew his sword, and Argyle followed his example.