[2] The pass.
‘I heard another name too,’ said Maxwell, whose curiosity was thoroughly aroused. ‘Who was the tall man that seemed to be the leader of the party? the man that rode by me just before you struck in so opportunely, and shouted, “A Carmichael!” when he drew his sword.’
‘Oh! it would be just one o’ the Carmichaels that happened there by chance,’ replied Dick, with an expression of hopeless stolidity overspreading his broad countenance; and Maxwell, seeing it would be useless to question him further on that subject, turned the conversation to the more congenial topics of horses and weapons, and the advantages and disadvantages of the new-fashioned musquetoon. In this manner they journeyed on in rear of the party till the dark towers of Hermitage loomed against the midnight sky, and the clatter of the drawbridge, as it was lowered, together with a considerable bustle inside the walls, announced that preparations were being made for their entrance.
Bothwell and Randolph, who had been riding at the head of the party, halted at the postern until the rest came up, and the former proceeded to muster his troop once more ere they crossed the bridge. Maxwell remarked that the prisoner had escaped, but as no one else seemed to take any notice of the circumstance, he discreetly held his tongue. Whilst the gates were being opened, and the drawbridge secured, operations which occupied a considerable time, Bothwell welcomed his guests formally to his ‘poor tower,’ addressing himself, as before, more particularly to Randolph.
‘I regret much,’ said he to the latter, ‘that your duty compels you to be in the saddle again to-morrow at daybreak; but he who serves a Queen, as well I know, must never flag for an hour in his zeal. It shall be my care to provide you with a proper escort, and my own henchman shall accompany you to Edinburgh.’
Randolph thanked the Warden courteously.
‘Your kinsman,’ said he, ‘will perhaps accompany me. He, too, as he tells me, has urgent affairs in the capital, and I could not wish a stouter escort if I carried a king’s ransom along with me.’
Maxwell accepted the offer eagerly, notwithstanding the earl’s hospitable objections; and Bothwell, as they turned to cross the drawbridge, once more expressed his sorrow that the English ambassador should have been attacked within his jurisdiction.
‘I must take yet stricter order with these knaves,’ said the Warden; ‘there are too many broken men still in the Debatable Land who get their living by what they can lift. Your valise is gone, but that we can easily replace. I fear, however, that it contained something more valuable than wearing apparel. Despatches probably for the Queen, and—and—Lord James, Her Majesty’s half-brother?’
Mr Randolph could not repress a sneer.
‘Certain letters,’ he answered, ‘indeed there were, of no great value to those knaves, if, as your lordship seems satisfied, they are illiterate freebooters who cannot read. I have a few more here,’ he added, pointing to a packet that peeped from his boot; ‘and, indeed, the only one of importance is written in a cipher with which I myself am unacquainted. Your lordship need not, therefore, be uneasy about the safety of my despatches.’
Bothwell looked considerably put out, though he strove to mask his annoyance under an affectation of great cordiality; and Randolph, as he followed him into the castle, seemed hugely to enjoy the discomfiture of his host.
CHAPTER V.
The Queen of Scotland was fairly settled in her own palace of Holyrood. We must now shift the scene to the royal presence-chamber in that picturesque old building. It is a lofty and well-proportioned apartment, of which, however, the small windows and thick walls denote that it was originally constructed with a view to purposes of defence. It is hung round with a quaint and elaborate tapestry, more curious, perhaps, than tasteful, representing various incidents in the heathenish history of Diana; whereon the goddess bares her knee and draws her bow, to the discomfiture of her rival’s children, with mythological effrontery. Beautiful oak carvings adorn its massive chimney-piece, and its panelled roof is richly emblazoned with the armorial bearings of a line of kings. The floor, instead of being strewed with rushes, is carefully waxed and polished, a foreign innovation which has already excited some displeasure amongst the graver courtiers. Such furniture as the room contains is heavily gilt and decorated. The sovereign’s chair of state seems to blaze with embroidery and cloth of gold. It is a right royal apartment, not unworthy of the company by which it is occupied.
To-night the Queen holds one of her state-receptions, and around her person are gathered the flower of the Scottish aristocracy. Many a bold baron who spends half his life sheathed in armour, walks none the less stately to-night that he has donned satin doublet and silken hose, that his brow is bare of its steel head-piece, and he carries his plumed bonnet in his hand. Many a dame of clear blue eye and dazzling fairness scans with critical glance every fold of the royal drapery, and watches if she cannot catch and appropriate another grace from her Queen. They are thronging round her now, for the dissensions which shall mar her unhappy reign are as yet only in the bud. Each may expect some fresh boon from a new sovereign, and the baron’s ambition to become an earl is just as eager, and probably twice as unprincipled, as the varlet’s to become a page, or the page’s to become a squire. Even thoughtful Lord James, the Queen’s half-brother, the lay-churchman, the soldier-statesman—the staff on which she leans, little dreaming it can ever break in her hand and pierce her to the quick—has forgotten his sister in his sovereign, and wears on his calm sad face an unusual expression of deference to-night, because of prospective advancement and his promised earldom of Mar, and the broad lands and additional title of Moray, to which he hopes it may lead. He has taken his stand on the right of the Queen’s chair, and Mary whispers to him ever and anon as she requires information concerning her new subjects; although, with the tact of her family and her own kindly acuteness, she has already mastered the names of most of them, and has even gained the good-will of more than one rugged baron by a happy question regarding his old gray tower or his favourite horse.
But amongst many eager countenances, of which, with all their different expressions, each wears a family likeness of curiosity and expectation, it is touching to observe the chivalrous face and the lofty bearing of the Maréchal d’Amville, who has come to bid farewell to his Queen and his ladye-love. With all the polish of a courtier, with all the pride of a soldier, and with that dignity of manner which noble natures, and these alone, acquire from a hopeless sorrow bravely borne, d’Amville kneels before her who was Queen of France in the sunny days that seem to have shone so long ago. Many a weary year has he knelt in spirit before that magic beauty which he now feels he looks on for the last time. He never expected for a moment that his wild hopeless love could win him anything but sorrow, yet he grudged it not, nor strove to conquer the idolatry for which he was prepared to pay its cruel penalty,—he is paying it even now. Kneeling there to kiss the white hand that reaches him a letter for her kinsfolk in France so gently and so gracefully, looking up once more at the face that will haunt him to his grave, and feeling that none but himself will ever know his folly or its punishment; and that she, its object, smiling so frankly upon him, little guesses how gladly he would give her his blighted life, then and there, at her feet.
But, gentleman and soldier as he is, none can guess his heart by the unmoved brow, the unshaken voice, and the scrupulous deference with which he pays his homage. Gracefully he insists on the reception he will meet with in France, as bearing the latest news from her who was the pleasure and the pride of the whole kingdom, and his own good fortune in having been permitted to accompany her and see her safely bestowed on her Scottish throne. Mary can scarcely keep back her tears at the allusion; but, with so many jealous eyes around her, well she knows she must play her part at any cost, and she gulps them down with an effort.
‘Farewell,’ she says, ‘my brave protector and pilot; be assured Mary Stuart never forgets a friend. You will advise the Guises of my welfare and happiness. You will tell the French court and the French people,’ she added, drawing herself up and speaking in a louder tone, so as to be heard by all, ‘that you left me on a royal throne, surrounded by the bravest and the most loyal nobility in Europe.’
A murmur of applause went the round of the circle at this spirited declaration, and Lord James gave the Queen a glance of mingled surprise and approval.
As d’Amville rose from his knee and retired, Chastelâr, who followed in the train of the Maréchal, passed before the Queen to make his farewell obeisance. The poet’s face wore an expression of determination foreign to its usual character; but it was observed by one who watched its every turn, that he never lifted his eyes above the hem of Mary’s robe. She inclined her head graciously to him, nevertheless, and he passed into the outer circle, and was soon conversing lightly with the maids-of-honour and other of the courtiers.
It chanced, however, that the Queen had forgotten some additional message for her kinsfolk, with which she intended to charge d’Amville, and ere he had reached the door, she wished to call him back. The first person whose eye she caught happened to be the Earl of Arran, who had taken up a position opposite Her Majesty, and seemed to observe her narrowly.
Not unwilling to pay the house of Hamilton every compliment in her power, Mary beckoned the Earl to her side and charged him with her commission. Arran’s wild eye flashed fire at the proposal!
‘I will obey your commands, madam,’ said he, rudely, ‘though there be pages enough in the gallery to send after a French adventurer. It seems that France had better come to Holyrood and abide with your Majesty once for all.’
His tone was so loud, and his bearing so excited, that the bystanders gazed in astonishment on one another and on the Queen.
Mary looked surprised, almost scared for a moment, and then flushed with displeasure; but her sweet temper soon prevailed, and she answered gently,—
‘Nay, cousin, you shall do my bidding yourself as you have always done. Have not you and I reason to look back upon the days we spent in France as the happiest of our lives? Youth comes but once, my lord, and we shall neither of us ever be so light-hearted again.’
The unfortunate nobleman trembled from head to foot, and turned deadly pale. He seemed about to indulge in some frantic outbreak, which he repressed with an effort; then with writhing lip and dilated nostril, he strode towards the doorway, the courtiers making way for him as he passed with looks of astonishment and alarm.
Lord James, glancing at Morton, put his finger to his brow and shook his head gravely. The grim Douglas laughed his ghastly laugh, and with his hand on the haft of his dudgeon-dagger, muttered something about ‘blood-letting’ and ‘melancholy,’ that, had he been the physician, would have boded no good to the patient; and Arran, rushing tumultuously through the gallery to cool his brow in the night air, reappeared in the Presence no more that night.
It seems to us there is a strange, sad moral in the history of this beautiful Queen. Probably the gift that women most desire, beyond riches, wisdom, even virtue itself, is a power of fascination over the other sex; and this dangerous charm must have been possessed by Mary to a degree that in the days of Greece and Rome would have been attributed to supernatural influence. With all her advantages of rank, talent, and education, this very quality, so far from adding to her happiness, seems to have been the one engine which worked her own destruction, and that of every kindly heart that came within her sphere. Few of the other sex could look upon Mary without an inclination, at least, to love her; and how many, like high-minded d’Amville and poor half-crazed Arran, had cause to curse the day when first they felt the spell of that sweet face, apparently so unconscious of its power! Of all the eminently beautiful women the world has seen, Mary Stuart wrought the most of wreck and utter ruin with the kindliest disposition and the best intentions. Dalilah, we have never doubted, was a heartless sensualist, covetous only of pleasure and gold. The Phrynes and Aspasias were, probably, finished courtesans, with whom the affections were but instruments necessary to a profession of which they were thorough mistresses. Cleopatra, like a royal voluptuary, grudged no price for her desire; and in her love of conquest, blazoned forth and made the most of her rich southern charms. Marguérite de Valois knew and cultivated her resplendent beauty with the diligence of a devotee and the scientific aptitude of a Frenchwoman. But the Queen of Scotland alone seems to have been half ignorant and wholly careless of those advantages which women most prize and cherish; seems to have regarded her loveliness as little as the flower its fragrance, and to have gone about frankly and freely dispensing her dangerous notice with the innocence of an involuntary and unconscious coquette.
It is notorious, that even the lower animals acknowledged the influence of this captivating nature. Dogs attached themselves to the Queen with their brave fidelity, from the instant they came into her presence. She loved to dress her own hawks, and was pleased to boast that she could reclaim the wild bird of the air with greater facility than the most experienced of her falconers. Horses that fretted and chafed under the boldest cavaliers, would bend at once to the gentle hand of the royal equestrian, and carry her with safety and docility. The brute yielded gladly, as though proud to contribute to her happiness; and man looked and longed and grieved, and did his best to make both himself and her miserable.
Of physical beauty there is no question that she possessed an extraordinary share—perhaps more than any woman of that or any other age. Like her mother, she was of lofty stature and peculiar dignity of bearing, whilst she inherited from her father an exact symmetry and the most graceful proportions. James V., though he made bad use of his physical advantages, was one of the comeliest and best-limbed men in his dominions. Mary’s hand was a model for a sculptor, whilst every gesture and every movement of her body was at once womanly and dignified. But it was the Queen’s face that riveted the attention, and fascinated both sexes with its entrancing loveliness. Other women might be beautiful; other women might have had the same smooth, open brow, the same chiselled features and pencilled eyebrows, the same delicate chin and white full neck and bosom—ay, even the same long, soft hazel eyes, and rich dark chestnut hair; but where was the woman in Europe whose glance, like hers, raised from under those sweeping eyelashes, found its way straight to the heart; whose smile seemed at once to entreat and to command, to extort obedience and bestow reward, like sunlight penetrating the coldest object and warming and brightening all within its sphere? Yes, there was many a beautiful woman in France and Scotland, not to mention such fair dames at the English court as did not fear to provoke the displeasure of ‘good Queen Bess’ by too engaging a deportment or too becoming an attire; but there was only one Mary Stuart, as many an aching heart in steel-clad bosom was fain to confess to its cost.
And yet on that fair face was often to be remarked an expression of melancholy, as though produced by some vague foreboding of evil, such as cast a shadow over the countenances of so many of the Stuarts.
Even James V., though he could revel with the noisiest, and sing many a merry stave of his own writing, amongst which
is not the least suggestive and poetical, bore on his brow this mysterious presage of evil, although it was perhaps more apparent, as well it might be, in the pensive lineaments of his descendant, the first Charles, and the surpassing beauty of his peerless daughter, Mary Queen of Scots. Was it this that the soothsayer meant, when Mary of Guise took her beautiful child, then a mere infant, to the famous Nostradamus, and bade him cast her horoscope, and fortell her destinies? The sage looked on the blooming face, turned so artlessly towards his own, and announced in his deep grave tones, ‘There is blood on that fair young brow!’
Through her happy childhood in the peaceful islet of Inch-ma-home—through her graceful youth, spent with the daughters of France in the quiet retreats of Amboise and Fontainebleau—through her early wedded life and short supremacy, as through her widowhood, when the Blanche Reine was the darling and pride of the French court, this shadow of evil never left her. It pervaded her turbulent reign in Scotland, her many reverses, her cruel injuries, her disheartening defeats, her dreary captivity. Perhaps it never faded from her brow till the glory of death shone over it, in the hands of the headsman at Fotheringay.
Mary looked round her courtiers in dismay at Arran’s extraordinary conduct. The sad expression was more than usually apparent on her fair forehead: she whispered a few words to her brother, who seemed to be her refuge, as was natural, in her difficulties, and Lord James, darting another glance at Morton, quitted the apartment with his usual staid impassive air.
Then the Queen, rising, broke up the circle by which she was surrounded, and pacing through the room, addressed herself by turns to the different nobles present, and was observed to be more than usually condescending to the Earl of Morton, as though some instinctive prescience bade her deprecate, as early as possible, the hostility of that fierce uncompromising nature.
The Earl’s grim countenance relaxed into a smile that added to its natural ghastliness, as she passed; and Secretary Maitland whispered to Lord John Stuart that—
‘The Douglas was in a courtly mood to-night, and reminded him of the lion in George Buchanan’s elegy that was led by the lady in a silken chain;’ to which the gay prior of Coldinghame, contemplating a shapely leg he loved well to display in a galliard, replied with a light laugh—
‘I never mistrust the lion so much as when he shows his fangs,’ alluding to the prominent teeth and unshapely mouth of the redoubted Earl.
‘Nor I the Douglas so much as when he hides his claws,’ answered Secretary Maitland; and the two passed gaily on to take part in the amusements and revelry that once more enlivened the walls of old Holyrood.
CHAPTER VI.
It is not always in the immediate presence of royalty that there is the most enlivening conversation, or the greatest amount of gaiety about a court. Although the Queen of Scotland was the essence of good-humour, and when in comparative privacy encouraged to the utmost freedom of intercourse and absence of formality amongst her attendants, yet on an occasion like the present, in a gathering of the great nobility of her kingdom, it may easily be imagined that an unusual amount of decorum and restraint was observed throughout the circle which actually surrounded their sovereign.
At a short distance, however, from these graver seniors were grouped the Maries, in the splendour of their courtly dresses, and the bloom of their own intrinsic charms. The young ladies seemed to have completely recovered whatever ill effects may have been produced by the hardships of a sea voyage, and their plumage, like that of certain tropical wild birds, appeared the sleeker and more variegated for the storms through which they had passed. We would fain possess the pen of that eloquent writer who describes in our morning journals the weekly recurring changes of Parisian fashion, with a fidelity not to be surpassed by the superlative gossiping powers of Brantôme or Pepys, and a touching earnestness that never stops short of enthusiasm, and often amounts to poetry; then would we detail the tasteful costumes of this seductive quartette with an accuracy that should make the ladies’ mouths water, and every hair on the head of the family stand on end. We would depict in glowing language their several robes of orange and violet and courtly cramoisie—the stately fall of their folds, the delicate edging of their lace, the trim defences of the jealous ruff, and rich embroidery on the shapely glove. We would not ’bate a pearl, nor a tress, nor a flounce, till the dazzled reader should count every stitch of needlework on the attire of these sumptuous damsels. But we must leave such visions to younger and keener eyesights, satisfied to take for granted the radiance of the Maries from the admiration they excited, and the compliments that were paid them by all.
As Chastelâr followed the Maréchal through the outer circle, he lingered for a few minutes amongst the maids-of-honour, to take his leave of the ladies with whom of late he had been so closely associated. It would have been amusing to mark the different effect his farewell produced on each individual of the four.
Mary Beton, half-a-head taller than her companions, magnificent in dress and deportment, received his salutation with the dignity of an empress accepting the homage of a vassal.
Mary Seton laughed in his face.
‘Farewell!’ said she, with mischief gleaming from her eyes: ‘Farewell! our fellow-sufferer and Prince of Troubadours. As you are never likely to cross the seas again, be sure you take back with you to France nothing but what belongs to you. None of the hearts of us unfortunate maids-of-honour, for instance. They are prized in Scotland, I can tell you; and the Maries want at least as many as they have got amongst the five of them, you may be sure!’
‘And suppose I leave my own instead,’ answered Chastelâr, laughing, yet at the same time colouring—an embarrassment not unmarked by Mary Hamilton, who shot one eager glance at him, and turned her eyes away, blushing too; ‘suppose I must return to France, fair mistress, a loser by the exchange?’
‘We’ll have the palace swept and searched for the missing article,’ she answered, gaily. ‘I think I can promise you that the one who has got it won’t keep it. There, you needn’t look so shocked, Mistress Beton! You can’t guess which of the Maries has robbed our poor poet so mercilessly. It’s a sweet name, Mary, is it not? But don’t forget it rhymes to “vary.” And so, good luck to you, Chastelâr! and fare you well!’
‘Souvent femme varie, fol qui s’y fie,’ answered the poet, forcing a laugh, though a less acute observer than any one of the four might have noted that he was distressed at the turn their conversation had taken, and that the wilful girl’s shaft had been shot home. ‘Adieu, Mistress Carmichael,’ he added, as she, too, in her turn frankly bade him farewell; and then he passed on to Mary Hamilton, and paused for an instant, irresolute, before the dark-eyed maid-of-honour.
She did not offer him her hand as the others had done. She never lifted her looks to his face. Pale as she usually was, she turned paler than ever, and her cold, distant bearing would have almost seemed to infer that she was offended, and that her greeting was extorted from her as a duty of ceremony, rather than springing from the free impulse of friendship.
And yet he knew it was not so. Though scarcely so quick-sighted on such matters as women, even men have an intuitive perception that they are beloved. In either sex the consciousness produces a kindly feeling towards the worshipper, and it seems hard to deny a few gentle words where so much is ungrudgingly bestowed. Mistaken compassion! Perhaps the fiercest efforts of hate would be less cruel than this ill-judged lenity. It is like hanging out the beacon where it shall guide the bark on to the quicksand. It is like Varney counterfeiting Leicester’s whistle to lure Amy Robsart to destruction. When people pass spurious money in exchange for sterling gold, they find themselves ere long in the felon’s dock; but there is no law to punish the coiner who stamps a few false words with the royal die of truth, and pays them away unblushingly, for all the happiness and all the welfare of the poor fool he deceives.
‘You are going back to France,’ said Mary Hamilton, with a wonderfully composed countenance and steady lip. ‘It is your home—I wish you joy of your return.’
‘Nay,’ answered Chastelâr, his voice softening while he spoke. ‘You know how happy I have been in Scotland. How devoted I must always be to this court and this country. I must follow d’Amville to Paris for the present, but the one hope of my life will be that I shall soon return.’
He spoke truly enough; he even hoped the royal lady then employing all the fascinations of her manner on Morton and his kindred, might hear his last words and give him one responsive glance to carry with him into his banishment. In this he was disappointed. The Queen, seated at some distance from the group, and surrounded by her barons, was for the moment ‘every inch a Queen,’ and Chastelâr passed out of Holyrood, with Mary Hamilton’s ‘farewell’ warmer and more hopeful since his last words, to warn him (could, indeed, warning ever profit in such cases), that, in stretching for the rose he would never reach, he was trampling the poor violet ruthlessly beneath his feet.
She seemed in better spirits, too, after he was gone, although silent and inattentive to the surrounding gaiety, a distraction not unnoticed by Mary Beton, who believed herself officially answerable not only for the dresses and deportment of her three companions, but for the thoughts and sentiments of their inmost hearts.
‘I have told you twice,’ she said at length with an offended air, ‘that the Queen rides out to-morrow for the hawking after early mass, and that you and Mary Seton will be in attendance. You will wear the sad-coloured riding gear passamented with silver, and French hats—but neither of you seem to heed me.’
‘She is thinking of a French head, rather than a French hat,’ laughed incorrigible Mary Seton; ‘but indeed I have listened to you even more attentively than usual. Ah! Mistress Beton, what would I not give to possess your careful forethought and common sense! You never neglect anything—you never forget anything. The Queen trusts you with her state-secrets, and when you carry her work to her in the Council-chamber, even Maitland and Morton look upon you as if you were one of themselves. Why are you not weak and giddy like me, or pensive and sad like Hamilton, or absent and haughty like Mary Carmichael has grown of late? Look at her yonder holding the Queen’s train as if she were the sovereign, and our beautiful Mistress the maid-of-honour!’
Mary Beton smiled, not displeased at the adroit flattery of her junior. She did indeed pride herself on two especial qualities—utter impassibility, and scrupulous attention to details.
‘I am somewhat older than the rest of you,’ she said, bridling her handsome neck within her handsome ruff, ‘and I have learned to avoid all pleasures and interests that take my attention from my duty. I am always responsible and always employed. I have no time for the follies that seem to afford the rest of you so much amusement.’
‘And yet you would become them well,’ said the other, coaxingly. ‘Come, now, be persuaded to play Diana in the next masque. I will dress your hair myself, and the gallants all vow you are fitted for the part both in person and character. Handsome and stately and cold.’
‘That is exactly why I do not care to join in it,’ replied the elder lady, with increasing cordiality, for no daughter of Eve was ever yet insensible to flattery, even when ugly and repulsive and old, whereas Mary Beton could boast considerable attractions. ‘I tell you, my dear, it is better to keep out of temptation. You envy me my self-command, you say, and I repeat to you it is a quality I possess because I am heart-whole and free.’
‘But so am I,’ interposed the girl, vehemently, ‘and so are we all, I suppose, in reality, for the matter of that; and yet it is possible that our time maybe coming too,’ she added, reflectively. ‘Ah! Mistress Beton, I shall see you some day with a lover as stately as yourself, perhaps. What an imperial pair you will make!’
Mary Beton looked by no means displeased. The smile on her handsome face partook of a meaning expression not devoid of triumph, as though the contingency were neither very remote, nor wholly disagreeable; but, of course, the less she felt it to be unalterable, the more emphasis she laid on her denial.
‘Never!’ she exclaimed, strenuously. ‘I am surprised, my dear, at your thinking for an instant of such an absurdity. I never saw one yet, to my fancy, that I could like better than another.’
‘Nor I neither,’ echoed Mary Seton, eagerly; adding, in a voice of unusual gravity, and with a wistful expression on her countenance rarely seen there, ‘I think if I did, it would be an unlucky day both for him and for me!’
Even while she spoke an unusual stir in the ante-room heralded the approach of some distinguished stranger who was to be received with more than ordinary ceremony. In such cases the Queen’s ladies gathered round their mistress as in duty bound, although at other times it was Mary’s practice to retain but one of them in the immediate vicinity of her person, and to permit the rest to mingle in the general circle, amusing themselves in their own way.
The duties devolving on ‘the Maries’ were, indeed, much to their liking, and might well be called a ‘labour of love.’ They vied with each other in passionate adoration of their mistress, whose sweet temper and generous disposition never failed to gain the hearts of all those who came about her person. If there was a charm in all the Stuarts which won blind devotion from their associates, what must have been the fascination that surrounded the gentlest and loveliest scion of that illustrious race!
The Queen of Scots was a thorough gentlewoman, in the noblest and fullest acceptation of the term. That she lacked firmness where her affections were involved, and promptitude of action where her safety was threatened, what is this but to say that she was a woman and not a hero? Courage, both the masculine spirit that braves mortal peril, and the feminine fortitude that can sustain suffering and sorrow, she proved that she possessed on more than one stricken field, in more than one dreary house of humiliation and bondage. On both these chivalrous qualities the last scene of her life drew largely, and Bayard himself, the bravest of the brave, could not have faced death more nobly than did Mary, the fairest of the fair. Yet with all this she was exquisitely sensitive of the feelings of others; she could not bear to give pain; she hesitated to remonstrate, and could scarcely bring herself to chide. The regulations of her household, to the carrying out of which the Queen herself attended with housewifely care, prove the regard she entertained for the personal comfort of her domestics.
The allowance for the table of her ladies and maids-of-honour was the same as that of their sovereign. If the reader is curious to see the bill of fare for a royal dinner in the sixteenth century, the following are its contents:—
‘Four soups, four entrées, a piece of “beef-royal” boiled, a loin of mutton, and a capon; of roast meat, one neck of mutton, one capon, three pigeons, three hares, and two pieces of fat meat. For the dessert, seven dishes of fruit, and one of chicory-paste, one gallon of wine, one quart of white wine, and one of claret; eight rolls of bread.’ The latter item appears as if this plentiful supply were a dinner for but eight people. Probably, however, the remains of the feast furnished forth the inferior tables. A characteristic memorandum appears at the same time directing that the Queen’s ladies, including the Maries, shall have the same diet as their mistress.
Mary Carmichael was in attendance on Her Majesty, and holding the royal train during the conversation we have detailed. It was broken off abruptly by the stir in the ante-room.
‘This must be the English Ambassador!’ exclaimed Mary Beton, drawing herself up to her full height, and assuming her most frigid air of étiquette.
‘He has come back sooner than he was expected, and I wish he had stayed away altogether,’ observed Mistress Seton, on whom Randolph had made no favourable impression during their previous acquaintance, for the latter had held Elizabeth’s credentials at the court of Holyrood from the Queen of Scotland’s first arrival, and had been absent to receive personal instructions from his own sovereign but for a few weeks.
‘What is the matter with Mary Carmichael?’ whispered Mistress Hamilton, anxiously, as the three young ladies glided into their places behind the Queen. She might have spared herself the question, for almost ere it was spoken the agitation which caused it had disappeared; and although, when Randolph entered the presence-chamber, Mary Carmichael had started, turned very pale, and dropped the royal robe from her hand, ere he had advanced three paces, her colour had returned somewhat higher than before, and she was fulfilling her duties more scrupulously than ever, with an unusual expression of cold indifference on her fair and haughty face.
CHAPTER VII.
As Mary Stuart stood forward to welcome Elizabeth’s ambassador to her court, many an eye dwelt on the face and figure of the Scottish Queen with enthusiastic admiration. Though dressed in the mourning which she still wore for her first husband, the dark folds of her robe did but enhance the brilliancy of her complexion, and, whilst even the spotless ruff did not detract from the fairness of her neck, the whitest hand in Europe hung like a snowdrop against the black volume of her draperies. Even Randolph, cynic though he were, could not repress a thrill of delight as he approached so beautiful an object, though the sentiment uppermost in his diplomatic heart, had he put it into words, would probably have been as follows:—
‘It is lucky my mistress cannot see you at this moment, or she would hate you more cordially than ever, and my task would be even more difficult than it is!’
He made his obeisance, nevertheless, with the cool assurance and easy grace of a practised courtier. The Queen received him with a cordiality that she seemed anxious should not be lost on the bystanders.
‘A messenger from my loving cousin,’ said she, ‘is always welcome; how much more when he comes in the person of our old and esteemed friend Mr Randolph.’
The ambassador answered in a few well-chosen words for his sovereign and himself, dropping once more on his knee and craving permission to present an autograph letter and a costly ring from Elizabeth to the cousin whom she never saw. Mary received them both with expressions of unbounded delight, and the shrewd bearer, judging from his own experience and his own heart, argued that there must be no small weakness concealed under so much affection, and that it was unnatural for one woman to be so fond of another, unless she felt herself uncomfortably in her power.
Mary questioned him of his journey.
‘You have had a long ride,’ said the Queen, ‘and we can but give you a rude, though hearty, welcome. A long ride and a dangerous, for indeed the borders of both countries are not so quiet as we could wish, or as we hope to render them before many months are past.’
Randolph answered with ready tact—
‘It is to the Queen of Scotland’s servants I owe my safe arrival at Holyrood. Permit me to recall to your Majesty’s recollection an archer of your old Scottish Guard.’
With these words he drew Maxwell forward and presented him to the Queen. Randolph was a good-natured man when it cost nothing, and, moreover, it was a part of his profession to make a friend wherever it could be done at a small outlay. Mary received Walter Maxwell with the utmost condescension. Had she followed her own impulse, she would have shaken him cordially by both hands and bidden him a hearty welcome, for the sake of old times and the memory of her dear France; but monarchs must not give way to impulse, and indeed are better without such weaknesses as affections and associations. So he knelt low before her and kissed her royal hand, the while Mary Carmichael seemed to have discovered something so engrossing in the skirt of her mistress’s robe, that she never lifted her eyes from the embroidery with which it was adorned.
‘And how fared you in the wild Border-land?’ resumed the Queen, ‘the land of moss and moor—of jack and spear—a pleasant district if you want to breathe a horse or fly a hawk; but, as our loyal burghers say, bad to sleep in for those who would pull their boots off when they retire to rest.’ The Queen spoke of the border as though it brought agreeable associations to her mind, and indeed she dearly loved the open plain and the free air of heaven.
‘Had it not been for your warden, Madam,’ answered the courtier, ‘I might have slept in my boots till the day of judgment. This gallant archer and myself would scarce have had a tale to tell, if the Earl of Bothwell did not take to spur and snaffle as kindly as the wildest freebooter on the marches.’
‘How so?’ inquired Mary, the colour mantling to her cheek, and her eye sparkling with animated interest. The Queen was a Stuart to the marrow, and loved well to hear of a gallant feat of arms.
‘Why, thus, Madam,’ replied the ambassador. ‘Ere the moon had been up an hour, we saw ourselves beset by a party of some ten or twelve horsemen, who occupied a pass in front of us, and as we were but three, I leave your Majesty to judge that my feelings as a man whose trade is rather peace than war, were by no means agreeable. My companion, I may observe, was all for fighting, without counting.’ He spoke, as usual, in a tone that might be either jest or earnest; also, as usual, nothing within the range of his eye escaped him. He noted the Queen’s interest. He observed Mary Carmichael look up for an instant, and resume the study of her embroidery with a heightened colour. He caught Mistress Beton in the fact, examining his own person with an air of dignified approval that amounted to admiration; and it was not lost upon him, that while Lord James looked more anxious than common, others of the circle exchanged glances of deeper meaning than his plain tale would at first appear to warrant. All this he saw without seeming to see, and made a note of his observations.
‘And you charged them and cut your way through!’ exclaimed the Queen, with head up and flashing eyes, like some beautiful Amazon, clenching her slender hand the while as though it held a sword.
‘Charge them, your Majesty, we did perforce, for it was more dangerous to go back than forward; but the cutting seemed more on their part than ours. The situation, too, was ridiculous enough, had a man been in cue to laugh!’ resumed Randolph, in the same dry sneering tones. ‘My comrade’s horse was rolling on the heather, and he defending himself, like a second St George, on foot. My servant, saving your Grace’s presence, a beef-fed knave from Smithfield, roared and plunged about like a baited bull, till he received a coup-de-grâce that would have cracked any skull but a Londoner’s, from a useful instrument that my Lord Bothwell tells me is called a Jedwood-axe. Whilst I myself, vainly endeavouring to protect person and property, was forced to abandon my valise, and turn all my attention to the defence of my own head.’
‘And they robbed you of your despatches!’ exclaimed Lord James, interrupting the narrator with ill-concealed anxiety, while three or four nobles glanced at each other with looks of covert triumph and amusement. ‘Indeed, Madam,’ added the future Regent, recovering himself with an effort, ‘these outrages are insupportable; they must be promptly punished and put down!’
‘And they shall be so,’ answered Mary, drawing herself up proudly, ‘if I ride through the “Debatable Land” myself in corslet and head-piece, as my fathers did before me. Alas! I fear steel harness is the most fitting attire for a Scottish Queen.—But you have not told us how you escaped,’ proceeded she, turning to Randolph with marked courtesy, and a softened manner. ‘You were rescued, were you not, at your utmost need, by our warden?’
‘The Earl of Bothwell did, indeed, come riding in like a whirlwind,’ replied Randolph, ‘at the very moment when I had resolved that my last sleep must be that booted one to which your Majesty’s citizens have such a rational objection. If the Warden of the Marches be chosen for his prowess in single combat, there never was a better selection! Man and horse went down before his lance without a struggle, and his very war-cry seemed to act upon the freebooters like the shriek of a hawk on a wisp of wild-fowl. Faith, they took to their wings like wild-fowl too, where it was hopeless to follow them, and I rode home to supper at Hermitage without the slightest wish to cultivate a farther acquaintance with that portion of your Majesty’s domains.’
The Queen laughed as he concluded. She had listened with obvious interest to the Englishman’s account of the skirmish, and seemed in heightened spirits when it was over. She beckoned to Mary Beton, and whispered in that lady’s ear, who retired from the circle, and presently returned, followed by a page, bearing a small gold cup, richly chased and decorated with precious stones. It was filled with wine, and Mary put her own lips to it ere she offered it to Randolph.
‘You will pledge us,’ said the Queen, with her sunny smile; ‘and when you drink to a lady, sir, not a drop must remain in the cup. If you examine it, you will see that its sides are ornamented with lance heads and trophies of arms. Will you favour Mary Stuart by keeping it in remembrance of your rough ride and the dangers you affronted in her service?’
Randolph bowed to the ground. He knew and appreciated the value of such a compliment, and whilst he saw in the giver’s frank countenance and cordial manner the sincerity of her good-will, his heart never smote him for the double part he was expressly sent there to play.
The Queen’s curiosity did not yet seem, however, to be thoroughly satisfied, and she questioned the ambassador with considerable minuteness as to the appearance and bearing of his foes. Randolph’s answers were marked by his usual tone of covert sarcasm; but she elicited no more from him than he had already detailed, save that the valise which he had lost contained in reality no papers of importance, or, indeed, any papers whatever, except a few private memoranda of his own—an announcement which seemed to clear Lord James’s brow from a load of care, while it created obvious disappointment on two or three other anxious faces.
The truth was, that Randolph, faithful to his own Queen in the faithless part which he enacted to another, was the bearer of certain instructions to Lord James, which were very different in tenor from the cordial letter he was charged by Elizabeth to deliver to her cousin. There was even yet a strong Catholic party about the court, to whom the possession of these despatches would have been an inestimable windfall; no less, indeed, than a foundation for a charge of treason against the Queen’s Protestant half-brother.
The attack, then, on Randolph and his companion, was prompted by nobler names than the Armstrongs and Elliotts, who lived by rapine on the borders; but their schemes had been baffled by the wily Englishman, who fought like a demon to preserve the valise, of which he was, in reality, utterly careless, and by that means led his assailants to believe that, in carrying it off, they had become possessed of a valuable prize.
‘I am charged by the Earl of Bothwell,’ said Randolph, at the conclusion of his narrative, ‘to present his unalterable duty to your Majesty. His lordship, not satisfied with extricating me from the sloughs of the “Debatable Land,” has sent his own henchman to conduct me safely to the capital.’
Mary started perceptibly, and the colour she could not entirely repress rose faintly to her cheek. Well did she know that her warden was thoroughly devoted to her interests, and that, in whatever intrigues he might be mixed, Bothwell’s loyalty was unshaken to his Queen. Perhaps she may have already asked herself whether it did not partake of that devotion which shed a halo over the days of chivalry. At all events, his sending his own henchman to the court, denoted some more than usual necessity for communicating with his sovereign; and Mary prepared to take her measures accordingly.
At that unhappy period, when not a day passed without the hatching of some plot, the development of some intrigue—when every man’s hand was against his neighbour, and noble preyed upon noble without scruple or remorse—even the Queen was obliged to remember that jealous eyes were on the watch for her every movement, and to practise dissimulation where dissimulation was alike unsafe and unworthy.
She turned to Mary Seton, who had been listening with an appearance of great amusement, and gave her some directions in a low voice, that even Randolph’s quick ear could not overhear.
The young lady curtseyed and withdrew, first casting a glance of considerable meaning at Mary Carmichael, who replied to it, by assuming as unconscious an air as was compatible with the red spot that burned in either cheek.
Walter Maxwell now found himself in the presence of the lady whom he had been determining so many long weeks that he would forget, and to see whom once more he had consistently abandoned his profession, and undertaken a long journey by sea and land. As is usually the case, the moment he had looked forward to, hardly repaid the anxiety of expectation. The maid-of-honour’s greeting was formal in the extreme, betraying a degree of coldness that seemed almost to argue aversion; and he was, of course, fool enough to be hurt and angry, instead of pleased and triumphant. Whoever saw a woman accost the man she loves with half the cordiality she displays to the merest acquaintance? On the contrary, she receives his greeting with a reserve that to any one else would be positive rudeness; and even when alone with him, preserves, for a space, a certain embarrassment in her womanly shame and fear, lest she should betray the tenth part of all she feels.
Mary Carmichael was no exception to the rule of her sex. In fact, she possessed more than her due share of that pride which, when brought in contact with a kind nature, produces so much sorrow, and with a proud one so much dissension. Although the Queen, who was again seated, had dismissed her from her duty as train-bearer, and she was at liberty to converse with all the freedom a crowded assembly permits, she could think of no more pertinent remark to make to her admirer than the following:—
‘You have brought us news from the French Court, Master Maxwell? Is it as gay as it used to be? I wonder you had the heart to leave it.’
There was something in her manner that repelled and irritated him.
‘I came to serve my Queen,’ he replied, stiffly, and in a tone as cold as her own. ‘Our sovereign knows how to appreciate loyalty, and does not forget her old adherents in the short space of a few months.’
‘Our sovereign would welcome a lapdog if it came from France, I think,’ replied the other, indifferently, utterly disregarding the future suffering her insincerity would cause herself. ‘Our sovereign has already expressed her satisfaction at seeing you, and would probably give you a yet heartier greeting if you could inform her of the latest fashions in head-tire and farthingale. We are far behindhand here, you see, in these barbarous regions!’
She spoke with an assumption of levity so unlike herself, that he was disgusted as well as angry; and, indeed, it was somewhat unjust that the maid-of-honour should thus revenge upon him her own confusion at his appearance.
‘I am no silk-mercer,’ he answered, rudely; ‘nor have I travelled so far to bring a lady the colour of a ribbon.’ And with a swelling heart and a feeling of pain he could not have believed possible without experiencing it, Walter Maxwell turned away, and lost himself amongst the crowd of surrounding courtiers.
Far different was the conversation carried on at the same moment by that courtly pair, the diplomatic Mr Thomas Randolph and the stately Mistress Mary Beton. The former, with his keen political foresight, had lately been reflecting that a close intimacy with at least one of the household, would open a fertile channel for information regarding the Queen’s private thoughts and doings, such as would be invaluable to him in his present capacity as confidential agent to Elizabeth. He had also observed the admiration which his late appearance had obviously elicited from the senior maid-of-honour; and he had no more scruple in deliberately proceeding to make love to that austere damsel than he would have had in putting her to the torture, had the latter process, rather than the former, been the most effectual way of gaining her confidence.
Mary Beton was not insensible to admiration. She was a woman, and, with all her magnificence of deportment, consequently inherited the propensities of her sex; but she would not have appreciated indiscriminate homage; and the dish to please her palate, if we may so speak, required to be elaborately dressed and seasoned, and sent up on a silver trencher at least.
To have won Mr Randolph’s good opinion, however, was a conquest of which any lady might be proud. The ambassador’s high position, his invariable assurance and self-reliance, his thorough knowledge of the world, and sarcastic readiness of tongue, had rendered him an object of considerable interest to the dames of the Scottish court. They exaggerated, as women will, his influence, his talents, his successes—diplomatic as well as social—and the favour with which he was regarded by the English Queen. They quoted him, they talked about him—above all, they were a little afraid of him; and the latter sensation possesses an indefinable charm for the venturous tendencies of the female character.
Mary Beton was startled to find how gratifying to her self-love were the attentions of the English courtier.
It was difficult to say by what subtle process he led her to infer that he took pleasure in her society. Every word he said might have been proclaimed unblushingly by the Lion-King-at-Arms. And yet before Randolph had spoken a dozen sentences to Mary Beton, he had dexterously led her to infer that she was the only woman in that crowded assemblage whom he considered worthy of his notice; that their ideas were sympathetic, their tastes similar, and that a mutual alliance must necessarily be established between them.
To-night he confined himself to a few adroit questions respecting the costumes in a proposed masque; and Mary Beton answered them with a freedom far different from her usual reticence. All he wanted was to pave the way to her confidence; and he was the last man to scare the steed by showing the halter while he proffered the corn. So he took his leave as soon as he saw he had made a favourable impression, and went his way cheerfully to sup with Morton and Maitland, leaving Mistress Beton in a most agreeable frame of mind, with her head, at least, an inch higher than usual.
We must now follow Mary Seton as she glided stealthily away from the presence to fulfil the Queen’s whispered command.
With an expression of more than usual intelligence on her saucy features, that active damsel hurried through the ante-rooms and galleries, and along certain dark stone passages, which she threaded with the confidence of one to whom these intricacies were familiar, till she reached a small vaulted apartment, from whence emanated a prevailing odour of beef and ale, denoting it to be the buttery. Spur and steel scabbard clattered on the stone floor of this resort, and rough voices might be heard jeering and pledging each other with a rude cordiality proportioned to the extent in which, as the Scotch say, ‘The malt got above the meal.’
A grave individual in black, however, presided over these festivities, and could always keep order by the summary process of refusing to draw more ale. This official started to behold the white figure of the maid-of-honour standing in the doorway; but Mary Seton, with a finger on her lip, simply said, ‘Lord Bothwell’s henchman;’ and the seneschal, interrupting that personage with the black jack of ale at his lips, brought him into the dark stone passage, and confided him to the radiant messenger before he was aware.
Dick Rutherford, though his faculties were of the keenest on a moonless night in Liddesdale, was somewhat confused on this his first visit to Holyrood; nor were his intellects necessarily brightened by a huge repast of beef, washed down with strong ale, after a long ride and a fourteen hours’ fast.
Once in the passage, he thought he was dreaming. A vision of loveliness in shining array, whose head reached to about the middle of his corslet, accosted him with hasty frankness.
‘You left Hermitage this morning?’ said she, laconically.
‘At daybreak,’ answered the borderer, scarcely reassured by this accurate knowledge of his movements.
‘You have a letter from the warden for the Queen?’ proceeded the damsel.
‘A letter!’ repeated ‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh,’ his Scottish caution coming rapidly to the rescue. ‘I’ll no say but there might be a bit parcel, or such like. If I’ve no lost it by the way,’ he added, doubtfully, and feeling the while under his corslet for the safety of the packet.
Mary Seton’s little foot stamped impatiently, whereat the giant started in his boots. She turned upon him quite fiercely.
‘A jackman does not lose a Queen’s packet,’ said she. ‘If he does, he may chance to lose his own head. Follow me!’ And she flitted on through the dark passages, turning at intervals to see that she was followed by the astonished borderer.
Presently they climbed a narrow, winding stair. After ascending several steps, the maid-of-honour stopped, opened a door, and pushing aside some heavy folds of tapestry, bade her follower enter, warning him not to strike his head against the low doorway.
‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh,’ dazzled and confused, found himself in a very small and brilliantly-lighted apartment. The roof was high; but the room itself was scarcely large enough to contain six or eight persons. A table prepared for supper, and laid for two, occupied the whole space between the window and the ample hearth, on which a wood fire blazed and crackled cheerfully. The borderer’s gaze was riveted at once by the gold plate on the supper-table, richly chased, and bearing the crown-royal on its burnished surface.
Mary Seton could not forbear a smile at his astonishment.
‘This is somewhat different from the head of a glen in Liddesdale,’ said she, with a ringing laugh. ‘Thanks to my good-nature, you have now seen a Queen’s chamber. Give me your packet, and get you gone!’
While she spoke, she ran her eye over the athletic figure of the borderer, magnificent in its size and strength when seen in that small apartment, and well set off by his warlike gear.
‘What a fine man!’ thought Mary Seton, as she scanned him. ‘And oh! what a good face, and how unlike a courtier!’
But on ‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh’s’ honest countenance might be seen an expression of great perplexity. In the first place, he was a good deal charmed, and not a little stupefied, by the beauty of his guide; in the next, he was extremely apprehensive of an immediate apparition of royalty; and, lastly, he was embarrassed how to refuse anything to the most fascinating young lady he had ever yet set eyes on. Nevertheless he answered stoutly, though deferentially—
‘My packet must be delivered into the Queen’s ain hand. You’re no the Queen hersel’, I’m thinking, though well you might be, my bonny lady, for I never saw the like o’ ye.’
The tone of admiration in which he spoke was so obviously involuntary as to be flattering in the extreme.
Mary Seton looked pleased, and continued more graciously—
‘I spoke to prove you. You can be faithful to a trust, can you? What is your name?’
‘They call me Dick Rutherford,’ he answered; ‘but in Liddesdale I’m “Dick-o’-the-Cleugh.” Ask the Liddesdale lads if I’m to be trusted! But I’m havering. The like o’ you will never set your bonny foot in Liddesdale, nor ask tidings o’ the like o’ me.’
Dick spoke almost despondently for a moment. He brightened up though at her reply.
‘A brave man and an honest is the noblest of God’s creatures. I believe you to be both. Although,’ she added, mischievously, ‘they’re scarce enough at Holyrood, there are a good many more brave men than honest on your side the country, or I’ve been misinformed.’
Dick was on the eve of entering into an elaborate defence of his kindred, and an explanation of border probity, which could not but have been edifying, when he was interrupted by the entrance of the Queen herself, about to sup, after the fatigues of the day, private and quietly, with her kinswoman the Countess of Argyle.
The borderer was now completely overwhelmed. Nevertheless, he delivered his packet with an honest simplicity, in favourable contrast to the manners of most of her ambassadors; and Mary Stuart acknowledged its receipt with a few gold pieces, and dismissed him with her pleasantest smile.
His previous conductor guided him back till she landed him in the court of the palace; and although ‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh’ possessed to the full the loyalty of his countrymen, and a borderer’s devoted admiration for womanly beauty, he had no distinct recollection of the sovereign’s countenance, so completely was it effaced from his memory by her bewitching maid-of-honour.
Poor Dick! Many a long day afterwards his honest heart ached when he thought of that memorable night, recalling the merry eyes and the sunny hair and the dazzling figure of his fascinating guide. Brave, simple ‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh!’ He had better have been up to his neck in the softest moss in all Liddesdale.