He paused as he emerged from the palace, to let the cool air fan his brow, and to give his thoughts and energies time to collect themselves for the great effort he felt he had to make. Then he walked steadily on to the well-known spot under the apple-tree, where he remembered to have witnessed the interview between Mary Carmichael and her mysterious admirer. Once he had loved that spot so dearly; once he used to linger there for hours together at night, and watch the lights in the apartment inhabited by the Maries; once he was fool enough to feel his heart thrill when her shadow crossed the casement. Well! that was all past and gone. It seemed strange the place could be so changed, and yet the same.
There is no feeling so sad as that with which we revisit our earthly paradise, whatever it may be, after our return has been forbidden, and the angel placed at the gate to warn us off with his flaming sword. Adam and Eve plodded away indeed contentedly into the wilderness, but we, their children, cannot always resign ourselves so philosophically to the inevitable. We plead and pray to be allowed to re-enter, and, perhaps to enhance our punishment, the angel is suffered to give way to our entreaties. Ah! it is the same garden still. Although the trees are lying prostrate, dank, and rotting, on the tufted sward; although the flowers are broken and withered and trampled into the earth; although there are dust and ashes now, and the darkness of desolation, where once the ripe fruit glowed, and the green leaves flickered in the golden floods of noon; yet it is here we first knew paradise; it is from this spot we first caught a glimpse of the dazzling depths of heaven; it was from that spring, choked and tangled and dried up now, we first drank the waters of life. All is ruined and defiled and destroyed, but it is our Garden of Eden still. We had rather sit here with bowed head and rent garments, than walk the fairest realms of earth, in purple and fine linen, lord and ruler of the whole.
Poor ghosts we are indeed, some of us, even while clothed in our fleshly coverings, and prone to wander to and fro about the spot where we buried our treasures, though they have been dug up and taken away long ago. If we could but sever that cord which links us with the past and cut out the moral gangrene, as we amputate the physical limb when mortification has set in, how healthy would be our spiritual being, how cheerfully we could limp, mutilated but painless, to the grave!
Alas! to some natures it is impossible. To such the punishment of Prometheus is no fiction. The chain and the vulture and the rock must be their portion. Nevertheless they are not eternal, and the Garden of Eden itself, glowing in the summer noon, was but a dreary waste compared with that garden which men enter by a strait way and through a narrow gate.
Maxwell looked about him with a heavy heart. He was young yet, and the lesson of life, which all must learn, came painfully to him in the freshness of his youthful hopes.
It takes a long time and a good many reverses to acquire the unenviable stoicism which always expects the worst and is seldom disappointed. He was, however, consoled and supported by the consciousness that he had come to a final determination, unselfish and sincere, which would put an end to his doubts once for all. Whilst the dice are yet unthrown, it is a wondrous moral sedative, that resolution to set our whole future on the cast. When they have come up against us, we are by no means satisfied to abide by the issue, but this is an after consideration, and affects not a whit the vigour of our purpose in the meanwhile.
The watcher had not long to wait. A tall dark figure, cloaked as before, was soon seen gliding to the accustomed spot. Ere he had well reached the apple-tree, Maxwell was already by his side, and had laid his hand upon his shoulder.
The stranger started. Under his cloak a few inches of steel showed themselves out of the scabbard, as his grasp closed upon his sword; but he drove the blade home with a clash, thoroughly reassured at Maxwell’s first sentence.
‘I am your friend,’ exclaimed the latter, hastily but in a cautious voice, ‘at least for the present. You are in danger, and I have come here to warn you.’
There was something so frank in his tones that the other responded immediately. He even lowered the cloak in which his face was muffled and smiled gaily as he replied—
‘I am used to it, my good friend, but equally beholden to you, nevertheless. I would fain know, all the same, who you are that take such interest in my welfare, and wherefore. Nay,’ he added, more abruptly, ‘this is scarcely candid. I know you, Master Maxwell, and I believe you to be a man of honour and a gentleman; but what you can have to communicate to me is indeed a mystery.’
There was light enough to distinguish the speaker’s features. They were those of a singularly handsome man in the prime of life, as his rival did not fail to remark, with a certain defiance and reckless good-humour in their expression. His hair and beard were somewhat gray, but not sufficiently so to destroy the general comeliness of his appearance, and his eyes would have been beautiful even in a woman.
‘This is no time to bandy compliments,’ answered Maxwell, still in the same low tone. ‘You are engaged here in some intrigue; it may or it may not amount to treason. You have been coming and going secretly for months. If you are discovered and arrested, your very life is in danger. Is it not so?’
‘Granted,’ replied the other, smoothing his gray moustache with a provoking air of calmness. ‘There is no game without a hazard. And what then?’
‘You have been watched!’ urged Maxwell, impatiently. ‘You have probably been recognised by those who know you better than I do. Perhaps a few more hours may see you arrested. I tell you, Randolph is on your track, that Southron bloodhound who never over-ran a scent nor opened on a false trail. You had better have the devil for your enemy than the English Ambassador!’
‘I trust devoutly I may prevail against both,’ answered the stranger; then added musingly, ‘You say true about Randolph; his schemes are both wide and deep, whilst his hand is as prompt to execute as his brain is subtle to devise. I pray ye, my friend, when did ye learn I was to be here to-night?’
‘This day at dinner, and from Randolph himself,’ replied Maxwell. ‘The Minister spared not the wine-flask, I promise you; and had it been any other man I might have believed that he told me more than he intended, but not all the vineyards of the Rhine or the Garonne would influence Randolph’s tongue to play false for a syllable to Randolph’s brain. Nay, I will deal frankly with you, fair sir. I offered myself to be the means of unmasking you, in order that I might warn you in time and save you from your fate!’
‘It was most friendly and considerate,’ observed the other, with a laugh not far removed from a sneer. ‘I would fain know, nevertheless, to what happy chance I am indebted for the interest Master Walter Maxwell takes in my preservation. Nay,’ he again broke off abruptly, and added with complete sincerity, ‘this is unworthy of both of us. You are an honest fellow, Master Maxwell, and a loyal gentleman. Roundly now, what is your hidden motive for this proceeding? Come out with it!’
‘My motives are honourable enough,’ replied the other, with some difficulty retaining his composure. ‘I pray you attribute no hidden meaning to what I have to say. Be frank and open with me, whether friend or foe, as I swear I am frank and open with you.’
‘I believe it!’ exclaimed the other, extending him his hand; but Maxwell, without taking it, folded his arms across his heart, and proceeded in the low quiet tones of repressed excitement—
‘I have no right to assume that your presence here in silence and secrecy is for any other than a political object, and yet from my own knowledge I am satisfied that there are further motives of a private nature. If you feel that what I have done for you to-night deserves any return, I claim your confidence in a matter that is to me one of life and death.’
He wiped the drops from his pale face as he spoke, and the stranger, pitying his obvious agitation, motioned to him courteously to proceed.
‘There is a lady of the Court,’ resumed Maxwell, still in the same concentrated voice, ‘who has allowed herself to hold clandestine interviews with you in this spot by night. No man alive shall make me believe that anything but an ardent and sincere affection would tempt that lady so far to commit herself. Mistress Carmichael is above the weaknesses and petty vanities of her sex. I demand of you, on your honour as a gentleman, to clear her conduct in my eyes by avowing that you are her lover.’
The stranger had started violently when he heard mentioned the proper name of the adventurous damsel, whom in truth he was momentarily expecting, but the lower part of his face was again concealed in his cloak, and his whole frame was shaking from some strongly-curbed emotion, while he demanded—
‘By what right do you ask so unwarrantable a question?’
‘By the right of a pure and holy affection,’ answered Maxwell, gravely; ‘by the right of an unselfish love that would even give her up ungrudgingly to a worthy rival!’
‘Hoity-toity, young gentleman!’ exclaimed the stranger, breaking forth into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, all the more violent that he dared not indulge in it above his breath. ‘Thou art not likely to lose aught for lack of asking; thou art one of these wild Iceland falcons, I warrant me, that will fly their pitch, hooded and jessed and all, to strike at every quarry alike. I ought to be angry with thee, man; but I cannot for the life of me. In faith I forgive thee; I forgive thee were it but for the jest’s sake.’
He wiped his eyes while he spoke, and, turning away, stamped upon the ground, as he held his sides once more in a convulsion of mirth.
To Maxwell, with his feelings wrought up to a pitch of Quixotic generosity, all the more exalted that it was an unusual effort of his practical nature, such a display was irritating in the extreme. It is bad enough to hand over the last stiver you have in your pocket, but when the tears in the recipient’s eyes are those of mockery rather than gratitude, it is sufficient to cause an outbreak in the most stoical temperament. The younger man’s brow grew dark with passion, and he laid his hand upon his sword.
‘At least,’ he exclaimed, ‘I will force a confession from you; I came here prepared for either alternative. Had you met me frankly and vowed your devotion to her, I would have been your friend for life; if you mean treacherously, I am your rival to the death.’
The other was still laughing.
‘Pooh! pooh!’ said he, carelessly, ‘you are meddling with what concerns you not. I thank you for your warning, young sir; and, in return, I advise you to give up the championship of every dame who comes but with a muffler into the moonlight; I wish you good night, Master Maxwell; I would be alone.’
He waved his hand rather contemptuously and turned upon his heel; but Maxwell, now boiling with passion, placed himself in front of him, and drew his sword.
‘You part not thus,’ said he; ‘by Saint Andrew, I am henceforth your sworn foe. Draw and take your ground if you be a man!’
The other put aside the weapon with his naked hand, and laughed once more. Maxwell’s face was white with anger, and his eyes flashed fire. Quick as thought he struck his enemy a smart blow across the shoulder with the flat of his sword.
The smile on the stranger’s countenance deepened into a very dangerous expression.
‘Nay,’ said he, in a hissing whisper between his teeth, ‘a wilful man never yet wanted woe; ye have forced me to lug out, youngster, and it shall be to some purpose, I promise ye.’
With that he placed himself on guard with an ominously steady eye, and a hand that, as he bore against his blade, Maxwell quickly discovered to be as skilful as his own.
The wicked steel twined and glittered in the moonlight. As they warmed to their work each man grew more eager and more deadly in the murderous game; thrust and parry, give and take, delicate feint and desperate return, were rapidly and breathlessly exchanged, but at the end of a few passes, though neither had gained any advantage, Maxwell’s youth and activity began to tell upon his elder antagonist. Already the stranger’s brow was covered with sweat, and his breath came quick and short as he traversed here and there, and began perceptibly to give ground. With the true instinct of a swordsman, Maxwell pressed him vigorously when he began to fail, and was in the act of delivering a long-meditated and particularly fatal thrust, when he suddenly found his own blade encumbered with a woollen plaid that had been thrown over it, and himself at the mercy of his antagonist. Looking wildly up, he could scarcely believe his eyes when he saw Mary Carmichael’s pale face frowning angrily upon him, while she clung fondly and imploringly on the stranger’s sword-arm, effectually preventing the latter from availing himself, even were he so minded, of the diversion she had so made.
Stunned and stupefied, with his mouth open and his sword point resting on the ground, Maxwell stood like a man in a dream. Presently his face contracted with an expression of intense pain as he saw Mary once more enveloped in his rival’s embrace, and heard her incoherent expressions of tenderness and alarm.
The stranger was soothing her gently and lovingly as a burst of weeping succeeded the effort she had made for his preservation. After a while he turned to his late antagonist, and said—
‘You are satisfied now, sir, I presume, and have no wish to renew this foolish and untimely brawl.’
But Maxwell never heard him; with pale face and parted lips, his eyes were still riveted on Mary Carmichael. He advanced a step towards her, trembling in every limb.
‘You love him, then?’ said he, quite gently; but his voice was so changed that the stranger started and turned round, thinking some intruder had disturbed them.
‘I do! I do!’ replied the girl hysterically, still hiding her face on the breast to which she clung.
Maxwell smiled—such a dreary, hopeless smile! then sheathing his sword, turned and walked slowly towards the Palace without another word.
The little crooked secretary had been educated in an atmosphere of political agitation and intrigue. To his native Italian shrewdness David Riccio added that quickness of perception, that power of reading men’s characters at a glance, which can only be acquired by those who are compelled, amidst the storms through which they guide their bark, to watch every aspect of the horizon, to press every instrument into their service, and take every advantage that shall enable them to weather the gale.
During the Feast of the Bean, whilst the majority of the courtiers were but intent on the merriment of the moment, whilst ladies sipped flattery and lords quaffed wine, it had not escaped the notice of a pair of black southern eyes that Maxwell seemed unusually restless and unhappy; that, in spite of his outward composure, there was something wild and defiant in his glance: nay, that he wore the look of a man in the right mood for a desperate undertaking—one to whom a dangerous enterprise would appear in the light of a relief.
Either purposely, or by chance, Maxwell, returning giddy and half-stupefied from the Abbey-garden, found himself confronted in one of the galleries of the Palace by Her Majesty’s private secretary. The revel was dying gradually out; most of the ladies, following the example of their Sovereign, had retired, and but a few staunch wassailers were left, collected round the buffets and tables, at which wine was still flowing with a lavish hospitality more regal, perhaps, than judicious.
The secretary (though he had to rise on tiptoe to do it) clapped the soldier familiarly on the back.
‘Not to bed, Master Maxwell,’ he exclaimed in jovial tones, ‘not yet to bed, without one cup of sack to wash the night air out of thy throat and wet the wings of sleep, as we say in Italy, so that she cannot choose but fold them around thine head!’
While he spoke he desired one of the Queen’s cellarers, who was passing at the moment, to pour him out a measure of the generous liquid, and the man, more than half-drunk, gladly filled his goblet to the brim.
Maxwell, though in no mood for revelry, was still less disposed for solitude. Half-stunned by the blow he had received, he yet dreaded the moment at which he must stand face to face, as it were, with his great sorrow, and caught eagerly at any interval of delay as a respite from his sufferings. A draught of the rich, generous wine seemed to restore him somewhat to himself. Riccio, meanwhile, trolled off, in his mellow southern voice, a few notes of an Italian drinking song.
He was no mean physiologist, the little secretary, and he saw that his man was weary and saddened, and both morally and physically overpowered. So he gave the charm time to work, and when his companion had emptied the cup, poured him out another forthwith.
‘Master Maxwell,’ observed Riccio, as he marked the eye of the former brightening and the colour returning to his cheek, ‘the ladies of the Court vow you are a true knight. Like our chevaliers of Italy, sworn before the Peacock to do them service, you are bound to refuse no adventure in their behalf. Is it not so?’
Maxwell winced a little. The subject was no pleasant one, and he was at this moment particularly sore on that point; so he answered in a cold, hard voice—
‘I have little respect for the mummeries of chivalry, Signior Riccio. A man should do his duty, whatever it be, for its own sake. And as for the ladies,’ he added, with a sad smile, ‘I leave it to younger and happier men to fulfil their wishes; if indeed they are fortunate enough to be able to find them out.’
The secretary laughed gaily.
‘Is it so?’ he said; ‘must all men alike discover that the little finger of a white hand is heavier than the arm of a Douglas sheathed in steel? I thought it was a lesson only learned by the dwarfed, the misshapen, the unsightly, like me. But you, Master Maxwell, the handsome, the straight, and the tall; can it be that a woman listens unmoved to such men as you?’
There was no covert sarcasm, no leavening of ill-nature in his voice—nothing but the good-humoured banter of a laughing boon companion. And yet it may be, that even under his jest, David Riccio was glad to learn that the prizes of life did not fall so readily to those personal advantages which he coveted with the longing of deformity.
‘Enough of this!’ replied Maxwell, interrupting him rudely, and holding out his cup to be filled yet once more. ‘Months of Holyrood have not succeeded in making me a courtier. I love the free open sky better than these tapestried walls. I love the sound of a trumpet better than a woman’s false whisper, and the shaft of a Jedwood-axe better than an ivory fan. I can hearken to a plain tale, and accept a defiance given in my teeth, but I have no skill in reading the thoughts of others by the rule of contrary, and I never could understand our Scottish proverb that averreth how “Nineteen nay-says make half a grant.”’
He was still chafing under his ill-usage, and talking more to himself than his companion.
The latter looked at him long and eagerly. Apparently satisfied with his scrutiny, he patted him on the shoulder once more.
‘You are young,’ he said; ‘you have life before you; you are quick-witted, brave, and adventurous. What, man, there are more prizes than one in the lottery! If love be a false jade, ambition is a glorious mistress. Is it not better to sit at the back of the stage and pull the strings than to be one of the puppets and dance because another moves you; perhaps a fool’s dance, with a fool’s guerdon, for your pains at the end?’
Maxwell shook him off impatiently.
‘You speak in riddles,’ said he, ‘and I have no skill in expounding such parables. If you have aught to say, out with it, like a man. Midnight is already past.’
‘And a fresh day begun,’ added Riccio,—‘a fresh day, a fresh scheme, a fresh triumph. What say you, Master Maxwell, have you stomach for an adventure? Have you a mind to draw your riding-boots on for those silken hose, and don corslet and head-piece on a Queen’s errand? Or are you, too, under the spell that paralyses youth and strength and manhood? Are you, too, bound to some slender wrist by the jesses you dare not break, and a prisoner here at Holyrood because the rosy-lipped jailer will not let you go?’
Maxwell laughed a fierce, wild laugh, and dashed his goblet down upon the board with an emphasis most unusual to him. Though habitually possessed of much self-command, for an instant the tide of his feelings surged up beyond control.
‘Holyrood!’ he exclaimed, mockingly; ‘what is Holyrood to me? One place is like another, and all are barren! Talk not to me of jesses. Your wild-hawk soars her pitch, and strikes her quarry, and buries beak and singles in the dripping flesh; but, bird of the air though she be, she knows the false from the true, and will not stoop to the lure. There is no spell can fetter the limbs of a brave man who is determined to be free; and be the jailer never so fair, I would not waste a look over my shoulder at my prison-house for the sake of the rosiest pair of lips that ever were kissed on the dawn of St Valentine! Again, what is it you would with me, Signior Riccio? Were it an errand to the gates of hell, I think I have spurs that would serve me to ride there; and in good faith,’ he added in a lower tone, ‘a man need hardly wish to come back even thence to such a dreary world as this.’
Not a whisper of his voice, not a shade on his countenance, escaped his sharp little companion. What cared he how hot the furnace were, so that it tempered the tool aright? Nay, he was even willing to burn his own fingers a little, rather than fail in perfecting his instrument. At heart he thought how lucky it was that there should be men who allowed themselves to be influenced by less rational feelings than those of self-interest and ambition. Perhaps he felt something between pity and ridicule for that morbid state of mind which could forget its own advantage in anger, or pique, or sorrow. His swarthy face, however, wore nothing more than its usual expression of comical good-humour, as he linked his arm in Maxwell’s, and fixing his twinkling eyes upon him, said—
‘You are more trusted than half the peers in Scotland—ay, and more trustworthy too. Come with me to the Queen’s chamber.’
Thus speaking, he led Walter out of the banqueting room and along the dim passages, in which the lamps were now expiring, to the foot of a winding stair, the same up which ‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh’ had twisted his great body under the guidance of Mary Seton. Here the secretary paused for an instant and listened cautiously. It was pitch-dark, and he gave his companion a hand to guide him through the obscurity, then opening a narrow door, and pushing aside a heavy curtain of tapestry, ushered him into a blaze of light and the presence of four ladies, crowded together in so small an apartment that Maxwell actually touched the robe of one of them while he entered, and was somewhat abashed to discover that its wearer was no other than the Queen.
It was Mary’s custom, when the pageantry or duty of the day was over, to retire to this narrow retreat and sup in the strictest privacy, with two or three of her ladies at most. The proportions, indeed, of the apartment would admit of no larger party, as its area was little more than twelve feet by eight, and of this circumscribed space, a wide chimney and a window occupied a large share. It was here that, at a latter period, the shrieking Riccio clung to his Queen for the protection she strove to extend to him with all a woman’s pity, and more than a woman’s courage; it was here that, in brutal disregard of her majesty, her beauty, and her situation, the high-born ruffians of the Scottish peerage butchered their victim before her eyes, nay, clinging to the skirts of her garment, and laid the weltering body down, within a few feet of her, to soak with its blood the very planks of their Sovereign’s bed-chamber.
But to-night all was a blaze of light and warmth and comfort. The table, with its snowy cloth, was drawn close to the crackling wood-fire, which sparkled and glowed again in the cut crystals and rich plate that adorned the choice little repast; an odour of some rich incense, such as is burnt in Roman Catholic churches, pervaded the apartment; and the strings of a lute that had just been laid aside were still vibrating from the touch of a fair and skilful hand.
The Queen herself, all the more lovely from the slight languor of fatigue, sat at the supper-table with her relative the Countess of Argyle, a lady whose flaxen locks and ruddy, laughing face formed no bad foil to the delicate colouring and deep, thoughtful beauty of her mistress. Mary Seton, all coquetry, animation, and vivacity, as usual, busied herself in arranging and disarranging everything on the table; whilst another lady, turning away from the rest, with her head bent low over her task, was disposing some winter flowers in a vase with peculiar care and attention. It needed not the turn of her full white arm and dimpled elbow, nor the curl of rich brown hair that had escaped over her shoulder, to tell Walter this last was his hated love, Mary Carmichael.
The Queen gave him her hand to kiss as he entered the room.
‘Welcome, Master Maxwell,’ said she, ‘rather to the simple dame who has bid you visit her here, in private life, than to the Scottish Queen at Holyrood. We have put off our royalty with our robes. To-night we shall charge you with an errand that affects the woman far more than the Queen; to-night you must be less than ever our subject, more than ever our friend. You are faithful and trustworthy, we know; and, indeed, there are few men on whose truth a lady would offer to stake her life,’ she added, smiling, ‘as one of mine did, not five minutes ago, on yours.’
Mary Seton laughed and pretended to hide her face in her hands.
Walter looked wistfully in the Queen’s face; he did not turn his eyes towards Mary Carmichael, or see how the white neck had turned crimson while Her Majesty spoke.
‘I can trust you, Maxwell?’ added the latter after a pause, in her frankest and most engaging manner.
‘To the death, Madam!’ answered he, in a tone of suppressed emotion; ‘I have but little merit, I know, but I am as true as the steel I wear; I would give my life for your Grace willingly, now, this very minute!’
‘I believe thee,’ said the Queen, exchanging at the same time a rapid glance with Mary Seton; ‘I trust, however, mine errand may be done without shedding of blood. Nevertheless, Maxwell, it requires courage, discretion, above all, a silent tongue and a faithful heart. Listen! My good sister entertaineth causeless grudges against me; she will endeavour to thwart my aim and cover the mark I shoot at; she liketh not of marrying or giving in marriage. It may be that she mistrusteth her own power to rule in that state,’ added Mary, while a gleam of feminine vanity crossed her brow. ‘It may be that Elizabeth hath more dominion over men’s heads than their hearts; nevertheless, if she and her agents were to suspect thee of bearing such a secret of Mary Stuart’s about thee, they would probe for it with their daggers but they would find it ere thou wert a dozen leagues across the Border. Bethink thee, man, ’tis a dangerous burden; art not afraid to carry it?’
‘Your Majesty is jesting with me,’ replied Maxwell, raising his head proudly, almost angrily, ‘and I can but answer with a jest; yes, I fear to do your bidding as I fear a good horse when I am in haste, a cup of wine when I am thirsty, or a down pillow when I am weary and would fain lay my head down to rest.’
Mary Carmichael shot at him one glance of ineffable pride and tenderness, then busied herself amongst the flowers deeper than before. He could not see it; his head was turned towards the Queen; he had not forgotten, no, he never would forget, the embrace of that stranger in the Abbey-garden.
‘I knew it,’ exclaimed Her Majesty, triumphantly, ‘believe me, I was indeed only jesting with my brave and well-tried servant. Listen then, Walter! To-morrow you must be in the saddle at daybreak; I reckon on your arriving at Hermitage before nightfall.’
At the name of Hermitage the Queen lowered her eyes for an instant, and looked somewhat confused ere she continued—
‘In that stronghold you will find the Earl of Bothwell, who has returned with no leave of mine from his well-merited banishment in France; nevertheless, “a Queen’s face should show grace,” and we women forgive more readily than you of the sterner sex. You will summon him to appear before his Sovereign in Holyrood, so shall he receive pardon for his errors. Or stay! this were an ungracious behest to so tried a servant for one venial offence; you shall bear him Mary Stuart’s full and free forgiveness, and bid him, as he loves his Queen, bid him on his loyalty and allegiance, that he speed with all his heart and all his strength the object of your journey.’
‘And that object, madam?’ inquired Maxwell, observing that Mary paused, blushing rosy red and averting her eyes from his face.
‘Is my coming marriage,’ proceeded the Queen, hastily, whilst Lady Argyle and Mistress Seton interchanged an arch glance and smile. ‘An alliance that I take heaven to witness, I contemplate more for the welfare of my people than for any foolish longings of my own weak heart. Henry Stuart is of royal blood, no unworthy mate for the proudest princess in Europe. Lord Darnley is a comely, gentle, and well-nurtured youth, of whose affection any lady in the land might well be proud. You will explain this to Bothwell; you will teach him that Mary has made no unworthy choice; you will tell him that she has confided in him, her old and tried servant, because she can depend upon him more securely than on any other lord in Scotland.’
‘Would it not be well, madam, to write the earl a few lines with your own hand apprising him of your intentions?’ hazarded Maxwell, who was sufficiently a man of the world to appreciate the delicacy of his mission; and who, in good truth, was sufficiently familiar with the temper of his powerful kinsman to relish not the least the delivery of the message with which he was charged.
Mary, however, would not entertain such a proposition for a moment, and hurried on with far more of agitation than the occasion seemed to warrant.
‘Letters may be intercepted, changed, forged, misunderstood. Master Maxwell, you will fulfil my bidding as I charge you, or leave it alone. I can trust you, I feel. I know you will do justice to the fair intentions of your mistress. I know you will not allow Bothwell to misunderstand my motives, or my feelings—Bothwell, who has always believed so implicitly in his Queen! Nay, for letters,’ added Mary, with her own sweet smile softening and brightening her whole countenance, ‘I will charge you, indeed, with this one for my Lady of Lennox, and with this token, always subject to his mother’s approval, to be given as an earnest of my good-will to her son. Take them carefully, Master Maxwell. Our warden’s strong hand will pass you safely through the thieves that infest the Border, and when you get among the southrons, I know you will guard them with your life. I pledge you, my trusty messenger, to the success of your mission!’
While she spoke, the Queen filled out a cup of wine and put her lips to the brim, handing him, at the same time, a packet carefully sealed and secured with a silken thread, which wound in and out through the folds of the missive, so that the silk must be cut before the letter could be opened. Also a small casket, containing a beautiful antique ring, representing a cupid burning himself with his own torch, as a keepsake for her future husband. The messenger received them on his knees in token of his fidelity and obedience, and the Queen, according to the custom of the age, bade him finish the cup of wine in which she had recently pledged him, and refresh himself ere he departed.
‘It must be a stirrup-cup, your Grace,’ said Maxwell, with a smile; ‘I shall hope to be out of sight of Holyrood ere the sun rises. Have I received all your Majesty’s directions?’ he added, preparing to take his leave.
‘There is no such hurry for a few minutes,’ replied Mary, graciously. ‘Do you sup with royalty every night, Master Maxwell, that you are in such haste to be gone?’
But Maxwell was enduring an amount of pain to which he would willingly put a period. To be in the same room with Mary Carmichael, nay, so close that her very dress touched him when she moved, and yet to feel, by her averted face, by his own offended and aching heart, that they were completely and irrevocably estranged, was a trial to which he had no wish to subject himself for a longer time than he could help.
‘I must crave your Grace’s license to depart,’ said he; and added, looking round with a forlorn hope that just this once he might meet the eyes that he had resolved should never gladden him again, ‘Have none of your ladies any commands for merrie England or the Border?’
Mistress Carmichael stirred uneasily, and grew very pale, but she neither looked at the speaker nor answered him. Mary Seton, however, with rather a noisier laugh than common, charged him with a message on her own part, of which, as she said merrily, he was not to purloin nor spill any portion by the way.
‘If you should chance to see that rude giant who calls himself Lord Bothwell’s henchman,’ said that young lady, ‘tell him from me, that I hope he has not forgotten, in his wild glens, all the polish we had such difficulty in imparting to him at Holyrood. Commend me to him, in sober earnest,’ added she, demurely; ‘I would send him my love had I not the fear of Mistress Beton before my eyes, for, in good truth, he is the only honest man I know in Scotland, except yourself, Master Maxwell, and you are so stern and unforgiving, that I am quite afraid of you. If a woman loved you ever so dearly, I think you would give her up for the slightest misunderstanding.’
The shaft might have been shot at random, but it pierced home to at least two hearts in that little supper-room. For an instant his eyes met hers, and that sad, reproachful imploring glance haunted him afterwards for months. Then Mary Carmichael, pale, proud, and sorrowful, turned away from him once more to her former occupation, and Walter Maxwell, taking a respectful leave of the Queen, was ushered by Riccio from the presence.
As he sped southward through the chill air of morning, after the few hasty preparations had been completed for his departure, he could not but acknowledge that the world had never seemed so dreary, that he had never felt so sick at heart before. Perhaps it would have cheered him though, to know that another’s sufferings were even keener than his own, lying broad awake behind him there at Holyrood, pressing a pale cheek against a pillow wet with tears.
‘Hood her up, Dick! The worthless haggard! Like all her sex, I would not trust her a bow-shot out of hearing of the whistle, out of sight of the lure. Curse her! I should have known she was but a kestrel. By the bones of Earl Patrick, she shall never strike quarry in Liddesdale again!’
The warden was in a towering passion. His favourite hawk, a bird that he had chosen to name ‘The Queen,’ had not only missed the wild-fowl at which he had flown her, but spreading her broad pinions to the wind, had sailed recklessly away for several miles ere he could recover her, a salvage that had only been made at considerable expenditure of patience and horseflesh.
He was now standing by the side of his panting steed at the head of one of those deep, grassy glens which give such a pastoral character to the wilds of the Scottish Border. A severe and exhausting gallop the warden must have had, to judge by the condition of the bonny bay, whose heaving sides were reeking and lathered with sweat; yet the good horse pawed, snorted, shook himself, and got back his wind, ere the rider recovered his temper.
‘Dick-o-the-Cleugh,’ too, had mercifully taken his long body out of the saddle, and was now busy replacing hood and jesses on the recent captive.
‘There’s no siccan a falcon ’twixt here and Carlisle,’ said Dick, smoothing with no ungentle hand the neck plumage of the refractory wild bird. ‘Whiles she’ll gang her ain gate when she misses her stoop, and what for no? A falcon’s but a birdie when a’s said and done, and she’s just the queen of falcons; bonny and wilful, as a queen behoves to be!’
Bothwell turned angrily upon his follower. The warden’s temper had become more violent and uncertain than ever.
‘Hood her up, man, I tell thee!’ said he, with an oath or two, ‘and fasten up my girths; it is time we were back at Hermitage.’
Thus speaking, he threw himself into the saddle, and, followed by his henchman, proceeded down the glen at a gallop.
The earl was at this period of his reckless and chequered life, perhaps more than at any other, a dissatisfied and miserable man. After his imprisonment in Edinburgh Castle subsequent to his brawl with the Hamiltons, an imprisonment he felt he did not deserve, at least at the hands of the Queen, he had returned to his fastness in Liddesdale, where he had been obliged to remain in a state of seclusion and inaction, extremely galling to one of his adventurous nature and ardent temperament. Here he received no direct communication from Mary herself, a neglect which irritated whilst it distressed him; and he only heard of her continued displeasure through others in whom he could place no reliance, and whose interest he more than half suspected it was to create dissension and mistrust between him and his Sovereign. He then went for a short period into France, hoping, perhaps, that this self-imposed exile might elicit a recall to Holyrood; but finding no notice taken of his movements, and assured on all sides of the Queen’s continued coldness, he returned to his strong Castle of Hermitage in a maddening state of uncertainty as to the future position he should assume. The wild borderers were all as devoted as ever to their chief. He had at no time been actually deprived of his office as Warden of the Marches and Lieutenant of the Southern Border, nor had he been superseded, was it probable that a successor could be found bold enough to take upon him the duties of the office. Accordingly the earl remained at Hermitage in the anomalous position of a sovereign’s representative whilst held to be an avowed rebel to that sovereign’s authority; in the agitating dilemma of one who is at variance with the person to whom he is most devoted on earth, and whom self-love forbids to offer that reparation which pride whispers may be contemptuously refused.
The warden galloped on in silence for several minutes, till the nature of the ground and the jaded condition of his good horse brought him perforce to a more sedate pace. With an impatient jerk at the bridle and a curse on the stumble that provoked it, he relapsed into a walk, and summoning ‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh’ to his side, proceeded to vent the remainder of his petulance on his companion. That worthy’s good-humour, however, was proof against all such attacks, and Bothwell, calming down after a time, took back the favourite falcon to his own wrist, and began to caress the bird whose wild flight had so much aroused his wrath.
‘’Tis a royal pastime, in good truth, Dick,’ said he, as they emerged from a deep, narrow glen, and beheld spread out before them a broad expanse of moorland, patched and brown and sombre, yet suggestive of sport and freedom, a sound sward whereon to breathe a horse, and a soft gray winter’s sky in which to watch the flight of a hawk. ‘I would rather be here in the saddle than mewed up in the old keep over yonder,’ pointing while he spoke to the square towers of Hermitage, looming dim and grand in the distance; ‘would rather handle any weapon than a pen, and track any slot rather than unravel a cipher. I marvel that the Earl of Moray can keep his chamber, as he doth, the live-long day, writing, plotting, calculating; never a stoup of wine to cheer his heart, never a breath of the free air of heaven to cool his brow. I’ll wager you a hundred merks, Dick, that how long soever he remains in my poor castle he never sets foot beyond the moat till the stirrup cup is in his hand.’
‘The brock[9] likes fine to lie at earth,’ answered Dick, with a loud laugh, ‘and I doubt there’s no a brock in Liddesdale that’s a match for the Earl of Moray in takin’ his ain part. But hegh! Warden, there’s a sight for sair een!’ exclaimed the henchman, interrupting himself suddenly. ‘See to yon canny lad ridin’ down the glen; if yon’s no Maister Maxwell, may I never lift cattle nor plenishing more! I wad ken the back o’ him ’mang a thousand. ’Odd, man! but ye’re welcome to Liddesdale again.’