It was the anniversary of the death of Francis II., and Mary, whose attachment to her youthful husband evinced itself by a scrupulous respect for his memory, had ordered a dirge to be performed in the Royal Chapel at Holyrood for the repose of his soul. The sacred edifice had been appropriately hung with black; nor was any accessory neglected that could enhance the gloom of the scene. Carpenters had been employed for some days previously in preparing the mournful display; and a good deal of murmuring and discontent had arisen both in the court and city at the proposed ordinance. The Godly, as the Protestant party somewhat presumptuously termed themselves, mistrusted this return to papal ceremonials, and made no secret of their dissatisfaction.

Mary, however, tolerant as she was of opposite opinions, always remained staunch to the ritual in which she had been brought up, and spared no pains to carry out with due pomp a solemnity which she esteemed essential to the occasion.

The morning broke gloomily, when the Queen, attired in deep mourning, and attended only by Lady Hamilton, entered the chapel for early mass. Her lovely face looked paler than usual under the veil of crape which shaded it, and there was an expression of something more than sorrow, of annoyance and apprehension, on its lineaments. Perhaps she was thinking of her brief reign in France, not long enough for a sovereign to discover the many troubles and anxieties that line a crown. Perhaps she was recalling the adoration she had been used to receive from the excitable French people, and contrasting it with the gloomy brows and ominous mutterings she had already encountered amongst her new subjects.

Mary had been but a few weeks on the Scottish throne, ere she became aware that even her beauty and her bereavement were not sufficient to cover the odium of her religion in the eyes of these northern zealots, and that Protestantism might esteem it a duty both to God and man to insult a helpless woman because she was a Catholic Queen.

As she passed slowly up the aisle with weary step and downcast air, followed by her maid-of-honour, it may be that both the women were longing wearily for that rest which they came here to seek—glad to be relieved, if but for an hour, of the burden which at some future time they should cast down at once and for ever—almost wishing that the time was come, and the journey over, and the resting-place at hand.

And now the anthem swells and sinks and fills the echoing aisle; and the crimson light streams through the deep-stained windows on chiselled font and sculptured cross and monumental marble, while the tones of the choristers rise and fall like the song of angels speaking of hope and peace and pardon for the penitent—wailing in their celestial sorrow for the loved that yet are lost for evermore.

In that flood of harmony the Queen bathed her wounded spirit, bidding it contemn the reefs and rocks that beset its earthly course as it floated, if but for an instant, towards the eternal shore; and Mary Hamilton, joining in the tide of prayer and praise, forgot her hopes and fears, her tottering happiness and earthly misgivings, while she felt that there was yet in store for her a home of endless welcome, a joy that no uncertainty could poison, a love no falsehood could take away.

Prosperity goes to church, as well it may, to return thanks for the benefits it has received; to fulfil, as it were, its own part of the compact by which it flourishes; to acknowledge its advantages and to entreat their continuance; then it walks back into the sunshine in its purple and fine linen, with a pleasant consciousness of debts discharged and duties well fulfilled. Not so its ailing brother, gaunt Adversity. For the latter the temple of God is the temple of refuge, the temple of healing, the temple of consolation; thither it may bring its sores and its sackcloth, without misgivings and without shame; there it is on a level with the proudest, and in unison with the happiest; it drinks from the same stream, and out of the same cup; it returns to its labour and its sorrow, strengthened and refreshed. Though the heart be aching, it is sound and unbroken still; and the storms may pelt their fiercest, it only longs the more to come again.

As the anthem proceeded the Scottish Queen became aware that another voice had been added to her choir, of considerable depth and volume, thereby completing its harmony and greatly enhancing its effect. This organ was the property of an individual whose unfortunate destiny it was to make a far greater stir at the court of Holyrood than became either his talents or his station, and to meet with a fate which his antecedents did not deserve.

In the train of the Count de Moretta, ambassador from the court of Savoy, the Duke of which principality was another unsuccessful suitor for the hand of the Scottish Queen, came a good-humoured little Italian, David Riccio by name, whose especial gifts at this period seem to have been a knack of mimicry, not unusual among his countrymen, and a fine bass voice of great power and sweetness.

These were the qualities that first recommended him to the notice of Mary; and when, in addition to his musical acquirements, she found him quick-witted, ready and obliging, fluent with the pen, and a perfect master of the French language, she promoted the good-humoured, deformed, and diminutive foreigner to the post of private secretary, little dreaming of the construction which would hereafter be put upon so harmless an appointment.

In the meantime Riccio revelled in the exercise of his delightful talent—filling the crape-hung building with his notes of mournful melody—and Mary listened entranced, and forgot for the moment her troubles, her widowhood, and her crown.

But the charms of music, and even the consolations of religion, can but stave off earthly cares for a brief period of repose, after which they are prone to thrust themselves on our notice with a vigour all the more imperative for such temporary respite. When mass was concluded, and Mary, with her maid-of-honour, was about to quit the chapel, she could not but observe how none, save her immediate attendants and personal household, had assisted to form the congregation; how the nobility of her court, with but few exceptions, had remained outside, with a certain ostentatious assumption of dissent from the religion of their Queen. She could not help remarking as much to her attendant.

‘Do you not see, my dear,’ said she, bitterly, ‘how the new religion is disposed to charity and toleration? My Protestant lords will not even join in the devotions of their Sovereign, when she prays for the welfare of her husband’s soul. They will not “weep with those who weep,” nor “rejoice with those who rejoice,” unless it be by Master Knox’s permission, and in black cassock and Geneva band. Verily, Mary Hamilton, it is a weary lot to be a woman, but it is a daily humiliation to be a Queen!’

‘I know not what a Queen’s trials may be, madam,’ answered the other, on whose sweet face the halo of devotion had not yet faded away; ‘but a woman’s sorrows, I fancy, may be too hard for a woman to bear, unless she brings them with her unreservedly and lays them all down here.’

While she spoke she stood near the chapel-door, and the December sun, shedding its rays through the deep red cross of the stained window above, streamed full upon her fair and gentle face. It seemed to her mistress, even then, that she looked like some patient saint, purified by suffering, and bearing the cross of her Master in the red glory of martyrdom.

But such holy thoughts as these were soon driven from Mary’s mind by fresh annoyances. On leaving her chapel, and emerging into the courtyard of her palace, the Queen found it crowded by an assemblage of her nobility, whose motley apparel, of the gayest and gaudiest hues, contrasted offensively with her own sad mourning garb. Not one of them had shown sufficient sympathy with her feelings to wear so much as a black ribbon on his doublet, or to doff the plume that flaunted from his rich velvet bonnet. Stung to the quick by such disrespect, Mary determined to meet it by an insult as injudicious as it was unworthy. Halting on the threshold of her chapel, she took not the slightest notice of the salutations offered her by the proudest lords in Scotland, but beckoned to the new singer, whose voice had recently so much delighted her, and giving him her missal to carry, complimented him with marked familiarity on his performance; and so, holding the astonished Italian in conversation at the chapel-door, kept every one else waiting uncovered until she had done with him.

Many a haughty brow was already bent on the unknown stranger. Gray moustaches, that had bristled in the teeth of the English archers at Flodden, were pulled in mingled astonishment and anger; while hands, always too prompt to shed blood, gripped dagger and sword-hilt, as though neither the sacred locality nor the presence of the sovereign would long restrain them from open violence. The first impulse of the Scottish noble was to resent an insult or avenge an injury on the spot. Morton alone, of all the crowd, seemed to experience neither indignation nor surprise. The smile that gave his face so fiendish an expression only deepened and hardened round his mouth. He glanced from the Queen to her ill-chosen favourite with looks rather of amused malignity than offended pride. Morton’s will was strong in proportion to his passions, and these, with all their abiding energy, were thoroughly under the control of his hard unfeeling nature. The Douglas was, indeed, one of those who would ‘strike sooner than speak, and drink sooner than pray;’ yet he only glared on the singer with a kind of comic ferocity, and the poor little Italian shrunk nearer his protectress with a prophetic horror of the hard-featured earl.

Bidding Riccio follow in her train, the Queen passed on through the cloisters of the palace towards her own apartments, returning with cold courtesy the salutations of her nobility. The courtiers looked meaningly at each other, and then at the new favourite, who slunk along behind his mistress, bearing her gorgeous missal, in ludicrous dismay. Secretary Maitland, a man whose wits were always at hand, and who could transact more business in ten minutes than the rest of the Privy Council in as many days, approached her Majesty with a huge bundle of papers under his arm, and the Queen, taking them from him without remark, handed the whole at once to Riccio. The secretary ventured on an expostulation.

‘They are for your Majesty’s private information,’ said he, deferentially, but in a tone of marked disapproval.

‘And I have given them to my private secretary,’ replied Mary, haughtily; thus hastily and injudiciously confirming the appointment that led to such disastrous results.

‘Shall I attend your Grace to explain their contents?’ asked Maitland, as coolly as if nothing unusual had taken place.

‘When I send for you, sir,’ answered the Queen; and even Maitland’s assurance was compelled to give way. He could but bow and fall back amongst the crowd.

Some of the nobles were so offended that they quitted the court on the spot; others thought it a bad opportunity to press their respective suits with the sovereign, and lounged off, as it were inadvertently, to their different amusements and occupations—one to fly a hawk, another to try a horse, not a few to break their fast on rich food and strong potations; the while they discussed the gossip of the court, which had received no inconsiderable fillip from the events of the morning.

Lord James walked gravely away to Mr Randolph’s lodging. His brother, the gay lay-prior of Coldinghame, mounted his horse to join a merry-making on Leith sands. The Earl of Huntly and the Earl Mareschal departed to prepare an ordinance for the council, discussing, to all appearance, weighty matters of state; yet, perhaps, could their dialogue have been overheard, it related to far less important topics. The courtyard of the palace was almost deserted, and Mary, dismissing her maid-of-honour and the Italian, prepared to take a solitary turn up and down the cloisters, to soothe her temper and compose her troubled mind.

The Queen thought she was alone. It was not so, however; for, from the moment of her leaving the chapel, her movements had been watched by a man concealed behind one of the arches; and no sooner had her attendants quitted her than he emerged from his hiding-place.

Mary started, and almost screamed, as this unexpected figure stepped forth and stood in front of her. Indeed, a bolder nature might have been alarmed at its wild appearance and the vehemence of its gestures.

Pale and haggard, all unbraced, and with disordered dress—but unarmed, even to his sword—the Earl of Arran confronted Mary Stuart with none of the ceremony observed by a subject in the presence of his Queen.

‘At last!’ he shouted, with passionate vehemence, and placing himself so that she could not pass by him,—‘at last I see thee once more. After weary hours of watching by night and day, after danger and difficulty and longing, I see thee once more. No longer the Queen of Scotland, surrounded by her court, and haughty in all the panoply of royalty, but Mary Stuart, the flower of womanhood, the darling of France, and the idol of Arran’s heart.’

‘What mean you, my lord?’ exclaimed the Queen, utterly aghast at this unheard-of proceeding, and hardly knowing, in her astonishment, whether to stand or fly. ‘Are you mad or dreaming? I am, indeed, Mary Stuart, and it is not thus I should be accosted by the Earl of Arran.’

‘Mad!’ returned the unfortunate nobleman, the wild cunning of insanity gleaming from his eye, and pointing with his wasted hand to the palace windows as he spoke. ‘Hark ye, madam; they are mad up yonder. Mad from vaults to roof of this accursed building, this stronghold of superstition and Papacy. The Lord James is mad, who would deliver his sister into the hands of the ungodly; the priests are mad, who would withhold her, by main force, from the tidings of salvation; the choristers are mad, singing their unholy dirges for the souls that are gone to perdition. Mary! Mary!’—he changed to accents of wild affection and entreaty—‘I alone am devoted to you. The house of Hamilton is the only refuge for the Stuart.’

Mary was constitutionally brave. Her courage began to return as she reflected she was within call of her household and retainers. She had a natural regard, too, for her kinsman; and a woman’s pity for the wreck that something within, too truly, told her she herself had made. She tried to quiet the poor maniac with soothing, gentle words.

‘Nay, cousin,’ said the Queen, ‘when have I doubted your loyalty or your honour? Why come to assure me of it at this unbecoming hour, and in this unbecoming guise? You are afflicted, Arran, and ill at ease. Retire into the palace; our own physician shall attend you; the best of lodging and the best of care shall not be grudged to my kinsman.’

For a moment Arran seemed calmer, and once or twice he passed his hand across his brow, as though waking from some troubled sleep, or trying to recall some lost recollection. And, indeed, whilst the Queen kept her eye on him, though he tried hard to avoid her glance, it held him in a certain subjection. No sooner, however, was it withdrawn, than his madness blazed forth once more.

‘It is the plot!’ he shouted again, as though addressing some imaginary audience, ‘the accursed, traitorous plot, that I alone have power to prevent. Papist and Protestant, rebel and renegade, from the four winds of heaven, they are banded together to carry off my Queen. Listen, madam; on my knees, I implore you to listen.’

He knelt, and clasped Mary’s hand in both his own.

‘I have discovered a conspiracy to seize your royal person, and to carry you into bondage. Lord James has consented to join in it. The Earls of Seton and Livingstone have signed the bond drawn up by smooth and crafty Lethington, with every name attached in characters of blood, except his own. Morton has promised his assistance; for when was the Douglas out of any scheme of violence and crime? And Bothwell, with his border reprobates, is to put it in execution; but Arran will save his Queen.’

‘How say you? Morton? my brother? trusty Seton? and Bothwell, loyal and true? Impossible! You are raving,’ said the Queen, now thoroughly alarmed. ‘Where shall I turn to? What shall I do?’

‘The Hamiltons will rally round the Stuart!’ exclaimed the maniac, rising from his knees, and making as though he would seize Mary in his arms.

Before she could call for help, however, he suddenly desisted from his purpose, and placing his finger on his lip with a gesture of caution and a glance at the Queen, in which cunning and imbecility were strangely mingled, moved swiftly and stealthily away.

With the quick perceptions of insanity, he had caught the sound of an armed step approaching through the cloisters; and ere Mary had recovered from her dismay, a tall, warlike figure bowed to its very sword-hilt before her, and she found herself face to face with the Warden of the Marches.

He had been riding all night to reach Holyrood. He had galloped on ahead of the best-mounted of his troop, who were even now rounding the base of Arthur’s Seat, as they neared the Scottish capital. In those troubled times there was no lack of excuses for the warden to seek personal instructions from his sovereign, and Bothwell had availed himself of some late misunderstanding with Lord Scrope, the warden on the English side, to obtain an audience of the Queen. With a wild feverish longing for the sweet face, to behold which was fast becoming a necessity of his existence, he had hurried to the presence of his sovereign. And now, when the moment had at last arrived, the colour faded in his bronzed cheek, and he trembled, that strong man-at-arms, like a girl.

Agitated and frightened as she was, Mary recovered herself sufficiently to receive him with becoming dignity. As his stalwart figure bent in homage, and the upturned face, with its manly features and fair short-curling beard, softened visibly beneath her glance, the Queen might well leave her hand in her subject’s for an instant longer than the customs of a court required. He looked like a man who had both strength and will to help a woman at her need; and the bold border chief kissed the white hand that lay so gently in his own, with all the devotion of a worshipper kneeling before a saint.

‘You are welcome, Bothwell,’ said Mary, ‘though you come, doubtless, to tell me of fresh disturbances on the border—fresh troubles to harass and perplex the Queen. The true heart and ready hand grow rare at Holyrood, and more and more welcome to Mary Stuart day by day.’

‘I am but a plain soldier, madam,’ answered Bothwell. ‘Your Majesty’s need of me is at once my pride and my reward. It is nothing new to tell you that every drop of James Hepburn’s blood belongs to his Queen.’

‘I believe it,’ answered Mary, smiling sadly; ‘and yet even Bothwell’s loyalty has this very morning been questioned. Nay,’ she added, as the Earl started indignantly to his feet, ‘I, at least, never doubted you for an instant.’

‘I have but one answer to my accusers, madam,’ replied the warden, pointing significantly to his sword. ‘If a subject questions my loyalty, I can demand the ordeal. If my sovereign suspects it,’ he added, with a slight trembling in his voice, ‘I can but give her my life to vindicate my honour.’

‘O Bothwell!’ exclaimed Mary, ‘would that all were like you! I have none to counsel me; none in whom I can trust; none to sympathise with me in my loneliness, a widow, and a Queen. To-day, in my bereavement and my affliction,’ she added, reverting to the conduct of her courtiers, which had so hurt and irritated her best feelings, ‘not one of them had the decency to share in the mourning of their sovereign. Even my warden comes before me in his ordinary attire, but that is fairly excusable when it consists of corslet and head-piece hacked and dinted in my service.’

‘Say not so, madam,’ answered Bothwell, pointing to a sprig of willow worn in his basnet. ‘I gathered yon sprig from the sallows that skirt its bank as I rode the water of Roslin in the misty dawn. I could not forget the day of my Queen’s bereavement; and it shall never be told that Bothwell forbore to share the dangers or the sorrows of his sovereign.’

The angry colour that had brightened it all the morning died out on Mary’s cheek. She looked at the Earl steadfastly while one might have counted ten, then her lip quivered. She turned her face away, and burst into tears.

CHAPTER IX.

We have seen Bothwell in his harness,—the loyal nobleman, the true knight, the Warden of the Marches, and Lieutenant of the Borders in the service of his Queen. A different personage, in truth, from wild James Hepburn, with his father’s hot blood rioting in his veins, and his own propensities for evil, encouraged by a strong will and vigorous temperament, acting on a bad education, a weak brain, and a heart with just enough of good in it to make him lonely and unhappy.

Like his father, the profligate Earl Patrick, he was disposed by nature to take a leading part in all scenes of turbulence and strife; unlike that father, his better feelings would sometimes be permitted to influence his policy, and weaken his determination. Earl Patrick seems to have had a happy facility of ignoring all promises, bonds, and even oaths, when their observance became inconvenient, and would have scorned to allow his patriotism to stand for an hour in the way of his advancement. His son, with all his faults, was a Scotchman at heart; and, perhaps, like many another whose fate has served ‘to point a moral or adorn a tale,’ it wanted but the difference of a hair’s breadth, at the right moment, to have made him as good as he turned out evil. Perhaps Bothwell’s real sphere was riding his war-horse in mail and plate amongst the wild morasses of the marches. Perhaps he was never so happy as when engaged in hand-to-hand conflict with some daring marauder, a stalwart man-at-arms like himself—lance-thrust and sword-stroke freely dealt and stoutly received with but little ill-will on either side. Whilst his foe was in the saddle he would close with him gallantly, striking fiercely, and shouting, ‘Queen Mary!’ but, down upon the heather, the adversary of a moment ago became the helpless friend, to be set upon a horse and borne gently to Hermitage, there to be tended carefully till his wounds were cured, when he should be set free at a trifling ransom, to meet and fight it out again.

’Twas a wild adventurous life that of a southern Scottish nobleman in the days of the beautiful Stuart; yet not without its pleasures and its charm. He lived in his old keep, a petty monarch within his bounds, surrounded by adherents who would not scruple to shed every drop of their blood in the service of their chief. Bold, athletic, and self-reliant, he held his sway by the charter of his sword; he gained his revenues by the unfailing influence of ‘snaffle, spur, and spear.’ For his relaxation, he leapt on a good horse, and cast his hawk into the air, by the side of many a green nook and fresh brawling stream, or holloaed his hounds on the slot of the flying deer, scouring over the moorland, and bruising the fragrant heather beneath its hoofs. For the business of life, the same good horse came round to the door, champing under his steel frontlet, and the men-at-arms mustered on their bonny bay geldings with laugh and jest, and loud anticipations of plunder. The moon glinted coldly on steel jack and burnished head-piece as they clattered off, and the morning sun rose on the troop returning with its booty—driving jaded cattle before them with their long lances—encumbered with panting, footsore sheep—household plenishing on some of the saddles—armour hacked and besmirched—two or three bloody sconces beneath draggled plumes—and here and there a led horse, coming masterless home.

But the life was at least one of manhood and adventure; a good training for a soldier, and an invigorating substitute for the debaucheries in which, under other circumstances, these bold spirits would have been prone to indulge. When a border noble, with his train, rode into Edinburgh, the vintner hugged himself in his snow-white apron, and the canny burgher made his doors fast ere it was yet twilight, and resolved that no shouts for help on the causeway should lure him at night from his chimney corner into the troubled street.

Walter Maxwell, proceeding quietly up the High Street, and ruminating, not too pleasantly, on his prospects, found himself accosted by his new friend, ‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh,’ as he was about to turn into his solitary lodging, and get through the evening as well as he could, reflecting on two unpleasant subjects—the continued coyness of his lady-love and his own diminished fortunes, for his employment at the Scottish court was more honourable than lucrative. To be in love usually makes a man unsociable; to be in debt often has a reverse effect. Maxwell, at all events, felt little disposed for an evening spent in his own company.

‘I’ve been the length of Holyrood to see for you!’ exclaimed the borderer with a boisterous welcome, ‘and here I happen on you like a deer that’s ta’en the double when the bloodhound is off the slot. Come away, man, come away; the warden’s gotten a grand spread the night, an’ I was bid to fetch ye, ’gin ye were in the Queen’s presence! And noo’, ye’ll just gang in wi’ me; ye ken we’ve an awfu’ grip, we Liddesdale lads! an’ I would like fine to see if ye can drink, man, as well as ye can fight. I’m thinkin’ little Jock Elliott’s no forgotten ye, Mr Maxwell!’ And Dick laughed heartily at the recollection of his first acquaintance with his present companion.

Maxwell professed his readiness to accept the Earl’s invitation, and linking his arm in that of the stalwart henchman, proceeded in the direction of Bothwell’s lodging, the pair provoking no little ill-will from divers armed retainers in the street, who recognised the cognisance of the Hepburn, and some admiration from the maids and matrons of the Old Town, the latter especially approving of Dick’s stalwart proportions and comely, good-natured face.

‘Yon’s a proper man!’ observed a stout dame with her arms a-kimbo, to a dishevelled and dirty lady, emptying a pail of water scarcely more dirty than herself.

‘He’s no that ill,’ replied the other, desisting from her operations to push back her tangled locks, that she might have a good look. ‘Lass!’ she added in shrill, impressive tones, ‘he’s a godless borderer. I ken them fine by their ’spauld-pieces.[3] He’ll get his licks the night, I’m thinkin’, an muckle guid may they do till him! It’s no sae saft lyin’ on the causeway as doun amang the moss-hags at hame!’ After which ill-omened sentiment, she retired abruptly, shutting her door with a bang.

Honest Dick, however, took no notice of these and other less unpleasant remarks, but strode boldly on, discoursing, between bursts of merriment, on the encounter with little Jock Elliott, an assault of which he seemed to entertain a highly facetious remembrance.

‘In here, man,’ said he, turning up one of those offshoots from the main street, which is termed to this day ‘a close,’ and dragging Maxwell after him with obvious glee. ‘I ken the place fine by the weather-marks forenent the wa’. It’s an awfu’ toon this, for a body to lose theirsel’! There’s runnin’ water too to guide a man,’ pointing to a sluggish stream of filth that trickled under their feet; ‘but it’s no that clear that it is in Liddesdale. Up the stair, man; yer’ welcome, nae fears!’

As Maxwell entered the apartment, a long, low room, plainly furnished and crowded with armed men, he was cordially greeted by the earl’s retainers, who had mustered in great force. They had seen his hand keep his head, against heavy odds, and they warmed to him at once as a kindred nature. Their meal seemed to be concluded, but the serious part of the entertainment was yet to commence; and large jacks of strong ale, with flasks of wine, standing at no great intervals on the board, denoted ample means of quenching the thirst engendered by a long ride. The warden rose to greet his new guest with frank courtesy, and bade him to the upper end of the room, where he himself sat at a cross table surrounded by the most distinguished of his guests.

Bothwell had doffed his usual attire of steel jack and head-piece; he was now dressed in close-fitting doublet and hose, which set off the strong proportions of his figure to great advantage. Without pretensions to strict personal beauty, the warden had fine features, and a bold, frank bearing, not unpleasing. Though he had lost one of his eyes in a skirmish, the defect was scarcely observable, and the slight scar, left by the wound on his cheek and eyebrow, rather added to the characteristic expression of his face. It was that of a daring, perhaps a reckless man, one who was inured to danger and used to strife; yet was there something soft and even tender in his smile. Flushed with wine, and exchanging broad jests of the coarsest with his laughing guests, he looked a fitting leader in a revel or a charge; and yet a close observer would have detected a hollow ring in the loud laugh, a false note in the jovial strain, a capability for better things than feasting and fighting, and a self-accusing consciousness that it was lost and thrown away.

The mirth was at its highest. If Bothwell was splendidly dressed, his costume was but sombre when compared with that of his princely guest, the Marquis d’Elbœuf, who shone with satin and jewellery in all the florid brilliancy of French decoration. If the warden’s draughts were deep, and his toasts objectionable, the Lords John and Robert Stuart, the Queen’s half-brothers, pledged him freely and out-talked him shamelessly, with a happy mixture of juvenile thirst and royal audacity. When Maxwell took his seat at the upper table, amidst these and two or three more of the wilder gallants of the Court, the wine had circulated freely, and the spirits of the party had risen to that point at which discretion ceases to interfere, and reason begins to discover that she has been all day in the wrong. D’Elbœuf flung himself into the spirit of the scene with the keen zest of his nation. The Admiral of France was the last man to refuse a challenge from friend or foe.

‘You shall pledge me in turn, Bothwell,’ said he, filling a large silver measure with wine. ‘Every man of you shall do me reason. These wild lads, who ought to be nephews of my own, and who drink as if they were grandsons of Charlemagne; Mr Maxwell, there, who has just come in, and must be suffocated with thirst; your huge squire of the body, who might hold a cask; and all your gentlemen riders, rovers on land, as their chief used to be at sea. What, Count Bothwell! We have not forgotten the breeze off shore, and the bold Norwegian coast.’

‘Nay, Marquis,’ answered Bothwell, filling himself a bumper, ‘my Liddesdale lads will drink any toast you please, if they like the liquor. But down on the marches we have a saying that “he who rides in the dark should dismount before daylight,” and faith, now that I am on shore, I have forgotten all about the coast of Norway and the wild North Sea, once for all.’

‘The toast! the toast!’ exclaimed Lord John Stuart. ‘Let us have the drink first, marquis, and the tale of the warden’s wicked doings afterwards. There’s something in this wine that makes a man marvellously thirsty.’

‘Waifs and strays!’ replied the marquis, holding his beaker above his head. ‘Count Bothwell first taught me the rights of an admiral on neutral seas. Pledge me, gentlemen; the toast is quite in your own line.’ And d’Elbœuf, laughingly heartily, set his cup on the board—empty.

A dark flush swept over Bothwell’s brow. A man does not always like to be reminded of his past exploits, but the company were clamorous for an explanation of the Frenchman’s toast, and d’Elbœuf had drunk too much wine to disappoint them.

‘We were lying off the coast of Norway,’ said the admiral, ‘and our host here in his armed galliot, with the Lion of Scotland at the main, was never tired of cruising about in search of adventures. He was Admiral of Scotland, as I of France; but whilst I waited for fortune, I think he followed the jade and grasped her by the hair. Some pirates had fired a village and were carrying off the inhabitants, when your warden here caught the knaves, red-handed, in the bay;—we make short work with these gentry at sea, where ropes are so convenient, and he strung them up to the yard-arm by dozens, like Normandy apples on a tree. The poor captives were too rejoiced to go back to the ashes of their dwellings; but a breeze springing up from the land, our friend here was obliged to make sail, carrying off, inadvertently, two or three trifles belonging to the village; amongst others, a fair girl with blue eyes and golden hair, who had once inhabited the principal house. I was on board the galliot some six weeks afterwards at an entertainment given by our host, where we drank nearly as much wine as we are like to do to-night, and this fair lass filled my cup and emptied her own, nothing loth, as though she relished her wine and her company. “But shall you not send her back?” said I to my host, seeing that she had been already six weeks on board. “Shall you not send her back before her friends lose patience and a complaint is made at Court, and a coil, all for a pair of merry eyes and a wisp of yellow hair?” “Not yet,” answered your warden. “Not yet. Do you not know that waifs and strays belong to the admiral?”’

A loud laugh followed d’Elbœuf’s explanation. The sentiment was quite in accordance with the company, and the point of his narrative, turning as it did on an act of illegal appropriation, was hugely enjoyed by the carousing borderers.

There were two exceptions, however, to the general merriment. Bothwell looked grave, more sorrowful, perhaps, than displeased; and honest ‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh,’ smiting a sledgehammer fist on the table that made the beakers leap again, burst out—

‘Puir lassie! It’s ill liftin’ a bairn from the ingle, or a lamb from the fauld!’

The wine was, by this time, producing its effect on the company. The men-at-arms were beginning to flush and talk thick, descanting, without much regard for listeners, on the merits of their horses and their own prowess, both in fighting and carrying off the property of their neighbours; the latter branch of their profession being obviously esteemed equally honourable with, and the natural prelude to, or consequence of, the former. Even Maxwell’s brain was somewhat heated; albeit, he was naturally of a temperament on which wine is slow to take effect, and his late arrival had spared him some of the pledges of the borderers; although, to do them justice, they evinced a most hospitable desire to make up for lost time. Bothwell, too, who had been plunged in gloomy fits of abstraction, and who seemed to rouse himself with difficulty from some engrossing subject of meditation, was now getting as hilarious as the rest. D’Elbœuf was full of smiles and spirits, and scraps of French songs, somewhat wasted on his audience; whilst Lord John, whose ruling passion was of course in the ascendant, proposed gravely to dance a measure amongst the jugs and drinking cups on the table, and actually mounted a chair as the first step towards that difficult performance.

At this juncture, a ray of moonlight streaming through the narrow windows, athwart the glare of lamps and torches, gave a new turn to the impulses of the merry-makers.

‘It’ll be a bra’ night this in Liddesdale,’ observed ‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh,’ who was given to sentiment in his cups.

‘A rare night for a foray!’ exclaimed Lord Robert, producing from the interior of his bonnet two or three black velvet masks, such as were then frequently worn in cities by both sexes.

‘Shall we have a cruise, admiral?’ said Bothwell. ‘I doubt not I can find you in vizards, for you and I are both well enough known in Edinburgh to meet fewer friends than foes.’

D’Elbœuf agreed cordially to the proposal. Like his countrymen in general, he was averse to continuous hard-drinking, and a night of adventure in the town was more to his taste than a steady carouse with these inexhaustible borderers. His host, too, appeared in the restless mood of a man who has some secret pain goading him to action. The more he drank, the fiercer seemed to grow the impulse to be doing. When the arch-tempter wants a tool that shall be at once keen and strong, he takes a bold vigorous nature; he humbles it in its own eyes; he wounds it in its best affections; he whispers, ‘do to others as they have done unto you;’ then he tempers it in the furnace of memory, and sharpens it carefully on the grindstone of remorse; finally, he steeps it in rough strong wine; after that, it is fit for anything, and will cut through steel harness and muslin fold with vindictive impartiality.

Masks for the party were soon produced in sufficient number, and these, with their cloaks or plaids, would be disguise enough in the event of the night’s amusement growing to a breach of the laws, such being, by no means, an unlikely result. The warden desired his retainers to sit still and continue drinking till his return—directions with which they showed no unwillingness to comply; but as the masked party, brandishing their torches, shouting, singing, and laughing, descended the stair into the close, ‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh’ whispered to Maxwell to get his sword and accompany him.

‘There’ll be mair pows than ane crackit the night, or all’s done,’ remarked the borderer. ‘The warden’s no canny when he’s crossit. Aince the whingars be oot, I’m no thinkin’ muckle o’ yon’ Frenchman, an’ thae wild lads is clean wud wi’ drink. We’ll be nane the waur o’ a decent body like yoursel’, Mr Maxwell, just to strike in an’ see fair play.’

With the exception of a slight delay in the close, to witness Lord John’s performance of his promised hornpipe, the effect of which was somewhat marred by the gutter traversing the pavement, nothing occurred to check the progress of the rioters. Save for themselves, the street lay utterly quiet and deserted in the cold moonlight. The party, linking arms, reeled and swaggered on, followed, at no long interval, by ‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh’ and Maxwell, both tolerably sober.

Presently, Bothwell halted at the door of the only house from which lights were shining.

‘What say you, gentlemen?’ laughed the warden. ‘I know Master Craig, the mercer, well. It seems that he is expecting us. Shall we go in and take our rere-supper with pretty Mistress Alison, his daughter?’

‘By all means!’ exclaimed d’Elbœuf. ‘The best dressed damsel that walks the High Street on Sundays. I should know her anywhere by the orange stripes on her farthingale.’

‘And the bonniest lass on Leith Sands at the merry-making to-day,’ added Lord Robert. ‘I little thought when I gave her her fairings this morning, I should sup with her to-night!’

‘The neatest foot and the tightest stocking in the Old Town,’ said Lord John, ‘and the best dancer to boot. Knock at the door, Bothwell, and bid them let us in, in the devil’s name!’

Concealing themselves under the wall of the house, the party waited, with much stifled merriment, the result of Bothwell’s application for admittance.

His cautious knock was at first unanswered, but on repetition, the light was observed to be obscured at one of the windows, and a female head, scarcely so well arranged as that of Mistress Alison herself, was thrust into the moonlight, the owner demanding, in a guarded whisper, ‘What’s your wull?’

‘Go down and unbar the door,’ answered Bothwell, in like tones of secrecy, and pulling his mask carefully over his face. ‘We have come to sup with your mistress.’

‘It’s the earl!’ the girl was heard to say, turning round obviously to hold parley with some one in the room; and then another voice whispered in softer tones, ‘Is it you, my lord?’

‘Why, of course it is!’ answered Bothwell, somewhat surprised, nevertheless, that he should be so easily recognised.

‘I have expected you this hour and more,’ was the reply, as the two figures moved at once from the window.

‘The devil you have!’ observed the warden, now completely puzzled; ‘then why don’t you come down and open the door?’

Presently bars were heard to be withdrawn, and the party of rioters, if we may so term them, marshalled themselves in close order, prepared, if necessary, to go in with a rush. The door, however, was only partially unclosed, and the figure of a strapping serving-wench guarded the narrow interstice. She seemed less satisfied than her mistress, and inclined to hold further parley.

‘Hoo will I ken it’s you?’ said she, shading the candle with her large coarse hand.

But the caution was too late. Lord John’s shoulder was by this time applied to the door. Lord Robert blew out the candle, and the Admiral of France, with characteristic gallantry and national politeness, stifled the outcry of the astonished damsel in the dark.

The assailants had now gained the body of the place, still keeping their masks on, and with noiseless footsteps they ascended the stair; Maxwell and ‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh,’ who had neither of them much stomach for the adventure, remaining at the door to keep watch.

The others turned into a comfortable parlour in which fire and lights were burning, as if to make them thoroughly at home. A delicate little supper, with a flask or two of wine, stood on the table, and a very smartly dressed lady, not without beauty of a bold, imposing style, rose to welcome them.

As Bothwell entered, this gaudy-looking dame seemed about to rush into his arms, but observing that he did not remove his mask, and was accompanied by three or four others, she checked herself, and remained standing in the middle of the room as if not altogether mistress of the position.

The warden, bowing low, advanced to take her hand, and Mistress Alison suffered him to do so, with an expression of ludicrous uncertainty on her handsome face.

‘Will you not unmask, my lord?’ said she; ‘though late, you are welcome, and so are your friends. Why did you bring them with you?’ she added, in a troubled whisper.

It was impossible to carry on the deception any longer; and by this time the laughter of the party had been so long smothered as to defy further restraint. With many apologies and courtly compliments and honeyed phrases, interrupted by bursts of merriment, one and all unmasked, disclosing to the bewildered Mistress Alison the features of quite another earl from her expected guest, and of three or four of the wildest gallants at Holyrood, with whom, nevertheless, she was not entirely unacquainted.

One of the most beautiful qualities in woman is her pliant nature, her tendency to adapt herself to circumstances, the readiness with which, in the absence of white bread, she contents herself with brown. Of this amiable facility the mercer’s daughter now afforded a striking instance. Bidden or unbidden, here were the gallants,—good-looking, amusing, and well-dressed; and there was the supper. Mistress Alison did not hesitate long.

‘You will not depart without breaking bread,’ said she, pointing to the well-covered table, with courteous hospitality.

Lord Robert filled himself a bumper on the spot.

‘Pledge us, fair Mistress Alison!’ said he; ‘a cup of wine will restore the bloom to that damask cheek, paled with the alarm of our sudden arrival.’

The lady drank and smiled. It is but fair to observe that, notwithstanding his lordship’s polite fiction, the ‘damask cheek’ had never paled, nor Mistress Alison lost her presence of mind for an instant. Perhaps she was not entirely unused to these impromptu supper-parties.

Merrily they sat down, heaping their cloaks, and swords, and masks in the corner of the room, their hostess only stipulating against too much noise, and insisting that her guests should not disturb the repose of the honest mercer who slept above.

Mistress Alison seemed tolerably familiar with the private history of her company, and the general gossip of the Court. As she displayed the turn of her round arm, and close-fitting bodice, while filling plates and drinking-cups, she had a jeer, or a sarcasm, or a compliment for each. She congratulated d’Elbœuf on the conquest he had made of her serving-woman, who, never having seen a live Frenchman before, gazed at the admiral open-mouthed. She twitted the two Stuarts with their approaching bondage that should put an end to all such midnight pranks.

‘For,’ said Mistress Alison, ‘in less than a week, ye’ll both be dancing in fetters to the tune of “Wooed and married an’ a’,” and the bonny brides will have gotten the two most graceless gallants in Scotland for their grooms; and as sure as death, I’ll see the wedding, if I creep into the palace through the buttery window! Ay, my Lord Bothwell! you’re bold riders, you Hepburns; but the bonny lass that thinks to tame wild John Stuart, is the boldest amongst you all. Well, well! it’s a good steed that’ll gallop till dawn. Once she gets into the saddle, she’ll daunton[4] him, never fear!’