Chapter XVI: Part 16

The steward was right in what he said; for the cooling breeze was very necessary to appease the feverish fit of anger which Roland experienced, nor did the remedy succeed for some time. At length, after some hasty turns made through the garden, exhausting his passion in vain vows of vengeance, Roland Graeme began to be sensible that his situation ought rather to be held as matter of laughter than of serious resentment. To one bred a sportsman, a night spent in the open air had in it little of hardship, and the poor malice of the steward seemed more worthy of his contempt than his anger. “I would to God,” he said, “that the grim old man may always have contented himself with such sportive revenge. He often looks as he were capable of doing us a darker turn.” Returning, therefore, to the turf-seat which he had formerly occupied, and which was partially sheltered by a trim fence of green holly, he drew his mantle around him, stretched himself at length on the verdant settle, and endeavoured to resume that sleep which the castle bell had interrupted to so little purpose.

Sleep, like other earthly blessings, is niggard of its favours when most courted. The more Roland invoked her aid, the farther she fled from his eyelids. He had been completely awakened, first, by the sounds of the bell, and then by his own aroused vivacity of temper, and he found it difficult again to compose himself to slumber. At length, when his mind--was wearied out with a maze of unpleasing meditation, he succeeded in coaxing himself into a broken slumber. This was again dispelled by the voices of two persons who were walking in the garden, the sound of whose conversation, after mingling for some time in the page's dreams, at length succeeded in awaking him thoroughly. He raised himself from his reclining posture in the utmost astonishment, which the circumstance of hearing two persons at that late hour conversing on the outside of the watchfully guarded Castle of Lochloven, was so well calculated to excite. His first thought was of supernatural beings; his next, upon some attempt on the part of Queen Mary's friends and followers; his last was, that George of Douglas, possessed of the keys, and having the means of ingress and egress at pleasure, was availing himself of his office to hold a rendezvous with Catherine Seyton in the castle garden. He was confirmed in this opinion by the tone of the voice, which asked in a low whisper, “whether all was ready?”

Chapter the Thirtieth.

In some breasts passion lies conceal'd and silent,
Like war's swart powder in a castle vault,
Until occasion, like the linstock, lights it:
Then comes at once the lightning--and the thunder,
And distant echoes tell that all is rent asunder.
OLD PLAY.

Roland Graeme, availing himself of a breach in the holly screen, and of the assistance of the full moon, which was now arisen, had a perfect opportunity, himself unobserved, to reconnoitre the persons and the motions of those by whom his rest had been thus unexpectedly disturbed; and his observations confirmed his jealous apprehensions. They stood together in close and earnest conversation within four yards of the place of his retreat, and he could easily recognize the tall form and deep voice of Douglas, and the no less remarkable dress and tone of the page at the hostelry of Saint Michael's.

“I have been at the door of the page's apartment,” said Douglas, “but he is not there, or he will not answer. It is fast bolted on the inside, as is the custom, and we cannot pass through it--and what his silence may bode I know not.”

“You have trusted him too far,” said the other; “a feather-headed cox-comb, upon whose changeable mind and hot brain there is no making an abiding impression.”

“It was not I who was willing to trust him,” said Douglas, “but I was assured he would prove friendly when called upon--for----” Here he spoke so low that Roland lost the tenor of his words, which was the more provoking, as he was fully aware that he was himself the subject of their conversation.

“Nay,” replied the stranger, more aloud, “I have on my side put him off with fair words, which make fools vain--but now, if you distrust him at the push, deal with him with your dagger, and so make open passage.”

“That were too rash,” said Douglas; “and besides, as I told you, the door of his apartment is shut and bolted. I will essay again to waken him.”

Graeme instantly comprehended, that the ladies, having been somehow made aware of his being in the garden, had secured the door of the outer room in which he usually slept, as a sort of sentinel upon that only access to the Queen's apartments. But then, how came Catherine Seyton to be abroad, if the Queen and the other lady were still within their chambers, and the access to them locked and bolted?--“I will be instantly at the bottom of these mysteries,” he said, “and then thank Mistress Catherine, if this be really she, for the kind use which she exhorted Douglas to make of his dagger--they seek me, as I comprehend, and they shall not seek me in vain.”

Douglas had by this time re-entered the castle by the wicket, which was now open. The stranger stood alone in the garden walk, his arms folded on his breast, and his eyes cast impatiently up to the moon, as if accusing her of betraying him by the magnificence of her lustre. In a moment Roland Graeme stood before him--“A goodly night,” he said, “Mistress Catherine, for a young lady to stray forth in disguise, and to meet with men in an orchard!”

“Hush!” said the stranger page, “hush, thou foolish patch, and tell us in a word if thou art friend or foe.”

“How should I be friend to one who deceives me by fair words, and who would have Douglas deal with me with his poniard?” replied Roland.

“The fiend receive George of Douglas and thee too, thou born madcap and sworn marplot!” said the other; “we shall be discovered, and then death is the word.”

“Catherine,” said the page, “you have dealt falsely and cruelly with me, and the moment of explanation is now come--neither it nor you shall escape me.”

“Madman!” said the stranger, “I am neither Kate nor Catherine--the moon shines bright enough surely to know the hart from the hind.”

“That shift shall not serve you, fair mistress,” said the page, laying hold on the lap of the stranger's cloak; “this time, at least, I will know with whom I deal.”

“Unhand me,” said she, endeavouring to extricate herself from his grasp; and in a tone where anger seemed to contend with a desire to laugh, “use you so little discretion towards a daughter of Seyton?”

But as Roland, encouraged perhaps by her risibility to suppose his violence was not unpardonably offensive, kept hold on her mantle, she said, in a sterner tone of unmixed resentment,--“Madman! let me go!--there is life and death in this moment--I would not willingly hurt thee, and yet beware!”

As she spoke she made a sudden effort to escape, and, in doing so, a pistol, which she carried in her hand or about her person, went off.

This warlike sound instantly awakened the well-warded castle. The warder blew his horn, and began to toll the castle bell, crying out at the same time, “Fie, treason! treason! cry all! cry all!”

The apparition of Catherine Seyton, which the page had let loose in the first moment of astonishment, vanished in darkness; but the plash of oars was heard, and, in a second or two, five or six harquebuses and a falconet were fired from the battlements of the castle successively, as if levelled at some object on the water. Confounded with these incidents, no way for Catherine's protection (supposing her to be in the boat which he had heard put from the shore) occurred to Roland, save to have recourse to George of Douglas. He hastened for this purpose towards the apartment of the Queen, whence he heard loud voices and much trampling of feet. When he entered, he found himself added to a confused and astonished group, which, assembled in that apartment, stood gazing upon each other. At the upper end of the room stood the Queen, equipped as for a journey, and--attended not only by the Lady Fleming, but by the omnipresent Catherine Seyton, dressed in the habit of her own sex, and bearing in her hand the casket in which Mary kept such jewels as she had been permitted to retain. At the other end of the hall was the Lady of Lochleven, hastily dressed, as one startled from slumber by the sudden alarm, and surrounded by domestics, some bearing torches, others holding naked swords, partisans, pistols, or such other weapons as they had caught up in the hurry of a night alarm. Betwixt these two parties stood George of Douglas, his arms folded on his breast, his eyes bent on the ground, like a criminal who knows not how to deny, yet continues unwilling to avow, the guilt in which he has been detected.

“Speak, George of Douglas,” said the Lady of Lochleven; “speak, and clear the horrid suspicion which rests on thy name. Say, 'A Douglas was never faithless to his trust, and I am a Douglas.' Say this, my dearest son, and it is all I ask thee to say to clear thy name, even under, such a foul charge. Say it was but the wile of these unhappy women, and this false boy, which plotted an escape so fatal to Scotland--so destructive to thy father's house.”

“Madam,” said old Dryfesdale the steward, “this much do I say for this silly page, that he could not be accessary to unlocking the doors, since I myself this night bolted him out of the castle. Whoever limned this night-piece, the lad's share in it seems to have been small.”

“Thou liest, Dryfesdale,” said the Lady, “and wouldst throw the blame on thy master's house, to save the worthless life of a gipsy boy.”

“His death were more desirable to me than his life,” answered the steward, sullenly; “but the truth is the truth.”

At these words Douglas raised his head, drew up his figure to its full height, and spoke boldly and sedately, as one whose resolution was taken. “Let no life be endangered for me. I alone----”

“Douglas,” said the Queen, interrupting him, “art thou mad? Speak not, I charge you.”

“Madam,” he replied, bowing with the deepest respect, “gladly would I obey your commands, but they must have a victim, and let it be the true one.--Yes, madam,” he continued, addressing the Lady of Lochleven, “I alone am guilty in this matter. If the word of a Douglas has yet any weight with you, believe me that this boy is innocent; and on your conscience I charge you, do him no wrong; nor let the Queen suffer hardship for embracing the opportunity of freedom which sincere loyalty--which a sentiment yet deeper--offered to her acceptance. Yes! I had planned the escape of the most beautiful, the most persecuted of women; and far from regretting that I, for a while, deceived the malice of her enemies, I glory in it, and am most willing to yield up life itself in her cause.”

“Now may God have compassion on my age,” said the Lady of Lochleven, “and enable me to bear this load of affliction! O Princess, born in a luckless hour, when will you cease to be the instrument of seduction and of ruin to all who approach you? O ancient house of Lochleven, famed so long for birth and honour, evil was the hour which brought the deceiver under thy roof!”

“Say not so, madam,” replied her grandson; “the old honours of the Douglas line will be outshone, when one of its descendants dies for the most injured of queens--for the most lovely of women.”

“Douglas,” said the Queen, “must I at this moment--ay, even at this moment, when I may lose a faithful subject for ever, chide thee for forgetting what is due to me as thy Queen?”

“Wretched boy,” said the distracted Lady of Lochleven, “hast thou fallen even thus far into the snare of this Moabitish woman?--hast thou bartered thy name, thy allegiance, thy knightly oath, thy duty to thy parents, thy country, and thy God, for a feigned tear, or a sickly smile, from lips which flattered the infirm Francis--lured to death the idiot Darnley--read luscious poetry with the minion Chastelar--mingled in the lays of love which were sung by the beggar Rizzio--and which were joined in rapture to those of the foul and licentious Bothwell?”

“Blaspheme not, madam!” said Douglas;--“nor you, fair Queen, and virtuous as fair, chide at this moment the presumption of thy vassal!--Think not that the mere devotion of a subject could have moved me to the part I have been performing. Well you deserve that each of your lieges should die for you; but I have done more--have done that to which love alone could compel a Douglas--I have dissembled. Farewell, then, Queen of all hearts, and Empress of that of Douglas!--When you are freed from this vile bondage--as freed you shall be, if justice remains in Heaven--and when you load with honours and titles the happy man who shall deliver you, cast one thought on him whose heart would have despised every reward for a kiss of your hand--cast one thought on his fidelity, and drop one tear on his grave.” And throwing himself at her feet, he seized her hand, and pressed it to his lips.

“This before my face!” exclaimed the Lady of Lochleven--“wilt thou court thy adulterous paramour before the eyes of a parent?--Tear them asunder, and put him under strict ward! Seize him, upon your lives!” she added, seeing that her attendants looked at each other with hesitation.

“They are doubtful,” said Mary. “Save thyself, Douglas, I command thee!”

He started up from the floor, and only exclaiming, “My life or death are yours, and at your disposal!”--drew his sword, and broke through those who stood betwixt him and the door. The enthusiasm of his onset was too sudden and too lively to have been opposed by any thing short of the most decided opposition; and as he was both loved and feared by his father's vassals, none of them would offer him actual injury.

The Lady of Lochleven stood astonished at his sudden escape--“Am I surrounded,” she said, “by traitors? Upon him, villains!--pursue, stab, cut him down.”

“He cannot leave the island, madam,” said Dryfesdale, interfering; “I have the key of the boat-chain.”

But two or three voices of those who pursued from curiosity, or command of their mistress, exclaimed from below, that he had cast himself into the lake.

“Brave Douglas still!” exclaimed the Queen--“Oh, true and noble heart, that prefers death to imprisonment!”

“Fire upon him!” said the Lady of Lochleven; “if there be here a true servant of his father, let him shoot the runagate dead, and let the lake cover our shame!”

The report of a gun or two was heard, but they were probably shot rather to obey the Lady, than with any purpose of hitting the mark; and Randal immediately entering, said that Master George had been taken up by a boat from the castle, which lay at a little distance.

“Man a barge, and pursue them!” said the Lady.

“It were quite vain,” said Randal; “by this time they are half way to shore, and a cloud has come over the moon.”

“And has the traitor then escaped?” said the Lady, pressing her hands against her forehead with a gesture of despair; “the honour of our house is for ever gone, and all will be deemed accomplices in this base treachery.”

“Lady of Lochleven,” said Mary, advancing towards her, “you have this night cut off my fairest hopes--You have turned my expected freedom into bondage, and dashed away the cup of joy in the very instant I was advancing it to my lips--and yet I feel for your sorrow the pity that you deny to mine--Gladly would I comfort you if I might; but as I may not, I would at least part from you in charity.”

“Away, proud woman!” said the Lady; “who ever knew so well as thou to deal the deepest wounds under the pretence of kindness and courtesy?--Who, since the great traitor, could ever so betray with a kiss?”

“Lady Douglas of Lochleven,” said the Queen, “in this moment thou canst not offend me--no, not even by thy coarse and unwomanly language, held to me in the presence of menials and armed retainers. I have this night owed so much to one member of the house of Lochleven, as to cancel whatever its mistress can do or say in the wildness of her passion.”

“We are bounden to you, Princess,” said Lady Lochleven, putting a strong constraint on herself, and passing from her tone of violence to that of bitter irony; “our poor house hath been but seldom graced with royal smiles, and will hardly, with my choice, exchange their rough honesty for such court-honour as Mary of Scotland has now to bestow.”

“They,” replied Mary, “who knew so well how to _take_, may think themselves excused from the obligation implied in receiving. And that I have now little to offer, is the fault of the Douglasses and their allies.”

“Fear nothing, madam,” replied the Lady of Lochleven, in the same bitter tone, “you retain an exchequer which neither your own prodigality can drain, nor your offended country deprive you of. While you have fair words and delusive smiles at command, you need no other bribes to lure youth to folly.”

The Queen cast not an ungratified glance on a large mirror, which, hanging on one side of the apartment, and illuminated by the torch-light, reflected her beautiful face and person. “Our hostess grows complaisant,” she said, “my Fleming; we had not thought that grief and captivity had left us so well stored with that sort of wealth which ladies prize most dearly.”

“Your Grace will drive this severe woman frantic,” said Fleming, in a low tone. “On my knees I implore you to remember she is already dreadfully offended, and that we are in her power.”

“I will not spare her, Fleming,” answered the Queen; “it is against my nature. She returned my honest sympathy with insult and abuse, and I will gall her in return,--if her words are too blunt for answer, let her use her poniard if she dare!”

“The Lady Lochleven,” said the Lady Fleming aloud, “would surely do well now to withdraw, and to leave her Grace to repose.”

“Ay,” replied the Lady, “or to leave her Grace, and her Grace's minions, to think what silly fly they may next wrap their meshes about. My eldest son is a widower--were he not more worthy the flattering hopes with which you have seduced his brother?--True, the yoke of marriage has been already thrice fitted on--but the church of Rome calls it a sacrament, and its votaries may deem it one in which they cannot too often participate.”

“And the votaries of the church of Geneva,” replied Mary, colouring with indignation, “as they deem marriage _no_ sacrament, are said at times to dispense with the holy ceremony.”--Then, as if afraid of the consequences of this home allusion to the errors of Lady Lochleven's early life, the Queen added, “Come, my Fleming, we grace her too much by this altercation; we will to our sleeping apartment. If she would disturb us again to-night, she must cause the door to be forced.” So saying, she retired to her bed-room, followed by her two women.

Lady Lochleven, stunned as it were by this last sarcasm, and not the less deeply incensed that she had drawn it upon herself, remained like a statue on the spot which she had occupied when she received an affront so flagrant. Dryfesdale and Randal endeavoured to rouse her to recollection by questions.

“What is your honourable Ladyship's pleasure in the premises?”

“Shall we not double the sentinels, and place one upon the boats and another in the garden?” said Randal.

“Would you that despatches were sent to Sir William at Edinburgh, to acquaint him with what has happened?” demanded Dryfesdale; “and ought not the place of Kinross to be alarmed, lest there be force upon the shores of the lake?”

“Do all as thou wilt,” said the Lady, collecting herself, and about to depart. “Thou hast the name of a good soldier, Dryfesdale, take all precautions.--Sacred Heaven! that I should be thus openly insulted!”

“Would it be your pleasure,” said Dryfesdale, hesitating, “that this person--this Lady--be more severely restrained?”

“No, vassal!” answered the Lady, indignantly, “my revenge stoops not to so low a gratification. But I will have more worthy vengeance, or the tomb of my ancestors shall cover my shame!”

“And you shall have it, madam,” replied Dryfesdale--“ere two suns go down, you shall term yourself amply revenged.”

The Lady made no answer--perhaps did not hear his words, as she presently left the apartment. By the command of Dryfesdale, the rest of the attendants were dismissed, some to do the duty of guard, others to their repose. The steward himself remained after they had all departed; and Roland Graeme, who was alone in the apartment, was surprised to see the old soldier advance towards him with an air of greater cordiality than he had ever before assumed to him, but which sat ill on his scowling features.

“Youth,” he said, “I have done thee some wrong--it is thine own fault, for thy behaviour hath seemed as light to me as the feather thou wearest in thy hat; and surely thy fantastic apparel, and idle humour of mirth and folly, have made me construe thee something harshly. But I saw this night from my casement, (as I looked out to see how thou hadst disposed of thyself in the garden,) I saw, I say, the true efforts which thou didst make to detain the companion of the perfidy of him who is no longer worthy to be called by his father's name, but must be cut off from his house like a rotten branch. I was just about to come to thy assistance when the pistol went off; and the warder (a false knave, whom I suspect to be bribed for the nonce) saw himself forced to give the alarm, which, perchance, till then he had wilfully withheld. To atone, therefore, for my injustice towards you, I would willingly render you a courtesy, if you would accept of it from my hands.”

“May I first crave to know what it is?” replied the page.

“Simply to carry the news of this discovery to Holyrood, where thou mayest do thyself much grace, as well with the Earl of Morton and the Regent himself, as with Sir William Douglas, seeing thou hast seen the matter from end to end, and borne faithful part therein. The making thine own fortune will be thus lodged in thine own hand, when I trust thou wilt estrange thyself from foolish vanities, and learn to walk in this world as one who thinks upon the next.”

“Sir Steward,” said Roland Graeme, “I thank you for your courtesy, but I may not do your errand. I pass that I am the Queen's sworn servant, and may not be of counsel against her. But, setting this apart, methinks it were a bad road to Sir William of Lochleven's favour, to be the first to tell him of his son's defection--neither would the Regent be over well pleased to hear the infidelity of his vassal, nor Morton to learn the falsehood of his kinsman.”

“Um!” said the steward, making that inarticulate sound which expresses surprise mingled with displeasure. “Nay, then, even fly where ye list; for, giddy-pated as ye may be, you know how to bear you in the world.”

“I will show you my esteem is less selfish than ye think for,” said the page; “for I hold truth and mirth to be better than gravity and cunning--ay, and in the end to be a match for them.--You never loved me less, Sir Steward, than you do at this moment. I know you will give me no real confidence, and I am resolved to accept no false protestations as current coin. Resume your old course--suspect me as much and watch me as closely as you will, I bid you defiance--you have met with your match.”

“By Heaven, young man,” said the steward, with a look of bitter malignity, “if thou darest to attempt any treachery towards the House of Lochleven, thy head shall blacken in the sun from the warder's turret!”

“He cannot commit treachery who refuses trust,” said the page; “and for my head, it stands as securely on my shoulders, as on any turret that ever mason built.”

“Farewell, thou prating and speckled pie,” said Dryfesdale, “that art so vain of thine idle tongue and variegated coat! Beware trap and lime-twig.”

“And fare thee well, thou hoarse old raven,” answered the page; “thy solemn flight, sable hue, and deep croak, are no charms against bird-bolt or hail-shot, and that thou mayst find--it is open war betwixt us, each for the cause of our mistress, and God show the right!”

“Amen, and defend his own people!” said the steward. “I will let my mistress know what addition thou hast made to this mess of traitors. Good night, Monsieur Featherpate.”

“Good-night, Seignior Sowersby,” replied the page; and, when the old man departed, he betook himself to rest.

Chapter the Thirty-First.

Poison'd--ill fare!--dead, forsook, cast off!--
KING JOHN.

However weary Roland Graeme might be of the Castle of Lochleven--however much he might wish that the plan for Mary's escape had been perfected, I question if he ever awoke with more pleasing feelings than on the morning after George Douglas's plan for accomplishing her deliverance had been frustrated. In the first place, he had the clearest conviction that he had misunderstood the innuendo of the Abbot, and that the affections of Douglas were fixed, not on Catherine Seyton, but on the Queen; and in the second place, from the sort of explanation which had taken place betwixt the steward and him, he felt himself at liberty, without any breach of honour towards the family of Lochleven, to contribute his best aid to any scheme which should in future be formed for the Queen's escape; and, independently of the good-will which he himself had to the enterprise, he knew he could find no surer road to the favour of Catherine Seyton. He now sought but an opportunity to inform her that he had dedicated himself to this task, and fortune was propitious in affording him one which was unusually favourable.

At the ordinary hour of breakfast, it was introduced by the steward with his usual forms, who, as soon as it was placed on the board in the inner apartment, said to Roland Graeme, with a glance of sarcastic import, “I leave you, my young sir, to do the office of sewer--it has been too long rendered to the Lady Mary by one belonging to the house of Douglas.”

“Were it the prime and principal who ever bore the name,” said Roland, “the office were an honour to him.”

The steward departed without replying to this bravade, otherwise than by a dark look of scorn. Graeme, thus left alone, busied himself as one engaged in a labour of love, to imitate, as well as he could, the grace and courtesy with which George of Douglas was wont to render his ceremonial service at meals to the Queen of Scotland. There was more than youthful vanity--there was a generous devotion in the feeling with which he took up the task, as a brave soldier assumes the place of a comrade who has fallen in the front of battle. “I am now,” he said, “their only champion: and, come weal, come wo, I will be, to the best of my skill and power, as faithful, as trustworthy, as brave, as any Douglas of them all could have been.”

At this moment Catherine Seyton entered alone, contrary to her custom; and not less contrary to her custom, she entered with her kerchief at her eyes. Roland Graeme approached her with beating heart and with down-cast eyes, and asked her, in a low and hesitating voice, whether the Queen were well?

“Can you suppose it?” said Catherine. “Think you her heart and body are framed of steel and iron, to endure the cruel disappointment of yester even, and the infamous taunts of yonder puritanic hag?--Would to God that I were a man, to aid her more effectually!”

“If those who carry pistols, and batons, and poniards,” said the page, “are not men, they are at least Amazons; and that is as formidable.”

“You are welcome to the flash of your wit, sir,” replied the damsel; “I am neither in spirits to enjoy, nor to reply to it.”

“Well, then,” said the page, “list to me in all serious truth. And, first, let me say, that the gear last night had been smoother, had you taken me into your counsels.”

“And so we meant; but who could have guessed that Master Page should choose to pass all night in the garden, like some moon-stricken knight in a Spanish romance--instead of being in his bed-room, when Douglas came to hold communication with him on our project.”

“And why,” said the page, “defer to so late a moment so important a confidence?”

“Because your communications with Henderson, and--with pardon--the natural impetuosity and fickleness of your disposition, made us dread to entrust you with a secret of such consequence, till the last moment.”

“And why at the last moment?” said the page, offended at this frank avowal; “why at that, or any other moment, since I had the misfortune to incur so much suspicion?”

“Nay--now you are angry again,” said Catherine; “and to serve you aright I should break off this talk; but I will be magnanimous, and answer your question. Know, then, our reason for trusting you was twofold. In the first place, we could scarce avoid it, since you slept in the room through which we had to pass. In the second place----”

“Nay,” said the page, “you may dispense with a second reason, when the first makes your confidence in me a case of necessity.”

“Good now, hold thy peace,” said Catherine. “In the second place, as I said before, there is one foolish person among us, who believes that Roland Graeme's heart is warm, though his head is giddy--that his blood is pure, though it boils too hastily--and that his faith and honour are true as the load-star, though his tongue sometimes is far less than discreet.”

This avowal Catherine repeated in a low tone, with her eye fixed on the floor, as if she shunned the glance of Roland while she suffered it to escape her lips--“And this single friend,” exclaimed the youth in rapture; “this only one who would do justice to the poor Roland Graeme, and whose own generous heart taught her to distinguish between follies of the brain and faults of the heart--Will you not tell me, dearest Catherine, to whom I owe my most grateful, my most heartfelt thanks?”

“Nay,” said Catherine, with her eyes still fixed on the ground, “if your own heart tell you not----”

“Dearest Catherine!” said the page, seizing upon her hand, and kneeling on one knee.

“If your own heart, I say, tell you not,” said Catherine, gently disengaging her hand, “it is very ungrateful; for since the maternal kindness of the Lady Fleming----”

The page started on his feet. “By Heaven, Catherine, your tongue wears as many disguises as your person! But you only mock me, cruel girl. You know the Lady Fleming has no more regard for any one, than hath the forlorn princess who is wrought into yonder piece of old figured court tapestry.”

“It may be so,” said Catherine Seyton, “but you should not speak so loud.”

“Pshaw!” answered the page, but at the same time lowering his voice, “she cares for no one but herself and the Queen. And you know, besides, there is no one of you whose opinion I value, if I have not your own. No--not that of Queen Mary herself.”

“The more shame for you, if it be so,” said Catherine, with great composure.

“Nay, but, fair Catherine,” said the page, “why will you thus damp my ardour, when I am devoting myself, body and soul, to the cause of your mistress?”

“It is because in doing so,” said Catherine, “you debase a cause so noble, by naming along with it any lower or more selfish motive. Believe me,” she said, with kindling eyes, and while the blood mantled on her cheek, “they think vilely and falsely of women--I mean of those who deserve the name--who deem that they love the gratification of their vanity, or the mean purpose of engrossing a lover's admiration and affection, better than they love the virtue and honour of the man they may be brought to prefer. He that serves his religion, his prince, and his country, with ardour and devotion, need not plead his cause with the commonplace rant of romantic passion--the woman whom he honours with his love becomes his debtor, and her corresponding affection is engaged to repay his glorious toil.”

“You hold a glorious prize for such toil,” said the youth, bending his eyes on her with enthusiasm.

“Only a heart which knows how to value it,” said Catherine. “He that should free this injured Princess from these dungeons, and set her at liberty among her loyal and warlike nobles, whose hearts are burning to welcome her--where is the maiden in Scotland whom the love of such a hero would not honour, were she sprung from the blood royal of the land, and he the offspring of the poorest cottager that ever held a plough?”

“I am determined,” said Roland, “to take the adventure. Tell me first, however, fair Catherine, and speak it as if you were confessing to the priest--this poor Queen, I know she is unhappy--but, Catherine, do you hold her innocent? She is accused of murder.”

“Do I hold the lamb guilty, because it is assailed by the wolf?” answered Catherine; “do I hold yonder sun polluted, because an earth-damp sullies his beams?”

The page sighed and looked down. “Would my conviction were as deep as thine! But one thing is clear, that in this captivity she hath wrong--She rendered herself up, on a capitulation, and the terms have been refused her--I will embrace her quarrel to the death!”

“Will you--will you, indeed?” said Catherine, taking his hand in her turn. “Oh, be but firm in mind, as thou art bold in deed and quick in resolution; keep but thy plighted faith, and after ages shall honour thee as the saviour of Scotland!”

“But when I have toiled successfully to win that Leah, Honour, thou wilt not, my Catherine,” said the page, “condemn me to a new term of service for that Rachel, Love?”

“Of that,” said Catherine, again extricating her hand from his grasp, “we shall have full time to speak; but Honour is the elder sister, and must be won the first.”

“I may not win her,” answered the page; “but I will venture fairly for her, and man can do no more. And know, fair Catherine,--for you shall see the very secret thought of my heart,--that not Honour only--not only that other and fairer sister, whom you frown on me for so much as mentioning--but the stern commands of duty also, compel me to aid the Queen's deliverance.”

“Indeed!” said Catherine; “you were wont to have doubts on that matter.”

“Ay, but her life was not then threatened,” replied Roland.

“And is it now more endangered than heretofore?” asked Catherine Seyton, in anxious terror.

“Be not alarmed,” said the page; “but you heard the terms on which your royal mistress parted with the Lady of Lochleven?”

“Too well--but too well,” said Catherine; “alas! that she cannot rule her princely resentment, and refrain from encounters like these!”

“That hath passed betwixt them,” said Roland, “for which woman never forgives woman. I saw the Lady's brow turn pale, and then black, when, before all the menzie, and in her moment of power, the Queen humbled her to the dust by taxing her with her shame. And I heard the oath of deadly resentment and revenge which she muttered in the ear of one, who by his answer will, I judge, be but too ready an executioner of her will.”

“You terrify me,” said Catherine.

“Do not so take it--call up the masculine part of your spirit--we will counteract and defeat her plans, be they dangerous as they may. Why do you look upon me thus, and weep?”

“Alas!” said Catherine, “because you stand there before me a living and breathing man, in all the adventurous glow and enterprise of youth, yet still possessing the frolic spirits of childhood--there you stand, full alike of generous enterprise and childish recklessness; and if to-day, or to-morrow, or some such brief space, you lie a mangled and lifeless corpse upon the floor of these hateful dungeons, who but Catherine Seyton will be the cause of your brave and gay career being broken short as you start from the goal? Alas! she whom you have chosen to twine your wreath, may too probably have to work your shroud!”

“And be it so, Catherine,” said the page, in the full glow of youthful enthusiasm; “and _do_ thou work my shroud! and if thou grace it with such tears as fall now at the thought, it will honour my remains more than an earl's mantle would my living body. But shame on this faintness of heart! the time craves a firmer mood--Be a woman, Catherine, or rather be a man--thou canst be a man if thou wilt.”

Catherine dried her tears, and endeavoured to smile.

“You must not ask me,” she said, “about that which so much disturbs your mind; you shall know all in time--nay, you should know all now, but that--Hush! here comes the Queen.”

Mary entered from her apartment, paler than usual, and apparently exhausted by a sleepless night, and by the painful thoughts which had ill supplied the place of repose; yet the languor of her looks was so far from impairing her beauty, that it only substituted the frail delicacy of the lovely woman for the majestic grace of the Queen. Contrary to her wont, her toilette had been very hastily despatched, and her hair, which was usually dressed by Lady Fleming with great care, escaping from beneath the headtire, which had been hastily adjusted, fell in long and luxuriant tresses of Nature's own curling, over a neck and bosom which were somewhat less carefully veiled than usual.

As she stepped over the threshold of her apartment, Catherine, hastily drying her tears, ran to meet her royal mistress, and having first kneeled at her feet, and kissed her hand, instantly rose, and placing herself on the other side of the Queen, seemed anxious to divide with the Lady Fleming the honour of supporting and assisting her. The page, on his part, advanced and put in order the chair of state, which she usually occupied, and having placed the cushion and footstool for her accommodation, stepped back, and stood ready for service in the place usually occupied by his predecessor, the young Seneschal. Mary's eye rested an instant on him, and could not but remark the change of persons. Hers was not the female heart which could refuse compassion, at least, to a gallant youth who had suffered in her cause, although he had been guided in his enterprise by a too presumptuous passion; and the words “Poor Douglas!” escaped from her lips, perhaps unconsciously, as she leant herself back in her chair, and put the kerchief to her eyes.

“Yes, gracious madam,” said Catherine, assuming a cheerful manner, in order to cheer her sovereign, “our gallant Knight is indeed banished--the adventure was not reserved for him; but he has left behind him a youthful Esquire, as much devoted to your Grace's service, and who, by me, makes you tender of his hand and sword.”

“If they may in aught avail your Grace,” said Roland Graeme, bowing profoundly.

“Alas!” said the Queen, “what needs this, Catherine?--why prepare new victims to be involved in, and overwhelmed by, my cruel fortune?--were we not better cease to struggle, and ourselves sink in the tide without farther resistance, than thus drag into destruction with us every generous heart which makes an effort in our favour?--I have had but too much of plot and intrigue around me, since I was stretched an orphan child in my very cradle, while contending nobles strove which should rule in the name of the unconscious innocent. Surely time it were that all this busy and most dangerous coil should end. Let me call my prison a convent, and my seclusion a voluntary sequestration of myself from the world and its ways.”

“Speak not thus, madam, before your faithful servants,” said Catherine, “to discourage their zeal at once, and to break their hearts. Daughter of Kings, be not in this hour so unkingly--Come, Roland, and let us, the youngest of her followers, show ourselves worthy of her cause--let us kneel before her footstool, and implore her to be her own magnanimous self.” And leading Roland Graeme to the Queen's seat, they both kneeled down before her. Mary raised herself in her chair, and sat erect, while, extending one hand to be kissed by the page, she arranged with the other the clustering locks which shaded the bold yet lovely brow of the high-spirited Catherine.

“Alas! _ma mignóne_,” she said, for so in fondness she often called her young attendant, “that you should thus desperately mix with my unhappy fate the fortune of your young lives!--Are they not a lovely couple, my Fleming? and is it not heart-rending to think that I must be their ruin?”

“Not so,” said Roland Graeme, “it is we, gracious Sovereign, who will be your deliverers.”

“_Ex oribus parvulorum!_” said the Queen, looking upward; “if it is by the mouth of these children that Heaven calls me to resume the stately thoughts which become my birth and my rights, thou wilt grant them thy protection, and to me the power of rewarding their zeal!”--Then turning to Fleming, she instantly added,--“Thou knowest, my friend, whether to make those who have served me happy, was not ever Mary's favourite pastime. When I have been rebuked by the stern preachers of the Calvinistic heresy--when I have seen the fierce countenances of my nobles averted from me, has it not been because I mixed in the harmless pleasures of the young and gay, and rather for the sake of their happiness than my own, have mingled in the masque, the song, or the dance, with the youth of my household? Well, I repent not of it--though Knox termed it sin, and Morton degradation--I was happy, because I saw happiness around me; and woe betide the wretched jealousy that can extract guilt out of the overflowings of an unguarded gaiety!--Fleming, if we are restored to our throne, shall we not have one blithesome day at a blithesome bridal, of which we must now name neither the bride nor the bridegroom? but that bridegroom shall have the barony of Blairgowrie, a fair gift even for a Queen to give, and that bride's chaplet shall be twined with the fairest pearls that ever were found in the depths of Lochlomond; and thou thyself, Mary Fleming, the best dresser of tires that ever busked the tresses of a Queen, and who would scorn to touch those of any woman of lower rank,--thou thyself shalt, for my love, twine them into the bride's tresses.--Look, my Fleming, suppose them such clustered locks as those of our Catherine, they would not put shame upon thy skill.”

So saying, she passed her hand fondly over the head of her youthful favourite, while her more aged attendant replied despondently, “Alas! madam, your thoughts stray far from home.”

“They do, my Fleming,” said the Queen; “but is it well or kind in you to call them back?--God knows, they have kept the perch this night but too closely--Come, I will recall the gay vision, were it but to punish them. Yes, at that blithesome bridal, Mary herself shall forget the weight of sorrows, and the toil of state, and herself once more lead a measure.--At whose wedding was it that we last danced, my Fleming? I think care has troubled my memory--yet something of it I should remember--canst thou not aid me?--I know thou canst.”

“Alas! madam,” replied the lady----

“What!” said Mary, “wilt thou not help us so far? this is a peevish adherence to thine own graver opinion, which holds our talk as folly. But thou art court-bred, and wilt well understand me when I say, the Queen _commands_ Lady Fleming to tell her where she led the last _branle_.”

With a face deadly pale, and a mien as if she were about to sink into the earth, the court-bred dame, no longer daring to refuse obedience, faltered out--“Gracious Lady--if my memory err not--it was at a masque in Holyrood--at the marriage of Sebastian.”

The unhappy Queen, who had hitherto listened with a melancholy smile, provoked by the reluctance with which the Lady Fleming brought out her story, at this ill-fated word interrupted her with a shriek so wild and loud that the vaulted apartment rang, and both Roland and Catherine sprang to their feet in the utmost terror and alarm. Meantime, Mary seemed, by the train of horrible ideas thus suddenly excited, surprised not only beyond self-command, but for the moment beyond the verge of reason.

“Traitress!” she said to the Lady Fleming, “thou wouldst slay thy sovereign--Call my French guards--_a moi! a moi! mes Français!_--I am beset with traitors in mine own palace--they have murdered my husband--Rescue! rescue for the Queen of Scotland!” She started up from her chair--her features, late so exquisitely lovely in their paleness, now inflamed with the fury of frenzy, and resembling those of a Bellona. “We will take the field ourself,” she said; “warn the city--warn Lothian and Fife--saddle our Spanish barb, and bid French Paris see our petronel be charged!--Better to die at the head of our brave Scotsmen, like our grandfather at Flodden, than of a broken heart, like our ill-starred father!”

“Be patient--be composed, dearest Sovereign,” said Catherine: and then addressing Lady Fleming angrily, she added, “How could you say aught that reminded her of her husband?”

The word reached the ear of the unhappy Princess, who caught it up, speaking with great rapidity. “Husband!--what husband?--Not his most Christian Majesty--he is ill at ease--he cannot mount on horseback.--Not him of the Lennox--but it was the Duke of Orkney thou wouldst say.”

“For God's love, madam, be patient!” said the Lady Fleming.

But the Queen's excited imagination could by no entreaty be diverted from its course. “Bid him come hither to our aid,” she said, “and bring with him his lambs, as he calls them--Bowton, Hay of Talla, Black Ormiston, and his kinsman Hob--Fie! how swart they are, and how they smell of sulphur! What! closeted with Morton? Nay, if the Douglas and the Hepburn hatch the complot together, the bird, when it breaks the shell, will scare Scotland. Will it not, my Fleming?”

“She grows wilder and wilder,” said Fleming; “we have too many hearers for these strange words.”

“Roland,” said Catherine, “in the name of God, begone! You cannot aid us here--Leave us to deal with her alone--Away--away!”

She thrust him to the door of the anteroom; yet even when he had entered that apartment, and shut the door, he could still hear the Queen talk in a loud and determined tone, as if giving forth orders, until at length the voice died away in a feeble and continued lamentation.

At this crisis Catherine entered the anteroom. “Be not too anxious,” she said, “the crisis is now over; but keep the door fast--let no one enter until she is more composed.”

“In the name of God, what does this mean?” said the page; “or what was there in the Lady Fleming's words to excite so wild a transport?”

“Oh, the Lady Fleming, the Lady Fleming,” said Catherine, repeating the words impatiently; “the Lady Fleming is a fool--she loves her mistress, yet knows so little how to express her love, that were the Queen to ask her for very poison, she would deem it a point of duty not to resist her commands. I could have torn her starched head-tire from her formal head--The Queen should have as soon had the heart out of my body, as the word Sebastian out of my lips--That that piece of weaved tapestry should be a woman, and yet not have wit enough to tell a lie!”

“And what was this story of Sebastian?” said the page. “By Heaven, Catherine, you are all riddles alike!”

“You are as great a fool as Fleming,” returned the impatient maiden; “know ye not, that on the night of Henry Darnley's murder, and at the blowing up of the Kirk of Field, the Queen's absence was owing to her attending on a masque at Holyrood, given by her to grace the marriage of this same Sebastian, who, himself a favoured servant, married one of her female attendants, who was near to her person?”

“By Saint Giles,” said the page, “I wonder not at her passion, but only marvel by what forgetfulness it was that she could urge the Lady Fleming with such a question.”

“I cannot account for it,” said Catherine; “but it seems as if great and violent grief and horror sometimes obscure the memory, and spread a cloud like that of an exploding cannon, over the circumstances with which they are accompanied. But I may not stay here, where I came not to moralize with your wisdom, but simply to cool my resentment against that unwise Lady Fleming, which I think hath now somewhat abated, so that I shall endure her presence without any desire to damage either her curch or vasquine. Meanwhile, keep fast that door--I would not for my life that any of these heretics saw her in the unhappy state, which, brought on her as it has been by the success of their own diabolical plottings, they would not stick to call, in their snuffling cant, the judgment of Providence.”

She left the apartment just as the latch of the outward door was raised from without. But the bolt which Roland had drawn on the inside, resisted the efforts of the person desirous to enter. “Who is there?” said Graeme aloud.

“It is I,” replied the harsh and yet slow voice of the steward Dryfesdale.

“You cannot enter now,” returned the youth.

“And wherefore?” demanded Dryfesdale, “seeing I come but to do my duty, and inquire what mean the shrieks from the apartment of the Moabitish woman. Wherefore, I say, since such is mine errand, can I not enter?”

“Simply,” replied the youth, “because the bolt is drawn, and I have no fancy to undo it. I have the right side of the door to-day, as you had last night.”

“Thou art ill-advised, thou malapert boy,” replied the steward, “to speak to me in such fashion; but I shall inform my Lady of thine insolence.”

“The insolence,” said the page, “is meant for thee only, in fair guerdon of thy discourtesy to me. For thy Lady's information, I have answer more courteous--you may say that the Queen is ill at ease, and desires to be disturbed neither by visits nor messages.”

“I conjure you, in the name of God,” said the old man, with more solemnity in his tone than he had hitherto used, “to let me know if her malady really gains power on her!”

“She will have no aid at your hand, or at your Lady's--wherefore, begone, and trouble us no more--we neither want, nor will accept of, aid at your hands.”

With this positive reply, the steward, grumbling and dissatisfied, returned down stairs.

Chapter the Thirty-Second.

It is the curse of kings to be attended
By slaves, who take their humours for a warrant
To break into the bloody house of life,
And on the winking of authority
To understand a law.
KING JOHN.

The Lady of Lochleven sat alone in her chamber, endeavouring with sincere but imperfect zeal, to fix her eyes and her attention on the black-lettered Bible which lay before her, bound in velvet and embroidery, and adorned with massive silver clasps and knosps. But she found her utmost efforts unable to withdraw her mind from the resentful recollection of what had last night passed betwixt her and the Queen, in which the latter had with such bitter taunt reminded her of her early and long-repented transgression.