Chapter X: The Knocking at Borthwick

The 10th of June had been a thunderous day, and was followed by a stifling night. In the lower parlour where the Queen lay the candles seemed to be clogged, the air charged with steam. Mary Seton sat on the floor by the couch, Des-Essars, bathed in sweat, leaned against the window-sill. In the hall beyond could be heard Bothwell’s voice, grating querulously to young Crookstone and Paris about his ruined chances. He was not laughing any more—was not one, it was found, to bear misfortunes gaily. His tongue had mastered him of late, and his hand too. He had nearly killed Paris that morning with one smashing blow.

There came a puff of wind, with branches sweeping the window, the pattering, swishing sound as of heavy rain. ‘Thank God for rain! Baptist, the window, lest I suffocate. The rain will cool the air.’ He set it wide open, and leaned out. There was no rain at all; but the sky was a vaporous vault, through which, in every part, the veiled moon diffused her light. He saw a man standing on the grass as plainly as you see this paper, who presently, after considering him, went away towards the woods. It might have been one of their own sentries, it might have been any one: but why did it make his heart beat? He stayed where he was, watching intently, considering with himself whether he should tell the Queen, or by some ruse let my lord have warning without her knowledge. Then, while he was hammering it out, she got up and came to the window, and leaned over him, her hand on his shoulder.

‘Poor prisoners, you and I, my Baptist.’

He turned to her with burning eyes. ‘Madam, there can be no prison for me where you are; but my heart walks with yours through all space.’

‘My heart,’ she said, ‘limps, and soon will be bedridden; and then yours will stop. You are tied to me, and I to him. The world has gone awry with us, my dear.’

Very nervous, on account of what he had seen, he had no answer ready. Thought, feeling, passion, desire, were all boiling and stirring together in his brain. The blood drummed at his ears, like a call to arms.

Suddenly—it all came with a leap—there was hasty knocking at the hall doors, and at the same instant a bench was overturned out there, and Bothwell went trampling towards the sound. Des-Essars, tensely moved, shut the windows and barred the shutters over them. The Queen watched him—her hands held her bosom. ‘What is it? Oh, what is it?’

‘Hush, for God’s sake! Let me listen.’

Mary Seton opened the parlour door, as calm as she had ever been. They listened all.

They heard a clamour of voices outside. ‘Bothwell! Bothwell! Let us in.’

‘Who are ye?’

‘We are hunted men—friends. We are here for our lives.’

Bothwell put his ear close to the door; his mouth worked fearfully, all his features were distorted. Heavens! how he listened.

‘Who are ye? Tell me that.’

‘Friends—friends—friends!’

He laughed horribly—with a hollow, barking noise, like a leopard’s cough. ‘By my God, Lindsay, I know ye now for a fine false friend. You shall never take me here.’

For answer, the knocking was doubled; men rained blows upon the door; and some ran round to the windows and jumped up at them, crying, ‘Let us in—let us in!’ Some glass was broken; but the shutter held. Mary Seton held the Queen close in her arms, Des-Essars stood in the doorway with a drawn sword. Bothwell came up to him for a moment. ‘By God, man, we’re rats in a drain—damned rats, by my soul! Ha!’ he turned as Paris came down from the turret, where he had been sent to spy.

The house, Paris said, was certainly surrounded. The torches made it plain that these were enemies. He had seen my lord of Morton on a white horse, my Lords Hume and Sempill and some more.

They all looked at each other, a poor ten that they were.

‘Hark to them now, master,’ says Paris. ‘They have a new cry.’

Bothwell listened, biting his tongue.

‘Murderer, murderer, come out! Come out, adulterous thief!’ This was Lindsay again. There was no sound of Morton’s voice, the thick, the rich and mellow note he had. But who was Morton, to call for the murderer?

Paris, after spying again, said that they were going to fire the doors; and added, ‘Master, it is hot enough without a fire. We had best be off.’

Bothwell looked at the Queen. ‘My dear, I must go.’

She barely turned her eyes upon him; but she said, ‘Do you leave me here?’ Scathing question from a bride, had a man been able to observe such things.

He said, ‘Ay, I do. It is me they want, these dogs. You will be safe if they know that I am away—and I will take care they do know it. I go to Dunbar, whence you shall hear from me by some means. Crookstone, come you with me, and come you, Hobbie. Paris, you stay here.’

‘Pardon, master,’ says Paris, ‘I go with your lordship.’

Pale Paris was measured with his eye. ‘I’ll kill you if you do, my fine man.’

‘That is your lordship’s affair,’ says Paris with deference; ‘but first I will show you the way out. There are horses in the undercroft.’

Bothwell lifted up his wife, held her in his arms and kissed her twice. ‘Fie, you are cold!’ he said, and put her down. She had lain listless against him, without kissing.

He turned at once and followed Paris; young Crookstone followed him. It seems that he got clear off in the way he intended, for the noises outside the house ceased; and in the grey of the morning, before three o’clock, all was quiet about the policies. They must have been within an ace of capturing him: in fact, Paris admitted afterwards that they were but a bowshot away at one time.

* * * * *

The Queen sent Seton for Des-Essars at about four o’clock in the morning. Neither mistress nor maid had been to bed.

He found her in a high fever; her eyes glowing like jet, her face white and pinched; the stroke of her certain fate drawing down her mouth. She said, ‘I have been a false woman, a coward, and a shame to my race.’

‘God knows your Majesty is none of these.’

‘Baptist, I am going to my lord.’

‘Oh, madam, God forbid you!’

‘God will forbid me presently if I do not. It should have been last night—I may be too late. But make haste.’

They procured a guide of a sort, a wretched poltroon of a fellow, who twice tried to run for it and leave them in Yester woods. Des-Essars, after the second attempt, rode beside him with a cocked pistol in his hand. From Yester they went north by Haddington, for fear of Whittingehame and the Douglases. As it was, they had to skirt Lethington, and the Secretary’s fine grey house there in the park; but the place was close-barred—nothing hindered them. They passed unknown through Haddington, the Queen desperately tired. Sixteen hours in the saddle, a cold welcome at the end.

Bothwell received them without cheer. ‘You would have been wiser to have stayed. Here you are in the midst of war.’

‘My place was by your side.’

The mockery of the thing struck him all at once. This schemed-for life of his—a vast, empty shell of a house!

‘Oh, God, I sicken of this folly!’ He turned from her.

She had nothing to say, could hardly stand on her feet. Seton took her to bed.

A message next day from Huntly in Edinburgh. Balfour held the castle; all the rest of the town was Grange’s. Morton, Atholl, and Lethington were rulers. Atholl had Holyroodhouse; Lethington and his wife were with Morton. He himself, said Huntly, would move out in a day or two and join the Hamiltons at Dalkeith. Let Bothwell raise the Merse and meet them. He named Gladsmuir for rendezvous, on the straight road from Haddington to the city, five miles by west of Haddington.

Bothwell read all this to the Queen, who said nothing. She was thinking of a business of her own, as appeared when she was alone. She beckoned up Baptist.

‘There’s not a moment to be lost. Find me a messenger, a trusty one, who will get speech with Mary Fleming.’

‘Madam,’ says Baptist, ‘let me go.’

‘No, no: I need you. Try Paris—no! my lord would never spare him. And he would deny me again. Do you choose somebody.’

‘What is he to say to her, ma’am?’

‘He shall speak to her in private. She knows where my coffer is—my casket.’

Ah! this was a grave affair. Des-Essars made up his mind at once. ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘let me advise your Majesty. Either send me, or send no one. If you send me I will bring the casket back. That I promise. If you send no one—if you do not remind her—it will slip her memory.’

The Queen’s eyes showed her fears. ‘Remember you, Baptist, of my casket. If Fleming were to betray me to Lethington——’ No need to end.

‘Again I say, madam, send me.’

She thought; but even so her eyes filled with tears, which began to fall fast.

‘Dearest madam, do you weep?’

‘I cannot let you go. Do not ask me—I need you here.’

He leaned to her. ‘Alas, what can I do to help your Majesty?’

She took his hand. ‘Stay. You are my only friend. The end is not far. Have a little patience—stay.’

‘But your casket——’

She shook her head. ‘Let all go now. Stay you with me.’

‘Certainly I will stay with you,’ he said. ‘It will be to see you triumph over your enemies.’

And again she shook her head. ‘Not with a broken heart!’ Then in a frightened whisper she began to tell him her fears. ‘Do you know what they make ready for me? The stake, and the faggot, and the fire! Fire for the wife that slew her husband. Baptist, you will never forsake me now! This is my secret knowledge. Never forsake me!’ She hid her face on his shoulder and cried there, as one lost.

Bothwell burst into the room: they sprang apart. He was eager, flush with news. ‘We march to-morrow with the light. My men are coming in—in good order. Be of good cheer, madam, for with God’s help we shall pound these knaves properly.’

‘How shall God help us, my lord,’ said she, ‘who have helped not Him?’

‘Why, then, my dear,’ cries he with a laugh, ‘why, then, we will help ourselves.’