Chapter VI: Part 6

"Mass! if I understand either this or thee," said the lieutenant of the archers, sipping his Rochelle with a face of perplexity. "But I pray Heaven I may never have reason to argue thus with myself! A blow from my poniard, or a bowshot at fifty paces, were worth a thousand such homilies."

"Oh, yes!" continued Konrad, clasping his hands; "my love, though deep, and passionate, and true, was divested of every sensual thought. I had schooled myself to joy when Anna rejoiced; to sorrow when Anna wept."

"I am no casuist," said Bolton; "but I think thou feedest thy imagination rather than thy love, which must die, as it is hopeless."

"It sought her happiness, not my own--and thus it cannot die."

The young Scottish knight could not perceive this altogether; but he admired Konrad without knowing why, and, to cheer his solitude, introduced to the same prison Sir James Tarbet, the old priest before mentioned, and who had still a few weeks of his term of captivity to endure--a captivity imposed on all who dared to celebrate mass, since it had been forbidden by law as an idolatrous ceremony, dedicated to the devil and scarlet woman.

This good man, who was now in his seventieth year, had served his country in his youth at the fields of Flodden, Solway Moss, and Pinkiecleugh, and, though bent by the infirmities of age and three spear-wounds, somewhat of the old bearing of the knight shone through the mild manner and chastened aspect of the Catholic priest; and in his eye and voice there were those mild and winning expressions, which the followers of Ignatius Loyola are said alone to acquire. His forehead was high, and his failing locks were thin. His magnificent beard, white as snow, lent a dignity to his aspect; and his figure had a stateliness, of which not even his tattered doublet of grey cloth, his hodden mantle, and ruffless shirt, could deprive it. And yet, though changed in aspect, the time had been, when, sheathed in bright armour, he had spurred his barbed horse through the thickest battalions of Surrey and Somerset; and, in the rich vestments of a canon of St. Giles, had held aloft the consecrated host on the great altar of that grand Cathedral, when the sance bell rang, the organ pealed through all its echoing aisles, and while thousands of Edina's best and bravest, her noblest and her greatest, knelt with bent knees and bowed heads on the pavement of the chancel, choir, and nave, before the glittering star of the upheld Eucharist.

By his manner, when bestowing upon him a silent benediction, Eonrad at once recognised a priest of the ancient church, and he kissed the old man's hand with fervour.

"For what art thou here, father?" he asked.

"For worshiping God as he has been worshipped since his son left the earth," replied the old man. "But now Scotland's apostate priests and unlettered barons have discovered, that the forms and prayers of fifteen centuries are idolatrous and superstitious, and severe laws are laid upon us. A gentleman pays a hundred pounds to the crown if he be discovered at mass; a yeoman forty for the first fault, and death for the second."

"I would then, father, that I were back in old Norway, and thou with me; for there we can worship God as we will."

Interested by the young man's gentle manner, Sir James Tarbet requested to be informed of the crime for which he suffered; and Konrad, who had but a confused idea of the chain of circumstances by which he was then a prisoner, attributed the whole to the malevolence of Bothwell; and when he concluded the history of his life and troubles--for to the aged canon he told every thing with confidence and hope, and without reservation--he mingled with it several threats of ultimate vengeance on the author of his long oppression, and Anna's wrongs.

"This must not be!" replied the priest. "By studying vengeance thou keepest open thine own wounds, and pourest salt into them, so that they never heal, or are forgotten. Forgive this sinful Earl, and thou conquerest him; forgive him for the sake of the sisterly love thou bearest this Lady Anna, who loves him so well. 'Be patient,' saith a wise Arabian, 'and the leaf of the mulberry-tree will become satin.' By avoiding misery, thou wilt find happiness; for misery tormenteth itself. O my son! if, like me, thou wert aged and insensible to every emotion save pity and compassion, thou wouldst know that the expectation of eternal happiness in the world that is to come, will raise one far above the petty strife and turmoil of this."

Konrad sighed, but made no reply.

"One virtue," continued the priest, "will counterbalance a hundred vices; and if the Earl of Bothwell--ha! thou knittest thy brow with wrath and hatred. Remember that he who cherisheth either, is like unto the fallen angels."

"I am but a mere man, father; and know that none would scorn me more for woman weakness than that proud noble, were I to say unto him--Earl Bothwell, I forgive thee!"

"Nay--bethink thee! he is most deserving of scorn who scorneth the humble; even as he is the weakest who oppresseth the weak."

"True it is, father!" exclaimed Konrad, striking together his fettered hands; "then here end all my visions of love and honour--my day-dreams of ambition and joy."

"Say not of joy, or to what purpose serve my exhortations?"

"Father," said Konrad; "I am very desolate and broken in spirit, and there are moments in my times of exceeding misery and depression, when I would willingly seek in the church for that refuge which our holy religion affords us; but I fear I am too much wedded to the world, and am too young for a sacrifice so serious."

"Say not so!" replied Sir James Tarbet, with animation, for at such a crisis of the Catholic church such sentiments were priceless to its upholders. "Youth lendeth additional grace to the practice of religion. Of this I will talk with thee more anon; and I trust that the day may come when I shall see thee hold aloft the blessed sacrament, on that holy altar which this infatuated people have prostrated for a time--I say, but for a time; for lo! again I see it rising phoenix-like from its ashes, in greater splendour than ever the middle ages saw!"

Fired by the energy of the priest, who seemed like something ethereal, as the noon-day sun streamed in a blaze of glory through the grated window on his kindling eyes and silver beard, and soothed by his manner and discourse, Konrad felt a new and hitherto unknown glow in his bosom, especially when the old man knelt down, saying--

"Pray with me, for this is the festival of Saint Edmund, the king and martyr; but, like many another consecrated day, it passes now in Scotland's hills and glens, unmarked by piety and prayer; for now, her sons can view with apathy the ruins of her altars, and the grass growing green in the aisles where their fathers prayed, and where their bones repose."

*CHAPTER XXII.*

*THE WHISPER.*

Thence rugged toil attends his mazy way,
And misery marks him for her prey;
_Sedition, envy, murder, passion, strife,_
Spread horror o'er his path of life;
These to the hated mansion lead,
Where cheerless age reclines his drooping head.
_Sophocles._

The whisper of Hob of Ormiston had not been lost on the Earl; hourly it haunted him; he thought of it by day, he dreamt of it by night.

Amid the pleasures of the table, the noise of the midnight revel, the ceremonies of the court, the debates of the council, the solemnities of the church, in the glare of the noonday sun, and, worst of all, in the silence of the voiceless night, that fatal whisper was in his ear, and fanning the latent spark of hell that lay smouldering in his heart.

He deemed himself predestined to accomplish that terrible advice; but still his soul recoiled within itself, and even the ardour of his love for Mary, and his hatred of her husband, were stifled for a time at the terrible contemplation. Life lost its pleasures--power and feudal splendour their zest; his employments were neglected; his attire, usually so magnificent, was never as it used to be--for a change had come over him, and that change was apparent to all. Mary could perceive that, at times, a dusky fire filled his dark and gloomy eyes, and then she immediately shunned their gaze. His brow had become pale and veined, and marked by thought and care. The gentle queen pitied him; and when compelled to address him (for he was still her most distinguished courtier), she did so with a kindness and reserve that only added fuel to the secret flame that preyed upon the Earl's heart.

The coldness, separation, and unconcealed dislike between Mary and King Henry still continued, and they were, to all appearance, irreconcilable; till he, after running headlong on a frightful career of luxury and mad riot at Glasgow, where he was residing at his father's mansion of Limmerfield, was seized with a deadly fever, which ended in that dreadful and loathsome disease, the smallpox, then very prevalent in the west country. And now, when prostrated in all his energies, abandoned by friends and foes, by the panders, and jockies, and boon companions among whom he had squandered his health and wealth, his own peace and the peace of his queen and wife--she nobly was the _first_ who flew to his succour.

With a small train she departed in haste to the infant capital of the west; and Bothwell, who, with all his love, could not accompany her on such a visit, (though he admired her the more for it,) accompanied by Ormiston and Bolton, set out for the house of Whittinghame, a stately fortalice in his constabulary of Haddington, and belonging to Archibald Douglas, a kinsman and adherent of the Earl of Morton.

By a strange coincidence, rather than a mutual compact, many other peers and barons who were hostile to the house of Lennox and its heir, were then also visiting the intriguing lord of Whittinghame; and, like several rills uniting in a river, the whole current of their conversation, thoughts, and sentiments, were bent on the destruction of the Stuarts of Lennox, either by secret and Machiavelian fraud, or in the good old Scottish fashion, with the displayed banner and uplifted spear.

The darkness of a winter night had closed over the keep and woods of Whittinghame; there was no snow on the ground, but as the sky was starless the gloom was intense. Sheet-lightning at times illumined the far horizon, and brought forward strong in relief from the lurid background, the black and towering cones of Gulane hill and Berwick's lofty law--that landmark of the German sea--but all was still, and not a branch stirring in the leafless woods, when silently and noiselessly, all well armed, masked, and muffled in their mantles, the guests of the lord of Whittinghame assembled under the sepulchral shadow of a great and venerable yew-tree, that still stands near the castle wall, and is pointed out to the curious as the scene of their meeting.

Thick and impervious, the yew cast its umbrageous shade above them, and formed a fitting canopy for such a conclave of darkness and desperation; and heavily the chill dew dripped from the pendant branches.

There were present four peers and several of the lesser barons; Argyle, the proud but wavering Huntly, and Morton, cool and determined, and Bothwell, now the arch conspirator and Cataline of the conclave, with knit brows and clenched hands; a bloodless cheek, and lips compressed and pallid; a tongue that trembled alternately between the very load of eloquence that oppressed it, and the darkness of the purpose to which that dangerous eloquence was directed.

How little did some of these conspirators divine the other sentiment, so wild and guilty, that was making public utility an excuse for regicide; and that filled with an agony, almost amounting to suffocation, the breast of Scotland's greatest earl.

Near him stood his friend and evil mentor, that double-tongued master of intrigue and prince of plotters, Maitland the secretary, with his broad and massive brow, so high, so pale, and intellectual, his eagle eye and thin lips; and black Ormiston, the muscular and strong, whose qualities were those of the body only--the iron baron of his time, unscrupulous and bloodthirsty; from childhood inured to rapine, strife, and slaughter; while Bolton, the young and handsome, inspired to seek all the vengeance that rivalry and scorned love could prompt, was by turns as fierce as Morton, as politic and cruel as Maitland, as sullen as Argyle.

And there in whispers, under that old sepulchral yew, was debated and resolved on that deed of treason, of darkness, and of horror, that from Scotland's capital was to send forth an echo over Europe--an echo that would never die--the murder of King Henry, as a fool and tyrant, who had rendered himself intolerable to the people. What passed is unknown, for history has failed to record it; and not even the voluminous rolls of Magister Absalom Beyer can supply the blank, save in one instance. Ormiston, with a treachery at which we blush in a Scottish baron, proposed that the Norwegian prisoner in Holyrood might easily be made a valuable tool in the affair; and that, by some adroitness, the whole blame of the projected assassination might be thrown upon him. This motion, which exactly suited his own ideas and taste, was warmly applauded by the Earl of Morton, and agreed to by the others, who cared not a jot about the matter.

The die was cast--the deed resolved on.

Then from beneath his mantle, the learned knight of Pittendriech, the Lord President of the supreme court, (a man still famous for his works on Scottish law,) drew forth a parchment, written and prepared with more than legal accuracy, and more than wolfish cruelty, by which they each and all bound themselves to stand by each other, in weal or woe, in victory or triumph, in defeat and death, with tower and vassal, life and limb; and to this bond they each in succession placed their seals and marks, or signatures; and feebly fell the light of a flickering taper on their pale visages and fierce eyes, as they appended their dishonoured titles to that Draconian deed, which the pale secretary received, and put up in his secret pocket, with such a smile as Satan would have done the assignment of their souls.[*]

[*] Mr. Carte, from a letter of Monsieur de Fenelon, 5th January, 1574, acquaints us, that Ormiston confessed that the Earl of Bothwell shewed him a paper subscribed by the Earls of Argyle, Huntly, and Morton, Sir James Balfour, and Secretary Maitland, promising him assistance in murdering the king. Various other authors give us proofs of the existence of the document.--See _Goodal_, vol. i.

Now with some precipitation they all prepared to separate.

"Farewell, laird of Whittinghame!" said Bothwell, as he leaped upon his horse, feeling that the probable excitement of a hard gallop would be a relief from his own thoughts, or more congenial with their impetuosity; "and farewell, my lords and gentlemen! Now for the bloody game, and Scotland be thou my chess-board of battle! There shall I make knights and queens, and rooks and pawns, to move at my will, and to vanish when I list. Mount, Ormiston! and ho--for Edinburgh!"

*CHAPTER XXIII.*

*THE MOTHER AND HER CHILD.*

_Victorian_. Let me hear thy voice, and I am happy;
For every tone, like some secret incantation,
Calls up the buried past to plead for me--
Speak my beloved--speak onto my heart,
Whatever fills and agitates thine own.
_The Spanish Student, Act III._

With the dogged resolution of one who neither will nor knows how to swerve from a purpose, Bothwell, with Ormiston and Bolton, laid their plans with Morton and others for the accomplishment of their terrible compact.

Any qualms the Earl had, were nearly stifled by the intelligence of Mary's complete reconciliation with her husband, for whom all her natural tenderness, as the first love and choice of her heart, returned; and, notwithstanding the loathly and disfiguring disease under which he laboured, and the great personal risk incurred by herself, like a "ministering angel" she hung over the sick-bed of the repentant profligate, who frequently implored her pardon and forgiveness--and in tears poor Mary blessed and forgave him.

Exaggerated tidings of these passages fired the fierce soul of the Earl with jealousy and wrath, at what he deemed the mere caprice of a pretty woman; but the gage had been thrown to fate, and a cloud was gathering over Mary's thorny crown, which as yet she neither saw nor felt.

His youth, and the natural strength of his constitution, enabled the young king to surmount that disease which had baffled the skill of Maitre Picauet, the half quack, half astrologer leech, who attended him; and, as soon as he was convalescent, the queen had him conveyed in a soft litter, by easy stages, to the capital, hoping that by the luxuries procurable there, the purity of the air, and better attendance, he might be fully restored to health and to her.

Upon this the conspirators, still alive to their intentions, sent the Lord President of the College of Justice to make offer of an ancient mansion that was situated on rising ground to the southward of Edinburgh, exposed to the pure breeze beyond the city walls, from the woods of the burgh-muir, and the beautiful sheet of water which they bordered. The unsuspecting Mary gratefully accepted the courteous offer, and there the poor young king was conveyed to----die.

This house belonged to the Lord President's brother, Robert Balfour, Provost of "the Collegiate Kirk of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Fields." It had long been uninhabited; and was situated, says Buchanan, in a lonesome and solitary place, between the ruins of two churches, "where no noise or outcry could be heard." It stood without the city walls, on the site now occupied by Drummond Street.

Small, ancient, and massive, it was probably coeval with its church, which had been built in 1220 by Alexander II. Its front faced the west; and from thence a view from the windows extended over fields to the hamlet of Lauriston. Its northern gable was so close to the strong wall of the city, that its principal door was but one pace distant from an arched postern which is still discernible in the former, and was then flanked by a massive tower. To the westward lay the Kirk-of-Field, a great cross church with buttressed walls and pointed windows, for so it is shown in a print of 1544. To the eastward lay the ruins of the Dominican monastery, which had been burned down in 1528. Of these the fragment of a tower still survived, with an ancient gate, bearing in Saxon characters the same legend still remaining to this day in the wall of the Kirk-of-Field Wynd, which now bears another name--

Ave Maria, gratia plena Dominus Terum,

_i.e._, "Hail Mary! full with grace--the Lord be with you." On the south the fields extended to the spacious common muir of the city, which was shaded by many a Druid oak; and to the eastward the ground descended suddenly into the lonely valley at the foot of Salisbury craigs. To the north lay the long line of the city ramparts, with the barrier-portes of the Kirk-of-Field and Bristo, with their round arches flanked by strong towers, where the brass culverins scowled through deep embrasures, and the heads of Rizzio's minor murderers grinned on iron spikes.

The humble dwelling in which Mary's incaution and the conspirators' cunning had lodged the young king, was a two-storied house; a small corridor, having a room on each side, led to a tower behind, wherein (after the Scottish fashion) a circular stair gave access to the upper story, which contained but two apartments, corresponding with two on the ground floor.

Darnley occupied one; the queen had the chamber below, and beneath it were those vaults of which the conspirators made a use so fatal; on the south lay a spacious garden shaded by many venerable fruit-trees, which had been reared by prebendaries of St. Mary.

It was now the month of February, 1567.

Thaws, and the increasing heat of the sun, had dispelled the snow from moor and mountain side, though a little still lingered on the peaks of the beautiful Pentlands. The atmosphere was teeming with humid vapours, and the ice that had so long bound the loch of the city, had been dissipated, and once more the snowy swan and the sable coot floated on its azure bosom. The thatch on the cottage roofs of Lauriston was once again of emerald green, and the tufted grass began to droop, where for the past winter the icicle had hung.

Each morning, as he rose above Arthur's Seat, the sun shone more merrily on the barred windows of the close chamber where the sick king lay; and he heard the voices of the mavis and merle, as they sang on the dewy trees of the ancient orchard. A showery Candlemas-tide had come and gone, unmarked by ceremony or prayer; but old people congratulated each other on the prospect of a beautiful spring, as they repeated the ancient saw--

"Gif Candlemass is fair and clear,
We'll hae twa winters in the year;"

and merrily the hoodie-crow cawed in the blue sky, and the sparrow twittered on the budding hedges, while the ploughman whistled on the rigs of Lauriston and St. Leonard, and urged through the teeming earth their old Scottish ploughs, that were drawn by four oxen, and had but one stilt, like those described by Virgil in his first Georgic.

Darnley was slowly recovering, and the young queen, animated perhaps more by pity than affection, still attended him with an assiduity that was no less remarkable than praiseworthy. One of his pages slept constantly in the chamber, and was ever at his call by day and by night; while Mary, when not attending the council at Holyrood, with a few attendants occupied the rooms below.

Many of the nobles came to the house daily, and Bothwell among them, making dutiful enquiries concerning the progress of the king's illness rather than his health; for many of them hoped he yet would die, and so save them from the guilty deed designed.

It was the evening of the 10th February, and every part of the plan for the accomplishment of the king's destruction was in progress: an opportunity alone was waited.

In the antechamber of his apartment, a little room, hung with some of that rich arras which Mary had brought with her from France, she was seated with the young prince upon her knee--then a flaxen-haired and hazel-eyed infant of eight months. Mary was paler than usual; for many a night-watch by Darnley's fever couch had injured her health, and increased that pain of which she so frequently complained, in her side. The prince's nurse or governess, Annabella of Tullibardine, the venerable Countess of Mar, attired in a great tub fardingale of black brocaded satin, and a towering linen coif of Queen Margaret's days, leaned on the back of Mary's chair, toying with the infant, and making it crow and smile.

Bolton, as lieutenant of the archers, stood in the recess of a window at the lower end of the room, accoutred in half armour, and having his helmet lying near him; and Bothwell, clad in black velvet, magnificently embroidered with Venetian gold, his sword and waistbelt, his poniard and bonnet blazing with jewels, as his blue velvet mantle did with spangles, stood in another, clanking his gold spurs, and pointing his well-perfumed and pomatumed mustaches; for, however deep and deadly his projects, he now never omitted an opportunity of appearing to the best advantage in Mary's presence; and on this evening nothing could surpass the splendour of his aspect and the gallantry of his air.

How little could Mary conceive the guilty hopes then animating his proud heart, and the dark purposes concealed under an exterior so prepossessing!

"My Lady Mar!" said she, stopping suddenly in her play with the infant, on whom she was pouring all that maternal tenderness, which was the stronger because there was no other object with whom to share her love; "how goeth the time? Is it the hour at which Picauet the leech desired his grace to receive the ptisan?"

"I have no horologue," replied the aged Countess. "Beside, I deem them the work of sorcerers; but Sir John Hepburn can see the dial-stone at the corner there. What sayeth the gun?"

"'Tis three by the dial, noble lady," replied the archer, peering through the grated casement.

"_Jesu!_" exclaimed the Queen; "_comme le temps passe_! 'Tis time I were busking me for Sebastian's bridal. Lord Bothwell--thou knowest the Chevalier Sebastian? He is one of my foreign musicians, who is to be wedded to-night at Holyrood, where, in the old fashion, I have promised to put the bride to bed. _Ma foi!_ but 'tis droll!"

"Indeed!" responded the Earl, scarcely knowing what he said.

"What! hast thou not heard that I am to give a ball in consequence, despite Knox and his rebellious sermons? Did not the master of the household, Sir Gilbert Balfour, invite thee?"

"True, madam; but I have to keep a tryst with the Knight of Ormiston, which will--will preclude, as thou--pardon me, I mean your Majesty, will perceive"---- The Earl paused; he was seriously embarrassed, and his face became deadly pale; but he was relieved on the arras covering the door of Darnley's chamber being softly raised, and a slight but handsome page--a pale and delicate boy--richly attired in a jaquette of carnation velvet, laced and buttoned with gold, with his well-rounded legs encased in white silk hosen--appeared, and said in a low and hurried voice--

"Madam--his majesty is asking for the ptisan ordered by your physician, Martin de Picauet."

"It will be ready in a minute," said the stately old noblewoman, as she peered with her keen eyes into a silver pot, which had been simmering on the warm hearthstone, and contained one of those medicinal decoctions for which the dames of other days were so famous--a notable ptisan, made of barley boiled with raisins, liquorice, and other ingredients, which she carefully stirred widdershins; that is, the reverse of the sun's course, otherwise its whole power, virtue, and efficacy, would have been lost. "Lord Bothwell," said she, "wilt thou favour me so far as to see that his grace takes the whole of this, my medicated draught?"

"I assure you, noble madam, that my good friend Bolton is much more of a nurse, and hath more of a lady's nature, than I," replied the Earl, who found it impossible, at one and the same time, to love Mary and sympathize with her husband, whom he sincerely wished to take his speedy departure to a better world. Mary gave him one keen, reproachful glance; but Hepburn, who was anxious to behold, but with no compassionate eye, the man whom he had doomed to destruction--for the memory of the night-scene in the garden of Holyrood still rankled in his memory--that night, since when he had never seen his loved and lost Mariette, for the profligate king had spirited her away. Now the full glow of hatred rose darkly in his haughty and resentful heart; so, taking from the countess the old peg-tankard containing the ptisan, he raised the arras and entered the chamber of Darnley; but almost at the same moment the page and the anxious old countess followed.

Bothwell, who had been relieved by the presence of others, now trembled; for the continual restraint he imposed upon his ardour, made him feel how dangerous was the predicament in which he stood. Should he not shun this dark temptation, that was gradually verging him, like a rudderless ship, on the shoals of destruction? Should he not fly the witcheries of Mary, and the charm of her presence, while he yet had the power? No! For the hatred he cherished against Darnley, the secret favour which he fondly imagined was borne him in Mary's heart, his own unbounded ambition and haughty pride, all forbade such a measure.

His better angel wept, and Bothwell stayed!

He drew nearer the queen.

There, in the full glory of the setting sun, in the curtained recess of that tall pointed window, sat the young and royal mother, in all the bloom of four-and-twenty, and the charms of her innocence and beauty. The little prince (he who, in future times, would "a twofold ball and treble sceptre carry,") lay in her lap, pulling with his dimpled hands the massive tresses of her bright auburn hair, that, like the softest silk, unbound by his playfulness, rolled over her thick ruff, and pure alabaster neck.

The Earl thought her more beautiful and touching in her maternity, then she seemed when in all her maiden loveliness at the court of the Tournelles. Mary, who felt a little confused on finding herself alone with one to whose secret hopes she was now no stranger, never once raised her dark eyes to the glowing face that she knew full well was bent with ardour upon her; and, though secure in the innocence of her own heart, she felt that she was in a dangerous vicinity; and, blushing at the recollection of the garden scene, never once addressed the Earl, who, restrained by etiquette, remained silent and in his place, playing with the gold tassel of his long rapier.

How loveable, how amiable Mary seemed, and how different from her cousin of England, the puissant Elizabeth; in her cold and stale virginity--her old maiden folly, and youthful frippery; her dancing at seventy years of age before the ambassadors of Scotland and Spain, to shew how very young she was!

As the Earl gazed upon Mary, love filled his mind with the most glittering illusions, and cast a halo round her that dazzled bun. He almost fancied himself the husband of the beautiful being before him, and the father of the little cherub on her knee; a glow, to which his heart had yet been a stranger, swelled up within it, as the brief hallucination became more complete. His passing flame for Anna and his Countess--his schemes of power and grandeur--were all forgotten and merged in the joy that filled his bosom. There was something almost pure and holy in it; and he felt, that were he really what he strove to imagine himself, he would become an altered man--he could for evermore be good, and just, and saintly.

The sound of a shrill silver whistle (there were then no handbells) from the next room where Darnley lay sick, dispelled the illusion; the queen hurriedly placed her babe in its cradle of carved oak, and hastened away, with buoyancy in her step, and anxiety in her eye.

Dark as midnight was the expression that lowered on Bothwell's brow, when thus brought suddenly back to the world of realities, and, like a flood, the stern compact made under that baleful yew at Whittinghame--that doubly attested bond of blood--the danger to be dared and the deed to be done, all rushed upon his memory, and he smote his pale forehead, as with confusion and agony he staggered under the very gush of his own dreadful thoughts.

But there was no time to be lost.

The sun was verging towards the Pentland's western peaks. He had to meet his friends at the lodging of the laird of Ormiston in the High Street, for much had yet to be done ere.......

He thrust away the thought, and, bowing to the Countess of Mar, drew his mantle about him and rushed away.

*CHAPTER XXIV.*

*THE KING'S PAGE.*

And thou, my heart,
That idly tremblest at the thought of death,
Soon in the tomb thy anxious pulse shall cease
To slumber in eternal rest.
_Panthea, a Tragedy._

The chamber was dark, for its grated windows faced the east, and the time was evening; the curtains were half drawn, to exclude the light, which was already partly secluded by a great gloomy bastel-house of the town rampart. The walls of the room were panneled, and, like the ceiling, painted with a variety of grotesque designs, amid which, as usual, the thistle and fleur-de-lys bore conspicuous places; but, according to the ancient and primitive mode, the floor was strewn with green rushes, freshly pulled from the margin of the neighbouring lake.[*]

[*] Hentzner, in his _Itineray_, writing of Queen Elizabeth's chamber at Greenwich, says, "the floor, after the English mode, was strewed with _hay_," evidently meaning rushes--See _Brand_.

The young king was sleeping heavily and uneasily.

Raised upon a dais of steps, his bed was ancient and massive; the posts, of walnut-tree, were covered with quaint designs, and carved into four tall figures, having the heads of men, with eagle's wings and lion's bodies; rising from pedestals, they seemed like dusky demons upholding the canopy of a tomb; for the festoons of the bed were of crimson velvet, flowered by the fair hands of Mary and her ladies; the seats of the high-backed chairs were all of the same costly materials.

Sharpened and attenuated by disease, Darnley's features glimmered in the subdued light, like those of a rigid corpse; and the myriad pustules incident to the hideous ailment under which he suffered, were apparent to the louring eye of Bolton, who, remembering that night in the garden of Holyrood, gazed upon him with sensations akin to those of a tigress robbed of her cubs; and the age was not one when men sat placidly under a sense of wrong, or repressed their impulses either of good or evil.

He gave the goblet to the page, whose hand trembled, and whose eye was averted as he received it; then, creeping softly to the side of the slumberer, he placed an arm affectionately under his head, raised it, awoke him, and placed the ptisan to his parched lips, and thirstily Darnley drank of the grateful beverage.

At that moment a ray of sunset, reflected from the wall of the adjacent bastel-house, lit up the chamber, and the hollow recess of that great bed, where the kingly sufferer lay; and through the disguise of a page's jaquette and ruff, the trunk hosen and shorn hair, Bolton recognised Mariette Hubert--his lost, his fallen Mariette, with her arm round Darnley's head, that head pressed against her breast; and this was under his own eyes.

He gave an involuntary start--an exclamation rose to his lips, but died there; and all he had lately heard of this false page's tenderness and assiduity, flashed like fire upon his memory, and his hand wandered to the halft of his dagger, for grimly the thoughts of assassination and revenge floated before him.

Darnley kissed her hand as he sank back exhausted; thus showing that he was aware of her sex, and a blindness seemed to fall upon the eyes of Bolton, for he had loved that French coquette with all the depth and truth of a brave and romantic heart; but the sight of all this tenderness lavished on a rival, and the consciousness that Mariette, whom he would have raised to the rank of a Scottish baron's wife, was content to be the mistress of this profligate king, entered like ice into his heart. There was a terrible expression in his face, when Mariette gave him one furtive glance of her timid eyes, and saw that she was discovered.

Fascinated and terrified by the sad and tender, yet serpent-like gaze of her former lover, she dared not remove her eyes; but sank down on the dais of the bed, and, clasping her hands, said in a low voice,--

"Ah, monsieur! forgive me? If ever thou didst love, in pity now forgive me! Thou knowest not what I have endured since I wronged thee--and how I have endeavoured to atone for it"----

"By such a scene as this?" replied Bolton, with a bitter smile; "but enough! I hope his majesty hath enjoyed his draught of the ptisan; for I doubt mickle if my Lady Mar will make such another browst--for _him_ at least."

"Dost thou think he will die?" asked Mariette, breathlessly.

"_Not_ of the fever!" replied Bolton, grimly. "But be true to thy charge, Mademoiselle Hubert--anon I will be with thee."

"Thou--when?" asked Mariette, gathering courage from his stoical coldness of manner.

"_To-night!_" he replied, with a smile that terrified her, as he took the ptisan cap from her passive hand, and left the chamber by a door opposite to that by which he had entered.

There was an agony in his heart that impelled him to seek solitude. Descending the turnpike stair by three steps at a time, and issuing into the fields, he traversed the path that led under the city walls towards the Porte of St. Mary's Wynd.

The shadows of evening deepened into those of night, and the hour approached when Mary was to set forth to attend the espousal of her favourite damsel, Margaret Corewood, to Sebastian the musician; which ceremony, with her usual love of gaiety and society, she resolved to celebrate by a ball, or, as it was then named, a _hall_.

A strong instance of Mary's returning love for her husband, was this night evinced by her leaving the hall at nine o'clock, and hurrying back to the lonely house of the Kirk-of-Field, with a few attendants, to visit him once more before the dancing began.

Whether the marriage of Margaret Corewood had brought back the memory of their own, in all its first freshness, in Mary's ardent mind, or that joy to behold the changed manner and subdued aspect of her haughty and profligate husband, had rekindled her early love for him, is unknown; but this last interview between them was marked by unusual tenderness.

She kissed him repeatedly, soothed him by her winning and playful manner--and, placing a valuable ring upon his hand, blessed him with fervour; and then, with a light heart and a happy spirit, hurried away to finish the festivities at Holyrood, and "put the bride to bed."

The malevolent Buchanan, who, forgetful of many a favour, was Mary's bitterest enemy, and but for whose elegant Latin the vulgar Edinburgh gossip of 1567 would never have reached us, states, that during this interview the queen was aware that the conspirators were placing powder in the chambers below. But the depositions taken in the presence of the Lords of the Secret Council evince the contrary; and Camden assures us, that Buchanan, on his death-bed, deplored with tears the falsehoods he had handed down to posterity.

It is remarkable that a presentiment of his approaching fate haunted the mind of the young king, who frequently said that he knew he was to be slain. He became sad and thoughtful; and, chanting the 55th Psalm, fell asleep with his head on the shoulder of Mariette Hubert.

*CHAPTER XXV.*

*IN THREE HOURS IT WILL BE TIME.*

Thou sure and firm-set earth!
Hear not my footsteps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,
And take the present horror from a time
Which now suits with it.
_Macbeth._

Evening drew on, while, buried in deep thought, the Earl walked from the house of the Kirk-of-Field, without knowing whence his steps led, until he found himself on the hill of St. Leonard, where the ruined chapel, dedicated to that holy hermit, overlooked the deep and grassy vale that lay between it and the imposing craigs of Salisbury, whose brows of rugged basalt towered up against the blue sky in rigid outline.

All around these ruins was desolate and bare; and, save a few sheep browsing on the sprouting herbage, there was no living thing near him. Bothwell could hear the pulses of his heart. He leant against the shaft of Umfraville's cross--a time-worn relic of antiquity, that in those days stood on the pathway near the chapel; and, folding his arms in his mantle, endeavoured to compose and arrange the tumult of his thoughts.

The spring evening was serene, and the scenery beautiful. Afar off, amid a blaze of saffron, the sun's flaming circle seemed to rest on the western flank of the magnificent Pentland chain; and each mountain came forward in strong warm light, while the valleys between were veiled in shadow.

The sound of a distant bell fell on the ear of the Earl.

"Seven o'clock," said he; "in three hours it will be time!"

Sheltered by towering hills, and overhung by the aspiring city, he saw the old monastic palace, sleeping, as it were, at the bottom of a dell, all seemed so still around it; and far beyond lay the dark blue German sea, dotted with the sails of Flemish crayers and galleys of Rochelle; but its bosom grew darker as the daylight died away behind the distant hills.

The shadows grew longer and darker, and obscurity veiled the valley where the palace lay.

Full upon Edina's castled rock and all her lofty hills, fell the last light of the western sun, from between glowing bars of golden cloud; and their giant shadows, broad, vast, and dewy, were thrown to the eastward, becoming, as the sun sunk, longer and longer, till they reached the ocean, that rolled upon the almost desert shore of the Figgate muir. The gradual fading of the light amid the mountain solitude that overhung the city, soothed and saddened the Earl, for the spot was wild and lonely; the black eagle and the osprey then built their nests in the craigs of Salisbury; and the red fox and the dun fuimart reared their cubs undisturbed in the valley below.

He felt an agitation and a compunction hitherto unknown, in his bosom; and, as the day faded, he watched its decline with the anxiety of a man who was to die at nightfall.

The shadows ascended from the low places to the higher, rising slowly, surely, broadly, like a transparent tide, on the trunks of the lofty oaks that shaded the city muir, on the slopes of Arthur's Seat and Samson's stony ribs, on St. Giles's diademed tower, and the castle's bannered keep--up, up the Pentlands' sides it crept slowly and silently, the coming night (that night which was never to be forgotten by him), till the last gleam of the west died away on the heath-clad peak of Torduff, the loftiest of that magnificent chain of mountains.

It was gone! the whole hills were sunk in sombre shadow; the evening star began to twinkle above the ruined spire of St. Mary's Kirk, and night and silence stole upon the world together.

"Would this night were over!" muttered the Earl, passing his hand across his clammy brow. "Would to God it were!--God! how dare I to name _him_?".....

He gave one long, keen glance at the distant house of the Kirk-of-Field, and saw its lofty outline, with crowstepped roofs and turnpike tower, standing in dark relief between him and the blushing west; a light was beginning to twinkle in one of the apartments.

It was from that where Darnley lay.

Already, with remorse, Bothwell thought of poor Konrad of Saltzberg; for aware that, in its first fury, the popular vengeance would require some victim to glut its outpouring, Ormiston--ever cool, calculating and ruthless--had recommended, as we have stated, that the friendless foreigner should be involved in that night's deed of darkness; and rendered almost blindly selfish, in the magnitude of the risk about to be incurred by himself and so many great nobles, he had assented to this additional act of cruelty.

"Alms, noble Earl, for God and our blessed Lady's sake!" said a voice near the ruined cross. Bothwell started and turned, and encountered the reverend figure of Sir James Tarbet, leaning on a long staff; and stung to the soul by the momentary contemplation of this old man's poverty and humility, when contrasted with his own pride and guilt, he turned abruptly away.

"Thou hast not heeded me, Lord Earl," said the old man; "but may they whose names I implored, bless thee not the less."

Touched by this resignation, he approached the poor priest with averted eyes.

"Alms, sir! for the sake of the soul of old Earl Adam of Bothwell; had he been alive, I had not needed to crave them to-day. He fell by my side at Flodden; and this poor hand was raised to save him from the English billmen."

Bothwell hurriedly placed his purse in the withered fingers of the priest; and thus, with the greatest of all human virtues in his hand, and the blackest of all human crimes in his heart, he drew his bonnet over his eyes, and at a rapid pace, as if he would leave his own fierce ambition and desperate thoughts behind him, began to descend the hill of St. Leonard, towards the palace of Holyrood, where a line of brilliantly illuminated windows recalled to his memory the royal ball given in honour of the nuptials of Sebastian.

*CHAPTER XXVI.*

*THE OLD TOWNE OF HOLYROOD.*

Mine is the fortune of a simple child,
That in the glass his image looks upon;
And by the shadow of himself beguiled,
Breaks quick the brittle charm, and joy is gone.
So gazed I--and I deemed my joy would last--
On the bright image of my lady fair;
But ah! the dream of my delight is past,
And lore and rapture yield to dark despair.
_Henri of Morunge, the Minnesinger._

Above the northern shoulder of Arthur's Seat, the moon rose red and fiery. Slowly its lurid circle cleared the ridge of the darkened mountain, and ascended into the grey sky, through which the clouds were hurrying, like banners of black crape.

Konrad watched it from a slit in the prison wall where he was confined; and even that slit, though scarcely four inches broad, was secured by a cross bar of iron; and the pale moonlight and the cold wind played on his face together, as they penetrated his strong chamber in the Albany tower, and served but to make it seem more comfortless and desolate.

He was alone now; for Father Tarbet had been released, and "expelled the walls of the city, with all his idolatrous crosses and pictures."

He and Konrad had parted in sorrow, and now every night he missed the soothing prayers and kind consolations of the good old priest; and imagined, with pity and indignation, the insults to which he was certain of being exposed, when wandering in a Reformed and hostile land, without a shelter for his venerable head.

From many of the palace windows, bright flakes of light fell on the green holly-hedges and dewy grass of the royal gardens, and on the dusky buttresses and pointed windows of the chapel, throwing their steady radiance on the grim outline of James V.'s tower, and the aged sycamore that shaded its massive wall. A faint strain of music stole upon the soft night wind, and then died away.

Again it came, and the chapel's hollow aisles replied--again and again, through the opened casements, burst in full chorus the music of the queen's Italian singers performing Sebastian's bridal hymn.

The pulses of Konrad's enthusiastic heart rose and fell with the music; for he was borne away from himself on the stream of harmony that swept past him. The air resembled one that he had frequently heard Anna sing, and all her memory came rushing on his mind. Bowing his face upon his hands, he pressed his flushed brow against the rusty bars, and groaned aloud.

At that moment some one, who had entered his prison unheard, touched him on the shoulder. He started from his reverie, to be confronted by the same dark and colossal figure, that met his gaze on the night when he fell from the Terrace of Bergen into the Fiord below. Tall, dusky, and muffled in a mantle, he wore a black mask, partially concealing his face; but his bright, fierce eyes shown through it like red stars.

"Groaning--eh! art thou sick?" he asked.

"Yes--of life!"

"Faith! I thought it was the mulligrubs. God-den to thee, Konrad of Saltzberg--whilk I believe is thy title--'tis long since we have spoken; yet, methinks, thou mayest still remember me."

"I do, for mine enemy!" replied Konrad, whose indignation rose at the voice.

"Cock and pie! say not that," replied Ormiston; "for may the great devil spit me, if I owe thee any ill-will, or mean thee aught like mischief!"

"Then for what end dost thou seek me now? I have endured here exceeding misery. Who is there that has known sorrow without some relief--despair without hope--who, but I? An irresistible current of misfortunes has hurried me on, and--I am here--here, where I am almost forgetting the use of my limbs, while life is in its bloom; yea, and the very tone of my own voice. What have I done among ye, sirs, in this land of Scotland, to be treated thus?"

"By Jove! I can scarcely tell; but there are those about Holyrood who say, that keeping thee caged up here, is only feeding what ought to be hanged to feed the corbies; yet, if thou wouldest attain that liberty for which thou longest, do as I bid thee, and thou shalt escape to thine beloved Norway--God amend it! for the flavour of its sawdust bannocks and sour ale are yet fresh in my memory."

"Thou hast some selfish end of thine own to serve in this."

"By cock and pie! Sir Konrad, thou measurest thy friends by a low standard, especially such a long-limbed one as I. Thou canst not well be worse. Stay here, and thou wilt assuredly be hanged, whenever honest Gilbert Balfour, the Master of the Household, grows tired of feeding thee; follow me, and thou mayest escape."

"Thou sayest true; I cannot be worse; lead on--I follow thee!"

Ormiston gave him a mantle, unclasped the massive fetterlocks that secured his stiffened ankles, and led him down the narrow stair of the tower into the outer court of Holyrood, where Konrad almost tottered and fell, on finding himself fully exposed to the keen night wind of February; but black Ormiston, with rough kindness, forced him to take a draught from a hunting-flask that hung at his girdle, and then gave him a sword, saying,--

"If we are assailed, thou must stand by me!"

"To the death!" replied Konrad, as he grasped the sword, and felt his spirit rise with his old energy and ardour on finding himself once again armed, fetterless, and free. His sinews became strong; his bosom fired; his heart danced with joy; and, little dreaming of the treachery designed him, or the trap into which he was falling, he shook the strong hand of the gigantic Ormiston in token of confidence and thankfulness.

The greater part of the vast and irregular facade of Holyrood was buried in darkness; the buildings were of various heights and ages, the highest portion being that which now forms the north wing; and heavily its great round towers and corbelled battlements loomed against the murky sky.

The moon was now veiled by a cloud; scarcely a star was visible; and the chill wind whistled drearily in the empty courts, and through the low gothic cloisters built by St. David I. for the monks of the Holy Cross.

Passing James V.'s tower, Ormiston led Konrad to the southern doorway of the royal garden, and thereon he knocked thrice with the pommel of his long heavy sword.

"Who is without there?" asked a voice.

"One who would _keep tryst_!" replied Ormiston, using Bothwell's family motto--the parole agreed upon.

The gate was immediately opened, and six or seven men well muffled in dark mantles, and wearing swords and black velvet masks, came forth cautiously, one at a time. As they stepped into the palace-yard, the clank of steel made it apparent to Konrad that they were all well armed; and in their general bearing and aspect there was no mistaking them for any thing else than what they were--conspirators; and, though he knew them not, many of them were no other than the very men who had met beneath that baleful yew-tree at the castle of Whittinghame.

"'Tis high time we were fairly set forth!" said one, in whom, by his short stature and long beard, Ormiston recognised the Earl of Morton.

"True," added his vassal, the Laird of Whittinghame; "for the city horologue has struck ten, and by that hour the queen was to leave for Sebastian's ball."

"Bothwell, thou hast wisely changed all thine outward trumpery," said Ormiston.

"Behold," replied the Earl, displaying a coarse, canvass gaberdine above a coat-of-mail, for which he had exchanged his ball costume, "a pair of black velvet hoise, trimit with silver, and ane doublet of satin," as we are minutely informed by the _Depositions in Proesentia Dominorum Secreti Concilii_.

He carried in his hand a maul, to beat down doors or other obstructions.