The steward looked at him fixedly for a moment, with an air in which
suspicion and dislike were ill concealed by an affectation of
contempt. "The bragging cock-chicken," he said, "will betray himself
by his rash crowing. I have marked thy altered manner in the chapel of
late--ay, and your changing of glances at meal-time with a certain
idle damsel, who, like thyself, laughs at all gravity and goodness.
There is something about you, my master, which should be looked to.
But, if you would know whether the Lady of Lochleven, or that other
lady, hath a right to command thy service, thou wilt find them
together in the Lady Mary's ante-room."

Roland hastened thither, not unwilling to escape from the ill-natured
penetration of the old man, and marvelling at the same time what
peculiarity could have occasioned the Lady of Lochleven's being in the
Queen's apartment at this time of the afternoon, so much contrary to
her usual wont. His acuteness instantly penetrated the meaning. "She
wishes," he concluded, "to see the meeting betwixt the Queen and me on
my return, that she may form a guess whether there is any private
intelligence or understanding betwixt us--I must be guarded."

With this resolution he entered the parlour, where the Queen, seated
in her chair, with the Lady Fleming leaning upon the back of it, had
already kept the Lady of Lochleven standing in her presence for the
space of nearly an hour, to the manifest increase of her very visible
bad humour. Roland Graeme, on entering the apartment, made a deep
obeisance to the Queen, and another to the Lady, and then stood still
as if to await their farther question. Speaking almost together, the
Lady Lochleven said, "So, young man, you are returned at length?"

And then stopped indignantly short, while the Queen went on without
regarding her--"Roland, you are welcome home to us--you have proved
the true dove and not the raven--Yet I am sure I could have forgiven
you, if, once dismissed, from this water-circled ark of ours, you had
never again returned to us. I trust you have brought back an
olive-branch, for our kind and worthy hostess has chafed herself much
on account of your long absence, and we never needed more some symbol
of peace and reconciliation."

"I grieve I should have been detained, madam," answered the page; "but
from the delay of the person intrusted with the matters for which I
was sent, I did not receive them till late in the day."

"See you there now," said the Queen to the Lady Lochleven; "we could
not persuade you, our dearest hostess, that your household goods were
in all safe keeping and surety. True it is, that we can excuse your
anxiety, considering that these august apartments are so scantily
furnished, that we have not been able to offer you even the relief of
a stool during the long time you have afforded us the pleasure of your
society."

"The will, madam," said the lady, "the will to offer such
accommodation was more wanting than the means."

"What!" said the Queen, looking round, and affecting surprise, "there
are then stools in this apartment--one, two--no less than four,
including the broken one--a royal garniture!--We observed them
not--will it please your ladyship to sit?"

"No, madam, I will soon relieve you of my presence," replied the Lady
Lochleven; "and while with you, my aged limbs can still better brook
fatigue, than my mind stoop to accept of constrained courtesy."

"Nay, Lady of Lochleven, if you take it so deeply," said the Queen,
rising and motioning to her own vacant chair, "I would rather you
assumed my seat--you are not the first of your family who has done
so."

The Lady of Lochleven curtsied a negative, but seemed with much
difficulty to suppress the angry answer which rose to her lips.

During this sharp conversation, the page's attention had been almost
entirely occupied by the entrance of Catherine Seyton, who came from
the inner apartment, in the usual dress in which she attended upon the
Queen, and with nothing in her manner which marked either the hurry or
confusion incident to a hasty change of disguise, or the conscious
fear of detection in a perilous enterprise. Roland Graeme ventured to
make her an obeisance as she entered, but she returned it with an air
of the utmost indifference, which, in his opinion, was extremely
inconsistent with the circumstances in which they stood towards each
other.--"Surely," he thought, "she cannot in reason expect to bully me
out of the belief due to mine own eyes, as she tried to do concerning
the apparition in the hostelry of Saint Michael's--I will try if I
cannot make her feel that this will be but a vain task, and that
confidence in me is the wiser and safer course to pursue."

These thoughts had passed rapidly through his mind, when the Queen,
having finished her altercation with the Lady of the castle, again
addressed him--"What of the revels at Kinross, Roland Graeme?
Methought they were gay, if I may judge from some faint sounds of
mirth and distant music, which found their way so far as these grated
windows, and died when they entered them, as all that is mirthful
must--But thou lookest as sad as if thou hadst come from a conventicle
of the Huguenots!"

"And so perchance he hath, madam," replied the Lady of Lochleven, at
whom this side-shaft was lanched. "I trust, amid yonder idle
fooleries, there wanted not some pouring forth of doctrine to a better
purpose than that vain mirth, which, blazing and vanishing like the
crackling of dry thorns, leaves to the fools who love it nothing but
dust and ashes."

"Mary Fleming," said the Queen, turning round and drawing her mantle
about her, "I would that we had the chimney-grate supplied with a
fagot or two of these same thorns which the Lady of Lochleven
describes so well. Methinks the damp air from the lake, which
stagnates in these vaulted rooms, renders them deadly cold."

"Your Grace's pleasure shall be obeyed," said the Lady of Lochleven;
"yet may I presume to remind you that we are now in summer?"

"I thank you for the information, my good lady," said the Queen; "for
prisoners better learn their calender from the mouth of their jailor,
than from any change they themselves feel in the seasons.--Once more,
Roland Graeme, what of the revels?"

"They were gay, madam," said the page, "but of the usual sort, and
little worth your Highness's ear."

"Oh, you know not," said the Queen, "how very indulgent my ear has
become to all that speaks of freedom and the pleasures of the free.
Methinks I would rather have seen the gay villagers dance their ring
round the Maypole, than have witnessed the most stately masques within
the precincts of a palace. The absence of stone-wall--the sense that
the green turf is under the foot which may tread it free and
unrestrained, is worth all that art or splendour can add to more
courtly revels."

"I trust," said the Lady Lochleven, addressing the page in her turn,
"there were amongst these follies none of the riots or disturbances to
which they so naturally lead?"

Roland gave a slight glance to Catherine Seyton, as if to bespeak her
attention, as he replied,--"I witnessed no offence, madam, worthy of
marking--none indeed of any kind, save that a bold damsel made her
hand somewhat too familiar with the cheek of a player-man, and ran
some hazard of being ducked in the lake."

As he uttered these words he cast a hasty glance at Catherine; but she
sustained, with the utmost serenity of manner and countenance, the
hint which he had deemed could not have been thrown out before her
without exciting some fear and confusion.

"I will cumber your Grace no longer with my presence," said the Lady
Lochleven, "unless you have aught to command me."

"Nought, our good hostess," answered the Queen, "unless it be to pray
you, that on another occasion you deem it not needful to postpone your
better employment to wait so long upon us."

"May it please you," added the Lady Lochleven, "to command this
your gentleman to attend us, that I may receive some account of these
matters which have been sent hither for your Grace's use?"

"We may not refuse what you are pleased to require, madam," answered
the Queen. "Go with the lady, Roland, if our commands be indeed
necessary to thy doing so. We will hear to-morrow the history of thy
Kinross pleasures. For this night we dismiss thy attendance."

Roland Graeme went with the Lady of Lochleven, who failed not to ask
him many questions concerning what had passed at the sports, to which
he rendered such answers as were most likely to lull asleep any
suspicions which she might entertain of his disposition to favour
Queen Mary, taking especial care to avoid all allusion to the
apparition of Magdalen Graeme, and of the Abbot Ambrosius. At length,
after undergoing a long and somewhat close examination, he was
dismissed with such expressions, as, coming from the reserved and
stern Lady of Lochleven, might seem to express a degree of favour and
countenance.

His first care was to obtain some refreshment, which was more
cheerfully afforded him by a good-natured pantler than by Dryfesdale,
who was, on this occasion, much disposed to abide by the fashion of
Pudding-burn House, where

  They who came not the first call.
  Gat no more meat till the next meal.

When Roland Graeme had finished his repast, having his dismissal from
the Queen for the evening, and being little inclined for such society
as the castle afforded, he stole into the garden, in which he had
permission to spend his leisure time, when it pleased him. In this
place, the ingenuity of the contriver and disposer of the walks had
exerted itself to make the most of little space, and by screens, both
of stone ornamented with rude sculpture, and hedges of living green,
had endeavoured to give as much intricacy and variety as the confined
limits of the garden would admit.

Here the young man walked sadly, considering the events of the day,
and comparing what had dropped from the Abbot with what he had himself
noticed of the demeanour of George Douglas. "It must be so," was the
painful but inevitable conclusion at which he arrived. "It must be by
his aid that she is thus enabled, like a phantom, to transport herself
from place to place, and to appear at pleasure on the mainland or on
the islet.--It must be so," he repeated once more; "with him she holds
a close, secret, and intimate correspondence, altogether inconsistent
with the eye of favour which she has sometimes cast upon me, and
destructive to the hopes which she must have known these glances have
necessarily inspired." And yet (for love will hope where reason
despairs) the thought rushed on his mind, that it was possible she
only encouraged Douglas's passion so far as might serve her mistress's
interest, and that she was of too frank, noble, and candid a nature,
to hold out to himself hopes which she meant not to fulfil. Lost in
these various conjectures, he seated himself upon a bank of turf which
commanded a view of the lake on the one side, and on the other of that
front of the castle along which the Queen's apartments were situated.

The sun had now for some time set, and the twilight of May was rapidly
fading into a serene night. On the lake, the expanded water rose and
fell, with the slightest and softest influence of a southern breeze,
which scarcely dimpled the surface over which it passed. In the
distance was still seen the dim outline of the island of Saint Serf,
once visited by many a sandalled pilgrim, as the blessed spot trodden
by a man of God--now neglected or violated, as the refuge of lazy
priests, who had with justice been compelled to give place to the
sheep and the heifers of a Protestant baron.

As Roland gazed on the dark speck, amid the lighter blue of the waters
which surrounded it, the mazes of polemical discussion again stretched
themselves before the eye of the mind. Had these men justly suffered
their exile as licentious drones, the robbers, at once, and disgrace,
of the busy hive? or had the hand of avarice and rapine expelled from
the temple, not the ribalds who polluted, but the faithful priests who
served the shrine in honour and fidelity? The arguments of Henderson,
in this contemplative hour, rose with double force before him; and
could scarcely be parried by the appeal which the Abbot Ambrosius had
made from his understanding to his feelings,--an appeal which he had
felt more forcibly amid the bustle of stirring life, than now when his
reflections were more undisturbed. It required an effort to divert his
mind from this embarrassing topic; and he found that he best succeeded
by turning his eyes to the front of the tower, watching where a
twinkling light still streamed from the casement of Catherine Seyton's
apartment, obscured by times for a moment as the shadow of the fair
inhabitant passed betwixt the taper and the window. At length the
light was removed or extinguished, and that object of speculation was
also withdrawn from the eyes of the meditative lover. Dare I confess
the fact, without injuring his character for ever as a hero of
romance?  These eyes gradually became heavy; speculative doubts on the
subject of religious controversy, and anxious conjectures concerning
the state of his mistress's affections, became confusedly blended
together in his musings; the fatigues of a busy day prevailed over the
harassing subjects of contemplation which occupied his mind, and he
fell fast asleep.

Sound were his slumbers, until they were suddenly dispelled by the
iron tongue of the castle-bell, which sent its deep and sullen sounds
wide over the bosom of the lake, and awakened the echoes of Bennarty,
the hill which descends steeply on its southern bank. Roland started
up, for this bell was always tolled at ten o'clock, as the signal for
locking the castle gates, and placing the keys under the charge of the
seneschal. He therefore hastened to the wicket by which the garden
communicated with the building, and had the mortification, just as he
reached it, to hear the bolt leave its sheath with a discordant crash,
and enter the stone groove of the door-lintel. "Hold, hold," cried the
page, "and let me in ere you lock the wicket." The voice of Dryfesdale
replied from within, in his usual tone of embittered sullenness, "The
hour is passed, fair master--you like not the inside of these
walls--even make it a complete holiday, and spend the night as well as
the day out of bounds."

"Open the door," exclaimed the indignant page, "or by Saint Giles I
will make thy gold chain smoke for it!"

"Make no alarm here," retorted the impenetrable Dryfesdale, "but keep
thy sinful oaths and silly threats for those that regard them--I do
mine office, and carry the keys to the seneschal.--Adieu, my young
master! the cool night air will advantage your hot blood."

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?"