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Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
 The Project Gutenberg eBook of Bothwell; or,
The Days of Mary Queen of Scots, Volume 3 (of
3)
 This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
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Title: Bothwell; or, The Days of Mary Queen of Scots, Volume 3

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Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOTHWELL; OR,

THE DAYS OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS, VOLUME 3 (OF 3) ***
 BOTHWELL:
OR,
THE DAYS OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.

BY JAMES GRANT, ESQ.,

AUTHOR OF
"THE ROMANCE OF WAR," "MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH CASTLE,"
"THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER," &c., &c.

IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.

LONDON:
PARRY & CO., LEADENHALL STREET.
MDCCCLI.

M'CORQUODALE AND CO., PRINTERS, LONDON.

WORKS, NEWTON.

CONTENTS OF VOL. III.

 CHAPTER

I. The-Kirk-Of-Field
II. The Midnight Mass
III. Guilt Levels All
IV. The Prebend of St. Giles
V. The Papists' Pillar
VI. Remorse
VII. The Rescue
VIII. The Challenge
IX. Ainslie's Supper
X. Hans and Konrad
XI. How Bothwell Made Use of the Bond
XII. Love and Scorn
XIII. The Cry
XIV. Hans' Patience is Rewarded
XV. The Legend of St. Mungo
XVI. Mary's Despair
XVII. The Bridal at Beltane
VIII. The Whirlpool
XIX. Bothwell and the Great Bear
XX. Christian Alborg
XXI. The Castellana
XXII. The Vain Resolution
XXIII. Retribution
XXIV. Malmö
——— Notes

BOTHWELL;
OR,
THE DAYS OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.

CHAPTER I.
THE KIRK-OF-FIELD.

They make me think upon the gunner's lintstock,

Which yielding forth a light about the size
And semblance of the glow-worm, yet applied
To powder, blew a palace into atoms.
Sent a young king—a young queen's mate, at least—
Into the air, as high as ere flew night-hawk,
And made such wild work in the realm of Scotland.
Auchindrane, Act ii.

There was not a sound heard in the mansion, which, at that moment,
had no other occupants than the doomed prince, his two pages, (or
chamber-cheilds as the Scots name them,) and five other attendants,
—William Taylor, Thomas Neilson, Simpson, Edwards, and a boy.
These occupied apartments at the extremity of the house, but on the
same floor with the king. All the other attendants had absconded, to
partake of the festivities at Holyrood, or had gone there in the
queen's retinue.
"French Paris—Nicholas Hubert," said Bothwell in a husky voice,
"the keys!"
Hubert produced them from beneath his mantle. They were a set
of false keys which had been made from waxen impressions of the
originals. The door was softly opened, and the conspirators entered
the lower ambulatory, on each side of which lay a vaulted chamber.
Bolton thought of Hubert's sister, and his heart grew sick; for the
brother knew not that his sister was at that time above them, in the
chamber of Darnley.
"Come, Master Konrad," said Ormiston, tapping him on the
shoulder; "if we are to be friends, assist us, and make thyself useful;
for we have little time to spare."
Thus urged, Konrad, though still in profound ignorance as to the
object of his companions, and the part he was acting, assisted
Ormiston and French Paris to unload the sumpter-horse, and to drag
the heavy mails within doors. These he supposed to contain plunder,
and then the whole mystery appeared unravelled. His companions
were robbers, and the solitary house, about and within which they
moved so stealthily, was their haunt and hiding-place. With affected
good-will he assisted to convey the mails into the vaults, where, some
hours before, Hubert had deposited a large quantity of powder,
particularly under the corner or ground stones of the edifice.
While they were thus employed, and while the ex-Lord Chancellor
and Whittinghame kept watch, the Earl and John of Bolton ascended
softly to the corridor of the upper story, where, by the dim light of a
small iron cresset that hung from the pointed ceiling, they saw Andro
Macaige, one of the king's pages, lying muffled in his mantle, and fast
asleep on a bench.
"Confusion!" said the Earl fiercely; "this reptile must be
destroyed, and I have lost my poniard!"
"Must both the pages die?" asked his companion, in a hollow
tone.
"Thou shalt soon see!" replied the Earl, who endeavoured, by
imitating Ormiston's careless and ruffian manner, to veil from his
friends, and from himself, the horror that was gradually paralysing his
heart.
They passed the sleeping page unheard, as the floor was freshly
laid with rushes, and entered the chamber of the young king—that
dimly-lighted chamber of sickness and suffering; where the
innumerable grotesque designs of some old prebend of St. Mary,
seemed multiplied to a myriad gibbering faces, as the faint and
flickering radiance of the night lamp played upon them. The great bed
looked like a dark sarcophagus, canopied by a sable pall; and the
king's long figure, covered by a white satin coverlet, resembled the
effigy of a dead man; and certainly the pale sharp outline of his
sleeping face, in no way tended to dispel the dreamy illusion.
Bothwell's fascinated gaze was riveted on him, but Bolton's
turned to the page, who was half seated and half reclined on the low
bed, and, though fast asleep, lay against the sick king's pillow, with
an arm clasping his head.
They seemed to have fallen asleep thus.
The thick dark hair of Mariette fell in disorder about her
shoulders; her cheeks were pale and blanched, and blistered by
weeping; her long and silky eyelashes were wet and matted with
tears; and there was more of despondency than affection in the air
with which she drooped beside the king. Her weariness of weeping
and sorrow had evidently given way to slumber.
Rage and jealousy swelled the heart of Bolton. He panted rather
than breathed; and though his long-desired hour of vengeance on
them both had come, he too was paralysed, trembling, and irresolute.
The Earl gave him a glance of uncertainty; but Bolton saw only
Mariette. Conscience whispered "to pause," while there was yet time;
but the bond had been signed, the stake laid, and to waver was to
die!
For a moment a blindness fell upon his eyes, and a sickness on
his heart; and the Earl said to Hepburn in a hollow accent—
"Thy poniard—thy poniard! Thou hast it! The king, the king! and I
will grasp this boy."
At that moment Mariette started, awoke, and uttered a shrill cry
of terror on perceiving two armed men with their faces masked.
The king turned uneasily in bed; and, filled with desperation by
the imminence of the danger, and the necessity for immediate action,
Bothwell approached, the couch. But either Darnley had been awake
(and watching them for some time,) or instantly became so, and with
all his senses about him; for like lightning he sprang from bed—his
long illness and attenuation making his lofty stature appear more
colossal; he snatched a sword, and, clad only in his shirt and pelisse,
rushed upon the intruders. On this, a frenzy seemed to take
possession of both conspirators.
Parrying a sword thrust with his mailed arm, Bothwell threw
himself upon the weak and powerless Darnley, and struck him down
by a blow of the maul he carried.
The wretched king uttered a piercing cry; another and another
succeeded, and Bothwell, animated by all the momentary fury of a
destroyer, stuffed a handkerchief violently into his mouth, and at that
moment he became insensible.
Meanwhile, Bolton, trembling with apprehension, jealousy, horror,
and (shall we say it?) love, clasped Mariette in his arms, and
endeavoured to stifle her cries; but she uttered shriek upon shriek,
till, maddened by fear and excitement, all the despair of the lover
became changed to hatred and clamorous alarm. A spirit of
destruction possessed his soul; his nerves seemed turned to iron, his
eyes to fire.
He became blind—mad!
He grasped her by the neck—(that delicate and adorable neck,
which it had once been a rapture to kiss, while he toyed with the dark
ringlets that shaded it)—and as his nervous grasp tightened, her
eyeballs protruded, her arms sank powerless, and her form became
convulsed.
She gave him one terrible glance that showed she recognised
him, and made one desperate effort to release herself, and to
embrace him.
"O Jesu Maria! spare me, dearest Hepburn—spare me! I love
thee still—I do—I do! Kill me not—destroy me not thus—thus—with all
my sins! Man—devil—spare me! God—God!"
She writhed herself from his hands, and sank upon the floor,
where, vibrating between time and eternity, she lay motionless and
still. Hepburn's senses were gone—yet he could perceive close by him
the convulsed form of the king, with Bothwell's handkerchief in his
throat. He was dead.
The terrible deed was done! They sprang away, stumbling over
the body of Macaige the page, whom Hay of Tallo had slain in the
corridor; and, descending the stairs almost at one bound, came
panting and breathless to the side of the cool and deliberate Morton,
who, with his sword drawn, stood near Ormiston, and superintended
the laying of a train to the powder in the vaults. Then, by the light of
the red-orbed moon, that streamed full upon them, did the startled
Konrad perceive that Bothwell and Bolton, whose masks were awry,
appeared stunned and bewildered. The eyes of the Earl were glazed
and haggard; his hands were clenched, and his brow knit with
horrible thoughts; his companion was like a spectre; his eyes rolled
fearfully, and his hair seemed stiffened and erect.
Konrad recognised them both, and immediately became aware
that some deed of darkness had been perpetrated.
"Thou hast done well!" said Ormiston, surveying them grimly.
"Well!" reiterated the Earl, in a sepulchral voice, as, overcome
and exhausted by the sudden revulsion of his terrible thoughts, he
leaned against the doorway. "Well! saidst thou? Oh, Hob Ormiston!
my very soul seemed at my finger-points when I grasped him. My
God! what am I saying? I was intoxicated—delirious! Cain—Cain!"
"Ah, Mariette!" groaned the repentant Bolton; "thy dying cry, and
the last glare of thy despairing eyes, will haunt me to my grave!"
"Cock and pie!" cried Ormiston, with astonishment and
exasperation; "have we here two bearded men, or two schulebairns
blubbering over their Latinities? May a thousand yelling fiends hurl ye
both to hell!" he added savagely. "Away! disperse—while I fire the
train. The match—the lunt! Hither, Paris—Hubert—thou French villain!
quick!"
"Separate!" said the Earl of Morton; "disperse—I go to Dalkeith
on the spur. Away!" and, leaping on the horse that had borne the
powder, this noble Earl, who at all times was extremely economical of
his own person, galloped away, and disappeared over the brae to the
southward.
Bothwell's olive face glowed for a moment, as he blew the slow
match and fired the train. Like a fiery serpent, it glowed along the
ground, flashed through the open doorway, and down the dark
corridor of the house, till it reached the vaulted chamber below that of
Darnley, and where the powder lay. Then there was a pause—but for
a moment only—for, lo'——
Broad, red, and lurid, on the shadowy night, through all the
grated windows of the house of the Kirk-of-Field, there flashed a
volume of light—dazzling and blinding light—eclipsing the full-orbed
moon and all the sparkling stars—revealing the forms of the shrinking
conspirators, and every surrounding object. Full on the massive
ramparts of the city, tufted with weeds and blackened by the smoke
of years, fell that sudden glow, revealing the strong embrasures that
stretched away into far obscurity, the grim bastel-house close by, with
its deep-mouthed gunport and peering culverin—on the ivied aisles of
Mary's lonely kirk—on the shattered tower of the Dominicans—and
displaying even for a gleam the distant woods of Merchiston. The
fields quaked—the walls of the mansion shook; and then came a roar,
as if the earth was splitting.
The solid masonry rent from copestone to foundation in a
hundred ruddy fissures; the massive vaults yawned and opened; the
window-gratings were torn asunder like gossamer webs; and a
gigantic column of fire and smoke, dust and stones, ascended into the
air, as if vomited from the mouth of a volcano, to descend in ruin and
darkness on the earth; and a vast pile of rubbish was all that
remained of the house of St. Mary-in-the-Fields!
 "Ho! ho!" cried Ormiston, with a wild laugh. "Like a bolt from a
bow, there goeth Henry Stuart, Lord of Darnley, Duke of Albany, and
King of Scotland!"
For a moment Bothwell felt as if he neither lived nor breathed;
but Ormiston hurried him away, while all their appalled comrades
dispersed in various directions. Konrad, although the whole affair was
an incomprehensible mystery to him, acting by the natural instinct of
self-preservation, on finding himself deserted by companions whom
he dreaded and abhorred, instead of returning to the city, struck into
a narrow horseway that led southward, and hurried with all speed
from the scene of this terrible explosion; for the whole bearing of
those who had so suddenly left him to his own reflections, informed
him that it would neither be conducive to his safety or honour to be
found in a vicinity so dangerous.
Ignorant of the country, and with no other object than to leave
the city far behind him, he traversed the rough and winding path, on
one side of which lay a vast lake[*] and the ruins of a convent; on the
other, fields marked in the ancient fashion (when draining was
unknown) by high rigs, having between deep balks or ditches, where
the water lay glistening in the moonlight. Then he entered upon the
vast common muir of the burgh, that in the gloom of the night
appeared to be bounded only by the distant hills.
[*] The Burgh loch. Mag. Absalom.
From the effect of long confinement he soon
became faint and exhausted; and, though he
dared not approach any habitation, there was
none within view, for the district seemed
strangely desolate and still.
 At the verge of the muirland, near where a little runnel
meandered between banks overhung by reeds and whin and rushes,
there stood a little chapel, dedicated in the olden time to St. John the
Baptist, having a crucifix and altar, where the wayfarer might pause to
offer up a prayer. There a hermit had once resided; and the charter of
foundation mentions, that he was clothed "in a white garment, having
on his breast a portraiture of St. John the Baptist, whose hermit he
was called." The chapel had been partly demolished to pave the road;
and even the stone that marked the anchorite's grave, had been torn
out for the same purpose. The windows were empty, and the grass
grew where the cross had stood on the altar; but there was no other
resting-place, and Konrad entered the little ruin with caution.
A lamp was burning on the altar, but the oratory was quite
desolate. The nuns of St. Katherine of Sienna had kept, in other days,
a light ever burning on the Baptist's shrine, to which they made yearly
pilgrimages; and one poor old survivor of the scattered sisterhood still
tended the lamp with the labour of religious love.
Uttering a prayer to Heaven for protection, overcome by
weariness and exhaustion, Konrad laid by his side the sword given
him by Ormiston, and, wrapped in the other gift of the same
remarkable personage, composed himself to sleep, leaving to the
morrow the study and development of his future plans.
How little he knew of the deed in which he had that night been
so unwittingly a participator!
Of Darnley's attendants, all were buried among the ruins save
Neilson, who was taken alive from amid the debris next day, and
William Taylor the page, whose body was found lying beside the
king's. They had both been carried through the air, over the lofty
ramparts of the city, into the garden of the Blackfriars, where they
were found in their night-clothes, within a few yards of each other,
without much external injury, save a wound made by the maul on the
king's forehead.
Such was the generally received account of this affair, though the
recent and able historian of Scotland asserted, that he had seen
documents which proved that the young king had been first
assassinated, and then carried into the garden; after which the house
was blown up—a useless and dangerous means of causing a more
general and immediate alarm.

CHAPTER II.
THE MIDNIGHT MASS.

What, though the men

Of worldly minds have dared to stigmatise
The sister-cause—religion and the law—
With superstitious name!
Grahame.

"Now, Lord Earl," said Ormiston, as they paused breathlessly near the
Pleasance Porte; "which way wendest thou?"
"To Holyrood—to Holyrood!" panted the Earl. "And thou?"——
"Faith! to my own lodging. Thou knowest that I byde me at the
Netherbow, in the turnpike above Bassandyne, that rascally
proclamation printer; and we must enter the city separately." The Earl
sighed bitterly. "Cock and pie! what dost thou regret?"
"To-night."
"Then, what dost thou fear?"
"To-morrow."
"By Tantony! thou art a very woman! Remember the bond by
which this deed was done—signed by so many noble lords and
powerful barons under that yew-tree at Whittinghame. Sighing again!
What dost thou dread?"
"Myself!" replied the Earl, in whom the reaction of spirit had
caused an agony of remorse. "Thee, and the subscribers of that bond,
I may avoid—but myself—never!"
"These scruples come somewhat late, my lord!" said Ormiston,
scornfully. "Dost thou doubt the faith of me, or of French Paris? Surely
thou knowest my zeal!"
"True! but faith and zeal are very different things."
"'Sblood! Lord Earl, dost thou doubt mine honour?" said
Ormiston, laying hand on his sword. "Though I owe thee suit and
knight's service, nevertheless I am a baron of coat-armour, whose
honour brooks no handling. But let us not quarrel, Bothwell!" he
added, on seeing that the spirit of his ally was completely prostrated
for the time. "Suspicion will never attach to thee; besides, that Norse
knave is abroad, with the well-known cloak and sword of Darnley,
which Hubert stole me from his chamber. These, when he is found
again, will turn all the vengeance on him; so let us to bed ere the
alarm be given—to bed, I say, in peace; for we have the alliance of
ten thousand hearts as brave as ever marched to battle."
"How much more would I prefer the approbation of my own!"
 "Out upon thee! I will loose all patience. If thou distrustest Paris,
one stroke of a poniard"——
"Peace, Ormiston! thou art a very bravo, and would thus make
one more sacrifice to increase our list of crimes."
"Just as a name may be wanted to fill the roll of Scotland's peers,
by thy lamentable decapitation and profitable forfeiture," growled
Ormiston. "I know little of statecraft, though I have a bold heart and a
strong hand. Come! be once more a man, and leave remorse to
children. The crime that passes unpunished, deserves not to be
regretted."
"Sophistry!" exclaimed the conscience-struck Earl; "sophistry!
Avenging remorse will blast my peace for ever. Now, too bitterly I
begin to feel, that joy for ever ends where crime begins!"
They separated.
Blind with confusion, and bewildered by remorse, the Earl reeled
like a drunken man, as he hurried down by the back street of the
Canongate towards the palace, impatient, and dreading to be missed
from his apartments, when the alarm should be given.
A burning thirst oppressed him; his tongue felt as if scorched,
and his lips were dry and baked. Frightful ideas pressed in crowds
through his mind; he often paused and pressed his hands upon his
temples; they were like burning coals, and throbbed beneath his
trembling fingers. He looked back mentally to the eminence from
which he had fallen, and shuddered at the depth and rapidity of his
descent. In the storm of remorse and unavailing regret that agitated
his soul, the beauty of Mary, and the dreams of ambition it had
inspired, were alike forgotten.
He paused at times, and listened; he knew not why. The night
was very still, and there came no sound on the passing wind. A pulse
was beating in his head. How loud and palpable it was!
There was ever before him the last unearthly glare of those
despairing eyes. It was ever in his ears, that expiring wail, sinking into
a convulsive sob—ever—ever, turn where he would; if he walked fast
—to leave his burning thoughts behind him; if he stood still—that cry
and the deathlike visage were ever before him.
"O! to be as I have been—as I was but one long hour ago!" he
exclaimed, shaking his clenched hands above his head. "O! for the
waves of Lethe to wash the past for ever from my memory! Satan—
prince of hell—hear me! Hear me, who dares not now to address his
God!"
His frightful thirst still continued, until its agony became
insupportable; and he looked around to find wherewith to quench it.
On the side of St. John's hill, a green and solitary knoll that rose some
sixty feet in height on the wayside, a light attracted his attention; and,
supposing that it shone from a lonely cottage or small change-house,
he approached to procure a draught of any thing that could be had
for money—any liquid, from water to lachryma Christi, to quench the
maddening thirst that seemed to consume him.
The light shone from an aperture in the door of a half-ruined
barn. Bothwell grasped his sword, and adjusted his mask; but ere he
knocked, a voice within, deep and musically solemn, arrested him by
saying—
"Confiteor Deo Omnipotenti, beatæ Mariæ semper Virgini, beato
Michaeli archangelo, beato Joanni Baptistæ, Sanctis Apostolis Petro et
Paulo, omnibus Sanctis et tibi, Pater, quia peccavi nimis cogitatione,
verbo et operâ. Meâ culpâ! meâ culpâ! meâ maximâ culpâ!"
Astonished by these words, which form part of the office of mass,
and struck to the very soul in hearing them at such a time, when their
application was so painfully direct, he paused a moment. The door
was opened by a man in complete armour; but the Earl entered
immediately, to behold—what appalled and bewildered him still more.
The rude barn had been hurriedly adapted to the purposes of a
chapel. A rough table, representing the altar, occupied one end; six
candles burned thereon, three on each side of a plain wooden crucifix,
which stood before an old representation of the crucifixion, that
whilome had adorned some more consecrated fane.
Bowing down before this rude altar, with eyes full of fervour, and
piety, and glory, was the aged priest, who, not a hundred yards from
the same spot, had, but a few hours before, craved and received alms
from the hands of the regicide noble; but now his aspect was very
different, for he wore the rich vestments of other days, when he was
one of St. Giles' sixteen prebendaries; and he held aloft a round silver
chalice, which he had saved from the plunder of the church by the
bailies of Edinburgh. The bell was ringing, and he was in the act of
celebrating mass, before an anxious and fearful, but devout few, who,
despite the terrible laws passed against them by the men of the new
regime, met thus in secret to worship God after the fashion of their
fathers, preferring the mystical forms and ceremonies which had been
handed down to them by the priests of other years, to a new
hierarchy, upheld by the swords of the unlettered peers and homicidal
barons of 1560. The women, fearful and pale, were muffled in their
hoods and plaids; the men were all well armed, and not a few
grasped their poniards, and keenly scrutinized the Earl on his
entrance.
All the long-forgotten piety of his childhood—all the memory of
those days of innocence, when his pious mother, Agnes of Sinclair,
taught him first to raise his little hands in prayer in Blantyre's stately
Priory—gushed back upon his heart. Making a sign of the cross, he
knelt down among the people; and, overcome by the influence of old
associations, by the sudden vision of an altar and the mass, and by
the terrible knowledge of what he was now in the sight of that Being
whom he trembled to address, he burst into an agony of prayer.
Again and again the mass-bell rang, and lower bent every head
before that humble altar, on which all present deemed (for such is the
force of faith) that the invoked Spirit of God was descending, and the
Destroyer trembled in his inmost soul. He covered his head with his
mantle, and bent all his thoughts on Heaven, in prayers for mercy and
forgiveness.
A shower of tears came to his aid, and his thirst passed away;
but oh! how deep were those mental agonies, of which he dared to
inform no one!
It was long since he had wept, and he could not recall the time;
but his tears were salt and bitter. They relieved him; after a few
minutes he became more composed; and the stern necessity of
returning instantly to Holyrood pressed vividly upon him; but he
dreaded to attract attention or suspicion of treachery, by moving
away. Among those present, he recognised many citizens who
outwardly had conformed to the new religion; but thus, in secret,
clung to the old. Near him knelt young Sir Arthur Erskine, captain of
the queen's archers, in his glittering doublet of cloth-of-gold; and a
beautiful girl of eighteen, whose dark brown hair was but half-
concealed by her piquant hood (à la Mary), was kneeling by his side,
and reading from the same missal. Their heads were bent together,
and their hair mingled, as the young girl's shoulder almost rested on
the captain's breast.
 Bothwell saw that they were lovers; for nothing could surpass the
sweetness and confidence of the girl's smile when she gazed on Sir
Arthur's face; for then the impulses of love and religion together, lit up
her eyes with a rapture that made her seem something divine.
The Earl thought of Mary—of the desperate part he had yet to
play; of all he had dared and done, and had yet to dare and do; the
paroxysm passed, and he felt his heart nerved with renewed courage.
Love revived—remorse was forgotten; and, the moment mass
was over, he stole hurried to Holyrood—gained his apartments
unseen, swallowed a horn of brandy to drown all recollection, and
flung himself on his bed, to await the coming discovery and the
coming day.

CHAPTER III.
GUILT LEVELS ALL.

He is my lord!—my husband! Death! twas death!—

Death married us together! Here I will dig
A bridal bed, and we'll lie there for ever!
I will not go! Ha! you may pluck my heart out,
But I will never go. Help! help! Hemeya!
They drag me to Pescara's cursed bed.
Sheils' Apostate.
A stupor, not a slumber, sank upon him; it weighed down his eyelids,
it confused his faculties, and oppressed his heart; but even that state
of half unconsciousness was one of bliss, compared to the mental
torture he had endured.
The tolling of the great alarm bell of the city, which usually
summoned the craftsmen to arms, and the gathering hum of startled
multitudes, murmuring like the waves of a distant ocean, as the
citizens were roused by those who kept watch and ward, awoke Earl
Bothwell. He listened intently. Loudly and clearly the great bell rang
on the wind, above the hum of the people pouring downwards like a
sea, to chafe against the palace gates. Then came distant voices,
crying—
"Armour!—armour!—fie!—treason!"
Steps came hastily along the resounding corridor; there was a
sharp knocking at the door of his chamber, and, without waiting for
the usual ceremony of being introduced by a page, Master George
Halkett, the Earl of Huntly, and Hepburn of Bolton, entered. The latter
was now in complete armour, that the visor might conceal the terrible
expression of his altered face.
"How now, Master Halkett!" asked the Earl with affected surprise.
"Whence this intrusion? What is the matter?"
"Matter enough, I trow!" replied the other; "the king's house has
been blown up, and his majesty slain."
"Jesu!" cried the Earl, leaping from his bed, glad to find in action
a refuge from his own solitary thoughts. "Fie! treason! Surely thou
ravest! Speak, Bolton!"
Bolton replied in a voice so inarticulate that it was lost in the
hollow of his helmet; for his mind seemed a chaos of despair and
stupefaction. Since that terrible hour he had vainly been endeavouring
to arrange his thoughts, and act like a sane man.
"'Tis the verity, my lord!" continued Halkett. "Hark! how the roar
increaseth in the town."
"And who, say they, hath done this dark deed?"
"All men accuse the Earls of Morton and Moray," replied Huntly,
who had been industriously spreading the rumour, which their known
hostility to Darnley made common at the time.
"Fie! treason!" cried Bothwell, bustling about. "Armour!—a
Bothwell! Harkee, French Paris—Calder, ho! my pyne doublet and
sword!"
"Nay! thou hadst better take armour," said Bolton.
"Right! there lieth a Milan suit in yonder cabinet. Sirs, my pages
are gone Heaven knows where—I crave service—my points, I pray
you truss them."
Huntly and Bolton brought the mail from the carved cabinet, and
hastily accoutred the Earl. It was a Milan suit, a very beautiful one of
the late King James's fashion, washed with silver; the corselet was
globular, having puckered lamboys of steel in lieu of tassettes, and a
bourgoinette, with a metoniere acting as a gorget. He could have
concealed his face perfectly by this peculiar appendage to the
headpiece; but his natural boldness and daring now rendered such a
measure unnecessary. The moment the accoutring was over, he was
left alone; for Master Halkett hurried away from chamber to chamber,
being one of those who love to be the first bearers of startling tidings;
Huntly departed to arm his retinue for any emergency, and Bolton to
array the archer guard, and bear back the armed populace, who were
clamouring at the palace gates.
 Aware how much his future fate depended on the issue of his
first interview with Mary, the Earl could bear suspense no longer; and
aware that she would now be roused, notwithstanding the untimely
hour, he resolved to seek her apartments; the daylight, his sword and
armour, had restored his confidence.
Coldly and palely the February dawn was brightening: though the
stillness of midnight lay yet upon the dewy hills, there was a din
within the city that might "awake the dead." There was a melancholy
solemnity about the dull grey dawn, and the gloomy façade of the old
monastic edifice, that oppressed the Earl's heart as he crossed its
empty court, and heard the jingle of his armour echoed in the dark
arcades, where pages and servitors were hurrying to and fro; while
quick steps and sharp voices rang in the long corridors and stone
ambulatories of the old palace. As he approached James V.'s tower,
where the queen occupied those apartments that are now daily
exhibited to the curious, a man in a complete suit of black armour
jostled him.
"Ormiston!" he exclaimed.
"Well met, Lord Earl—good-morrow!" replied his evil mentor, in a
whisper. "The whole city is agog now, and every voice is raised
against the Lord Moray—a lucky infatuation for us. The blue banner
hath been displayed by the convener of the corporations, whose
thirty-three pennons are all unfurled; so the rascally craftsmen are
fast mustering in their helmets for trouble and tulzie; while Craigmillar
and the Lord Lindesay, with their lances, are coming in on the spur.—
But whither goest thou?"
"To the queen."
"Fool! fool! is this a time?"
 "There was a time," replied the Earl, bitterly, "when such a varlet
as thou dared not have spoken thus to Bothwell."
"True," replied the other, with a sardonic grin; "but guilt, like
misfortune, levels all men. Tarry—the queen"——
"No, no—I must see her! Not hell itself shall keep me from her!"
"Ha! ha!" laughed Ormiston, as the Earl ascended the staircase;
"odsbody! why, a stone wall or a stout cord would keep a stronger
lover than thee well enow."
Bothwell felt now all the humility and agony of being in the power
of this unscrupulous ruffian, and he sighed bitterly more than once as
he advanced towards the royal apartments.
"Now," thought he, "must I doubly dye my soul in guilt—the guilt
of black hypocrisy. Oh, to be what I have been! How dark are the
clouds—how many the vague alarms—that involve the horizon of my
fate! Last night—and the recollection of that irreparable deed—could I
blot them from memory, happiness might yet be mine."
A crowd of yeomanry of the guard, in their scarlet gaberdines,
with long poniards and partisans; archers in green, with bent bows
and bristling arrows; pages in glittering dresses, and gentlemen in
waiting, all variously armed, made way at the entrance of the queen's
apartments, near the door marked with Rizzio's blood. After a brief
preliminary it was opened—the heavy Gobeline tapestry was raised,
and the earl found himself in the presence of—Mary.
When he beheld her, every scruple and regret, every remnant of
remorse again evaporated, and he felt that he had done nothing that
he would not repeat.
She was plainly and hurriedly attired in a sacque of blue Florence
silk, tied with a tassel round her waist. The absence of her high ruff
revealed more than usual of her beautifully delicate neck and swelling
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