herself to drop into the seat which she had quitted when she went to
embrace Dame Mary Fleming, and for some time rested her brow upon her
hands; while Roland Graeme looked at her earnestly, with a mixture
of emotions which perhaps he himself could neither have analysed nor
explained. As she raised her face slowly from the posture to which a
momentary feeling of self-rebuke had depressed it, her eyes encountered
those of Roland, and became gradually animated with their usual
spirit of malicious drollery, which not unnaturally excited a similar
expression in those of the equally volatile page. They sat for the space
of two minutes, each looking at the other with great seriousness on
their features, and much mirth in their eyes, until at length Catherine
was the first to break silence.
“May I pray you, fair sir,” she began, very demurely, “to tell me what
you see in my face to arouse looks so extremely sagacious and knowing
as those with which it is your worship's pleasure to honour me? It would
seem as if there were some wonderful confidence and intimacy betwixt us,
fair sir, if one is to judge from your extremely cunning looks; and so
help me, Our Lady, as I never saw you but twice in my life before.”
“And where were those happy occasions,” said Roland, “if I may be bold
enough to ask the question?”
“At the nunnery of St. Catherine's,” said the damsel, “in the first
instance; and, in the second, during five minutes of a certain raid or
foray which it was your pleasure to make into the lodging of my lord
and father, Lord Seyton, from which, to my surprise, as probably to
your own, you returned with a token of friendship and favour, instead
of broken bones, which were the more probable reward of your intrusion,
considering the prompt ire of the house of Seyton. I am deeply
mortified,” she added, ironically, “that your recollection should
require refreshment on a subject so important; and that my memory should
be stronger than yours on such an occasion, is truly humiliating.”
“Your own, memory is not so exactly correct, fair mistress,” answered
the page, “seeing you have forgotten meeting the third, in the hostelrie
of St. Michael's, when it pleased you to lay your switch across the
face of my comrade, in order, I warrant, to show that, in the house of
Seyton, neither the prompt ire of its descendants, nor the use of the
doublet and hose, are subject to Salique law, or confined to the use of
the males.”
“Fair sir,” answered Catherine, looking at him with great steadiness,
and some surprise, “unless your fair wits have forsaken you, I am at a
loss what to conjecture of your meaning.”
“By my troth, fair mistress,” answered Roland, “and were I as wise a
warlock as Michael Scott, I could scarce riddle the dream you read me.
Did I not see you last night in the hostelrie of St. Michael's?--Did you
not bring me this sword, with command not to draw it save at the command
of my native and rightful Sovereign? And have I not done as you required
me? Or is the sword a piece of lath--my word a bulrush--my memory a
dream--and my eyes good for nought--espials which corbies might pick out
of my head?”
“And if your eyes serve you not more truly on other occasions than
in your vision of St. Michael,” said Catherine, “I know not, the
pain apart, that the corbies would do you any great injury in
the deprivation--But hark, the bell--hush, for God's sake, we are
interrupted.--”
The damsel was right; for no sooner had the dull toll of the castle bell
begun to resound through the vaulted apartment, than the door of the
vestibule flew open, and the steward, with his severe countenance, his
gold chain, and his white rod, entered the apartment, followed by the
same train of domestics who had placed the dinner on the table, and who
now, with the same ceremonious formality, began to remove it.
The steward remained motionless as some old picture, while the domestics
did their office; and when it was accomplished, every thing removed from
the table, and the board itself taken from its tressels and disposed
against the wall, he said aloud, without addressing any one in
particular, and somewhat in the tone of a herald reading a proclamation,
“My noble lady, Dame Margaret Erskine, by marriage Douglas, lets the
Lady Mary of Scotland and her attendants to wit, that a servant of the
true evangele, her reverend chaplain, will to-night, as usual, expound,
lecture, and catechise, according to the forms of the congregation of
gospellers.”
“Hark you, my friend, Mr. Dryfesdale,” said Catherine, “I understand
this announcement is a nightly form of yours. Now, I pray you to remark,
that the Lady Fleming and I--for I trust your insolent invitation
concerns us only--have chosen Saint Peter's pathway to Heaven, so I see
no one whom your godly exhortation, catechise, or lecture, can benefit,
excepting this poor page, who, being in Satan's hand as well as
yourself, had better worship with you than remain to cumber our
better-advised devotions.”
The page was well-nigh giving a round denial to the assertions which
this speech implied, when, remembering what had passed betwixt him and
the Regent, and seeing Catherine's finger raised in a monitory fashion,
he felt himself, as on former occasions at the Castle of Avenel, obliged
to submit to the task of dissimulation, and followed Dryfesdale down to
the castle chapel, where he assisted in the devotions of the evening.
The chaplain was named Elias Henderson. He was a man in the prime of
life, and possessed of good natural parts, carefully improved by the
best education which those times afforded. To these qualities were added
a faculty of close and terse reasoning; and, at intervals, a flow of
happy illustration and natural eloquence. The religious faith of Roland
Graeme, as we have already had opportunity to observe, rested on
no secure basis, but was entertained rather in obedience to his
grandmother's behests, and his secret desire to contradict the chaplain
of Avenel Castle, than from any fixed or steady reliance which he placed
on the Romish creed. His ideas had been of late considerably enlarged
by the scenes he had passed through; and feeling that there was shame
in not understanding something of those political disputes betwixt the
professors of the ancient and the reformed faith, he listened with
more attention than it had hitherto been in his nature to yield on such
occasions, to an animated discussion of some of the principal points
of difference betwixt the churches. So passed away the first day in the
Castle of Lochleven; and those which followed it were, for some time, of
a very monotonous and uniform tenor.
Chapter the Twenty-Fourth.
'Tis a weary life this--
Vaults overhead, and grates and bars around me,
And my sad hours spent with as sad companions,
Whose thoughts are brooding: o'er their own mischances,
Far, far too deeply to take part in mine.
THE WOODSMAN.
The course of life to which Mary and her little retinue were doomed,
was in the last degree secluded and lonely, varied only as the weather
permitted or rendered impossible the Queen's usual walk in the garden or
on the battlements. The greater part of the morning she wrought with her
ladies at those pieces of needlework, many of which still remain proofs
of her indefatigable application. At such hours the page was permitted
the freedom of the castle and islet; nay, he was sometimes invited to
attend George Douglas when he went a-sporting upon the lake, or on
its margin; opportunities of diversion which were only clouded by the
remarkable melancholy which always seemed to brood on that gentleman's
brow, and to mark his whole demeanour,--a sadness so profound, that
Roland never observed him to smile, or to speak any word unconnected
with the immediate object of their exercise.
The most pleasant part of Roland's day, was the occasional space which
he was permitted to pass in personal attendance on the Queen and her
ladies, together with the regular dinner-time, which he always spent
with Dame Mary Fleming and Catharine Seyton. At these periods, he had
frequent occasion to admire the lively spirit and inventive imagination
of the latter damsel, who was unwearied in her contrivances to amuse
her mistress, and to banish, for a time at least, the melancholy which
preyed on her bosom. She danced, she sung, she recited tales of ancient
and modern times, with that heartfelt exertion of talent, of which the
pleasure lies not in the vanity of displaying it to others, but in the
enthusiastic consciousness that we possess it ourselves. And yet these
high accomplishments were mixed with an air of rusticity and harebrained
vivacity, which seemed rather to belong to some village maid, the
coquette of the ring around the Maypole, than to the high-bred
descendant of an ancient baron. A touch of audacity, altogether short
of effrontery, and far less approaching to vulgarity, gave as it were a
wildness to all that she did; and Mary, while defending her from some
of the occasional censures of her grave companion, compared her to a
trained singing-bird escaped from a cage, which practises in all the
luxuriance of freedom, and in full possession of the greenwood bough,
the airs which it had learned during its earlier captivity.
The moments which the page was permitted to pass in the presence of this
fascinating creature, danced so rapidly away, that, brief as they were,
they compensated the weary dulness of all the rest of the day. The
space of indulgence, however, was always brief, nor were any private
interviews betwixt him and Catharine permitted, or even possible.
Whether it were some special precaution respecting the Queen's
household, or whether it were her general ideas of propriety, Dame
Fleming seemed particularly attentive to prevent the young people
from holding any separate correspondence together, and bestowed, for
Catharine's sole benefit in this matter, the full stock of prudence and
experience which she had acquired, when mother of the Queen's maidens
of honour, and by which she had gained their hearty hatred. Casual
meetings, however, could not be prevented, unless Catherine had been
more desirous of shunning, or Roland Graeme less anxious in watching for
them. A smile, a gibe, a sarcasm, disarmed of its severity by the arch
look with which it was accompanied, was all that time permitted to pass
between them on such occasions. But such passing interviews neither
afforded means nor opportunity to renew the discussion of the
circumstances attending their earlier acquaintance, nor to permit Roland
to investigate more accurately the mysterious apparition of the page in
the purple velvet cloak at the hostelrie of Saint Michael's.
The winter months slipped heavily away, and spring was already advanced,
when Roland Graeme observed a gradual change in the manners of his
fellow-prisoners. Having no business of his own to attend to, and being,
like those of his age, education, and degree, sufficiently curious
concerning what passed around, he began by degrees to suspect, and
finally to be convinced, that there was something in agitation among his
companions in captivity, to which they did not desire that he should be
privy. Nay, he became almost certain that, by some means unintelligible
to him, Queen Mary held correspondence beyond the walls and waters which
surrounded her prison-house, and that she nourished some secret hope
of deliverance or escape. In the conversations betwixt her and her
attendants, at which he was necessarily present, the Queen could not
always avoid showing that she was acquainted with the events which were
passing abroad in the world, and which he only heard through her report.
He observed that she wrote more and worked less than had been her former
custom, and that, as if desirous to lull suspicion asleep, she changed
her manner towards the Lady Lochleven into one more gracious, and which
seemed to express a resigned submission to her lot. “They think I am
blind,” he said to himself, “and that I am unfit to be trusted because
I am so young, or it may be because I was sent hither by the Regent.
Well!--be it so--they may be glad to confide in me in the long run;
and Catherine Seyton, for as saucy as she is, may find me as safe a
confidant as that sullen Douglas, whom she is always running after. It
may be they are angry with me for listening to Master Elias Henderson;
but it was their own fault for sending me there, and if the man speaks
truth and good sense, and preaches only the word of God, he is as likely
to be right as either Pope or Councils.”
It is probable that in this last conjecture, Roland Graeme had hit upon
the real cause why the ladies had not intrusted him with their councils.
He had of late had several conferences with Henderson on the subject of
religion, and had given him to understand that he stood in need of his
instructions, although he had not thought there was either prudence or
necessity for confessing that hitherto he had held the tenets of the
Church of Rome.
Elias Henderson, a keen propagator of the reformed faith, had sought the
seclusion of Lochleven Castle, with the express purpose and expectation
of making converts from Rome amongst the domestics of the dethroned
Queen, and confirming the faith of those who already held the Protestant
doctrines. Perhaps his hopes soared a little higher, and he might
nourish some expectation of a proselyte more distinguished in the person
of the deposed Queen. But the pertinacity with which she and her female
attendants refused to see or listen to him, rendered such hope, if he
nourished it, altogether abortive.
The opportunity, therefore, of enlarging the religious information of
Roland Graeme, and bringing him to a more due sense of his duties to
Heaven, was hailed by the good man as a door opened by Providence
for the salvation of a sinner. He dreamed not, indeed, that he was
converting a Papist, but such was the ignorance which Roland displayed
upon some material points of the reformed doctrine, that Master
Henderson, while praising his docility to the Lady Lochleven and her
grandson, seldom failed to add, that his venerable brother, Henry
Warden, must be now decayed in strength and in mind, since he found a
catechumen of his flock so ill-grounded in the principles of his belief.
For this, indeed, Roland Graeme thought it was unnecessary to assign the
true reason, which was his having made it a point of honour to forget
all that Henry Warden taught him, as soon as he was no longer compelled
to read it over as a lesson acquired by rote. The lessons of his new
instructor, if not more impressively delivered, were received by a more
willing ear, and a more awakened understanding, and the solitude of
Lochleven Castle was favourable to graver thoughts than the page had
hitherto entertained. He wavered yet, indeed, as one who was almost
persuaded; but his attention to the chaplain's instructions procured him
favour even with the stern old dame herself; and he was once or twice,
but under great precaution, permitted to go to the neighbouring
village of Kinross, situated on the mainland, to execute some ordinary
commission of his unfortunate mistress.
For some time Roland Graeme might be considered as standing neuter
betwixt the two parties who inhabited the water-girdled Tower of
Lochleven; but, as he rose in the opinion of the Lady of the Castle and
her chaplain, he perceived, with great grief, that he lost ground in
that of Mary and her female allies.
He came gradually to be sensible that he was regarded as a spy upon
their discourse, and that, instead of the ease with which they had
formerly conversed in his presence, without suppressing any of the
natural feelings of anger, of sorrow, or mirth, which the chance topic
of the moment happened to call forth, their talk was now guardedly
restricted to the most indifferent subjects, and a studied reserve
observed even in their mode of treating these. This obvious want of
confidence was accompanied with a correspondent change in their personal
demeanor towards the unfortunate page. The Queen, who had at first
treated him with marked courtesy, now scarce spoke to him, save
to convey some necessary command for her service. The Lady Fleming
restricted her notice to the most dry and distant expressions of
civility, and Catherine Seyton became bitter in her pleasantries, and
shy, cross, and pettish, in any intercourse they had together. What was
yet more provoking, he saw, or thought he saw, marks of intelligence
betwixt George Douglas and the beautiful Catherine Seyton; and,
sharpened by jealousy, he wrought himself almost into a certainty, that
the looks which they exchanged, conveyed matters of deep and serious
import. “No wonder,” he thought, “if, courted by the son of a proud
and powerful baron, she can no longer spare a word or look to the poor
fortuneless page.”
In a word, Roland Graeme's situation became truly disagreeable, and his
heart naturally enough rebelled against the injustice of this treatment,
which deprived him of the only comfort which he had received for
submitting to a confinement in other respects irksome. He accused Queen
Mary and Catherine Seyton (for concerning the opinion of Dame Fleming
he was indifferent) of inconsistency in being displeased with him on
account of the natural consequences of an order of their own. Why did
they send him to hear this overpowering preacher? The Abbot Ambrosius,
he recollected, understood the weakness of their Popish cause better,
when he enjoined him to repeat within his own mind, _aves_, and
_credos_, and _paters_, all the while old Henry Warden preached or
lectured, that so he might secure himself against lending even a
momentary ear to his heretical doctrine. “But I will endure this life no
longer,” said he to himself, manfully; “do they suppose I would betray
my mistress, because I see cause to doubt of her religion?--that would
be a serving, as they say, the devil for God's sake. I will forth into
the world--he that serves fair ladies, may at least expect kind looks
and kind words; and I bear not the mind of a gentleman, to submit to
cold treatment and suspicion, and a life-long captivity besides. I will
speak to George Douglas to-morrow when we go out a-fishing.”
A sleepless night was spent in agitating this magnanimous resolution,
and he arose in the morning not perfectly decided in his own mind
whether he should abide by it or not. It happened that he was summoned
by the Queen at an unusual hour, and just as he was about to go out with
George Douglas. He went to attend her commands in, the garden; but as he
had his angling-rod in his hand, the circumstance announced his previous
intention, and the Queen, turning to the Lady Fleming, said, “Catherine
must devise some other amusement for us, _ma bonnie amie_; our discreet
page has already made his party for the day's pleasure.”
“I said from the beginning,” answered the Lady Fleming, “that your Grace
ought not to rely on being favoured with the company of a youth who has
so many Huguenot acquaintances, and has the means of amusing himself far
more agreeably than with us.”
“I wish,” said Catherine, her animated features reddening with
mortification, “that his friends would sail away with him for good, and
bring us in return a page (if such a thing can be found) faithful to his
Queen and to his religion.”
“One part of your wishes may be granted, madam,” said Roland Graeme,
unable any longer to restrain his sense of the treatment which he
received on all sides; and he was about to add, “I heartily wish you a
companion in my room, if such can be found, who is capable of enduring
women's caprices without going distracted.” Luckily, he recollected the
remorse which he had felt at having given way to the vivacity of his
temper upon a similar occasion; and, closing his lips, imprisoned,
until it died on his tongue, a reproach so misbecoming the presence of
majesty.
“Why do you remain there,” said the Queen, “as if you were rooted to the
parterre?”
“I but attend your Grace's commands,” said the page.
“I have none to give you--Begone, sir.”
As he left the garden to go to the boat, he distinctly heard Mary
upbraid one of her attendants in these words:--“You see to what you have
exposed us!”
This brief scene at once determined Roland Graeme's resolution to quit
the castle, if it were possible, and to impart his resolution to George
Douglas without loss of time. That gentleman, in his usual mood of
silence, sate in the stern of the little skiff which they used on
such occasions, trimming his fishing-tackle, and, from time to time,
indicating by signs to Graeme, who pulled the oars, which way he should
row. When they were a furlong or two from the castle, Roland rested
on the oars, and addressed his companion somewhat abruptly,--“I have
something of importance to say to you, under your pleasure, fair sir.”
The pensive melancholy of Douglas's countenance at once gave way to the
eager, keen, and startled look of one who expects to hear something of
deep and alarming import.
“I am wearied to the very death of this Castle of Lochleven,” continued
Roland.
“Is that all?” said Douglas; “I know none of its inhabitants who are
much better pleased with it.”
“Ay, but I am neither a native of the house, nor a prisoner in it, and
so I may reasonably desire to leave it.”
“You might desire to quit it with equal reason,” answered Douglas, “if
you were both the one and the other.”
“But,” said Roland Graeme, “I am not only tired of living in Lochleven
Castle, but I am determined to quit it.”
“That is a resolution more easily taken than executed,” replied Douglas.
“Not if yourself, sir, and your Lady Mother, choose to consent,”
answered the page.
“You mistake the matter, Roland,” said Douglas; “you will find that the
consent of two other persons is equally essential--that of the Lady Mary
your mistress, and that of my uncle the Regent, who placed you about
her person, and who will not think it proper that she should change her
attendants so soon.”
“And must I then remain whether I will or no?” demanded the page,
somewhat appalled at a view of the subject, which would have occurred
sooner to a person of more experience.
“At least,” said George Douglas, “you must will to remain till my uncle
consents to dismiss you.”
“Frankly,” said the page, “and speaking to you as a gentleman who is
incapable of betraying me, I will confess, that if I thought myself a
prisoner here, neither walls nor water should confine me long.”
“Frankly,” said Douglas, “I could not much blame you for the attempt;
yet, for all that, my father, or uncle, or the earl, or any of my
brothers, or in short any of the king's lords into whose hands you fell,
would in such a case hang you like a dog, or like a sentinel who deserts
his post; and I promise you that you will hardly escape them. But row
towards Saint Serf's island--there is a breeze from the west, and we
shall have sport, keeping to windward of the isle, where the ripple is
strongest. We will speak more of what you have mentioned when we have
had an hour's sport.”
Their fishing was successful, though never did two anglers pursue even
that silent and unsocial pleasure with less of verbal intercourse.
When their time was expired, Douglas took the oars in his turn, and by
his order Roland Graeme steered the boat, directing her course upon the
landing-place at the castle. But he also stopped in the midst of his
course, and, looking around him, said to Graeme, “There is a thing which
I could mention to thee; but it is so deep a secret, that even here,
surrounded as we are by sea and sky, without the possibility of a
listener, I cannot prevail on myself to speak it out.”
“Better leave it unspoken, sir,” answered Roland Graeme, “if you doubt
the honour of him who alone can hear it.”
“I doubt not your honour,” replied George Douglas; “but you are young,
imprudent, and changeful.”
“Young,” said Roland, “I am, and it may be imprudent--but who hath
informed you that I am changeful?”
“One that knows you, perhaps, better than you know yourself,” replied
Douglas.
“I suppose you mean Catherine Seyton,” said the page, his heart rising
as he spoke; “but she is herself fifty times more variable in her humour
than the very water which we are floating upon.”