Catherine Seyton is a lady of blood and birth, and must not be lightly
spoken of.”
“Master George of Douglas,” said Graeme, “as that speech seemed to
be made under the warrant of something like a threat, I pray you to
observe, that I value not the threat at the estimation of a fin of one
of these dead trouts; and, moreover, I would have you to know that the
champion who undertakes the defence of every lady of blood and birth,
whom men accuse of change of faith and of fashion, is like to have
enough of work on his hands.”
“Go to,” said the Seneschal, but in a tone of good-humour, “thou art a
foolish boy, unfit to deal with any matter more serious than the casting
of a net, or the flying of a hawk.”
“If your secret concern Catherine Seyton,” said the page, “I care not
for it, and so you may tell her if you will. I wot she can shape you
opportunity to speak with her, as she has ere now.”
The flush which passed over Douglas's face, made the page aware that he
had alighted on a truth, when he was, in fact, speaking at random; and
the feeling that he had done so, was like striking a dagger into his
own heart. His companion, without farther answer, resumed the oars,
and pulled lustily till they arrived at the island and the castle.
The servants received the produce of their spoil, and the two fishers,
turning from each other in silence, went each to his several apartment.
Roland Graeme had spent about an hour in grumbling against Catherine
Seyton, the Queen, the Regent, and the whole house of Lochleven, with
George Douglas at the head of it, when the time approached that his duty
called him to attend the meal of Queen Mary. As he arranged his dress
for this purpose, he grudged the trouble, which, on similar occasions,
he used, with boyish foppery, to consider as one of the most important
duties of his day; and when he went to take his place behind the chair
of the Queen, it was with an air of offended dignity, which could not
escape her observation, and probably appeared to her ridiculous enough,
for she whispered something in French to her ladies, at which the
lady Fleming laughed, and Catherine appeared half diverted and half
disconcerted. This pleasantry, of which the subject was concealed from
him, the unfortunate page received, of course, as a new offence, and
called an additional degree of sullen dignity into his mien, which might
have exposed him to farther raillery, but that Mary appeared disposed to
make allowance for and compassionate his feelings.
With the peculiar tact and delicacy which no woman possessed in greater
perfection, she began to soothe by degrees the vexed spirit of her
magnanimous attendant. The excellence of the fish which he had taken in
his expedition, the high flavour and beautiful red colour of the trouts,
which have long given distinction to the lake, led her first to express
her thanks to her attendant for so agreeable an addition to her table,
especially upon a _jour de jeune_; and then brought on inquiries
into the place where the fish had been taken, their size, their
peculiarities, the times when they were in season, and a comparison
between the Lochleven trouts and those which are found in the lakes and
rivers of the south of Scotland. The ill humour of Roland Graeme was
never of an obstinate character. It rolled away like mist before the
sun, and he was easily engaged in a keen and animated dissertation about
Lochleven trout, and sea trout, and river trout, and bull trout, and
char, which never rise to a fly, and par, which some suppose infant
salmon, and _herlings_, which frequent the Nith, and _vendisses_, which
are only found in the Castle-Loch of Lochmaben; and he was hurrying on
with the eager impetuosity and enthusiasm of a young sportsman, when he
observed that the smile with which the Queen at first listened to him
died languidly away, and that, in spite of her efforts to suppress them,
tears rose to her eyes. He stopped suddenly short, and, distressed
in his turn, asked, “If he had the misfortune unwittingly to give
displeasure to her Grace?”
“No, my poor boy,” replied the Queen; “but as you numbered up the lakes
and rivers of my kingdom, imagination cheated me, as it will do, and
snatched me from these dreary walls away to the romantic streams of
Nithsdale, and the royal towers of Lochmaben.--O land, which my fathers
have so long ruled! of the pleasures which you extend so freely, your
Queen is now deprived, and the poorest beggar, who may wander free from
one landward town to another, would scorn to change fates with Mary of
Scotland!”
“Your highness,” said the Lady Fleming, “will do well to withdraw.”
“Come with me, then, Fleming,” said the Queen, “I would not burden
hearts so young as these are, with the sight of my sorrows.”
She accompanied these words with a look of melancholy compassion towards
Roland and Catherine, who were now left alone together in the apartment.
The page found his situation not a little embarrassing; for, as every
reader has experienced who may have chanced to be in such a situation,
it is extremely difficult to maintain the full dignity of an offended
person in the presence of a beautiful girl, whatever reason we may have
for being angry with her. Catherine Seyton, on her part, sate still
like a lingering ghost, which, conscious of the awe which its presence
imposes, is charitably disposed to give the poor confused mortal whom
it visits, time to recover his senses, and comply with the grand rule of
demonology by speaking first. But as Roland seemed in no hurry to avail
himself of her condescension, she carried it a step farther, and herself
opened the conversation.
“I pray you, fair sir, if it may be permitted me to disturb your august
reverie by a question so simple,--what may have become of your rosary?”
“It is lost, madam--lost some time since,” said Roland, partly
embarrassed and partly indignant.
“And may I ask farther, sir,” said Catherine, “why you have not replaced
it with another?--I have half a mind,” she said, taking from her pocket
a string of ebony beads adorned with gold, “to bestow one upon you, to
keep for my sake, just to remind you of former acquaintance.”
There was a little tremulous accent in the tone with which these words
were delivered, which at once put to flight Roland Graeme's resentment,
and brought him to Catherine's side; but she instantly resumed the bold
and firm accent which was more familiar to her. “I did not bid you,” she
said, “come and sit so close by me; for the acquaintance that I spoke
of, has been stiff and cold, dead and buried, for this many a day.”
“Now Heaven forbid!” said the page, “it has only slept, and now that you
desire it should awake, fair Catherine, believe me that a pledge of your
returning favour--”
“Nay, nay,” said Catherine, withholding the rosary, towards which, as
he spoke, he extended his hand, “I have changed my mind on better
reflection. What should a heretic do with these holy beads, that have
been blessed by the father of the church himself?”
Roland winced grievously, for he saw plainly which way the discourse was
now likely to tend, and felt that it must at all events be embarrassing.
“Nay, but,” he said, “it was as a token of your own regard that you
offered them.”
“Ay, fair sir, but that regard attended the faithful subject, the loyal
and pious Catholic, the individual who was so solemnly devoted at
the same time with myself to the same grand duty; which, you must now
understand, was to serve the church and Queen. To such a person, if you
ever heard of him, was my regard due, and not to him who associates with
heretics, and is about to become a renegado.”
“I should scarce believe, fair mistress,” said Roland, indignantly,
“that the vane of your favour turned only to a Catholic wind,
considering that it points so plainly to George Douglas, who, I think,
is both kingsman and Protestant.”
“Think better of George Douglas,” said Catherine, “than to believe--”
and then checking herself, as if she had spoken too much, she went on,
“I assure you, fair Master Roland, that all who wish you well are sorry
for you.”
“Their number is very few, I believe,” answered Roland, “and their
sorrow, if they feel any, not deeper than ten minutes' time will cure.”
“They are more numerous, and think more deeply concerning you, than
you seem to be aware,” answered Catherine. “But perhaps they think
wrong--You are the best judge in your own affairs; and if you prefer
gold and church-lands to honour and loyalty, and the faith of your
fathers, why should you be hampered in conscience more than others?”
“May Heaven bear witness for me,” said Roland, “that if I entertain
any difference of opinion--that is, if I nourish any doubts in point of
religion, they have been adopted on the conviction of my own mind, and
the suggestion of my own conscience!”
“Ay, ay, your conscience--your conscience!” repeated she with satiric
emphasis; “your conscience is the scape-goat; I warrant it an able
one--it will bear the burden of one of the best manors of the Abbey of
Saint Mary of Kennaquhair, lately forfeited to our noble Lord the King,
by the Abbot and community thereof, for the high crime of fidelity
to their religious vows, and now to be granted by the High and Mighty
Traitor, and so forth, James Earl of Murray, to the good squire of dames
Roland Graeme, for his loyal and faithful service as under-espial, and
deputy-turnkey, for securing the person of his lawful sovereign, Queen
Mary.”
“You misconstrue me cruelly,” said the page; “yes, Catherine, most
cruelly--God knows I would protect this poor lady at the risk of my
life, or with my life; but what can I do--what can any one do for her?”
“Much may be done--enough may be done--all may be done--if men will be
but true and honourable, as Scottish men were in the days of Bruce and
Wallace. Oh, Roland, from what an enterprise you are now withdrawing
your heart and hand, through mere fickleness and coldness of spirit!”
“How can I withdraw,” said Roland, “from an enterprise which has never
been communicated to me?--Has the Queen, or have you, or has any
one, communicated with me upon any thing for her service which I have
refused? Or have you not, all of you, held me at such distance from
your counsels, as if I were the most faithless spy since the days
of Ganelon?” [Footnote: Gan, Gano, or Ganelon of Mayence, is in
the Romances on the subject of Charlemagne and his Paladins, always
represented as the traitor by whom the Christian champions are
betrayed.]
“And who,” said Catherine Seyton, “would trust the sworn friend, and
pupil, and companion, of the heretic preacher Henderson? ay--a proper
tutor you have chosen, instead of the excellent Ambrosius, who is now
turned out of house and homestead, if indeed he is not languishing in
a dungeon, for withstanding the tyranny of Morton, to whose brother the
temporalities of that noble house of God have been gifted away by the
Regent.”
“Is it possible?” said the page; “and is the excellent Father Ambrose in
such distress?”
“He would account the news of your falling away from the faith of your
fathers,” answered Catherine, “a worse mishap than aught that tyranny
can inflict on himself.”
“But why,” said Roland, very much moved, “why should you suppose
that--that--that it is with me as you say?”
“Do you yourself deny it?” replied Catherine; “do you not admit that you
have drunk the poison which you should have dashed from your lips?--Do
you deny that it now ferments in your veins, if it has not altogether
corrupted the springs of life?--Do you deny that you have your doubts,
as you proudly term them, respecting what popes and councils have
declared it unlawful to doubt of?--Is not your faith wavering, if not
overthrown?--Does not the heretic preacher boast his conquest?--Does
not the heretic woman of this prison-house hold up thy example to
others?--Do not the Queen and the Lady Fleming believe in thy falling
away?--And is there any except one--yes, I will speak it out, and think
as lightly as you please of my good-will--is there one except myself
that holds even a lingering hope that you may yet prove what we once all
believed of you?”
“I know not,” said our poor page, much embarrassed by the view which was
thus presented to him of the conduct he was expected to pursue, and by
a person in whom he was not the less interested that, though long a
resident in Lochleven Castle, with no object so likely to attract his
undivided attention, no lengthened interview had taken place since they
had first met,--“I know not what you expect of me, or fear from me. I
was sent hither to attend Queen Mary, and to her I acknowledge the duty
of a servant through life and death. If any one had expected service
of another kind, I was not the party to render it. I neither avow
nor disclaim the doctrines of the reformed church.--Will you have the
truth?--It seems to me that the profligacy of the Catholic clergy has
brought this judgment on their own heads, and, for aught I know, it may
be for their reformation. But, for betraying this unhappy Queen, God
knows I am guiltless of the thought. Did I even believe worse of her,
than as her servant I wish--as her subject I dare to do--I would not
betray her--far from it--I would aid her in aught which could tend to a
fair trial of her cause.”
“Enough! enough!” answered Catherine, clasping her hands together; “then
thou wilt not desert us if any means are presented, by which, placing
our Royal Mistress at freedom, this case may be honestly tried betwixt
her and her rebellious subjects?”
“Nay--but, fair Catherine,” replied the page, “hear but what the Lord of
Murray said when he sent me hither.”--
“Hear but what the devil said,” replied the maiden, “rather than what
a false subject, a false brother, a false counsellor, a false friend,
said! A man raised from a petty pensioner on the crown's bounty, to be
the counsellor of majesty, and the prime distributor of the bounties of
the state;--one with whom rank, fortune, title, consequence, and power,
all grew up like a mushroom, by the mere warm good-will of the sister,
whom, in requital, he hath mewed up in this place of melancholy
seclusion--whom, in farther requital, he has deposed, and whom, if he
dared, he would murder!”
“I think not so ill of the Earl of Murray,” said Roland Graeme; “and
sooth to speak,” he added, with a smile, “it would require some bribe to
make me embrace, with firm and desperate resolution, either one side or
the other.”
“Nay, if that is all,” replied Catherine Seyton, in a tone of
enthusiasm, “you shall be guerdoned with prayers from oppressed
subjects--from dispossessed clergy--from insulted nobles--with immortal
praise by future ages--with eager gratitude by the present--with fame
on earth, and with felicity in heaven! Your country will thank you--your
Queen will be debtor to you--you will achieve at once the highest from
the lowest degree in chivalry--all men will honour, all women will
love you--and I, sworn with you so early to the accomplishment of Queen
Mary's freedom, will--yes, I will--love you better than--ever sister
loved brother!” “Say on--say on!” whispered Roland, kneeling on
one knee, and taking her hand, which, in the warmth of exhortation,
Catherine held towards him.
“Nay,” said she, pausing, “I have already said too much--far too much,
if I prevail not with you--far too little if I do. But I prevail,”
she continued, seeing that the countenance of the youth she addressed
returned the enthusiasm of her own--“I prevail; or rather the good cause
prevails through its own strength--thus I devote thee to it.” And as
she spoke she approached her finger to the brow of the astonished youth,
and, without touching it, signed the cross over his forehead--stooped
her face towards him, and seemed to kiss the empty space in which she
had traced the symbol; then starting up, and extricating herself from
his grasp, darted into the Queen's apartment.
Roland Graeme remained as the enthusiastic maiden had left him, kneeling
on one knee, with breath withheld, and with eyes fixed upon the space
which the fairy form of Catherine Seyton had so lately occupied. If
his thoughts were not of unmixed delight, they at least partook of that
thrilling and intoxicating, though mingled sense of pain and pleasure,
the most over-powering which life offers in its blended cup. He rose and
retired slowly; and although the chaplain Mr. Henderson preached on that
evening his best sermon against the errors of Popery, I would not engage
that he was followed accurately through the train of his reasoning
by the young proselyte, with a view to whose especial benefit he had
handled the subject.
Chapter the Twenty-Fifth.
And when love's torch hath set the heart in flame,
Comes Seignor Reason, with his saws and cautions,
Giving such aid as the old gray-beard Sexton,
Who from the church-vault drags the crazy engine,
To ply its dribbling ineffectual streamlet
Against a conflagration.
OLD PLAY.
In a musing mood, Roland Graeme upon the ensuing morning betook himself
to the battlements of the Castle, as a spot where he might indulge the
course of his thick-coming fancies with least chance of interruption.
But his place of retirement was in the present case ill chosen, for he
was presently joined by Mr. Elias Henderson.
“I sought you, young man,” said the preacher, “having to speak of
something which concerns you nearly.”
The page had no pretence for avoiding the conference which the chaplain
thus offered, though he felt that it might prove an embarrassing one.
“In teaching thee, as far as my feeble knowledge hath permitted, thy
duty towards God,” said the chaplain, “there are particulars of your
duty towards man, upon which I was unwilling long or much to insist.
You are here in the service of a lady, honourable as touching her birth,
deserving of all compassion as respects her misfortunes, and garnished
with even but too many of those outward qualities which win men's regard
and affection. Have you ever considered your regard to this Lady Mary of
Scotland, in its true light and bearing?”
“I trust, reverend sir,” replied Roland Graeme, “that I am well aware
of the duties a servant in my condition owes to his royal mistress,
especially in her lowly and distressed condition.”
“True,” answered the preacher; “but it is even that honest feeling
which may, in the Lady Mary's case, carry thee into great crime and
treachery.”
“How so, reverend sir?” replied the page; “I profess I understand you
not.”
“I speak to you not of the crimes of this ill-advised lady,” said the
preacher; “they are not subjects for the ears of her sworn servant. But
it is enough to say, that this unhappy person hath rejected more offers
of grace, and more hopes of glory, than ever were held out to
earthly princes; and that she is now, her day of favour being passed,
sequestered in this lonely castle, for the common weal of the people of
Scotland, and it may be for the benefit of her own soul.”
“Reverend sir,” said Roland, somewhat impatiently, “I am but too well
aware that my unfortunate mistress is imprisoned, since I have the
misfortune to share in her restraint myself--of which, to speak sooth, I
am heartily weary.”
“It is even of that which I am about to speak,” said the chaplain,
mildly; “but, first, my good Roland, look forth on the pleasant prospect
of yonder cultivated plain. You see, where the smoke arises, yonder
village standing half hidden by the trees, and you know it to be the
dwelling-place of peace and industry. From space to space, each by the
side of its own stream, you see the gray towers of barons, with cottages
interspersed; and you know that they also, with their household, are now
living in unity; the lance hung upon the wall, and the sword resting
in its sheath. You see, too, more than one fair church, where the pure
waters of life are offered to the thirsty, and where the hungry are
refreshed with spiritual food.--What would he deserve, who should bring
fire and slaughter into so fair and happy a scene--who should bare the
swords of the gentry and turn them against each other--who should give
tower and cottage to the flames, and slake the embers with the blood
of the indwellers?--What would he deserve who should lift up again that
ancient Dagon of Superstition, whom the worthies of the time have beaten
down, and who should once more make the churches of God the high places
of Baal?”
“You have limned a frightful picture, reverend sir,” said Roland Graeme;
“yet I guess not whom you would charge with the purpose of effecting a
change so horrible.”
“God forbid,” replied the preacher, “that I should say to thee, Thou art
the man.--Yet beware, Roland Graeme, that thou, in serving thy mistress,
hold fast the still higher service which thou owest to the peace of thy
country, and the prosperity of her inhabitants; else, Roland Graeme,
thou mayest be the very man upon whose head will fall the curses and
assured punishment due to such work. If thou art won by the song of
these sirens to aid that unhappy lady's escape from this place of
penitence and security, it is over with the peace of Scotland's
cottages, and with the prosperity of her palaces--and the babe unborn
shall curse the name of the man who gave inlet to the disorder which
will follow the war betwixt the mother and the son.”
“I know of no such plan, reverend sir,” answered the page, “and
therefore can aid none such.--My duty towards the Queen has been
simply that of an attendant; it is a task, of which, at times, I would
willingly have been freed; nevertheless--”
“It is to prepare thee for the enjoyment of something more of liberty,”
said the preacher, “that I have endeavoured to impress upon you the
deep responsibility under which your office must be discharged. George
Douglas hath told the Lady Lochleven that you are weary of this service,
and my intercession hath partly determined her good ladyship, that, as
your discharge cannot be granted, you shall, instead, be employed in
certain commissions on the mainland, which have hitherto been discharged
by other persons of confidence. Wherefore, come with me to the lady, for
even to-day such duty will be imposed on you.”
“I trust you will hold me excused, reverend sir,” said the page, who
felt that an increase of confidence on the part of the Lady of the
Castle and her family would render his situation in a moral view doubly
embarrassing, “one cannot serve two masters--and I much fear that my
mistress will not hold me excused for taking employment under another.”
“Fear not that,” said the preacher; “her consent shall be asked and
obtained. I fear she will yield it but too easily, as hoping to avail
herself of your agency to maintain correspondence with her friends, as
those falsely call themselves, who would make her name the watchword for
civil war.”
“And thus,” said the page, “I shall be exposed to suspicion on all
sides; for my mistress will consider me as a spy placed on her by her
enemies, seeing me so far trusted by them; and the Lady Lochleven will
never cease to suspect the possibility of my betraying her, because
circumstances put it into my power to do so--I would rather remain as I
am.”
There followed a pause of one or two minutes, during which Henderson
looked steadily in Roland's countenance, as if desirous to ascertain
whether there was not more in the answer than the precise words seemed
to imply. He failed in this point, however; for Roland, bred a page from
childhood, knew how to assume a sullen pettish cast of countenance, well
enough calculated to hide all internal emotions.
“I understand thee not, Roland,” said the preacher, “or rather thou
thinkest on this matter more deeply than I apprehended to be in thy
nature. Methought, the delight of going on shore with thy bow, or thy
gun, or thy angling-rod, would have borne away all other feelings.”