countenance on the Queen, at the same time advancing her foot, extending
her arm, and assuming the mien and attitude of a Sibyl in frenzy. As her
gray hair floated back from beneath her coif, and her eye gleamed fire
from under its shaggy eyebrow, the effect of her expressive though
emaciated features, was heightened by an enthusiasm approaching to
insanity, and her appearance struck with awe all who were present. Her
eyes for a time glanced wildly around as if seeking for something to aid
her in collecting her powers of expression, and her lips had a nervous
and quivering motion, as those of one who would fain speak, yet rejects
as inadequate the words which present themselves. Mary herself caught
the infection as if by a sort of magnetic influence, and raising herself
from her bed, without being able to withdraw her eyes from those of
Magdalen, waited as if for the oracle of a Pythoness. She waited not
long, for no sooner had the enthusiast collected herself, than her gaze
became instantly steady, her features assumed a determined energy,
and when she began to speak, the words flowed from her with a profuse
fluency, which might have passed for inspiration, and which, perhaps,
she herself mistook for such.
“Arise,” she said, “Queen of France and of England! Arise, Lioness
of Scotland, and be not dismayed though the nets of the hunters have
encircled thee! Stoop not to feign with the false ones, whom thou shall
soon meet in the field. The issue of battle is with the God of armies,
but by battle thy cause shall be tried. Lay aside, then, the arts of
lower mortals, and assume those which become a Queen! True defender of
the only true faith, the armoury of heaven is open to thee! Faithful
daughter of the Church, take the keys of St. Peter, to bind and to
loose!--Royal Princess of the land, take the sword of St. Paul, to
smite and to shear! There is darkness in thy destiny;--but not in these
towers, not under the rule of their haughty mistress, shall that destiny
be closed--In other lands the lioness may crouch to the power of the
tigress, but not in her own--not in Scotland shall the Queen of Scotland
long remain captive--nor is the fate of the royal Stuart in the hands
of the traitor Douglas. Let the Lady of Lochleven double her bolts and
deepen her dungeons, they shall not retain thee--each element shall give
thee its assistance ere thou shalt continue captive--the land shall lend
its earthquakes, the water its waves, the air its tempests, the fire its
devouring flames, to desolate this house, rather than it shall continue
the place of thy captivity.--Hear this, and tremble, all ye who fight
against the light, for she says it, to whom it hath been assured!”
She was silent, and the astonished physician said, “If there was ever
an _Energumene,_ or possessed demoniac, in our days, there is a devil
speaking with that woman's tongue!”
“Practice,” said the Lady of Lochleven, recovering her surprise; “here
is all practice and imposture--To the dungeon with her!”
“Lady of Lochleven,” said Mary, arising from her bed, and coming
forward with her wonted dignity, “ere you make arrest on any one in our
presence, hear me but one word. I have done you some wrong--I believed
you privy to the murderous purpose of your vassal, and I deceived you in
suffering you to believe it had taken effect. I did you wrong, Lady of
Lochleven, for I perceive your purpose to aid me was sincere. We tasted
not of the liquid, nor are we now sick, save that we languish for our
freedom.”
“It is avowed like Mary of Scotland,” said Magdalen Graeme; “and know,
besides, that had the Queen drained the drought to the dregs, it was
harmless as the water from a sainted spring. Trow ye, proud woman,” she
added, addressing herself to the Lady of Lochleven, “that I--I--would
have been the wretch to put poison into the hands of a servant or vassal
of the house of Lochleven, knowing whom that house contained? as soon
would I have furnished drug to slay my own daughter!”
“Am I thus bearded in mine own castle?” said the Lady; “to the dungeon
with her!--she shall abye what is due to the vender of poisons and
practiser of witchcraft.”
“Yet hear me for an instant, Lady of Lochleven,” said Mary; “and do
you,” to Magdalen, “be silent at my command.--Your steward, lady, has by
confession attempted my life, and those of my household, and this
woman hath done her best to save them, by furnishing him with what was
harmless, in place of the fatal drugs which he expected. Methinks I
propose to you but a fair exchange when I say I forgive your vassal with
all my heart, and leave vengeance to God, and to his conscience, so that
you also forgive the boldness of this woman in your presence; for we
trust you do not hold it as a crime, that she substituted an innocent
beverage for the mortal poison which was to have drenched our cup.”
“Heaven forfend, madam,” said the Lady, “that I should account that a
crime which saved the house of Douglas from a foul breach of honour and
hospitality! We have written to our son touching our vassal's delict,
and he must abide his doom, which will most likely be death. Touching
this woman, her trade is damnable by Scripture, and is mortally punished
by the wise laws of our ancestry--she also must abide her doom.”
“And have I then,” said the Queen, “no claim on the house of Lochleven
for the wrong I have so nearly suffered within their walls? I ask but in
requital, the life of a frail and aged woman, whose brain, as yourself
may judge, seems somewhat affected by years and suffering.”
“If the Lady Mary,” replied the inflexible Lady of Lochleven, “hath been
menaced with wrong in the house of Douglas, it may be regarded as some
compensation, that her complots have cost that house the exile of a
valued son.”
“Plead no more for me, my gracious Sovereign,” said Magdalen Graeme,
“nor abase yourself to ask so much as a gray hair of my head at her
hands. I knew the risk at which I served my Church and my Queen, and was
ever prompt to pay my poor life as the ransom. It is a comfort to think,
that in slaying me, or in restraining my freedom, or even in injuring
that single gray hair, the house, whose honour she boasts so highly,
will have filled up the measure of their shame by the breach of their
solemn written assurance of safety.”--And taking from her bosom a paper,
she handed it to the Queen.
“It is a solemn assurance of safety in life and limb,” said Queen Mary,
“with space to come and go, under the hand and seal of the Chamberlain
of Kinross, granted to Magdalen Graeme, commonly called Mother Nicneven,
in consideration of her consenting to put herself, for the space of
twenty-four hours, if required, within the iron gate of the Castle of
Lochleven.”
“Knave!” said the Lady, turning to the Chamberlain, “how dared you grant
her such a protection?”
“It was by your Ladyship's orders, transmitted by Randal, as he can
bear witness,” replied Doctor Lundin; “nay, I am only like the
pharmacopolist, who compounds the drugs after the order of the
mediciner.”
“I remember--I remember,” answered the Lady; “but I meant the assurance
only to be used in case, by residing in another jurisdiction, she could
not have been apprehended under our warrant.”
“Nevertheless,” said the Queen, “the Lady of Lochleven is bound by the
action of her deputy in granting the assurance.”
“Madam,” replied the Lady, “the house of Douglas have never broken
their safe-conduct, and never will--too deeply did they suffer by such
a breach of trust, exercised on themselves, when your Grace's ancestor,
the second James, in defiance of the rights of hospitality, and of his
own written assurance of safety, poniarded the brave Earl of Douglas
with his own hand, and within two yards of the social board, at which he
had just before sat the King of Scotland's honoured guest.”
“Methinks,” said the Queen, carelessly, “in consideration of so very
recent and enormous a tragedy, which I think only chanced some six-score
years agone, the Douglasses should have shown themselves less tenacious
of the company of their sovereigns, than you, Lady of Lochleven, seem to
be of mine.”
“Let Randal,” said the Lady, “take the hag back to Kinross, and set her
at full liberty, discharging her from our bounds in future, on peril of
her head.--And let your wisdom,” to the Chamberlain, “keep her company.
And fear not for your character, though I send you in such company; for,
granting her to be a witch, it would be a waste of fagots to burn you
for a wizard.”
The crest-fallen Chamberlain was preparing to depart; but Magdalen
Graeme, collecting herself, was about to reply, when the Queen
interposed, saying, “Good mother, we heartily thank you for your
unfeigned zeal towards our person, and pray you, as our liege-woman,
that you abstain from whatever may lead you into personal danger; and,
farther, it is our will that you depart without a word of farther parley
with any one in this castle. For thy present guerdon, take this small
reliquary--it was given to us by our uncle the Cardinal, and hath had
the benediction of the Holy Father himself;--and now depart in peace and
in silence.--For you, learned sir,” continued the Queen, advancing to
the Doctor, who made his reverence in a manner doubly embarrassed by the
awe of the Queen's presence, which made him fear to do too little, and
by the apprehension of his lady's displeasure, in case he should chance
to do too much--“for you, learned sir, as it was not your fault, though
surely our own good fortune, that we did not need your skill at this
time, it would not become us, however circumstanced, to suffer our leech
to leave us without such guerdon as we can offer.”
With these words, and with the grace which never forsook her, though,
in the present case, there might lurk under it a little gentle ridicule,
she offered a small embroidered purse to the Chamberlain, who, with
extended hand and arched back, his learned face stooping until a
physiognomist might have practised the metoposcopical science upon it,
as seen from behind betwixt his gambadoes, was about to accept of the
professional recompense offered by so fair as well as illustrious a
hand. But the Lady interposed, and, regarding the Chamberlain, said
aloud, “No servant of our house, without instantly relinquishing that
character, and incurring withal our highest displeasure, shall dare
receive any gratuity at the hand of the Lady Mary.”
Sadly and slowly the Chamberlain raised his depressed stature into the
perpendicular attitude, and left the apartment dejectedly, followed by
Magdalen Graeme, after, with mute but expressive gesture, she had kissed
the reliquary with which the Queen had presented her, and, raising her
clasped hands and uplifted eyes towards Heaven, had seemed to entreat
a benediction upon the royal dame. As she left the castle, and
went towards the quay where the boat lay, Roland Graeme, anxious to
communicate with her if possible, threw himself in her way, and might
have succeeded in exchanging a few words with her, as she was guarded
only by the dejected Chamberlain and his halberdiers, but she seemed to
have taken, in its most strict and literal acceptation, the command to
be silent which she had received from the Queen; for, to the repeated
signs of her grandson, she only replied by laying her finger on her lip.
Dr. Lundin was not so reserved. Regret for the handsome gratuity, and
for the compulsory task of self-denial imposed on him, had grieved the
spirit of that worthy officer and learned mediciner--“Even thus, my
friend,” said he, squeezing the page's hand as he bade him farewell, “is
merit rewarded. I came to cure this unhappy Lady--and I profess she well
deserves the trouble, for, say what they will of her, she hath a most
winning manner, a sweet voice, a gracious smile, and a most majestic
wave of her hand. If she was not poisoned, say, my dear Master Roland,
was that fault of mine, I being ready to cure her if she had?--and now I
am denied the permission to accept my well-earned honorarium--O Galen! O
Hippocrates! is the graduate's cap and doctor's scarlet brought to this
pass! _Frustra fatigamus remediis aegros!_”
He wiped his eyes, stepped on the gunwale, and the boat pushed off from
the shore, and went merrily across the lake, which was dimpled by the
summer wind. [Footnote: A romancer, to use a Scottish phrase, wants but
a hair to make a tether of. The whole detail of the steward's supposed
conspiracy against the life of Mary, is grounded upon an expression in
one of her letters, which affirms, that Jasper Dryfesdale, one of the
Laird of Lochleven's servants, had threatened to murder William Douglas,
(for his share in the Queen's escape,) and averred that he would plant a
dagger in Mary's own heart.--CHALMER'S _Life of Queen Mary_, vol. i. p.
278.]
Chapter the Thirty-Third.
Death distant?--No, alas! he's ever with us,
And shakes the dart at us in all our actings:
He lurks within our cup, while we're in health;
Sits by our sick-bed, mocks our medicines;
We cannot walk, or sit, or ride, or travel,
But Death is by to seize us when he lists.
THE SPANISH FATHER.
From the agitating scene in the Queen's presence-chamber, the Lady of
Lochleven retreated to her own apartment, and ordered the steward to be
called before her.
“Have they not disarmed thee, Dryfesdale?” she said, on seeing him
enter, accoutred, as usual, with sword and dagger.
“No!” replied the old man; “how should they?--Your ladyship, when you
commanded me to ward, said nought of laying down my arms; and, I think
none of your menials, without your order, or your son's, dare approach
Jasper Dryfesdale for such a purpose.--Shall I now give up my sword to
you?--it is worth little now, for it has fought for your house till it
is worn down to old iron, like the pantler's old chipping knife.”
“You have attempted a deadly crime--poison under trust.”
“Under trust?--hem!--I know not what your ladyship thinks of it, but the
world without thinks the trust was given you even for that very end; and
you would have been well off had it been so ended as I proposed, and you
neither the worse nor the wiser.”
“Wretch!” exclaimed the lady, “and fool as well as villain, who could
not even execute the crime he had planned!”
“I bid as fair for it as man could,” replied Dryfesdale; “I went to a
woman--a witch and a Papist--If I found not poison, it was because it
was otherwise predestined. I tried fair for it; but the half-done job
may be clouted, if you will.”
“Villain! I am even now about to send off an express messenger to my
son, to take order how thou shouldst be disposed of. Prepare thyself for
death, if thou canst.”
“He that looks on death, Lady,” answered Dryfesdale, “as that which
he may not shun, and which has its own fixed and certain hour, is ever
prepared for it. He that is hanged in May will eat no flaunes
[footnote: Pancakes] in midsummer--so there is the moan made for the old
serving-man. But whom, pray I, send you on so fair an errand?”
“There will be no lack of messengers,” answered his mistress.
“By my hand, but there will,” replied the old man; “your castle is but
poorly manned, considering the watches that you must keep, having this
charge--There is the warder, and two others, whom you discarded for
tampering with Master George; then for the warder's tower, the bailie,
the donjon--five men mount each guard, and the rest must sleep for the
most part in their clothes. To send away another man, were to harass
the sentinels to death--unthrifty misuse for a household. To take in new
soldiers were dangerous, the charge requiring tried men. I see but one
thing for it--I will do your errand to Sir William Douglas myself.”
“That were indeed a resource!--And on what day within twenty years would
it be done?” said the Lady.
“Even with the speed of man and horse,” said Dryfesdale; “for though I
care not much about the latter days of an old serving-man's life, yet I
would like to know as soon as may be, whether my neck is mine own or the
hangman's.”
“Holdest thou thy own life so lightly?” said the Lady.
“Else I had reckoned more of that of others,” said the
predestinarian--“What is death?--it is but ceasing to live--And what
is living?--a weary return of light and darkness, sleeping and waking,
being hungered and eating. Your dead man needs neither candle nor can,
neither fire nor feather-bed; and the joiner's chest serves him for an
eternal frieze-jerkin.”
“Wretched man! believest thou not that after death comes the judgment?”
“Lady,” answered Dryfesdale, “as my mistress, I may not dispute your
words; but, as spiritually speaking, you are still but a burner of
bricks in Egypt, ignorant of the freedom of the saints; for, as was well
shown to me by that gifted man, Nicolaus Schoefferbach, who was martyred
by the bloody Bishop of Munster, he cannot sin who doth but execute that
which is predestined, since--”
“Silence!” said the Lady, interrupting him,--“Answer me not with thy
bold and presumptuous blasphemy, but hear me. Thou hast been long the
servant of our house--”
“The born servant of the Douglas--they have had the best of me--I served
them since I left Lockerbie: I was then ten years old, and you may soon
add the threescore to it.”
“Thy foul attempt has miscarried, so thou art guilty only in intention.
It were a deserved deed to hang thee on the warder's tower; and yet
in thy present mind, it were but giving a soul to Satan. I take thine
offer, then--Go hence--here is my packet--I will add to it but a line,
to desire him to send me a faithful servant or two to complete the
garrison. Let my son deal with you as he will. If thou art wise, thou
wilt make for Lockerbie so soon as thy foot touches dry land, and let
the packet find another bearer; at all rates, look it miscarries not.”
“Nay, madam,” replied he--“I was born, as I said, the Douglas's servant,
and I will be no corbie-messenger in mine old age--your message to your
son shall be done as truly by me as if it concerned another man's neck.
I take my leave of your honour.”
The Lady issued her commands, and the old man was ferried over to the
shore, to proceed on his extraordinary pilgrimage. It is necessary
the reader should accompany him on his journey, which Providence had
determined should not be of long duration.
On arriving at the village, the steward, although his disgrace had
transpired, was readily accommodated with a horse, by the Chamberlain's
authority; and the roads being by no means esteemed safe, he associated
himself with Auchtermuchty, the common carrier, in order to travel in
his company to Edinburgh.
The worthy waggoner, according to the established customs of all
carriers, stage-coachmen, and other persons in public authority, from
the earliest days to the present, never wanted good reasons for stopping
upon the road, as often as he would; and the place which had most
captivation for him as a resting-place was a change-house, as it was
termed, not very distant from a romantic dell, well known by the name
of Keirie Craigs. Attractions of a kind very different from those
which arrested the progress of John Auchtermuchty and his wains, still
continue to hover round this romantic spot, and none has visited its
vicinity without a desire to remain long and to return soon.
Arrived near his favourite _howss_, not all the authority of Dryfesdale
(much diminished indeed by the rumours of his disgrace) could prevail on
the carrier, obstinate as the brutes which he drove, to pass on without
his accustomed halt, for which the distance he had travelled furnished
little or no pretence. Old Keltie, the landlord, who had bestowed his
name on a bridge in the neighbourhood of his quondam dwelling, received
the carrier with his usual festive cordiality, and adjourned with him
into the house, under pretence of important business, which, I believe,
consisted in their emptying together a mutchkin stoup of usquebaugh.
While the worthy host and his guest were thus employed, the discarded
steward, with a double portion of moroseness in his gesture and look,
walked discontentedly into the kitchen of the place, which was occupied
but by one guest. The stranger was a slight figure, scarce above the age
of boyhood, and in the dress of a page, but bearing an air of haughty
aristocratic boldness and even insolence in his look and manner, that
might have made Dryfesdale conclude he had pretensions to superior
rank, had not his experience taught him how frequently these airs of
superiority were assumed by the domestics and military retainers of the
Scottish nobility.--“The pilgrim's morning to you, old sir,” said the
youth; “you come, as I think, from Lochleven Castle--What news of our
bonny Queen?--a fairer dove was never pent up in so wretched a dovecot.”
“They that speak of Lochleven, and of those whom its walls contain,”
answered Dryfesdale, “speak of what concerns the Douglas; and they who
speak of what concerns the Douglas, do it at their peril.”
“Do you speak from fear of them, old man, or would you make a quarrel
for them?--I should have deemed your age might have cooled your blood.”
“Never, while there are empty-pated coxcombs at each corner to keep it
warm.”
“The sight of thy gray hairs keeps mine cold,” said the boy, who had
risen up and now sat down again.
“It is well for thee, or I had cooled it with this holly-rod,” replied
the steward. “I think thou be'st one of those swash-bucklers, who brawl
in alehouses and taverns; and who, if words were pikes, and oaths were
Andrew Ferraras, would soon place the religion of Babylon in the land
once more, and the woman of Moab upon the throne.”
“Now, by Saint Bennet of Seyton,” said the youth, “I will strike thee on
the face, thou foul-mouthed old railing heretic!”
“Saint Bennet of Seyton,” echoed the steward; “a proper warrant is Saint
Bennet's, and for a proper nest of wolf-birds like the Seytons!--I will
arrest thee as a traitor to King James and the good Regent.--Ho! John
Auchtermuchty, raise aid against the King's traitor!”
So saying, he laid his hand on the youth's collar, and drew his sword.
John Auchtermuchty looked in, but, seeing the naked weapon, ran faster
out than he entered. Keltie, the landlord, stood by and helped neither
party, only exclaiming, “Gentlemen! gentlemen! for the love of Heaven!”
and so forth. A struggle ensued, in which the young man, chafed at
Dryfesdale's boldness, and unable, with the ease he expected, to
extricate himself from the old man's determined grasp, drew his dagger,
and with the speed of light, dealt him three wounds in the breast and
body, the least of which was mortal. The old man sunk on the ground with
a deep groan, and the host set up a piteous exclamation of surprise.
“Peace, ye brawling hound!” said the wounded steward; “are dagger-stabs
and dying men such rarities in Scotland, that you should cry as if the
house were falling?--Youth, I do not forgive thee, for there is nought
betwixt us to forgive. Thou hast done what I have done to more than
one--And I suffer what I have seen them suffer--it was all ordained to
be thus and not otherwise. But if thou wouldst do me right, thou wilt
send this packet safely to the hands of Sir William Douglas; and see
that my memory suffer not, as if I would have loitered on mine errand
for fear of my life.”
The youth, whose passion had subsided the instant he had done the deed,
listened with sympathy and attention, when another person, muffled in
his cloak, entered the apartment, and exclaimed--“Good God! Dryfesdale,
and expiring!”
“Ay, and Dryfesdale would that he had been dead,” answered the wounded
man, “rather than that his ears had heard the words of the only Douglas
that ever was false--but yet it is better as it is. Good my murderer,
and the rest of you, stand back a little, and let me speak with this
unhappy apostate.--Kneel down by me, Master George--You have heard that
I failed in my attempt to take away that Moabitish stumbling-block and
her retinue--I gave them that which I thought would have removed the
temptation out of thy path--and this, though I had other reasons to show
to thy mother and others, I did chiefly purpose for love of thee.”
“For the love of me, base poisoner!” answered Douglas, “wouldst thou
have committed so horrible, so unprovoked a murder, and mentioned my
name with it?”