MARGARET DRUMMOND.
----They gazed upon each other,
With swimming looks of speechless tenderness,
Which mixed all feelings, child, friend, lover, brother,
All that the best can mingle and express,
When two pure hearts are poured in one another,
And love too much, and yet cannot love less!
BYRON.
In a small round chamber, really "a secret bower," of her father's
house, Margaret Drummond was seated alone. She was half kneeling and
half reclining in an old _prie-dieu_ of oak, for she had just
concluded her prayers; and a missal, bound in velvet and gold, with a
rosary of bright amber beads, lay in her lap.
In a large holder of carved wood and brass-work, two tall candles
lighted this apartment, which was hung all round with dark-red arras.
Here was a little bed, raised scarcely a foot from the ground,
canopied by a gilded cornice with plumes of feathers, with a small
niche over the pillows, and within it stood the prettiest Madonna
that ever came out of Italy, with a little font, which always
contained some holy water.
This was Margaret's little bower, and at times her sleeping-place.
As she lay half reclined in that old and grotesque _prie-dieu_, with
her soft sad features partly hidden amid her clustering hair, her
long lashes downcast, one white hand supporting her temples, and the
other drooping by her side, she would have made a beautiful picture.
She was still as death, as she listened for every passing sound; but
all was quiet in that vast mansion, whose inmates were now retired to
rest. For more than an hour she had watched and listened, without
hearing anything, for the old walls of the house were several feet
thick, and, together with the wainscoting and tapestry, nearly
excluded all external sound, even by day. At last she raised her
head and listened, while her fine eyes sparkled with animation.
St. Mary's bell struck ten.
"_Ten_--and he comes not yet!" said Margaret, rising, to sink again
with a sigh into the _prie-dieu_, but almost immediately a knock was
heard at the side of the apartment, and a soft voice sang the burden
of that beautiful old song--
"Oh, are you sleeping, Maggie,
My ain, my dear, my winsome Maggie!
Unbar your door, for owre the muir
The wind blaws cauld frae Aberdaggie."
An expression of joy spread over her features; her eyes sparkled
again; her cheek flushed, and springing from the _prie-dieu_, she
raised the red arras, opened a little door by withdrawing a bar of
oak, and stooping low the young Duke of Rothesay entered from a
secret staircase, to which he alone had access, and which
communicated with the lobby of the house and its arcades below.
"Tears?" said the handsome prince, taking her tenderly in his arms,
and kissing her on the lips and on the eyes. "Dearest, why this
emotion?"
But Margaret only sobbed, drooped her head upon his breast, and wept.
"It was my happiness to see you; but you did not observe me to-day."
"See thee, dearest Maggie," said the prince, throwing aside his
casquetel and rich mantle; "I looked all amid the glittering crowd
that stood by the western gate for thee, and thee only; but,
whichever way I turned, could see nothing save the enormous fantange
of Madam the Duchess of Montrose. I vow it looks like a kirk
steeple! But now," added Rothesay, with a smile of inexpressible
tenderness, "thou forgettest, I have one other little mouth to kiss."
Margaret drew back the curtain of an alcove, and there, within a
little couch, canopied by rich hangings of rose-coloured velvet, lay
a pretty child of not more than eight months old, plump, fair, and
round, with its small face and cheeks, tinted like rose-leaves,
encircled by a lace cap. Two hands were also visible, so small and
so very diminutive, that but for their dimples they might have passed
for those of a fairy. The prince knelt down, and while his heart
rose to his lips, kissed gently the soft warm cheek of the sleeping
baby that in after years was to be Lady Gordon of Badenoch; and after
gently closing the curtain, again he pressed Margaret to his breast,
and seated her beside him.
"Life is so sweet!" said he, "when one has something to love, and is
beloved again; and you, my Maggie, are a diamond among women."
"And thou wilt never tire of thy poor little Margaret?"
"Tire of thee?" sighed the prince, smiling; "dear Maggie, since I
knew thee I have only begun to live--to know joy. To me it seems
that we have but one heart, one soul, and that without thee I should
now have neither. And thou hast confided to me thy life, thy love,
thy destiny, and this dear infant, the pledge of them all. Oh,
Margaret, without thee, how dark would this world be to Rothesay?"
"And yet, prince, for one long month we have not met."
"Why call me _prince_? Dear Margaret, here there is no prince."
"Nor princess!" she sighed.
"There _is_--for thou art Duchess of Rothesay, and shall yet be Queen
of Scotland--even as my ancestress, Annabella Drummond, was before
thee."
"Alas, but for our unfortunate consanguinity through her, we had not
been wedded in secret, or been driven thus to commit a mortal sin. I
had not borne this poor child unknown, or carried under my bosom a
load of grief and shame."
"Shame," reiterated Rothesay, kissing away her tears. "Ah, Margaret,
have you forgotten that night in the cathedral at Dunblane, when we
were so solemnly united, as Father Zuill and the cathedral registrars
shall yet bear testimony in Parliament. Ere long the Bishop of
Dunblane will bring from Rome the dispensation that shall clear us
all, and then I shall _again_ espouse thee, Margaret, with such
splendour as Scotland has not seen since Mary of Gueldres stood by
the side of James II. at the altar of the Holy Cross."
"But till then, I must live in terror, and love in secret. Oh,
prince, had I loved thee less--had I known or foreseen--but I most
not weary thee with unavailing reproaches, prince----"
"Prince again! Now this is most unkind. Dear Margaret, why call me
otherwise than James Stuart--am I not thine own James?"
"Thou art, indeed, and my beloved one!" said Margaret, laying her
beautiful head on the breast of her handsome lover, with one of her
sweetest and most confiding smiles; "but do pardon me, if I say, that
there are times when I look forward and tremble--look back and weep.
There is something to me so terrible in the renewal of the old strife
between the king and the nobles. My father, the proudest among them,
is ever muttering deep threats of vengeance against the royal
favourites, and in the quarrel which I see too surely coming, if all
the pride and ferocity of the peers are unchained against the throne,
what may be the fate of thee, of this poor tender bud, and of myself?
Oh, James, think of the many who wish for the English alliance, and
who would brush me from their path like a gossamer web!"
"Thee!" exclaimed the prince, clutching his poniard; "not Angus
himself, even in the heart of his strongest fortresses, or amid his
twenty thousand vassals, dare harbour an evil thought against the
lady Rothesay loves. Nay, nay, Maggie, thou art sorely in error."
"At a wave from the hand of Angus, all the troopers of the east and
middle marches are in their helmets; then think of the hatred of Shaw
and Hailes--the treachery of Kyneff--the mad ambition of them all!
They are brooding over revolt--one day it will come. Would, dear
prince, that we had never met or rather, that I had never been!"
"Still regrets," said Rothesay, impatiently.
"Pardon me, dearest, if I weary thee--I do not regret, but I fear."
"What glamour hath possessed thee to-night, Margaret? for, by the
Black Rood, I never saw thee so full of dolorous thoughts."
"An evil omen, perhaps," said Margaret, with one of her faint smiles.
"This morning, when looking for the prayers prepared for those who
are in tribulation, I thrice opened my missal at the burial service
for the dead."
"And what then?"
"Madam my aunt, the Duchess of Montrose, told me, to-day, it was a
sure sign of coming evil."
"Your aunt the Duchess of Montrose is an--old fool!" said the prince,
bluntly.
"Strife is coming--I know it," continued Margaret, emphatically; "for
I have read it in the face of my father and the faces of his friends,
when Angus, the Lords Hailes and Home, and Shaw of Sauchie, are with
him. I have heard it in their deep whispers, and seen it in their
dark and angry glances, when Lindesay or Montrose, Gray, Ruthven,
Grahame or Maxwell, Wood of Largo, Falconer, or Barton--any who are
the king's known friends--are mentioned."
"And what matters it to us if all these high-born brawlers cut each
other's throats? The peers of Scotland are her curse, and in all
ages have been her betrayers, and will be so until the detested brood
are rooted out. A few names less on the peerage roll will better
enable the grain to ripen in harvest, and the people to live in
peace. My father, the king, has taught me this lesson, and I will
never forget it. War will come--I know it; for if we do not fight
with England, we must fight among ourselves, just, as it were, to
keep our hands in practice. But fear not for me, Margaret, and fear
less for our little babe, for I can protect both, and must do so; for
my soul is but a ray of thine--my life, the breath of thee. My
castle of Rothesay is thy proper dwelling, and I will place young
Lindesay in it, with five hundred of his men-at-arms."
The young prince left nothing unsaid which he thought might soothe
Margaret's fears, and remove those dreary forebodings of coming evil
in which she had indulged, and by dwelling as long as possible on the
expected return of the Bishop of Dunblane from Rome, with the
dispensation of Innocent VIII., he completely restored her to
cheerfulness; for that venerable prelate was in their secret, and had
undertaken to remove the only obstacle that prevented the public or
_state_ espousal, which Father Zuill (who, being partly a seaman, and
not over-particular) had anticipated, by performing their marriage
ceremony in secret, and thus ending for ever all those deep intrigues
by which the three Kings of England, Edward II., Richard III., and,
lastly, Henry VII., had each in succession striven to have the Crown
Prince of Scotland wedded to a princess of their families.
Though thus espoused, Rothesay and Lady Margaret were still lovers,
for both were so young, that long and frequent absences, with the
secrecy they were compelled to observe, lest the politic king, on the
one hand, or the imperious Lord Drummond on the other, should
discover their union, all tended to increase, rather than to diminish
their tender regard.
The prince remained by her side until midnight had tolled, and their
conversation was all of themselves; for so it is ever with lovers,
who would cease to be so if they tired of their theme, which "is ever
charming, ever new."
Promising to return at the same hour on the second night following,
James kissed his beautiful princess and her infant daughter, wrapped
his scarlet mantle about him, and raising the arras, slipped down the
secret stair, the concealed door of which Lady Margaret immediately
secured.
"She hath spoken truly," muttered the prince, as he turned the buckle
of his belt behind him, brought the hilt of his sword round, and
looked cautiously up and down the dark, silent, and deserted street
for the interloper by whom he had been formerly followed. "She hath,
indeed, spoken truly. A strife approaches that will drench the land
in blood--a strife which even I cannot avert. This secret marriage
may destroy us both. Dear, dear Margaret! Like my father, a
fatality pursues me, and those who could guide us both may be the
innocent cause of undoing us all."
He hurried along the narrow and quaint old street, and, favoured by
his disguise and the watch-word, passed the sentinels, and reached
the Palace of St. Margaret unknown and undiscovered.
The unfortunate relationship which rendered a papal dispensation
necessary in those days, was caused by Rothesay's descent from
Annabella Drummond, queen of Robert III., who was a daughter of
Margaret's great-great-grandsire, Sir John Drummond of that ilk. In
her own time, this queen had been justly celebrated for her
loveliness; for, as Cambden says, "the women of the family of
Drummond, for charming beauty and complexion, are beyond all others."
Other writers amply corroborate this, and add, that three girls more
beautiful than Euphemia, Sybilla, and Margaret Drummond had never
graced the court of a Scottish king.