GORDON’S BANE
On the morning of Lammas Day the Queen heard mass in the Chapel Royal
with a special intention, known only to herself. Red mass it should have
been, since she felt sore need of the Holy Ghost; but she had given up
the solemn ornament of music for the sake of peace. So Father Lesley read
the office before the very few faithful: her maids, Erskine, Herries,
the esquires, the pages, the French Ambassador, the Ambassador of
Savoy—with him a certain large, full-blooded Italian, of whom there will
be something to say anon. Mr. Knox had been scaring off the waverers of
late: the Catholic religion was languid in the realm.
She knelt before the altar on her faldstool very stiffly, and looked more
solitary than she felt. Her high mood and high endeavour still holding,
there was but one man in Scotland who could make her feel her isolation,
make her pity herself so nearly that the tears filled her eyes. Her
brother James and his party, ostentatiously aloof, she could reckon with.
All was said of them long ago by that old friend of hers now facing God
in the mass: ‘Your brother stands on the left of your throne; but he
looks for ever to the right.’ With this key to the cipher of my Lord
James, what mystery in his sayings or doings? Then the grim Mr. Knox,
who had worked her secret desires, and since then railed at her, scolded
her, made her cry—she had his measure too. He liked her through all, and
she trusted him in spite of all: at a pinch she could win him over. Whom,
then, need she consider? The Earl of Bothwell—ah, the Earl of Bothwell,
who laughed at everything, and had looked drolly on at her efforts to be
a queen, and chosen to do nothing to help or hinder: there was a man to
be feared indeed! She never knew herself less a queen or more a girl than
when he was before her. Laughed he or frowned, was he eloquent or dumb
as a fish, he intimidated her, diminished her, drove her cowering into
herself to queen it alone. Christ was not so near, God not so far off,
as this confident, free-living, shameless lord. Therefore now, because
she dared not falter in what she was about to do, or see herself less
than she desired to be, she had sent him into Liddesdale to hold the
Justice-Court, and had not cared even to receive him when he came to take
his leave. Lady Argyll, who had stood in her place, reported that he had
gone out gaily, humming a French air. With him safely away, she had faced
her duty—duty of a Prince, as she conceived it. And here she knelt in
prayer, prone before the Holy Ghost—solitary (but that is the safeguard
of the King!)—and searched the altar for a sign of assurance.
Over that altar hung Christ, enigmatic upon His cross. The red priest
bent his head down to his book, and made God apace.
The Queen’s lips moved. ‘My Saviour Christ, I offer Thee the intention of
my heart, a clean oblation. If I do amiss in error, O Bread of Heaven,
visit it not upon me. I have been offended, I have been disobeyed; they
call upon me to claim my just requital. But be not Thou offended with me,
my Lord, and pardon Thou my disobedience. As for my punishment, I suffer
it in seeking to punish.’
It is not often that women pray in words: an urgency, a subjection, a
passionate reception is the most they do—and the best. But she prayed so
now, because she felt the need of justifying herself before Heaven, and
the ability to do it. For Bothwell was in far Liddesdale, and she on her
throne.
In three days’ time she was to go to the North; and, though the country
knew it not, she would go in force to punish the Gordons. You may judge
by her prayers whether she was satisfied with the work. Plainly she was
not. Her anger had had time to cool; she might have forgotten the very
name of the clan, except that their men had had honest faces, and that
two of them had certainly loved her once. But she had not been allowed to
forget: the record remained, held up ever before her eyes in the white
hand of Lord James. Contumacy! Contumacy! Old Huntly had been traitor
before, when he trafficked with the enemies of her mother, and tried
to sell herself to the English king. The Gordons would not surrender;
they had mated with the Hamiltons, a stock next to hers for the throne.
Was there not a shameful plot here? Would she not be stifled between
these two houses? Yes, yes, she knew all that. But they were Catholics,
they had shown her honest faces, two of them had loved her. She was not
satisfied; she must have a sign from heaven.
God was made, the bell proclaimed Him enthroned, Queen Mary bowed her
head. Now, now, if the Gordons were true men, let God make a sign! The
tale was told that once, when a priest lifted up the Host above his head,
the thin film dissolved, and took flesh in the shape of a naked child,
who stood, burning white, upon the man’s two hands. Let some such marvel
fall now! Intimacies between God and the Prince had been known. She
hid her face, laid down her soul; the vague swam over her, the dark—a
swooning, drowning sense. In that, for a moment, as vivid clouds chased
each other across her field, she saw a face, a shape—mocking red mouth,
vivacious, satirical hands, the gleam of two twinkling eyes: Bothwell,
hued like a fiend, shadowing the world. She shuddered; God passed
over, as the bell called up the people. With them she lifted her head,
stiffened herself. The spell was broken. Without being more superstitious
than her brethren, she may be pardoned for finding in this experience an
ominous beginning of adventure.
Nevertheless, she so faced the heights of her task that, on the day
appointed, she set out as bravely as to a hunting of stags. Jeddart
pikes, bowmen from the Forest, her Lothian bodyguard—she had some five
hundred men about her; too many for a progress, too few to make war. She
herself rode in hunting trim, with two maids, two pages, two esquires;
her brother, of course, in command; with him, of course, the Secretary.
At fixed points along the road certain lords joined her: Atholl at
Stirling, Glencairn and Ruthven at Perth, these with their companies.
Lying at Coupar-Angus, at Glamis, at Edzell, her spirits rose as she
breasted the rising country, saw the cloud-shadowed hills, the swollen
rivers, the wind-swept trees, the sullen moors, the rocks. She grew happy
even, for motion, newness, and physical exertion always excited her, and
she was never happy unless she was excited. No fatigue daunted her. She
sat out the driving days of rain, bent neither to the heat nor to the
cold fog. She was always in front, always looking forward, seemed like
the keen breath of war, driven before it as the wind by a rain-storm.
Lethington likened her to Diana on Taygetus shrilling havoc; but the
Lord James said: ‘Such similitudes are distasteful. We are serious men
upon a serious business.’ She rode astraddle like a young man, longed
for a breastplate and steel bonnet. She made Ruthven exercise her with
the broadsword, teach her to stamp her foot and cry, ‘Ha! a touch!’ and
cajoled her brother into letting her sleep one night afield. Folded in
a military plaid, so indeed she did; and watched with thrills the stars
shoot their autumn flights, and listened to the owls calling each other
as they coursed the shrew-mice over the moor. She pillowed her head on
Mary Livingstone’s knee at last, and fell asleep at about three o’clock
in the morning.
In the grey mirk—sharply cold, and a fine mist drizzling—Lethington
and his master came to rouse her. Mary Livingstone lifted a finger of
warning. The Queen was soundly asleep, smiling a little, with parted lips
and the hasty breathing of a child. Mary Seton, too, was deep, her face
buried in her arm. The two men looked down at the group.
‘Come away, my lord: give them time,’ said the Secretary.
But my Lord James did not hear him. He stood broodingly, muttering to
himself: ‘A girl’s frolic—this romping, fond girl! And Scotland’s neck
for her footstool—and earnest men for her pastime. O King eternal, is it
just? Man!’ he said aloud, ‘there’s no reason in this.’
Mr. Secretary misunderstood him, not observing his wild looks. ‘Give them
a short half-hour, my lord. There are two of them sleeping; and this poor
watcher hath the need of it.’
The Lord James turned upon him. ‘Who sought to have women sleeping here?
Are men to wait for the like of this? Are men to wait for ever? She
should have counted the cost. I shall waken her. Ay! let her have the
truth.’
‘She will wake soon enough,’ says Lethington, ‘and have the truth soon
enough.’
The Lord James gave him one keen glance. ‘I command here, Mr. Secretary,
under the Queen’s authority. Bid them sound.’
The trumpet rang; the Queen stretched herself, moved her head, yawned,
and sat up. She was wide awake directly, laughed at Livingstone for
looking so glum, at Seton’s tumbled hair. She kissed them both, said her
prayers with Father Roche, and was ready when the order to march was
given.
When she came to Aberdeen she was told that a messenger from the Earl of
Huntly was waiting for her with his chief’s humble duty, and a prayer
that she would lodge in his castle of Strathbogie. This was very insolent
or very foolish: she declined to receive the man. Let the Earl and his
son Findlater render themselves up at Stirling Castle forthwith, she
would receive them there. No more tidings came directly; but she learned
from her brother news of the country which made her cheeks tingle. It
was the confident belief of all the Gordon kindred, she was given to
know, that her Majesty had come into the North to marry Sir John Gordon
of Findlater. He was to be created Earl of Moray and Duke of Rothesay
to that end. True news or false, she was in the mood to believe it, and
cried out, with hot tears in her eyes, that she could have no peace
until that rogue’s head was off. Needing no prompter at her side, she
took instant action, marched on Inverness and summoned the keys of the
castle. They told her that the Lord of Findlater was keeper; none could
come in but by his leave. Findlater! But the man was out of his mind!
She grew very quiet when, after many repetitions of it, she could bring
herself to believe this report; then she sent for Lethington and bade
him raise the country. The counsel was her brother’s, and meant that
the clans—Forbeses, Grants, MacIntoshes—were to be supported and turned
against the Gordons. The Lord James considered that his work was as good
as done. So did the captain of the castle of Inverness; and rightly, for
when his charge was surrendered he was hanged. The town did its best to
appease the Queen with humble addresses and crocks full of gold pieces;
but she concealed from nobody now that she had come up with war in her
hands. Captains and their levies were sent for from the south; roads
marked out for Kirkcaldy of Grange, Lord John Stuart, Hay of Ormiston;
rendezvous given at Aberdeen. And presently she went down to meet them,
full of the purpose she had.
Old Huntly came out to watch. They saw his men, some hundred or more, in
loose order at the ford of Spey. Queen Mary’s heart leapt for battle,
real crossing of swords to crown all this feigning and waiting; but the
enemy drew off to the woods, and nobody barred her road to Aberdeen.
Uncomfortably for herself, she lodged at Spynie on the way, where
Bishop Patrick of Moray made her very welcome. He was Lord Bothwell’s
uncle, true Hepburn, a scapegrace old Catholic, _anathema_ to the good
Lord James, and proud of it. Something of Bothwell’s gleam was in his
cushioned eyes, something of Bothwell’s infectious gaiety in his rich
laugh. Like Bothwell, too, he was a mocker, who saw things sacred and
profane a uniform, ridiculous drab, shrugged at the ruin of the faith in
Scotland, and supposed Huntly had been paid to be a traitor. The Queen’s
fine temper made her sensitive to depreciation of the things she strove
at; under such rough fingers she was bruised. She felt cheapened by her
intercourse with this bishop; and not only so, but her business sickened
her. The old pagan made light of it.
‘’Tis but a day in the hedgerows for ye, madam. Send your
terriers—Lethington and siclike—into the bury, you shall see the Gordons
bolt to your nets like rabbits, and old Huntly squealing loudest of all.’
Now, the Gordons had been fair in her sight, noble friends and hardy
foes. But if George Gordon was to squeal like a rabbit, then war was
playing at soldiers, and she a tomboy out for a romp. She left Spynie
feeling that she hated the Gordons, hated their fault, hated their
chastisement, and hated above all men under the tent-roof of heaven the
whole race of Hepburn.
‘Vile, vile scoffers at God and His vicars! They make a toy of me, these
Hepburns. Uncle and nephew—I am a plaything for them.’
‘Just a Honeypot, madam,’ said Livingstone, and was snapped at for her
respect.
‘Am I “Madam” to you now? What have I done to make you so petulant?’
‘I wish you would be more “Madam” to the Hepburns,’ replied the maid. ‘I
could curse the whole brood of them.’
* * * * *
John Gordon defended two good castles, Findlater and Auchindoune. He
expected, and was prepared for, a siege; but when the reinforcements came
up from the Lowlands, somewhat to his consternation the Queen joined them
at Aberdeen and hung about that region indefinitely, as if the autumn
were but begun. Perhaps the suspense, the menace, told on old Huntly’s
nerves; at any rate, something brought him to his knees. He sent petition
after petition, promise upon promise; was reported by Ormiston to be
very much aged, tremulous, given to sobbing, and when not so engaged,
incoherent. This worthy went to Strathbogie, hoping to surprise him;
failed to find him at home, but saw the Countess and a young girl,
strangely beautiful, the Lady Jean, sole unmarried daughter of the house.
The Countess took him into the chapel.
‘Do you see that, Captain Hay?’ says she.
‘What in particular, ma’am?’
There were lighted candles on the altar, a cross, the priest’s vestments
of cloth of gold laid ready. She pointed to these adornments.
‘There is why they hunt us down, Captain Hay, because my lord is a
faithful Christian gentleman. And woe,’ cried she, ‘woe upon her who,
following wicked counsels, persecutes her own holy religion! It had been
better for her that she had never been born. Tell your mistress that.
Tell her that Gordon’s bane is her own bane. Ah, tell her that.’
He repeated the piece to the Queen in council, and she received it in a
cold silence, looking furtively round about her at the lords present,
for all the world (says Hay of Ormiston) as if she would see whether
they believed the words or not. Her brother sat on her left, Morton the
Chancellor on her right; Argyll was there, Ruthven, Atholl, Cassilis,
Eglinton. Not one of them looked up from the table, or saw her anxious
peering. Atholl whispered Cassilis without moving his head, and Cassilis
nodded and stared on. What did she think during that constrained silence?
Gordon’s bane her own bane! Could it be true? Perhaps the gibe of old
Bishop Hepburn came to her timely help: ‘Rabbits in a bury, and old
Huntly squealing first and loudest.’
She threw up her head, like a fretful horse. ‘My lords,’ she said in
her ringing, boyish voice, ‘you have heard the message sent me by the
Countess of Huntly. I am not of her mind. Gordon has tried to be my bane,
but is not so now. I think Gordon’s bane is Gordon’s self, and fear not
what he can do against me. And if not I, why need you fear? Take order
now, how best to make an end of it all.’ Order was taken.
Huntly was summoned before the council, and sent his wife. The Queen
would not see her. The royal forces moved out of Aberdeen; John Gordon
cut to pieces an outlying party; then the Earl joined hands with his son,
and the pair marched on Aberdeen. The fight was on the rolling hills of
Corrichie, down in the swampy valley between, over and up a burn. Their
cry of ‘Aboyne! Aboyne!’ bore the Gordons into battle; their pride made
them heroic; their pride caused them to fall. It was a case, one of the
first, of the ordnance against the pipes. No gallantry—and they were
gallant; no screaming of music, no slogan nor sword-work, nor locking of
arms, could hold out against Kirkcaldy’s cannon or Lord James’s horse.
They huddled about their standard and so died; some few fled into the
lonely hills; but Huntly was taken, and two of his tall sons, and all
three brought to the Queen. John of Findlater and Adam were in chains;
the old man needed none, for he was dead. They say that when he was taken
he was frantic, struggled with his captors to the last, induced so an
apoplexy, stiffened and died in their arms. They guessed by the weight
of him that he was dead. All this they told her. She neither looked at
the body nor chose to see the two prisoners; received the news in dull
silence. ‘Where is the Lord Gordon?’ She did ask that; and was told that
he had not been engaged.
‘Coward as well as traitor,’ she gloomed; ‘what else is left him to
adorn?’
‘Madam, tumbril and gallows,’ croaked Ruthven, like a hoody crow.
Next morning she awoke utterly disenchanted of the whole affair. Nothing
would content her but to be quit of it. ‘I seem to smell of blood and
filthy reek,’ she said to her brother James. ‘Take what measures you
choose. Ruin the ruins to your heart’s content. The house was Catholic,
and I suppose the stones and mortar are abominable in your eyes. Pull
them down; do as you choose—but let me go.’
He asked her desire concerning the prisoners. This caught villain
Findlater, for instance.
‘You seek more blood?’ she asked bitterly. ‘Take his, then. He has had
his fill of it in his day; now let him afford you a share.’
Adam Gordon? She took fire at his name. ‘You shall not touch a hair of
his head. I do not choose—I will not suffer it. He is for me to deal
with.’
He swore that she should be obeyed; but she called in Lethington, and put
the lad in his personal charge, to be brought after her to Stirling. At
this time Lethington was the only man she could trust.
Lastly, her brother hinted at the reward of his humble services to her
realm.
‘Oh, yes, yes, brother, you shall have your bonny earldom. God knows how
you have wrought for it. But if you keep me here one more hour, I declare
I shall bestow it on Mr. Secretary.’
He thanked her, saying that he hoped to deserve such condescension by
ever closer attention to her business. She chafed and fidgeted till he
was gone, then set about her escape. With a very small escort, she pushed
them to the last extreme in her anxiety to be south.
There should have been something of the pathetic in this struggle of a
girl to get out of throne-room and council-chamber; one might almost hear
the shrilling of wings; but Scots gentlemen fearful of their treadings
must be excused for disregarding it. They told her at Dundee that the
Duke of Châtelherault lay there, awaiting her censures. Hateful reminder!
‘What can he want with me at such an hour, in such a place as this?’
‘Madam, it is for his son-in-law’s sake he hath come so far.’
She flamed forth in her royalest rage. ‘Is the Lord Gordon so poor in
heart? Can he not beg for himself? Can he not lie? Can he not run? He can
hide himself, I know, while his kinsmen take the field. Let him learn
to whine also, and then he will be armed _cap-à-pie_.’ The old Duke was
refused: let the Lord Gordon surrender himself at Stirling Castle.
Thither went she, shivering in the cold which followed her late fires;
and sat in the kingly seat to make an end of the Gordons. Thither then
came the young lord whom she had once chosen to bewitch, walking upright,
without his sword. He could not take his eyes from her face when he stood
before her; nor could she restrain her fury, though many were present;
no, but she leaned forward, holding by the balls of the chair, and drove
in her hateful words fiercely and quick.
‘Ah, false heart, you dare to meet me at last!’
He said, ‘I have offended you, and am here at your mercy.’
‘What mercy for a liar?’
‘There should be none.’
‘For a disobedient servant?’
‘None, madam, none.’
‘For a craven that hides when war is adoing?’
He answered her steadily. ‘Whether is that man the greater coward who
fears such taunts as these, and for fear of them does hardily; or he that
refuses to draw sword upon his sovereign, though she throw in his face
his refusal? If I was able to dare your enmity, it is a small thing to me
that now I must have your scorn. There is no man in this place shall call
me craven; but from your Majesty I care not to receive the name, because
I am proud to have deserved it.’
This was well spoken, had she not been too fretful to know it.
‘Do you think, sir,’ cried she, ‘to scold me? Do you think me so light as
to forget? I am of longer memory than you. Trust Gordon, said you! Trust
Gordon? I would as lief trust Judas that sold his master, or Zimri that
slew his.’
Young Gordon held his peace, not knowing how to wrangle with a woman. At
the door there was some commotion—hackbutters looking about for orders,
the captain of the guard forbidding the entry, his hand uplifted to shut
men out. They told her that Lady Huntly was there.
‘Let her in,’ says the Queen. ‘I will show her this son of hers.’
The widow came, feeling her way down the hall; distracted with grief,
using her hands like a blind man. Beside her, really leading her, was
a tall girl, exceedingly handsome, dark-haired, pale, with proud, shut
lips. She looked before her, at nothing in particular—neither at the
young Queen stormy on her throne, nor at the circle of watchful men about
her, nor at her brother’s bowed head, nor at the full doorways. She saw
nothing, seemed to take no part, to feel no shame. Except the Queen only,
she seemed the youngest there; with the Queen, whose eyes she held from
the beginning, she was the only girl among these grim-regarding men.
‘Who is that? Who is that girl?’ the Queen asked Lethington, without
ceasing to look.
‘Madam, it is the Lady Jean Gordon.’
‘She has a frozen look, then. Why does she not see me? Is she blind?’
‘They say she is proud, madam.’
‘Proud? What, to be a Gordon?’
She watched her the whole time of the process, finding her a cold copy
of her brother, admitting freely her great beauty, admiring (while she
grudged) her impassivity. She herself was all on edge, quivering and
intense as a blown flame, her face hued like the dawn, her eyes frosty
bright. The other was so still! But the Queen was never quiet. Her
eyelids fluttered, the wings of her nose; her foot tapped the stool; she
saw everything, heard every breath. Jean Gordon had no colour, and might
have been carved in stone—a sightless, patient and dumb goddess, staring
forward out of a temple porch. Huddling in her great chair, resting her
chin on her hand, her elbow on her knee, Queen Mary watched her closely,
sensing an enemy; and all this while Lady Huntly called upon God and man
to testify to Gordon’s bane.
‘Malice,’—thus she ended her wailing,—‘Malice hath wrought this woe;
far-reaching, insatiable malice! There was one that craved a fair
earldom, and another the fair trappings of a house: there was one must
have the land, and another the good blood. Foul fare they all—they have
their desires in this world! Where is Huntly? He is dead. Where is my
fine son John? Dead! dead! Where is Adam, my pretty boy? Fetters on his
ankles, madam, the rats at his young knees. Come, come, come: you shall
have all the Gordons. There you have the heir, and here the widow, and
here the fatherless lass. Let them plead for your mercy if they care. I
have no voice left but a cry, and no tears but bloody tears. What should
I weep but blood?’
The Queen still looked at Jean Gordon. ‘Do you plead, mistress?’ she
asked her.
‘I do not, madam.’
She turned unwillingly to Gordon. ‘What do you plead, sir?’
‘Nothing, madam.’
She flew out at them all. ‘Insolence! This is not to be borne. You think
to save your faces by this latter pride. You should have been proud
before—proud enough not to promise and to lie. You expect me to be
humble, to sue you to plead! If my mercy is not worth your asking, it is
not worth your receiving. My Lord Gordon, surrender yourself to the law’s
discretion. Madam, you gain nothing by your reproaches; and you, young
mistress, nothing by your silence. The council is dissolved.’
Lord Gordon walked into ward. The Queen told Lethington that all the
forms of law must be observed; by which Lord Gordon’s execution was to be
understood.
When she reached Holyrood she sent for Adam Gordon: this shows you that a
thaw had set in. She received him in private, alone. This proves that she
wanted something yet from the Gordons.
The lad stood shamefully by the door, red with shame, and by shame made
sullen. But the Queen had melted before he came; the tears stood waiting
in her eyes. ‘Oh, Adam, Adam Gordon, they have hurt you! And you have
hurt me!’ She held out her arms.
He looked at her askance, he fired up, he gulped a sob; and then he
jumped forward into the shelter of her and cried his heart out upon her
bosom. After a time of mothering and such-like, he sat by her knee and
told her everything.
His father’s exorbitant pride, Findlater’s ambitions, the clamours of the
clan and want of ready pence, had undone the house of Huntly. Findlater
was restless. He knew that the country would have him chief; he knew that
he was a better man than his father or the heir; and old Huntly knew it
too, and would never lag behind. His brother Gordon, said Adam, was an
honest man. For why? He had refused to bear arms against her Majesty,
when it came to that or ruin. That hurt him so much with the kindred that
he had gone away. If he was a coward, Adam held, such cowardice was very
noble courage. ‘And be you sure, madam, from what I am telling you, that
he loves you over-well.’
‘He should love his wife, my child.’
‘His wife, indeed! Not he!’ cried Adam. ‘Why, he loved your Majesty from
the very first, and begged you to trust him. And should he go back upon
his word?’
‘Well,’ said the Queen, smiling, ‘maybe I will try him again.’
‘So please your Majesty, think of this,’ Adam said. ‘A man, they say,
weds with his hand. But he loves not with the hand.’
‘Would you wed with the hand, boy?’
He blushed. ‘I would, madam, if I must. But I would cut it off first.’
The Queen was delighted with him. She asked about his sister—was very
curious. How old was his sister Jean? She was told. Nineteen years!
Younger than herself, then—and looking so much older. Was she affianced?
Not yet? What made the men such laggards in the North? She looked proud
and cold: was she so indeed?
‘She is cold,’ says Adam, ‘until you warm her.’
‘A still girl,’ says the Queen.
And Adam, ‘Ay, deep and still.’
The Queen became pensive.
‘I think I might be pleased with her in time.’
Adam knew better. ‘No, no, madam. She is not one for your Majesty.’
‘How so?’
‘Madam, so please your Majesty, when you love it is easy seen, and when
you hate also. All your heart beats in your face. But Jean hides her
heart. If she loves, you will never see it. If she hates, you will never
know it, until the time comes.’
‘And when should that be, Adam?’
‘Eh,’ says he, ‘when she has you fast and sure.’
This singular character attracted the Queen. She thought much of Lady
Jean Gordon, and for many days.
* * * * *
Hateful ceremonies were enacted over the ruins of the house of Huntly.
The old Earl in his coffin was set up in the Parliament-house and
indicted of his life’s offence: a brawling indeed in the quiet garden of
death. They flung shame upon the witless old head; they stripped the
heedless old body of the insignia it wore. The Queen made a wry face when
she heard of it.
‘Whose is the vulture-mind in this?’ she asked, but received no reply
from her stony brother. She bade them stop their nasty play and deliver
up the corpse to Lady Huntly to be buried. Then she learned that the
widow and her daughter and the condemned lord had been present. She
turned pale: ‘I had no hand in this—I had no hand!’ she cried out
breathlessly, and was for telling the mourners. Adam Gordon told her that
they would be very sure of it.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘I will trust them to be as true-minded as thou.’
She shortly refused to allow Gordon’s execution, and told her brother so.
‘You and your friends,’ said she, ‘have paddled your hands long enough.
Go you to your homes and wash. The Lord Gordon shall go to Dunbar to
await my pleasure.’
‘Tell him,’ she said to Adam, ‘that because he asked not his life I give
it him; and say also that I trust him to make no escape from Dunbar.
Remind him of his words to me aforetime. If I trust him again he must not
prove me a fool.’
They say that, at this pungent instance of royal clemency, Lady Huntly
broke down, fell before her, and would have kissed her feet. The Queen
whipped them under her gown.
‘Get up, madam. But get up! That is no place for the afflicted. You do
not see your daughter there.’
It was very true. Lady Jean stood, composed and serious.
‘How shall I find the way into that fenced heart?’ thinks the Queen.
But now she turned her face eagerly towards England, whither, Mr.
Secretary Lethington assured her, ran an open, smiling road.