‘Oh! ’gin I had a bonny ship,
And men to sail wi’ me,
It’s I wad gang to my true love,
Sin’ my love comes not to me.’
About the same hour at which the galley bearing Mary Stuart and her
fortunes, eluded, in the increasing darkness, the vigilance of the
English cruisers, an archer of the Scottish Body-guard, with whom we
have already made acquaintance, might have been seen pacing to and fro
on a strip of white sand adjoining Calais harbour. After a long day of
labour and excitement, preparatory also to a ride of some two hundred
miles on the morrow, this midnight walk was perhaps the least judicious
method of passing the hours sensible persons devote to repose. Our
archer, nevertheless, continued it with a perseverance that denoted
considerable preoccupation, pausing at intervals to gaze wistfully on
the sea, and anon resuming his exercise, as if goaded to bodily effort
by some acute mental conflict.
In honest truth, like Sinbad the Sailor, he was oppressed by a
metaphorical Old Man of the Sea, that he could not get rid of,
although in his case the unwelcome equestrian had assumed the form
of a prevailing idea, connected with a young woman instead of an old
man, and resembling Sinbad’s encumbrance in no particular except the
tenacity with which it clung.
Reader, it is worth while to go to the Pampas to see a Gaucho lasso
and mount a hitherto unbroken horse. How the animal, conscious of his
degradation, fights and rears and plunges, wincing from the cruel spurs
to rise at the maddening bit! How his eye dilates and his nostril
reddens, and his whole form contracts with mingled fear and rage!
Shaking his head wildly, he dashes ere long into a headlong gallop,
and becomes stupefied to discover that, even at his fiercest speed,
he bears his tormentor along with him. Subdued at last, he bends his
neck to the hand that has tamed him, and experiences a new sensation of
increased power and confidence in submitting to the master-will. So is
it with a manly, resolute nature, when it first feels the influence of
another’s existence on its own. There is a certain charm, indeed, in
the novelty of the sentiment, but there is also surprise, apprehension,
and a strong disposition to oppose and crush the unaccustomed
usurpation. After many an unavailing struggle, the conquered must,
however, submit to the conqueror; and, like other slaves, he loses the
desire for liberty with the consciousness of incapacity to be free.
Use in time renders him perfectly docile and broken-in; at last he is
perfect in all the paces of the _manége_, and carries one rider nearly
as pleasantly as another. He is a useful hack now, but the mettle of
the wild-horse has left him for evermore.
Our archer was in the first stages of his tuition. He was, so to speak,
only lately caught and mounted. We can but wish him a merciful rider
with a kind heart and a light hand!
Walter Maxwell, for such was the name in which he stood enrolled on
the list of the Archer-guard, was the younger son of an old Scottish
family, possessed of an unblemished pedigree, considerable territorial
possessions, and a sad lack of broad pieces. Then, as now, the upper
classes in Scotland, with many noble qualities, were cursed with a
morbid desire for the shadow rather than the substance of wealth. In
Queen Mary’s days, the pound Scots represented in value the shilling
English. In Queen Victoria’s, the laird on one side the Tweed, with
his few hundreds a year, would fain make believe that his possessions
equal those of the squire on the other, who owns as many thousands.
His difficulties, his shortcomings, his meannesses originate in this,
the paltriest of all ambition, that would make his shilling look like
half-a-crown. Frugal and industrious as are her peasantry, prosperous
and enterprising as are her yeomen and traders, probably the gentry of
Scotland are at this moment more oppressed with difficulties than the
parallel class in any other country under the sun.
In the time of which we write, the Scottish nobility were afflicted
with the same unfortunate tendencies. There was then even more of
display abroad and less of ease at home; whilst the unsettled state
of the country, compelling every baron to entertain as many feudal
retainers as he could arm and feed, helped to drain their resources
to the very dregs. Violence and intrigue, political as well as
private, were naturally resorted to by those who had no other means
of replenishing their empty purses; and what with old feuds strictly
entailed, and new differences perpetually arising, Scotland could
only be likened to some huge cauldron, in which a thousand different
ingredients were boiling, and the scum perpetually rising to the
surface.
In such a state of things there was not much provision for younger
brothers; and as the somewhat heathenish doctrine, not yet eradicated,
then prevailed of considering individuals simply as links in a line,
and postponing all personal claims to those of that great myth--the
family--it may easily be imagined that the younger sons of a noble
Scotch house had small cause to congratulate themselves on their
aristocratic lineage.
Walter Maxwell might consider himself fortunate that he had the shelter
of the old tower at home until he had arrived at the strength and
stature of a man--that he was permitted to feed at the same board, and
enjoy the same pastimes as his elder brother, the heir--that he might
follow to her grave with a son’s decorous grief the mother who had
doted on her youngest--and that his share of the family possessions
was not limited to its name, but included a right to breathe the
moorland air round the old place till he had attained his fifteenth
year. Perhaps, after all, he inherited his share of the patrimony. He
gained health and strength, and good manhood, on its broad acres. He
learned to back a horse in its meadows, and fly a hawk on its hills, to
swim in its dark loch, and to wield a blade within its walls. Perhaps,
in bequeathing him an iron constitution, a vigorous frame, and a
courageous heart, the old lord had done enough for the golden-haired
child who used to come running to him after supper, and pull his gray
moustaches, and climb merrily upon one knee, whilst the heir occupied
the other.
At fifteen Walter Maxwell went out upon the world. A year after, he
was the youngest gentleman private in the French king’s Archer-guard.
Many a dame in Paris would turn round to look again on the blooming
youthful face--almost a child’s still--so pleasing in its contrast with
that manly form, clad in the showy armour of the guard. The Duchess of
Valentinois herself had desired to have the young boy-archer presented
to her; and it is to be presumed that Diane de Poitiers, a lady of
mature experience, was no mean judge of masculine attractions. A word
from the woman he so adored was sufficient to interest Henry II. in
the Scottish recruit, and Walter Maxwell was more than once selected
for duties demanding discretion as well as fidelity and courage. All
these qualities were, indeed, in constant request at such a court as
that of the French king. At a more advanced age, the young soldier had
also distinguished himself in the disastrous affairs of St Quentin and
Gravelines, where the French suffered serious defeats; and it was but
the consistency with which he remained steadfast to the Protestant
religion that stood in the way of his rapid promotion. He was a
favourite, too, with his comrades for his courage and soldier-like
bearing beyond his years, as well as for the indefinable attraction
of those buoyant spirits which, like the bloom of youth on the cheek,
seldom outlast maturity.
During the reign of Henry II., that chivalrous monarch, notwithstanding
his severity to the Protestants, and the prevalence of their religion
amongst his Scottish Archers, placed the most implicit confidence in
his body-guard, riveting their unshaken loyalty with many favours
and immunities, till they walked the streets of the capital objects
of admiration and envy to the very grandees themselves. Perhaps the
warlike Henry was of opinion that a soldier’s religion need not
interfere with his obedience; and, indeed, too many of the Archers
might have made the same answer, that some two centuries and a half
later the old grenadier of the Empire gave on a question of doctrine
to the Pope,--‘_Et de quelle religion es tu, mon fils?_’ asked his
Holiness of the grim sentry who kept the door that led into the
awful presence of Napoleon I. ‘_Je suis de la religion de la Vieille
Garde_,’ replied the veteran, with an astounding clatter of his musket,
as he ‘carried arms’ to the Pontiff. We take leave to doubt if the
Protestantism of the Scotch Guard often stood in the way of Henry’s
commands to his favourites.
But the evil day dawned at last. In the pride of his manly beauty, and
the vigour of his warlike frame, the king of France rode gallantly
into the lists, to break a lance in sport for the bright eyes of his
ladye-love. On his helmet he wore the colours of Diane de Poitiers.
And the duchess herself, looking down from the gallery, felt her heart
leap with pride in the noble appearance of her royal lover. What shall
we say of Henry’s infatuation for this seductive woman, nearly twenty
years his senior, himself the husband of the most accomplished lady in
Europe, for Catherine of Medicis was notoriously as wise as she was
beautiful? What, but that it is folly to argue on the wilfulness of the
human heart, and that the most untoward and ill-advised attachments
are apt to prove the strongest and the most fatal. The king loved her
madly, and was not ashamed to avow his passion openly in the sight of
France. Walter Maxwell attended the sovereign as one of his squires,
and bore a knot of the same coloured ribbons on his bonnet.
And now the trumpet sounds a flourish, and the king, raising his vizor,
calls for a bowl of wine, and without dismounting, quaffs it with an
ill-concealed gesture of courtesy to some one in the gallery--then,
a perfect horseman, he backs his charger to his post. Opposite, like
a statue sheathed in steel, sits his antagonist, the captain of the
Archer-guard. A proud man to-day is Gabriel, Earl of Montgomery, for
the Scottish peer has been chosen to break a lance with the French
king, in presence of two royal brides and their bridegrooms! There is a
hush of pleased expectation and interest over the whole assembly; only
the Duchess of Valentinois turns pale with ill-defined apprehension.
She feels the value of her last love, wildest and dearest of all,
lawless though it be. It was but this morning the king told her in
jest, he should not close his vizor lest she might not recognise
him; and she had chidden him, half playfully, half in earnest, for
the insinuation. She would know that warlike form she thinks in any
disguise--and the colour mounts again to her face as she catches his
last glance, while he settles himself in the saddle, and lays his
lance in the rest. He has not closed his helmet, after all! She will
chide him seriously, though, to-night, for his selfish carelessness
of danger. Again the trumpet sounds, and the lances shiver fairly in
mid-career. Firm and erect, the king reaches the opposite extremity of
the lists; then, swaying heavily in the saddle, falls in his ringing
harness to the ground. The Queen and her ladies rushed tumultuously
into the lists. Catherine de Medicis has a _right_ to succour her
husband. Diane de Poitiers, sick and faint, loses her consciousness in
a swoon. She is scarcely noticed, for all are crowding round the king.
Alas for the gallant monarch! Alas for the bold man-at-arms! A splinter
from Montgomery’s lance has entered the eye through the unclosed
helmet, and penetrated nearly to the brain. Ere twelve days elapse,
Catherine de Medicis is a widow. Francis II. has succeeded to the
throne, and Mary Stuart is Queen of France.
The favour of the Duchess of Valentinois was no passport, we may fairly
suppose, to the good graces of the queen-mother; and although Walter
Maxwell retained his appointment in the guard, his hopes of advancement
perished with the death of his royal patron. Such disappointments,
however, though they press heavily on an enthusiastic spirit, are
lightly borne by such a temperament as Maxwell’s. His disposition was
naturally calm and unimpressionable beyond the average. He possessed
the rare quality of seeing things as they were, and not as he wished
them to be. Above all, he had that quiet confidence in himself which
could wait patiently for an occasion, and seize it without hurry or
agitation when it arrived. Moreover, he had been brought up in the
stern school, that turns out the most finished pupils, after all.
Poverty and hardship give their lessons for nothing; but men remember
them better than Latin and Greek. We may be allowed to doubt whether
all George Buchanan’s classic lore and pedantic periods were as well
worth acquiring as Maxwell’s aptitude to saddle, shoe, and groom his
own horse, cook his own rations, burnish his own corslet, and keep his
head with his hand.
Changes also took place in the Scottish Guard. The Earl of Arran, heir
to the house of Hamilton, was appointed to its command, and already
that eccentricity began to manifest itself which was fostered, at last,
into madness, by the sunshine of Mary’s unconscious smiles. Arran chose
to alter the discipline, the accoutrements, and the whole system of
the _corps_, and such interference with their old habits was by no
means relished by its members. During the short reign of Francis II.,
Mary Stuart’s sympathies with her countrymen, and knowledge of their
customs and prejudices, checked many a proposed innovation that would
have created open dissatisfaction; but when she became a dowager Queen,
and Charles IX. succeeded to the throne, the archers found themselves
curtailed of many of their privileges, and no longer looked upon as
what they considered themselves--the _élite_ of the French army.
Seeing, however, that, like the famous ‘_gants glacés_’ of a later
period, they had earned this position by constantly volunteering for
all dangerous duties, they might well be uneasy at the prospect of
forfeiting a distinction it had cost so much hard fighting to attain.
It was during the short eighteen months of Mary’s reign as Queen of
France, that our archer, in virtue of his office, was brought in
contact with the fascinating sovereign and her court. That he became
the devoted adherent of his royal countrywoman is not to be wondered
at; but in Maxwell’s consistent loyalty to the Stuart there lurked a
deeper feeling of interest than he liked to allow even to himself; an
interest that he could not but connect with another Mary attached to
the person of her mistress. The Queen, as is well known, was a daring
and skilful horsewoman; a masculine accomplishment, by the way, that
many womanly natures acquire with great ease. Perhaps, as its chief
art consists in ruling by judicious concession, they have learned half
the lesson before they get into the saddle. As a natural consequence,
Mary was passionately fond of the chase, and followed it with a degree
of recklessness somewhat discomfiting to her less courageous or
worse-mounted attendants. In fact, she sustained more than one severe
fall without its curing her in the least of her galloping propensities.
It fell out on one occasion, near the Castle of Chambord, whither
the court had repaired for this princely recreation, that our archer
was in attendance on Mary and her _suite_ at the moment the stag
was unharboured, and, with a burst of inspiriting music, the hounds
were laid on. The Queen, as was her custom, went off at a gallop,
outstripping her attendants, and followed, at unequal distances, by the
whole cavalcade. Walter Maxwell, on a clambering, Roman-nosed French
horse, was plying his spurs to keep within sight of the chase, when a
faint scream of distress, and a young lady borne past him at a pace
that showed she was run away with, diverted his attention from the
pleasures to the exigencies of the moment. Though the animal beneath
him was neither speedy nor active, he managed, by a skilful turn, to
reach her bridle rein, and so, guiding her impetuous horse into an
alley that diverged from the line of the chase, succeeded in stopping
him before his own was completely exhausted. While the young lady did
not, in the least, lose her presence of mind, she was naturally a
little discomposed and a good deal out of breath. Nevertheless, she
thanked her preserver with frank and graceful courtesy, avowing, at
the same time, in very broken sentences, her inability to control the
animal she rode.
The confession was tantamount to a request that her new friend would
not leave her. The most determined Nimrod could scarcely have abandoned
a lady who thus placed herself under his charge, and Walter Maxwell,
with his passionless exterior, had a good deal of that manly generosity
in his composition, which warms at once to the unprotected and the
weak. Instead of toiling after the whole company, then, on a tired
horse, behold him riding quietly through beautiful woods, by the side
of a young lady, whose peace of mind seemed to depend on his keeping
his hand on her bridle rein.
People soon become acquainted when thus associated. Mary Carmichael,
with a colour much heightened from a variety of causes, and her rich
brown hair disordered by her gallop, had never looked prettier in her
life; whilst a glance or two shot at her protector from under her
riding-hat satisfied her that he was a gentleman of good nature and
lineage, also that she had remarked him more than once before, when
fulfilling his duties as a guardsman about the court. Before they had
ridden a mile, he had told her his name and all about himself.
‘A Maxwell!’ exclaimed the young lady, whose apprehensions were by this
time considerably soothed. ‘I ought to have known you for a Maxwell at
once. You’ve got the frank brow, and the ready hand, and the silent
tongue of the Maxwells.’ Here she checked herself with a laugh and
blush, whereat her companion laughed and coloured a little too. ‘Why,
we are kinsfolk at that rate,’ she added, courteously. ‘My mother’s
niece married a Maxwell of the Den, and they are a branch of the
Terreagles Maxwells, and so are you.’
‘I have left home so long,’ answered Walter, gravely, ‘I cannot count
my kin; and yet I will take your word for it. I should think the better
of myself,’ he added with a smile, ‘to have a right to call you cousin.’
The archer rarely smiled; when he did, his usually stern features
softened and lighted up almost into beauty. The change was not unmarked
by the maid-of-honour.
‘A Carmichael never failed a kinsman,’ said she, and her voice shook
a little, while her soft eyes gleamed;--‘or the old tower would be
looking down still upon Dumfries, and there would be more than a
blackened arch, and a few mounds of grass standing by the hearth-stone,
where my father once received King James. Well, Sir Archer, you have
done a cousinly deed for me at least to-day.’
Perhaps she expected he would make some acknowledgment of his good
fortune in the opportunity, but Maxwell rode on in silence. A French
gallant would have overwhelmed her with eloquence, and few men but
would have hazarded a few compliments, however trifling. She scarcely
seemed offended, nevertheless. Her mute companion was absorbed in a
brown study, thinking how well she looked in her riding-gear. It may be
that her woman’s intuition told her as much.
Presently a burst of horns in the distance announced the direction
of the chase. Mary Carmichael’s steed pricked his ears, and showed
symptoms of insubordination once more. Walter’s grasp was on the bridle
in an instant, and the rider thanked him with a grateful smile.
‘The ready hand!’ she said, laughing. ‘Was I not right in saying you
inherited the gifts of your family?’
‘It must excuse the silent tongue,’ he answered. ‘I am no squire
of dames, and you ladies of the court must needs look down on the
unpolished soldier. And yet his silence may offer more of respect and
regard in its humility than the loudest professions of admiration from
those who have never been taught to say less than they think, and think
less than they feel.’
‘And receive twice as much in return,’ she replied, in a very low
voice, and averting her face from her companion as she spoke. Then she
put her horse into a quicker pace, and ere long they met and joined a
party of the courtiers returning from the chase.
After this, though they saw each other but seldom, and had no more
rides together, there was a sort of tacit understanding between
the two. Nobody remarked that if Walter Maxwell was on guard, Mary
Carmichael’s manner displayed more animation, and her dress was,
if possible, more becomingly arranged than usual. Nobody remarked
that one of the archers, more than any of his comrades, displayed
unusual readiness in volunteering for all duties that brought him
near the Queen’s person, and never seemed so contented as when riding
in her escort, or mounting guard at her door. Yet it was true,
notwithstanding; and, although not a word had been exchanged by
these young persons of a more explicit tendency than those we have
related, there had yet sprung up between them one of those mysterious
affinities, that in this world of ours lead to such troublesome results.
It was not till Mary Carmichael had sailed for Scotland in the _suite_
of her royal mistress, that it occurred to Maxwell he was losing time
and opportunities by remaining in his present service at the court of
France. He wondered it had never before struck him so forcibly, that
the Archer-guard no longer occupied its proud position in the land of
its adoption--that its privates were no longer so well born, its drill
so exact, nor its discipline so perfect as in the days of its old
commander, Montgomery--that Arran was a weak-minded enthusiast, who
would finish by disgusting both officers and men--and that Charles IX.
was already beginning to look coldly upon them, and depriving them,
one by one, of the privileges by which they set such store. Then his
patron, Montmorency, was getting infirm and worn out; and with the
constable’s demise, adieu to his hopes of advancement in the service of
France!
Mary Stuart, too, in her new kingdom, would need all the stout hands
and loyal hearts that she could muster. It was clearly the duty of
every Scotchman to rally round the fair young queen.
Ere our archer had concluded his midnight walk, he had made up his
mind; and as he posted back his long ride to Paris, the following day,
he resolved to claim his dismissal from the French king, and to seek
his fortune once more in the land of his birth.