‘Oh! better for me that a blind-born child
Never a line I had learn’d to trace,
Than thus by a look and a laugh beguiled,
To have read my doom in fair Alice’s face.
‘And better for me to have made my bed
Under the yews where my fathers sleep,
Calm and quiet, at rest with the dead,
Than have given my heart to fair Alice to keep.’
So Bothwell was committed to ward in Edinburgh Castle, yet was his
durance but of a temporary nature, and devoid of the customary rigours
that accompany imprisonment. The warden made no effort to escape,
although he had a strong party of friends about the Court, and might
at any time have created considerable disturbance had he chosen to
resist the royal authority; but he bowed his head to the blast with
unexpected humility, and a submission, the result of mixed motives. He
lived in daily expectation of release by the Queen’s own authority. His
appointment on the border had not yet been filled up, and Hermitage was
still occupied by a staunch garrison who acknowledged no law but their
chief’s behests. Day by day did the warlike earl, pining, as well he
might, for the free breeze on his brow and the swinging gallop of his
steed, reflect on the effect which such devotion as his could not fail
to produce on the Queen. Danger he had always faced readily for her
sake; fatigue he had cheerfully endured; and now he submitted patiently
to captivity, because it was Mary Stuart’s will. Day by day he expected
a pardon, a release, an acknowledgment, a communication, and day by
day he was disappointed. ‘Hope deferred maketh the heart sick;’ but
this proverb applies rather to weak natures; in strong, it is apt to
make the heart savage. Stung by what he conceived to be ingratitude,
irritated by neglect, sore from conflicting feelings, such as rend an
ill-disciplined character with pangs to which mere physical suffering
is comparative relief, those weeks spent in Edinburgh Castle produced
an effect on Bothwell’s disposition that after years could never
eradicate. Even ‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh,’ who remained in attendance on his
master, and who was free to come and go at his pleasure, shook his head
gravely, and averred that ‘confinement was just destruction baith to
man an’ beast! He would like fine to see the warden ridin’ the Marches
again wi’ the Liddesdale lads at his back.’
But though Dick thus expressed himself, and doubtless meant what he
said, he was conscious in his heart that the banks of the Esk and the
braes of Teviotdale would never be the same to him again. The brawny
borderer had a new interest in life now, strange to say, unconnected
with hawk or hound, with morning chase or midnight foray, with axe or
lance, or mighty stoups of ale.
Once in the week it was Mary Seton’s custom to visit the town of
Edinburgh on foot, to make purchases for her mistress and her comrades,
of those odds and ends which ladies consume in such wonderful
quantities. The wilful little damsel had taken a great fancy to the
borderer, as you may see a child sometimes pleased with a huge
Newfoundland dog. Such attachments are not remarkable for reciprocity.
The biped, half-pitiful, half-amused, entertains a feeble liking for
so faithful an attendant; the quadruped wishes no better lot than to
serve its little idol slavishly all its life, and die licking its
hand. How the child cuffs it and teases it, and makes the noble animal
ridiculous, pulling its ears and tail!
‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh’ had but one day now in his week instead of seven.
He observed, not without inward gratulation, that his attendance on
these saints’ days, so to speak, was by no means unwelcome; and Mary
Seton, on her return to the palace, never omitted to inform the Queen
that she had seen Earl Bothwell’s henchman, neither did her mistress
take her to task herself, nor suffer Mary Beton to do so, for these
interviews.
So the strangely matched pair moved along the High Street, and the
lady, who, in addition to his other good qualities, had discovered the
borderer to be a capital listener, told him the Court news, for the
edification of his chief, with considerable volubility.
‘We’re all in confusion now,’ said she, one bright winter’s day, as
she tripped along the cleaner portion of the pavement with a light
basket in her hand, which sometimes as a great favour she permitted her
Newfoundland to carry, while that faithful animal stamped contentedly
alongside in the gutter. ‘The palace is turned inside out. We have got
the “new acquaintance” at Holyrood.’
Dick looked as if he didn’t understand, and yet did not quite like
the information. Something that would have been jealousy in a more
presumptuous admirer, shot through his great frame. Had he been
physically a retriever, he would have put his tail between his legs.
‘I dinna like acquaintances,’ said he, looking _down_ at her bodily a
foot or so; looking _up_ at her metaphorically any number of yards.
‘Give me friends, Mistress Seton, auld friends, an’ no too mony o’
them.’
‘You wouldn’t like this acquaintance!’ laughed the young lady, merrily,
whereat her companion looked on her admiringly, as one who listens to
sweet music. ‘He’s an acquaintance that would put _you_ on your back
readily, for as strong as you think yourself; he has overcome the Queen
and the household and Mr Randolph and Mary Beton, and all of them but
_me_.’
‘No,’ replied the borderer. He did not the least understand what she
meant, but admired her intensely, nevertheless.
‘It’s the sickness,’[5] at last she condescended to explain, between
bursts of laughter at her companion’s puzzled countenance. ‘There are
but two of the Queen’s ladies fit for duty at all--Mary Carmichael and
me; and she is so occupied with your chief’s kinsman, Mr Maxwell, that
she couldn’t be more useless if she was ill in bed. The Court is as
dull as ditch-water, and I shall have to walk up this weary hill to do
everybody’s business twice a week instead of once; that is the upshot
of it.’
[5] An epidemic that prevailed at the Court, answering to the
indisposition which we now term _influenza_, and mentioned by
Randolph in his letters to Cecil.
A ray of intense pleasure gleamed on her listener’s face at this
announcement; but it clouded over a minute afterwards, and he asked
with undisguised anxiety, ‘If there was no danger for herself?’
The girl could not but feel gratified at his obvious interest in her
safety; but she laughed again, and answered, merrily--
‘Do you think nobody can be bold who is not six foot high? I fear
sickness, I tell you, as little as you fear Lord Scrope, and hate it
perhaps more; and yet you have the best of it, too. I had rather face
death on an open moor than in closed bed-curtains. I wonder if anybody
would miss me much?’ she added, more to herself than him, for the grave
chord had somehow been struck in her thoughtless character.
He did not answer, and when she looked at him, his face was turned away.
‘Do you think they would?’ she proceeded, with the pertinacity of a
spoiled child. ‘Stranger things have come to pass. You might be riding
merrily in Liddesdale, whilst Mary Seton was lying stark and cold under
the Abbey stones.’
‘It would be a dark day in Liddesdale,’ was all the answer he made;
but he would not let her see his face, and his voice sounded as it had
never done before.
A tinge of remorse, such as that which the urchin feels when he takes
a bird’s-nest, smote almost unconsciously at the girl’s heart; yet was
the sensation, though pathetic, by no means unpleasant.
She laughed and bantered him more than usual during their walk; but
on that day, and indeed every day afterwards till he returned to the
border, she suffered him to carry her basket; and the honest retriever,
proud of his degradation, followed at her heel, with ever-increasing
fidelity and devotion. The bird’s-nest was taken now, and it is no
use attempting to put such articles back again; moreover, it had been
thoroughly harried, emptied clean of its treasures, and all the eggs
were in that one basket.