‘Bonny Kilmeny gaed up the glen,
But it was na to meet wi’ Dunira’s men,
Nor the rosy monk of the isle to see,
For Kilmeny was pure as maiden could be.’
Walter Maxwell was ere this domiciled at Holyrood. Attached to the
Queen’s household, and devoted to her person, Mary esteemed him
not the least trustworthy of those servants in whom she placed
implicit confidence. He had accompanied his sovereign on those roving
expeditions in which she took so much pleasure, when the beautiful
Stuart, worthy to reign over a nation of warriors, would pass entire
days in the saddle, traversing her dominions, and making acquaintance
with her subjects; or flying her hawk and following her deer-hounds
over the wild moorlands, and amongst the romantic passes of her new
kingdom. He had attended her in her progress to Aberdeen, that
ill-advised journey which, commencing with merriment and festivity, the
huntsman’s holloa and the cheering notes of the horn, ended in strife
and bloodshed and the wild wailing of the coronach, cried by the widows
of the Gordon over the flower of their clan.
Maxwell had done good service on that sad day when the waters of
Corrichie ran crimson with the Highlandman’s blood, and had turned
with a brave man’s pity from the sickening sight of Sir John Gordon’s
execution at Aberdeen, performed before the very eyes of the weeping
Queen. Gallant, handsome John Gordon! the victim of a political
intrigue, who walked to the block with the jaunty step of a bridegroom
in holiday attire, and waved his dying homage to his sovereign, a brave
soldier and a loyal gentleman to the last.
It is said that Mary fainted at the sight; and, indeed, she never
attained the necessary hardness of heart to rule such a turbulent and
distracted country as that in which it was her lot to reign.
On more than one occasion Maxwell had proved himself the possessor of
a shrewd brain, a silent tongue, and a ready hand. His was that least
courtier-like of characters, which yet perhaps thrives best at a court.
When all around are selfish and intriguing, each feels well-disposed
towards the frank, single-hearted comrade who wishes but to serve
his sovereign loyally, and entertains cordial good-will towards his
fellows. Monarchs, too, even the haughtiest and most exacting, are
disposed to appreciate a blunt honesty that does not shrink from
encountering the royal displeasure for the royal advantage, and
doubtless find it refreshing from its contrast with the servility to
which they are accustomed. It must be like the change from the sickly
air of a hothouse to the fresh mountain breeze. Besides, it is so easy
to forgive even insolence in those who are wholly in their power; and
there is a delicate flattery after all to the lion’s forbearance, in
the man’s temerity, who puts his head in the lion’s mouth.
The Queen of Scotland, however, was one of those who, while they attach
to themselves irresistibly all who come within their sphere, are,
from their own feelings, disposed to think kindly of their immediate
retainers, and to reward fidelity and affection as they deserve.
Maxwell found himself in high favour with Mary, and it is not strange
that he should have been devoted heart and soul to her interests. He
persuaded himself that he was loyal to his sovereign for her own sake,
and ignored with considerable determination that Mistress Carmichael
had any influence whatever over his sentiments.
That young lady’s behaviour at this juncture was of a nature to make
an admirer sufficiently uncomfortable. We remember to have heard that
there _are_ female dispositions on which the exercise of the affections
has an irritating tendency, and to whom the dawning possibility of
eventful thraldom is as agitating as it is inviting. These wild-birds,
albeit they become when tamed the gentlest of domestic fowls, are sadly
prone at first to beat their breasts against the cage, also to peck
viciously at the caressing hand that would smooth their ruffled plumes.
Whether it be that they entertain a feminine delight in any state of
sentiment, argument, or fact involving a contradiction, or whether they
indemnify themselves, whilst they can, for future docility, we profess
ourselves incompetent to state; but the axiom seems to be sufficiently
established, that the process of taming is often uncomfortable and
hazardous, the result not always to be depended upon when complete.
Mary Carmichael, in addition to her other qualifications, was a devoted
Papist; Maxwell, it is needless to observe, a staunch Reformer.
Religious feeling ran high at Holyrood. The Romish Church, a zealous
advocate for proselytism at all times, has ever been most intolerant
when losing ground; and perhaps no bigotry is so blind as a woman’s
adherence to a sinking faith.
Maxwell could not conscientiously look with approval on Mistress
Carmichael’s rigid attendance at mass in the Chapel Royal. The
maid-of-honour concealed neither her dislike nor her contempt for those
who had abandoned the religion of their fathers, and the ritual of
their sovereign. This alone was a fruitful source of irritation and
ill-feeling between the lovers, if so they can be called; and when we
add that the gentleman was of a haughty and reserved disposition, the
soul of honesty and frankness, without the slightest experience in the
ways of woman, and the lady as wilful, unjust, and self-tormenting as
those reasonable beings usually become when thoroughly in earnest, it
is superfluous to dwell upon the feelings likely to exist between such
a pair, continually brooding over imaginary wrongs, and never for a
moment out of each other’s minds.
One scene, amongst many, may afford a specimen of the terms on which
they stood.
Maxwell was proceeding to the royal apartments with certain papers
which had been submitted to Mr Randolph’s inspection ere they were
returned to the Queen for signature--so anxious was Mary, at this
period, to keep well with her cousin of England. Elizabeth’s ambassador
had taken rather a fancy, in his own selfish, easy way, to his former
travelling companion, and though, of course, he would have sacrificed
him without scruple, he probably liked him none the less that he could
not fashion him into a tool.
As Maxwell traversed the long gallery, Mistress Carmichael was
proceeding in the same direction with a basket of winter roses gathered
in the Abbey garden, and could not forbear blushing as deep as the
reddest of them when she encountered him. Of course she was angry with
herself for doing so, and naturally visited the fault on him, arguing,
plausibly enough, that if he had not been there it would not have
happened; therefore she turned her head steadfastly away and marched
on without speaking. Hurt and irritated, he drew aside to let her
pass, thus meeting her, as it were, half-way in her desire to avoid
recognition. So far nothing could be simpler. If the lady did not wish
to be delayed she had only to pass on without further stoppage. She
did so accordingly, but by the merest accident, and the most provoking
awkwardness, tilted her basket and dropped half her flowers on the
floor. Of course he was compelled to assist her in picking them up; for
these two were the only occupants of the gallery; so he knelt down and
refilled the basket gravely without a word.
‘Thank you,’ said Mary Carmichael, with the slightest possible tremor
in her voice. ‘How deftly you have done it, and how much beholden to
you I am!--and--and--thank you, Mr Maxwell.’
Here was an opportunity that would have been seized by any other
gallant about the court to ask, at least, for one of the roses in
reward; and perhaps even Maxwell, though somewhat impatient of such
follies, would have been less reserved with any other of the Maries
than the one who now stood before him, still arranging her basket, and
obviously in no immediate hurry to go away. He waited, however, for her
to speak first. After a little hesitation, she pointed to the papers he
was carrying.
‘Shall I take them for you to the Queen?’ said she, and her hand
trembled as she extended it towards him.
He took the pretty hand in his own, and she did not withdraw it.
‘Mistress Carmichael,’ said he, ‘I am a plain man, and I hope an honest
one. I have not so many friends that I can afford to lose any for lack
of courage to ask an explanation. How have I offended you of late? Tell
me as frankly as I ask you, and I will take care not to transgress
again.’
Her bosom heaved, and her colour went and came.
‘Offended?’ she replied; ‘and me? oh, no! What have I done to make you
think so?’
He was still very grave, and a shade paler than before, but his
countenance was immovable, and indeed stern. It was a peculiarity of
Walter Maxwell that, under strong excitement, his exterior became
unusually cold and composed.
‘I have thought so for long,’ he resumed. ‘Perhaps it has distressed
me more than you would think possible. I trust I have done my duty
as thoroughly as if you and I had been friends; but I have felt that
difficulties appeared greater, and hardships less endurable than if our
differences had not existed. The breach has widened day by day; ere
long, you and I will have learned to hate each other.’
‘Oh, no, no!’ she murmured, scarce above her breath, but she kept her
head bent down, and the tears were dropping fast among the winter-roses
in her basket.
He had never let go her hand; he folded it in both his own, and pressed
it to his lips.
‘Mary Carmichael,’ said he, ‘since the day we first met in the forest
of Chambord, I have wished to be worthy of you, and you alone. I am no
woman-worshipper, no smooth-tongued silken gallant, and yet I think
there are few things I could not do to please you; nothing, save my
honour, I would not sacrifice for your sake.’
A gleam of intense pride and pleasure shone for an instant in her eyes;
the next, her face contracted as if with pain, and she looked up scared
and wild, through her tears.
‘You must not say so--you must not say so,’ she exclaimed, drawing her
hand away hurriedly, and with a frightened, half-distracted air. ‘Let
me go now--let me go; I hear the others coming.’
‘Is that your answer?’ said he, very lowly and distinctly, but with a
pale face, and something in his voice that it was better not to trifle
with.
She looked here and there, like some graceful wild animal caught in the
toils. Footsteps were indeed approaching, and half the flowers were
again scattered on the floor.
‘You must not say so,’ she repeated; but for an instant she placed
her hand once more in his with a lightning glance of unspeakable
tenderness; ‘at least not yet!’ she added, and sped hurriedly away.
When she was gone, Walter Maxwell stooped down, picked up one of the
roses, and hid it carefully within his doublet. Then he proceeded to
his business with a lighter heart and a brighter face than he had
carried since he came to Holyrood.
We will follow the young lady to the apartment in which the Maries
were accustomed to congregate when off duty, plying their needles with
industrious rapidity, and lightening their labours, we may be sure,
with the pleasures of conversation.
It was a pretty room, high up in one of the turrets of the palace,
overlooking the Abbey garden, and was full of the little elegancies
and comforts which women gather about them, or which seem to grow up
around, in the most unlikely places, as a natural consequence of their
presence. Quaint tapestry adorned its walls, less hideous than are
usually those grotesque efforts of industry, and representing pastoral
scenes of love-making and simplicity, not devoid of browsing sheep,
limpid streams, and fat little cupids flying about in the air. Scarfs,
fans, gloves, and needlework were scattered over the room; and Mary
Hamilton’s rosary of fragrant wooden beads, inlaid with gold, hung from
the back of a carved oak chair, of which the cushions were triumphs
of embroidery wrought by the maids-of-honour themselves. A portrait of
the Queen, in her well-known velvet head-dress and voluminous ruff,
smiled above the chimney-piece; and immediately under it was placed an
elaborate crystal timepiece, of French workmanship, presented by her
mistress to Mary Beton, and reverenced equally as a token of the royal
good-will and a marvel of mechanical art. The last-named lady glanced
at it with the conscious pride of possession.
‘It will be dark in less than an hour,’ said she, folding away the
corner of a large square piece of embroidery on which herself and two
of her companions were engaged; ‘we have done enough for one day, and
these small stitches are very trying to the eyes. I expect the Queen’s
summons, too, every minute, for one or other of us.’
‘She is writing letters in her cabinet,’ answered Mary Carmichael, who
had her own reasons for knowing how large a packet had just gone in. ‘I
could see her beautiful head bending over her table as I came down the
terrace steps in the Abbey garden when I brought you in these roses.’
‘You haven’t half filled the basket after all!’ exclaimed Mary Seton,
who was busy arranging the flowers about the room; ‘and like your sex,
my dear, you have taken care to gather plenty of thorns. If I wear a
garland of them at the masque to-morrow, as I intended, I shall be a
veritable Scotch thistle, not to be touched with impunity; a fitting
partner for that masterful border-thief, little Jock Elliot, who cocks
his bonnet and sings “Wha dare meddle wi’ me?”’
‘You have become half a borderer yourself, I think, ever since Bothwell
was banished the court,’ answered the other, not quite relishing this
allusion to the half-filled basket, of which the spoils were scattered
in the gallery.
‘Poor Bothwell!’ answered Mary Seton, with a sigh; ‘now that is what I
call a _man_! When he walks through the court in his armour, he looks
like a tower amongst the other lords. There is not a taller or a more
stalwart figure amongst all his riders, proper men though they be,
except perhaps that gigantic henchman of his.’ And again the damsel
sighed, and looked grave for an instant, though she was laughing
merrily again the next.
‘Is he not coming back soon?’ asked Mary Hamilton, waking up from one
of her fits of abstraction, and fixing her large mournful black eyes on
Mary Seton’s saucy blue ones.
‘Who? which?’ asked the latter, mischievously.
‘Why, D’Amville,’ answered Mary Hamilton, absently; ‘were you not
talking of him? He has been more than a year away.’
‘D’Amville!’ exclaimed the other, with her ringing laugh; ‘I hope not!
At least if he brings that mad poet in his train, to turn all our heads
with rhymes and flattery. Nothing interests you but what comes from
France! No, we were talking of Bothwell, stout Earl Bothwell, who is
worth a dozen of him. I am sure the Queen thinks so.’
Mary Beton looked up reprovingly, but in vain; the flippant speaker was
in her swing, and not to be disappointed of her say.
‘I’m sure we’ve all been dull enough at court ever since Bothwell got
into disgrace. And after all, I don’t believe he bared steel till the
others drew on him first. I _know_ the Hamiltons outnumbered his people
two to one; and nobody disputes that Arran is quite mad now, or that
the duke was always an old goose. I think it very hard that Bothwell
should have been made the scapegoat, that I do! and I’ve always said he
hadn’t fair play from first to last.’
‘Hush!’ interposed Mary Beton, gravely; ‘the matter was tried in Her
Majesty’s own presence, before the council.’
‘The council were a parcel of intriguers!’ vociferated the little
partisan, now getting positively vehement. ‘The council wanted to get
rid of him, because he was the most loyal amongst them all, and they
made the skirmish an excuse. Why, I’m sure Ruthven is ready enough
with his dagger, and my own dear father cleared the High Street from
end to end with his own good sword and half a dozen jackmen before I
was born, and the king swore he was quite right. I’ve heard him say so
a score of times. No, no! the council had their own reasons; and I’ll
never believe but that Englishman was at the bottom of it, though he
pretended to be the warden’s friend!’
‘If you mean Mr Randolph,’ said Mary Beton, bridling within her ruff
in high disdain, ‘you only expose your ignorance of state affairs.
What could he have to do with it? or how could the turbulence of a wild
border noble affect the Queen of England’s confidential minister?’
‘Only that I am convinced his red-haired mistress is at the bottom of
all the mischief that goes on here,’ answered the other, determined
not to be put down. ‘I believe she hates our dear beautiful angel of a
Queen, partly because she’s her cousin, and partly because she’s been
married, and partly because there is nobody like her in this world. I
won’t abuse Randolph, Mistress Beton, because he admires you hugely,
and that shows the man has good taste; but I may say what I like of
Elizabeth Tudor, who is no more _my_ Queen than I am _hers_.’
The elder damsel looked mollified, though she feebly deprecated the
implied compliment.
‘These are dangerous topics,’ said she, gathering her draperies
around her, and rising from her chair. ‘It is enough for us to occupy
ourselves with our own office, and I cannot conceive why we have not
yet heard Her Majesty’s summons.’
This lady was of a methodical disposition, and loved to perform her
regular duties at their stated times without interruption.
‘Those endless letters!’ exclaimed Mary Seton; ‘and all about treaties
and alliances, and the most uninteresting subjects. I declare I
wouldn’t change places with the Queen to have her beauty and her
throne. She is harassed and wearied to death. Dear me! how I wish she
would marry, and take some stout-hearted lord to share her troubles and
anxieties with her once for all!’
‘I’m surprised at you!’ exclaimed Mary Beton, now completely shocked.
‘It is most indiscreet to talk on such matters, and scarce maidenly
even to think of them. Is it that you might follow her example?’ she
added, in a tone of severe reproof.
‘I am not sure but what I should,’ sighed the other, and relapsed into
silence, which, strange to say, was not broken for the space of full
five minutes.
Perhaps the last suggestion thrown out had awakened matter for
reflection in the minds of each of the four Maries.
At the expiration of that period, however, Mary Beton remarked that it
was getting very dark; and Mary Seton at the same moment proposed that
James Geddes, the Queen’s fool, should be summoned to make sport for
them during the hour of idleness preceding supper.
‘I will go for him,’ said Mary Carmichael, and, wrapping a plaid round
her head and shoulders, hurried out of the room.
James Geddes, who filled the honourable and somewhat lucrative office
of royal fool or jester in the palace of Holyrood, was one of those
half-witted unfortunates of whom so many may be met with even in the
present day in Scotland, and who occupy the intermediate space between
sanity and positive imbecility. They cannot be termed lunatics, for
they are usually harmless, and even amiable in disposition, showing
kindly feelings towards animals, infants, and such helpless objects,
and even school-children, if not tormented by the urchins beyond all
endurance. They are not idiots, for, although their perceptions may
be warped, they are in vigorous possession of their faculties, and
indulge, indeed, in a shrewd caustic humour of their own with which
few rational beings can compete. Neither can they be called actually
in their right mind. Perhaps the Scottish peasant best describes the
mental state of such an one when he says, in an explanatory tone, ‘Ou!
he’s just a natural!’
James Geddes, accordingly, was ‘just a natural,’ and earned his wages,
consisting of meat, and fee, a parti-coloured suit of clothes, and a
cap and bells which he could not be persuaded to wear, by furnishing
unlimited mirth to the royal household, and occasionally a jest that
diverted the grave lords in council, and reached the ears of the gentle
Queen herself.
Such was the wiseacre, in search of whom Mary Carmichael sped down
the winding stairs that led from the Maidens’ Tower into the devious
passages of the palace. Obviously the most likely place in which to
find him would have been the buttery, for it is a kind compensation of
nature, that weakness of brain should be accompanied by great power of
the digestive organs, and James Geddes could eat as much at one meal as
would last a philosopher for a week. The maid-of-honour, nevertheless,
passed that well-stored apartment without stopping, and proceeded with
a light step and a heaving bosom into the Abbey garden, over which the
dew was falling, and the shades of evening gathering fast.
Passing through the flower-beds she had despoiled in the afternoon, and
which doubtless failed not to call up tender recollections, the young
lady glided like a phantom into the shade of an adjoining orchard,
through the branches of which an early star or two were already
beginning to twinkle down. Here she halted, and, removing the shawl
from her head, peered into the darkness, and listened attentively,
though for a few minutes--
‘The beating of her own heart
Was all the sound she heard.’
Now, by one of those coincidences which do occasionally happen in
real life, especially where certain mysterious affinities combine to
produce improbable results, Walter Maxwell was returning from Secretary
Maitland’s office to his own lodging at the same twilight hour, and
although it involved a considerable _détour_, had chosen to proceed
through the Abbey garden, and along the corner of the orchard, from
which in the daytime he could see the windows of the Queen’s apartments
and those of her ladies. Walter was no romantic enthusiast, to derive
intense pleasure from a mere association of ideas, and yet he paused
under the shadow of an old apple-tree, and gazing on the dark mass of
building opposite, recalled, with an intoxicating thrill, his interview
with his mistress in the gallery. We have, most of us, experienced
certain moments in life when we are satisfied to enjoy present bliss,
without taking into account the insufficiency of its cause, or the
shortness of its duration. We know we are happier than we have any
right to be, and we wilfully ignore the consciousness, and refrain
from asking ourselves the ‘reason why.’ Like pride, this state of
self-gratulation usually ‘goeth before a fall.’
Maxwell’s quick ear could not fail to detect the light footstep of his
ladye-love as she, too, entered the orchard, and he recognised her,
muffled as she was, and in the darkness, as we recognise intuitively
those whom we have trusted with our happiness. He sprang forward to
meet her. Undemonstrative and calm as was his character, he would
have caught her to his heart, and vowed never to part with her from
that moment; but ere he had made one step in advance, a tall cloaked
figure, which seemed to come out of the very stem of an adjoining tree,
anticipated his movements, and Maxwell, scarce believing his eyes, saw
the woman he loved caught in its arms, and disappearing in the folds of
that close and familiar embrace.
He had nerve, temper, and, above all, self-command. Though the cold
drops stood on his forehead, and a deadly sickness crept about his
heart, he had presence of mind to reflect on what he ought to do.
In a dozen seconds he had argued the point, for and against, in his
own mind, and had come to the conclusion that he was justified in
undeceiving himself, at such a crisis, by the evidence of his senses.
He remained under the shadow of the old tree and listened, with every
organ painfully acute, and every nerve strung to its utmost pitch.
‘My darling,’ said the stranger, smoothing back the hair from the face,
which looked fondly up into his own, ‘how late you are this evening! I
should have gone without seeing you in five minutes more; but I knew
you would not fail me, if you could help it, at our trysting-place.’
‘You might be sure of that,’ she answered, clinging to him with both
hands clasped upon his shoulder. ‘Last week, and the week before, I
came to the moment. I cannot bear to keep you waiting, or to think of
you watching and hiding here like a thief--you that I am so proud of,
and so fond of; you on whose arm I would like to hang before the Queen
and the whole court, and I dare not even mention your name, except
in my prayers. You are cold,’ she added, wrapping his cloak across
his throat and chest with sedulous affection, ‘cold and wet with dew
already, and perhaps tired and hungry too, and I may not bring you into
the palace, and warm you, and take care of you. Oh! what a life it is!’
He laughed cheerfully, though with caution.
‘Always the same,’ he said; ‘always unselfish and considerate, and
thinking of me! Why, you little witch, do you never reflect on what
a scolding you would get if you were caught running about like this,
in the gloaming, to meet a cavalier under a tree? What would Mistress
Beton say forsooth? Strict Mistress Beton! She would vow not a dove
would be left in the dove-cote after a while, if such doings were
passed over. Do I look like a hawk to harry a bird’s-nest, Mary? Am I
such a terrible wild young gallant, my pretty one?’
She put her white hand over his mouth. Maxwell saw it in the starlight.
‘Do not speak so loud,’ she said. ‘I am sure you are as incautious as a
boy. Indeed, I wish you _would_ harry the nest, as you say, and carry
me off with you, for I am tired of never seeing you, except by stealth;
and then it makes me so anxious and so fretful not to know where you
are, or when we shall meet, for weeks and months together.’
‘My dear,’ he answered, gravely, ‘it is in the Queen’s service and that
of our religion. It must triumph at last, as sure as those stars are
shining above our heads. You and I have vowed to devote our lives, if
need be, to the good cause. If worst should come to worst, we shall not
be separated for long. There are no partings up there, Mary.’
He pressed her tenderly to his side, and pointed to the sky, in which
star after star were now glimmering forth.
She drew her hand across her eyes, and kissed him fervently once more.
‘I shall be missed,’ she said. ‘I must stay no longer. It is _very_
hard not to see you again for such a time! Well, well, duty before all.
And now, have you the packet from the cardinal? What say the Guises to
the last communication?’
‘They dare not even write,’ he answered. ‘Though I acted my part well,
and looked such a masterful beggar, that even you, Mary, would have
flung me an alms, they searched me when I landed at the port of Leith,
scrip, wallet, and all; nay, they broke my staff across, lest it should
be hollow, and filled with papers--I would I might have done it myself
over the knave’s pate that could be so wary. No; the despatches must
travel by word of mouth; and that is a better trick than even Randolph
has learned yet, with all his cunning. Listen, Mary. They trust you, my
pretty one, because you belong to me--this is for the Queen’s private
ear alone.’
Maxwell was a man of honour. He would stay to hear no more. It was
enough that his dearest hopes had withered in a breath. That the
edifice he had been building insensibly for so long, decking it
with all his fancies, and furnishing it, so to speak, with the most
precious gifts of his affections, and the warmest feelings of the
heart, had crumbled into dust at a moment’s notice. He would not, for
that, intrude upon another’s secrets; and although the delay of a few
moments might have placed him in possession of matters that would have
insured his own aggrandizement, and enabled him to take a fearful
revenge on the two by whom he felt so cruelly injured, yet he stole
noiselessly away, placing his hands upon his ears, that he might not,
inadvertently, hear another word of their communications.
Where is the man who can consistently shape his conduct upon a train of
reasoning independent of his feelings, at least where those feelings
are vitally concerned? It never occurred to him that he had no right to
listen at all. The question was one of life and death to him, and he
felt justified in arriving by any means at a certainty. Such is human
nature in the best of us. Principle is principle, and honour is honour,
only so long as circumstances are not too overwhelming, or necessity
too urgent. Conscience is the only guide who never yet lost his way.
We will not follow Walter Maxwell as he left the Abbey garden for the
solitude of his own chamber, never utterly dreary and forlorn till
to-night. He had a brave, stout heart, that could strive against any
odds, and scorned to flinch from any amount of pain. Perhaps these
suffer most in proportion to their strength.