‘While hate itself is fain to shrink,
Love freely ventures--lose or win--
And friendship shivers on the brink,
Where love leaps boldly in.’
The wind was rising out at sea with fitful sullen moans; the town of
St Andrews was wrapped in thick darkness, save that at long intervals
a light glimmered from some lofty window, showing where the pale
student bent over his weary labour; the gathering waves rolled in with
increasing volume, breaking heavily against the rocky base of the old
castle; but the sentinel at its eastern angle, though he felt the spray
wet on his face, could not distinguish the white surf leaping and
boiling down yonder in the dark gulf at his feet; the vaulted chambers,
the winding stairs and gloomy corridors of that stronghold were cold
and dismal enough; but what of the dungeons down below the water-line,
where the light of day had never penetrated yet, where the salt froth
oozed and trickled from the bare rock, and the clammy slime stood on
its chill surface, like the death-drops on the brow of a corpse? Ay,
what of the dungeons? Ask those who were forced down the narrow stair
with pinioned arms and muffled faces, knowing that their feet would
never ascend the slippery steps again! Ask those who were immured in
narrow cells, hollowed like living sepulchres from the rock, and so
built in that the soul, indeed, might, but the body never could, escape
from its imprisonment! Ask those who were let down by a cord into the
black, loathsome pit from which they never came out alive! The answer
may, perhaps, some day be spoken in tones of thunder before earth and
heaven.
Even now they tell you how the marks of blood remain in evidence on
that accursed keep; how the very stones bear witness to a foul and
murderous deed, none the less guilty that victim and perpetrators were
equally steeped to the lips in homicide and crime; that it was the
accomplishment of Divine vengeance and the fulfilment of a martyr’s
prophecy.
When the proud cardinal, leaning over his window to behold the
frightful holocaust at his ease, smiled bitterly on George Wishart
at the stake, did not his heart sink within him to hear the martyr’s
solemn denunciation?
‘David Beatoun, though the flames shall lick up my blood, yet shall
thine remain to stain the very wall on which thou leanest, as a witness
against thee till the day of judgment!’
When the Laird of Grange and the two Leslies dragged their enemy
from his bed and slew him at that very window, must not remorse have
whispered in the moment of despair that there is a retribution even
here on earth? and when we learn that the fierce murderers did actually
hang his body over the wall as a butcher hangs a carcase in the
shambles, till the blood soaked and sank into the very stone-work, and
that centuries have not washed out its stains, what can we say but that
the Divine will doth not always postpone justice to a future world, and
that Divine vengeance seldom fails to work out its own precept, ‘whoso
sheddeth man’s blood by man shall his blood be shed.’
The only cheerful apartment in the castle was the guard-room; although
the night was dark and stormy, the wind sighing, and the waves beating
without, a huge wood-fire blazed and crackled in the ample chimney,
reddening the weather-beaten faces of the men-at-arms, and glancing
fitfully from their shining head-pieces and bright steel corslets.
Small care had these rude hearts for the weather without or the woe
within; the spray might dash against their casement, and the weary
prisoner moan his wrongs in the neighbouring cell.
‘What would you have? ’tis but the fortune of war,’ quoth the soldier;
‘my luck to-day, yours to-morrow; a bed of heather for this one, a lair
of straw for that; a free discharge and a fresh enlistment at last. Put
another log on the fire; I wish we had got something more to drink.’
Their captain sat somewhat apart, his head resting on his hand, and
his sheathed broadsword lying idle on the floor. As the flame flickered
on his forehead a frown seemed to pass and repass across its surface,
but his eyes were intently fixed on the red glow of the embers, and
perhaps he was drawing pictures that had no semblance of reality in
their glare.
A moody man of late was Alexander Ogilvy; once the best of comrades,
and the blithest of merry-makers, he was becoming captious,
contradictory, and quarrelsome. The hand stole to the sword-hilt now
on the lightest word of provocation, and although he was still ready
to pledge his brethren-in-arms with the wine cup, it seemed to be no
longer the desire of good fellowship that stimulated him, but a fierce
morose thirst that he was resolved to slake in gloomy defiance.
Perhaps some of the phantoms he was watching in the fire might have
accounted for this untoward change in the young soldier; perhaps it
was not pleasant to picture to himself in those glowing depths the
stately figure of Mary Beton, with her flowing skirts and quivering
ruff, bending her lofty head so graciously towards a sharp spare man,
in gorgeous apparel, with a clever face and a sneer, that if Ogilvy had
ever formed any idea of Mephistopheles, would have presented to his
mind’s eye the very expression of that sarcastic personage; perhaps it
did not enhance the harmony of the group to recognise in the hottest
corner a figure bearing a grotesque resemblance to himself, watching
the pair with jealous supervision, and presenting the undignified, if
not ridiculous exterior, of one who runs second in the race of love.
With a movement of impatience he drove his heavy heel against the logs,
dispelling the whole representation at a blow, and causing the fire to
burn out fiercely, and the sparks to fly in thousands up the chimney.
At this moment a man-at-arms entered the guard-room, and approaching
his captain informed him that two persons at the gate demanded
admittance.
‘Impossible,’ said Ogilvy; ‘the wicket is locked, and the watch set;
bid them go to the devil.’
‘One of them bears the Queen’s signet,’ answered the man, ‘though she
winna let it out of her hand. I doubt it’s one of the leddies,’ he
added, ‘an’ I ken the tither yane fine; it’s daft James Geddes, the
fule.’
This altered matters considerably. The royal signet-ring was esteemed
a voucher for any one who bore it, and all guards, warders, and such
officers of the sovereign, had strict orders to consider it in the
light of a direct communication from Majesty itself. So Ogilvy, taking
down a torch from the wall, proceeded to the wicket in person.
On arriving there, he encountered a female figure, cloaked and hooded,
that after a moment’s hesitation he recognised as Mary Hamilton, and
half-watching over her, half-sheltering himself behind her, much after
the manner of a faithful dog, but with less expression of countenance
than that sagacious animal, the ungainly figure and broad unmeaning
face of James Geddes, the fool.
Ogilvy knew the maid-of-honour personally well enough; also, on the
universal principle (for though she was not the rose to him, she had
been _near_ the rose), he was disposed to oblige her for the sake of
Mary Beton, and bowing courteously, begged to know if she had any
authority, at that late hour, to enter the castle.
‘I have come to visit a prisoner,’ replied she in a hard-set voice,
showing him at the same time the Queen’s signet-ring, which James
Geddes watched as if he expected the captain of the guard would swallow
it at a gulp.
Ogilvy bowed and withdrew the many bolts and bars that secured the
wicket, then calling a soldier to fasten them again, preceded his
visitors along the vaulted passage that led from the entrance to
the guard-room. Mary Hamilton shuddered as she heard the gate clang
to behind her; and the fool looked more than half-inclined to draw
back and abandon his adventure at the outset, but a glance at his
protectress reassured the latter, and the former, seeming, as it were,
by a violent effort to adopt a fresh part, assumed an air of gaiety
and carelessness strangely at variance with her bloodless face and
horror-stricken eyes.
Arrived in the light of the guard-room, she produced an ample
stone-bottle from beneath her cloak, and placed it on the rude oak
table.
‘The Queen has not sent me to visit her brave soldiers empty-handed,’
said she, with a wild, dreary smile. ‘While I am about Her Majesty’s
business, I hope they will drink Her Majesty’s health.’
The fool’s eyes glistened at the sight of the liquor, but once more
he glanced at Mary Hamilton, as the well-trained dog looks at its
owner ere he ventures to touch the tempting morsel placed before him.
The soldiers gathered round with well-pleased faces; the bonds of
discipline were not at that period drawn so tightly as at present, and
a carouse was a sufficiently acceptable variety to the monotony of a
night on guard. Ogilvy, too, who might, under other circumstances,
have objected to such an employment of those he commanded, for the
reason we have before hinted at, was unwilling to disoblige one of
the maids-of-honour, and set the example himself by filling a cup to
the brim with the strong fiery liquor, and emptying it to the Queen’s
health. James Geddes prepared to make sport for the rude soldiery, and
one and all disposed themselves around the table for an hour or two of
conviviality.
The fool, although habitually not averse to imbibing as much drink as
he could honestly come by, seemed, on the present occasion, unusually
cautious in his potations, and whilst he encouraged the laughing
soldiers to drink deep from the stone jar, only put his own lips to
the cup that was freely offered him, and for once appeared resolved
to keep his poor faculties as keenly as possible on the alert. He
glanced, too, ever and anon, at the door by which Mary Hamilton had
left the guard-room, and seemed to watch and listen attentively for the
slightest noise.
It was painful to see the gleams of anxiety that broke at intervals
through the dense stupidity of his broad flat face. At such times his
countenance again assumed the wistful sagacity of a dumb animal, and
instinct seemed to warn him that he must summon all his faculties to
meet some vague catastrophe for which his reason was unable to prepare.
The soldiers jested with the poor half-witted creature according to
their wont, and as their draughts began to ascend into the brain,
proceeded to coarse practical jokes, and much boisterous mirth, of
which his infirmities were made the butt. James Geddes, however,
never relaxed from his vigilance. Sometimes a lurid gleam shone for
an instant in his eyes as a grossly offensive insult penetrated even
his obtuse nature, and occasionally he gave vent to his feelings by
a low moaning noise, and the rocking of his body to and fro, as was
his custom when more than commonly irritated or distressed; but he was
always careful to fill the soldiers’ cups for them to the brim--was
always watchful of the demeanour and presence of their commander; and
whilst his glance wandered furtively to the door, his whole attention
seemed painfully on the stretch to catch the sounds of that voice which
it was his nature to obey with the attachment and fidelity of a dog.
Mary Hamilton, after exchanging a few words, in a low tone, with the
captain of the guard, in which an acute observer might have detected
successively the accents of remonstrance, entreaty, and command, had
produced a small lamp from beneath her cloak, and lit it at Ogilvy’s
torch; then taking a key from his hand, which he seemed to deliver
very unwillingly, proceeded alone towards the dungeon, casting over
her shoulder one glance at the fool, in which caution was speakingly
impressed as she departed. The soldiers were already launched on
their carouse, and Ogilvy, though he seemed watchful and restless,
often starting from his seat, and taking short turns up and down the
guard-room, joined at intervals in their revelry.
The maid-of-honour stepped cautiously down the winding-stair that led
to the dungeon. Mary Hamilton had nerved herself for the undertaking
on which she had embarked, and now that she was fairly within the
dreaded Castle of St Andrews, the agitation which had rendered her so
helpless all day, had given place to the calm, resolute bearing of one
who is prepared to succeed in a hazardous enterprise, or die in the
attempt. It was, indeed, a trying situation for a young tender-hearted
woman. The man she loved lay in that loathsome dungeon, condemned to
die; she believed that she alone could save him. She had the means and
the opportunity; all must depend on her courage and presence of mind.
Yes, she would save him, and her reward would be to see him prostrate
himself at the feet of another! It was a bitter thought, and yet she
never wavered for an instant.
As she reached the door of his cell, she thought she heard his voice,
the well-known voice, rich and melodious even here, and the sound of
her own name made her pause and listen. He was consoling himself in his
prison, this man who was to die on the morrow, with the illusions of
his art. He had composed a ballad, of which her name was the refrain,
and was singing it himself in his cell.
‘There’s a bonny wild rose on the mountain side,
Mary Hamilton.
In the glare of noon she hath droop’d and died,
Mary Hamilton.
Soft and still is the evening shower,
Pattering kindly on brake and bower;
But it falls too late for the perish’d flower,
Mary Hamilton.
‘There’s a lamb lies lost at the head of the glen,
Mary Hamilton.
Lost and miss’d from shieling and pen,
Mary Hamilton.
The shepherd has sought it in toil and heat,
And sore he strove when he heard it bleat,
Ere he wins to the lamb it lies dead at his feet,
Mary Hamilton.
‘The mist is gathering ghostly and chill,
Mary Hamilton.
And the weary maid cometh down from the hill,
Mary Hamilton.
The weary maid but she’s home at last,
And she trieth the door, but the door is fast,
For the sun is down and the curfew past,
Mary Hamilton.
‘Too late for the rose the evening rain,
Mary Hamilton.
Too late for the lamb the shepherd’s pain,
Mary Hamilton.
Too late at the door the maiden’s stroke,
Too late for the plea when the doom hath been spoke,
Too late the balm when the heart is broke,
Mary Hamilton.’
She heard it every word, and for a time her composure gave way. A burst
of passionate weeping relieved her, and, drying her eyes, she unlocked
the door and entered the dungeon.
The light she carried streamed on Chastelâr’s figure, dressed in the
very clothes in which she had seen him taken. He was half-sitting,
half-lying, in the extreme corner where the stone was dryest, and took
no notice of her entrance, thinking it was the jailer, but continued
to hum the air he had just been singing. When he lifted his eyes,
however, and recognised his visitor, he rose at once, with his habitual
courtesy, and bade her welcome to his habitation, laughing pleasantly
the while.
‘You find me poorly lodged, Mistress Hamilton,’ said the poet; ‘and
although I live in a castle I am but scantily provided with room. It is
not for long, however, as to-morrow morning, I am informed, they mean
to remove me to a narrower chamber still.’
She could not bear to see him thus; again the warm tears filled her
eyes as she gasped--
‘The doom has gone forth; I heard of it to-day; there is but one chance
left.’
He smiled a sweet sad smile.
‘I have done with chances now,’ said he; ‘I set my all on one cast, and
I do not complain that the luck has gone against me. It was kind of you
to come and visit me, Mary’--he dwelt fondly on the name and repeated
it more than once--‘I was thinking of you even when you appeared. I was
wishing I could see you once more. What of the Queen?’ he added, with
an eager glance. ‘Is she here at St Andrews?’
‘She sent me to you this very night,’ replied the other. ‘What I do
is by her command, and according to her directions. You shall not
die, Chastelâr; she bade me save you, and we have the means; only be
obedient, and, above all, keep silent.’
His whole face lighted up as he seized her hand and covered it with
kisses. Life was sweet to the poet, with his warm impulsive nature
and his glowing hopes; all the more so when he learned that he would
owe that life to the favour of the Queen. He listened eagerly while
the maid-of-honour detailed to him the proposed manner of his escape,
which, indeed, seemed feasible enough. She hoped, through the potency
of the brandy which she had left behind her in the guard-room, and with
the assistance of her half-witted confederate, to bring the soldiers
to a state of hilarity at which the eye is not very keen, nor the
suspicions very easily aroused; while in her whispered conversation
with Ogilvy she had already, with the unscrupulous shrewdness of a
woman, made use of his attachment to Mary Beton to win him half over
to her enterprise. She calculated, at least, on his ignoring her
proceedings; she then proposed to dress Chastelâr in her own hood and
mantle, which, as their statures were not very dissimilar, would form
a thorough disguise, and she had sedulously tutored James Geddes, who
took an unaccountable delight in the whole proceeding, to conduct the
captive to the gate with the same deference and care as if it were
herself. It was difficult to make the faithful fool understand this
part of the plan, but she had instilled it into him at last. He was to
encourage the inebriety of the men-at-arms to the utmost of his power,
and directly Ogilvy’s back was turned to go his rounds, which something
she had told him would induce the captain to do at an earlier hour than
usual, James Geddes was to return to the dungeon and summon the visitor
to depart. Chastelâr, in Mary Hamilton’s clothes, would then accompany
him to the gate, and she herself would remain a prisoner in his place.
‘And when they find you here,’ exclaimed the poet, all his generous
impulses protesting against such an arrangement, ‘think of Ogilvy’s
rage! think of the rude drunken soldiers! It cannot, it shall not be!
Your life would have to pay the penalty.’
‘And I would give my life freely for yours,’ she replied, a bright
smile breaking over her face, causing her to look for the first time
to-night like the Mary Hamilton he remembered in the Queen’s chamber,
when all was so different and so happy.
‘For mine!’ he repeated, with a sadly troubled face. ‘Oh, too late! too
late!’
‘Do not say so,’ she continued, speaking very rapidly and eagerly, with
her slender fingers grasping the prisoner’s arm like a vice. ‘I would
not have told you this but that we shall never meet again. The very
terms on which the Queen yielded to my entreaties were these: That you
leave Scotland within twenty-four hours, and pledge your honour never
to enter Mary Stuart’s dominions more. Oh, if you knew how I knelt and
prayed and pleaded ere I could wring from her the token that gave me
access here; if you could have seen her angry frown while I implored,
or heard the cold resolute voice in which she said at last, “I consent,
but only on these terms, that I never behold him more,” you would have
pitied me, Chastelâr; you should pity me now, for though I have saved
your life, oh, I am very, very miserable.’
Again she burst into a fit of weeping, the hot tears fell upon his
hand, but he heeded them not; he scarce seemed conscious of the devoted
broken-hearted woman trembling there before him; the Queen’s words
struck like a poniard to his heart, and he was mad! love-mad once more!
He broke rudely from his companion; he flung her hand from his arm, as
if the touch were a viper’s; his eye glared, and he ground his teeth
together in the agony of a wounded spirit, and a pride humbled to the
dust.
‘I scorn her mercy!’ he shouted, in wild frantic tones; ‘I renounce
her pardon, and I refuse her terms! Tell Mary Stuart, from me, from
Chastelâr, who will be led out to die at sunrise to-morrow, that the
last words he said were these: “If every one of these hairs were a
life”’--he passed his fingers while he spoke through the abundance of
his dark clustering locks--‘“I would lose them all ere I would accept
the smallest, lightest token of the Queen’s favour. Because I have
dared to love her more dearly than man ever loved woman here on earth;
because I love her wildly, fondly, madly still.” Ha, ha! she cannot
rob me of that! Queen though she be, she cannot recall the past! Mary,
Mary! ere to-morrow’s sun be set, that cold heart shall ache, as it
hath never ached yet, and Chastelâr will have had his revenge!’
And now the pure unselfish nature of Mary Hamilton’s character rose
superior to the crisis. Another who had loved him less would have
turned away in wrathful scorn, and left him to his fate: not so that
gentle, faithful heart; on her knees she besought him to listen to
reason, to yield himself to her guidance, to accept of life for her
sake.
The moments were very precious. Already James Geddes was beating
impatiently at the door, warning them that he had fulfilled his
ministering in the guard-room, and that Ogilvy was absent for the
nonce. She clung to him--she urged him--she implored him, and the man
was obdurate, pitiless of himself as of her, hardened in his despair,
reckless, miserable, and resolved to die.
How many before and since have been like him! How many have turned
obstinately from the pleasant easy path of safety and contentment, to
reach wildly at the impossible, scaling the slippery crag just so high
as shall dash them to pieces in their fall! There are spirits that
seem ever destined to be striving after the unattainable, doomed in a
punishment more cruel than that of Tantalus to thirst for a _mirage_
that is never even within the bounds of hope. Be it love, wealth,
ambition, their craving seems to be in its very nature insatiable, and,
perhaps, even were the wildest and most extravagant of their desires
to be granted, they would but turn aside indifferently, as if success
must needs be loathsome, and long incontinently for something else that
could never be their own.
It is well for the philosopher who has learned to create for himself
his life’s essentials. Blessed is the barmecide who can make believe
that the tasteless water from his earthen pitcher is a draught of
nectar from a cup of gold. But woe to the sanguine enthusiast who
cannot be convinced that ‘half a loaf is better than no bread;’ the
fool who shouts--‘all or none,’ for his war-cry, while he runs a tilt
against the invincible windmill of conventionalism, and getting, as he
deserves, none instead of all, has every bone in his body broken into
the bargain for his pains.
Mary Hamilton pleaded for dear life; far dearer, indeed, was that life
to her than her own. James Geddes, hearing her sobs and broken accents,
became so importunate at the door of the cell, that one or two drunken
soldiers from the guard-room, aroused by the noise, came loitering down
the dungeon stair; and, at the same moment, Ogilvy, not in the best of
humours, returned from his rounds, and the last chance was gone for
evermore.
Whether the captain had met with any disappointment in visiting the
different posts under his charge, or whether he had reason to suppose
that his midnight walk was to be more agreeable than usual, and
felt aggrieved to find its dulness unrelieved by any variety, it is
not our province to inquire; but he certainly showed more zeal for
discipline than on his departure, and entering Chastelâr’s cell in
person, after kicking poor Geddes away with a bitter curse, ordered
the maid-of-honour imperatively to be gone, and summoned two of the
soberest men-at-arms to mount sentry for the rest of the night at the
head of the stair.
Mary Hamilton neither screamed, nor fainted, nor wept. She knew that
all was over now, and accepted the inevitable catastrophe with that
resignation which Providence seems to bestow in mercy on those who are
destined to endure great suffering. She bent over Chastelâr’s hand as
she bade him a silent farewell, and though her lips moved as if in
prayer, not a sound escaped them. Then she raised her head proudly,
and walked rigidly and slowly out of the cell, less like a living
being than a figure set in motion by mechanical means. The boisterous
men-at-arms, in the guard-room, stood aside, respectfully, to let her
pass; and James Geddes, as he followed her, cowered and shook with a
mysterious fear.
But Chastelâr, in the selfishness of his great love, so strong even at
the threshold of the grave, scarcely noticed her; nay, he even called
out to her as she departed with a message for the Queen. The ruling
passion was, indeed, strong in death. As his short and brilliant life
had been valued only for her sake, so she was his last thought now that
he stood on the brink of eternity.
‘Tell her,’ he said, ‘that I commend me to her with my last breath.
Thank her for all her kindness and the mercy she would have shown me
even to-night, but say that I choose to die rather than be banished
from her presence, and so Chastelâr bids her farewell,--the fairest,
the proudest, and the best beloved princess under heaven!’
He seemed composed, even cheerful. To all appearance, the man was in
possession of his faculties and in his right mind, yet these were the
last words Chastelâr ever spoke on earth.