‘They led him forth to the silent square,
In the gray of the morning sky,
And they brought him a cup of red wine there,
To drink, and then to die.
‘Without the gate, Lady Margaret stood,
And she watch’d for the rising sun,
Till it blush’d on the stone-work, and gleam’d on the wood,
And the headsman’s work was done.
‘Not a limb she stirr’d; but when noon-day’s glow
Smote fierce on her temples bare,
A brighter sun had not melted the snow
That streak’d Lady Margaret’s hair.’
The morning broke dull and gloomy; the wind that had been blowing
steadily all night had subsided towards dawn, but a chill easterly
breeze was still creeping in from seaward, and a light vapour rested on
the surface of the ocean, beneath which the lead-coloured waves rose
and sank in the sullen monotony of a ground swell. Little by little the
cheerless dawn stole imperceptibly over the rugged bluffs and scaurs
that to the northward formed a bulwark for the town, and disclosed at
every minute new rents and fissures in their sea-worn sides--new wisps
of dripping sea-weed trailing in ungainly streaks across their slippery
surface; the ebbing tide, too, receding as though unwillingly, with
many a landward leap and backward whirl, disclosed here and there round
black rocks, peering like the heads of sea-monsters above the restless
waters, while a solitary sea-mew, turning on its white wing downward
from the cliff, screamed, as it were, in disappointment of its fishing
after the storm.
The castle walls rose sullenly against the misty sky; black, massive,
and impenetrable, they suggested no feelings but those of inhospitable
and uncompromising grandeur. Their battlements, weather-stained with
the gales of centuries, frowned dark defiance down on the ruffled
ocean, and the royal flag, with the golden lion of Scotland ramping in
its folds, half-unfurled and dripping with last night’s brine, flapped
drearily and heavily in the fitful breeze.
To and fro for a space of some twenty yards under the wall, a female
figure was pacing with swift irregular steps, and her fingers twining
convulsively as she held her hands clasped together before her. Mantle
and dress were wet and disordered from the inclemency of the past
night, but the hood of the former covered her to the brows, and it was
only by the lower part of her white, rigid face, that a passer-by, had
there been one at that early hour, could have recognised Mary Hamilton.
In a sheltered corner, screened from the wind by a massive buttress,
cowered the ungainly figure of James Geddes; rocking himself backwards
and forwards, he moaned as if in pain, and blew upon his cold fingers,
huddling himself together for warmth the while, but his eyes travelled
wistfully after Mary Hamilton as she walked, and though she seemed
unconscious of his presence, they never quitted her figure for a moment.
Once, when close to him, she paused in a listening attitude, and he
took courage to address her, whining like a troubled child--
‘Will ye no gang hame? will ye no gang hame? ’Tis cauld and dreary
biding here for sunrise. I’m wantin’ hame; I’m wantin’ hame!’
She started violently when he spoke; but, turning from him in
impatience, only walked backwards and forwards faster than before.
And now a dull knocking might be heard in the square of the castle,
and the noise, as of heavy beams put in motion, broke the stillness of
the early morning. At each fresh sound, Mary Hamilton stopped in her
walk, and started on again as if goaded to exertion by internal agony;
the fool shivering and moaning in his corner, yet still watching her
intently, at length rocked himself off into a fitful half-slumber,
waking up at intervals to implore his unheeding companion to go home.
Within the castle preparations were already making for some grave and
unusual event. The soldiers, though flushed and fevered after their
debauch, yet preserved an ominous silence, and betrayed on their coarse
faces an expression of pity and dismay. Ogilvy himself looked pale and
sorrowful. Once when he caught sight of a sharp, polished instrument,
propped carefully that its edge should not be frayed against a corner,
a tear might have been seen to steal down the captain’s cheek till it
hung in his heavy moustache; but his voice was gruffer than usual, as
he gave some necessary order a minute afterwards, ashamed, doubtless,
as men commonly are, of those emotions which betray that they have a
heart.
Two or three workmen had been already admitted at the wicket, and were
taking advantage of the increasing light to erect an ominous fabric
of boards and scaffolding in the centre of the Castle square. They
went about their job in a prompt business-like manner enough, but they
spoke in whispers, and when a basket of sawdust was brought out, it
was disposed almost reverently in its place. After this a taint of
death seemed to pervade the atmosphere, and one of the artificers, a
strapping young fellow, six feet high, had recourse to a dram of strong
waters on the spot.
Down below in his dungeon, Chastelâr was asleep. Strange as it may
appear, men always _do_ sleep before execution. Be it that the
faculties are so completely worn out by the wear and tear of anxiety
that usually precedes condemnation, or be it another instance of
the Divine mercy which would fain shorten that time of agony to the
sufferer, such is the fact; and, in the last moments of criminals,
it is almost invariably the case that body and soul both taste their
last repose on earth, ere the one sleeps and the other wakes for all
eternity.
What were the poet’s dreams in that short welcome rest? Did he
anticipate the great change, and fancy his spirit already free from its
prison, wandering through those unknown regions which good Eneas, and
rich Tullus and Ancus, and your grandfather and mine, and a host of
those we both knew and valued, and would have followed into any danger,
or on any expedition, have ere this thoroughly explored--to which you
and I, though we think so little about it, are bound just as surely
and inevitably, and with which to-morrow, or the day after, or this
time next year, we may be familiarly acquainted? Or did he retrograde
to the past, and revel and ruffle it at Holyrood once more, riding
the sorrel horse alongside of ‘Black Agnes,’ and sunning himself in
the bright eyes of the Maries, and above all the smiles of her their
peerless Queen? Perhaps a vision of that face he had worshipped so
fondly shone on him for the last time kindlier and lovelier than it had
ever appeared in reality, and to wake from such a dream as that was so
bitter that even death became welcome as promising sleep again.
The knocking on the scaffolding failed to arouse him, and when Ogilvy
went gently into his cell with a torch, the soldier passed the light
half-pitifully, half-admiringly, over the manly face that could look so
calm and peaceful at such a time.
And in the royal house in the south street, within a culverin’s
distance of the castle, were all the inmates sleeping soundly at the
dawn of that gloomy morning? Was that a bed of rest, on each post of
which was carved a crown, and at the head of which the arms of Scotland
were emblazoned so richly in embroidery and cloth of gold? Was the
lovely face, so flushed and troubled, thus buried in the pillows to
exclude the light of day; were the white hands pressed against the
throbbing temples and covering the beautiful little ears, in dread of
the morning gun which would be fired at sunrise, and tell that all was
over?
It was no fault of Mary Stuart’s that Chastelâr was doomed. All that
lay in her power had been done to save him; all that royal dignity and
womanly shame would permit. Perhaps she believed him to have escaped
even at the last; she would hardly guess at such infatuation as he had
shown even in _him_, and yet the victim’s sleep had probably been far
sounder than hers for whom he was about to die.
Lights were burning in the Queen’s chamber, heavy curtains at the
window excluded the faintest glimpse of dawn, yet she was turning and
tossing restlessly on her couch, while Chastelâr was pacing in grave
composure up the dungeon-stair that led into the gray morning, the last
he would see on earth.
But one bed, at least, in the royal house remained cold and
unoccupied--Mary Hamilton had never returned home all night. Under the
castle wall she kept her weary watch; and, as the dawn widened into
day, she was still pacing hurriedly up and down, up and down, and at
every fresh turn casting a horror-stricken look towards the sky.
Presently the mist rolled slowly away, curling downwards from
the heights of Craigton and the bleak outline of Drum-Carro Hill,
disclosing the bare and cheerless table-land that forms the eastern
boundary of Fife. The changing wind cleared the loaded atmosphere, and
glimpses of blue became apparent through the fleecy vapours dispersing
rapidly as they were driven out to sea; already the beams of morning
were gilding the sands of the bay, and two or three fishing-boats,
hoisting their white sails, were putting out hopefully from the shore;
the cheery voices of the sailors came pleasantly over the water, and
reached the ears of the watcher under the castle wall. Still the hood
was drawn over her face; still she paced with that monotonous tread
up and down, up and down; still the poor fool, crouching under his
buttress, moaned and rocked and shivered, urging pitifully that he was
‘wantin’ hame--wantin’ hame.’
Then, though the castle yet remained a huge black mass in deep shadow,
spire and pinnacle on the cathedral began to blush and glow in the
morning sun; presently, when Mary Hamilton turned in her walk, her eye
was dazzled by his horizontal beams streaming along a pathway of molten
gold as he rose cloudless from the sea. Retracing her steps, she saw
the whole massive building before her shine out at once in a flood of
warm yellow light; then she stopped short, bending forward with her
hand outstretched, and listening eagerly.
Comforted by the warmth, the fool rose from his lair and rubbed his
hands together, with an attempt at cheerfulness, shifting alternately
from one foot to the other in a kind of measured dance, and striving
in his vacant, half-witted manner to attract the attention of his
companion.
She neither moved nor noticed him; still in the same attitude, with her
neck bent forward, her hand stretched out, and the lower part of her
face visible beneath her hood, white and rigid as if cut from marble.
He pulled her cloak impatiently--‘Come awa’ hame,’ he whimpered like a
child left alone in the dark. ‘I’m feared here--I’m feared here; it’s
no sae canny sin’ the dawn.
Wi’ a rising wind,
And a tide comin’ in,
There’s a death to be;
When the wind’s gaed back,
An’ the tide’s at the slack,
There’s a spirit free.’
He crooned this doggerel over twice or thrice, pointing at the same
time to the wet sand below them, and the black shining rocks left bare
by the ebb; but she never answered him, for ere he was silent the heavy
boom of a culverin broke on the morning’s stillness, and a wreath of
white smoke, rising above the walls of the castle, floated calmly and
peacefully out to sea. The fool cowered down and hid his face in his
hands. She did not start--she did not shriek, nor faint, nor quiver;
but she threw her hood back and looked wildly upwards, gasping for air;
then, as the rising sun shone on her bare head, Mary Hamilton’s raven
hair was all streaked and patched with gray.