Part 24 (2/2)
”I know not that,” said Catherine, very gravely; ”I fear we have been both unpardonably foolish.”
”I have been mad,” said Roland, ”unpardonably mad. But you, lovely Catherine--”
”I,” said Catherine, in the same tone of unusual gravity, ”have too long suffered you to use such expressions towards me--I fear I can permit it no longer, and I blame myself for the pain it may give you.”
”And what can have happened so suddenly to change our relation to each other, or alter, with such sudden cruelty, your whole deportment to me?”
”I can hardly tell,” replied Catherine, ”unless it is that the events of the day have impressed on my mind the necessity of our observing more distance to each other. A chance similar to that which betrayed to you the existence of my brother, may make known to Henry the terms you have used to me; and, alas! his whole conduct, as well as his deed, this day, makes me too justly apprehensive of the consequences.”
”Fear nothing for that, fair Catherine,” answered the page; ”I am well able to protect myself against risks of that nature.”
”That is to say,” replied she, ”that you would fight with my twin-brother to show your regard for his sister? I have heard the Queen say, in her sad hours, that men are, in love or in hate, the most selfish animals of creation; and your carelessness in this matter looks very like it. But be not so much abashed--you are no worse than others.”
”You do me injustice, Catherine,” replied the page, ”I thought but of being threatened with a sword, and did not remember in whose hand your fancy had placed it. If your brother stood before me, with his drawn weapon in his hand, so like as he is to you in word, person, and favour, he might shed my life's blood ere I could find in my heart to resist him to his injury.”
”Alas!” said she, ”it is not my brother alone. But you remember only the singular circ.u.mstances in which we have met in equality, and I may say in intimacy. You think not, that whenever I re-enter my father's house, there is a gulf between us you may not pa.s.s, but with peril of your life.--Your only known relative is of wild and singular habits, of a hostile and broken clan [Footnote: A broken clan was one who had no chief able to find security for their good behaviour--a clan of outlaws; And the Graemes of the Debateable Land were in that condition.]--the rest of your lineage unknown--forgive me that I speak what is the undeniable truth.”
”Love, my beautiful Catherine, despises genealogies,” answered Roland Graeme.
”Love may, but so will not the Lord Seyton,” rejoined the damsel.
”The Queen, thy mistress and mine, she will intercede. Oh! drive me not from you at the moment I thought myself most happy!--and if I shall aid her deliverance, said not yourself that you and she would become my debtors?”
”All Scotland will become your debtors,” said Catherine; ”but for the active effects you might hope from our grat.i.tude, you must remember I am wholly subjected to my father; and the poor Queen is, for a long time, more likely to be dependant on the pleasure of the n.o.bles of her party, than possessed of power to control them.”
”Be it so,” replied Roland; ”my deeds shall control prejudice itself--it is a bustling world, and I will have my share. The Knight of Avenel, high as he now stands, rose from as obscure an origin as mine.”
”Ay!” said Catherine, ”there spoke the doughty knight of romance, that will cut his way to the imprisoned princess, through fiends and fiery dragons!”
”But if I can set the princess at large, and procure her the freedom of her own choice,” said the page, ”where, dearest Catherine, will that choice alight?”
”Release the princess from duresse, and she will tell you,” said the damsel; and breaking off the conversation abruptly, she joined the Queen so suddenly, that Mary exclaimed, half aloud-- ”No more tidings of evil import--no dissension, I trust, in my limited household?”--Then looking on Catherine's blus.h.i.+ng cheek, and Roland's expanded brow and glancing eye--”No--no,” she said, ”I see all is well--Ma pet.i.te mignone, go to my apartment and fetch me down--let me see--ay, fetch my pomander box.”
And having thus disposed of her attendant in the manner best qualified to hide her confusion, the Queen added, speaking apart to Roland, ”I should at least have two grateful subjects of Catherine and you; for what sovereign but Mary would aid true love so willingly?--Ay, you lay your hand on your sword--your pet.i.te flamberge a rien there--Well, short time will show if all the good be true that is protested to us--I hear them toll curfew from Kinross. To our chamber--this old dame hath promised to be with us again at our evening meal. Were it not for the hope of speedy deliverance, her presence would drive me distracted. But I will be patient.”
”I profess,” said Catherine, who just then entered, ”I would I could be Henry, with all a man's privileges, for one moment--I long to throw my plate at that confect of pride and formality, and ill-nature.”
The Lady Fleming reprimanded her young companion for this explosion of impatience; the Queen laughed, and they went to the presence-chamber, where almost immediately entered supper, and the Lady of the castle. The Queen, strong in her prudent resolutions, endured her presence with great fort.i.tude and equanimity, until her patience was disturbed by a new form, which had hitherto made no part of the ceremonial of the castle. When the other attendant had retired, Randal entered, bearing the keys of the castle fastened upon a chain, and, announcing that the watch was set, and the gates locked, delivered the keys with all reverence to the Lady of Lochleven.
The Queen and her ladies exchanged with each other a look of disappointment, anger, and vexation; and Mary said aloud, ”We cannot regret the smallness of our court, when we see our hostess discharge in person so many of its offices. In addition to her charges of princ.i.p.al steward of our household and grand almoner, she has to-night done duty as captain of our guard.”
”And will continue to do so in future, madam,” answered the Lady Lochleven, with much gravity; ”the history of Scotland may teach me how ill the duty is performed, which is done by an accredited deputy--We have heard, madam, of favourites of later date, and as little merit, as Oliver Sinclair.” [Footnote: A favourite, and said to be an unworthy one, of James V.]
”Oh, madam,” replied the Queen, ”my father had his female as well as his male favourites--there were the Ladies Sandilands and Olifaunt, [Footnote: The names of these ladies, and a third frail favourite of James, are preserved in an epigram too gaillard for quotation.] and some others, methinks; but their names cannot survive in the memory of so grave a person as you.”
The Lady Lochleven looked as if she could have slain the Queen on the spot, but commanded her temper and retired from the apartment, bearing in her hand the ponderous bunch of keys.
”Now G.o.d be praised for that woman's youthful frailty!” said the Queen. ”Had she not that weak point in her character, I might waste my words on her in vain--But that stain is the very reverse of what is said of the witch's mark--I can make her feel there, though she is otherwise insensible all over.--But how say you, girls--here is a new difficulty--How are these keys to be come by?--there is no deceiving or bribing this dragon, I trow.”
”May I crave to know,” said Roland, ”whether, if your Grace were beyond the walls of the castle, you could find means of conveyance to the firm land, and protection when you are there?”
”Trust us for that, Roland,” said the Queen; ”for to that point our scheme is indifferent well laid.”
”Then if your Grace will permit me to speak my mind, I think I could be of some use in this matter.”
”As how, my good youth?--speak on,” said the Queen, ”and fearlessly.”
”My patron the Knight of Avenel used to compel the youth educated in his household to learn the use of axe and hammer, and working in wood and iron--he used to speak of old northern champions, who forged their own weapons, and of the Highland Captain, Donald nan Ord, or Donald of the Hammer, whom he himself knew, and who used to work at the anvil with a sledge-hammer in each hand. Some said he praised this art, because he was himself of churl's blood. However, I gained some practice in it, as the Lady Catherine Seyton partly knows; for since we were here, I wrought her a silver brooch.”
”Ay,” replied Catharine, ”but you should tell her Grace that your workmans.h.i.+p was so indifferent that it broke to pieces next day, and I flung it away.”
”Believe her not, Roland,” said the Queen; ”she wept when it was broken, and put the fragments into her bosom. But for your scheme--could your skill avail to forge a second set of keys?”
”No, madam, because I know not the wards. But I am convinced I could make a set so like that hateful bunch which the Lady bore off even now, that could they be exchanged against them by any means, she would never dream she was possessed of the wrong.”
”And the good dame, thank Heaven, is somewhat blind,” said the Queen; ”but then for a forge, my boy, and the means of labouring un.o.bserved?”
”The armourer's forge, at which I used sometimes to work with him, is the round vault at the bottom of the turret--he was dismissed with the warder for being supposed too much attached to George Douglas. The people are accustomed to see me work there, and I warrant I shall find some excuse that will pa.s.s current with them for putting bellows and anvil to work.”
”The scheme has a promising face,” said the Queen; ”about it, my lad, with all speed, and beware the nature of your work is not discovered.”
”Nay, I will take the liberty to draw the bolt against chance visitors, so that I will have time to put away what I am working upon, before I undo the door.”
”Will not that of itself attract suspicion, in a place where it is so current already?” said Catherine.
”Not a whit,” replied Roland; ”Gregory the armourer, and every good hammerman, locks himself in when he is about some master piece of craft. Besides, something must be risked.”
”Part we then to-night,” said the Queen, ”and G.o.d bless you my children!--If Mary's head ever rises above water, you shall all rise along with her.”
Chapter the Thirty-Fifth.
It is a time of danger, not of revel, When churchmen turn to masquers. SPANISH FATHER.
The enterprise of Roland Graeme appeared to prosper. A trinket or two, of which the work did not surpa.s.s the substance, (for the materials were silver, supplied by the Queen,) were judiciously presented to those most likely to be inquisitive into the labours of the forge and anvil, which they thus were induced to reckon profitable to others and harmless in itself. Openly, the page was seen working about such trifles. In private, he forged a number of keys resembling so nearly in weight and in form those which were presented every evening to the Lady Lochleven, that, on a slight inspection, it would have been difficult to perceive the difference. He brought them to the dark rusty colour by the use of salt and water; and, in the triumph of his art, presented them at length to Queen Mary in her presence-chamber, about an hour before the tolling of the curfew. She looked at them with pleasure, but at the same time with doubt.--”I allow,” she said, ”that the Lady Lochleven's eyes, which are not of the clearest, may be well deceived, could we pa.s.s those keys on her in place of the real implements of her tyranny. But how is this to be done, and which of my little court dare attempt this tour de jongleur with any chance of success? Could we but engage her in some earnest matter of argument--but those which I hold with her, always have been of a kind which make her grasp her keys the faster, as if she said to herself--Here I hold what sets me above your taunts and reproaches--And even for her liberty, Mary Stuart could not stoop to speak the proud heretic fair.--What shall we do? Shall Lady Fleming try her eloquence in describing the last new head-tire from Paris?--alas! the good dame has not changed the fas.h.i.+on of her head-gear since Pinkie-field for aught that I know. Shall my mignone Catherine sing to her one of those touching airs, which draw the very souls out of me and Roland Graeme?--Alas! Dame Margaret Douglas would rather hear a Huguenot psalm of Clement Marrot, sung to the tune of Reveillez vous, belle endormie.--Cousins and liege counsellors, what is to be done, for our wits are really astray in this matter?--Must our man-at-arms and the champion of our body, Roland Graeme, manfully a.s.sault the old lady, and take the keys from her par voie du fait?”
”Nay! with your Grace's permission.” said Roland, ”I do not doubt being able to manage the matter with more discretion; for though, in your Grace's service, I do not fear--”
”A host of old women,” interrupted Catherine, ”each armed with rock and spindle, yet he has no fancy for pikes and partisans, which might rise at the cry of Help! a Douglas, a Douglas!”
”They that do not fear fair ladies' tongues,” continued the page, ”need dread nothing else.--But, gracious Liege, I am well-nigh satisfied that I could pa.s.s the exchange of these keys on the Lady Lochleven; but I dread the sentinel who is now planted nightly in the garden, which, by necessity, we must traverse.”
<script>