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The Abbot

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"And wherefore should you wish that, my lord?" said Morton, who even
then entered the apartment; "the council have decided for the
best--we have had but too many proofs of this lady's stubbornness of
mind, and the oak that resists the sharp steel axe, must be riven with
the rugged iron wedge.--And this is to be her page?--My Lord Regent
hath doubtless instructed you, young man, how you shall guide yourself
in these matters; I will add but a little hint on my part. You are
going to the castle of a Douglas, where treachery never thrives--the
first moment of suspicion will be the last of your life. My kinsman,
William Douglas, understands no raillery, and if he once have cause to
think you false, you will waver in the wind from the castle
battlements ere the sun set upon his anger.--And is the lady to have
an almoner withal?"

"Occasionally, Douglas," said the Regent; "it were hard to deny the
spiritual consolation which she thinks essential to her salvation."

"You are ever too soft hearted, my lord--What! a false priest to
communicate her lamentations, not only to our unfriends in Scotland,
but to the Guises, to Rome, to Spain, and I know not where!"

"Fear not," said the Regent, "we will take such order that no
treachery shall happen."

"Look to it then." said Morton; "you know my mind respecting the
wench you have consented she shall receive as a waiting-woman--one of
a family, which, of all others, has ever been devoted to her, and
inimical to us. Had we not been wary, she would have been purveyed of
a page as much to her purpose as her waiting-damsel. I hear a rumour
that an old mad Romish pilgrimer, who passes for at least half a saint
among them, was employed to find a fit subject."

"We have escaped that danger at least," said Murray, "and converted it
into a point of advantage, by sending this boy of Glendinning's--and
for her waiting-damsel, you cannot grudge her one poor maiden instead
of her four noble Marys and all their silken train?"

"I care not so much for the waiting-maiden," said Morton, "but I
cannot brook the almoner--I think priests of all persuasions are much
like each other--Here is John Knox, who made such a noble puller-down,
is ambitious of becoming a setter-up, and a founder of schools and
colleges out of the Abbey lands, and bishops' rents, and other spoils
of Rome, which the nobility of Scotland have won with their sword and
bow, and with which he would endow new hives to sing the old drone."

"John is a man of God," said the Regent, "and his scheme is a devout
imagination."

The sedate smile with which this was spoken, left it impossible to
conjecture whether the words were meant in approbation, or in
derision, of the plan of the Scottish Reformer. Turning then to Roland
Graeme, as if he thought he had been long enough a witness of this
conversation, he bade him get him presently to horse, since my Lord of
Lindesay was already mounted. The page made his reverence, and left
the apartment.

Guided by Michael Wing-the-wind, he found his horse ready saddled and
prepared for the journey, in front of the palace porch, where hovered
about a score of men-at-arms, whose leader showed no small symptoms of
surly impatience.

"Is this the jackanape page for whom we have waited thus long?" said
he to Wing-the-wind.--"And my Lord Ruthven will reach the castle long
before us."

Michael assented, and added, that the boy had been detained by the
Regent to receive some parting instructions. The leader made an
inarticulate sound in his throat, expressive of sullen acquiescence,
and calling to one of his domestic attendants, "Edward," said he,
"take the gallant into your charge, and let him speak with no one
else."

He then addressed, by the title of Sir Robert, an elderly and
respectable-looking gentleman, the only one of the party who seemed
above the rank of a retainer or domestic, and observed, that they must
get to horse with all speed.

During this discourse, and while they were riding slowly along the
street of the suburb, Roland had time to examine more accurately the
looks and figure of the Baron, who was at their head.

Lord Lindesay of the Byres was rather touched than stricken with
years. His upright stature and strong limbs, still showed him fully
equal to all the exertions and fatigues of war. His thick eyebrows,
now partially grizzled, lowered over large eyes full of dark fire,
which seemed yet darker from the uncommon depth at which they were set
in his head. His features, naturally strong and harsh, had their
sternness exaggerated by one or two scars received in battle. These
features, naturally calculated to express the harsher passions, were
shaded by an open steel cap, with a projecting front, but having no
visor, over the gorget of which fell the black and grizzled beard of
the grim old Baron, and totally hid the lower part of his face. The
rest of his dress was a loose buff-coat, which had once been lined
with silk and adorned with embroidery, but which seemed much stained
with travel, and damaged with cuts, received probably in battle. It
covered a corslet, which had once been of polished steel, fairly
gilded, but was now somewhat injured with rust. A sword of antique
make and uncommon size, framed to be wielded with both hands, a kind
of weapon which was then beginning to go out of use, hung from his
neck in a baldrick, and was so disposed as to traverse his whole
person, the huge hilt appearing over his left shoulder, and the point
reaching well-nigh to the right heel, and jarring against his spur as
he walked. This unwieldy weapon could only be unsheathed by pulling
the handle over the left shoulder--for no human arm was long enough
to draw it in the usual manner. The whole equipment was that of a rude
warrior, negligent of his exterior even to misanthropical sullenness;
and the short, harsh, haughty tone, which he used towards his
attendants, belonged to the same unpolished character.

The personage who rode with Lord Lindesay, at the head of the party,
was an absolute contrast to him, in manner, form, and features. His
thin and silky hair was already white, though he seemed not above
forty-five or fifty years old. His tone of voice was soft and
insinuating--his form thin, spare, and bent by an habitual stoop--
his pale cheek was expressive of shrewdness and intelligence--his
eye was quick though placid, and his whole demeanour mild and
conciliatory. He rode an ambling nag, such as were used by ladies,
clergymen, or others of peaceful professions--wore a riding habit of
black velvet, with a cap and feather of the same hue, fastened up by a
golden medal--and for show, and as a mark of rank rather than for
use, carried a walking-sword, (as the short light rapiers were
called,) without any other arms, offensive or defensive.

The party had now quitted the town, and proceeded, at a steady trot,
towards the west.--As they prosecuted their journey, Roland Graeme
would gladly have learned something of its purpose and tendency, but
the countenance of the personage next to whom he had been placed in
the train, discouraged all approach to familiarity. The Baron himself
did not look more grim and inaccessible than his feudal retainer,
whose grisly beard fell over his mouth like the portcullis before the
gate of a castle, as if for the purpose of preventing the escape of
any word, of which absolute necessity did not demand the utterance.
The rest of the train seemed under the same taciturn influence, and
journeyed on without a word being exchanged amongst them--more like a
troop of Carthusian friars than a party of military retainers. Roland
Graeme was surprised at this extremity of discipline; for even in the
household of the Knight of Avenel, though somewhat distinguished for
the accuracy with which decorum was enforced, a journey was a period
of license, during which jest and song, and every thing within the
limits of becoming mirth and pastime were freely permitted. This
unusual silence was, however, so far acceptable, that it gave him time
to bring any shadow of judgment which he possessed to council on his
own situation and prospects, which would have appeared to any
reasonable person in the highest degree dangerous and perplexing.

It was quite evident that he had, through various circumstances not
under his own control, formed contradictory connexions with both the
contending factions, by whose strife the kingdom was distracted,
without being properly an adherent of either. It seemed also clear,
that the same situation in the household of the deposed Queen, to
which he was now promoted by the influence of the Regent, had been
destined to him by his enthusiastic grandmother, Magdalen Graeme; for
on this subject, the words which Morton had dropped had been a ray of
light; yet it was no less clear that these two persons, the one the
declared enemy, the other the enthusiastic votary, of the Catholic
religion,--the one at the head of the King's new government, the
other, who regarded that government as a criminal usurpation--must
have required and expected very different services from the individual
whom they had thus united in recommending. It required very little
reflection to foresee that these contradictory claims on his services
might speedily place him in a situation where his honour as well as
his life might be endangered. But it was not in Roland Graeme's
nature to anticipate evil before it came, or to prepare to combat
difficulties before they arrived. "I will see this beautiful and
unfortunate Mary Stewart," said he, "of whom we have heard so much,
and then there will be time enough to determine whether I will be
kingsman or queensman. None of them can say I have given word or
promise to either of their factions; for they have led me up and down
like a blind Billy, without giving me any light into what I was to do.
But it was lucky that grim Douglas came into the Regent's closet this
morning, otherwise I had never got free of him without plighting my
troth to do all the Earl would have me, which seemed, after all, but
foul play to the poor imprisoned lady, to place her page as an espial
on her."

Skipping thus lightly over a matter of such consequence, the thoughts
of the hare-brained boy went a wool-gathering after more agreeable
topics. Now he admired the Gothic towers of Barnbougle, rising from
the seabeaten rock, and overlooking one of the most glorious
landscapes in Scotland--and now he began to consider what notable
sport for the hounds and the hawks must be afforded by the variegated
ground over which they travelled--and now he compared the steady and
dull trot at which they were then prosecuting their journey, with the
delight of sweeping over hill and dale in pursuit of his favourite
sports. As, under the influence of these joyous recollections, he gave
his horse the spur, and made him execute a gambade, he instantly
incurred the censure of his grave neighbour, who hinted to him to keep
the pace, and move quietly and in order, unless he wished such notice
to be taken of his eccentric movements as was likely to be very
displeasing to him.

The rebuke and the restraint under which the youth now found himself,
brought back to his recollection his late good-humoured and
accommodating associate and guide, Adam Woodcock; and from that topic
his imagination made a short flight to Avenel Castle, to the quiet and
unconfined life of its inhabitants, the goodness of his early
protectress, not forgetting the denizens of its stables, kennels, and
hawk-mews. In a brief space, all these subjects of meditation gave way
to the resemblance of that riddle of womankind, Catherine Seyton, who
appeared before the eye of his mind--now in her female form, now in
her male attire--now in both at once--like some strange dream, which
presents to us the same individual under two different characters at
the same instant. Her mysterious present also recurred to his
recollection--the sword which he now wore at his side, and which he
was not to draw save by command of his legitimate Sovereign! But the
key of this mystery he judged he was likely to find in the issue of
his present journey.

With such thoughts passing through his mind, Roland Graeme accompanied
the party of Lord Lindesay to the Queen's-Ferry, which they passed in
vessels that lay in readiness for them. They encountered no adventure
whatever in their passage, excepting one horse being lamed in getting
into the boat, an accident very common on such occasions, until a few
years ago, when the ferry was completely regulated. What was more
peculiarly characteristic of the olden age, was the discharge of a
culverin at the party from the battlements of the old castle of
Rosythe, on the north side of the Ferry, the lord of which happened to
have some public or private quarrel with the Lord Lindesay, and took
this mode of expressing his resentment. The insult, however, as it
was harmless, remained unnoticed and unavenged, nor did any thing else
occur worth notice until the band had come where Lochleven spread its
magnificent sheet of waters to the beams of a bright summer's sun.

The ancient castle, which occupies an island nearly in the centre of
the lake, recalled to the page that of Avenel, in which he had been
nurtured. But the lake was much larger, and adorned with several
islets besides that on which the fortress was situated; and instead of
being embosomed in hills like that of Avenel, had upon the southern
side only a splendid mountainous screen, being the descent of one of
the Lomond hills, and on the other was surrounded by the extensive and
fertile plain of Kinross. Roland Graeme looked with some degree of
dismay on the water-girdled fortress, which then, as now, consisted
only of one large donjon-keep, surrounded with a court-yard, with two
round flanking-towers at the angles, which contained within its
circuit some other buildings of inferior importance. A few old trees,
clustered together near the castle, gave some relief to the air of
desolate seclusion; but yet the page, while he gazed upon a building
so sequestrated, could not but feel for the situation of a captive
Princess doomed to dwell there, as well as for his own. "I must have
been born," he thought, "under the star that presides over ladies and
lakes of water, for I cannot by any means escape from the service of
the one, or from dwelling in the other. But if they allow me not the
fair freedom of my sport and exercise, they shall find it as hard to
confine a wild-drake, as a youth who can swim like one."

The band had now reached the edge of the water, and one of the party
advancing displayed Lord Lindesay's pennon, waving it repeatedly to
and fro, while that Baron himself blew a clamorous blast on his bugle.
A banner was presently displayed from the roof of the castle in reply
to these signals, and one or two figures were seen busied as if
unmooring a boat which lay close to the islet.

"It will be some time ere they can reach us with the boat," said the
companion of Lord Lindesay; "should we not do well to proceed to the
town, and array ourselves in some better order, ere we appear
before----"

"You may do as you list, Sir Robert," replied Lindesay, "I have
neither time nor temper to waste on such vanities. She has cost me
many a hard ride, and must not now take offence at the threadbare
cloak and soiled doublet that I am arrayed in. It is the livery to
which she has brought all Scotland."

"Do not speak so harshly," said Sir Robert; "if she hath done wrong,
she hath dearly abied it; and in losing all real power, one would not
deprive her of the little external homage due at once to a lady and a
princess."

"I say to you once more, Sir Robert Melville," replied Lindesay, "do
as you will--for me, I am now too old to dink myself as a gallant to
grace the bower of dames."

"The bower of dames, my lord!" said Melville, looking at the rude old
tower--"is it yon dark and grated castle, the prison of a captive
Queen, to which you give so gay a name?"

"Name it as you list," replied Lindesay; "had the Regent desired to
send an envoy capable to speak to a captive Queen, there are many
gallants in his court who would have courted the occasion to make
speeches out of Amadis of Gaul, or the Mirror of Knighthood. But when
he sent blunt old Lindesay, he knew he would speak to a misguided
woman, as her former misdoings and her present state render necessary.
I sought not this employment--it has been thrust upon me; and I will
not cumber myself with more form in the discharge of it, than needs
must be tacked to such an occupation."

So saying, Lord Lindesay threw himself from horseback, and wrapping
his riding-cloak around him, lay down at lazy length upon the sward,
to await the arrival of the boat, which was now seen rowing from the
castle towards the shore. Sir Robert Melville, who had also
dismounted, walked at short turns to and fro upon the bank, his arms
crossed on his breast, often looking to the castle, and displaying in
his countenance a mixture of sorrow and of anxiety. The rest of the
party sate like statues on horseback, without moving so much as the
points of their lances, which they held upright in the air.

As soon as the boat approached a rude quay or landing-place, near to
which they had stationed themselves, Lord Lindesay started up from his
recumbent posture, and asked the person who steered, why he had not
brought a larger boat with him to transport his retinue.

"So please you," replied the boatman, "because it is the order of our
lady, that we bring not to the castle more than four persons."

"Thy lady is a wise woman," said Lindesay, "to suspect me of
treachery!--Or, had I intended it, what was to hinder us from throwing
you and your comrades into the lake, and filling the boat with my own
fellows?"

The steersman, on hearing this, made a hasty signal to his men to back
their oars, and hold off from the shore which they were approaching.

"Why, thou ass," said Lindesay, "thou didst not think that I meant thy
fool's head serious harm? Hark thee, friend--with fewer than three
servants I will go no whither--Sir Robert Melville will require at
least the attendance of one domestic; and it will be at your peril and
your lady's to refuse us admission, come hither as we are, on matters
of great national concern."

The steersman answered with firmness, but with great civility of
expression, that his orders were positive to bring no more than four
into the island, but he offered to row back to obtain a revisal of his
orders.

"Do so, my friend," said Sir Robert Melville, after he had in vain
endeavoured to persuade his stubborn companion to consent to a
temporary abatement of his train, "row back to the castle, sith it
will be no better, and obtain thy lady's orders to transport the Lord
Lindesay, myself, and our retinue hither."

"And hearken," said Lord Lindesay, "take with you this page, who comes
as an attendant on your lady's guest.--Dismount, sirrah," said he,
addressing Roland, "and embark with them in that boat."

"And what is to become of my horse?" said Graeme; "I am answerable
for him to my master."

"I will relieve you of the charge," said Lindesay; "thou wilt have
little enough to do with horse, saddle, or bridle, for ten years to
come--Thou mayst take the halter an thou wilt--it may stand thee in a
turn."

"If I thought so," said Roland--but he was interrupted by Sir Robert
Melville, who said to him good-humouredly, "Dispute it not, young
friend--resistance can do no good, but may well run thee into danger."

Roland Graeme felt the justice of what he said, and, though neither
delighted with the matter or manner of Lindesay's address, deemed it
best to submit to necessity, and to embark without farther
remonstrance. The men plied their oars. The quay, with the party of
horse stationed near it, receded from the page's eyes--the castle and
the islet seemed to draw near in the same proportion, and in a brief
space he landed under the shadow of a huge old tree which overhung the
landing place. The steersman and Graeme leaped ashore; the boatmen
remained lying on their oars ready for farther service.




Chapter the Twenty-First.


Could valour aught avail or people's love,
France had not wept Navarre's brave Henry slain;
If wit or beauty could compassion move,
The rose of Scotland had not wept in vain.
_Elegy in a Royal Mausoleum._ LEWIS.

At the gate of the court-yard of Lochleven appeared the stately form
of the Lady Lochleven, a female whose early charms had captivated
James V., by whom she became mother of the celebrated Regent Murray.
As she was of noble birth (being a daughter of the house of Mar) and
of great beauty, her intimacy with James did not prevent her being
afterwards sought in honourable marriage by many gallants of the time,
among whom she had preferred Sir William Douglas of Lochleven. But
well has it been said

----"Our pleasant vices
Are made the whips to scourge us"---

The station which the Lady of Lochleven now held as the wife of a man
of high rank and interest, and the mother of a lawful family, did not
prevent her nourishing a painful sense of degradation, even while she
was proud of the talents, the power, and the station of her son, now
prime ruler of the state, but still a pledge of her illicit
intercourse. "Had James done to her," she said, in her secret heart,
"the justice he owed her, she had seen in her son, as a source of
unmixed delight and of unchastened pride, the lawful monarch of
Scotland, and one of the ablest who ever swayed the sceptre." The
House of Mar, not inferior in antiquity or grandeur to that of
Drummond, would then have also boasted a Queen among its daughters,
and escaped the stain attached to female frailty, even when it has a
royal lover for its apology. While such feelings preyed on a bosom
naturally proud and severe, they had a corresponding effect on her
countenance, where, with the remains of great beauty, were mingled
traits of inward discontent and peevish melancholy. It perhaps
contributed to increase this habitual temperament, that the Lady
Lochleven had adopted uncommonly rigid and severe views of religion,
imitating in her ideas of reformed faith the very worst errors of the
Catholics, in limiting the benefit of the gospel to those who profess
their own speculative tenets.

In every respect, the unfortunate Queen Mary, now the compulsory
guest, or rather prisoner, of this sullen lady, was obnoxious to her
hostess. Lady Lochleven disliked her as the daughter of Mary of
Guise, the legal possessor of those rights over James's heart and
hand, of which she conceived herself to have been injuriously
deprived; and yet more so as the professor of a religion which she
detested worse than Paganism.

Such was the dame, who, with stately mien, and sharp yet handsome
features, shrouded by her black velvet coif, interrogated the domestic
who steered her barge to the shore, what had become of Lindesay and
Sir Robert Melville. The man related what had passed, and she smiled
scornfully as she replied, "Fools must be flattered, not foughten
with.--Row back--make thy excuse as thou canst--say Lord Ruthven hath
already reached this castle, and that he is impatient for Lord
Lindesay's presence. Away with thee, Randal--yet stay--what galopin
is that thou hast brought hither?"

"So please you, my lady, he is the page who is to wait upon----"

"Ay, the new male minion," said the Lady Lochleven; "the female
attendant arrived yesterday. I shall have a well-ordered house with
this lady and her retinue; but I trust they will soon find some others
to undertake such a charge. Begone, Randal--and you" (to Roland
Graeme) "follow me to the garden."

She led the way with a slow and stately step to the small garden,
which, enclosed by a stone wall ornamented with statues, and an
artificial fountain in the centre, extended its dull parterres on the
side of the court-yard, with which it communicated by a low and arched
portal. Within the narrow circuit of its formal and limited walks,
Mary Stewart was now learning to perform the weary part of a prisoner,
which, with little interval, she was doomed to sustain during the
remainder of her life. She was followed in her slow and melancholy
exercise by two female attendants; but in the first glance which
Roland Graeme bestowed upon one so illustrious by birth, so
distinguished by her beauty, accomplishments, and misfortunes, he was
sensible of the presence of no other than the unhappy Queen of
Scotland.

Her face, her form, have been so deeply impressed upon the
imagination, that even at the distance of nearly three centuries, it
is unnecessary to remind the most ignorant and uninformed reader of
the striking traits which characterize that remarkable countenance,
which seems at once to combine our ideas of the majestic, the
pleasing, and the brilliant, leaving us to doubt whether they express
most happily the queen, the beauty, or the accomplished woman. Who is
there, that, at the very mention of Mary Stewart's name, has not her
countenance before him, familiar as that of the mistress of his youth,
or the favourite daughter of his advanced age? Even those who feel
themselves compelled to believe all, or much, of what her enemies laid
to her charge, cannot think without a sigh upon a countenance
expressive of anything rather than the foul crimes with which she was
charged when living, and which still continue to shade, if not to
blacken, her memory. That brow, so truly open and regal--those
eyebrows, so regularly graceful, which yet were saved from the charge
of regular insipidity by the beautiful effect of the hazel eyes which
they overarched, and which seem to utter a thousand histories--the
nose, with all its Grecian precision of outline--the mouth, so well
proportioned, so sweetly formed, as if designed to speak nothing but
what was delightful to hear--the dimpled chin--the stately swan-like
neck, form a countenance, the like of which we know not to have
existed in any other character moving in that class of life, where the
actresses as well as the actors command general and undivided
attention. It is in vain to say that the portraits which exist of this
remarkable woman are not like each other; for, amidst their
discrepancy, each possesses general features which the eye at once
acknowledges as peculiar to the vision which our imagination has
raised while we read her history for the first time, and which has
been impressed upon it by the numerous prints and pictures which we
have seen. Indeed we cannot look on the worst of them, however
deficient in point of execution, without saying that it is meant for
Queen Mary; and no small instance it is of the power of beauty, that
her charms should have remained the subject not merely of admiration,
but of warm and chivalrous interest, after the lapse of such a length
of time. We know that by far the most acute of those who, in latter
days, have adopted the unfavourable view of Mary's character, longed,
like the executioner before his dreadful task was performed, to kiss
the fair hand of her on whom he was about to perform so horrible a
duty.

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