Part 14

The pulses of Konrad's enthusiastic heart rose and fell with the music; for he was borne away from himself on the stream of harmony that swept past him. The air resembled one that he had frequently heard Anna sing, and all her memory came rushing on his mind. Bowing his face upon his hands, he pressed his flushed brow against the rusty bars, and groaned aloud.

At that moment some one, who had entered his prison unheard, touched him on the shoulder. He started from his reverie, to be confronted by the same dark and colossal figure, that met his gaze on the night when he fell from the Terrace of Bergen into the Fiord below. Tall, dusky, and muffled in a mantle, he wore a black mask, partially concealing his face; but his bright, fierce eyes shown through it like red stars.

"Groaning--eh! art thou sick?" he asked.

"Yes--of life!"

"Faith! I thought it was the mulligrubs. God-den to thee, Konrad of Saltzberg--whilk I believe is thy title--'tis long since we have spoken; yet, methinks, thou mayest still remember me."

"I do, for mine enemy!" replied Konrad, whose indignation rose at the voice.

"Cock and pie! say not that," replied Ormiston; "for may the great devil spit me, if I owe thee any ill-will, or mean thee aught like mischief!"

"Then for what end dost thou seek me now? I have endured here exceeding misery. Who is there that has known sorrow without some relief--despair without hope--who, but I? An irresistible current of misfortunes has hurried me on, and--I am here--here, where I am almost forgetting the use of my limbs, while life is in its bloom; yea, and the very tone of my own voice. What have I done among ye, sirs, in this land of Scotland, to be treated thus?"

"By Jove! I can scarcely tell; but there are those about Holyrood who say, that keeping thee caged up here, is only feeding what ought to be hanged to feed the corbies; yet, if thou wouldest attain that liberty for which thou longest, do as I bid thee, and thou shalt escape to thine beloved Norway--God amend it! for the flavour of its sawdust bannocks and sour ale are yet fresh in my memory."

"Thou hast some selfish end of thine own to serve in this."

"By cock and pie! Sir Konrad, thou measurest thy friends by a low standard, especially such a long-limbed one as I. Thou canst not well be worse. Stay here, and thou wilt assuredly be hanged, whenever honest Gilbert Balfour, the Master of the Household, grows tired of feeding thee; follow me, and thou mayest escape."

"Thou sayest true; I cannot be worse; lead on--I follow thee!"

Ormiston gave him a mantle, unclasped the massive fetterlocks that secured his stiffened ankles, and led him down the narrow stair of the tower into the outer court of Holyrood, where Konrad almost tottered and fell, on finding himself fully exposed to the keen night wind of February; but black Ormiston, with rough kindness, forced him to take a draught from a hunting-flask that hung at his girdle, and then gave him a sword, saying,--

"If we are assailed, thou must stand by me!"

"To the death!" replied Konrad, as he grasped the sword, and felt his spirit rise with his old energy and ardour on finding himself once again armed, fetterless, and free. His sinews became strong; his bosom fired; his heart danced with joy; and, little dreaming of the treachery designed him, or the trap into which he was falling, he shook the strong hand of the gigantic Ormiston in token of confidence and thankfulness.

The greater part of the vast and irregular facade of Holyrood was buried in darkness; the buildings were of various heights and ages, the highest portion being that which now forms the north wing; and heavily its great round towers and corbelled battlements loomed against the murky sky.

The moon was now veiled by a cloud; scarcely a star was visible; and the chill wind whistled drearily in the empty courts, and through the low gothic cloisters built by St. David I. for the monks of the Holy Cross.

Passing James V.'s tower, Ormiston led Konrad to the southern doorway of the royal garden, and thereon he knocked thrice with the pommel of his long heavy sword.

"Who is without there?" asked a voice.

"One who would _keep tryst_!" replied Ormiston, using Bothwell's family motto--the parole agreed upon.

The gate was immediately opened, and six or seven men well muffled in dark mantles, and wearing swords and black velvet masks, came forth cautiously, one at a time. As they stepped into the palace-yard, the clank of steel made it apparent to Konrad that they were all well armed; and in their general bearing and aspect there was no mistaking them for any thing else than what they were--conspirators; and, though he knew them not, many of them were no other than the very men who had met beneath that baleful yew-tree at the castle of Whittinghame.

"'Tis high time we were fairly set forth!" said one, in whom, by his short stature and long beard, Ormiston recognised the Earl of Morton.

"True," added his vassal, the Laird of Whittinghame; "for the city horologue has struck ten, and by that hour the queen was to leave for Sebastian's ball."

"Bothwell, thou hast wisely changed all thine outward trumpery," said Ormiston.

"Behold," replied the Earl, displaying a coarse, canvass gaberdine above a coat-of-mail, for which he had exchanged his ball costume, "a pair of black velvet hoise, trimit with silver, and ane doublet of satin," as we are minutely informed by the _Depositions in Proesentia Dominorum Secreti Concilii_.

He carried in his hand a maul, to beat down doors or other obstructions.

The other conspirators, John of Bolton, Hob Ormiston of that Ilk, Hay of Tallo, Hume of Spott, and John Binney, a vassal of Whittinghame, were all well armed with coats-of-mail and pyne-doublets. At the palace porch, a gothic edifice, flanked on one side by a round tower, on the other by a projecting turret, they were met by French Paris, leading a sumpter-horse, laden with leathern mails. These contained powder, taken by the Earl from the royal store in the castle of Dunbar, of which he was governor.

Konrad imagined correctly, that some of the voices of his strange companions were not unfamiliar to his ear, but they conversed in low whispers; and feeling no way very comfortable in the company of men whose aspect, in armour and disguise, revealed that they were bent on some mission of darkness and danger, he thought only of escape. But, as if this very thought was divined, Black Ormiston stuck to his skirts like a burr; and, as they passed through the long dark arch of the portal, he whispered hoarsely,--

"Attempt not to escape; for I have here a dague that shoots a three-ounce ball, and I will not be slow in using it!"

Konrad, whose spirit could ill brook this, would have made some suitable rejoinder; but at this moment two archers of the guard challenged.

"Who are there?"

"Friends," replied the Earl of Morton.

"What friends?"

"My Lord of Bothwell's friends," and the whole party issued into the Canongate.[*]

[*] Such really appears to have been the incautious answer given to the various sentinels.--_Depositiones, I. P. D._

Where revealed by the mask, which came only down to his dark mustaches, Bothwell's face was white as marble; and, as they passed the Mint, he looked up at the dark windows of David Rizzio's empty mansion, which stood at the corner of the Horse Wynd.

"He was slain just about this time last year," said the Earl.

"And this night will be avenged," replied Ormiston, as if to apologise for the purpose which had brought them together.

At the back of the south garden, they were again challenged by two archers with bent bows, and, replying in the same unguarded manner, passed on.

They ascended the dark and silent Canongate, where not a sound was heard save their own footfalls, and the dull tramp of the felt-shod sumpter-horse that bore the powder mails; and, passing the lofty barrier that divided the burghs by its strong round towers and double arch, they descended with silence and rapidity the broad and spacious wynd of the Blackfriars, and reached the foot unseen.

Here, we are told, they paused a moment, while Bolton purchased a "candell frae Geordie Burnis wife in the Cowgate;" and at that time a blaze of light, flashing along the narrow street, on the octagon turrets of that picturesque old house, where whilome dwelt the great Cardinal of St. Stephen, made them shrink under its shadow with some dismay; for lo! the unconscious queen, attended by three Earls (two of whom were also conspirators), Argyle, Huntly, and Cassilis, with her sister, the Countess Jane, and other ladies, the whole escorted by Sir Arthur Erskine's archers, passed down the opposite wynd, en route for the palace. She was on foot; six soldiers of the guard bore a blue silk canopy over her head, and twelve others carried torches.

She was returning to Holyrood, from her hurried visit to that very place for which all these muffled men were bound--the lonely house of the Kirk-of-Field!

On her beautiful face and smart hood, the black velvet of which contrasted so well with her snowy brow, fell the full glare of the streaming torches, imparting to her usually pale cheek a tinge of red, and to her auburn hair the hue of gold. Mary Erskine, sister to the captain of the archers, bore her train, and the long stomacher from which it fell was sparkling with jewels; for she was arrayed in all the lavish richness of the time.

Intoxicated by her beauty, every scruple that the impressive gloom of the night, and the cooler reflections of the last few hours, had raised in the Earl's breast, died away; and, with eyes that beamed with the most eager and impassioned love, he saw her pass down the street, and disappear.

Her light heart was full of visions of anticipated gaiety; and, already revelling amid the brilliance, the music, and the dancers at Sebastian's ball, how little could she anticipate what was about to ensue!

Passing through Todrick's Wynd, and the spacious gardens of the monks of St. Dominic (where now the Infirmary stands), they issued from a little postern in the city wall (the keys of which Bothwell had secured), and found themselves under the shadow of _the House_ of the Kirk, which was buried in obscurity and darkness, save where one solitary ray of faint light streamed into the desolate garden, from the apartment where the sick king lay.

Every eye was fixed upon it.

All around was silent as the grave; there was nothing stirring save the branches of the leafless orchard, which creaked mournfully in the rising wind, and the tufts of long reedy grass that waved in the rough masonry of the dark old Flodden wall.

At times, the red rays of the moon shot forth tremulously between the flying vapour upon that dreary spot, and the high sepulchral dwelling, throwing light and shadow fitfully upon its dark discoloured walls.

The conspirators drew close together.

They were all pale as death; but their masks concealed the trepidation that would, nevertheless, have been visible in every face, as their voices betrayed it to be in every heart.

"Hist! dost thou not hear groans?" whispered Bothwell, plucking Black Ormiston by the cloak.

"Groans!" reiterated the startled conspirator. "No"----

"By Heaven! I even heard a low wailing cry upon the wind."

"Go to! if thou hearest this before, what wilt thou hear _after_?"

* * * * *

It is very remarkable that the Earl of Moray, (who is not said to have had any share in this conspiracy,) on the morning of that day should have left Holyrood suddenly, to visit his countess, who, he said, was seriously ill at St. Andrews; and it is still more remarkable, that when riding along the coast of Fife, attended by only one confidential retainer, he should--as Bishop Lesly informs us--burst out with these ominous words--

"This night, ere morning, the Lord Darnley shall lose his life!"

END OF VOLUME SECOND.

M'CORQUODALE & CO., 24, CARDINGTON STREET, LONDON. WORKS--NEWTON.