Part 4

They were Bothwell and Hepburn of Bolton; both were masked as usual to the mustache, and wore their mantles up to their chins.

"If we are not too late," said the first, as they approached; "perhaps this act of mercy may be an atonement--yea, in somewise a small atonement--ha! heardst thou that cry?"

"What cry?"

"By the blessed Bothan, I heard it again!" said Bothwell, in a voice of agony. "Now God me defend!" he added, making the long-forgotten sign of the cross, while a cold perspiration burst over him; "but where is the Norwegian? I see but the stake only!"

"Here--here! his head is above water still. Now praise Heaven! Dost thou live yet?"

Konrad uttered a faint sound; upon which both gave an exclamation of joy, and, urging the boat towards the stake, succeeded in raising him up, cutting the cords, and drawing him on board; but so benumbed and lifeless, that he sank across the thwarts and lay there insensible. Meanwhile, Bolton and the Earl, after pulling a few dozen of strokes, beached the boat (which they had stolen from the ferryman) among the thick sedges and reeds that fringed the northern bank of the loch. Bothwell sprang ashore, and gave a low whistle. There was a reply heard, and French Paris came out of the ancient quarry before mentioned, (the site of which is now covered by the Scott monument,) leading four horses. Konrad was assisted ashore, and seated upon the bank.

"Now, Paris," said the Earl; "thy hunting bottle!" The page unslung a round leather flask from his waist-belt, and handed it to the Earl, who filled a quaigh with liquid, saying--

"I trust the cordial of which I spoke--that rare reviving compound made by the queen's physician--was mixed with this. Drink, sir, if thou canst, and in three minutes thou wilt be another man."

Konrad, who was still unable to speak, quaffed off the proffered draught, and immediately became revived; for a glow shot through every vein, and warmed his quivering limbs.

"Another," said the Earl, "and thou wilt still further bless the skill of Monsieur Martin Picauet as a druggist and apothegar. Now, Bolton, our task is done, and we must hie to Holyrood ere daybreak; for this is not a time for men of such light account as we, to be roving about like the owls. To thee, Paris, we will leave the rest. Thou art well assured of where this crayer of Norway lieth."

"At the New haven, immediately opposite the chapel of St James."

A shudder ran through the heart of Bolton; for the page's voice sounded at that moment too painfully like his sister's--who, though he knew it not, was probably lying, bruised and mangled out of human form, among the ruins of the Kirk-of-Field.

"Then here we part. Thou wilt see this stranger fitted with dry garments: give him this purse, and bid him go in the name of grace, and cross my path no more; for it is beset with thorns, dangers, and deep pitfalls--and I will not be accountable for the issue of our again forgathering."

"How well I know that voice!" said Konrad feebly. "Tell me, ere we part, if my suspicions are right. For whom shall I pray this night?"----

"Thy greatest enemy--but one who hath every need of prayer," replied the other, in a husky voice.

"Thou art"----

"Hush! James, Earl of Bothwell," replied the noble in a low voice, as he and Bolton mounted, and, without further parley, dashed at full gallop along the bank of the loch and disappeared in the direction of Dingwall's castle, a strong tower, battlemented at the top and furnished with tourelles, that overhung the steep bank above the Trinity House, forming the residence of its provost.

The night was still gloomy and dark, though occasional gleams of moonlight shot across the varied landscape to the north, one moment revealing it all like a picture, and the next veiling it in obscurity.

"Mount, if thou canst," said French Paris, "and wend with me, for we have little time to spare. Our burghers will be all at their accursed pillar, like ravening wolves, by daybreak, and if they should miss, pursue, and overtake thee, our lives would not be worth a brass testoon!"

"And whither wend we?"

"To the seashore--to Our Lady's port of Grace, where there lieth at anchor a trading crayer, commanded by a countryman of thine--Hans Knuber, or some such uncouth name."

"Ha, honest Hans!" exclaimed Konrad with joy. "But how came so great a noble as thy lord to know of this poor skipper?"

"Knowest thou not that he is high admiral of the realm, and that not a cock-boat can spread a sail in the Scottish seas unknown to him?"

"Jovial Hans!" continued Konrad; "I would give my right hand to see thee, and hear thy hearty welcome in our good old Norwayn. Let us mount and go! Benumbed, and stiff, and sick as I am at heart and in body, thou shalt see, Sir Page (for I know thee of old), that I can ride a horse like the demon of the wind himself."

Nevertheless, Konrad mounted with difficulty, and they progressed but slowly; for the ancient way was steep and winding, and led them far to the westward of the city, which disappeared, as they traversed the steep and broken ground that lay between it and the Firth.

This district was all open and rural, but generally in a high state of cultivation, divided by hedges and fauld-dykes into fallow fields and pasture lands, in some places shaded by thick copsewood, especially round those eminences on which rose the towers of Innerleith and Waniston, between which the roadway wound. These square fortlets were the residences of two of the lesser barons; the first extended his feudal jurisdiction over the ancient village of Silvermills; and the other over that of Picardie, where dwelt a colony of industrious weavers, who had left their sunny France, and, under the wing of the ancient alliance, came hither to teach the Scots the art of weaving silk.

Near some ancient mills, gifted by Robert I. to the monks of Holyrood, the horseway crossed the pebbled bed of the Leith, which brawled and gurgled between rough and stony banks, jagged with rocks and boulders, and overhung by hawthorn, whin, and willow. Soon wood, and tower, and path were left behind, the city lights vanished in the distance, and Konrad, with his guide, entered on a broad and desolate tract, then known as the Muir of Wardie. There their horses sank fetlock deep in the soft brown heather, over which came the jarring murmur of the distant sea, as its waves rolled on the lonely shore of the beautiful estuary.

Then it was a lonely shore indeed!

That broad and desert moorland of many square miles, extended to the beach uncheered by house or homestead, by tree or bush, or any other objects than a solitary little chapel of Our Lady and the old tower of Wardie, with its square chimneys and round turrets, overhanging the rocks, on which, urged by the wind, the waves were pouring all their foam and fury, flecking the ocean with white when the moonbeams glinted on its waters.

Broad and spacious links of emerald green lay then between the little fisher-village and the encroaching sea, which has long since covered them; but their grassy downs had to be traversed by our horsemen ere they reached the wooden pier where the crayer of bluff Hans Knuber lay, well secured by warp and cable, and having her masts, and yards, and rigging all covered, and made snug, to save them from the storms which, at that season of the year, so frequently set in from the German sea.

*CHAPTER VIII.*

*THE CHALLENGE.*

Defiled is my name full sore, Through cruel spyte and false report; That I may say for evermore, Farewell, my joy! adieu, comfort! For wrongfully ye judge of me. Unto my fame a mortall wounde; Say what ye lyst it will not be, Ye seek for that cannot be founde. _Anne Boleyn's Lament._

The remains of the unfortunate king, after being embalmed by Picauet the French physician, were interred among his royal ancestors in the aisles of Holyrood, not contemptuously, as some historians tell us, but solemnly and privately; for Mary dared not have had the burial service of the Catholic church publicly performed, when, but seven years before, those sepulchral rites were, by the Reformers, denied to her mother.

In the southern aisle of the church of Sanctae Crucis, near the slab that still marks where Rizzio lies, he was lowered into the tomb, while the torches cast their lurid light on the dark arcades and shadowy vistas of the nave, amid the lamentations and the muttered threats of vengeance--the deep sure vengeance of the feudal days--from the knights and barons of the Lennox.

Attired in sackcloth, poor Mary shut herself up in a darkened chamber hung with black serge, and there for many days she passed the weary hours in vigil and in prayer, for the unshriven soul of that erring husband, whom for the past year she had been compelled to hold in abhorrence--a sentiment which she then remembered with a remorse that increased her pity for his fate.

Bothwell dared not to approach her while this paroxysm lasted; but by plunging into gaiety and riot--by spending the days and nights in revelry with Ormiston and d'Elboeuff--he endeavoured to drown the recollections of the past, to deaden the sense of the present, and to nerve himself for the future; but in vain--one terrible thought was ever present!

It stood like something palpable and visible before him. It seemed written on the fragrant earth, in the buoyant air, and on the shining water, imparting to the sunny spring the gloom of winter. It was in his ears, it was on his tongue, and in his soul; there was no avoiding, no crushing, no forgetting it! Oh, how vividly at times, in the calm silence of the sleepless night, _that cry_ came to his ears; and his thoughts were riveted on that grey marble slab in the chapel aisle, beneath which, mangled, cold, and mouldering, lay one----he would smite his damp forehead to drive away the thoughts, and rush to drown his sense of misery in wine.

Amid the hum of the city, when its sunlit thoroughfares were crowded with the gaiety and bustle of passing crowds, all of whom seemed so happy and so gay, it rang in his ears!

Amid the solemn deliberations of the council on border raids and feudal broils--on English wars and French embassies--in all of which he was compelled to take the lead, as the royal favourite and first of the Scottish peers, it came to him sadly and mournfully above the voices of the most able orators; and then his heart sank when he looked on the blanched visages of Morton, of Maitland, and his other copartners in that terrible deed, to which--as if by common consent--they never dared to recur!

Amid the leafy rustle of the woods, as their dewy buds expanded beneath the alternate showers and sunshine of an early spring (if he sought the country), still he heard it!

Amid the deep hoarse murmur of the chafing sea, if he sought the lonely shore, he heard it still--that sad and wailing cry of death and of despair!

Amid the joys of the midnight revel, when the wine sparkled in the gilded glasses--the grapes blushed in their silver baskets--the lofty lamps filled the chamber with rosy light and rich perfume;--when the heedless ribaldry of Ormiston, the courtly wit of d'Elboeuff, the frolicsome spirit of Coldinghame, were all there to make the _present_ paramount alike to the past and the future, still it came to him--that terrible sound--_the last cry of Darnley_!

The queen still remained shut in her darkened chamber, secluded from all--even from the prying ambassador of Elizabeth, who, when introduced, could not discern her face amidst the sombre gloom surrounding her; but, as he informed his mistress, the accents of Mary were both touching and mournful.

Two strange rumours were now floating through the city; one of a spectre which had appeared in the lodging of the Lord Athol on the night of the king's death; the other, of Bothwell's implication in that terrible deed, in which he and his companions had endeavoured (and perhaps not without good grounds) to implicate the Earl of Moray.

No one knew how this rumour gained credence; but each man whispered it to his neighbour. Voices, accusing him of the deed, rang at midnight in the narrow streets of the city; the scholars chalked ribald verses at the corners of the wynds and church-doors; while Moray--openly Bothwell's friend, and secretly his foe--had handbills posted on the portes, naming him as the perpetrator. Furtively these things were done; for few dared to impugn the honour of so powerful a noble, and none could arraign him save the father of the murdered prince, Matthew Earl of Lennox, an aged noble, who had served with valour and distinction in the wars of Francis I.; and he boldly charged the Earl with the crime.

Bothwell saw, or imagined he saw, an accusation in the eye of every man whose glance he encountered. Pride, jealousy, and angry suspicion, now by turns animated his resentful heart, and galled his fiery spirit. He was always conferring secretly with the knights and barons of his train; he kept his vassals ever on the alert, and never went abroad without being completely armed, to prevent a surprise; but daily and hourly, slowly and surely, like an advancing and overwhelming tide, the suspicions of the people grew and waxed stronger, till, clamorously, it burst in one deep hoarse shout against him, and a hundred thousand tongues said, "Thou art the man!"

"Malediction on these presumptuous churls!" said the Earl angrily to Ormiston, as they met near the palace gate on the day after Darnley's funeral. "They all accuse me; and there must be treachery somewhere."

"Nay, nay, never think so while that bond of Whittinghame exists. It binds us all, body and soul, to be silent as the grave, and deep as Currie brig."

"But now they speak of the queen, adding all that the innate malevolence of the vulgar, the hatred that Knox and his compatriots have fostered and fanned, can add; and declaring that she is art and part with those who freed her and the nation from the dominion of the house of Lennox."

"May God forefend!" said Ormiston; for, ruffian as he was, he deemed the national honour at stake under such an accusation. "I would run my sword through the brisket of the first base mechanic who breathed a word of this."

"Breathed a word of it!--Gramercy! French Paris tells me, it is openly discussed by every full-fed burgess at the city cross; by every rascally clown who brings his milk and butter to the Tron; by every archer and pikeman over their cans of twopenny; by every apostate priest and pious psalmist who haunt the houses of Knox, of Craig, and Buchanan. A curse upon the hour when my secret love, my cherished hopes--the name and fame the brave old Lords of Hailes transmitted to me, so spotless and so pure--are turned to ribaldry and jest, to laughter and to scorn, by every foul-mouthed citizen."

"'Tis mighty unlucky all this; for here hath been my Lord Fleming, the great chamberlain, with the queen's especial commendations to your lordship, announcing, that on the morrow she intendeth to lay aside her weeping and wailing, her dumps and dolours, and departing hence for the house of Lord Seaton, a gay place, and a merry withal; and there she hopes you will escort her with your train of lances, for the Lothians are so disturbed that she mistrusts even Arthur of Mar and his band of archers."

"Be it so! Send Bolton to her grace with my dutiful answer," replied the Earl, whose eye lighted up, for he thought that, in the shock Darnley's fate had given her, the queen had forgotten him; "we will be all in our helmets, and at her service by cock-crow to-morrow; but first," he added, sternly and impressively, "take this, my better glove, and hang it on yonder city cross, and there to-day at noon announce to all, that I, James Earl of Bothwell, and Lord of Hailes, will defend mine honour against all men, body for body, on foot or on horseback, at the barriers of the Portsburgh, between the chapel of St. Mary and the castle rock, so help me God at the day of doom!"

And drawing off his long buff glove, which was richly embroidered and perfumed, the Earl handed it to his faithful Achates, and returned into the palace to have his train prepared with becoming splendour, for the honourable duty of guarding the queen on the morrow.

In compliance with this command, Black Hob, sheathed in his sable armour, his visor up to reveal his swarthy visage, and mounted on a strong charger of the jettiest black, attended by Hay of Tallo as esquire, French Paris as his page, and three trumpeters in the Earl's gorgeous livery, gules and argent, and having his banner, with the lions of Hepburn rending an English rose, advanced into the city, and there, amid a note of defiance, hung the Earl's glove above the fountain, together with his declaration of innocence, and offer "to decide the matter in a duel with any gentleman or person of honour who should dare to lay it to his charge."

For many a day the glove hung there, and none answered the challenge; for the star of Hepburn was still in the ascendant, and none dared to encounter its chieftain in the field, for dread of the deadly feud that was sure to ensue.

But the printer of pasquils and the caricaturists were still busy, and one morning there was a paper found beneath the Earl's challenge, on which was drawn a hand grasping a sword, and bearing the initials of the queen, opposed to another armed with a _maul_, bearing those of the Earl--a palpable allusion to the weapon by which the unfortunate prince was slain, and which could only have been made by a conspirator.

The heedlessness of the unsuspecting Mary in visiting the Earl of Winton under the escort of Bothwell (of whose innocence she had been convinced by Moray), and his divorce from his countess, lent renewed energy to the voice of calumny; and then those rumours of her participation in that crime, in which all the skill of her enemies for three hundred years has failed to involve her, were noised abroad; and slowly but surely the nation, which had never loved her for her catholicity, and partiality for gaiety and splendour, was completely estranged from her. Now, on one hand, were a fierce people and a bigoted clergy; on the other, a ferocious vassalage, headed by illiterate and rapacious nobles, and to withstand them but one feeble woman.

In the glamour that came over the Scottish people, they failed to remember that, animated by delicacy and honour, the unhappy Mary, only six weeks before the death of Darnley, had rejected a divorce, though urged by the most able of her ministers and powerful of her nobles; they also forgot how anxiously she had prevented his committing himself to the dangers of the ocean, when about to become an exile in another land; and they forgot, too, her assiduity and tenderness, to one who had so long slighted and ceased to love her, when he lay almost upon a deathbed, under the effects of a loathsome and terrible disease. The nobles saw only a woman, who stood between them and power--regencies, places, and command; the people saw only an idolater and worshipper of stocks and stones; and the clergy "ane unseemly woman," who dared to laugh, and sing, and dance, in defiance of their fulminations anent such sin and abomination.

Exasperated by his son's death, and the rumours abroad, the aged Earl of Lennox demanded of Mary that Bothwell should submit to a trial. His prayer was granted; and Keith acquaints us that she wrote to her father-in-law, requesting him to attend the court with all his feudal power and strength.

Dreading the issue of an ordeal which might blast his prospects and his fame, the politic Bothwell used every means to increase his already vast retinue, by enlisting under his banner every dissolute fellow, border outlaw, and broken man, that would assume his livery, the gules and argent; and thus his town residence, and those of his Mends, were soon swarming with these sinister-eyed and dark-visaged swashbucklers, with their battered steel bonnets, their long swords, and important swagger. Thus, when the day of trial came, the streets were crowded with them; and when Bothwell, after passing through a long lane of his own arquebussiers, at the head of three thousand men, (mostly barons, knights, and esquires,) appeared at the bar, sheathed in a magnificent suit of armour, supported on one side by the crafty Earl of Morton, and on the other by two able advocates--the father of the young prince he had destroyed dared not appear, as he dreaded to share the fate of his son.

After a long discussion, to which the high-born culprit listened with a beating heart--though his influence had packed the jury, which was composed of Mary's friends and Rizzio's murderers; and though he had bribed the judges and deterred the prosecutor--the court, actuated by sentiments best known to themselves, unanimously "_acquitted_ the Earl of Bothwell of all participation in the king's death."

With him the die had been cast.

Had they brought in a verdict of guilty, another hour had seen his banner waving in triumph and defiance above the capital--for he was alike prepared to conquer or to die; but this decision of the jury, delivered by the mouth of Caithness, their chancellor, rendered all his warlike preparations nugatory. Had they found him guilty, he would boldly have rushed to arms in defence of his honour and life, with an energy and wrath that would alike have stifled the whispers of conscience and remorse; but they had declared him innocent, and he left the bar slowly and sadly, feeling in his inmost soul a thousand degrees more criminal than ever.

As he left the chamber where the High Court sat, his friends and vassals received him with acclamations--with brandished swords and waving pennons; and, with trumpets sounding, conveyed him through the great arch of the Netherbow to St. Mary's Wynd, where, by his command, the host of the _Red Lion_ had prepared a grand banquet and rere-supper for the nobles and barons attending the Parliament.

Though "one of the handsomest men of his time," as old Crawford tells us, the Earl feared that, notwithstanding the assiduity of his attentions, Mary would never regard him with other sentiments than those of mere esteem for his services, and efficiency as an officer of state. "Men stop at nothing when their hands are in," saith an old saw; and, actuated by this spirit, Bothwell--ever keeping steadily in view that alluring object, which, step by step, had drawn him to the dangerous and terrible eminence on which he found himself--resolved, by one more desperate act, to reach the summit of his hopes, or sink into the gulf for ever.

*CHAPTER IX.*

*AINSLIE'S SUPPER.*

Men talk of country, Christmasses, and court gluttony, Their thirty pound butter'd eggs, their pies of carps' tongues, Their pheasants drench'd with ambergris; the carcasses Of three fat wethers bruised for gravy, to Make sauce for a single peacock; yet their feasts Were _fasts_, compared with the City's. _Massinger's City Madam._

It was, as we have stated, the month of April, and on the day of the Earl's acquittal.

About seven in the evening, the sun was setting behind the purple hills of the Ochil range, in all the splendour of that beautiful month of bright blue skies and opening flowers--of the pale primrose and the drooping blue-bell; when the dew lingers long on the fresh grass and the sprouting hedges--when the swallow builds its nest under the warm eave, and the mavis sings merrily as he spreads his pinions on the buoyant air. It was an April evening. The rays of the setting sun had long since left the narrow streets of Edinburgh, though they still lingered on its gothic spires and gilded vanes, throwing a farewell gleam on each tall chimney head, each massy bartisan, and round tourelle.