Part 9

Now, after many days of deep meditation in the dark woods of Rosse, and of prayer at the shrine of his sainted mother, for her intercession and support, the young man took the staff of St. Serf, and set forth on a pilgrimage to convert the benighted heathens of the south and west; for there were many still in Mercia and the land of the Deirii, who in their secret hearts worshipped fountains that sprung in lonely places, or made human sacrifices in the depths of forests, and lit Beltane fires on the lofty hills in honour of the rising sun; and so, moved by these things, St. Mungo gave the little he possessed to the poor, and, undeterred by the terrors of the journey, by the hostile tribes of savage men, and the equally savage denizens of the vast forests that covered the plains and mountains of Caledonia, the prowling wolves, the howling bulls, the grisly bears and ravenous boars, he went forth to teach and baptize, to convert and to save.

His under garment was sackcloth; his upper was the white skin of a sheep; his head had no other covering than his own fair hair, which curled upon his shoulders and mingled with his beard.

In that age there was no money in the land, save the old coins of the Roman invaders, which the women wore as amulets, and so the saint took no care for his sustenance. He had ever eternity before him; in the morning reflecting that he might not see the night, in the night reflecting that he might not see the morning. The acorns and the wild herbs of the forest were his food; a little water in the hollow of his hand quenched his thirst; and he regretted the time spent in these necessities, as so much taken from the service of his Master. He travelled throughout the whole isle of Britain, preaching, and taking no rest; hence cometh the old proverb--Like the work of St. Mungo, which never was done.

Now the fame of his preaching went far and wide, throughout the length and breadth of the land, till King Eugene in his distant castle of Dunolli, on the mountains of Midlorn, heard of the fame of St. Mungo, and dedicated to him an island in western Lochleven, which still bears his name, and it became the burial-place of the men of Glencoe, who name it _Eilan Mundh_, or the Island of St. Mungo. But Eugene knew not that the saint was his son, and as little did his queen, (with whom he lived in continual strife,) suppose that he was the same little boy, whom, with his mother, in that wicked moment of wrath and pride, she had committed to the waters of Bodoria; and tidings came that he was preaching and teaching the four gospels in the kingdom of Strathclyde, where he was daily bringing into the fold of God those red-haired Attacotti, who were said to be worshippers of fire and eaters of human flesh. He brought them to repentance and a horror of their ways; they levelled the stones of Loda, the altars of their wickedness, and destroyed the temples of their dreadful idols. He baptized them in thousands at a little stream that meandered through a plain to pour its waters in the Clyde.

To the saint it seemed that this was like the place where his mother lay; and there he built a bower among the alder-bushes, and rested for a time from his pious labours.

Now, about this time, it chanced that the ring which St. Thena had found upon the shore was the occasion of much discord between Eugene and his Pictish queen; for, having bestowed it upon her as a gift at Yule-tide, she had lost it, and thereby excited his jealousy. He swore by the _black stones of Iona_, the great oath of the Gael, that she should die a terrible death if the ring appeared not before the Beltane day; and, within three days of that time, the queen in great tribulation appeared at the bower on the Clyde, to seek the advice and consolation of St. Mungo; for she had not evilly bestowed the jewel, but had lost it, and knew not where or how; though she dreamt that a bird had flown away with it, and dropped it in the sea.

Though he had learned, from his mother's prayers, of the wrong this proud queen had done her, St. Mungo chid her not, but heard her story benignantly; and she told him in touching language of the king's wrath, and the value of the ring, for it had in it a pearl of great value: only two such were found in the Dee--one was in that trinket, and the other is at this hour in the Scottish diadem, where King Eugene placed it.

St. Mungo ordered one who stood near him to throw a baited line into the Clyde, and, lo! there was drawn forth a noble salmon, having in its mouth a beautiful ring. The queen knew it to be her own, and in a transport of joy she vowed to found there a cathedral church, in honour of God and St. Mungo, who should be first bishop of that see; and there, where the alder-bower had stood, the great lamp of the western tribes was founded and built, and the city that rose around was named Glasgow; but the spot was then, as the old Cistertian monk of Furness tells us, made pleasant by the shade of many a stately tree.

There, after preaching the gospel with St. David, and turning many away from Pelagianism, after converting all the northern Picts, and building an abbey at Culross, where his mother lay, St. Mungo, the first bishop of Glasgow, passed away to the company of the saints, on the 13th day of January, 603, having reached the miraculous age of a hundred and eighty-five years; and there, in his cathedral church, we may yet see his shrine, where many a miracle was wrought of old, when faith was strong in the land, and where the pious of other days gifted many a stone of wax for the candles at a daily mass for the repose of his soul.

In honour of St. Mungo we may to this hour see, in the arms of the great city he founded, the tree under which he built his bower, with his mass-bell hanging on a branch thereof; across its stem is the salmon with the ring of the Scottish queen in its mouth, and the bird that first bore it away has also a place on that armorial tree. Before the Reformation, St. Mungo's head, mitred, appeared in the dexter side of the shield; and on an escroll are the last words of that good man, which were a blessing upon the city and a prayer to God that in all future time Glasgow should _flourish_.

* * * * *

Such was the tale related by the old monk of Glasgow to Hans, who had no sooner concluded, than he drew a hand from his breeches pocket, and directed Konrad's attention to a low streak of blue that, on their lee-quarter, marked the distant Oyster-head of Denmark, and a shout of joy rang through the ship.

*CHAPTER XVI.*

*MARY'S DESPAIR.*

You never loved me. And you are come to triumph o'er my sorrows, To smile upon the ruin you have made; To part---- _Sheil._

We return to Dunbar.

The sun was rising from the sea, and redly its morning splendour shone upon the rock-built towers of old Dunbar, as they frowned upon the bright green ocean and its snow-white foam. The estuary of the Forth shone like gold in the glory of the east; fed by the streams from a thousand hills it there expanded to an ocean, and its broad bosom, dotted by fisher boats and by Flemish caravells, swept round its rocky isles in surf, and washed with tiny waves of silver the shells and pebbles that bordered its sandy margins--margins shaded by the summer woods of Fife and Lothian, and overlooked by many a green and many a purple peak.

One great window that lit the queen's apartment in the Agnes Tower, overlooked this beautiful prospect. It was open, and the morning breeze from the eastern sea blew freely upon Mary's pallid cheek, and lifted her dishevelled hair; she seemed very desolate and broken-hearted. She was reclining in a large velvet chair, in the shadow of one of the thick brocaded window curtains, which made the corner she occupied so dark, that to a pair of eyes which were observing her through a hole in the arras behind the high and canopied bed, little else was visible than her snow-white hands clasped before her, a jewel that sparkled in her unbound hair, a spangle or two that glittered on the stomacher of her disordered dress, or among the folds of her torn veil--that white and flowing veil, which had won for her the romantic sobriquet of _la Reine Blanche_.

Her face was blistered by weeping; her lips were pale; she drooped her graceful head, and closed her blood-shot eyes, as if oppressed by an ocean of heavy thoughts. All that pride, energy, and indomitable courage which had sustained her unshaken amid a thousand scenes of outrage, insult, and sorrow, had now deserted her, laying her noble spirit prostrate; nothing but her gentle nature and woman softness remained behind. She was then, as she touchingly tells in one of her letters, "desolate of all council, and separated from all female attendance."

The very stupor of despair seemed to have settled upon her soul; she sat still--motionless as a statue, and nothing but the heaving of her bosom would have indicated that she lived. Yesterday she seemed so full of vivacity, so pure, so beautiful.

In this poor crushed being--this butterfly, formed only for the light and the sunshine of life--in this lonely and desolate woman, with her weeping eyes, her dishevelled hair, and torn dress, who could have recognised the same beautiful queen that shone so lately at Sebastian's hall, in all the pride of royalty; and a loveliness heightened to the utmost by magnificence of dress; and who, only five days before, had sat on the throne in the hall of the Scottish estates, with the crown of the Bruce on her brow, the St. Andrew sparkling on her bosom, and the sceptre of the Jameses in her hand, assenting to those laws by which we are still governed?

"Alas, for the Queen of Scotland and of France!" exclaims the old Magister Absalom; "Oh, for twenty knights of that good chivalry her grandsire led to Flodden, or of that glittering gendarmerie that many a time and oft had lowered their white pennons before her at the Tilts of the Tournelles, and on the Plains of Montmartre!"

A sound made her raise her head; the arras rose and fell, and Bothwell stood before her.

Shame crimsoned his brow, and confusion dimmed his eye; he felt compassion and remorse, together with the bitter conviction that he had gone too far to recede. The dreadful gulf between himself and other men was now wider than before; but he felt that to stand still was to sink into it and perish. He had yet to progress. He knew not how to address his victim. Her aspect filled him with pity, sorrow, and a horror of himself. He knew that he had irreparably ruined her honour, and destroyed her peace; and this was the woman he loved!

Strange it was, that now he felt himself alike attracted and repelled by her; but the necessity of soothing her compelled him to speak, and as policy ever supplied him with words, hurriedly, gently, and eloquently (for he too felt deeply, now when the storm of passion had died away), he endeavoured to console her; to declare his contrition; his willingness to die as an atonement; and then, stung with remorse on witnessing the agony of her grief, he attempted to destroy himself with his own sword, and turned her despair into momentary terror, by inflicting on his own person a wound, from which the blood flowed freely.[*] Then he ventured to fold her in his arms, and to kiss her pale brow respectfully, assuring her again and again that she was now a thousand times dearer to him than ever. Then, sinking on his knees, he bowed down his head, and abjectly implored her pardon; but Mary remained silent, passive, speechless, cold as marble; and her situation seemed so hopeless, so wobegone, and irrelievable, that the Earl in despair knew not what more to urge. He received no answer, and his heart trembled between love, remorse for the past, and apprehension of the future. "Speak, dearest madam," said he; "for the mercy of Heaven, speak to me! Dost thou wish to leave Dunbar?"

[*] Whittaker.

"Yes!" replied Mary, rising with sudden energy, as if all her spirit had suddenly welled up in her breast. "Yes!" she continued, gathering up her dishevelled hair with her slender and trembling fingers. "My train!--my people!--summon them!--I will go"----

"Thou wilt go?" said the Earl, whose dark eyes shone with a sad and wild expression, "and where?"

"To Edinburgh."

"To denounce me to its purse-proud citizens--to proclaim me at the barrier gates and market cross of every Scottish burgh--at the court of every European king, to be what I am--what I shrink from contemplating. That I am a craven knight, a perjured peer, a rebel, and a ruffian! Ha, ha! No! hence shalt thou never go but with Bothwell at thy bridle rein, with his banner before, his knights around, and his spearmen behind thee. What has hurried me on, step by step, in the terrible career on which my destiny has driven me--from being the leader of the Scottish peers, esteemed in council as in battle, respected by mine equals, loved by my vassals, and feared by mine enemies--what hath made me, from being all this, a man whose name will perhaps be remembered in the land with reprobation, with curses, and with bitterness--what, but thy beauty, thy fatal beauty? Oh, wretched woman! a curse upon it, I say, for it hath been the cause of all! Fatal sorceress, thou still smilest upon me with scorn. In undoing thee, I have perhaps but undone myself; though from this time our fates and lives are entwined together; for, bethink thee, for very dread of what may ensue, for very shame, and for the reparation of thine own honour, thou canst not destroy me. Yet can I read in thine eye, that thou hast visions of the dungeon, the block, the axe, the dismembered limbs, and the severed head of Bothwell, spiked on yonder city cross to welter in the midnight dew, and broil in the noonday sun--hah!"

And, rendered half furious by the picture his fancy conjured up, he gave her a push, so violent that she sank down on her knees, trembling and in tears.

Suddenly she arose again to her full height, her dark eyes flashing, and her proud nostrils appearing almost to dilate with the anger that curled her beautiful lip; she gave him one full, bright glance of reproach and anger, as she attempted to sweep from his presence; but the Earl firmly held her back, and, aware of the futility of attempting to pacify her at present, retired abruptly, leaving her still unattended, to sorrow and to tears.

Sir James Melville, who, as we have elsewhere stated, had been expelled that morning from Dunbar, relates that Bothwell's fury compelled her every day to weep--that she would have left him, but dared not--and that she would have _destroyed herself_, could she have found a knife or dagger; but a strict watch was kept over all her actions.

And thus passed twelve long and weary days, during which no attempt was made by her nobles, her knights, or her people, to relieve her. Each man gossiped to his neighbour of the unco' doings at Dunbar--citizens stared stupidly at each other, and contented themselves by marvelling sorely where all these startling events were likely to end.

So much of this part of our story belongs to the chronicles of the time, that it must be glanced at briefly, that we may hasten to the portion involving the fate of Konrad, and more particularly of the great Earl himself.

How he conducted Mary to Edinburgh, guarded by 1200 spearmen on horseback, and compelled her to appear in presence of the new chancellor and the nobles, and there to declare herself at full liberty--how he had the dukedom of Orkney, a marquisate, and other titles, conferred upon himself--and how he caused the banns of marriage between Mary and himself to be proclaimed in the great church of St. Giles, while she remained a captive in the castle of Edinburgh, which was garrisoned by his own vassals, and commanded by Sir James Balfour, the holder of the bond of blood, the brother of the Lord of Noltland, and of Robert Balfour, proprietor of the lonely house of the Kirk-of-Field--are known to every historical reader.

Still Mary withheld her consent to the marriage, for which the impetuous Earl made every preparation with determined deliberation.

A woman--a widow--a catholic--without a husband--she could never have governed Protestant Scotland, crowded as it was with rapacious peers and turbulent serfs, inured to blood and blows; and now, after all that had occurred at Dunbar, and after being so completely abandoned by her people to Bothwell's mercy for twelve weary days, no foreign prince, no Scottish noble or gentleman of honour, and indeed no man, save he who had wronged her, would seek her hand. She had but two misfortunes to choose between; on one hand to lose her crown, her liberty, perhaps her life; on the other, to accept of Bothwell, whom (though she never loved, and now abhorred,) she knew to be devoted to her, and as crafty as he was gallant and bold; and might, if he chose, wrest the sceptre from her grasp; for, by the number of his vassals, and the strength of his fortresses, he was one of Scotland's most powerful peers. Should she wed him, acquitted as he had been by the peers and prelates of the crime of which he had been charged, and recommended by these same reverend prelates and statecrafty peers, with her brother at their head, to her earnest and favourable notice, a new dawn might shine upon her gloomy fortune. She knew that he had made every preparation for their public nuptials; and that _bongre malgre_ she must wed, but still she withheld her consent until the very night before, and then, but not till the fatal promise was given.

In that wide and gloomy flood of desperation through which she struggled, her destroyer was the last plank to whom she could cling; and, abhorrent as he was to her now, she knew that he loved her deeply, and that sad, and terrible, and guilty, were the ties which bound them together, and would link their names in one to the latest posterity.

*CHAPTER XVII.*

*THE BRIDAL AT BELTANE.*

Slowly at length with no consenting will, And eyes averse, she stretch'd her beauteous hand, To that detested bridegroom, and received The nuptial blessing, to her anguish'd heart, Worse than a malediction. Then burst forth Grief impotent. _Attila, King of the Huns._

Now came sweet May with its flowers and sunshine. Yellow buttercups sprinkled with gold the sides of Arthur's seat, and the blue hyacinth and the mountain-daisy unfolded their petals on the steep slopes of Salisbury. The mavis and the merle sang merrily in the abbey orchards and old primeval oaks that shaded the grey walls of Holyrood; and sheltered by the thorn hedges that, in its ancient garden, grew like thick and impervious ramparts, the flowers of summer that Mary loved so well, were all, like herself, in the noon of their beauty and fragrance.

And now came Beltane-eve, when this soft season of sunshine and perfume was welcomed by those ancient merry-makings of which we read in Polydore Virgil, and which were a remnant of those joyous rites offered to the Flora of the Romans, and the great fire-god of the Scandinavians and the Celtae--when the stern and mysterious Druids of Emona and Iona collected the dew of the morning, and sprinkled it on the fair-haired savages of Caledonia, as they blessed them in the name of the god of fire--the Beal of Scandinavia, and the Baal of the Moabites and Chaldeans.

Blooming Beltane came, but not as of old; for there was no maypole on the burgh links, or at the abbey-cross, and no queen of the May or stout Robin Hude to receive the homage of happy hearts; for the thunders of the reformed clergy had gone forth like a chill over the land, and the same iron laws that prevented the poor "papist" from praying before the symbol of his redemption, punished the merry for dancing round a garlanded tree.

Yet there were some remnants of other days that could not be repressed; and fires of straw were lit in the yard of many a castle and homestead, through which, as a charm against witchcraft, all the cattle were driven, amid furious fun and shouts of laughter; while the bluff laird regaled his vassals, and the bonneted farmer his sun-burned hinds, on pease-bannocks and nut-brown ale. Every old woman still marked her Beltane-bannock with the cross of life and the cipher of death, and covering it with a mixture of meal, milk and eggs, threw two pieces over her left shoulder at sunrise, saying as she did so--

"_This_ for the mist and storm, To spare our grass and corn; _This_ for the eagle and gled, To spare the lamb and kid."

Door-lintels were still decorated with twigs of rowan-tree tied crosswise with red thread; and though the idolatrous Beltane-fire blazed on the summits of the Calton and Blackford, (as on St. Margaret's day they do still on those of Dairy in Ayrshire,) there was not the same jollity in the land; for as a mist from the ocean blights the ripening corn, so had the morose influence of the new clergy cast a gloom upon the temper, the manners, and the habits of the people--a gloom that is only now fading away, though its shadow still lingers in the rural valleys of the south and west.

But there is much to relate, and we must be brief.

Encompassed by the intrigues of the Earl, surrounded by his creatures, and overwhelmed by the terrible situation in which she found herself, at midnight Mary consented to become his bride, and at four o'clock next morning he led her into the great hall of Holyrood, where one of his minions, Adam Bothwell, the Protestant Bishop of Orkney--(his new dukedom)--together with Craig, the colleague of Knox, prepared to officiate.

Mary was attired in her widow-weeds of sable velvet, without other ornament than a few diamonds, that sparkled on her stomacher, and in her ear-rings. Cold, placid, still, and thoughtful, there were signs of suffering and sorrow on her pure and open brow, and in her deep, dark, melancholy eyes, and there was a nun-like solemnity in her beautiful face, that touched the heart of Bothwell with more, perhaps, of pity than love.

She seemed a changed and miserable woman.

A sprig of rosemary and a lily were in her hand; the first, because of the old superstition that it was necessary at a wedding as denoting love and truth; the second, because the month was that of St. Mary, and the lily is the flower of the Virgin. Mary Stuart could not forget these little things, though she accepted of a Protestant ritual because her own Church is averse to second marriages.

Day was breaking in the distant east, and coldly the dull grey twilight struggled with the lamps and wax candles that illuminated the long and ancient hall of the palace, from the walls of which the grim visage of many an antique king, and many a solemn prelate, seemed to stare starkly and desolately on that sombre bridal group, on Bothwell's magnificent costume, sparkling with precious stones, on tall Ormiston, in his half military and half gala costume, and a crowd of adherents of the house of Hepburn, whose dresses of velvet and satin, enriched with embroidery and precious stones, fluttering mantles, waving feathers, glittering spurs, and daggers, filled up the background.

When Mary's hand touched his, the Earl found it cold as death: it trembled. He thought of Darnley's quivering throat on that terrible night, and a thrill shot through his heart..........

The ceremony was over, and Bothwell led forth that high-born and beautiful bride, to win whom he had dared and done so much.

For that hour he had perilled every thing in this world, and the hour had come, but there was not in his heart that fierce triumph--that exultation and joy, he had so long anticipated. A deadly coldness had succeeded, and there was a clamorous anxiety in his breast as he looked forward to the future.