Part 20

On the next day the Earl of Bothwell left Sterling, and it was whispered that he had been banished from court through the influence of the English ambassador; but conjecture was lost in astonishment, and when, two days after, the court at Sterling was broken up, and the queen, while on her way to Edinburgh, was met by Bothwell, with a force of eight hundred men, and conveyed to Dunbar by seeming violence, men stood aghast at the news; but those who had marked their queen closely during the few preceding days, concurred in the belief that she privately sanctioned the disgraceful outrage.

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It was a gloomy and ancient pile--that in which Bothwell had left his deserted wife. In one of its apartments, beside a huge fire-place, in which a few embers smouldered in a sea of ashes, sat an old and wrinkled woman, spreading her withered palms for warmth, and occasionally turning a wistful look to the narrow windows, against which the rain and sleet were beating with real violence. As she listened, the tramp of approaching horses was heard in the court below, and before she had time to reach the door, it was flung open, and the Countess of Bothwell, dripping with wet and tottering with fatigue, flung herself into the arms of her old nurse.

"Sorrow on me," exclaimed the good woman, striving to speak cheerful, "how the child clings to my neck!--look up, lady-bird, and do not sob so--I know but too well how thy journey has speeded--may the curses of an old woman rest----"

"Oh, Mabel, Mabel, do not curse him--do not--we cannot love as we will," exclaimed the poor countess, clinging to the bosom of the old woman, as if to bribe her from finishing the anathema.

"Hush, darling, hush," replied old Mabel, pressing her withered lips fondly to the pure forehead of her foster-child--"he who could help loving thee----but hist, what is all this tramping in the court?--sit down, and I will soon learn."

The old woman divested the trembling young creature of her wet cloak and proceeded to the hall. After a few minutes absence she returned dreadfully agitated; her sunken eyes glowed like live coals, and her bony fingers were clenched together as a bird clutches her prey.

"My own darling," she said in a voice which she vainly strove to render steady, "I had thought not to have given his cruel message, but----"

"Speak on," said the poor young creature, raising her large eyes with the expression of a scared antelope, "I can bear any thing now."

But she broke off with a sudden and joyful cry, for the door had been cautiously opened, and her long absent husband stood before her. Forgetful of his estrangement--of his unkindness--of every thing but his early love--she sprang eagerly to his bosom and kissed him again and again, with the abandonment of a joyful child. It must have been a heart of stone which could have resisted such unbounded tenderness. For one moment, and but for one, she was pressed to her husband's heart, and then he put her coldly away.

"How is it that I find your lady here, after my express command to the contrary?" he said, sternly addressing the old nurse, while he forced the clinging arms of the countess from his neck.

The poor young creature shrunk from his look, like a flower touched by a sudden frost. Mabel threw her arm around her, and forced her to confront her angry husband.

"Why is she here!" shouted the old woman fiercely, "why is she here, in her own home!--because I could not, would not kill her with her base lord's message!--What! break her heart, and then thrust her forth to die?--Villain!--double-dyed and cowardly villain!--may the curses of a----"

Before the old woman could finish her anathema, the enraged Earl had stricken her grey head to the floor. The frightened countess fell on her knees beside her; but, with a terrible imprecation, Bothwell commanded his attendants to bear his victim from the room, and sternly ordered his trembling wife to remain.

"As you are here," he said, "it is not essential that we meet again; your signature is necessary to this paper; please to affix it without useless delay."

The countess took the paper, which was a petition to the Commissariot-Court for a divorce from her husband. Before she had read the first line, every drop of blood ebbed from her face. She did not faint, but with a degree of energy foreign to her character, she grasped the paper in her hands, as if about to tear it. The Earl seized her wrist, and fiercely demanded her signature.

"Never--_never_!" exclaimed the poor wife, struggling in his grasp--"Oh, Bothwell, you cannot wish it--you that so loved me--you that promised to love me forever and ever--no, no! you do not mean it--you cannot put your poor wife away thus!--I know that the little beauty you once prized is gone, but tears and sorrow have dimmed it;--bear with me but a little longer--say that you love me yet, and my bloom will come again;--look at me, Bothwell, husband, _dear_ husband! and say that you did not mean it--that you gave me that horrid paper to frighten me--say but that, and your poor Ellen will worship you forever!"

This energetic appeal had its effect, even in the hard hearted Earl. He endured, and even partially returned the passionate caress with which she had accompanied her words; and when she fell back exhausted in his arms, he bore her to a seat and placed himself beside her.

"Ellen," he said, "I will deal candidly with you--I _do_ love you, and have, even while in pursuit of another; but you have yet to learn that there is a stronger passion than love--_ambition_!"

"You do love me--bless you, bless you! Bothwell, for saying so much," she eagerly exclaimed, the affectionate young creature snatching his hand between both hers, and covering it with joyful kisses.

But her joy was of short duration. As the serpent uncoils its glittering folds, so did Bothwell lay bare the depravity and ambition of his heart. Artifice, persuasion and threats were used, and at length he prevailed. The petition for a divorce was signed; but the heart of the poor countess was broken by the effort.

It is almost useless to tell the reader, that the queen of Scots had consented to accompany Bothwell to his castle, but with the appearance of compulsion, on the night of his intrusion into her chamber. It was to prepare for the disgraceful visit, that he had sent orders for the expulsion of his unfortunate wife--orders which old Mabel had never delivered; and now that he had gained his object, in obtaining her signature to the petition, he proceeded to give directions for the castle to be put in order, for the reception of the royal guest. These arrangements occupied him during most of the night. At length, weary with exertion, he fell asleep in his chair. It was morning when he awoke. The light came softly through a neighboring window, and there, at his feet, with her head resting on his knees, and her thin, pale face turned toward him, lay his wife, asleep. Rest had quieted his ambitious thoughts. He was alone, in the stillness of a new day, with the gentle victim of his aspiring passions lying at his feet, grieved and heart-broken, her eyelids heavy with weeping, and every limb betraying the sorrow which preyed upon her. For a moment his heart relented, and a hot tear fell among her golden curls. Gently, as a mother would remove a sleeping infant, he raised her head, laid it on the cushion of his chair, and left her to her loneliness.

On the next day the Countess of Bothwell left the castle with her nurse, and not three hours after, Mary Stewart entered it in company with its wicked lord.

On the fourth day of Mary's sojourn at Dunbar, she, with the ladies of her train, joined in a stag hunt, which the Earl had ordered for their entertainment. The excitement of the chase had drawn Bothwell, for a moment, from her bridal rein, when an old woman came from a neighboring hut, and in a few ungracious words, invited the queen to rest a while. Mary gracefully accepted the offered courtesy, and some of her attendants would have followed her to the hut; but the old woman motioned them back with a haughty wave of her hand, and conducted the queen alone. There was no vestige of furniture in the room, except two small stools and a narrow bed, on which the outlines of a human form were visible. Grasping the queen's hand firmly in her own, the old woman drew her to the bed, and throwing back a sheet, pointed with her long fleshless finger to the form of a shrouded female.

"Look!" she sternly exclaimed, fixing her keen eyes on the face of the queen.

Mary looked with painful interest on the thin face, as white and cold as alabaster, with the golden hair parted from the pure forehead, and a holy quiet settled on every beautiful feature. White roses were scattered over the pillow, and the repose of the dead was heavenly. Mary bent over the corpse, and her tears fell fast and thick among the fresh flowers.

"Alas, my poor Ellen!" she said, turning to the woman, who stood like a statue pointing sternly to the body, "of what did she die?"

"Of a broken heart!" replied the nurse coldly, and with the same icy composure which had marked her conduct, she led her royal visitor to the door, without speaking another word.

Had she explained that Ellen Craigh and the Countess of Bothwell were the same person, regret for the evil she had wrought might have checked Mary in her career of folly. But the death of the deserted wife was kept a secret among the few faithful followers who had accompanied her in her wild expedition to Mary's court, and the nurse, on whose bosom she had yielded up her life. While the courts of Scotland were agitated with the divorce of Bothwell, the haughty man little knew that his gentle wife had ceased to feel his cruelty.

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Transcriber's Notes:

Unusual spellings retained, but obvious spelling and punctuation errors were fixed.

Contraction variants retained, notably in "Jack Downing's Visit to Portland," as features of narrator dialect.

In several stories, notably "Courtship" and "Descriptions of the Divine Being," the use of quotation marks was inconsistent, and has been standardized. This required the addition of quotation marks in several places. Where the non-use of quotation marks was consistent within a story, no changes were made.

Contents: Preface is on P. iii, not "7"(original); both "M--" in Contents and "M***" on poem heading retained; "Deserted Wife" P. 272 is correct--retained original placement above "Portland as it Was" in Contents (author name starts with "S").

P. 13, "sum of $1,363,589,69,--" Number appears incomplete, but is consistent with a separate publication of this article ["A Modest Estimate of Our Own Country," in "The Americans at home; or Byeways, backwoods, and prairies, ed. by the author of 'Sam Slick'," London: Hurse and Blackett Publishers, 1854] which reads (on P. 125) "sum of 1,363,589,69 dollars,--"

P. 34, "disapprobation run" changed to "disapprobation ran."

P. 41, "guana" retained. Less-used alternate spelling for "iguana."

P. 91, "Illiad" retained. Consistent with quote reference that follows.

P. 115, "fourth-coming" changed to "forth-coming."

P. 259, "full muturity" changed to "full maturity."

P. 282, "died her cheek" changed to "died from her cheek."

Hyphen variants retained when consistent within story. Otherwise corrected to majority use in story. Variants retained due to different stories or lack of majority in same story: birth-day and birthday, broad-side and broadside, companion-way and companionway, grave-yard and graveyard, juxta-position and juxtaposition, look-out and lookout, noon-day and noonday, over-flowing and overflowing, rain-bow and rainbow, re-appeared and reappeared, sky-sail and skysail, stair-way and stairway, steam-boats and steamboats, sun-light and sunlight.