The next morning, at dinner-time, an unusual incident occurred. While Lady Douglas of Lochleven performed her daily duty of assistant and taster at the Queen's table, she was told a man-at-arms had arrived, recommended by her son, but without any letter or other token than what he brought by word of mouth.
"Hath he given you that token?" demanded the Lady.
"He reserved it, as I think, for your Ladyship's ear," replied Randal.
"He doth well," said the Lady; "tell him to wait in the hall--But no--with your permission, madam," (to the Queen) "let him attend me here."
"Since you are pleased to receive your domestics in my presence," said the Queen, "I cannot choose--"
"My infirmities must plead my excuse, madam," replied the Lady; "the life I must lead here ill suits with the years which have passed over my head, and compels me to waive ceremonial."
"Oh, my good Lady," replied the Queen, "I would there were nought in this your castle more strongly compulsive than the cobweb chains of ceremony; but bolts and bars are harder matters to contend with."
As she spoke, the person announced by Randal entered the room, and Roland Graeme at once recognized in him the Abbot Ambrosius.
"What is your name, good fellow?" said the Lady.
"Edward Glendinning," answered the Abbot, with a suitable reverence.
"Art thou of the blood of the Knight of Avenel?" said the Lady of Lochleven.
"Ay, madam, and that nearly," replied the pretended soldier.
"It is likely enough," said the Lady, "for the Knight is the son of his own good works, and has risen from obscure lineage to his present high rank in the Estate--But he is of sure truth and approved worth, and his kinsman is welcome to us. You hold, unquestionably, the true faith?"
"Do not doubt of it, madam," said the disguised churchman.
"Hast thou a token to me from Sir William Douglas?" said the Lady.
"I have, madam," replied he; "but it must be said in private."
"Thou art right," said the Lady, moving towards the recess of a window; "say in what does it consist?"
"In the words of an old bard," replied the Abbot.
"Repeat them," answered the Lady; and he uttered, in a low tone, the lines from an old poem, called The Howlet,--
"O Douglas! Douglas! Tender and true."
"Trusty Sir John Holland!" [Footnote: Sir John Holland's poem of the Howlet is known to collectors by the beautiful edition presented to the Bannatyne Club, by Mr. David Laing.] said the Lady Douglas, apostrophizing the poet, "a kinder heart never inspired a rhyme, and the Douglas's honour was ever on thy heart-string! We receive you among our followers, Glendinning--But, Randal, see that he keep the outer ward only, till we shall hear more touching him from our son.--Thou fearest not the night air. Glendinning?"
"In the cause of the Lady before whom I stand, I fear nothing, madam," answered the disguised Abbot.
"Our garrison, then, is stronger by one trustworthy soldier," said the matron--"Go to the buttery, and let them make much of thee."
When the Lady Lochleven had retired, the Queen said to Roland Graeme, who was now almost constantly in her company, "I spy comfort in that stranger's countenance; I know not why it should be so, but I am well persuaded he is a friend."
"Your Grace's penetration does not deceive you," answered the page; and he informed her that the Abbot of St. Mary's himself played the part of the newly arrived soldier.
The Queen crossed herself and looked upwards. "Unworthy sinner that I am," she said, "that for my sake a man so holy, and so high in spiritual office, should wear the garb of a base sworder, and run the risk of dying the death of a traitor!"
"Heaven will protect its own servant, madam," said Catherine Seyton; "his aid would bring a blessing on our undertaking, were it not already blest for its own sake."
"What I admire in my spiritual father," said Roland, "was the steady front with which he looked on me, without giving the least sign of former acquaintance. I did not think the like was possible, since I have ceased to believe that Henry was the same person with Catherine."
"But marked you not how astuciously the good father," said the Queen, "eluded the questions of the woman Lochleven, telling her the very truth, which yet she received not as such?"
Roland thought in his heart, that when the truth was spoken for the purpose of deceiving, it was little better than a lie in disguise. But it was no time to agitate such questions of conscience.
"And now for the signal from the shore," exclaimed Catherine; "my bosom tells me we shall see this night two lights instead of one gleam from that garden of Eden--And then, Roland, do you play your part manfully, and we will dance on the greensward like midnight fairies!"
Catherine's conjecture misgave not, nor deceived her. In the evening two beams twinkled from the cottage, instead of one; and the page heard, with beating heart, that the new retainer was ordered to stand sentinel on the outside of the castle. When he intimated this news to the Queen, she held her hand out to him--he knelt, and when he raised it to his lips in all dutiful homage, he found it was damp and cold as marble. "For God's sake, madam, droop not now,--sink not now!"
"Call upon our Lady, my Liege," said the Lady Fleming--"call upon your tutelar saint."
"Call the spirits of the hundred kings you are descended from," exclaimed the page; "in this hour of need, the resolution of a monarch were worth the aid of a hundred saints."
"Oh! Roland Graeme," said Mary, in a tone of deep despondency, "be true to me--many have been false to me. Alas! I have not always been true to myself. My mind misgives me that I shall die in bondage, and that this bold attempt will cost all our lives. It was foretold me by a soothsayer in France, that I should die in prison, and by a violent death, and here comes the hour--Oh, would to God it found me prepared!"
"Madam," said Catherine Seyton, "remember you are a Queen. Better we all died in bravely attempting to gain our freedom, than remained here to be poisoned, as men rid them of the noxious vermin that haunt old houses."
"You are right, Catherine," said the Queen; "and Mary will bear her like herself. But alas! your young and buoyant spirit can ill spell the causes which have broken mine. Forgive me, my children, and farewell for a while--I will prepare both mind and body for this awful venture."
They separated, till again called together by the tolling of the curfew. The Queen appeared grave, but firm and resolved; the Lady Fleming, with the art of an experienced courtier, knew perfectly how to disguise her inward tremors; Catherine's eye was fired, as if with the boldness of the project, and the half smile which dwelt upon her beautiful mouth seemed to contemn all the risk and all the consequences of discovery; Roland, who felt how much success depended on his own address and boldness, summoned together his whole presence of mind, and if he found his spirits flag for a moment, cast his eye upon Catherine, whom he thought he had never seen look so beautiful.--"I may be foiled," he thought, "but with this reward in prospect, they must bring the devil to aid them ere they cross me." Thus resolved, he stood like a greyhound in the slips, with hand, heart, and eye intent upon making and seizing opportunity for the execution of their project.
The keys had, with the wonted ceremonial, been presented to the Lady Lochleven. She stood with her back to the casement, which, like that of the Queen's apartment, commanded a view of Kinross, with the church, which stands at some distance from the town, and nearer to the lake, then connected with the town by straggling cottages. With her back to this casement, then, and her face to the table, on which the keys lay for an instant while she tasted the various dishes which were placed there, stood the Lady of Lochleven, more provokingly intent than usual--so at least it seemed to her prisoners--upon the huge and heavy bunch of iron, the implements of their restraint. Just when, having finished her ceremony as taster of the Queen's table, she was about to take up the keys, the page, who stood beside her, and had handed her the dishes in succession, looked sideways to the churchyard, and exclaimed he saw corpse-candles in the churchyard. The Lady of Lochleven was not without a touch, though a slight one, of the superstitions of the time; the fate of her sons made her alive to omens, and a corpse-light, as it was called, in the family burial-place boded death. She turned her head towards the casement--saw a distant glimmering--forgot her charge for one second, and in that second were lost the whole fruits of her former vigilance. The page held the forged keys under his cloak, and with great dexterity exchanged them for the real ones. His utmost address could not prevent a slight clash as he took up the latter bunch. "Who touches the keys?" said the Lady; and while the page answered that the sleeve of his cloak had stirred them, she looked round, possessed herself of the bunch which now occupied the place of the genuine keys, and again turned to gaze on the supposed corpse-candles.
"I hold these gleams," she said, after a moment's consideration, "to come, not from the churchyard, but from the hut of the old gardener Blinkhoolie. I wonder what thrift that churl drives, that of late he hath ever had light in his house till the night grew deep. I thought him an industrious, peaceful man--If he turns resetter of idle companions and night-walkers, the place must be rid of him."
"He may work his baskets perchance," said the page, desirous to stop the train of her suspicion.
"Or nets, may he not?" answered the Lady.
"Ay, madam," said Roland, "for trout and salmon."
"Or for fools and knaves," replied the Lady: "but this shall be looked after to-morrow.--I wish your Grace and your company a good evening.--Randal, attend us." And Randal, who waited in the antechamber after having surrendered his bunch of keys, gave his escort to his mistress as usual, while, leaving the Queen's apartments, she retired to her own [End of paragraph missing in original]
"To-morrow" said the page, rubbing his hands with glee as he repeated the Lady's last words, "fools look to-morrow, and wise folk use to-night.--May I pray you, my gracious Liege, to retire for one half hour, until all the castle is composed to rest? I must go and rub with oil these blessed implements of our freedom. Courage and constancy, and all will go well, provided our friends on the shore fail not to send the boat you spoke of."
"Fear them not," said Catherine, "they are true as steel--if our dear mistress do but maintain her noble and royal courage."
[Footnote: In the dangerous expedition to Aberdeenshire, Randolph, the English Ambassador, gives Cecil the following account of Queen Mary's demeanour:--
"In all those garbulles, I assure your honour, I never saw the Queen merrier, never dismayed; nor never thought I that stomache to be in her that I find. She repented nothing but, when the Lords and others, at Inverness, came in the morning from the watches, that she was not a man, to know what life it was to lye all night in the fields, or to walk upon the causeway with a jack and a knaps-cap, a Glasgow buckler, and a broadsword."--RANDOLPH to CECIL, September 18, 1562.
The writer of the above letter seems to have felt the same impression which Catherine Seyton, in the text, considered as proper to the Queen's presence among her armed subjects.