faithful lad was a fool, but not so great a fool as to tell me such things. And, on the other hand, hath either of you, my friends, ever seen in me such symptoms of midsummer madness as that I should be asking the names of the six who were to do the deed? What cared I for their names? I-who only wished to know as little of the matter as possible!'
'Can your Majesty prove that you knew nothing?' asked Melville.
Mary paused. 'They cannot prove by fair means that I knew anything,' said she, 'for I did not. Of course I was aware that Elizabeth must be taken out of the way, or the heretics would be rallying round her; but there is no lack of folk who delight in work of that sort, and why should I meddle with the knowledge? With the Prince of Parma in London, she, if she hath the high courage she boasteth of, would soon cause the Spanish pikes to use small ceremony with her! Why should I concern myself about poor Antony and his five gentlemen? But it is the same as it was twenty years ago. What I know will have to be, and yet choose not to hear of, is made the head and front of mine offending, that the real actors may go free! And because I have writ naught that they can bring against me, they take my letters and add to and garble them, till none knows where to have them. Would that we were in France! There it was a good sword-cut or pistol-shot at once, and one took one's chance of a return, without all this hypocrisy of law and justice to weary one out and make men double traitors.'
'Methought Walsingham winced when your Majesty went to the point with him,' said Bourgoin.
'And you put up with his explanation?' said Melville.
'Truly I longed to demand of what practices Mr. Secretary in his office,-not as a private person-would be ashamed; but it seemed to me that they might call it womanish spite, and to that the Queen of Scots will never descend!'
'Pity but that we had Babington's letter! Then might we put him to confusion by proving the additions,' said Melville.
'It is not possible, my good friend. The letter is at the bottom of the Castle well; is it not, mignonne? Mourn for it not, Andrew. It would have been of little avail, and it carried with it stuff that Mr. Secretary would give almost his precious place to possess, and that might be fatal to more of us. I hoped that there might have been safety for poor Babington in the destruction of that packet, never guessing at the villainy of yon Burton brewer, nor of those who set him on. Come, it serves not to fret ourselves any more. I must answer as occasion serves me; speaking not so much to Elizabeth's Commission, who have foredoomed me, as to all Christendom, and to the Scots and English of all ages, who will be my judges.'
Her judges? Ay! but how? With the same enthusiastic pity and indignation, mixed with the same misgiving as her own daughter felt. Not wholly innocent, not wholly guilty, yet far less guilty than those who had laid their own crimes on her in Scotland, or who plotted to involve her in meshes partly woven by herself in England. The evil done to her was frightful, but it would have been powerless had she been wholly blameless. Alas! is it not so with all of us?
The second day's trial came on. Mary Seaton was so overpowered with the strain she had gone through that the Queen would not take her into the hall, but let Cicely sit at her feet instead. On this day none of the Crown lawyers took part in the proceedings; for, as Cavendish whispered to Humfrey, there had been high words between them and my Lord Treasurer and Mr. Secretary; and they had declared themselves incapable of conducting a prosecution so inconsistent with the forms of law to which they were accustomed. The pedantic fellows wanted more direct evidence, he said, and Humfrey honoured them.
Lord Burghley then conducted the proceedings, and they had thus a more personal character. The Queen, however, acted on Melville's advice, and no longer denied all knowledge of the conspiracy, but insisted that she was ignorant of the proposed murder of Elizabeth, and argued most pertinently that a copy of a deciphered cipher, without the original, was no proof at all, desiring further that Nau and Curll should be examined in her presence. She reminded the Commissioners how their Queen herself had been called in question for Wyatt's rebellion, in spite of her innocence. 'Heaven is my witness,' she added, 'that much as I desire the safety and glory of the Catholic religion, I would not purchase it at the price of blood. I would rather play Esther than Judith.'
Her defence was completed by her taking off the ring which Elizabeth had sent to her at Lochleven. 'This,' she said, holding it up, 'your Queen sent to me in token of amity and protection. You best know how that pledge has been redeemed.' Therewith she claimed another day's hearing, with an advocate granted to her, or else that, being a Princess, she might be believed on the word of a Princess.
This completed her defence, except so far that when Burghley responded in a speech of great length, she interrupted, and battled point by point, always keeping in view the strong point of the insufficient evidence and her own deprivation of the chances of confuting what was adduced against her.
It was late in the afternoon when he concluded. There was a pause, as though for a verdict by the Commissioners. Instead of this, Mary rose and repeated her appeal to be tried before the Parliament of England at Westminster. No reply was made, and the Court broke up.
CHAPTER XXXVI. A VENTURE.
'Mother, dear mother, do but listen to me.'
'I must listen, child, when thou callest me so from your heart; but it is of no use, my poor little one. They have referred the matter to the Star Chamber, that they may settle it there with closed doors and no forms of law. Thou couldst do nothing! And could I trust thee to go wandering to London, like a maiden in a ballad, all alone?'
'Nay, madam, I should not go alone. My father, I mean Mr. Talbot, would take me.'
'Come, bairnie, that is presuming overmuch on the good man's kindness.'
'I do not speak without warrant, madam. I told him what I longed to do, and he said it might be my duty, and if it were so, he would not gainsay me; but that he could not let me go alone, and would go with me. And he can get access for me to the Queen. He has seen her himself, and so has Humfrey; and Diccon is a gentleman pensioner.'
'There have been ventures enough for me already,' said Mary. 'I will bring no more faithful heads into peril.'
'Then will you not consent, mother? He will quit the castle to- morrow, and I am to see him in the morning and give him an answer. If you would let me go, he would crave license to take me home, saying that I look paler than my wont.'
'And so thou dost, child. If I could be sure of ever seeing thee again, I should have proposed thy going home to good Mistress Susan's tendance for a little space. But it is not to be thought of. I could not risk thee, or any honest loving heart, on so desperate a stake as mine! I love thee, mine ain, true, leal lassie, all the more, and I honour him; but it may not be! Ask me no more.'
Mary was here interrupted by a request from Sir Christopher Hatton for one of the many harassing interviews that beset her during the days following the trial, when judgment was withheld, according to the express command of the vacillating Elizabeth, and the case remitted to the Star Chamber. Lord Burghley considered this hesitation to be the effect of judicial blindness-so utterly had hatred and fear of the future shut his eyes to all sense of justice and fair play.
Cicely felt all youth's disappointment in the rejection of its grand schemes. But to her surprise at night Mary addressed her again, 'My daughter, did that true-hearted foster-father of thine speak in sooth?'
'He never doth otherwise,' returned Cicely.
'For,' said her mother, 'I have thought of a way of gaining thee access to the Queen, far less perilous to him, and less likely to fail. I will give thee letters to M. De Chateauneuf, the French Ambassador, whom I have known in old times, with full credentials. It might be well to have with thee those that I left with Mistress Talbot. Then he will gain thee admittance, and work for thee as one sent from France, and protected by the rights of the Embassy. Thus, Master Richard need never appear in the matter at all, and at any rate thou wouldst be secure. Chateauneuf would find means of sending thee abroad if needful.'
'Oh! I would return to you, madam my mother, or wait for you in London.'
'That must be as the wills above decree,' said Mary sadly. 'It is folly in me, but I cannot help grasping at the one hope held out to me. There is that within me that will hope and strive to the end, though I am using my one precious jewel to weight the line I am casting across the gulf. At least they cannot do thee great harm, my good child.'
The Queen sat up half the night writing letters, one to Elizabeth, one to Chateauneuf, and another to the
