just heir hath been unloosed from her thraldom?I, who spared not the last remaining hope of a falling house in this great action?I, at least, knew and counselled; and what merit may be mine, let the reward, most gracious Queen, descend upon this youth. My ministry here is ended; you are free?a sovereign Princess, at the head of a gallant army, surrounded by valiant barons?My service could avail you no farther, but might well prejudice you; your fortune now rests upon men's hearts and men's swords. May they prove as trusty as the faith of women!'
'You will not leave us, mother,' said the Queen?'you whose practices in our favour were so powerful, who dared so many dangers, and wore so many disguises, to blind our enemies and to confirm our friends?you will not leave us in the dawn of our reviving fortunes, ere we have time to know and to thank you?'
'You cannot know her,' answered Magdalen Graeme, 'who knows not herself?there are times, when, in this woman's frame of mine, there is the strength of him of Gath?in this overtoiled brain, the wisdom of the most sage counsellor?and again the mist is on me, and my strength is weakness, my wisdom folly. I have spoken before princes and cardinals?ay, noble Princess, even before the princes of thine own house of Lorraine; and I know not whence the words of persuasion came which flowed from my lips, and were drunk in by their ears.?And now, even when I most need words of persuasion, there is something which chokes my voice, and robs me of utterance.'
'If there be aught in my power to do thee pleasure,' said the Queen, 'the barely naming it shall avail as well as all thine eloquence.'
'Sovereign Lady,' replied the enthusiast, 'it shames me that at this high moment something of human frailty should cling to one, whose vows the saints have heard, whose labours in the rightful cause Heaven has prospered. But it will be thus while the living spirit is shrined in the clay of mortality?I will yield to the folly,' she said, weeping as she spoke, 'and it shall be the last.' Then seizing Roland's hand, she led him to the Queen's feet, kneeling herself upon one knee, and causing him to kneel on both. 'Mighty Princess,' she said, 'look on this flower?it was found by a kindly stranger on a bloody field of battle, and long it was ere my anxious eyes saw, and my arms pressed, all that was left of my only daughter. For your sake, and for that of the holy faith we both profess, I could leave this plant, while it was yet tender, to the nurture of strangers?ay, of enemies, by whom, perchance, his blood would have been poured forth as wine, had the heretic Glendinning known that he had in his house the heir of Julian Avenel. Since then I have seen him only in a few hours of doubt and dread, and now I part with the child of my love?for ever?for ever!?Oh, for every weary step I have made in your rightful cause, in this and in foreign lands, give protection to the child whom I must no more call mine!'
'I swear to you, mother,' said the Queen, deeply affected, 'that, for your sake and his own, his happiness and fortunes shall be our charge!'
'I thank you, daughter of princes,' said Magdalen, and pressed her lips, first to the Queen's hand, then to the brow of her grandson. 'And now,' she said, drying her tears, and rising with dignity, 'Earth has had its own, and Heaven claims the rest.?Lioness of Scotland, go forth and conquer! and if the prayers of a devoted votaress can avail thee, they will rise in many a land, and from many a distant shrine. I will glide like a ghost from land to land, from temple to temple; and where the very name of my country is unknown, the priests shall ask who is the Queen of that distant northern land, for whom the aged pilgrim was so fervent in prayer. Farewell! Honour be thine, and earthly prosperity, if it be the will of God?if not, may the penance thou shalt do here ensure thee happiness hereafter!?Let no one speak or follow me?my resolution is taken?my vow cannot be cancelled.'
She glided from their presence as she spoke, and her last look was upon her beloved grandchild. He would have risen and followed, but the Queen and Lord Seyton interfered.
'Press not on her now,' said Lord Seyton, 'if you would not lose her for ever. Many a time have we seen the sainted mother, and often at the most needful moment; but to press on her privacy, or to thwart her purpose, is a crime which she cannot pardon. I trust we shall yet see her at her need?a holy woman she is for certain, and dedicated wholly to prayer and penance; and hence the heretics hold her as one distracted, while true Catholics deem her a saint.'
'Let me then hope,' said the Queen, 'that you, my lord, will aid me in the execution of her last request.'
'What! in the protection of my young second??cheerfully?that is, in all that your majesty can think it fitting to ask of me.?Henry, give thy hand upon the instant to Roland Avenel, for so I presume he must now be called.'
'And shall be Lord of the Barony,' said the Queen, 'if God prosper our rightful arms.'
'It can only be to restore it to my kind protectress, who now holds it,' said young Avenel. 'I would rather be landless, all my life, than she lost a rood of ground by me.'
'Nay,' said the Queen, looking to Lord Seyton, 'his mind matches his birth?Henry, thou hast not yet given thy hand.'
'It is his,' said Henry, giving it with some appearance of courtesy, but whispering Roland at the same time,?'For all this, thou hast not my sister's.'
'May it please your Grace,' said Lord Seyton, 'now that these passages are over, to honour our poor meal. Time it were that our banners were reflected in the Clyde. We must to horse with as little delay as may be.'
Chapter the Thirty-Seventh.
It is not our object to enter into the historical part of the reign of the ill-fated Mary, or to recount how, during the week which succeeded her flight from Lochleven, her partisans mustered around her with their followers, forming a gallant army, amounting to six thousand men. So much light has been lately thrown on the most minute details of the period, by Mr. Chalmers, in his valuable history of Queen Mary, that the reader may be safely referred to it for the fullest information which ancient records afford concerning that interesting time. It is sufficient for our purpose to say, that while Mary's head-quarters were at Hamilton, the Regent and his adherents
