worse consequences, that she will undo the door, and admit Lord Lindesay, who brings a mission from the Council of State.'
'I will do your errand to the Queen,' said the page, 'and report to you her answer.'
He went to the door of the bedchamber, and tapping against it gently, it was opened by the elderly lady, to whom he communicated his errand, and returned with directions from the Queen to admit Sir Robert Melville and Lord Lindesay. Roland Graeme returned to the vestibule, and opened the door accordingly, into which the Lord Lindesay strode, with the air of a soldier who has fought his way into a conquered fortress; while Melville, deeply dejected, followed him more slowly.
'I draw you to witness, and to record,' said the page to this last, 'that, save for the especial commands of the Queen, I would have made good the entrance, with my best strength, and my best blood, against all Scotland.'
'Be silent, young man,' said Melville, in a tone of grave rebuke; 'add not brands to fire?this is no time to make a flourish of thy boyish chivalry.'
'She has not appeared even yet,' said Lindesay, who had now reached the midst of the parlour or audience-room; 'how call you this trifling?'
'Patience, my lord,' replied Sir Robert, 'time presses not?and Lord Ruthven hath not as yet descended.'
At this moment the door of the inner apartment opened, and Queen Mary presented herself, advancing with an air of peculiar grace and majesty, and seeming totally unruffled, either by the visit, or by the rude manner in which it had been enforced. Her dress was a robe of black velvet; a small ruff, open in front, gave a full view of her beautifully formed chin and neck, but veiled the bosom. On her head she wore a small cap of lace, and a transparent white veil hung from her shoulders over the long black robe, in large loose folds, so that it could be drawn at pleasure over the face and person. She wore a cross of gold around her neck, and had her rosary of gold and ebony hanging from her girdle. She was closely followed by her two ladies, who remained standing behind her during the conference. Even Lord Lindesay, though the rudest noble of that rude age, was surprised into something like respect by the unconcerned and majestic mien of her, whom he had expected to find frantic with impotent passion, or dissolved in useless and vain sorrow, or overwhelmed with the fears likely in such a situation to assail fallen royalty.
'We fear we have detained you, my Lord of Lindesay,' said the Queen, while she curtsied with dignity in answer to his reluctant obeisance; 'but a female does not willingly receive her visiters without some minutes spent at the toilette. Men, my lord, are less dependant on such ceremonies.'
Lord Lindesay, casting his eye down on his own travel-stained and disordered dress, muttered something of a hasty journey, and the Queen paid her greeting to Sir Robert Melville with courtesy, and even, as it seemed, with kindness. There was then a dead pause, during which Lindesay looked towards the door, as if expecting with impatience the colleague of their embassy. The Queen alone was entirely unembarrassed, and, as if to break the silence, she addressed Lord Lindesay, with a glance at the large and cumbrous sword which he wore, as already mentioned, hanging from his neck.
'You have there a trusty and a weighty travelling companion, my lord. I trust you expected to meet with no enemy here, against whom such a formidable weapon could be necessary? it is, methinks, somewhat a singular ornament for a court, though I am, as I well need to be, too much of a Stuart to fear a sword.'
'It is not the first time, madam,' replied Lindesay, bringing round the weapon so as to rest its point on the ground, and leaning one hand on the huge cross-handle, 'it is not the first time that this weapon has intruded itself into the presence of the House of Stewart.'
'Possibly, my lord,' replied the Queen, 'it may have done service to my ancestors?Your ancestors were men of loyalty'
'Ay, madam,' replied he, 'service it hath done; but such as kings love neither to acknowledge nor to reward. It was the service which the knife renders to the tree when trimming it to the quick, and depriving it of the superfluous growth of rank and unfruitful suckers, which rob it of nourishment.'
'You talk riddles, my lord,' said Mary; 'I will hope the explanation carries nothing insulting with it.'
'You shall judge, madam,' answered Lindesay. 'With this good sword was Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, girded on the memorable day when he acquired the name of Bell-the-Cat, for dragging from the presence of your great grandfather, the third James of the race, a crew of minions, flatterers, and favourites whom he hanged over the bridge of Lauder, as a warning to such reptiles how they approach a Scottish throne. With this same weapon, the same inflexible champion of Scottish honour and nobility slew at one blow Spens of Kilspindie, a courtier of your grandfather, James the fourth, who had dared to speak lightly of him in the royal presence. They fought near the brook of Fala; and Bell-the-Cat, with this blade, sheared through the thigh of his opponent, and lopped the limb as easily as a shepherd's boy slices a twig from a sapling.'
'My lord,' replied the Queen, reddening, 'my nerves are too good to be alarmed even by this terrible history?May I ask how a blade so illustrious passed from the House of Douglas to that of Lindesay??Methinks it should have been preserved as a consecrated relic, by a family who have held all that they could do against their king, to be done in favour of their country.'
'Nay, madam,' said Melville, anxiously interfering, 'ask not that question of Lord Lindesay?And you, my lord, for shame?for decency? forbear to reply to it.'
'It is time that this lady should hear the truth,' replied Lindesay.
'And be assured,' said the Queen, 'that she will be moved to anger by none that you can tell her, my lord. There are cases in which just scorn has always the mastery over just anger.'
'Then know,' said Lindesay, 'that upon the field of Carberry-hill, when that false and infamous traitor and murderer, James, sometime Earl of Bothwell, and nicknamed Duke of Orkney, offered to do personal battle with any of the associated nobles who came to drag him to justice, I accepted his challenge, and was by the noble Earl of Morton gifted with his good sword that I might therewith fight it out?Ah! so help me Heaven, had his presumption been one grain more, or his cowardice one grain less, I should have done such work with this good steel on his traitorous corpse, that the hounds and carrion-crows should have found their morsels daintily carved to their use !'
The Queen's courage well-nigh gave way at the mention of Bothwell's name?a name connected with such a train of guilt, shame, and disaster. But the prolonged boast of Lindesay gave her time to rally herself, and to answer with an appearance of cold contempt?'It is easy to slay an enemy who enters not the lists. But had Mary Stewart inherited her father's sword as well as his sceptre, the boldest of her rebels should not upon that day have complained that they had no one to cope withal. Your lordship will forgive me if I abridge this conference. A
