Walter Maxwell was ere this domiciled at Holyrood. Attached to the Queen’s household, and devoted to her person, Mary esteemed him not the least trustworthy of those servants in whom she placed implicit confidence. He had accompanied his sovereign on those roving expeditions in which she took so much pleasure, when the beautiful Stuart, worthy to reign over a nation of warriors, would pass entire days in the saddle, traversing her dominions, and making acquaintance with her subjects; or flying her hawk and following her deer-hounds over the wild moorlands, and amongst the romantic passes of her new kingdom. He had attended her in her progress to Aberdeen, that ill-advised journey which, commencing with merriment and festivity, the huntsman’s holloa and the cheering notes of the horn, ended in strife and bloodshed and the wild wailing of the coronach, cried by the widows of the Gordon over the flower of their clan.

Maxwell had done good service on that sad day when the waters of Corrichie ran crimson with the Highlandman’s blood, and had turned with a brave man’s pity from the sickening sight of Sir John Gordon’s execution at Aberdeen, performed before the very eyes of the weeping Queen. Gallant, handsome John Gordon! the victim of a political intrigue, who walked to the block with the jaunty step of a bridegroom in holiday attire, and waved his dying homage to his sovereign, a brave soldier and a loyal gentleman to the last.

It is said that Mary fainted at the sight; and, indeed, she never attained the necessary hardness of heart to rule such a turbulent and distracted country as that in which it was her lot to reign.

On more than one occasion Maxwell had proved himself the possessor of a shrewd brain, a silent tongue, and a ready hand. His was that least courtier-like of characters, which yet perhaps thrives best at a court. When all around are selfish and intriguing, each feels well-disposed towards the frank, single-hearted comrade who wishes but to serve his sovereign loyally, and entertains cordial good-will towards his fellows. Monarchs, too, even the haughtiest and most exacting, are disposed to appreciate a blunt honesty that does not shrink from encountering the royal displeasure for the royal advantage, and doubtless find it refreshing from its contrast with the servility to which they are accustomed. It must be like the change from the sickly air of a hothouse to the fresh mountain breeze. Besides, it is so easy to forgive even insolence in those who are wholly in their power; and there is a delicate flattery after all to the lion’s forbearance, in the man’s temerity, who puts his head in the lion’s mouth.

The Queen of Scotland, however, was one of those who, while they attach to themselves irresistibly all who come within their sphere, are, from their own feelings, disposed to think kindly of their immediate retainers, and to reward fidelity and affection as they deserve.

Maxwell found himself in high favour with Mary, and it is not strange that he should have been devoted heart and soul to her interests. He persuaded himself that he was loyal to his sovereign for her own sake, and ignored with considerable determination that Mistress Carmichael had any influence whatever over his sentiments.

That young lady’s behaviour at this juncture was of a nature to make an admirer sufficiently uncomfortable. We remember to have heard that there are female dispositions on which the exercise of the affections has an irritating tendency, and to whom the dawning possibility of eventful thraldom is as agitating as it is inviting. These wild-birds, albeit they become when tamed the gentlest of domestic fowls, are sadly prone at first to beat their breasts against the cage, also to peck viciously at the caressing hand that would smooth their ruffled plumes. Whether it be that they entertain a feminine delight in any state of sentiment, argument, or fact involving a contradiction, or whether they indemnify themselves, whilst they can, for future docility, we profess ourselves incompetent to state; but the axiom seems to be sufficiently established, that the process of taming is often uncomfortable and hazardous, the result not always to be depended upon when complete.

Mary Carmichael, in addition to her other qualifications, was a devoted Papist; Maxwell, it is needless to observe, a staunch Reformer. Religious feeling ran high at Holyrood. The Romish Church, a zealous advocate for proselytism at all times, has ever been most intolerant when losing ground; and perhaps no bigotry is so blind as a woman’s adherence to a sinking faith.

Maxwell could not conscientiously look with approval on Mistress Carmichael’s rigid attendance at mass in the Chapel Royal. The maid-of-honour concealed neither her dislike nor her contempt for those who had abandoned the religion of their fathers, and the ritual of their sovereign. This alone was a fruitful source of irritation and ill-feeling between the lovers, if so they can be called; and when we add that the gentleman was of a haughty and reserved disposition, the soul of honesty and frankness, without the slightest experience in the ways of woman, and the lady as wilful, unjust, and self-tormenting as those reasonable beings usually become when thoroughly in earnest, it is superfluous to dwell upon the feelings likely to exist between such a pair, continually brooding over imaginary wrongs, and never for a moment out of each other’s minds.

One scene, amongst many, may afford a specimen of the terms on which they stood.

Maxwell was proceeding to the royal apartments with certain papers which had been submitted to Mr Randolph’s inspection ere they were returned to the Queen for signature—so anxious was Mary, at this period, to keep well with her cousin of England. Elizabeth’s ambassador had taken rather a fancy, in his own selfish, easy way, to his former travelling companion, and though, of course, he would have sacrificed him without scruple, he probably liked him none the less that he could not fashion him into a tool.

As Maxwell traversed the long gallery, Mistress Carmichael was proceeding in the same direction with a basket of winter roses gathered in the Abbey garden, and could not forbear blushing as deep as the reddest of them when she encountered him. Of course she was angry with herself for doing so, and naturally visited the fault on him, arguing, plausibly enough, that if he had not been there it would not have happened; therefore she turned her head steadfastly away and marched on without speaking. Hurt and irritated, he drew aside to let her pass, thus meeting her, as it were, half-way in her desire to avoid recognition. So far nothing could be simpler. If the lady did not wish to be delayed she had only to pass on without further stoppage. She did so accordingly, but by the merest accident, and the most provoking awkwardness, tilted her basket and dropped half her flowers on the floor. Of course he was compelled to assist her in picking them up; for these two were the only occupants of the gallery; so he knelt down and refilled the basket gravely without a word.

‘Thank you,’ said Mary Carmichael, with the slightest possible tremor in her voice. ‘How deftly you have done it, and how much beholden to you I am!—and—and—thank you, Mr Maxwell.’

Here was an opportunity that would have been seized by any other gallant about the court to ask, at least, for one of the roses in reward; and perhaps even Maxwell, though somewhat impatient of such follies, would have been less reserved with any other of the Maries than the one who now stood before him, still arranging her basket, and obviously in no immediate hurry to go away. He waited, however, for her to speak first. After a little hesitation, she pointed to the papers he was carrying.

‘Shall I take them for you to the Queen?’ said she, and her hand trembled as she extended it towards him.

He took the pretty hand in his own, and she did not withdraw it.

‘Mistress Carmichael,’ said he, ‘I am a plain man, and I hope an honest one. I have not so many friends that I can afford to lose any for lack of courage to ask an explanation. How have I offended you of late? Tell me as frankly as I ask you, and I will take care not to transgress again.’

Her bosom heaved, and her colour went and came.

‘Offended?’ she replied; ‘and me? oh, no! What have I done to make you think so?’

He was still very grave, and a shade paler than before, but his countenance was immovable, and indeed stern. It was a peculiarity of Walter Maxwell that, under strong excitement, his exterior became unusually cold and composed.

‘I have thought so for long,’ he resumed. ‘Perhaps it has distressed me more than you would think possible. I trust I have done my duty as thoroughly as if you and I had been friends; but I have felt that difficulties appeared greater, and hardships less endurable than if our differences had not existed. The breach has widened day by day; ere long, you and I will have learned to hate each other.’

‘Oh, no, no!’ she murmured, scarce above her breath, but she kept her head bent down, and the tears were dropping fast among the winter-roses in her basket.

He had never let go her hand; he folded it in both his own, and pressed it to his lips.

‘Mary Carmichael,’ said he, ‘since the day we first met in the forest of Chambord, I have wished to be worthy of you, and you alone. I am no woman-worshipper, no smooth-tongued silken gallant, and yet I think there are few things I could not do to please you; nothing, save my honour, I would not sacrifice for your sake.’

A gleam of intense pride and pleasure shone for an instant in her eyes; the next, her face contracted as if with pain, and she looked up scared and wild, through her tears.

‘You must not say so—you must not say so,’ she exclaimed, drawing her hand away hurriedly, and with a frightened, half-distracted air. ‘Let me go now—let me go; I hear the others coming.’

‘Is that your answer?’ said he, very lowly and distinctly, but with a pale face, and something in his voice that it was better not to trifle with.

She looked here and there, like some graceful wild animal caught in the toils. Footsteps were indeed approaching, and half the flowers were again scattered on the floor.

‘You must not say so,’ she repeated; but for an instant she placed her hand once more in his with a lightning glance of unspeakable tenderness; ‘at least not yet!’ she added, and sped hurriedly away.

When she was gone, Walter Maxwell stooped down, picked up one of the roses, and hid it carefully within his doublet. Then he proceeded to his business with a lighter heart and a brighter face than he had carried since he came to Holyrood.

We will follow the young lady to the apartment in which the Maries were accustomed to congregate when off duty, plying their needles with industrious rapidity, and lightening their labours, we may be sure, with the pleasures of conversation.

It was a pretty room, high up in one of the turrets of the palace, overlooking the Abbey garden, and was full of the little elegancies and comforts which women gather about them, or which seem to grow up around, in the most unlikely places, as a natural consequence of their presence. Quaint tapestry adorned its walls, less hideous than are usually those grotesque efforts of industry, and representing pastoral scenes of love-making and simplicity, not devoid of browsing sheep, limpid streams, and fat little cupids flying about in the air. Scarfs, fans, gloves, and needlework were scattered over the room; and Mary Hamilton’s rosary of fragrant wooden beads, inlaid with gold, hung from the back of a carved oak chair, of which the cushions were triumphs of embroidery wrought by the maids-of-honour themselves. A portrait of the Queen, in her well-known velvet head-dress and voluminous ruff, smiled above the chimney-piece; and immediately under it was placed an elaborate crystal timepiece, of French workmanship, presented by her mistress to Mary Beton, and reverenced equally as a token of the royal good-will and a marvel of mechanical art. The last-named lady glanced at it with the conscious pride of possession.

‘It will be dark in less than an hour,’ said she, folding away the corner of a large square piece of embroidery on which herself and two of her companions were engaged; ‘we have done enough for one day, and these small stitches are very trying to the eyes. I expect the Queen’s summons, too, every minute, for one or other of us.’

‘She is writing letters in her cabinet,’ answered Mary Carmichael, who had her own reasons for knowing how large a packet had just gone in. ‘I could see her beautiful head bending over her table as I came down the terrace steps in the Abbey garden when I brought you in these roses.’

‘You haven’t half filled the basket after all!’ exclaimed Mary Seton, who was busy arranging the flowers about the room; ‘and like your sex, my dear, you have taken care to gather plenty of thorns. If I wear a garland of them at the masque to-morrow, as I intended, I shall be a veritable Scotch thistle, not to be touched with impunity; a fitting partner for that masterful border-thief, little Jock Elliot, who cocks his bonnet and sings “Wha dare meddle wi’ me?”’

‘You have become half a borderer yourself, I think, ever since Bothwell was banished the court,’ answered the other, not quite relishing this allusion to the half-filled basket, of which the spoils were scattered in the gallery.

‘Poor Bothwell!’ answered Mary Seton, with a sigh; ‘now that is what I call a man! When he walks through the court in his armour, he looks like a tower amongst the other lords. There is not a taller or a more stalwart figure amongst all his riders, proper men though they be, except perhaps that gigantic henchman of his.’ And again the damsel sighed, and looked grave for an instant, though she was laughing merrily again the next.

‘Is he not coming back soon?’ asked Mary Hamilton, waking up from one of her fits of abstraction, and fixing her large mournful black eyes on Mary Seton’s saucy blue ones.

‘Who? which?’ asked the latter, mischievously.

‘Why, D’Amville,’ answered Mary Hamilton, absently; ‘were you not talking of him? He has been more than a year away.’

‘D’Amville!’ exclaimed the other, with her ringing laugh; ‘I hope not! At least if he brings that mad poet in his train, to turn all our heads with rhymes and flattery. Nothing interests you but what comes from France! No, we were talking of Bothwell, stout Earl Bothwell, who is worth a dozen of him. I am sure the Queen thinks so.’

Mary Beton looked up reprovingly, but in vain; the flippant speaker was in her swing, and not to be disappointed of her say.

‘I’m sure we’ve all been dull enough at court ever since Bothwell got into disgrace. And after all, I don’t believe he bared steel till the others drew on him first. I know the Hamiltons outnumbered his people two to one; and nobody disputes that Arran is quite mad now, or that the duke was always an old goose. I think it very hard that Bothwell should have been made the scapegoat, that I do! and I’ve always said he hadn’t fair play from first to last.’

‘Hush!’ interposed Mary Beton, gravely; ‘the matter was tried in Her Majesty’s own presence, before the council.’

‘The council were a parcel of intriguers!’ vociferated the little partisan, now getting positively vehement. ‘The council wanted to get rid of him, because he was the most loyal amongst them all, and they made the skirmish an excuse. Why, I’m sure Ruthven is ready enough with his dagger, and my own dear father cleared the High Street from end to end with his own good sword and half a dozen jackmen before I was born, and the king swore he was quite right. I’ve heard him say so a score of times. No, no! the council had their own reasons; and I’ll never believe but that Englishman was at the bottom of it, though he pretended to be the warden’s friend!’

‘If you mean Mr Randolph,’ said Mary Beton, bridling within her ruff in high disdain, ‘you only expose your ignorance of state affairs. What could he have to do with it? or how could the turbulence of a wild border noble affect the Queen of England’s confidential minister?’

‘Only that I am convinced his red-haired mistress is at the bottom of all the mischief that goes on here,’ answered the other, determined not to be put down. ‘I believe she hates our dear beautiful angel of a Queen, partly because she’s her cousin, and partly because she’s been married, and partly because there is nobody like her in this world. I won’t abuse Randolph, Mistress Beton, because he admires you hugely, and that shows the man has good taste; but I may say what I like of Elizabeth Tudor, who is no more my Queen than I am hers.’

The elder damsel looked mollified, though she feebly deprecated the implied compliment.

‘These are dangerous topics,’ said she, gathering her draperies around her, and rising from her chair. ‘It is enough for us to occupy ourselves with our own office, and I cannot conceive why we have not yet heard Her Majesty’s summons.’

This lady was of a methodical disposition, and loved to perform her regular duties at their stated times without interruption.

‘Those endless letters!’ exclaimed Mary Seton; ‘and all about treaties and alliances, and the most uninteresting subjects. I declare I wouldn’t change places with the Queen to have her beauty and her throne. She is harassed and wearied to death. Dear me! how I wish she would marry, and take some stout-hearted lord to share her troubles and anxieties with her once for all!’

‘I’m surprised at you!’ exclaimed Mary Beton, now completely shocked. ‘It is most indiscreet to talk on such matters, and scarce maidenly even to think of them. Is it that you might follow her example?’ she added, in a tone of severe reproof.

‘I am not sure but what I should,’ sighed the other, and relapsed into silence, which, strange to say, was not broken for the space of full five minutes.

Perhaps the last suggestion thrown out had awakened matter for reflection in the minds of each of the four Maries.

At the expiration of that period, however, Mary Beton remarked that it was getting very dark; and Mary Seton at the same moment proposed that James Geddes, the Queen’s fool, should be summoned to make sport for them during the hour of idleness preceding supper.

‘I will go for him,’ said Mary Carmichael, and, wrapping a plaid round her head and shoulders, hurried out of the room.

James Geddes, who filled the honourable and somewhat lucrative office of royal fool or jester in the palace of Holyrood, was one of those half-witted unfortunates of whom so many may be met with even in the present day in Scotland, and who occupy the intermediate space between sanity and positive imbecility. They cannot be termed lunatics, for they are usually harmless, and even amiable in disposition, showing kindly feelings towards animals, infants, and such helpless objects, and even school-children, if not tormented by the urchins beyond all endurance. They are not idiots, for, although their perceptions may be warped, they are in vigorous possession of their faculties, and indulge, indeed, in a shrewd caustic humour of their own with which few rational beings can compete. Neither can they be called actually in their right mind. Perhaps the Scottish peasant best describes the mental state of such an one when he says, in an explanatory tone, ‘Ou! he’s just a natural!’

James Geddes, accordingly, was ‘just a natural,’ and earned his wages, consisting of meat, and fee, a parti-coloured suit of clothes, and a cap and bells which he could not be persuaded to wear, by furnishing unlimited mirth to the royal household, and occasionally a jest that diverted the grave lords in council, and reached the ears of the gentle Queen herself.

Such was the wiseacre, in search of whom Mary Carmichael sped down the winding stairs that led from the Maidens’ Tower into the devious passages of the palace. Obviously the most likely place in which to find him would have been the buttery, for it is a kind compensation of nature, that weakness of brain should be accompanied by great power of the digestive organs, and James Geddes could eat as much at one meal as would last a philosopher for a week. The maid-of-honour, nevertheless, passed that well-stored apartment without stopping, and proceeded with a light step and a heaving bosom into the Abbey garden, over which the dew was falling, and the shades of evening gathering fast.

Passing through the flower-beds she had despoiled in the afternoon, and which doubtless failed not to call up tender recollections, the young lady glided like a phantom into the shade of an adjoining orchard, through the branches of which an early star or two were already beginning to twinkle down. Here she halted, and, removing the shawl from her head, peered into the darkness, and listened attentively, though for a few minutes—

Now, by one of those coincidences which do occasionally happen in real life, especially where certain mysterious affinities combine to produce improbable results, Walter Maxwell was returning from Secretary Maitland’s office to his own lodging at the same twilight hour, and although it involved a considerable dÉtour, had chosen to proceed through the Abbey garden, and along the corner of the orchard, from which in the daytime he could see the windows of the Queen’s apartments and those of her ladies. Walter was no romantic enthusiast, to derive intense pleasure from a mere association of ideas, and yet he paused under the shadow of an old apple-tree, and gazing on the dark mass of building opposite, recalled, with an intoxicating thrill, his interview with his mistress in the gallery. We have, most of us, experienced certain moments in life when we are satisfied to enjoy present bliss, without taking into account the insufficiency of its cause, or the shortness of its duration. We know we are happier than we have any right to be, and we wilfully ignore the consciousness, and refrain from asking ourselves the ‘reason why.’ Like pride, this state of self-gratulation usually ‘goeth before a fall.’

Maxwell’s quick ear could not fail to detect the light footstep of his ladye-love as she, too, entered the orchard, and he recognised her, muffled as she was, and in the darkness, as we recognise intuitively those whom we have trusted with our happiness. He sprang forward to meet her. Undemonstrative and calm as was his character, he would have caught her to his heart, and vowed never to part with her from that moment; but ere he had made one step in advance, a tall cloaked figure, which seemed to come out of the very stem of an adjoining tree, anticipated his movements, and Maxwell, scarce believing his eyes, saw the woman he loved caught in its arms, and disappearing in the folds of that close and familiar embrace.

He had nerve, temper, and, above all, self-command. Though the cold drops stood on his forehead, and a deadly sickness crept about his heart, he had presence of mind to reflect on what he ought to do. In a dozen seconds he had argued the point, for and against, in his own mind, and had come to the conclusion that he was justified in undeceiving himself, at such a crisis, by the evidence of his senses. He remained under the shadow of the old tree and listened, with every organ painfully acute, and every nerve strung to its utmost pitch.

‘My darling,’ said the stranger, smoothing back the hair from the face, which looked fondly up into his own, ‘how late you are this evening! I should have gone without seeing you in five minutes more; but I knew you would not fail me, if you could help it, at our trysting-place.’

‘You might be sure of that,’ she answered, clinging to him with both hands clasped upon his shoulder. ‘Last week, and the week before, I came to the moment. I cannot bear to keep you waiting, or to think of you watching and hiding here like a thief—you that I am so proud of, and so fond of; you on whose arm I would like to hang before the Queen and the whole court, and I dare not even mention your name, except in my prayers. You are cold,’ she added, wrapping his cloak across his throat and chest with sedulous affection, ‘cold and wet with dew already, and perhaps tired and hungry too, and I may not bring you into the palace, and warm you, and take care of you. Oh! what a life it is!’

He laughed cheerfully, though with caution.

‘Always the same,’ he said; ‘always unselfish and considerate, and thinking of me! Why, you little witch, do you never reflect on what a scolding you would get if you were caught running about like this, in the gloaming, to meet a cavalier under a tree? What would Mistress Beton say forsooth? Strict Mistress Beton! She would vow not a dove would be left in the dove-cote after a while, if such doings were passed over. Do I look like a hawk to harry a bird’s-nest, Mary? Am I such a terrible wild young gallant, my pretty one?’

She put her white hand over his mouth. Maxwell saw it in the starlight.

‘Do not speak so loud,’ she said. ‘I am sure you are as incautious as a boy. Indeed, I wish you would harry the nest, as you say, and carry me off with you, for I am tired of never seeing you, except by stealth; and then it makes me so anxious and so fretful not to know where you are, or when we shall meet, for weeks and months together.’

‘My dear,’ he answered, gravely, ‘it is in the Queen’s service and that of our religion. It must triumph at last, as sure as those stars are shining above our heads. You and I have vowed to devote our lives, if need be, to the good cause. If worst should come to worst, we shall not be separated for long. There are no partings up there, Mary.’

He pressed her tenderly to his side, and pointed to the sky, in which star after star were now glimmering forth.

She drew her hand across her eyes, and kissed him fervently once more.

‘I shall be missed,’ she said. ‘I must stay no longer. It is very hard not to see you again for such a time! Well, well, duty before all. And now, have you the packet from the cardinal? What say the Guises to the last communication?’

‘They dare not even write,’ he answered. ‘Though I acted my part well, and looked such a masterful beggar, that even you, Mary, would have flung me an alms, they searched me when I landed at the port of Leith, scrip, wallet, and all; nay, they broke my staff across, lest it should be hollow, and filled with papers—I would I might have done it myself over the knave’s pate that could be so wary. No; the despatches must travel by word of mouth; and that is a better trick than even Randolph has learned yet, with all his cunning. Listen, Mary. They trust you, my pretty one, because you belong to me—this is for the Queen’s private ear alone.’

Maxwell was a man of honour. He would stay to hear no more. It was enough that his dearest hopes had withered in a breath. That the edifice he had been building insensibly for so long, decking it with all his fancies, and furnishing it, so to speak, with the most precious gifts of his affections, and the warmest feelings of the heart, had crumbled into dust at a moment’s notice. He would not, for that, intrude upon another’s secrets; and although the delay of a few moments might have placed him in possession of matters that would have insured his own aggrandizement, and enabled him to take a fearful revenge on the two by whom he felt so cruelly injured, yet he stole noiselessly away, placing his hands upon his ears, that he might not, inadvertently, hear another word of their communications.

Where is the man who can consistently shape his conduct upon a train of reasoning independent of his feelings, at least where those feelings are vitally concerned? It never occurred to him that he had no right to listen at all. The question was one of life and death to him, and he felt justified in arriving by any means at a certainty. Such is human nature in the best of us. Principle is principle, and honour is honour, only so long as circumstances are not too overwhelming, or necessity too urgent. Conscience is the only guide who never yet lost his way.

We will not follow Walter Maxwell as he left the Abbey garden for the solitude of his own chamber, never utterly dreary and forlorn till to-night. He had a brave, stout heart, that could strive against any odds, and scorned to flinch from any amount of pain. Perhaps these suffer most in proportion to their strength.