My native land, good night!
Byron.
Many a bitter tear was shed, during the hasty flight of Queen Mary, over fallen hopes, future prospects, and slaughtered friends. The deaths of the brave Douglas, and of the fiery but gallant young Seyton, seemed to affect the Queen as much as the fall from the throne, on which she had so nearly been again seated. Catherine Seyton devoured in secret her own grief, anxious to support the broken spirits of her mistress; and the Abbot, bending his troubled thoughts upon futurity, endeavoured in vain to form some plan which had a shadow of hope. The spirit of young Roland — for he also mingled in the hasty debates held by the companions of the Queen’s flight — continued unchecked and unbroken.
“Your Majesty,” he said, “has lost a battle — Your ancestor, Bruce, lost seven successively, ere he sat triumphant on the Scottish throne, and proclaimed with the voice of a victor, in the field of Bannockburn, the independence of his country. Are not these heaths, which we may traverse at will, better than the locked, guarded, and lake-moated Castle of Lochleven?— We are free — in that one word there is comfort for all our losses.”
He struck a bold note, but the heart of Mary made no response.
“Better,” she said, “I had still been in Lochleven, than seen the slaughter made by rebels among the subjects who offered themselves to death for my sake. Speak not to me of farther efforts — they would only cost the lives of you, the friends who recommend them! I would not again undergo what I felt, when I saw from yonder mount the swords of the fell horsemen of Morton raging among the faithful Seytons and Hamiltons, for their loyalty to their Queen — I would not again feel what I felt when Douglas’s life-blood stained my mantle for his love to Mary Stewart — not to be empress of all that Britain’s seas enclose. Find for me some place where I can hide my unhappy head, which brings destruction on all who love it — it is the last favour that Mary asks of her faithful followers.”
In this dejected mood, but still pursuing her flight with unabated rapidity, the unfortunate Mary, after having been joined by Lord Herries and a few followers, at length halted, for the first time, at the Abbey of Dundrennan, nearly sixty miles distant from the field of battle. In this remote quarter of Galloway, the Reformation not having yet been strictly enforced against the monks, a few still lingered in their cells unmolested; and the Prior, with tears and reverence, received the fugitive Queen at the gate of his convent.
“I bring you ruin, my good father,” said the Queen, as she was lifted from her palfrey.
“It is welcome,” said the Prior, “if it comes in the train of duty.”
Placed on the ground, and supported by her ladies, the Queen looked for an instant at her palfrey, which, jaded and drooping its head, seemed as if it mourned the distresses of its mistress.
“Good Roland,” said the Queen, whispering, “let Rosabelle be cared for — ask thy heart, and it will tell thee why I make this trifling request even in this awful hour.”
She was conducted to her apartment, and in the hurried consultation of her attendants, the fatal resolution of the retreat to England was finally adopted. In the morning it received her approbation, and a messenger was despatched to the English warden, to pray him for safe-conduct and hospitality, on the part of the Queen of Scotland. On the next day the Abbot Ambrose walked in the garden of the Abbey with Roland, to whom he expressed his disapprobation of the course pursued. “It is madness and ruin,” he said; “better commit herself to the savage Highlanders or wild Bordermen, than to the faith of Elizabeth. A woman to a rival woman — a presumptive successor to the keeping of a jealous and childless Queen!— Roland, Herries is true and loyal, but his counsel has ruined his mistress.”
“Ay, ruin follows us every where,” said an old man, with a spade in his hand, and dressed like a lay-brother, of whose presence, in the vehemence of his exclamation, the Abbot had not been aware —“Gaze not on me with such wonder!— I am he who was the Abbot Boniface at Kennaquhair, who was the gardener Blinkhoolie at Lochleven, hunted round to the place in which I served my noviciate, and now ye are come to rouse me up again!— A weary life I have had for one to whom peace was ever the dearest blessing!”
“We will soon rid you of our company, good father,” said the Abbot; “and the Queen will, I fear, trouble your retreat no more.”
“Nay, you said as much before,” said the querulous old man, “and yet I was put forth from Kinross, and pillaged by troopers on the road.— They took from me the certificate that you wot of — that of the Baron — ay, he was a moss-trooper like themselves — You asked me of it, and I could never find it, but they found it — it showed the marriage of — of — my memory fails me — Now see how men differ! Father Nicholas would have told you an hundred tales of the Abbot Ingelram, on whose soul God have mercy!— He was, I warrant you, fourscore and six, and I am not more than — let me see ——”
“Was not Avenel the name you seek, my good father?” said Roland, impatiently, yet moderating his tone for fear of alarming or offending the infirm old man.
“Ay, right — Avenel, Julian Avenel — You are perfect in the name — I kept all the special confessions, judging it held with my vow to do so — I could not find it when my successor, Ambrosius, spoke on’t — but the troopers found it, and the Knight who commanded the party struck his breast, till the target clattered like an empty watering-can.”
“Saint Mary!” said the Abbot, “in whom could such a paper excite such interest! What was the appearance of the knight, his arms, his colours?”
“Ye distract me with your questions — I dared hardly look at him — they charged me with bearing letters for the Queen, and searched my mail — This was all along of your doings at Lochleven.”
“I trust in God,” said the Abbot to Roland, who stood beside him, shivering and trembling “with impatience,” the paper has fallen into the hands of my brother — I heard he had been with his followers on the scout betwixt Stirling and Glasgow.— Bore not the Knight a holly-bough on his helmet?— Canst thou not remember?”
“Oh, remember — remember,” said the old man pettishly; “count as many years as I do, if your plots will let you, and see what, and how much, you remember.— Why, I scarce remember the pear-mains which I graffed here with my own hands some fifty years since.”
At this moment a bugle sounded loudly from the beach.
“It is the death-blast to Queen Mary’s royalty,” said Ambrosius; “the English warden’s answer has been received, favourable doubtless, for when was the door of the trap closed against the prey which it was set for?— Droop not, Roland — this matter shall be sifted to the bottom — but we must not now leave the Queen — follow me — let us do our duty, and trust the issue with God — Farewell, good Father — I will visit thee again soon.”
He was about to leave the garden, followed by Roland, with half-reluctant steps. The Ex-Abbot resumed his spade.
“I could be sorry for these men,” he said, “ay, and for that poor Queen, but what avail earthly sorrows to a man of fourscore?— and it is a rare dropping morning for the early colewort.”
“He is stricken with age,” said Ambrosius, as he dragged Roland down to the sea-beach; “we must let him take his time to collect himself — nothing now can be thought on but the fate of the Queen.”
They soon arrived where she stood, surrounded by her little train, and by her side the sheriff of Cumberland, a gentleman of the house of Lowther, richly dressed and accompanied by soldiers. The aspect of the Queen exhibited a singular mixture of alacrity and reluctance to depart. Her language and gestures spoke hope and consolation to her attendants, and she seemed desirous to persuade even herself that the step she adopted was secure, and that the assurance she had received of kind reception was altogether satisfactory; but her quivering lip, and unsettled eye, betrayed at once her anguish at departing from Scotland, and her fears of confiding herself to the doubtful faith of England.
“Welcome, my Lord Abbot,” she said, speaking to Ambrosius, “and you, Roland Avenel, we have joyful news for you — our loving sister’s officer proffers us, in her name, a safe asylum from the rebels who have driven us from our home — only it grieves me we must here part from you for a short space.”
“Part from us, madam!” said the Abbot. “Is your welcome in England, then, to commence with the abridgment of your train, and dismissal of your counsellors?”
“Take it not thus, good Father,” said Mary; “the Warden and the Sheriff, faithful servants of our Royal Sister, deem it necessary to obey her instructions in the present case, even to the letter, and can only take upon them to admit me with my female attendants. An express will instantly be despatched from London, assigning me a place of residence; and I will speedily send to all of you whenever my Court shall be formed.”
“Your Court formed in England! and while Elizabeth lives and reigns?” said the Abbot —“that will be when we shall see two suns in one heaven!”
“Do not think so,” replied the Queen; “we are well assured of our sister’s good faith. Elizabeth loves fame — and not all that she has won by her power and her wisdom will equal that which she will acquire by extending her hospitality to a distressed sister!— not all that she may hereafter do of good, wise, and great, would blot out the reproach of abusing our confidence.— Farewell, my page — now my knight — farewell for a brief season. I will dry the tears of Catherine, or I will weep with her till neither of us can weep longer.”— She held out her hand to Roland, who flinging himself on his knees, kissed it with much emotion. He was about to render the same homage to Catherine, when the Queen, assuming an air of sprightliness, said, “Her lips, thou foolish boy! and, Catherine, coy it not — these English gentlemen should see, that, even in our cold clime, Beauty knows how to reward Bravery and Fidelity!”
“We are not now to learn the force of Scottish beauty, or the mettle of Scottish valour,” said the She............