‘None,’ she answered, firmly, in the same guarded tone. ‘O Chastelâr! I pity you,’ she added, while the tears sprang to her eyes; ‘from my heart I pity you; but it must be so.’
He fell back quietly and humbly. Mary put ‘Black Agnes’ into a gallop, and the cavalcade were soon engaged in all the bustle of embarkation at the waterside.
It was Valentine’s Day, and the weather was indeed in unison with that mild and popular saint. It was one of those soft pleasant days, with a calm atmosphere and a serene though clouded sky, that come in the early spring to remind us of the principles of growth and fragrance still existing, though dormant, in the bosom of the teeming earth. The russet sward was saturated with moisture, and not a bud had yet started into life, not a snowdrop lifted its gentle head on the southern side of the sleeping braes and shaws, heavy with the promise of another year. Ashore, the rooks were flocking to the fresh-turned glebe, where the bright ploughshare, sticking in the furrow, marked that the half-day’s work was done; while, on the broad Firth, soft and smooth and white as milk, the dark sea-bird rode calm and motionless, as if at anchor, poised on the surface of his home; the distant mountains loomed grand and dim and sullen, the nearer points and promontories shot sharply out into the water, clearly defined against the sheeted level of the Firth; the very tide seemed but to heave and sob at intervals, lapping drowsily against the dripping sea-weed on the rocks. It was a scene of beauty, but beauty of a softening, saddening tendency, and all on board were fain to acknowledge its melancholy influence and partake in the depression it produced.
The sturdy boatmen bent to their oars; the courtiers, disposed in different attitudes, appeared chiefly intent on arriving at the termination of their voyage; and Mary, sitting in the stern of the boat, dipped her hand idly in the water, silent and gazing downwards, in obvious disquietude of mind.
Chastelâr watched the Queen with eager eyes. After a while he struck a few notes on the lute, without which he seldom travelled; and observing that this, as usual, was the signal for general attention, and that Mary did not seem to disapprove, proceeded to play a mournful melody, which, as it rose and fell, he accompanied in apparent abstraction with his voice.
‘Gone! wholly gone! How cold and dark;
A cheerless world, of hope bereft;
The beacon quench’d, and not a spark
In all the dull gray ashes left.