Bothwell lit his lamp, and wrapping a furred bed-gown around him whilst he thrust his feet into the mules or slippers which would best muffle their tread, proceeded with swift and stealthy strides along the passages of his Castle, towards the eastern turret in which his kinsman was disposed. All was hushed and silent within the walls of Hermitage. The drowsy sentinels might have been sleeping on their posts, for neither stir of arms nor measured tread of steel-shod foot denoted their vigilance, yet, strange to say, the warden failed to observe this unusual silence. Nevertheless, preoccupied as he was, he marked a light still burning in Moray’s chamber, and instinctively he shaded the lamp he carried with his hand when he passed the narrow casements on the opposite side of the Castle-yard. Arrived at Maxwell’s door, he listened for a while, and satisfied himself by the deep breathing within that his kinsman was asleep; then shading his light once more, he entered the room softly, and made at once for the small travelling valise, in which he hoped to find the messenger had secured his despatches. But Maxwell had travelled the Borders ere this, and had profited by his experience. Ready dressed, booted and spurred, with his sword by his side, he lay prepared for a start, sleeping indeed, yet not so sound but that a sudden noise might waken him. Whatever he had about him of value was concealed in his breast, and could not be taken from him without disturbing his repose. Bothwell felt once for the haft of his dagger, and smiled grimly to himself, as he thought how easily he might possess himself of his guest’s despatches, and how lightly he would think now of such a crime as murder under his own roof. There was even a wild devilish triumph in the reflection that he could have so changed within an hour!
After a moment’s thought, however, he again passed unobserved from the room, and returned to his own as stealthily as he had come. There he spent the remainder of the night, still pacing up and down, up and down, and an hour before dawn summoned ‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh,’ already astir thus early, to a long and mysterious consultation, in which, though he yielded eventually, for the first time in his life the retainer presumed to remonstrate with his lord.
CHAPTER XXXI.
‘Oh, they rade on, and farther on,
And they waded through rivers above the knee,
And they saw neither the sun nor the moon,
But they heard the roaring of the sea.’
The morning broke gloomily. A thick and heavy mist clung around the towers of Hermitage, dimming the arms and saturating the cloaks of the escort already mounted and waiting in the Castle-yard. The moisture dripped from the ears and nostrils of the horses, and stood upon the beards of their riders, while the former stamped and shook their bits impatiently, and the latter muttered a coarse jest or two, not without fervent aspirations after a tass of brandy to keep the raw air from their throats.
Presently ‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh’ emerged from the turret containing the warden’s private apartments, wearing an unusually gloomy expression on his face, and proceeded to examine the arms and appointments of his comrades, with a disposition to find fault, that elicited sundry growls, murmurs, and a round oath or two from the impatient jackmen.