With the quick perceptions of insanity, he had caught the sound of an armed step approaching through the cloisters; and ere Mary had recovered from her dismay, a tall, warlike figure bowed to its very sword-hilt before her, and she found herself face to face with the Warden of the Marches.
He had been riding all night to reach Holyrood. He had galloped on ahead of the best-mounted of his troop, who were even now rounding the base of Arthur’s Seat, as they neared the Scottish capital. In those troubled times there was no lack of excuses for the warden to seek personal instructions from his sovereign, and Bothwell had availed himself of some late misunderstanding with Lord Scrope, the warden on the English side, to obtain an audience of the Queen. With a wild feverish longing for the sweet face, to behold which was fast becoming a necessity of his existence, he had hurried to the presence of his sovereign. And now, when the moment had at last arrived, the colour faded in his bronzed cheek, and he trembled, that strong man-at-arms, like a girl.
Agitated and frightened as she was, Mary recovered herself sufficiently to receive him with becoming dignity. As his stalwart figure bent in homage, and the upturned face, with its manly features and fair short-curling beard, softened visibly beneath her glance, the Queen might well leave her hand in her subject’s for an instant longer than the customs of a court required. He looked like a man who had both strength and will to help a woman at her need; and the bold border chief kissed the white hand that lay so gently in his own, with all the devotion of a worshipper kneeling before a saint.
‘You are welcome, Bothwell,’ said Mary, ‘though you come, doubtless, to tell me of fresh disturbances on the border—fresh troubles to harass and perplex the Queen. The true heart and ready hand grow rare at Holyrood, and more and more welcome to Mary Stuart day by day.’
‘I am but a plain soldier, madam,’ answered Bothwell. ‘Your Majesty’s need of me is at once my pride and my reward. It is nothing new to tell you that every drop of James Hepburn’s blood belongs to his Queen.’
‘I believe it,’ answered Mary, smiling sadly; ‘and yet even Bothwell’s loyalty has this very morning been questioned. Nay,’ she added, as the Earl started indignantly to his feet, ‘I, at least, never doubted you for an instant.’
‘I have but one answer to my accusers, madam,’ replied the warden, pointing significantly to his sword. ‘If a subject questions my loyalty, I can demand the ordeal. If my sovereign suspects it,’ he added, with a slight trembling in his voice, ‘I can but give her my life to vindicate my honour.’
‘O Bothwell!’ exclaimed Mary, ‘would that all were like you! I have none to counsel me; none in whom I can trust; none to sympathise with me in my loneliness, a widow, and a Queen. To-day, in my bereavement and my affliction,’ she added, reverting to the conduct of her courtiers, which had so hurt and irritated her best feelings, ‘not one of them had the decency to share in the mourning of their sovereign. Even my warden comes before me in his ordinary attire, but that is fairly excusable when it consists of corslet and head-piece hacked and dinted in my service.’
‘Say not so, madam,’ answered Bothwell, pointing to a sprig of willow worn in his basnet. ‘I gathered yon sprig from the sallows that skirt its bank as I rode the water of Roslin in the misty dawn. I could not forget the day of my Queen’s bereavement; and it shall never be told that Bothwell forbore to share the dangers or the sorrows of his sovereign.’
The angry colour that had brightened it all the morning died out on Mary’s cheek. She looked at the Earl steadfastly while one might have counted ten, then her lip quivered. She turned her face away, and burst into tears.