Load roars the north round Bothwell hall,
And fast descends the pattering rain;
But streams of tears yet faster fall,
From thy blue eyes, O bonny Jane!
Hark! hark! I hear the mournful yell,
The wraiths of angry Clyde complain;
But sorrow bursts with louder swell.
From thy toft heart, O bonny Jane!
M. G. Lewis.
Within the stateliest chamber of that stately castle sat James, Earl of Bothwell, and his countess Jane, the bride of a few months. The apartment was long and lofty; in the daytime it was lighted by six grated windows that overlooked Bothwell bank, but now it was lit by two gigantic gilded chandeliers of wax candles. The ceiling was of panelled oak, and the floor was of the same material, but lozenged, and minutely jointed. The walls were completely hung with tapestry (made by the Countess of old Earl Adam, who fell at Flodden), and represented on one side the "Hunts of Cheviot," so famed in ancient song; and on the other, the miracles of the blessed St. Bothan, the cousin and successor of St. Colme of Iona. The spaces between were filled up by gorgeous flower-pieces, and the armorial coats of the Earl's alliances on trees covered with shields; but chief of all appeared the blazon of the house of Hailes. Now little known, the arms of Bothwell are worth recording, as they appeared above the stone chimney of that apartment. Gules on a cheveron argent, two Scottish lions rending an English rose, (which had been the characteristic cognisance of Patrick Hepburn of Hailes at the great battle of Otterburn,) quartered azure with a golden ship; three cheveronels on a field ermine for the lordship of Soulis, with a bend azure for Vauss, lord of Dirltoun. His shield was supported by two lions gardant, crested by a horse's head bridled, and bearing on an escroll the motto—
Keepe Tryste.
The whole of this gorgeous armorial blazon was upborne by a gilded anchor, significant of Bothwell's office as Lord High Admiral of Scotland and the Isles.
Though the season was summer, a fire burned on the marble hearth; for the stone chambers of those ancient dwellings were often cold and chilly. Two silver lamps, lighted with perfumed oil, and having each a golden tassel appended to them, hung on each side of the mantelpiece, by the same chains that, ten years before, had swung them before St. Bothan's shrine, in Blantyre Priory. Their odour was mingled with that of the fresh flowers that, in vases of Italian glass, were piled upon the cabinets, and diffused a delightful fragrance through that noble apartment.
A wine vase, or flask of Venetian crystal, grained with gold, and of that peculiar fashion then very common in the dwellings of the Scottish noblesse, (so common, indeed, that the Regent Moray was wont to have them broken before visiters in a spirit of pure vanity,) stood upon the table, and the glow of its purple contents was thrown on the silver cups, the grapes, that were piled in baskets of mother-of-pearl, and the embossed salvers of confections that stood around it.
The Earl, richly attired, as when we last saw him, in a suit that admirably displayed the strength and symmetry of his limbs, was lounging on an ottoman, or low-cushioned settle, with his feet on a deer's skin, and seemed wholly occupied in caressing a large wiry hound of the Scottish breed, while the Countess had played to him on her ghittern, and sung that song so common at the court of Mary, but of which the title alone is known to us now—
"My love is layed upone ane knycht."
The old game of Troy had succeeded; and then they paused a while to listen to the fury of the storm that has been described hi the preceding chapter; and, during the pause, we will take a view of this fair and unfortunate lady, who was sacrificed by her lover and brother to the evil spirit of statecraft and ambition. But when Bothwell gazed on her, which he did from time to time, his dark eyes filled with softness, as hers did with love and languor.
The outline of her little figure (for she was of low stature) was singularly graceful, as she half reclined on the seat of crimson velvet, with the deep colour of which her neck and arms contrasted so admirably. Her eyes were of the deepest and most sparkling black; and when they dilated at times, seemed almost larger than her cherry mouth.