It stood like something palpable and visible before him. It seemed written on the fragrant earth, in the buoyant air, and on the shining water, imparting to the sunny spring the gloom of winter. It was in his ears, it was on his tongue, and in his soul; there was no avoiding, no crushing, no forgetting it! Oh, how vividly at times, in the calm silence of the sleepless night, that cry came to his ears; and his thoughts were riveted on that grey marble slab in the chapel aisle, beneath which, mangled, cold, and mouldering, lay one——he would smite his damp forehead to drive away the thoughts, and rush to drown his sense of misery in wine.
Amid the hum of the city, when its sunlit thoroughfares were crowded with the gaiety and bustle of passing crowds, all of whom seemed so happy and so gay, it rang in his ears!
Amid the solemn deliberations of the council on border raids and feudal broils—on English wars and French embassies—in all of which he was compelled to take the lead, as the royal favourite and first of the Scottish peers, it came to him sadly and mournfully above the voices of the most able orators; and then his heart sank when he looked on the blanched visages of Morton, of Maitland, and his other copartners in that terrible deed, to which—as if by common consent—they never dared to recur!
Amid the leafy rustle of the woods, as their dewy buds expanded beneath the alternate showers and sunshine of an early spring (if he sought the country), still he heard it!
Amid the deep hoarse murmur of the chafing sea, if he sought the lonely shore, he heard it still—that sad and wailing cry of death and of despair!
Amid the joys of the midnight revel, when the wine sparkled in the gilded glasses—the grapes blushed in their silver baskets—the lofty lamps filled the chamber with rosy light and rich perfume;—when the heedless ribaldry of Ormiston, the courtly wit of d'Elboeuff, the frolicsome spirit of Coldinghame, were all there to make the present paramount alike to the past and the future, still it came to him—that terrible sound—the last cry of Darnley!
The queen still remained shut in her darkened chamber, secluded from all—even from the prying ambassador of Elizabeth, who, when introduced, could not discern her face amidst the sombre gloom surrounding her; but, as he informed his mistress, the accents of Mary were both touching and mournful.
Two strange rumours were now floating through the city; one of a spectre which had appeared in the lodging of the Lord Athol on the night of the king's death; the other, of Bothwell's implication in that terrible deed, in which he and his companions had endeavoured (and perhaps not without good grounds) to implicate the Earl of Moray.
No one knew how this rumour gained credence; but each man whispered it to his neighbour. Voices, accusing him of the deed, rang at midnight in the narrow streets of the city; the scholars chalked ribald verses at the corners of the wynds and church-doors; while Moray—openly Bothwell's friend, and secretly his foe—had handbills posted on the portes, naming him as the perpetrator. Furtively these things were done; for few dared to impugn the honour of so powerful a noble, and none could arraign him save the father of the murdered prince, Matthew Earl of Lennox, an aged noble, who had served with valour and distinction in the wars of Francis I.; and he boldly charged the Earl with the crime.
Bothwell saw, or imagined he saw, an accusation in the eye of every man whose glance he encountered. Pride, jealousy, and angry suspicion, now by turns animated his resentful heart, and galled his fiery spirit. He was always conferring secretly with the knights and barons of his train; he kept his vassals ever on the alert, and never went abroad without being completely armed, to prevent a surprise; but daily and hourly, slowly and surely, like an advancing and overwhelming tide, the suspicions of the people grew and waxed stronger, till, clamorously, it burst in one deep hoarse shout against him, and a hundred thousand tongues said, "Thou art the man!"