CHAPTER LIV.
THE DEPARTURE.
Woe, woe to ye! ye haughty towers;
No sound of sweetest strain,
No music, song, nor roundelay
Shall haunt your halls again;
Naught—naught but sighs and groans,
And tread of slaves in grim affright,
Till, crush'd in dust and ashes,
Ye feel the avenger's might!—Uhland.
In the pale grey of the morning, when the moon was waning and the stars fading out of the sky, when the cold, heavy shadows lay deep in the high and narrow wynds and alleys of the city, from whose towering mansions so many generations have looked down on scenes of wonder, awe and terror, broil, bloodshed, and disaster, the child-queen of Scotland (still tenaciously grasping her favourite kitten) was placed in her warm litter, and its curtains were carefully drawn. The queen-mother, with the few nobles and ladies of her train, mounted; the lackeys led all the spare and sumpter horses; and with a band of some forty spearmen on horseback, an escort provided by the care of the Earl of Mar, she set forth from Edinburgh.
The streets were still encumbered by crowds of fugitives and terrified people, pale with weeping for the slain and watching in the night. Many surrounded the train of the queen, and strove to keep pace with it, crying for aid, advice, or protection from the coming English.
"Alms—largess—largess!" cried many, while poor women held aloft the babes, whom the strife of yesterday had made fatherless.
"For alms and largess ye shall have the first rents I receive from my lordship of Monteith and my castle of Doune," replied the queen, who was moved to tears by the scenes she saw; but among the dense masses at the city gate were many Reformers, who on seeing her began to shout,—
"Down with the league with France—no French alliance!"
"Woe to the day that Mary of Lorraine brought forth a female bairn!" cried one.
"And that our gude auld Scottish crown fell from the sword to the distaff!" added another.