Margaret was happy, too, because she would soon be able to impart to her dear sisters, whom she loved so tenderly, the perilous secret, which she was ever upbraiding herself for having withheld from them so long; and she imagined how great would be the astonishment of Euphemia and Sybilla when her baby would be shown to them, and the joy of little Lizzie and Beatie finding themselves aunts to a real live princess.
Wearied with long surmises and thoughtful reveries, and with fondling her pretty little Margaret—for it had been named after herself and the queen-mother—and with hushing those feeble cries which as yet had never gone beyond the thick stone walls of the tapestried room, nor been heard by any one save her faithful old nurse and constant attendant, the beautiful young duchess had fallen asleep on her bed, partly undressed, and with the babe nestling in her bosom. On the inside her door was secured by those complicated bolts of wood and iron with which all internal doors were then fastened in old Scottish houses, but her window, which was in the round-tower at the street-corner still appears never to have possessed a grating.
Twelve tolled in the tower of the "Blessed Virgin-in-the-fields." The mist was thicker, and the night darker than ever.
Margaret did not hear the sound of feet in the narrow street below, for the lurkers there trod softly; neither did she hear their voices, for they spoke in whispers; but there, masked, muffled, and disguised as peasants, in broad round bonnets, frieze gaberdines, and deerskin boots, were the governors of Stirling and Broughty, with Sir Hew Borthwick; other followers they had none, for this expedition was so desperate and daring that they could trust none, even from among the many well-chosen ruffians with whom the two chief traitors had garrisoned the royal castles committed to their care.
Margaret did not hear the jarring of two long lances, tied together, against the panes of glass, as by this means they affixed the iron hooks of a rope ladder to the stone mouldings of the tower window-sole, and then held it firm and steadily at the foot, while Borthwick clambered to the casement, which (although it was twenty-five feet from the ground) he reached with ease, and raising the sash entered softly. He then stood within the apartment, with two naked poniards in his belt, for defence, in case of surprise or attack.
All appeared just as we have described it before—the rich little couch, the carved prie-Dieu, the Venetian mirror, with its bottles of rose-water, pots of essence and other appurtenances, and the thick dark tapestry. The wax tapers in the silver girandoles on the dressing-table were dimly burning and flickering, for the wicks were long, and snuffers were not invented until the epoch of James IV.
Margaret lay on her couch, fast asleep, with one white arm extended on her pillow, and the other round her infant, whose little head reposed on a luxuriant mass of her thick brown hair, which had escaped from that golden net or caul, then worn by the ladies of the court, and was streaming over her pillow. The ribbon points of her long boddice were partly untied, and on the dressing-table lay a multitude of those skewers of gold and silver tags and clasps which noble dames then used, before the simple invention of the pin, which was first adopted by Catharine Howard, an English queen. The rosy and dimpled hands of the infant, like its round and sleeping face, were nestling in the bosom of its young and delicate mother.
It was a touching picture of perfect innocence and love reposing together; but it affected not the sensual and cowardly heart of the ignoble Borthwick, or of Sir Patrick Gray, whose black head, through the mask of which his fierce and sinister eyes, that gleamed like two evil stars, might have been seen peering over the window-sole into the chamber of the sleeping girl. Something that glittered in the mouth of this baronial bravo, a nearer inspection would have shown to be a dagger, which he held between his teeth.
"Well, 'pon my soul, the prince's taste is not bad!" grumbled the other ruffian (who was flushed with wine), as he contemplated the beautiful girl, whose soft and regular breathing was the only sound that broke the silence of the sanctuary on which he was intruding his unhallowed presence. "A baby, too! Oho! now, whose brat may this be?"
Margaret turned her noble head, parted her fine lips, and smiled tenderly in her sleep.