"Ay, if your Queen stand security for the lady's consent, and if I stand security for it likewise," said the monk—"what have you to say against the union then? Look at her again, lord. Is not she a lovely and angelic being? Confess the truth now. For I know it to be the truth, that never since you could distinguish beauty from deformity, have your eyes beheld so lovely and so angelic a lady? Pressed down by misfortunes, too! Does that not add a triple charm to all her excellencies? You know what has been done for her? what has been suffered for her? what a noble and gallant life was laid down for her? Was such a sacrifice ever made for a lady or princess of your own country? No, never, heroic lord! Therefore bless your stars that have paved out a way for your union with such a lovely, angelic, and matchless lady; and take her! take her to your longing and aching bosom."
"Moderate your fervour, holy brother," said the Douglas, "which appears to me rather to be running to unwarrantable extremes. Granting that the lady Jane Howard is perhaps unequalled in beauty and elegant accomplishments——"
"Is she not so? Is she not so?" cried the monk with a fervour that raised his voice to a scream of passion: "Did I not say that she was? And now am I not warranted by your own sentiments, freely expressed enough. Sure, lord, you cannot deny that I said, that I told you, the lady was peerless in beauty and accomplishments? I knew it, and told you before that she was the queen of beauty. Why then do you hesitate, and make all this foolish opposition to an union which we all know you are eager to consummate? Yes; you are: And we all know it. You are!"
"Holy brother, what unaccountable phrenzy has seized upon you," said the Douglas; "and why all this extravagant waste of declamation? Let me not hear another sentence, nor another word on the subject: only suffer me to finish what I had begun. I say then, granting that the lady Jane were peerless in beauty and accomplishments, still there is an impression engraven on my heart that can never be removed, or give place to another; and there will I cherish it as sacred, till the day of my death. And, that no reckless importunity may ever be wasted on me again, here I kneel before the holy rood, which I kiss, and swear before God and his holy angels, that since I have been bereaved of the sovereign mistress of my heart and all my affections,—of her in whom all my hopes of happiness in this world were placed, and who to me was all in all of womankind—that never shall another of the sex be folded in the arms of Douglas, or call him husband! So help me thou Blessed One, and all thy holy saints and martyrs, in the performance of this vow!"
During the time of this last speech and solemn oath, the sobs of the monk Benjamin became so audible that all eyes were turned to him, for they thought that his delicate frame would burst with its emotions. And, besides, he was all the while fumbling about his throat, so that they dreaded he had purposed some mortal injury to himself. But in place of that, he had been unloosing some clasps or knots about his tunick; for with a motion quicker than thought, he flung at once his cowl, frock, and beard away,—and there stood arrayed as a royal bride the Princess Margaret of Scotland! "Journeyer of earth, where art thou now?"
Yes; there stood, in one moment, disclosed to the eyes of all present, the princess Margaret Stuart herself, embellished in all the ornaments of virgin royalty, and blooming in a glow of new born beauties."
"Thank heaven I have been deceived!" cried she, with great emphasis; and when she had said this, she stood up motionless by the side of lady Jane Howard, and cast her eyes on the ground. No pen can do justice to the scene. It must be left wholly to conception, after the fact is told that no one present had the slightest conception of the disguise save the Queen, who had been initiated into the princess's project of trying the real state of the Douglas's affections on the preceding night. It was like a scene of enchantment, such as might have been produced at the castle of Aikwood. But a moment ago all was sorrow and despair; now all was one burst of joyful surprise. And, to make it still more interesting, there stood the two rival beauties of Scotland and England, side by side, as if each were vying with the other for the palm to be bestowed on her native country. But to this day the connoisseurs in female beauty have never decided whether the dark falcon eyes and lofty forehead of the one, or the soft blushing roses and blue liquid eyes of the other, were the most irresistible.
The King was the first to burst from the silence of surprise. He flew to his daughter's arms with more vigour than a cripple could well be supposed to exert, kissed and embraced her, took her on his knee and wept on her neck; then, striking his crutch on the floor, he scolded her most heartily for the poignant and unnecessary pain she had occasioned to him. "And the worst of it is," added he, "that you have caused me show too much interest in an imp that has been the constant plague of my life with her whims and vagaries; an interest, and an intensity of feeling, that I shall be ashamed of the longest day I have to live."
"Indeed but you shall not, my dear lord and father, for I will now teaze another than you, and teaze him only to deeds of valour and renown; to lead your troops to certain conquest, till you are fully avenged of the oppressors of your people."
Mary Kirkmichael hung by her seymar and wept. The Douglas kneeled at her feet, and in an ecstacy took her hand and pressed it to his lips. "I do not know whether or not I shall have reason to bless heaven all my life for this singular restoration," said he; "but for the present I do it with all my heart. Tell me, thou lovely cameleon, what am I to think of this? Wert thou indeed, as was related to me, the page Colin Roy Macalpin? He with the carroty locks and the flippant tongue?"