"Is that then so much to make such a pother about? I will accomplish it in two days. So difficult to get a maid of her complexion to marry? Difficulty in fattening—a pig! baiting a hook for a bagrel!—a stickleback!—a perch! I'll do it in two days—in one day—in half a day, else never call me Mary Kirkmichael of Balmedie again. Difficulty in marrying a maid with light blue eyes—golden locks and rosy cheeks—with a languishing smile always on her countenance? and that maid an English one too? Peugh! Goodbye, my lady, Lady Black Douglas. I'm off. (Opening the door again.) It is a shame and a disgrace for any gentleman not to die for his mistress! I say it is! Young Spinola would have died for me cheerfully if I would have suffered him,—that he would! Goodbye, madam."
Mary was as busy all the remaining part of that day as ever was a bee in a meadow. She had private business with the Queen, and had art or interest enough to get two private audiences. She had business with the lady Jane Howard; a word to say to the King, and two or three to the lord Douglas—But it is a great loss that these important disclosures cannot be imparted here,—for every word that she told to each of them was a profound secret! Not a word of it ever to be repeated till death! What a loss for posterity! It had one quality, there was not a word of truth in all this important disclosure; but an ingenious lie by a woman is much more interesting than one of her true stories. There was, however, one of Mary Kirkmichael's secrets came to light, though none of those above-mentioned; and from the complexion of that, a good guess may be made at the matter of all the rest.
Sir Charles Scott, alias Muckle Charlie of Yardbire, was standing at the head of his hard-headed Olivers, his grimy Potts, and his skrae-shankit Laidlaws, in all amounting now to 140 brave and well appointed soldiers. He had them all dressed out in their best light uniform, consisting of deer-skin jackets with the hair outside; buckskin breeches, tanned white as snow, with the hair inside; blue bonnets as broad as the rim of a lady's spinning wheel, and clouted single-soaled shoes. He was training them to some evolutions for a grand parade before the King, and was himself dressed in his splendid battle array, with his plumes and tassels of gold. His bonnet was of the form of a turban, and his tall nodding plumes consisted of three fox tails, two of them dyed black, and the middle one crimson. A goodlier sight than Sir Charles at the head of his borderers, no eye of man (or woman either) ever beheld. As he stood thus giving the word of command, and brandishing the Eskdale souple by way of example, in the great square in the middle of the fortress, a little maid came suddenly to his side and touched him. Charles was extending his voice at the time, and the interruption made him start inordinately, and cut a loud syllable short in the middle. The maid made a low courtesy, while Charles stooped forward and looked at her as a man does who has dropt a curious gem or pin on the ground, and cannot find it. "Eh? God bless us, what is't hinny? Ye war amaist gart me start."
"My mistress requests a few minutes private conversation with you, sir knight."
"Whisht dame! speak laigh," said Sir Charles, half whispering, and looking raised-like at his warriors: "Wha's your mistress, my little bonny dow? Eh? Oh you're nodding and smirking, are you? Harkee, It's no the auld Queen, is it? Eh?"
"You will see who it is presently, gallant knight. It is a matter of the greatest import to you, as well as your captain."
"Ha! Gude faith, then it maunna be neglected. I'll be w'ye even now, lads; saunter about, but dinna quit this great four-nooked fauld till I come back again. Come along, then, my wee bonny hen chicken. Raux up an' gie me a grip o' your finger-ends. Side for side's neighbour like." So away went Sir Charles, leading his tiny conductor by the hand, and was by her introduced into one of the hundred apartments in the citadel.
"Our captain is gaun aff at the nail now," said Will Laidlaw; "Thae new honours o' his are gaun to be his ruin. He's getting far ower muckle in favour wi' the grit fo'k."
"I wonder to hear ye speak that gate," said Gideon Pott of Bilhope: "I think it be true that the country says, that ye maun aye read a Laidlaw backward. What can contribute sae muckle to advance a gentleman and his friends as to be in favour with the great?"
"I am a wee inclined to be of Laidlaw's opinion," said Peter Oliver of the Langburnsheils, (for these three were the headsmen of the three names marshalled under Sir Charles,)—"Sudden rise, sudden fa'; that was a saying o' my grandfather's, and he was very seldom in the wrong. I wadna wonder a bit to see our new knight get his head choppit off; for I think, if he haud on as he is like to do, he'll soon be ower grit wi' the Queen. Fo'k should bow to the bush they get bield frae, but take care o' lying ower near the laiggens o't. That was a saying o' my grandfather's aince when they wantit him to visit at the castle of Mountcomyn."