Lord Ruthven said no more, and Morton took up anew his parable. What he did was well done: he did not give ground, yet was conciliatory. It was a case for terms, he said. Let articles be drawn up, lands be restored, offices stand as before the slaughter, the old forfeitures be overlooked, religion on either side be as it had been: in fact, let that come which all hoped for, the Golden Age of Peace.
The Queen consulted with her brother, ignored her husband, then accepted. Lethington was to draw up articles and submit them. For Peace’s sake, if it were possible, she would sign them. Rising from her throne, she dismissed her gaolers. She took Moray’s arm, just touched the King’s with two fingers, and walked through the lines made by her friends, a page going before to clear the way. The moment she was in her room she sent Des-Essars out with a letter, which she had ready-written, for the Earl of Bothwell.
Left with his fellow-tragedians, Ruthven for a time was ungovernable, with no words but ‘black traitor—false, perjuring beast of a thief’—and the like. Morton, to the full as bartered as himself, did not try to hold him. He too was working into a steady resentment, and kindling a grudge which would smoulder the longer but burn the more fiercely than the madman’s spluttering bonfire. And he was against all sudden follies. When Ruthven, foaming, howled that he would stab the King in the back, Morton grumbled, ‘Too quick a death for him’; and Lindsay said drily, ‘No death at all. Yon lad is wiser than Davy—wears a shirt that would turn any blade.’ ‘Then I’ll have at him in his bed,’ says Ruthven. And Lindsay, to clinch the matter, scoffs at him with, ‘Pooh, man, the Queen is his shirt of mail. Are you blind?’
Into this yeasty flood, with courage truly remarkable, the Earl of Moray steered his barque, coming sedately back from his escort of the Queen. At first they were so curious about his visit that they forgot the vehement suspicion there was of treachery from him also. The precision of his steering was admirable, but he ran too close to the rocks when he spoke of the Queen as ‘a young lady in delicate health, for whom, considering her eager temper and frail body, the worst might have been feared in the late violent doings.’
Here Morton cut in. ‘I call God to witness, my lord, and you, too, Ruthven, shall answer for me, whether or not I forbade the slaughter of that fellow before her face. For I feared, my lord, that very health of hers.’
‘And you did well to fear it, my lord,’ said the Earl of Moray; and that was the turn too much.
Said Ruthven to him dangerously, ‘You make me sick of my work.’ He peered with grinning malice into the inscrutable face. ‘Tell me, you, my lord of Moray, what did you look for in the business? What thought you would come of murder at the feet of a woman big? God in heaven, sir, what is it you look for? what is it you think of day after day?’
Lord Moray blinked—but no more. ‘Hush, hush, Lord Ruthven, lest you utter what would grieve all who love Scotland.’
Ruthven howled. ‘Man, do you talk of Scotland? Are we friends here? Are we in the kirk? If we are in council, for God’s sake talk your mind. Ah!—talk of that, my good lord——’ he pointed to the empty throne. ‘Man, man, man! there’s your kirk and your altar—you prater about Scotland’s love.’ For a moment he fairly withered the man; but then, as drowning in a flood-tide of despair, he lifted up his hands and covered his tormented eyes. ‘Oh, I am sick just,’ he said, ‘sick of your lying—sick, I tell you, sick—sick to death!’