He was with her afoot on the links behind the town—sandy hillocks of dry bents, and a grey waste at such a season, abode of the wind and the plovers; he with her, almost alone. Des-Essars, who walked behind them, had strayed with the dogs after a hare; the wind, blowing in from the sea, brought up wisps and patches of fog in which the boy was hidden. Talking as she went, carelessly, of the things of France, he listening more or less, she stopped of a sudden, choked a cry in the throat, and caught at his arm. ‘Look, look, look!’ she said: ‘what comes this way?’ He followed the direction of her fixed eyes, and saw a riderless horse loom out of the vapour, come on doubtingly at a free trot, shaking his head and snuffing about him as if he partly believed in his freedom. It shaped as a great grey Flemish horse, assuredly one of the King’s.
The Queen began to tremble, to mutter and moan. ‘Oh, oh, the great horse! Free—it’s free! Oh, if it could be so! Oh, my lord, oh——I’m afraid!’
‘It is indeed the King’s horse, madam,’ he said. ‘I fear—some misfortune.’
But she stared at him. ‘Misfortune!’ she cried out. ‘Oh, are you blind? Go and see—go and make sure. I must be assured—nothing is certain yet. Run, my lord, run fast!’
He made to obey, and instantly she clung to his arm to stop him. She was in wild fear.
‘No—no—no—you must not leave me here! There are voices in the sea-wind—too many voices. A clamour, a clamour! Those that cry at me through the door, those that are out on the sea—a many, a many! I tell you I am afraid.’ Her fear irritated her; she stamped her foot. ‘Do you hear me? I am afraid. You shall not leave me.’
There was no doubt. She was beside herself—looking all about, her teeth chattering, fingers griping his arm.
‘Why, then, I will send the lad, ma’am,’ says Bothwell. ‘You need have no fear with me. I hear no voices in the wind.’
She looked at him wonderfully. ‘Do you never hear them at night?’ Then her eyes paled, and the pupils dwindled to little specks of black. ‘Come with me,’ she said in whisper, ‘a-tiptoe; come softly with me. We must find him—we can never be sure till we see him lying. There is one way: you lift the eyelids. Better than a mirror to the nose. Come, come: I must look at him, to be very sure.’ She stared into the white sky, and gave a sudden gasp, pointing outwards while her eyes searched his face. ‘Look!’ she said: ‘the birds over there. They are about him already. Come, we shall be too late.’ She led him away in a feverish hurry, through bush and briar, talking all the time. ‘Blood on his face—on his mouth and shut hands. He gripped his dagger by the blade, and it bit to the bone. He comes and cries at my door—all foul from his work—and asks me let him in. But I hold it—I am very strong. He always comes—but now!’ She laughed insanely, and gave a skip in the air. ‘O come, my lord—hurry, hurry!’
The loose horse had trotted gaily by them as the astonished Lord Bothwell followed where he was haled. Presently, however, he heard another sound, and pulled back to listen to it. ‘Hearken a moment,’ says he. ‘Yes, yes! I thought as much. Here comes another horse—galloping like a fiend—a ridden horse.’