‘But at the sight of me flat against the wall she gave a short cry, and crushed her bosom with her free hand. “O God! O God! who is this?”
‘She caught at my master’s arm. By my head, I had given her a fright—just as the colliers of old gave that Count of Tuscany who thought they were devils come to require his soul, and was converted to God, and built seven fine abbeys before he died. Her mouth was open; she did not breathe; her face was all white, and her eyes were all black.
‘“Pardon, madam, it is I, your servant, poor French Paris,” I said; and my master in a hurry, “There, ma’am, there; you see, it is a friend of ours.”
‘When she got her breath again, it came back in a flood, like to suffocate her. She struggled and fought for it so, I made sure she would faint. So did my master, who put his hand behind to catch her and save the noise of her fall. She shut her eyes, she tottered. Oh, it was a bad affair! But she recovered herself by some means, and did her bravest to carry it off. “Jesu, Paris, how begrimed you are!” she said, panting and swallowing; and my master damned me for a blackguardly spy, and bade me go wash myself.
‘It is true I was behind the door, but most false that I was spying. God knows, I had enough secrets to keep without smelling for more. But that was not a time to be justifying myself. My master took the Queen away immediately, Mistress Seton with her. Afterwards I heard my Lords Argyll and Livingstone depart—but not M. de Huntly. I saw him again before I went out myself.
‘I waited about until I heard the King helped up to bed by his servants; I waited a long time. They sang a psalm in his chamber, and talked afterwards, laughing and humming airs. They had the boy to amuse them with fooleries: Heaven knows what they did or did not. I thought they would never finish. Finally, I heard the King call, “Good-night all,” saw the lights put out, and made a move at my best pace to get home, clean myself, and be ready for the others. Going through the garden along the edge of my powder-train, I met somebody, who called out, “It is I, the Earl of Huntly,” and then said, “Remember you of my words? It is now past midnight. Fire nothing until you hear the strokes of two. More depends upon that than you can understand. Now be off.” I wished his lordship a good-night, and he replied, “Go you to the devil with your nights.” So off I went.
‘We all made ready, and assembled in good time at the door of our house in the Cowgate: my master, M. Hob Ormiston, M. de Tala, M. de Bowton, myself, Powrie, Dalgleish, and Patrick Wilson. There may have been more—it seemed to me that one or another joined us as we went—in which case I know not their names. We went down by the Blackfriars’ Wynd, meeting nobody, through the Kirk o’ Field Port, and round by the wall to Hamilton House. A light was burning in the upper window of that mansion, and was not extinguished so long as I was there (though they tell me it was blown out after the explosion); but no man came out to join us at the appointed place. Half the company was stopped at the corner of the town wall by my master’s orders: he himself, M. d’Ormiston, and I went into the garden; and just as we entered, so well had all been timed, I heard Saint Giles’ toll the hour of two. I lighted the train; and then we all went back, joined the others (who had seen nothing dangerous outside the wall), and returned by the way we had come—no one saying anything. We may have been half of the way to the Gate—I cannot say—when the darkness was, as it were, split asunder as by a flare of lightning, one of those sheeted flames that illumines a whole quarter of the sky, and shows in the midst a jagged core of intenser light. And whilst we reeled before it came the crash and volley of the noise, as if all Hell were loosed about us. What became of our betters I know not, nor what became of any. For myself, I tell you fairly that I stooped and ran as if the air above me were full of flying devils.
‘By some fate or other I ran, not to the city, but along the wall of the Blackfriars’ Garden, a long way past the Gate, and lay down in a sort of kennel there was while I fetched up my breath again. Then, not daring to go back to the Wynd, for I was sure the whole town would be awake, I considered that the best thing for me to do was to climb that garden wall, and lie hidden within it until the citizens had wondered themselves to sleep. So I did, without difficulty, and felt my way through brakes and shrubberies into what seemed to be an open space. I lit my lantern, and found myself in a kind of trained arbour, oval or circular in shape, made all of clipped box. In the middle of it were a broad platt of grass and a dial: a snug enough place which would suit me very well. It appeared to me, too, that there was a settle on the far side, on which I could repose myself. Good! I would lie there.
‘The path of light made by my lantern showed me now another thing—that I was not the only tenant of this garden. There lay a man in white midway of the grass. “Oho,” thinks I, “I will have a close look at you, my friend, before I settle down.” Peering at him from my safe distance, I saw that he had another beside him; and made sure that I was on the edge of an indiscretion. If here I was in a bower of bliss, it became me on all counts to withdraw. But first I must be sure: too much depended upon it. I drew nearer: the light fell upon those two who lay so still. My heart ceased to beat. Stretched out upon that secret grass, with his eyes staring horribly into the dark, lay the King whom I had gone forth to slay—stark and dead there, and the dead boy by his side. By God and his Mother! I am a man of experience, with no call to be on punctilio with dead men. But that dead man, I am not ashamed to say, made me weep, after I had recovered myself a little.
‘God has shown me great mercy. I am not guilty of the King’s death, nor is my master. I should have supposed that my Lord Huntly killed him, to save the Queen from deadly sin, and could then have understood his urgent instructions to me not to go to work before a certain hour. If that had been so, all honour to him. I say, so I should have supposed; but one little circumstance made me hesitate. Near by, on the same grass platt, I found a velvet shoe, which I took back with me into town. It was purchased of me afterwards by Monsieur Archibald Douglas, that grey-headed young man, for six hundred crowns; and I believe I might have had double. That, mind you, told me a tale!