‘“And if I am, my lord, I have an example before me,” said she. “Have you not been pleased to condemn me in regard to this poor boy?”
‘I bore that with what face I could: he regarded me with the look of a wild hog that grates his tooth. Anon he said: “Master Baptist and I know each other of old. I believe I can give as good account of the reckonings between my staff and his back as——Well, this is unprofitable jesting. Now, let me understand. Your Grace charges me with—what in particular?”
‘“Oh, my lord,” cried she, with a bold face, “I make no charges. I did but put you a question: whether you had visited your Castle of Crichton these late days—your Castle of Crichton which you hold of me in chief?”
‘He shrugged his shoulders; and “Chi lo sa?” quoth he, with a happy laugh. “Let your Majesty and me confer upon these and other high matters of state when my head is on better terms with my stomach. I am a fasting man, no match for your Majesty. Your Majesty knows the Spanish saw, When the belly is full it saith to the head, Sing, you rascal? I crave your leave, then, to get my singing voice again.” He took it with bravery, as you perceive; and, having his liberty, went away singing to supper.
‘He stayed below stairs for the rest of the night, drinking and talking with Sir James Melvill and my lord of Livingstone—ribald and dangerous talk, for he had a lewd mind, and neither discretion nor charm in the uses to which he put his tongue. The Queen sat miserably in the dark far into the night, and went to bed without prayers. I heard her cry out to Mistress Sempill that she wished she lay where the King was, and Sempill answered, “Damn him, damn him!” Next day, with what grace she could muster, she created my lord Duke of Orkney. That was done before noon; by five o’clock of the evening he was ridden away for Borthwick and Dunbar, as he said, upon State business. In three days’ time she was to marry him, O Heaven!
‘Early in the morning—the morrow after his going—she sent for me to come up to her bedchamber; and so I did, and found her very worn in the face, her hand hot and dry to the touch. Commanding herself with great effort, speaking slowly, she told me that she could not continue to live unless she could deny once and for all the truth of Lethington’s tale. My lord would not help her. “You know his way of mockery,” says she. “He laughs to tease me: but to me this is no laughing matter. Mary Sempill has been at me ever since——” Here she fretted, muttering to herself, “I do not believe it—I do not—I do not,” fidgeting her hands under the bedclothes; then, breaking off short, she said that she wished me to ride to Crichton with her that very day. She would take Mary Sempill—because she would not remain behind—Erskine would bring an escort; there would be no danger. I said that I was ready to live or die for her, and that all my care was to save her from unhappiness. I asked her, Would she suffer Erskine and myself to go?
‘She stared at me. “Are you mad?” she asked. “Have you found me so patient, to sit at home in suspense? or so tame, to shirk my enemies? Nay, my child, nay, but I will prove Lethington a liar with my own eyes.” To be short, go she would and did; and we with her, as she had already contrived it.
‘The weather was hot—as hot as summer—and very still; riding as fast as we did, our bodily distresses saved our minds’. We had, as I reckon, some fifteen miles to go, by intricate roads, woodland ways, by the side of streams overhung with boughs, encumbered with boulders. The Queen was always in front, riding with Mistress Sempill: she set the pace, said nothing, and showed herself vexed by such little delays as were caused by Erskine sounding the banks for good fording-ground, or losing the road, as he once did, and trying a many before he could make up his mind. “Oh, you weary me with your Maybe yeas and Maybe nays!” she railed at him. “Why, man, I could smell my way to Crichton.” I believe her; for now I am sure that she had steeled herself for what she was to find there. I knew it not then: she allowed nothing of her mind to be seen. Nobody could be more secret than she when she saw fit.
‘That Castle of Crichton stands, as do most of them in these parts, on a woody bluff over a deep glen, out of the which, when you are in it, you can never see how near you may be to your journey’s end. Thus we wound our way at a foot’s pace along the banks of a small stream, in and out of the densest woodland—beautiful as a summer’s dream just then, with birds making vocal all the thickets, wild flowers at our feet, and blooming trees, wild cherry and hawthorn and the like, clouds come to earth and caught in the branches—and found a steep path to our right hand, and climbed it for half an hour: and lo! gaining the crest first, I saw before me, quite close, the place we sought—a fair tower of grey stone, with a battlemented house beside it, having an open gate in a barbican. Before the barbican was a lawn snowed with daisies, and upon that two white greyhounds, which sat up when they first saw us, and then crouched, their muzzles between their paws. But as we advanced, jumping up and barking together, they raced together over the turf, met us, and leapt upwards to the Queen’s hand. All beasts loved her, and she loved them.