He laughed his dismay. ‘Madam, here is come, with foam on his lips, my Lord of Arran, the Duke’s son.’
‘Doth he foam so early?’ says she. ‘Give him a napkin, and I will see him clean.’
Presently they admitted the disordered man, frowning and muttering, much out of breath, and his hair all over his face. Kirkcaldy of Grange held his arm; the Secretary and Lord Lindsay hovered about him; through the half-open door there spied the anxious face of Des-Essars.
‘Speak, my Lord Arran,’ says the Queen.
‘God save us all, I must, I must!’ spluttered Arran, and plunged afresh upon his nightmare.
If that can be called speech which comes in gouts of words, like tin gobbling of water from a neck too narrow, then Lord Arran spoke. He wept also and slapped his head, he raved, he adjured high God—all this from his two knees. Mystery! He had wicked lips to unlock. He must reveal horrid fact, devilish machination, misprision of treason! God knew the secret of his heart; God knew he would meet that bloody man half-way. In that he was a sinner, let him die the death. Oh, robber, curious robber! To dare that sacred person, to encompass it with greedy hands—robbery! God is not to be robbed—and who shall dare rob the King, anointed of God? Such a man would steal the Host from the altar. Sorcery! sorcery! sorcery!
When he stopped to gasp and roll his eyeballs in their sockets, the Queen had her opportunity. She was already fatigued, and hated noises at any time. ‘Hold your words, my lord, I beg of you. Who is your bloody man? Who steals from a king, and from what king steals he? Who is your sorcerer, and whom has he bewitched? Yourself, by chance?’
Arran turned her the whites of his eyes—a dreadful apparition. ‘The Earl of Bothwell’—he spoke it in a whisper—‘the Earl of Bothwell did beguile me.’
‘Then I think he did very idly,’ said the Queen. ‘He has been profuse of his sorcery. Tell your tale to the Lord of Lethington, and spare me.’
And away she went in a pet. Let the Earl of Bothwell come to her or not, she did not choose to get news of him through a fool.