They urged her to be seated, and to sup with them; but she could eat nothing, and withdrew at once to her cabin, charging the helmsman to arouse her at break of day if the land were still in sight.
On this point at least fortune smiled upon poor Mary; for the wind died away, and the galley scarcely moved during the night, except with the aid of oars; so that when day broke they were still within sight of France.
The helmsman entered the queen's cabin, as she had ordered him to do; but he found her already awake and seated upon her berth, gazing out through an open porthole at the beloved shore.
However, this pleasure was of short duration; for the wind freshened again, and France was soon lost to sight. Mary had only one hope left: that was that an English fleet would appear in the offing, and they would be obliged to turn back. But that last hope proved futile, like the others; a fog, so dense that they could not see from one end of the vessel to the other, came down upon the ocean,—almost miraculously, as it seemed, being midsummer. They sailed on at hazard, incurring the risk of going astray, but avoiding all danger of being seen by the enemy.
At last, on the third day, the fog lifted; and they found themselves close upon a rocky shore, where the galley would doubtless have gone to pieces if they had sailed two cables' lengths farther. The pilot took an observation, and found that he was off the coast of Scotland, and having skilfully extricated the vessel from the breakers which surrounded her, made the port of Leith, near Edinburgh.
The wits who accompanied Mary said that they had landed in a fog in a mischief-making country of marplots.[12] Mary's coming was entirely unexpected; so that she and her suite were, perforce, content to make their way to Edinburgh upon donkeys, wretchedly equipped, many of which were without saddles, and had nought but cords for reins and stirrups. Mary could not refrain from contrasting these sorry nags with the superb French palfreys which she was accustomed to see caracoling about in the hunting-field, or the lists. She shed a few tears of regret as she compared the fair land she had left with that upon which she now stood. But soon, with her fascinating grace, and struggling to smile through her tears, she said,—
"I must bear my ills in patience, since I have exchanged my paradise for a hell."
In such manner did Mary Stuart arrive on British soil. We have narrated elsewhere ("Les Stuarts") the story of the rest of her life and her demise; and how impious England, the arch-enemy of all that France holds sacred, slew grace in her person, as it had already slain inspiration in that of Jeanne d'Arc, and was subsequently to make an end of genius in the person of Napoleon.
"Sad and plaintive is my song
Of the days now gone forever;
And I mourn the whole day long
The loss of him whom I shall never
More behold. In grief and pain, alas!
The fairest years of my life must pass.