“I had forgotten!” exclaimed the King, as if speaking to himself alone.—“Enter! thou art at all times welcome!”
The door slowly opened at his word, and the tall thin figure of Andrew the Flemish Astrologer stood in the doorway, habited as he has been already described, and with a long white rod in his right hand. With his left hand upon his breast, he made a low and solemn reverence to the King, and then pointing his rod over his shoulder, he seemed silently to indicate his desire that his Majesty should follow him.
“Lead on!” cried the King, with an awe-stricken voice and air, whilst he arose from his chair, and hastily put on his hat and cloak. “If we are called by the stars, we are at all times ready to give due obedience to them,” and, with these words, he immediately retired with the Astrologer.
Ramsay, Stewart, Rogers, and Juliet Manvers, made their several reverences to the Queen, in which they were clumsily joined by Cochran, and all took their leave. They were no sooner out of the Royal presence, than Cochran, rudely thrusting himself before Ramsay and Sir Walter Stewart, bustled busily up to the lady, as she hung on her uncle’s arm, so as to engage the unoccupied place next her, to the exclusion of every one else. Sir Walter was somewhat chafed at this rudeness, and might have forgotten himself, had not his rising anger been checked by the voice of one of the Queen’s ladies, who called him by his name. The Knight stopped to ascertain what she wanted.
“Sir Walter Stewart,” said the lady, “the Queen commands thee to return, for a brief space, to her apartment, that she may again hear thee sing that French ballad of thine own composition, which so much pleased her Majesty two nights ago. Her Majesty would fain have the words, and catch the notes of it.”
“I humbly obey her Majesty’s command,” replied the Knight, returning with the lady immediately.
On entering the Queen’s apartment, he made his reverence to her Majesty; and she, having again signified her wishes to him in a very gracious manner, she motioned him to take up a lute, and seat himself on a stool near her chair; and after having done as she desired, he began to sing the ballad she had named, and to accompany himself on the instrument.
In the meanwhile the King followed the solemn, step and apparition-like figure of the Astrologer till he brought his Majesty to an angular part of the castle-wall that, skirting the giddy precipice of lofty rock on which the fortress stands, looked out over the country to the south and west. But that which was an extensive and magnificent prospect by day, was at this moment shrouded in the shades of night. There he took his stand, and pointed upwards with his rod. The moon was in its second quarter, and shed a pale and partial light. A strange and portentous arch of black and very opaque clouds, rested its extremities on the verges of the northern and southern horizon, and spanned the heavens through the zenith. Behind this, all to the eastward, was one dark vault, impenetrable to the eye, whilst the western edge of the arch was tinged with bright rain-bow hues, and the whole sky below it, upon that side, was serene and cloudless. As the king gazed upwards in wonder, not unmingled with dread, a bright flash of lightning suddenly illumined the whole of the black and solid concave of clouds behind them, and the walls of the castle were shaken by a tremendous peal of thunder. The heart of the royal James quailed within him. The peal was reverberated from the bold front of Dumyot, with a harsh and crashing sound, and then, after visiting and rousing up every echo among the Ochills, it rolled fearfully away up the valley of the Forth, until it died amid the distant western mountains. Filled with superstitious dread, the King grasped the left arm of the Astrologer, who stood unmoved, with his rod extended in his right hand.
“Holy Virgin Mother, Messire Andrew! what do these dread signs portend?” cried James, with deep anxiety of voice and manner.
“These!” exclaimed Andrew, in French, and in a wild and enthusiastic tone, that would have sounded as contemptuous in the King’s ear, but for the intensity of his desire to have his fears and doubts put to rest; “these are but the mere auxiliaries of Heaven’s appalling oratory. See!—Know you not yonder stars which now approach each other to a conjunction so threatening?”