As he spoke, a terrible glare of lightning blazed around them, momentarily illuminating every feature of the grand scenery by which they were surrounded. A fearful clap of thunder again burst over their heads with awful magnificence, and rolled terribly away. A furious wind began to blow, and large drops of rain descended, a tempest was approaching, and the King, sunk, disheartened, and unsatisfied, was driven in by the natural results of those threatenings in the sky, which he had been so attentively watching, to brood upon those fanciful horrors and dangers with which they, in reality, had no connection. He returned towards the Queen’s apartment in deep thought, and he had entered it fully, before the notes of the music that still sounded in it had power to rouse him from his abstraction. Sir Walter Stewart still sat near the Queen’s footstool, singing to the accompaniment of his lute, and her Majesty and her maids of honour were still eagerly occupied in listening.
“Ha!” cried King James, as he recovered perfect consciousness of the scene before him, and speaking with a highly disturbed air and tone; “Methought our privacy had been relieved from all further interruption for this night?”
“Pardon, my liege!—my love!” cried the Queen, rising from her chair, and affectionately taking his arm. “Pardon, if we have done aught to displeasure thee! I and my maidens had a mind to hear again that sweet ballad of Sir Walter Stewart’s making, which he sang so pleasantly to us the other night, as you may remember. He was brought back, therefore, in obedience to my command, and if there be aught of blame in this, it is all mine own. That he hath staid so long after he did return, if fault in that there be, it must be charged against his own pleasing minstrelsy, which did so enchain the ears of his hearers, that time passed by unheeded.”
“Permit me, your Majesty, to take my leave,” said Sir Walter, making his wonted obeisance to the King as he retired.
“Good night,” said the King, with more of condescension, but with less of warmth than he was accustomed to use towards one whom he so much favoured.
All that night the royal mind was vexed by frightful waking visions, that haunted it to the exclusion of sleep. In vain did his Majesty try to embody them into any thing like a clear and connected picture of coming events. But dark though the ground was upon which he worked, certain prominent lights continually started from it, and remained stationary before him, so as ultimately to fix themselves in some degree upon him as probable truths. The most stimulating of these might be guessed at, from the royal orders which were issued on the following morning. The Court was hastily and unexpectedly removed to Edinburgh Castle; and soon afterwards, the two Princes of the blood-royal, the Duke of Albany, and the Earl of Mar, were, to the astonishment of all men, seized and made prisoners. Mar was confined in Craigmillar Castle. But of Albany, the King seemed anxious to take especial care, for he was committed to custody in Edinburgh Castle itself, where he might be more particularly guarded under the royal eye.
Yet all this did not seem to have relieved James’ mind from the terrors which had taken possession of it. The approach of the nobles to the royal person was less encouraged than it had ever been. The King’s favourites, though still permitted to have their usual intercourse with him, were all in their turns looked upon at times with an eye of doubt. Sir Walter Stewart sensibly felt, that he was subjected to a greater portion of the effects of this suspicious temper than any of the others. An excuse had been found for his being deprived of such apartments in the Castle of Edinburgh, as he had had in that of Stirling, and he was obliged to hire lodgings within the walls of the city. His presence at the private parties in the Queen’s apartment was rarely, if ever, required. The musical meetings there were of themselves less frequent, and when they did take place, he was not among the number of the performers. To make amends for this, he spent more of his time in the pursuit of his favourite science, with the fair Juliet Manvers, in the apartments of Sir William Rogers, and as the lady seemed to be making, day after day, greater inroads upon his heart, so did Sir Walter Stewart himself rise every day more and more in the estimation of the musical knight. With such a source of amusement, Sir Walter was less affected by the coldness which he experienced at court, than might have been naturally supposed. But he felt deeply for the confinement of the Princes, with whom he had been admitted into habits of intimacy that bordered upon the warmth of friendship. Yet, much as he was personally attached to them, and anxiously as he would have wished to have befriended them, he knew enough to convince him that he could make no effort in their behalf, that would not have a certain tendency to lead to some fatal issue, both as regarded them and himself. But the death of the Earl of Mar, which happened soon afterwards, and which was most suspiciously given out as having taken place suddenly, by apoplexy, in a warm bath, so roused his feelings, that he resolved to take the first opportunity of making some attempt to save Albany, and to this he was more immediately stimulated by something that occurred to him one night, as he was walking and ruminating on the Castle-hill.
“Sir Walter Stewart,” said a man, who stood muffled up in a cloak, to him, as he was striding slowly past, unconscious that there was any one near him, “wilt thou not halt for a moment to speak to an old friend?”
“My Lord Huntly!” cried Sir Walter, in astonishment, after approaching the figure, and ascertaining who it was that spoke.
“Hush!—Name me not so loudly!” replied Huntly. “The very air hath ears, yea, and eyes too. I am here in secret and in disguise. Were I discovered, my life might pay for it. Come farther this way into the shadow. I would speak with thee about matters which no one else must hear, and my time is short. We must save Albany!”