“Strange!” said the King, as if pondering within himself—“strange that all this should have escaped me. And yet, now I think on’t, I might have seen it.—We have done thee but scrimp justice, Sir Walter Stewart, but now, be assured, that we wish thee joy with all our heart. Thou hast indeed chosen a lovely bride. We—yea, and our Queen too—shall honour the wedding with our presence; and thy fair and accomplished lady shall not lack such royal gifts, as may befit us to bestow, and thy wife to receive.—Trust me, that this wise step of thine hath much relieved—nay, we would say that it hath given us unfeigned joy.”
Thus reassured of the King’s favour, though from what cause he could not by any means divine, Sir Walter Stewart was happy. His marriage took place with great pomp of circumstances, in presence of King James and his Queen. Some months passed quickly and pleasantly away over the heads of the newly-married couple, who were especially detained at court, from one week to another, by the royal mandate,—and I need not tell you, that the lady basked with peculiar delight under the sunshiny smiles that fell upon her from the royal pair. Cochran was the only one about court who had reason to be dissatisfied with the match, seeing that he had himself shewn pretensions to Juliet Manvers, and had been in no little degree encouraged by her. But whether real or feigned, he manifested an especial cordiality towards Sir Walter, and he availed himself of every possible opportunity of frequenting his society, and that of his lady. To the lady, indeed, he was at all times most particularly attentive, so much so, in fact, that Sir Walter hardly relished his uncalled for complaisance. Moreover, he thought he began to detect a certain relaxation of that earnest desire to please him, which, for her own purposes, Juliet had so long displayed towards him before their union. She had now less occasion for dissimulation, since her object was gained, and so it happened, that on more occasions than one, when impelled by the humour of the moment beyond the full restraint of her dissimulative powers, she had unveiled enough of her real character to make him doubt, whether her acceptance of him as her husband had been altogether the result of a disinterested affection for him. The seeds of unhappiness were thus thickly sown within his breast, and they began to vegetate so fast, that he at length came to the sudden resolution of carrying off his wife to his castle of Drummin.
“If thou art resolved to quit our court for a season,” said King James, when Sir Walter made his intentions known to his Majesty, “thou hast our royal permission, most unwillingly granted to thee, so to do. But say, what sort of habitation hast thou in the north?”
“’Tis but a rude dwelling, so please your Majesty,” replied Sir Walter; “and somewhat the worse perhaps for the warfare which hath been waged against it by time and weather.”
“Then shalt thou take Cochran, our architect, thither with thee, to plan and to order its amendment,” replied the King.—“’Twas but the other day we were talking of thy concerns together, when he voluntarily offered to yield thee his best services.”
“’Twas kind of him,” said Sir Walter, biting his lips, “but I can in nowise think of so troubling him.—Indeed, for the present, I cannot well brook the expense of building, and I must e’en remain as I am for a time.”
“That shall be no hindrance to thee, Stewart,” said the King. “The stream of our royal bounty hath been untowardly diverted from thee for a time; it behooves us now to refresh thy parched roots, so that thou mayest again raise thy drooping head. The means shall be found from our royal treasury for thy building, and Cochran shall go with thee to Drummin—so let us think no more of this matter, seeing I have so settled it.”
Willingly would Sir Walter Stewart have dispensed with this most prominent mark of royal favour, but it was now impossible to decline it. Cochran received his Majesty’s command, to hold himself in readiness to accompany Sir Walter Stewart and his lady to Stradawn, with secret delight, though he appeared to do so with that servile submission merely, with which he always bowed to the royal will, and for which he made himself ample amends by the arrogance with which he domineered over others. To Sir Walter Stewart he took especial care to be always smiling, pleasant, and accommodating; and although he complained, upon this occasion, that this northern journey was a severe obstruction to the prosecution of those architectural plans on which he pretended to rest his fame, he went down to Drummin with the intention of spinning out his visit to as great a length as he could decently make it extend.
Sir Walter Stewart, for his part, had no sooner fairly set his foot on his own threshold, than a thousand recollections connected with the tower of Drummin, and its neighbouring scenery, crowded upon his mind. This return to the abode of his early days, recalled the remembrance of his young affections, and the contrast which thus arose, in spite of him, between those which he felt persuaded were bestowed on a creature who was innocent, natural, and true, and those which the sacrament of the holy church now demanded of him, as due to her whom he had so much reason to fear might turn out to be artful, artificial, and false, awakened certain unpleasant qualms within him, that he had failed to make that reparation to Alice Asher, which he once had it in his power to have made; and that now, by some strange witchery and infatuation, he had been led to shut the door against that, and his own peace of mind, by one rash and irrevocable act. A direful dread now fell upon him, that he was about to be severely punished for his neglect of one, whose only sin might, with more justice, have been said to have been his—as it was incurred for him, and whose devotion to him, and whose whole conduct since her first and only error, had so well merited a different treatment at his hands. He could not trust his mind to think how much happier he might have now been with her. Nor did the image of his gallant Charley fail to haunt his imagination, and to fill him with self-reproaches. Now it was that his soul winced under the wholesome, though sharp stings of conscience, and the fair visions of ambition, which had so continually flitted through his brain, lost their sunshine, and disappeared for a time, amid the dull and damp mists of self-dissatisfaction that settled down upon it. He felt that though the trial must necessarily be a painful one, it might probably be productive of a certain degree of after-relief to him, if he could procure an interview with Alice Asher. A vow existed between them—a vow that she had extracted from him, immediately previous to the birth of Charley Stewart, that they should never again meet, except in the event of an approach to her on the part of Sir Walter, for the purpose of offering her his hand in marriage. That, alas, was a reason which he could not urge now! But, on the ground of having to speak to her on the subject of her son, he sent for the good priest who was her confessor, and procured from him a dispensation from their mutual vow, so far as to admit of one short meeting between them. It took place; and, as you may easily imagine, their conference was of the tenderest, though purest description. It had more in it of tears than of smiles. Reproaches were there, it is true; but they came not from the meek, penitent, and forgiving Alice Asher; they were numerously and largely heaped by Sir Walter Stewart on his own devoted head. The parting was a scene which I could not venture to describe; and far less could I convey to you the slightest notion of that accumulation of anguish which choked up the heart of Sir Walter, after having had this opportunity of more truly and perfectly knowing the full value of that gentle and devoted spirit, the innocent confidence of whose youth he had so abused, and whom he had so recklessly excluded from his bosom, in order to take home thither that cold and selfish heart which now legally possessed it. Full of such agonizing thoughts as these, he had as yet got but a short way on his return from the dwelling of Alice, when his musing walk was suddenly broken in upon by Cochran, who came unexpectedly out upon him from a side-path that emerged from the wood, into that along which he was then going.
“That cottage, so prettily perched up yonder among the wood, on the brow of the hill you have this moment descended, belongs doubtless to some favourite forester of thine, Sir Walter,” said Cochran; “marry, the fellow is lodged in a palace, compared to those dens, scarcely fit for swine, in which the rude and savage inhabitants of this northern wilderness are seen to burrow themselves, like urchins, and which are hardly to be distinguished from the sterile and heath-covered soil on which they stand.”