Mary was about forty years old—a little woman, slender and delicate in appearance. She did not in the least resemble her father, King Henry VIII. Her features were not bad, and her eyes were bright—so bright indeed that they frightened me when, all at once, I discovered them fixed upon my face.
'Who are you?' demanded the queen, in a voice which was thick and loud like a man's.
I was still more alarmed, and felt at that moment as if those bright, piercing eyes were looking into the very depths of my heart.
I knelt for one moment, but quickly rose from the ground, with a prayer in my heart that I might be forgiven bowing in the house of Rimmon and before the wrong queen.
'I am Meg Brown, madam. At your service,' I said, adding, as she remained quiet, 'a poor young singing-girl.'
'You don't seem to have much boldness in speech, Meg. How, then, can you have the courage to sing?'
I clasped my hands tightly together, with an inward prayer for help, and, in a moment, from the extremity of fear passed to a state of blessed confidence.
'Only hear me,' I said. 'I can sing, madam.'
'Can you?' The piercing eyes sought to read my innermost soul.
'Yes, madam. Once, when I was a child, Master Montgomery, our curate, took me to see a poor woman who had lost her baby and was almost dead with grief. She could not weep, nor sleep, nor eat; the trouble was killing her. But I sang to her, and she cried like a child, and prayed to God and recovered. And another time,' I spoke more clearly now, 'when some serving-men and women had a great quarrel, and were fighting in a truly terrible manner, I stood up and sang, and sang until they fell upon their knees and burst out into tears and prayers. After that, Master Montgomery always fetched me to sing to people when he could do nothing with them.'