Some time after the unfortunate Queen Mary had established her court at Holyrood, on her return from France, to ascend the throne of her ancestors, a stranger arrived at a certain tavern or hostelry, kept by one Goodal, at the foot of the Canongate of Edinburgh. The former had last come from Leith, where he had been landed from a French vessel some two or three hours previously. He was a young man, probably about three or four and twenty, tall and handsome in person, of a singularly pleasing countenance, and of mild and exceedingly gentleman-like demeanour. His lofty forehead and expressive eye bespoke the presence of genius, or, at least, of an intellect of a very high order; while his general manners indicated a refined and cultivated mind. There was marked, however, on the brow of the interesting stranger very palpable traces of saddening thoughts—his whole countenance, indeed, exhibiting the characteristics of a deep and rooted melancholy; but it was of a gentle kind, and bore no likeness to the stern gloominess of disappointed ambition. His sadness was evidently a sadness of the heart—the result of some grievous pressure on its best and tenderest feelings and affections.
After having partaken of some refreshment, the stranger desired a small measure of wine to be brought him. This order was executed by mine host in person; and, indeed, from what afterwards followed, it seemed to have been given with an express view to that result; for, on the landlord's placing the wine before his guest, the latter requested him, with great politeness of manner, to sit down and share it with him; saying that he wanted a little information on two or three particular points. Mine host, seating himself as desired, expressed his readiness to afford him any information of which he himself was possessed. Having thanked the former for his civility, and pressed him, not in vain, to taste of his own wine, the stranger said—
"Is the queen, my friend, just now at Holyrood?"
He was answered in the affirmative. The querist paused, sighed, and next inquired if she walked much abroad—what were the hours she devoted to that recreation—whether she was accompanied by many attendants on these occasions—and whether her ordinary promenade was a place easy of access. Having been informed on all these points, he again relapsed into thought, and again sighed profoundly. After a short time, however, he once more recovered himself, and suddenly exclaimed, but more by way of soliloquy than inquiry—
"Is she not beautiful—transcendently beautiful?"
Mine host, who was not a little surprised by the abruptness of the question, and the enthusiasm of manner in which it was expressed, replied, that she surely was "Just as bonny a creature as he had ever clapt ee on—a plump, sonsy, nice-lookin lass."
A slight expression of disgust, or rather of horror, at the homely terms employed by mine host in speaking of the beauty of the queen, passed over the countenance of his guest. It was, however, but momentary, and was not observed, or at any rate not understood, by him whose language had called it forth.
"Ay, beautiful is she," went on the enthusiastic stranger, leaning back in his chair, and gazing on the roof, in a fit of ecstasy, and in seeming unconsciousness of the presence of a third party—"beautiful is she to look upon, as is the rising sun emerging from the purpled east; beautiful as his setting amidst the burnished clouds of the west; lovely as the full moon hanging midway in her field of azure; grateful to the sight as the green fields of spring, or the flowers of the garden; and pleasant to the ear are the tones of her voice, as the song of the nightingale in the grove, or the sound of the distant waterfall."
Here the speaker paused in his rhapsody, continued silent for some moments, then suddenly returning, as it were, to a sense of the circumstances in which he was placed, he brought his hands over his forehead and eyes, as one recovering from an agony of painful and melancholy thoughts. Surprised by this extraordinary conduct of his guest, the landlord of the house began to conceive that he had got into the company of a madman; yet he marvelled much what description of madness it could be, since it was made evident only when the queen was spoken of—the stranger speaking on all other subjects rationally and composedly.
"She walks not much abroad, you say, my friend?" said the latter, resuming the conversation which he had broken off to give utterance to the rhapsody which has just been quoted.