Chatelard, bowing, was now about to retire, when the queen, again addressing him, said, "We will send for thee again in the afternoon, to bear us company for awhile, when thou wilt please bring with thee some of thy newest and choicest madrigals."
Expressing a deep sense of the honour proposed to be conferred on him, of the queen's kind condescension, and avowing his devotedness to her service, Chatelard withdrew, and was provided with the promised apartments by the express orders of Mary herself. To these apartments we shall follow the enthusiastic but audacious lover. On being left alone, Chatelard again fell into one of those reveries which we have already described, and again launched into that strain of extravagant adulation which, on another occasion, we represented him as indulging in. Again he compared Mary, in his incoherent ravings, to everything that is beautiful in earth, sea, and sky; but comparing her to these only that he might assert how far she surpassed them. There were mingled, too, with his eulogiums, on this occasion, expressions of that imprudent passion which subsequently at once urged him to commit the most daring offences, and blinded him to their consequences. Poor Chatelard's ravings, in the instance of which we are just speaking, were unconsciously uttered; but they were unfortunately loud enough to arrest the attention of the domestics, who were passing to and fro in the lobby into which the door of his apartment opened. These, attracted by his rapturous exclamations, listened, from time to time, at his door, and were highly amused with the rhapsodies of the imprudent poet. The latter, becoming more and more vehement, and, in proportion, more entertaining, the domestics finally gathered in a cluster around the door, to the number of six or eight, and, with suppressed laughter, overheard all that the excited and unguarded inmate chose to utter. That, however, was so incoherent, or at least of so high-flown a character, that the listeners could make nothing of it; and, as they could not, they immediately concluded it to be nonsense, and the speaker a madman. But there came one to the spot, at this unfortunate moment, who, with sharper intellect and more apt comprehension, at once discovered the meaning that lurked under the florid language of the poet's ill-timed soliloquies.
While the servants were crowded around the door of Chatelard's apartment, too intent on their amusement to notice the approach of any one, another party, we say, had advanced to within a few paces of where they stood. Here, with his arms folded across his breast, he had remained observed for several seconds, gazing with a look of surprise and displeasure on the merry group assembled around the poet's door. He was, however, at length discovered, when the knot of listeners instantly broke up in the greatest hurry and alarm.
"How now," exclaimed the unexpected intruder—a person of about thirty years of age, of rather slender form, of cold and haughty demeanour, and austere countenance—"How now?" he exclaimed, in a voice whose tones were naturally severe—"what means this idling?—what do ye all here, knaves, in place of attending to your duties?"
Instead of answering this question, the terrified domestics were now endeavouring to make off in all directions; but the querist's curiosity, or perhaps suspicion, having been excited by what he had seen, he instantly arrested their progress, by calling on them, in a voice of increased severity and vehemence, to stop.
"Come hither, Johnstone," he exclaimed, addressing one of the fugitives—"I must know what you have been all about." And, without waiting for an answer, "Who occupies this apartment?" he inquired, pointing to that in which was Chatelard.
"And please ye, my lord," replied Johnstone, bowing with the most profound respect—"ane that we think's no very wise. He's been bletherin awa there to himsel, saving yer honour's presence, like a bubbly-jock, for this half-hour back, and we can neither mak tap, tail, nor mane o' what he's sayin."
"What! a madman, Johnstone?" said the Earl of Murray, the queen's half-brother, for it was no less a personage; then hurriedly added, "Who is he?—what is he?—where is he from?—when came he hither?"
The man answered categorically—
"I dinna ken, my lord, wha he is; but, frae the thinness o' his chafts, I tak him to be ane o' your French laun-loupers. He cam to the palace about twa hours syne."