"Hush, hush, my friend!" said the marquis; "speak nought like treason. I know it all. My lord treasurer, or his deputy, cannot want the estates; and you must therefore submit to a charge of fire-raising as well as of murder."
"May my curse or my blessing—for I know not which is more likely to bring the worse consequences—rest upon them all, if they take from my race their own inheritance, because I, forsooth, have sent a hoary villain a little before his time to his account!"
"Speak not so harshly, kinsman; your sense of your own sufferings makes you unjust. Men say that these sufferings have been self-inflicted; but I will not say so. I come to learn if in aught I can mitigate them."
"Mitigate them, did you say? I ask no mitigation; for my life is now a burden. I ask no pity; I ask no sympathy I have but one possession which I can still call my own; it is not inherited; I cannot transmit it; it is my sole luxury, my sole treasure—and it is one which you will not covet. I have nought but my own misery that I can call my own—self-inflicted it may be; I dispute not about a word. But if it be self-inflicted, so much the more is it my own property. Forgive me, my lord, if I seem rude and hasty in temper; but I have scarce slept under a roof since, after long absence, I last touched my native soil, until last night, indeed, when I harboured here. I have been hunted by hounds of human breed; I have skulked in mosses, forests, and caverns, as familiarly as you have trodden the courts of palaces. Need you wonder I am worn to what I am—a mere skeleton-a wretched, decrepid thing—more like a being returned from the grave, than a living man?"
"It is but too true," said the marquis; "yet is there nought you would wish me to do? No token of affection to send to your friends——"
"Nothing—nothing."
The time of trial at length arrived, and Lord Maxwell was indicted for the crimes of murder and of fire-raising. The introduction of the latter charge was the cause of bitter complaint on the part of the prisoner; for he well knew that the object of the public authorities was to obtain the forfeiture of his estates; and the treasurer-depute, Sir Gideon Murray, was supposed to have instigated them to combine this minor accusation with the other. The crime of fire-raising, according to the ancient Scottish law, if perpetrated by a landed man, constituted a species of treason, and inferred forfeiture. The purpose of public justice, however, was, on this, as an other occasions in the same reign, sullied by being united with that of enriching some needy favourite. No difficulty was felt in proving either of the charges; the former, indeed, was not denied; and the latter was established by the evidence of some sufferers in the course of the first outrages committed after the battle of Dryffe Sands. The baron was found guilty of both crimes, and sentenced to be beheaded. Every effort was made to obtain pardon for him; but the king and his counsellors were inexorable.
On the night before the execution, Sir Robert Maxwell of Orchardstone, who was now very far advanced in years, visited his kinsman and chief, under the guidance of the Marquis of Hamilton.
"And it has come to this at last!" exclaimed the old man. "Would to heaven, my dear lord, you had listened to the prayer of your humble clansman, eighteen years ago. Brief time is left to make your peace. Some holy man may be able to soothe your mind, ruffled though it be."
"Mock me not, dear uncle," said the baron, in a tone of bitterness which startled the old man with horror. "Torture me not with talk about peace and holy men. They cannot give me peace—they cannot give me happiness on earth or in heaven. I am content with the share I have enjoyed. One gleam of sunshine has crossed my path—one fair flowret has blessed my sight—one spring has gladdened the weary wilderness—one human heart has been mine; and though it is mine no longer—though the flower has been blighted, and the bright gleam of happiness, now departed, has only made me more sensitive to the succeeding darkness, and the spring is dried, and the human heart lies in the dust—I ask no more. My cup of bliss is full—one drop has filled it. My heaven has been already enjoyed—no dotard can bring me tidings of weal or wo; I cannot part with it. Leave me, good uncle and good cousin. I would bless you, but my blessing might prove a curse."