passages from the life of mary stuart.

chastelar.

“fired by an object so sublime, what could i choose but strive to climb? and as i strove i fell. at least ’tis love, when hope is gone, through shame and ruin to love on.”—anon.

the last flush of day had not yet faded from the west, although the summer moon was riding above the verge of the eastern horizon, in a flood of mellow glory, with the diamond-spark of lucifer glittering in solitary brightness at her side. it was one of those enchanting evenings which, peculiar to the southern lands of europe, visit, but at far and fleeting intervals, the sterner clime of britain. not italy, however, could herself have boasted a more delicious twilight than this, which now was waning into night, above the rude magnificence of scotland’s capital. the fantastic dwellings of the city, ridge above ridge, loomed broadly to the left, partially veiled by those wreaths of vapor, which have been the origin of its provincial name; while, far above the misty indistinctness of the town, the glorious castle towered aloft upon its craggy throne, displaying a hundred fronts of massive shadow, and as many salient angles jutting abruptly into sight. the lovely vale of the king’s park, with its velvet turf and shadowy foliage, shone out306 in quiet lustre from beneath the dark-gray buttresses of arthur’s seat; while from the trim alleys and pleached evergreens, which at that day formed a belt of lawn, and shrubbery, and royal garden, around the venerable pile of holyrood, the rich song of the throstle—the nightingale of scotland—came in repeated bursts upon the ear.

delightful as such an evening must naturally be to all who have hearts awake to the influence of sweet sounds and lovely sights, how inexpressibly soothing must it seem to one who, languishing beneath the ungenial atmosphere of a northern region, and sighing for the bluer skies and softer breezes of his fatherland, feels himself at once transported, by the unusual aspect of the heavens, to the distant home of his regrets! it was, perhaps, some fancied similarity to the nights in which he had been wont to court the favor of the high-born dames of france with voice and instrument, that had awakened the melody of some foreign cavalier, more suitable perchance to the light murmurs of the seine than to the distant booming of the seas that lash the coasts of scotland. such, however, was the illusion produced by the unwonted softness of the hour, that the tinkling of a lute and the full, manly voice of the singer did not at the moment seem so inconsistent to the spirit of the country and of the times as in truth it was. the words were french, and the air, though sweet, so melancholy, that it left a vague sensation of pain upon the listener—as though none but a heart diseased could give birth to notes so plaintive. “pensez à moi! pensez à moi!—noble dame—pensez à moi!”—the burden of the strain swelled clearly audible in the deepest tones of feeling, although the intermediate words were lost amid the accompaniment of the silver strings. never, perhaps, since the unfortunate chatelain de concy first chanted his extemporaneous farewell to the lady of his heart, had his simple words been sung with taste or execution more appropriate to their subject.307 in truth, it was impossible to listen to the lay without feeling a conviction that the heart of the minstrel was in his song. there were, moreover, moments in which a practised ear might have discovered variations, not in the tune only, but in the words, as the singer exerted his unrivalled powers to adapt the text, which he had chosen, to his own peculiar circumstances; nor would it have required more than a common degree of fancy to have traced the sounds, “o reine marie!” mingling with the proper refrain of the chant, although it would have been less easy to distinguish whether the fervent expression with which the words were invested was applied to an object of mortal idolatry or of immortal adoration. it would seem, however, that there were listeners near, to whom this doubt had not so much as once occurred; for in a shadowy bower, not far distant from the spot where the concealed musician sang, there stood a group of ladies, drinking with breathless eagerness every note that issued from his lips. foremost in place, as first in rank, was one whose charms have been said and sung, not by the poet and the romancer only, but by the muse of history herself, who almost seems to have dipped her graver pencil in the hues of fiction when describing mary stuart of scotland. her form, rather below than above the middle stature of the female form, was fashioned with such perfect elegance, that it was equally calculated to exhibit the extremes of grace and majesty. her ringlets of the deepest auburn, glancing in the light with a glossy, golden lustre, and melting into shadows of dark chestnut; the statue-like contour of her grecian head; her eyes, on which no man had ever gazed with impunity to his heart—more languid and at the same time far more brilliant than those of created beauty; her mouth, whose wreathed smile might have almost tempted angels to descend and worship; her swan-like neck of dazzling whiteness; and, above all, the glorious blending of feminine ease with regal dignity—of condescension308 and affability toward the meanest of her fellow-men, with the exalted consciousness of all that was due, not to her rank, but to herself—combined to render her perhaps the loveliest, as after-events proved her beyond a doubt the most unfortunate, of queens or women. sorrow at this time had scarcely cast a shadow on that transparent brow; or, if an occasional recollection of the ill-fated francis did leave a trace behind, it was a sadness of that gentle and spiritualized description which is, perhaps, a more attractive expression to be marked in the features of a lovely woman, than the full blaze of happiness and self-enjoyment. simple almost to plainness in her attire, the queen of scotland moved before her four attendant maries, ten thousand times more lovely from the contrast of her unadornment to the gorgeous dresses of those noble dames, who had been selected to be near her person, with especial regard, not to exalted rank alone, or to the distinctive name, which they bore in common with their royal mistress, but to intellect, and beauty, and all those accomplishments which, general as they are in our day, were then at least as highly valued for their rarity, as for their intrinsic merits. a robe of sable velvet, with the closely-fitted corsage peculiar to the age in which she lived, a falling ruff from the fairest looms of flanders, and the picturesque head-gear which has ever borne her name, with its double tressure of pearls, and a single string of the same precious jewels around her neck, completed mary’s dress, while rustling trains of many-colored satin, guarded with costly laces and stomachers studded with gems, bracelets, and carcanets, and chains of goldsmith’s work, gleamed on the persons of her ladies. still the demeanor of the little group was more in accordance to the simplicity of the mistress than to the splendor of the others. no rigid etiquette was there; none of that high and haughty ceremonial which, in the courtly festivals of the rival queen of england, froze up the feelings even of those trusted309 few who bore with the caprices, in seeking for the favors, of elizabeth. the titles of grace and majesty were lisped indeed by the lips of the fair damsels, but the character of their remarks, the polished raillery, the light laugh, and the freedom of intercourse, were rather those of the younger members of a family toward an elder sister, than of a court-circle toward a powerful queen. as the last notes of the song died away, she who was nearest to mary’s person whispered in a sportive tone, “your grace has heard that lute before—”

“in france, carmichael,” answered mary, with a breath so deeply drawn as almost to resemble a sigh, “in our beautiful france; when, when shall i look upon that lovely land again.”

while she was yet speaking the music recommenced. a dash of impatience was mingled with the plaintive sweetness of the strain, and the words “pensez à moi” swept past their ears with all the energy of disappointed feelings.

“it is the voice—”

“of the sieur de chastelar,” interrupted the queen; “we would thank the gentleman for his minstrelsey. seyton, ma mignonne, hie thee across yon woodbine-maze, and summon this night-warbler to our presence.”

with an arch smile the lively girl bounded forward, and was for an instant lost among the foliage of the garden.

“dost thou remember, carmichael,” said the queen, whose thoughts had been reflected by the well-remembered strains—“dost thou remember our sylvan festivals in the lovely groves of versailles, with hound and hawk for noonday pastime, and the lute, the song, and the unfettered dance upon the green sward, beneath moons unclouded by the hazy gloom of this dark scotland’s?”

“and does your grace remember,” laughed the other in reply, “a certain fête in which the palm of minstrelsey was awarded by your royal hand to a masked hunter of the forest? yet310 was his bearing somewhat gentle for a ranger of the green-wood, and his hand was passing white to have handled the tough bow-string? does your grace’s memory serve to recall the air whose executions gained that prize of harmony? methinks it did run somewhat thus,”—and she warbled the same notes which had formed the burthen of the serenade.

whether some distant recollections conjured up the mantling color to the cheeks of mary, or whether she dreaded the misconstruction of the serenader, on his hearing his own tender words repeated in a voice of female melody, it was with brow, neck and bosom of the deepest crimson that she turned to mary carmichael—

“peace, silly minion!” she said, with momentary dignity; “wouldst have it said that mary of scotland is so light of bearing as to trill love-ditties in reply to unseen ballad-mongers? nay, weep not neither, marie; if i spoke somewhat shortly, ’twas that the gentleman was even then approaching. cheer up, my girl; thou hast, we know it well, a kind, a gentle, and a trusty heart, though nature has coupled the gift to that of a thoughtless head and random tongue. take not on thus, or i shall blame myself in that i checked thee, though surely not unkindly. mary of stuart loves better far to look upon a smiling lip than a wet eye, even if it be a stranger’s—much less that of one whom she loves—as i love thee, carmichael.”

there was, perhaps, no circumstance more remarkable than the power which, at every period of her momentous life, mary appears to have possessed of winning, as it were at a glance, the affections of all who came in contact with her. the deep devotion, not of the barons and the military chiefs alone, who bled in defence of her cause, but of the ladies, the pages, the chamberlains of her court, nay, of the very grooms and servitors, with whom she could have held no intercourse beyond a311 smile or inclination of the head, in return for their lowly obeisance, was ever ready for the proof, when circumstances might demand its exercise. not shown by outward acts of heroism only, or by those deeds which men are wont to perform, no less at the instigation of their wishes for renown, or of rivalry with some more famed competitor, this devotion was constantly manifested in the eagerness of all around her to execute even the most menial duties to mary’s satisfaction; in the promptness to anticipate her slightest wish; in the lively joy which one kind word from her could awaken, as if by magic, on every brow; and, above all, in the utter despondency which seemed to sink down upon those whom she might deem it necessary to check, even with the slightest remonstrance. in the present instance the sensitive girl, to whom the queen had uttered her commands in the nervous quickness of excitement, rather than with any feeling of harshness or offended pride, felt, it was evident, more bitterness of grief at the rebuke of one whom she loved no less than she revered, than she would have experienced beneath the pressure of some real calamity. as quickly, however, as the sense of sorrow had been excited, did it pass away, before the returning smiles, the soft caresses, and the winning manners of the most fascinating of women the most amiable of superiors.

scarcely had the tears of mary carmichael ceased to flow, when the footsteps, which for some moments previously had been heard approaching, sounded close at hand; the branches of the embowering shrubbery were gently put asunder, and the lady seyton stood again before the queen, attended by a gentleman of noble aspect, and whose very gesture was fraught with that easy and graceful politeness which, perhaps, showed even more to advantage in that iron age and warlike country, displayed, as it often was, in contrast to the rude demeanor and stern simplicity of the warrior lords of scotland, than in his312 native france.

the sieur de chastelar was at this time in the very prime of youthful manhood, and might have been some few years, and but few, the senior of the lovely being before whose presence he bent in adoration humbler, and more fervently expressed, than the reverence due from a mere subject to a mortal queen. tall and fairly-proportioned, with a countenance in which almost feminine softness of expression was blended, with an aspect of the eye and lip, which proved the vicinity of bolder and more manly qualities, slumbering but not extinct, he seemed at the first glance a man most eminently qualified to win a female heart. and who, that looked upon the broad and massive brow, and the quick glance of that eye, fraught with intelligence, could doubt but that the mind within was equal to the more perishable beauties of the form in which it was encompassed? and when to all this was added, that the sieur de chastelar had already won a name in his green youth that ranked with those of gray-haired veterans in the lists of glory; that in all manly exercises, as in all softer accomplishments, he owned no superior; that the most skilful master of defence, the far-famed vicentio saviola, confessed de chastelar his equal in the quickness of eye, the readiness of hand and foot which had combined to render him the most distinguished swordsman of the day; that the wildest and most untameable chargers that ever were compelled to undergo the manége, might as well have striven to shake off a portion of themselves, as to dismount de chasteler by any display of violence and power; that his hand could draw the cloth-yard arrow to the head, and speed it to its aim as truly as the fleetest archer that ever twanged a bow in sherwood; that he moved in the stately measure of the pavon, or the livelier galliarde, with that grace peculiar to his nation; that, in the richness of his voice, his execution and taste on lute or guitar, he might have vied with the sons of italy herself;313 in short, that all perfections which were deemed most requisite to form a gentleman were united in de chastelar, what female heart, that was not proof to all the allurements of love or fancy, could hope to make an adequate resistance? young, handsome, romantic, ardent in his hopes, enthusiastic almost to madness in his affections, he had been captivated years before in the gay salons of the french capitol, by the beauty and irresistible fascinations of the princess.

in the intercourse of french society, which even in the times of the medici, as it has been in all succeeding ages, was far more liberal in its distinctions, and less restricted by the formalities of etiquette, than in any other court, a thousand opportunities had occurred, by which the youthful cavalier had profited to rivet the attention of the princess; at every carousel he bore her colors; in every masque he introduced some delicate allusion, some soft flattery, palpable to her alone; in every contest of musical skill, which yet survived in paris, the sole remnant of the troubadours, some covert traces of his passion might be discovered, if not by every ear, at least by that of mary. intoxicated as she was, at this stage of her life, by the adulation of all, by the consciousness of beauty, power, and rank, far above all her fellows, the queen of scotland owed much of her misery in after-years to the unclouded brilliancy of her youthful prospects, and to the wide distinction between the manners of that court, in which her happiest hours were spent; and of her northern subjects, by whom her gaieté de cour, her love for society less formal than the routine of courts, and her predilections for all innocent amusements, were ever looked upon in the light of grave derelictions from decorum and morality.

that she had regarded the gallant boy, whose accomplishments were so constantly before her eyes, with favorable inclinations was not to be doubted; and that at times she had lavished upon him marks of her good will in rather too profuse a314 degree, was no less true; but whether this line of conduct was dictated merely by a natural impulse, which ever leads us to distinguish those whom we approve from the common herd of our acquaintance, or by a warmer feeling, can never now be ascertained. it mattered not, however, to the youth, from which cause the conduct of the lovely princess was derived; it was enough for him that she had marked his attentions, that she had deigned to look upon him with favorable eyes, that she might at some future period learn to love.

not long, however, was it permitted to him to indulge in those fair but fallacious dreams; the marriage of the scottish princess with the royal francis was ere long publicly announced, the ceremonies of the betrothal, and lastly of the wedding itself, were solemnized with all the pomp and splendor of the mightiest realm in europe, and the aspirations of the united nations ascended in behalf of francis and his lovely bride.

it was then, for the first time, that mary was rendered fully aware of the misery which her unthinking freedom had entailed upon the ardent nature of de chastelar; it was then, for the first time, that she learned how deep and powerful had been the passion which he had nourished in his heart of hearts—that she was awakened to a consciousness that she was loved, not wisely, but too well. heretofore she had believed, that the eagerness of the gay and gallant frenchman to display his equestrian skill, his musical accomplishments, before her presence, and as it were in her behalf, and the devotedness with which he turned all his powers to a single object, were rather to be attributed to a desire of gaining general approbation as a gentle cavalier, a slave to beauty, and a favored servant of earth’s loveliest lady, than to a passion, the romance of which, considering the wide distinction of their sphere, would have amounted to actual insanity. now she perceived, to her deep regret, that the arrow had been shot home, and that the barb315 had taken hold too firmly to be disengaged by a sudden effort, how vehement soever. she saw, in the pale cheek and hollow eye, that he had cherished hopes which reason and reality must bid him discard, at once and for ever; but which he yet had not the fortitude to tear up by the roots, and cast into oblivion. for a time he had wandered about, a spectre of his former person, among the festivities and happiness of all around him, paler every day, and more abstracted in his mien; then he had exiled himself at once from rejoicings in which he could have no share, and had buried his hopes, his anxieties, his misery, in the loneliness of his own secluded chamber.

thus had passed weeks and months; and when at length he had come forth again to join the world and all its vanities, he was, as it seemed to all, a wiser and a sadder man. the queen, ever kind and affectionate in her disposition, imagining that he had struggled with the demon which possessed him, and cast his hopeless love behind him, met his return to the courtly circle with her wonted condescension. on his preferring his request to be installed her chamberlain, willing to mark her high sense of his imagined integrity, in thus manfully shaking off his weakness, she granted his request; and trusting that his own acuteness would readily perceive the distinction between royal favor to a trusted servant and feminine affections to a preferred lover, assumed nothing of formality or etiquette, more than had characterized their former days of unrestricted intercourse. her own first trial followed; the first year of her nuptials had not yet flown, when the gallant francis, the earliest, the worthy object of her young love, sickened with a disease which from its very commencement permitted but slight hopes of his recovery. then came the wretchedness of anxiety, hoping all things, yet too well aware that all was hopeless; the watchings by his feverish bed, when watching,316 it was too obvious, could be of no avail; the agony when the announcement that all was over, long foreseen, but never to be endured, burst on her mind; the long, heart-rending sorrow, the repinings after pleasures that were never to return; and, last of all, the cold, stern carelessness of despair. she awoke at length from her lethargy of wo; awoke to leave the lovely climate which she had learned almost to deem her own; to be torn from the friends whom she had loved, and the society of which she had been the brightest gem, to return to a country which, though it was the country of her birth, had never conjured up to her imagination any pictures save of a gloomy hue and melancholy nature.

a few who had served her in the sunny land of france adhered to her with unshaken resolution, despising all inconveniences, setting at naught all dangers, save that separation from a mistress, whom, to have attended once, was to love for ever. among those few was de chastelar. the alteration in her condition had undoubtedly suggested to the widowed queen the necessity of an alteration in her conduct toward de chastelar, particularly when it was added, that familiarity between a creature so young and lovely as herself and a gentleman so noble, even in his melancholy, as the chamberlain, would have at once excited the indignation of her stern and rigid subjects. in these circumstances it would perhaps have been a wiser, though not a more considerate plan, to have confided the cause of her embarrassment to the causer of it, and to have requested his absence from her court. it was not, however, in mary’s nature to give pain, if she could possibly avoid it, to the meanest animal, much less to a friend valued and esteemed, as he who was the innocent cause of her anxiety. she adopted, therefore, what, being always the most easy, is ever the most dangerous, an intermediate course. in public de chastelar received no marks of approbation from the queen, much less of317 regard from the woman; but in her hours of retirement, when surrounded by the ladies of her court, the most of whom had followed her footsteps northward from gay paris, she delighted to efface from his mind the recollections of neglect before the eyes of the censorious scots, by a delicacy of attention, and a warmth of friendship, which, while it fully answered her end of soothing his wounded feelings, led him to cherish ideas most fatal in the end to his own happiness, and to that of the fair being whom he so adored. it was with a heightened color and throbbing breast that mary turned to address her unconfessed lover, yet there was no flutter in the clear, soft voice with which she spoke.

“we would thank,” she said, “the sieur de chastelar for the delightful sounds by which he has rendered our walk on this sweet evening even more agreeable than the mild air and cloudless heaven could have done without his minstrelsey. yet ’twas a mournful strain, de chastelar,” she continued, “and one which, if we err not, flows from a wounded heart. would that we knew the object of so true a servant’s worship, that we might whisper our royal pleasure in her ear, that she should list the suit of one whom we regard so highly. is she in truth so obdurate, this fair of thine, de chastelar? she must be hard of heart to slight so gallant a cavalier.”

“not so, your grace,” replied the astonished lover, in a voice scarcely less sonorous than the music he had made so lately. “she to whom all my vows are paid, she who has ever owned the passionate aspirations of a devoted heart, is as pre-eminently raised in all the sweet and amiable sentiments of the mind as is unrivalled beauty above all mortal beings.”

for an instant the queen was dumb; she had hoped, by affecting ignorance of his sentiments, that she should have been enabled to make him comprehend the madness, the utter inutility of his passion, and she felt that she had failed; that318 words had been addressed to her, which, however she might feign to others that she had not perceived their bearing, he must be well aware she could not possibly have failed to understand. it was with an altered mien and with an air of cold and haughty dignity, that she again addressed him as she passed onward toward the palace.

“we wish thee, then, fair sir, a better fortune hereafter, and until then good night.” without uttering a syllable in reply, he bowed himself almost to the earth; nor did he raise his head again until the form he loved to look upon had vanished from his sight: then slowly lifting his eyes he gazed wistfully after her, dashed his hand violently upon his brow, and turning aside rushed hastily from the spot.

an hour had scarcely elapsed before the lights were extinguished throughout the vaulted halls of holyrood; the guards were posted for the night, the officers had gone their rounds, the ladies of the royal circle were dismissed, and all was darkness and silence. in mary’s chamber a single lamp was burning in a small recess, before a beautifully-executed painting of the virgin, but light was not sufficient to penetrate the obscurity which reigned in the many angles and alcoves of that irregular apartment, although the moonbeams were admitted through the open casement.

her garb of ceremony laid aside, her lovely shape scantily veiled by a single robe of spotless linen, her auburn tresses flowing in unrestrained luxuriance almost to her feet, if she had been a creature of perfect human beauty, when viewed in all the pomp of royal pageantry, she now appeared a being of supernatural loveliness. her small white feet, unsandalled, glided over the rich carpet with a grace which a slight degree of fancy might have deemed the motion peculiar to the inhabitants of another world. for an instant, ere she turned to her repose, she leaned against the carved mullions of the window,319 and gazed pensively, and it might be sadly, upon the garden, where she had so lately parted from the unhappy youth, whose life was thus embittered by that very feeling which, above all others, should have been its consolation. withdrawing her eyes from the moonlit scene, she knelt before the lamp and the shrine which it illuminated, and her whispered orisons arose pure as the source from which they flowed; the prayers of a weak and humble mortal, penitent for every trivial error, breathing all confidence to him who alone can protect or pardon; the prayers of a queen for her numerous children, and last, and holiest of all, a woman’s prayers for her unfortunate admirer. yes, she prayed for chastelar, that strength might be given to him from on high, to bear the crosses of a miserable life, and that by divine mercy the hopeless love might be uprooted from his breast. the words burst passionately from her lips, her whole frame quivered with the excess of her emotion, and the big tears fell like rain from her uplifted eyes. while she was yet in the very flood of passion a sigh was breathed, so clearly audible, that the conviction flashed like lightning on her soul, that this most secret prayer was listened to by other ears than those of heavenly ministers. terror, acute terror took possession of her mind, banishing, by its superior violence, every less engrossing idea. she snatched the lamp from its niche, waved it slowly around the chamber, and there, in the most hallowed spot of her widowed chamber, a spy upon her unguarded moments, stood a dark figure. even in that moment of astonishment and fear, as if by instinct, the beautiful instinct of purely female modesty, she snatched a velvet mantle from the seat on which it had been cast aside, and veiled her person even before she spoke—“o god! it is de chastelar!”

“sweet queen,” replied the intruder, “bright, beautiful ruler of my destinies, pardon—”

320 “what ho!” she screamed, in notes of dread intensity, “à moi, à moi mes fran?ais. my guards! seyton! carmichael! fleming! will ye leave your queen alone! alone with treachery and black dishonor! villain! slave!” she cried, turning her flashing eyes upon him, her whole form swelling as it were with all the fury of injured innocence, “didst thou dare to think that mary—mary, the wife of francis—the anointed queen of scotland, would brook thine infamous addresses? nay, kneel not, or i spurn thee! what ho! will no one aid in mine extremity?”

“fear naught from me,” faltered the wretched chastelar, but with a voice like that of some inspired pythoness she broke in—“fear! thinkst thou that i could fear a thing, an abject coward thing like thee? a wretch that would exult in the infamy of one whom he pretends to love? fear thee! by heavens! if i could have feared, contempt must have forbidden it.”

“nay, mary, hear me! hear me but one word, if that word cost my life—”

“thy life! hadst thou ten thousand lives, they would be but a feather in the scale against thy monstrous villany. what ho!” again she cried, stamping with impotent anger at the delay of her attendants, “treason! my guards! treason!”

at length the passages rang with the hurried footsteps of the startled inmates of the palace; with torch and spear, and brandished blades, they rushed into the apartment; page, sentinel, and chamberlain, ladies with dishevelled hair, and faces blanched with terror. the queen stood erect in the centre of the room, pointing, with one white arm bare to the shoulder, toward the wretched culprit, who, with folded arms, and head erect, awaited his doom in unresisting silence. his naked rapier, with which alone he might have foiled the united efforts of his enemies, lay at his feet; his brow was white as sculptured marble, and no less rigid, but his eyes glared wildly, and his lips quivered as though he would have321 spoken.

the queen, still furious at the wrong which he had done her fame, marked the expression. “silence!” she cried—“degraded! wouldst thou meanly beg thy forfeit life? wert thou my father, thou shouldst die to-morrow! hence with the villain! bid maitland execute the warrant. ourself—ourself will sign it—away! chastelar dies at daybreak!”

“’tis well,” replied he, calmly, “it is well—the lips i love the best pronounce my doom, and i die happy, since i die for mary. wouldst thou but pity the offender, while thou dost doom the offence, de chastelar would not exchange his shortened span of life, and violent death, for the brightest crown in christendom. my limbs may die—my love will live for ever! lead on, minions; i am more glad to die than ye to slay! mary, beautiful mary, think—think hereafter upon chastelar!”

the guards passed onward; last of the group, unfettered and unmoved, de chastelar stalked after them. once, ere he stooped beneath the low-browed portal, he paused, placed both hands on his heart, bowed lowly, and then pointed upward, as he chanted once again the words, “pensez à moi, noble dame, pensez à moi.” as he vanished from her presence she waved her hand impatiently to be left alone—and all night long she traversed and re-traversed the floor of her chamber, in paroxysms of the fiercest despair. the warrant was brought to her—silently, sternly, she traced her signature beneath it; not a sign of sympathy was on her pallid features, not a tremor shook her frame; she was passionless, majestic, and unmoved. the secretary left the chamber on his fatal errand, and mary was again a woman. prostrate upon her couch she lay, sobbing and weeping as though her very soul was bursting from her bosom, defying all consolation, spurning every offer at remedy. “’tis done!” she would say, “’tis done! i have preserved my322 fame, and murdered mine only friend!”

the morning dawned slowly, and the heavy bells of all the churches clanged the death-peal of de chastelar. the tramp of the cavalry defiling from the palace-gates struck on her heart as though each hoof dashed on her bosom. an hour passed away, the minute-bells still tolling; the roar of a culverin swept heavily downward from the castle, and all was over. he had died as he had lived, undaunted—as he had lived, devoted! “mary, divine mary,” were his latest words, “i love in death, as i loved in life, thee, and thee only.” the axe drank his blood, and the queen of scotland had not a truer servant left behind than he, whom, for a moment’s frenzy, she was compelled to slay. yet was his last wish satisfied; for though the queen might not relent, the woman did forgive; and in many a mournful hour did mary think on chastelar.