--Poor Henry Darnley! to be an ass, he understood somewhat of a
hawk; but they sent him on the wing through the air himself one bright
moonlight night."
The memory of this catastrophe was so recent, that the page averted
his eyes with horror from the scathed ruins in which it had taken
place; and the accusations against the Queen, to which it had given
rise, came over his mind with such strength as to balance the
compassion he had begun to entertain for her present forlorn
situation.
It was, indeed, with that agitating state of mind which arises partly
from horror, but more from anxious interest and curiosity, that young
Graeme found himself actually traversing the scene of those tremendous
events, the report of which had disturbed the most distant solitudes
in Scotland, like the echoes of distant thunder rolling among the
mountains.
"Now," he thought, "now or never shall I become a man, and bear my
part in those deeds which the simple inhabitants of our hamlets repeat
to each other, as if they were wrought by beings of a superior order
to their own. I will know now, wherefore the Knight of Avenel carries
his crest so much above those of the neighbouring baronage, and how it
is that men, by valour and wisdom, work their way from the hoddin-gray
coat to the cloak of scarlet and gold. Men say I have not much wisdom
to recommend me; and if that be true, courage must do it; for I will
be a man amongst living men, or a dead corpse amongst the dead.
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