"
"Nay, madam," said Melville, anxiously interfering, "ask not that
question of Lord Lindesay--And you, my lord, for shame--for decency--
forbear to reply to it."
"It is time that this lady should hear the truth," replied Lindesay.
"And be assured," said the Queen, "that she will be moved to anger by
none that you can tell her, my lord. There are cases in which just
scorn has always the mastery over just anger."
"Then know," said Lindesay, "that upon the field of Carberry-hill,
when that false and infamous traitor and murderer, James, sometime
Earl of Bothwell, and nicknamed Duke of Orkney, offered to do personal
battle with any of the associated nobles who came to drag him to
justice, I accepted his challenge, and was by the noble Earl of Morton
gifted with his good sword that I might therewith fight it out--Ah! so
help me Heaven, had his presumption been one grain more, or his
cowardice one grain less, I should have done such work with this good
steel on his traitorous corpse, that the hounds and carrion-crows
should have found their morsels daintily carved to their use !"
The Queen's courage well-nigh gave way at the mention of Bothwell's
name--a name connected with such a train of guilt, shame, and
disaster. But the prolonged boast of Lindesay gave her time to rally
herself, and to answer with an appearance of cold contempt--"It is
easy to slay an enemy who enters not the lists. But had Mary Stewart
inherited her father's sword as well as his sceptre, the boldest of
her rebels should not upon that day have complained that they had no
one to cope withal.
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