So passed
away the first day in the Castle of Lochleven; and those which
followed it were, for some time, of a very monotonous and uniform
tenor.
Chapter the Twenty-Fourth.
'Tis a weary life this--
Vaults overhead, and grates and bars around me,
And my sad hours spent with as sad companions,
Whose thoughts are brooding: o'er their own mischances,
Far, far too deeply to take part in mine.
THE WOODSMAN.
The course of life to which Mary and her little retinue were doomed,
was in the last degree secluded and lonely, varied only as the weather
permitted or rendered impossible the Queen's usual walk in the garden
or on the battlements. The greater part of the morning she wrought
with her ladies at those pieces of needlework, many of which still
remain proofs of her indefatigable application. At such hours the page
was permitted the freedom of the castle and islet; nay, he was
sometimes invited to attend George Douglas when he went a-sporting
upon the lake, or on its margin; opportunities of diversion which were
only clouded by the remarkable melancholy which always seemed to brood
on that gentleman's brow, and to mark his whole demeanour,--a sadness
so profound, that Roland never observed him to smile, or to speak any
word unconnected with the immediate object of their exercise.
The most pleasant part of Roland's day, was the occasional space which
he was permitted to pass in personal attendance on the Queen and her
ladies, together with the regular dinner-time, which he always spent
with Dame Mary Fleming and Catharine Seyton.
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