The ill
humour of Roland Graeme was never of an obstinate character. It rolled
away like mist before the sun, and he was easily engaged in a keen and
animated dissertation about Lochleven trout, and sea trout, and river
trout, and bull trout, and char, which never rise to a fly, and par,
which some suppose infant salmon, and _herlings_, which frequent
the Nith, and _vendisses_, which are only found in the
Castle-Loch of Lochmaben; and he was hurrying on with the eager
impetuosity and enthusiasm of a young sportsman, when he observed that
the smile with which the Queen at first listened to him died languidly
away, and that, in spite of her efforts to suppress them, tears rose
to her eyes. He stopped suddenly short, and, distressed in his turn,
asked, "If he had the misfortune unwittingly to give displeasure to
her Grace?"
"No, my poor boy," replied the Queen; "but as you numbered up the
lakes and rivers of my kingdom, imagination cheated me, as it will do,
and snatched me from these dreary walls away to the romantic streams
of Nithsdale, and the royal towers of Lochmaben.--O land, which my
fathers have so long ruled! of the pleasures which you extend so
freely, your Queen is now deprived, and the poorest beggar, who may
wander free from one landward town to another, would scorn to change
fates with Mary of Scotland!"
"Your highness," said the Lady Fleming, "will do well to withdraw."
"Come with me, then, Fleming," said the Queen, "I would not burden
hearts so young as these are, with the sight of my sorrows.
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