"Traitress!" she said to the Lady Fleming, "thou wouldst slay thy
sovereign--Call my French guards--_a moi! a moi! mes Fran?ais!_--
I am beset with traitors in mine own palace--they have murdered my
husband--Rescue! rescue for the Queen of Scotland!" She started up
from her chair--her features, late so exquisitely lovely in their
paleness, now inflamed with the fury of frenzy, and resembling those
of a Bellona. "We will take the field ourself," she said; "warn the
city--warn Lothian and Fife--saddle our Spanish barb, and bid French
Paris see our petronel be charged!--Better to die at the head of our
brave Scotsmen, like our grandfather at Flodden, than of a broken
heart, like our ill-starred father!"
"Be patient--be composed, dearest Sovereign," said Catherine: and then
addressing Lady Fleming angrily, she added, "How could you say aught
that reminded her of her husband?"
The word reached the ear of the unhappy Princess, who caught it up,
speaking with great rapidity. "Husband!--what husband?--Not his most
Christian Majesty--he is ill at ease--he cannot mount on
horseback.--Not him of the Lennox--but it was the Duke of Orkney thou
wouldst say."
"For God's love, madam, be patient!" said the Lady Fleming.
But the Queen's excited imagination could by no entreaty be diverted
from its course. "Bid him come hither to our aid," she said, "and
bring with him his lambs, as he calls them--Bowton, Hay of Talla,
Black Ormiston, and his kinsman Hob--Fie! how swart they are, and how
they smell of sulphur! What! closeted with Morton? Nay, if the Douglas
and the Hepburn hatch the complot together, the bird, when it breaks
the shell, will scare Scotland.
Pages:
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517