"
"You may spare your retainers the labour," replied Magdalen Graeme.
"I came not here to be confronted with a base groom, nor to answer the
interrogatories of James's heretical leman--I came to speak with the
Queen of Scotland--Give place there!"
And while the Lady Lochleven stood confounded at her boldness, and at
the reproach she had cast upon her, Magdalen Graeme strode past her
into the bedchamber of the Queen, and, kneeling on the floor, made a
salutation as if, in the Oriental fashion, she meant to touch the
earth with her forehead.
"Hail, Princess!" she said, "hail, daughter of many a King, but graced
above them all in that thou art called to suffer for the true
faith--hail to thee, the pure gold of whose crown has been tried in
the seven-times heated furnace of affliction--hear the comfort which
God and Our Lady send thee by the mouth of thy unworthy servant.--But
first"--and stooping her head she crossed herself repeatedly, and,
still upon her knees, appeared to be rapidly reciting some formula of
devotion.
"Seize her, and drag her to the massy-more!--to the deepest dungeon
with the sorceress, whose master, the Devil, could alone have inspired
her with boldness enough to insult the mother of Douglas in his own
castle!"
Thus spoke the incensed Lady of Lochleven, but the physician presumed
to interpose.
"I pray of you, honoured madam, she be permitted to take her course
without interruption. Peradventure we shall learn something concerning
the nostrum she hath ventured, contrary to law and the rules of art,
to adhibit to these ladies, through the medium of the steward
Dryfesdale.
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