--Catherine, _ma mignone_,
you must sleep in my apartment to-night, and bid me welcome to your
noble father's castle.--Thanks, thanks to all my kind deliverers--
thanks, and a good night is all I can now offer; but if I climb once
more to the upper side of Fortune's wheel, I will not have her
bandage. Mary Stewart will keep her eyes open, and distinguish her
friends.--Seyton, I need scarcely recommend the venerable Abbot, the
Douglas, and my page, to your honour able care and hospitality."
Henry Seyton bowed, and Catherine and Lady Fleming attended the Queen
to her apartment; where, acknowledging to them that she should have
found it difficult in that moment to keep her promise of holding her
eyes open, she resigned herself to repose, and awakened not till the
morning was advanced.
Mary's first feeling when she awoke, was the doubt of her freedom; and
the impulse prompted her to start from bed, and hastily throwing her
mantle over her shoulders, to look out at the casement of her
apartment. Oh, sight of joy! instead of the crystal sheet of
Lochleven, unaltered save by the influence of the wind, a landscape of
wood and moorland lay before her, and the park around the castle was
occupied by the troops of her most faithful and most favourite nobles.
"Rise, rise, Catherine," cried the enraptured Princess; "arise and
come hither!--here are swords and spears in true hands, and glittering
armour on loyal breasts. Here are banners, my girl, floating in the
wind, as lightly as summer clouds--Great God! what pleasure to my
weary eyes to trace their devices--thine own brave father's--the
princely Hamilton's--the faithful Fleming's--See--see--they have
caught a glimpse of me, and throng towards the window!"
She flung the casement open, and with her bare head, from which the
tresses flew back loose and dishevelled, her fair arm slenderly veiled
by her mantle, returned by motion and sign the exulting shouts of the
warriors, which echoed for many a furlong around.
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