This altered matters considerably. The royal signet-ring was esteemed a voucher for any one who bore it, and all guards, warders, and such officers of the sovereign, had strict orders to consider it in the light of a direct communication from Majesty itself. So Ogilvy, taking down a torch from the wall, proceeded to the wicket in person.
On arriving there, he encountered a female figure, cloaked and hooded, that after a moment’s hesitation he recognised as Mary Hamilton, and half-watching over her, half-sheltering himself behind her, much after the manner of a faithful dog, but with less expression of countenance than that sagacious animal, the ungainly figure and broad unmeaning face of James Geddes, the fool.
Ogilvy knew the maid-of-honour personally well enough; also, on the universal principle (for though she was not the rose to him, she had been _near_ the rose), he was disposed to oblige her for the sake of Mary Beton, and bowing courteously, begged to know if she had any authority, at that late hour, to enter the castle.
‘I have come to visit a prisoner,’ replied she in a hard-set voice, showing him at the same time the Queen’s signet-ring, which James Geddes watched as if he expected the captain of the guard would swallow it at a gulp.
Ogilvy bowed and withdrew the many bolts and bars that secured the wicket, then calling a soldier to fasten them again, preceded his visitors along the vaulted passage that led from the entrance to the guard-room. Mary Hamilton shuddered as she heard the gate clang to behind her; and the fool looked more than half-inclined to draw back and abandon his adventure at the outset, but a glance at his protectress reassured the latter, and the former, seeming, as it were, by a violent effort to adopt a fresh part, assumed an air of gaiety and carelessness strangely at variance with her bloodless face and horror-stricken eyes.
Arrived in the light of the guard-room, she produced an ample stone-bottle from beneath her cloak, and placed it on the rude oak table.
‘The Queen has not sent me to visit her brave soldiers empty-handed,’ said she, with a wild, dreary smile. ‘While I am about Her Majesty’s business, I hope they will drink Her Majesty’s health.’