Why, even crazed Arran had been man enough to entertain such a scheme, whilst he, Bothwell, was eating his own heart here at Hermitage. Well, stranger things had come to pass. He must watch and bide his time; must be wary, vigilant; above all, must be patient. It was a stirring season. For a bold man _nothing_ was impossible.
He replied at last, but cautiously and with reservations. If he joined the Protestant party, agreeing to act with Moray, Morton, and the rest, it must be under certain conditions; if he consented to a reconciliation with Arran, it must be accompanied with sundry stipulations which should be communicated hereafter at greater length. Even Maitland could not have been more mysterious, and the Reformer found himself wondering at the rapidity of a transformation which had changed the wild, reckless, border noble into a cold and scheming diplomatist.
He had attained his object, however, and that was enough for him. With a firm persuasion that he was furthering the good work, he took his leave of the earl, well-satisfied, resisting all hospitable importunities to remain, and even declining the offer of an escort to conduct him in safety through that lawless district.
‘My Master will care for me,’ said the preacher, as he prepared to leave the castle on horseback when the shades of night were closing in. ‘He who has sent me on my mission will provide for the safety of His servant!’ And so departed unarmed and alone.
Well might Morton hereafter pronounce over this dauntless nature its well-known epitaph, ‘There lies one that never feared the face of man.’
‘Bonny Kilmeny gaed up the glen, But it was na to meet wi’ Dunira’s men, Nor the rosy monk of the isle to see, For Kilmeny was pure as maiden could be.’
Walter Maxwell was ere this domiciled at Holyrood. Attached to the Queen’s household, and devoted to her person, Mary esteemed him not the least trustworthy of those servants in whom she placed implicit confidence. He had accompanied his sovereign on those roving expeditions in which she took so much pleasure, when the beautiful Stuart, worthy to reign over a nation of warriors, would pass entire days in the saddle, traversing her dominions, and making acquaintance with her subjects; or flying her hawk and following her deer-hounds over the wild moorlands, and amongst the romantic passes of her new kingdom. He had attended her in her progress to Aberdeen, that ill-advised journey which, commencing with merriment and festivity, the huntsman’s holloa and the cheering notes of the horn, ended in strife and bloodshed and the wild wailing of the coronach, cried by the widows of the Gordon over the flower of their clan.