"Well met, Lord Earl—good-morrow!" replied his evil mentor, in a whisper. "The whole city is agog now, and every voice is raised against the Lord Moray—a lucky infatuation for us. The blue banner hath been displayed by the convener of the corporations, whose thirty-three pennons are all unfurled; so the rascally craftsmen are fast mustering in their helmets for trouble and tulzie; while Craigmillar and the Lord Lindesay, with their lances, are coming in on the spur.—But whither goest thou?"
"There was a time," replied the Earl, bitterly, "when such a varlet as thou dared not have spoken thus to Bothwell."
"True," replied the other, with a sardonic grin; "but _guilt_, like misfortune, levels all men. Tarry—the queen"——
"No, no—I must see her! Not hell itself shall keep me from her!"
"Ha! ha!" laughed Ormiston, as the Earl ascended the staircase; "odsbody! why, a stone wall or a stout cord would keep a stronger lover than thee well enow."
Bothwell felt now all the humility and agony of being in the power of this unscrupulous ruffian, and he sighed bitterly more than once as he advanced towards the royal apartments.
"Now," thought he, "must I doubly dye my soul in guilt—the guilt of black hypocrisy. Oh, to be what I have been! How dark are the clouds—how many the vague alarms—that involve the horizon of my fate! Last night—and the recollection of that irreparable deed—could I blot them from memory, happiness might yet be mine."
A crowd of yeomanry of the guard, in their scarlet gaberdines, with long poniards and partisans; archers in green, with bent bows and bristling arrows; pages in glittering dresses, and gentlemen in waiting, all variously armed, made way at the entrance of the queen’s apartments, near the door marked with Rizzio’s blood. After a brief preliminary it was opened—the heavy Gobeline tapestry was raised, and the earl found himself in the presence of—Mary.
When he beheld her, every scruple and regret, every remnant of remorse again evaporated, and he felt that he had done nothing that he would not repeat.
She was plainly and hurriedly attired in a sacque of blue Florence silk, tied with a tassel round her waist. The absence of her high ruff revealed more than usual of her beautifully delicate neck and swelling bosom; while the want of her long peaked stays and stiffened skirts, displayed all the grace and contour of her graceful form. Save the rings that flashed on her fingers, she was without jewels; and in a profusion, such as the Earl had never seen before—her bright and luxuriant auburn hair fell unbound upon her shoulders, covered only by a square of white lace, a long and sweeping veil, that (as old Juvenal says), "like a tissue of woven air," floated around her. Her snow-white feet were without stockings, for she had just sprung from bed, and the short slippers of blue velvet shewed her delicately veined insteps and taper ankles in all their naked beauty.