Chapter 21 - Page 2

coif, interrogated the domestic
who steered her barge to the shore, what had become of Lindesay and
Sir Robert Melville. The man related what had passed, and she smiled
scornfully as she replied, "Fools must be flattered, not foughten
with.--Row back--make thy excuse as thou canst--say Lord Ruthven hath
already reached this castle, and that he is impatient for Lord
Lindesay's presence. Away with thee, Randal--yet stay--what galopin
is that thou hast brought hither?"

"So please you, my lady, he is the page who is to wait upon----"

"Ay, the new male minion," said the Lady Lochleven; "the female
attendant arrived yesterday. I shall have a well-ordered house with
this lady and her retinue; but I trust they will soon find some others
to undertake such a charge. Begone, Randal--and you" (to Roland
Graeme) "follow me to the garden."

She led the way with a slow and stately step to the small garden,
which, enclosed by a stone wall ornamented with statues, and an
artificial fountain in the centre, extended its dull parterres on the
side of the court-yard, with which it communicated by a low and arched
portal. Within the narrow circuit of its formal and limited walks,
Mary Stewart was now learning to perform the weary part of a prisoner,
which, with little interval, she was doomed to sustain during the
remainder of her life. She was followed in her slow and melancholy
exercise by two female attendants; but in the first glance which
Roland Graeme bestowed upon one so illustrious by birth, so
distinguished by her beauty, accomplishments, and misfortunes, he was
sensible of the presence of no other than the unhappy Queen of
Scotland.

Her face, her form, have been so deeply impressed upon the
imagination, that even at the distance of nearly three centuries, it
is unnecessary to remind the most ignorant and uninformed reader of
the striking traits which characterize that remarkable countenance,
which seems at once to combine our ideas of the majestic, the
pleasing, and the brilliant, leaving us to doubt whether they express
most happily the queen, the beauty, or the accomplished woman. Who is
there, that, at the very mention of Mary Stewart's name, has not her
countenance before him, familiar as that of the mistress of his youth,
or the favourite daughter of his advanced age? Even those who feel
themselves compelled to believe all, or much, of what her enemies laid
to her charge, cannot think without a sigh upon a countenance
expressive of anything rather than the foul crimes with which she was
charged when living, and which still continue to shade, if not to
blacken, her memory. That brow, so truly open and regal--those
eyebrows, so regularly