Chapter 31

Poison'd--ill fare!--dead, forsook, cast off!--
KING JOHN.

However weary Roland Graeme might be of the Castle of
Lochleven--however much he might wish that the plan for Mary's escape
had been perfected, I question if he ever awoke with more pleasing
feelings than on the morning after George Douglas's plan for
accomplishing her deliverance had been frustrated. In the first place,
he had the clearest conviction that he had misunderstood the innuendo
of the Abbot, and that the affections of Douglas were fixed, not on
Catherine Seyton, but on the Queen; and in the second place, from the
sort of explanation which had taken place betwixt the steward and him,
he felt himself at liberty, without any breach of honour towards the
family of Lochleven, to contribute his best aid to any scheme which
should in future be formed for the Queen's escape; and, independently
of the good-will which he himself had to the enterprise, he knew he
could find no surer road to the favour of Catherine Seyton. He now
sought but an opportunity to inform her that he had dedicated himself
to this task, and fortune was propitious in affording him one which
was unusually favourable.

At the ordinary hour of breakfast, it was introduced by the steward
with his usual forms, who, as soon as it was placed on the board in
the inner apartment, said to Roland Graeme, with a glance of sarcastic
import, "I leave you, my young sir, to do the office of sewer--it has
been too long rendered to the Lady Mary by one belonging to the house
of Douglas."

"Were it the prime and principal who ever bore the name," said Roland,
"the office were an honour to him."

The steward departed without replying to this bravade, otherwise than
by a dark look of scorn. Graeme, thus left alone, busied himself as
one engaged in a labour of love, to imitate, as well as he could, the
grace and courtesy with which George of Douglas was wont to render his
ceremonial service at meals to the Queen of Scotland. There was more
than youthful vanity--there was a generous devotion in the feeling
with which he took up the task, as a brave soldier assumes the place
of a comrade who has fallen in the front of battle. "I am now," he
said, "their only champion: and, come weal, come wo, I will be, to the
best of my skill and power, as faithful, as trustworthy, as brave, as
any Douglas of them all could have been."

At this moment Catherine Seyton entered alone, contrary to her custom;
and not less contrary to her custom, she entered with her kerchief at
her eyes. Roland Graeme approached her with beating heart and with
down-cast eyes, and asked her, in a low and hesitating voice, whether
the Queen were