Chapter 38

My native land, good night!
BYRON.

Many a bitter tear was shed, during the hasty flight of Queen Mary,
over fallen hopes, future prospects, and slaughtered friends. The
deaths of the brave Douglas, and of the fiery but gallant young
Seyton, seemed to affect the Queen as much as the fall from the
throne, on which she had so nearly been again seated. Catherine Seyton
devoured in secret her own grief, anxious to support the broken
spirits of her mistress; and the Abbot, bending his troubled thoughts
upon futurity, endeavoured in vain to form some plan which had a
shadow of hope. The spirit of young Roland--for he also mingled in the
hasty debates held by the companions of the Queen's flight--continued
unchecked and unbroken.

"Your Majesty," he said, "has lost a battle--Your ancestor, Bruce,
lost seven successively, ere he sat triumphant on the Scottish throne,
and proclaimed with the voice of a victor, in the field of
Bannockburn, the independence of his country. Are not these heaths,
which we may traverse at will, better than the locked, guarded, and
lake-moated Castle of Lochleven?--We are free--in that one word
there is comfort for all our losses."

He struck a bold note, but the heart of Mary made no response.

"Better," she said, "I had still been in Lochleven, than seen the
slaughter made by rebels among the subjects who offered themselves to
death for my sake. Speak not to me of farther efforts--they would only
cost the lives of you, the friends who recommend them! I would not
again undergo what I felt, when I saw from yonder mount the swords of
the fell horsemen of Morton raging among the faithful Seytons and
Hamiltons, for their loyalty to their Queen--I would not again feel
what I felt when Douglas's life-blood stained my mantle for his love
to Mary Stewart--not to be empress of all that Britain's seas enclose.
Find for me some place where I can hide my unhappy head, which brings
destruction on all who love it--it is the last favour that Mary asks
of her faithful followers."

In this dejected mood, but still pursuing her flight with unabated
rapidity, the unfortunate Mary, after having been joined by Lord
Herries and a few followers, at length halted, for the first time, at
the Abbey of Dundrennan, nearly sixty miles distant from the field of
battle. In this remote quarter of Galloway, the Reformation not having
yet been strictly enforced against the monks, a few still lingered in
their cells unmolested; and the Prior, with tears and reverence,
received the fugitive Queen at the gate of his convent.

"I bring you ruin, my good father," said the Queen, as she was lifted
from her palfrey.

"It