taken his seat, and given directions regarding his own arraignment. The jury consisted principally, if not wholly, of the favourers of the earl; the law officers of the crown were either in his interest, or overawed into silence, no witnesses were summoned, the indictment was framed with a flaw too manifest to be accidental, and his accuser, the Earl of Lennox, who was on his road to the city, surrounded by a large force of his friends, had received an order not to enter the town with more than six in his company. **The jury were then chosen, the earl pleaded not guilty, and, in the absence of all evidence, an unanimous verdict of acquittal was pronounced."

At the opening of the parliament, Mary chose Bothwell to bear the crown and sceptre before her,

and

writing as occasion serves. I wald ye reif this after
the reading; this bearer knows nothing of this mat-
ter. There is no other thing presently to write of;
but after all you will please receive my heartly com-
mendations by him that is your's, that took you by
the hand. At midnight."

ler's forcible words:--
The sequel cannot be better told than in Mr. Tyt-

"Mary was now swept forward by the current of a blind and infatuated passion. A divorce between Bothwell and his countess, Lady Jane Gordon, was procured with indecent haste, and it was suspected that the recent restoration of his consistorial rights with this object. The process was hurried through to the Archbishop of St. Andrew's, had been made the court of that prelate, and the commissariat or reformed court, in two days. After a brief residence at Dunbar, under the roof of the man accused of the murder of her husband, and the forcible seizure of her person, the queen and Bothwell rode to the capital. As she entered the town, his followers cast away their spears, to save themselves, as was con

ter, with apparent courtesy, dismounting, took the queen's bridle, and led her into the castle under a salvo of the artillery. It was a sight which her friends beheld with the deepest sorrow, and her enemies with triumph and derision. *

"On the evening of the day on which the parliament rose (April 19), Bothwell invited the principal nobility to supper, in a tavern kept by a person named Ansley. They sat drinking till a late hour; and during the entertainment a band of two hundred hackbutters surrounded the house and overawed its inmates. The earl then rose and proposed his mar-jectured, from any charge of treason, and their masriage with the queen, affirming that he had gained her consent, and even (it is said) producing her written warrant, empowering him to propose the matter to her nobility. Of the guests some were his sworn friends, others were terrified and irresolute; and in the confusion one nobleman, the Earl of Eglinton, contrived to make his escape; but the rest, both papist and protestant, were overawed into compliance, and affixed their signatures to a bond, in which they declared their conviction of Bothwell's innocence, and recommended this noble and mighty lord' as a suitable husband for the queen, whose continuance in solitary widowhood they declared was injurious to the interests of the commonwealth. The most influential persons who signed this disgraceful instrument were the earls of Morton, Argyle, Huntley, Cassillis, Sutherland, Glencairn, Rothes, and Caithness; and of the lords, Herries, Hume, Boyd, Seton, and Sinclair."

Notice was immediately sent to Elizabeth, who had been an anxious spectator of these disgraceful scenes; and the letter addressed by Grange to the Earl of Bedford affords us a characteristic trait of Mary's impetuous temper. She was heard to say, "that she cared not to lose France, England, and her own country for him, and shall go with him to the world's end in a white petticoat before she leaves him." The following letter shows how little her pretext of a forcible seizure was believed, even at the time:

"This is to advertise you that the Earl Bothwell's wife is going to part with her husband; and a great part of our lords have subscribed the marriage between the queen and him. The queen rode to Stirling this last Monday, and returns this Thursday. I doubt not but you have heard how the Earl of Bothwell has gathered many of his friends, and, as some say, to ride in Liddesdale, but I believe it is not, for he is minded to meet the queen this day called Thursday, and to take her by the way and bring her to Dunbar. Judge you gif it be with her will or no? but you will hear at more length on Friday or Saturday, if you will find it good that I continue in

of the queen's marriage. This they peremptorily "The church was ordered to proclaim the banns refused. Craig, one of the ministers, Knox being now absent, alleged as his excuse, that Mary had sent no written command, and stated the common report that she had been ravished, and was kept captive by Bothwell. Upon this, the Justice Clerk brought him a letter signed by the queen herself, asserting the falsehood of such a story, and requiring his obedience. He still resisted, demanded to be confronted with the parties, and in presence of the privy council, where Bothwell sat, this undaunted minister laid to his charge the dreadful crimes of which he was suspected, rape, adultery, and murder. To the accusation no satisfactory answer was returned, but Craig, having exonerated his conscience, did not deem himself entitled to disobey the express command of his sovereign. He therefore proclaimed the banns in the High Church, but from the pulpit, and in presence of the congregation, added these appalling words: I take heaven and earth to witness, that I abhor and detest this marriage, as odious and slanderous to the world, and I would exhort the faithful to pray earnestly that a union against all reason and good conscience, may yet be overruled by God, to the comfort of this unhappy realm.'"

infatuated course, and we are scarcely surprised that But nothing availed to turn the queen from her the common people asserted that she had been bewitched by the spells of "Bothwell, blak maister John Spens, and the lady of Bukleuch:"

"On the 15th of May, the marriage took place at four in the morning in the presence chamber at Holyrood. It was remarked that Mary was married in her mourning weeds. The ceremony was performed after the rite of the Protestant church by the Bishop of Orkney; Craig, the minister of Edinburgh, being

also present. In the sermon which he preached on little boat, rowed by the page and the queen herself, the occasion, the bishop professed Bothwell's peni- touched the shore, and Mary, springing out with the tence for his former evil life, and his resolution to lightness of recovered freedom, was received first by amend and conform himself to the church. Few of the leading nobility were present, the event was unattended with the usual pageants and rejoicings, the people looked on in stern and gloomy silence, and next morning a paper with this ominous verse was fixed to the palace gates:—

George Douglas, and almost instantly after by Lord Seaton and his friends. Throwing herself on horseback, she rode at full speed to the ferry, crossed the firth, and galloped to Niddry, having been met on the road by Lord Claud Hamilton with fifty horse. Here she took a few hours' rest, wrote a hurried despatch to France, despatched Hepburn of Riccarton to "Mense malus Maio nubere vulgus ait." Dunbar, with the hope that the castle would be deWe have been so copious in our extracts, that our livered to her, and commanded him to proceed afterspace will not allow us to follow Mr. Tytler through wards to Denmark, and carry to his master, Bothwell, his interesting narrative of the results of this dis- the news of her deliverance. Then again taking graceful marriage, nor to trace the intrigues of Mur-horse, she galloped to Hamilton, where she deemed ray until he attained the regency, the great object of herself in safety."

his ambition. The following is his account of Mary's But Mary was still doomed to disappointment. escape from Loch Leven, derived from original The battle of Langside followed, and, flying thence, authorities:

she never ventured to draw bridle till she found from the field." Her flight into England followedherself in the abbey of Dundrennan, sixty miles But it must be observed, that Mary was not betrayed "a hasty and fatal resolution," says Mr. Tytler.

the

"Since her interview with Murray, the captive queen had exerted all the powers of fascination which she so remarkably possessed, to gain upon her keepers. The severe temper of the regent's mother, the lady of the castle, had yielded to their into the course now taken; on the contrary, she influence, and her son George Douglas, the younger before an answer from the governor of Carlisle could knew that she should be an unwelcome guest, and, brother of Lochleven, smitten by her beauty, and be received, "she had taken a boat, and passed over flattered by her caresses, enthusiastically devoted in her riding dress, and soiled with travel, to Wokinghimself to her interest. It was even asserted that he ton, in Cumberland." This is an important fact, and had aspired to her hand, that his mother talked of a divorce from Bothwell, and that Mary, never in-now established, on the evidence of the letter from sensible to admiration, and solicitous to secure his governor to Cecil. The popular belief, therefore, that Elizabeth, or at least her ministers, inveigled services, did not check his hopes. However this may be, Douglas for some time had bent his whole Mary into England, and are consequently chargeable mind to the enterprise, and on one occasion, a little with all the troubles of her subsequent captivity, is before this, had nearly succeeded; but the queen, beth, with her far-reaching views, was as unwilling groundless. Indeed, we have little doubt that Elizawho had assumed the dress of a laundress, was to become Mary's "jailer" as ever Knollys could detected by the extraordinary whiteness of her hands, have been. But Mary was actually in the land-she and carried back in the boat which she had entered refused to go back-and what was to be done? The to her prison. This discovery had nearly ruined all, difficulties of the case are candidly summed up by for Douglas was dismissed from the castle, and Mary Mr. Tytler:more strictly watched; but nothing could discourage her own enterprise, or the zeal of her servant. He "Here, although I must strongly condemn the communicated with Lord Seaton and the Hamiltons, conduct of the English queen, it is impossible not to he carried on a secret correspondence with the queen; see the difficulties by which she was surrounded. he secured the services of a page who waited on his The party which it was her interest to support, was mother, called Little Douglas, and by his assistance that of Murray and the Protestants. She looked at length effected his purpose. On the evening of with dread on France, and the resumption of French the 2d of May, this youth, in placing a plate before influence in Scotland. Within her own realm, the the castellan, contrived to drop his napkin over the Roman Catholics were unquiet and discontented, key of the gate of the castle, and carried it off unper- and in Ireland constantly on the eve of rebellionceived; he hastened to the queen, and hurrying if such a word can be used for the resistance of a down to the outer gate, they threw theselves into system too grinding to be tamely borne. All these the little boat which lay there for the service of the impatient spirits looked to Mary as a point of union garrison. At that moment Lord Seaton and some and strength. Had she been broken by her late reof her friends were intently observing the castle from verses, had she manifested a sense of the imprudence their concealment on a neighbouring hill; a party by which she had been lately guided, or evinced any waited in the village below, while nearer still, a man desire to reform her conduct, or forgive her subjects lay watching on the brink of the lake. They could who had risen against the murderer of her husband see a female figure with two attendants glide swiftly more than against herself, the queen might have from the outer gate. It was Mary herself, who been inclined to a more favourable course. But the breathless with delight and anxiety, sprung into the very contrary was the case. Her first step after her boat, holding a little girl, one of her maidens, by the escape had been to resume her correspondence with hand, while the page, by locking the gate behind Bothwell. His creatures Hepburn of Riccarton, and them, prevented immediate pursuit. In a moment, the two Ormistons, blotted as accomplices in his her white veil with its broad red fringe (the con- crime, had frequent access to her. In her conversacerted signal of success) was seen glancing in the tions with Knollys and Scrope, she could not repress sun, the sign was recognised and communicated, the her anticipations of victory and purposes of ven

321

MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.

CHAPTER XXXI.

indeed part us if they found us out, and shut him up from the light of the sun and sky. He has only me to help him God bless us both!"

come, and, gaining her own room once more, sat up during Lighting her candle, she retreated as silently as she had the remainder of that long, long, miserable night.

At last the day turned her waning candle pale, and she

With steps more faltering and unsteady than those with which she had approached the room, the child withdrew from the door, and groped her way back to her own chamber. The terror she had lately felt was nothing compared fell asleep. She was quickly roused by the girl who had with that which now oppressed her. No strange robber, shown her up to bed; and, as soon as she was dressed, no treacherous host conniving at the plunder of his guests, prepared to go down to her grandfather. But first she or stealing to their beds to kill them in their sleep, no searched her pocket and found that her money was all nightly prowler, however terrible and cruel, could have gone-not a sixpence remained. awakened in her bosom half the dread which the recogni

truth.

had walked about a mile in silence, "do you think they "Grandfather," she said, in a tremulous voice, after they are honest people at the house yonder?"

tion of her silent visiter inspired. The gray-headed old on their road. The child thought he rather avoided her The old man was ready, and in a few seconds they were man gliding like a ghost into a room and acting the thief eye, and appeared to expect that she would tell him of her while he supposed her fast asleep, then bearing off his loss. She felt she must do that, or he might suspect the prize and hanging over it with the ghastly exultation she had witnessed, was worse-immeasurably worse, and far more dreadful, for the moment, to reflect upon-than any thing her wildest fancy could have suggested. If he should return-there was no lock or bolt upon the door, and if, distrustful of having left some money yet behind, them honest-yes, they played honestly." Why?" returned the old man trembling. "Do I think he should come back to seek for more-a vague awe and horror surrounded the idea of his slinking in again with money last night-out of my bedroom I am sure. "I'll tell you why I ask," rejoined Nell. stealthy tread, and turning his face towards the empty bed, it was taken by somebody in jest-only in jest, dear "I lost some while she shrank down close at his feet to avoid his touch, grandfather, which would make me laugh heartily if I Unless which was almost insupportable. She sat and listened. could but know it—” Hark! A footstep on the stairs, and now the door was slowly opening. It was but imagination, yet imagination had all the terrors of reality; nay, it was worse, for the reality would have come and gone, and there an end, but in imagination it was always coming, and never went

away.

The feeling which beset the child was one of dim un. certain horror. She had no fear of the dear old grandfather, in whose love for her this disease of the brain had been engendered; but the man she had seen that night, wrapt in the game of chance, lurking in her room, and counting the money by the glimmering light, seemed like another creature in his shape, a monstrous distortion of his image, a something to recoil from, and be the more afraid of, because it bore a likeness to him, and kept close about her, as he did. She could scarcely connect her own affectionate companion, save by his loss, with this old man, so like yet so unlike him. She had wept to see him dull and quiet. How much greater cause she had for weeping

now!

The child sat watching and thinking of these things, until the phantom in her mind so increased in gloom and terror, that she felt it would be a relief to hear the old man's voice, or, if he were asleep, even to see him, and banish some of the fears that clustered round his image. She stole down the stairs and passage again. The door was still ajar as she had left it, and the candle burning as before.

She had her candle in her hand, prepared to say, if he were waking, that she was uneasy and could not rest, and had come to see if his were still alight. Looking into the room, she saw him lying calmly on his bed, and she took courage to enter.

Fast asleep-no passion in the face, no avarice, no anxiety, no wild desire; all gentle, tranquil, and at peace. This was not the gambler, or the shadow in her room; this was not even the worn and jaded man whose face had so often met her own in the gray morning light; this was her dear old friend, her harmless fellow-traveller, her good, kind, grandfather.

She had no fear as she looked upon his slumbering fea tures, but she had a deep and weighty sorrow, its relief in tears. and it found

"God bless him!" said the child, stooping softly to kiss his placid cheek. "I see too well now, that they would MUSEUM NOVEMBER, 1840.

man in a hurried manner. "Those who take money, take "Who would take money in jest?" returned the old it to keep. Don't talk of jest."

child, whose last hope was destroyed by the manner of "Then it was stolen out of my room, dear," said the this reply.

66 no

more any where?
"But is there no more, Nell ?" said the old man;
Was it all taken-every farthing of it
-was there nothing left?"

Nothing," replied the child. it, Nell, hoard it up, scrape it together, come by it some"We must get more," said the old how. Never mind this loss. Tell nobody of it, and perman, we must earn haps we may regain it. Don't ask how; we may regain it, and a great deal more; but tell nobody, or trouble may come of it. And so they took it out of thy room, when thou wert asleep," he added in a compassionate tone, very different from the secret, cunning way, in which he had spoken until now. "Poor, poor little Nell!"

thizing tone in which he spoke, was quite sincere; she was The child hung down her head and wept. The sympasure of that. It was not the lightest part of her sorrow to know that this was done for her.

man, "no not even to me," he added hastily, "for it can
Not a word about it to any one but me," said the old
do no good. All the losses that ever were, are not worth
tears from thy eyes, darling. Why should they be, when
we shall win them back."

go, once and for ever, and I would never shed another tear
"Let them go," said the child looking up.
if every penny had been a thousand pounds."
"Let them

66

Well, well," returned the old man, checking himself as
better. I should be thankful for it."
some impetuous answer rose to his lips," she knows no

listen to me?"
"But listen to me," said the child earnestly, "will you

out looking at her: "a pretty voice. It has always a
'Aye, aye, I'll listen," returned the old man, still with-
sweet sound to me. It always had when it was her mo-
ther's, poor child."

"Let me persuade you, then-oh, do let me persuade
you," said the child, "to think no more of gains or losses,
gether."
and to try no fortune but the fortune we pursue to-

"We pursue this aim together," retorted her grandfa

41

H

ther, still looking away and seeming to confer with himself "Whose image sanctifies the game?"

As Nell approached the awful door, it turned slowly upon its hinges with a creaking noise, and forth from the "Have we been worse off," resumed the child, "since solemn grove beyond, came a long file of young ladies, you forgot these cares, and we have been travelling on two and two, all with open books in their hands, and some together? Have we not been much better and happier with parasols likewise. And last of the goodly procession without a home to shelter us, than ever we were in that came Miss Monflathers, bearing herself a parasol of lilac unhappy house, when they were on your mind?" silk, and supported by two siniling teachers, each mor. "She speaks the truth," murmured the old man in the tally envious of the other, and devoted unto Miss Monsame tone as before. "It must not turn me, but it is the flathers. truth-no doubt it is."

"Only remember what we have been since that bright morning when we turned our backs upon it for the last time,” said Nell, “only remember what we have been since we have been free of all those miseries-what peaceful days and quiet nights we have had-what pleasant times we have known-what happiness we have enjoyed. If we have been tired or hungry, we have been soon refreshed, and slept the sounder for it. Think what beautiful things we have seen, and how contented we have felt. And why was this blessed change?"

He stopped her with a motion of his hand, and bade her talk to him no more then, for he was busy. After a time he kissed her cheek, still motioning her to silence, and walked on, looking far before him, and sometimes stopping and gazing with a puckered brow upon the ground, as if he were painfully trying to collect his disordered thoughts. Once she saw tears in his eyes. When he had gone on thus for some time, he took her hand in his as he was accustomed to do, with nothing of the violence or animation of his late manner; and so, by degrees so fine that the child could not trace them, settled down in his usual quiet way, and suffered her to lead him where she would.

Confused by the looks and whispers of the girls, Nell stood with downcast eyes and suffered the procession to pass on, until Miss Monflathers, bringing up the rear, ap. proached her, when she curtseyed and presented her little packet; on receipt thercof Miss Monflathers commanded that the line should halt.

"You're the wax-work child, are you not?" said Miss Monflathers.

"Yes, ma'am," replied Nell, colouring deeply, for the young ladies had collected about her, and she was the centre on which all eyes were fixed.

"And don't you think you must be a very wicked little child," said Miss Monflathers, who was of rather uncertain temper, and lost no opportunity of impressing moral truths upon the tender minds of the young ladies, "to be a waxwork child at all!"

Poor Nell had never viewed her position in this light, and not knowing what to say, remained silent, blushing more deeply than before.

"Don't you know," said Miss Monflathers, "that it's very naughty and unfeminine, and a perversion of the properties wisely and benignantly transmitted to us, with expansive powers to be roused from their dormant state through the medium of cultivation ?"

When they presented themselves in the midst of the stupendous collection, they found, as Nell had anticipated, The two teachers murmured their respectful approval of that Mrs. Jarley was not yet out of bed, and that, although this home-thrust, and looked at Nell as though they would she had suffered some uneasiness on their account over have said that there indeed Miss Monflathers had hit her night, and had indeed sat up for them until past eleven very hard. Then they smiled and glanced at Miss Mono'clock, she had retired in the persuasion, that, being over- flathers, and then, their eyes meeting, they exchanged taken by the storm at some distance from home, they had looks which plainly said that each considered herself sought the nearest shelter, and would not return before smiler in ordinary to Miss Monflathers, and regarded the morning. Nell immediately applied herself with great other as having no right to smile, and that her so doing assiduity to the decoration and preparation of the room, was an act of presumption and impertinence. and had the satisfaction of completing her task, and dress- "Don't you feel how naughty it is of you," resumed ing herself neatly, before the beloved of the Royal Family Miss Monflathers, "to be a wax-work child, when you came down to breakfast. might have the proud consciousness of assisting, to the extent of your infant powers, the manufactures of your country; of improving your mind by the constant contem. plation of the steam-engine; and of carning a comfortable and independent subsistence of from two-and-nine pence to three shillings per week? Don't you know that the harder "How doth the little-" murmured one of the teach

"We haven't had," said Mrs. Jarley when the meal was over, "more than eight of Miss Monflather's young ladies all the time we've been here, and there's twenty-six of 'em, as I was told by the cook when I asked her a question or two and put her on the free-list. We must try 'em with a parcel of new bills, and you shall take it, my dear, and you are at work, the happier you are?" see what effect that has upon 'em."

The proposed exhibition being one of paramount im-ers, in quotation from Dr. Watts.

Of course the teacher who had not said it, indicated the rival who had, whom Miss Monflathers frowningly requested to hold her peace; by that means throwing the informing teacher into raptures of joy.

portance, Mrs. Jarley adjusted Nell's bonnet with her own "Eh?" said Miss Monflathers, turning smartly round. hands, and declaring that she certainly did look very pretty," Who said that ?" and reflected credit on the establishment, dismissed her with many commendations, and certain needful directions as to the turnings on the right which she was to take, and the turnings on the left which she was to avoid. Thus instructed, Nell had no difficulty in finding out Miss Mon- "The little busy bee," said Miss Monflathers, drawing flather's Boarding and Day Establishment, which was a herself up, “is applicable only to genteel children. large house, with a high wall, and a large garden-gate with a large brass plate, and a small grating through which Miss Monflather's parlour-maid inspected all visit is quite right as far as they are concerned; and the work ers before admitting them; for nothing in the shape of a man-no, not even a milkman-was suffered, without means painting on velvet, fancy needle-work, or embroi cial license, to pass that gate. Even the tax-gatherer, who dery. In such cases as these," pointing to Nell, with her was stout, and wore spectacles and a broad-brimmed hat, parasol, and in the case of all poor people's children, we had the taxes handed through the grating. More obdurate should read it thus:

spe

than gate of adamant or brass, this gate of Miss Monflather's frowned on all mankind. The very butcher respected it as a gate of mystery, and left off whistling when he rang the bell.

46

In books, or work, or healthful play,'

In work, work, work. In work alway
Let my first years be past,
That I may give for ev'ry day
Some good account at last.'"