University of Virginia Library

Scene II

—A house in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh
Lethington and Elspeth Menteith
Lethington

Yes, Elspeth, ’tis the pleasure of my sovereign to visit me in private. To-day she will stream down to me in a vision. I am full of devoutness and elation; a king's favour is as dew upon the grass.

Elspeth

Is that scripture?

Lethington

A proverb—truth's worldly discretion tripping on the tongue; but, for your better contentment, know that it is written within the covers of the Holy Book.

Elspeth

I am too simple for controversy; I cannot answer you back, as the Lord when Satan tempted Him.

Lethington

Elspeth!

Elspeth

But I am glad the Earl of Moray is your friend.

Lethington

For he is of good understanding in the fear of the Lord—nay, sweet Elspeth, cloud not—it is the beginning of wisdom.

Elspeth

Do you think I may tarry till our sovereign appear? She is a royal lady.

Lethington

She is a distracting woman. What is to be done with that intolerable puppet, her husband? He moves about the glass-house of diplomacy with the violence of a bull. It must needs be that offences come, as the Highest foretold, but woe very naturally falls on that man who brings his swart wares to the light.

Elspeth

O brother, is this true religion? Dear Janet ever found you talked too smartly of God.

Lethington

I speak of Him familiarly as my Friend— with kindly criticism.

Elspeth

He will not suffer such irreverence. Mr. Knox . . . .

Lethington

He apprehends the Highest with the organs of hatred. He hath handled Divinity wellnigh as roughly as Dunfermline. What is left makes good stabling for the herd; the creature of delicate nurture cannot lodge there.

Elspeth

Yet you joined the Lords of the Congregation.

It was Janet's comfort on her death-bed you would not serve idolatry.

Lethington

Serve! I am the servant of no man, save Time; I wait on his shiftiness with the patience of a lover. I flatter him, I defer to him: but, Elspeth, you have nursed your grandmother's dotage; is not childishness ever in the grasp of its attendant?

Elspeth

I am convinced you are an atheist. You make me most unhappy.

Enter the Queen
Lethington
(Stooping and caressing Elspeth)

Poor, pretty lass of the darkened conscience. (Looking up)
What, yonder! It is my royal mistress who enters, as noiseless as the light and as welcome.

(He kneels; Elspeth, with a low reverence, goes out)

Queen
A silver voice! Alack, good Lethington,
Mine ears have been so dinned with ill-report
Of those who spend their labour to defame
And bring you to discredit, that I scarce
Know how to reckon you.

Lethington
A rigorous judge
To whatsoever mutinies against
Your grace's honour. Servant to your rashness,
The waywardness that mars your delicate
And swift discernment? Slaves must minister
In such unworthy offices; but when
My queen is most herself, at her right hand,
Breathing her pleasure, zealous in despatch,
Painstaking in expedience, she will find
Her sometime secretary, now her friend,
And true, untitled servant.

Queen
Lethington,
I live now but to pardon and make peace;
I am a mother.

Lethington
May your favouring gift
Breed amity a woman's silent way,
And set us in the sun.

Queen
Could I accord
The enmities betwixt my warring nobles,
I were most happy. In my child-bed sickness
I made it the sole pastime of my thoughts,
By gifts, by reconciling offices,
And frank partition of my gold and jewels
To lull contending hearts. ’Mong my bequests,
Your name, my Laird of Lethington, stands coupled
With the Earl Bothwell's, since I reckon you—
He for his valiance and rough honesty,
You for your subtle, extricating sense—
My two most weighty subjects . . . . and at war?
Nay, for my sake, to pleasure me, the breach
Must be closed up betwixt you.

Lethington
Haddington's
Fairy nunnery severs us.

Queen
You must divide
The apple of your discord.

Lethington

Madam, to divide the sweet cloister were to sever Christ's seamless robe. Let us not rend it; let it fall rather to my lot. But it is not, my sovereign lady, by grants of land, nor even by the twinned bounty of your gracious bequest that we can be accorded. Those on the right hand and the left in the parable are of opposed nature; and the office of the sovereign, so it please you, is to set a great gulf betwixt them. James Hepburn will make for your undoing and the enmity of England wherever he meddle; my lesson, in the lenient hours when you permit me to tutor you, hath been ever deference to Elizabeth.

Queen

’Tis too palpable you woo England's queen.

Lethington

Not for her beauty. If for her possessions, we covet one object, her crown, and for one head. Boast of it in your dreams; but by day propitiate in patience. Were I not your true servant, I should scarcely dare to raise tempest on your brows by my monition.

Queen
The English crown! It is my dearest hope:
I tell you, Lethington, one little hour
I felt the sense of glory and expanse,
The opening of my nature's very leaves.
’Twas on the day of the great tournament,
After the peace of Cambray, when the king
Trusted by aid of Spain to stablish me
Sovereign and Catholic on English soil.
I was but scarce sixteen. Oh, I remember
I shook all sickness from me in the bliss
Of my true dignity; the royal arms
Of England and of Scotland, with the crown
Of France above them, blazoned on my car.
Place for the Queen, and when the populace
Added of England, something changed in me,
As when the sky first kindled into stars.
Dreams should be sluggish, this encloses me,
And eddies me away. I cannot rest
Till I have crossed the Border; Halidon
Must feel the pressure of my feet, the guns
Of Berwick must salute me. Ah, the dream,
To wrap you in its current! I confide
To you the secrets that I dare not drop
In my soul's ear—if you could understand!
A cry for empire pierces up my heart
As sharp as murdered blood, spilled on the ground,
Presses for retribution. I receive
The sighs I breathe; if I am left alone
I catch across the vaults of ancestry
Reverberating sounds. I do not urge
My claims, a racial importunity
Leaves me no peace until its suit be stayed.
Does there not grow in kings a royal gift,
Tradition of the conscience?

Lethington
Better use
They make of time who let the travelled future
Determine their day's destiny, than those
Who give to ageing instinct and tradition,
That ever stays at home, a dominance
And derogating lure. My dearest queen,
Seek not the crown of England as a toy.
Be patient; set yourself to govern now
Sole as Semiramis, and be remembered
Hereafter, ’mong adoring men, a goddess
And heavenly Aphrodite.

Queen
Still the dream!
My Lethington, you are restored to all
Your ancient honours, and are free to pluck
Of any my possessions so you cease
Contention with Lord Bothwell for these lands.
Let me accord you; I will bring him down
With the Lord James to-morrow; for I pine
At the council-table for your lambent lips:
Our politics have no celerity,
Our embassies no state, our correspondence
No grace and candour while our flower of wits
Is absent from the court.

Lethington
There must be peace,
Peace and goodwill when angels condescend
To be the peacemakers.

Queen
I always was
Too credent, and must marvel at myself
Who love to listen to your eloquence
And fell persuasion, till I half-forget
This friend of Mary Stuart's is her foe's
Beloved ambassador, is Cecil's hope,
With Randolph has too frequent colloquy,
And soothes Elizabeth—Oh, I forgive;
It is my common office.

Lethington
Doubting queen!
But rank me very traitor to my brows
With those presageful eyes that look beyond
The sin to the appeasement, and remit
Still unconceived offences: such foredoomed,
Inevitable grace must draw transgressors
Repentant to itself.

Queen
There is a bond
Betwixt us twain.

Lethington
A bond no tragedies
Can snap.

Queen
Farewell.

Lethington
(Apart)
To think there was a time
I cared not if I never saw her face.

Exit, conducting the Queen