 | CHASTELAR. The knights of England, France, and Scotland |  |
CHASTELAR.
What could I choose but strive to climb?
And as I strove I fell.
At least 't is love, when hope is gone,
Through shame and ruin to love on.”
—Anon.
The last flush of day had not yet faded from the west, although
the summer moon was riding above the verge of the
eastern horizon, in a flood of mellow glory, with the diamond-spark
of Lucifer glittering in solitary brightness at her side.
It was one of those enchanting evenings which, peculiar to the
southern lands of Europe, visit, but at far and fleeting intervals,
the sterner clime of Britain. Not Italy, however, could herself
have boasted a more delicious twilight than this, which
now was waning into night, above the rude magnificence of
Scotland's capital. The fantastic dwellings of the city, ridge
above ridge, loomed broadly to the left, partially veiled by those
wreaths of vapor, which have been the origin of its provincial
name; while, far above the misty indistinctness of the town,
the glorious castle towered aloft upon its craggy throne, displaying
a hundred fronts of massive shadow, and as many salient
angles jutting abruptly into sight. The lovely vale of the
in quiet lustre from beneath the dark-gray buttresses of Arthur's
seat; while from the trim alleys and pleached evergreens,
which at that day formed a belt of lawn, and shrubbery, and
royal garden, around the venerable pile of Holyrood, the rich
song of the throstle — the nightingale of Scotland — came in
repeated bursts upon the ear.
Delightful as such an evening must naturally be to all who
have hearts awake to the influence of sweet sounds and lovely
sights, how inexpressibly soothing must it seem to one who,
languishing beneath the ungenial atmosphere of a northern region,
and sighing for the bluer skies and softer breezes of his
fatherland, feels himself at once transported, by the unusual
aspect of the heavens, to the distant home of his regrets! It
was, perhaps, some fancied similarity to the nights in which
he had been wont to court the favor of the high-born dames of
France with voice and instrument, that had awakened the melody
of some foreign cavalier, more suitable perchance to the
light murmurs of the Seine than to the distant booming of the
seas that lash the coasts of Scotland. Such, however, was the
illusion produced by the unwonted softness of the hour, that the
tinkling of a lute and the full, manly voice of the singer did not
at the moment seem so inconsistent to the spirit of the country
and of the times as in truth it was. The words were French,
and the air, though sweet, so melancholy, that it left a vague
sensation of pain upon the listener — as though none but a heart
diseased could give birth to notes so plaintive. “Pensez à moi!
pensez à moi! — noble dame — Pensez à moi!” — the burden
of the strain swelled clearly audible in the deepest tones of
feeling, although the intermediate words were lost amid the
accompaniment of the silver strings. Never, perhaps, since
the unfortunate Chatelain de Concy first chanted his extemporaneous
farewell to the lady of his heart, had his simple words
In truth, it was impossible to listen to the lay without
feeling a conviction that the heart of the minstrel was in his
song. There were, moreover, moments in which a practised
ear might have discovered variations, not in the tune only, but
in the words, as the singer exerted his unrivalled powers to
adapt the text, which he had chosen, to his own peculiar circumstances;
nor would it have required more than a common
degree of fancy to have traced the sounds, “O Reine Marie!”
mingling with the proper refrain of the chant, although it would
have been less easy to distinguish whether the fervent expression
with which the words were invested was applied to an object
of mortal idolatry or of immortal adoration. It would seem, however,
that there were listeners near, to whom this doubt had
not so much as once occurred; for in a shadowy bower, not far
distant from the spot where the concealed musician sang, there
stood a group of ladies, drinking with breathless eagerness every
note that issued from his lips. Foremost in place, as first
in rank, was one whose charms have been said and sung, not
by the poet and the romancer only, but by the muse of history
herself, who almost seems to have dipped her graver pencil in
the hues of fiction when describing Mary Stuart of Scotland.
Her form, rather below than above the middle stature of the
female form, was fashioned with such perfect elegance, that it
was equally calculated to exhibit the extremes of grace and
majesty. Her ringlets of the deepest auburn, glancing in the
light with a glossy, golden lustre, and melting into shadows of
dark chestnut; the statue-like contour of her Grecian head;
her eyes, on which no man had ever gazed with impunity to
his heart — more languid and at the same time far more brilliant
than those of created beauty; her mouth, whose wreathed smile
might have almost tempted angels to descend and worship; her
swan-like neck of dazzling whiteness; and, above all, the glorious
and affability toward the meanest of her fellow-men,
with the exalted consciousness of all that was due, not to her
rank, but to herself — combined to render her perhaps the loveliest,
as after-events proved her beyond a doubt the most unfortunate,
of queens or women. Sorrow at this time had scarcely
cast a shadow on that transparent brow; or, if an occasional recollection
of the ill-fated Francis did leave a trace behind, it was
a sadness of that gentle and spiritualized description which is,
perhaps, a more attractive expression to be marked in the features
of a lovely woman, than the full blaze of happiness and self-enjoyment.
Simple almost to plainness in her attire, the queen
of Scotland moved before her four attendant Maries, ten thousand
times more lovely from the contrast of her unadornment to
the gorgeous dresses of those noble dames, who had been selected
to be near her person, with especial regard, not to exalted
rank alone, or to the distinctive name, which they bore
in common with their royal mistress, but to intellect, and beauty,
and all those accomplishments which, general as they are in
our day, were then at least as highly valued for their rarity, as
for their intrinsic merits. A robe of sable velvet, with the
closely-fitted corsage peculiar to the age in which she lived,
a falling ruff from the fairest looms of Flanders, and the picturesque
head-gear which has ever borne her name, with its double
tressure of pearls, and a single string of the same precious
jewels around her neck, completed Mary's dress, while rustling
trains of many-colored satin, guarded with costly laces and
stomachers studded with gems, bracelets, and carcanets, and
chains of goldsmith's work, gleamed on the persons of her ladies.
Still the demeanor of the little group was more in accordance
to the simplicity of the mistress than to the splendor
of the others. No rigid etiquette was there; none of that high
and haughty ceremonial which, in the courtly festivals of the
few who bore with the caprices, in seeking for the favors, of
Elizabeth. The titles of grace and majesty were lisped indeed
by the lips of the fair damsels, but the character of their remarks,
the polished raillery, the light laugh, and the freedom
of intercourse, were rather those of the younger members of a
family toward an elder sister, than of a court-circle toward a
powerful queen. As the last notes of the song died away, she
who was nearest to Mary's person whispered in a sportive
tone, “Your grace has heard that lute before —”
“In France, Carmichael,” answered Mary, with a breath so
deeply drawn as almost to resemble a sigh, “in our beautiful
France; when, when shall I look upon that lovely land again.”
While she was yet speaking the music recommenced. A
dash of impatience was mingled with the plaintive sweetness
of the strain, and the words “pensez à mon” swept past their ears
with all the energy of disappointed feelings.
“It is the voice —”
“Of the sieur de Chastelar,” interrupted the queen; “we
would thank the gentleman for his minstrelsey. Seyton, ma
mignonne, hie thee across yon woodbine-maze, and summon
this night-warbler to our presence.”
With an arch smile the lively girl bounded forward, and was
for an instant lost among the foliage of the garden.
“Dost thou remember, Carmichael,” said the queen, whose
thoughts had been reflected by the well-remembered strains —
“dost thou remember our sylvan festivals in the lovely groves
of Versailles, with hound and hawk for noonday pastime, and
the lute, the song, and the unfettered dance upon the green
sward, beneath moons unclouded by the hazy gloom of this
dark Scotland's?”
“And does your grace remember,” laughed the other in reply,
“a certain fête in which the palm of minstrelsey was awarded
was his bearing somewhat gentle for a ranger of the green-wood,
and his hand was passing white to have handled the
tough bow-string? Does your grace's memory serve to recall
the air whose executions gained that prize of harmony? Methinks
it did run somewhat thus,” — and she warbled the same
notes which had formed the burthen of the serenade.
Whether some distant recollections conjured up the mantling
color to the cheeks of Mary, or whether she dreaded the misconstruction
of the serenader, on his hearing his own tender
words repeated in a voice of female melody, it was with brow,
neck and bosom of the deepest crimson that she turned to
Mary Carmichael —
“Peace, silly minion!” she said, with momentary dignity;
“wouldst have it said that Mary of Scotland is so light of bearing
as to trill love-ditties in reply to unseen ballad-mongers?”
Nay, weep not neither, Marie; if I spoke somewhat shortly,
't was that the gentleman was even then approaching. Cheer
up, my girl; thou hast, we know it well, a kind, a gentle, and
a trusty heart, though nature has coupled the gift to that of
a thoughtless head and random tongue. Take not on thus,
or I shall blame myself in that I checked thee, though surely
not unkindly. Mary of Stuart loves better far to look upon a
smiling lip than a wet eye, even if it be a stranger's — much
less that of one whom she loves — as I love thee, Carmichael.”
There was, perhaps, no circumstance more remarkable than
the power which, at every period of her momentous life, Mary
appears to have possessed of winning, as it were at a glance,
the affections of all who came in contact with her. The deep
devotion, not of the barons and the military chiefs alone, who
bled in defence of her cause, but of the ladies, the pages, the
chamberlains of her court, nay, of the very grooms and servitors,
smile or inclination of the head, in return for their lowly obeisance,
was ever ready for the proof, when circumstances
might demand its exercise. Not shown by outward acts of heroism
only, or by those deeds which men are wont to perform,
no less at the instigation of their wishes for renown, or of rivalry
with some more famed competitor, this devotion was constantly
manifested in the eagerness of all around her to execute
even the most menial duties to Mary's satisfaction; in the
promptness to anticipate her slightest wish; in the lively joy
which one kind word from her could awaken, as if by magic,
on every brow; and, above all, in the utter despondency which
seemed to sink down upon those whom she might deem it necessary
to check, even with the slightest remonstrance. In the
present instance the sensitive girl, to whom the queen had uttered
her commands in the nervous quickness of, excitement,
rather than with any feeling of harshness or offended pride, felt,
it was evident, more bitterness of grief at the rebuke of one whom
she loved no less than she revered, than she would have experienced
beneath the pressure of some real calamity. As quickly,
however, as the sense of sorrow had been excited, did it pass
away, before the returning smiles, the soft caresses, and the
winning manners of the most fascinating of women the most
amiable of superiors.
Scarcely had the tears of Mary Carmichael ceased to flow,
when the footsteps, which for some moments previously had
been heard approaching, sounded close at hand; the branches
of the embowering shrubbery were gently put asunder, and the
lady Seyton stood again before the queen, attended by a gentleman
of noble aspect, and whose very gesture was fraught
with that easy and graceful politeness which, perhaps, showed
even more to advantage in that iron age and warlike country,
displayed, as it often was, in contrast to the rude demeanor and
native France.
The sieur de Chastelar was at this time in the very prime
of youthful manhood, and might have been some few years, and
but few, the senior of the lovely being before whose presence
he bent in adoration humbler, and more fervently expressed,
than the reverence due from a mere subject to a mortal queen.
Tall and fairly-proportioned, with a countenance in which
almost feminine softness of expression was blended, with an
aspect of the eye and lip, which proved the vicinity of bolder
and more manly qualities, slumbering but not extinct, he seemed
at the first glance a man most eminently qualified to win a female
heart. And who, that looked upon the broad and massive
brow, and the quick glance of that eye, fraught with intelligence,
could doubt but that the mind within was equal to the more
perishable beauties of the form in which it was encompassed?
And when to all this was added, that the sieur de Chastelar
had already won a name in his green youth that ranked with
those of gray-haired veterans in the lists of glory; that in all
manly exercises, as in all softer accomplishments, he owned
no superior; that the most skilful master of defence, the far-famed
Vicentio Saviola, confessed De Chastelar his equal in the
quickness of eye, the readiness of hand and foot which had
combined to render him the most distinguished swordsman of
the day; that the wildest and most untameable chargers that
ever were compelled to undergo the manége, might as well
have striven to shake off a portion of themselves, as to dismount
De Chasteler by any display of violence and power; that his
hand could draw the clothyard arrow to the head, and speed it
to its aim as truly as the fleetest archer that ever twanged a bow
in Sherwood; that he moved in the stately measure of the pavon,
or the livelier galliarde, with that grace peculiar to his nation;
that, in the richness of his voice, his execution and taste on
in short, that all perfections which were deemed most requisite
to form a gentleman were united in De Chastelar, what
female heart, that was not proof to all the allurements of love
or fancy, could hope to make an adequate resistance? Young,
handsome, romantic, ardent in his hopes, enthusiastic almost to
madness in his affections, he had been captivated years before
in the gay salons of the French capitol, by the beauty and irresistible
fascinations of the princess.
In the intercourse of French society, which even in the
times of the Medici, as it has been in all succeeding ages, was
far more liberal in its distinctions, and less restricted by the
formalities of etiquette, than in any other court, a thousand opportunities
had occurred, by which the youthful cavalier had
profited to rivet the attention of the princess; at every carousel
he bore her colors; in every masque he introduced some delicate
allusion, some soft flattery, palpable to her alone; in every contest
of musical skill, which yet survived in Paris, the sole remnant
of the troubadours, some covert traces of his passion might
be discovered, if not by every ear, eat least by that of Mary.
Intoxicated as she was, at this stage of her life, by the adulation
of all, by the consciousness of beauty, power, and rank, far
above all her fellows, the queen of Scotland owed much of her
misery in after-years to the unclouded brilliancy of her youthful
prospects, and to the wide distinction between the manners
of that court, in which her happiest hours were spent; and of
her northern subjects, by whom her gaieté de cour, her love for
society less formal than the routine of courts, and her predilections
for all innocent amusements, were ever looked upon in
the light of grave derelictions from decorum and morality.
That she had regarded the gallant boy, whose accomplishments
were so constantly before her eyes, with favorable inclinations
was not to be doubted; and that at times she had lavished
degree, was no less true; but whether this line of conduct was
dictated merely by a natural impulse, which ever leads us to
distinguish those whom we approve from the common herd of
our acquaintance, or by a warmer feeling, can never now be
ascertained. It mattered not, however, to the youth, from
which cause the conduct of the lovely princess was derived;
it was enough for him that she had marked his attentions, that
she had deigned to look upon him with favorable eyes, that she
might at some future period learn to love.
Not long, however, was it permitted to him to indulge in
those fair but fallacious dreams; the marriage of the Scottish
princess with the royal Francis was ere long publicly announced,
the ceremonies of the betrothal, and lastly of the wedding itself,
were solemnized with all the pomp and splendor of the mightiest
realm in Europe, and the aspirations of the united nations
ascended in behalf of Francis and his lovely bride.
It was then, for the first time, that Mary was rendered fully
aware of the misery which her unthinking freedom had entailed
upon the ardent nature of De Chastelar; it was then, for the
first time, that she learned how deep and powerful had been
the passion which he had nourished in his heart of hearts — that
she was awakened to a consciousness that she was loved, not
wisely, but too well. Heretofore she had believed, that the
eagerness of the gay and gallant Frenchman to display his
equestrian skill, his musical accomplishments, before her presence,
and as it were in her behalf, and the devotedness with
which he turned all his powers to a single object, were rather
to be attributed to a desire of gaining general approbation as a
gentle cavalier, a slave to beauty, and a favored servant of
earth's loveliest lady, than to a passion, the romance of which,
considering the wide distinction of their sphere, would have
amounted to actual insanity. Now she perceived, to her deep
had taken hold too firmly to be disengaged by a sudden effort,
how vehement soever. She saw, in the pale cheek and hollow
eye, that he had cherished hopes which reason and reality
must bid him discard, at once and for ever; but which he
yet had not the fortitude to tear up by the roots, and cast
into oblivion. For a time he had wandered about, a spectre
of his former person, among the festivities and happiness
of all around him, paler every day, and more abstracted in
his mien; then he had exiled himself at once from rejoicings
in which he could have no share, and had buried his hopes,
his anxieties, his misery, in the loneliness of his own secluded
chamber.
Thus had passed weeks and months; and when at length he
had come forth again to join the world and all its vanities, he
was, as it seemed to all, a wiser and a sadder man. The
queen, ever kind and affectionate in her disposition, imagining
that he had struggled with the demon which possessed him,
and cast his hopeless love behind him, met his return to the
courtly circle with her wonted condescension. On his preferring
his request to be installed her chamberlain, willing to
mark her high sense of his imagined integrity, in thus manfully
shaking off his weakness, she granted his request; and
trusting that his own acuteness would readily perceive the distinction
between royal favor to a trusted servant and feminine
affections to a preferred lover, assumed nothing of formality or
etiquette, more than had characterized their former days of unrestricted
intercourse. Her own first trial followed; the first
year of her nuptials had not yet flown, when the gallant Francis,
the earliest, the worthy object of her young love, sickened
with a disease which from its very commencement permitted
but slight hopes of his recovery. Then came the wretchedness
of anxiety, hoping all things, yet too well aware that all
it was too obvious, could be of no avail; the agony when
the announcement that all was over, long foreseen, but never
to be endured, burst on her mind; the long, heart-rending sorrow,
the repinings after pleasures that were never to return;
and, last of all, the cold, stern carelessness of despair. She
awoke at length from her lethargy of wo; awoke to leave the
lovely climate which she had learned almost to deem her own;
to be torn from the friends whom she had loved, and the society
of which she had been the brightest gem, to return to a country
which, though it was the country of her birth, had never conjured
up to her imagination any pictures save of a gloomy hue
and melancholy nature.
A few who had served her in the sunny land of France adhered
to her with unshaken resolution, despising all inconveniences,
setting at naught all dangers, save that separation from
a mistress, whom, to have attended once, was to love for ever.
Among those few was De Chastelar. The alteration in her
condition had undoubtedly suggested to the widowed queen the
necessity of an alteration in her conduct toward De Chastelar,
particularly when it was added, that familiarity between a creature
so young and lovely as herself and a gentleman so noble,
even in his melancholy, as the chamberlain, would have at
once excited the indignation of her stern and rigid subjects.
In these circumstances it would perhaps have been a wiser,
though not a more considerate plan, to have confided the cause
of her embarrassment to the causer of it, and to have requested
his absence from her court. It was not, however, in Mary's
nature to give pain, if she could possibly avoid it, to the meanest
animal, much less to a friend valued and esteemed, as he
who was the innocent cause of her anxiety. She adopted,
therefore, what, being always the most easy, is ever the most
dangerous, an intermediate course. In public De Chastelar
regard from the woman; but in her hours of retirement, when
surrounded by the ladies of her court, the most of whom had
followed her footsteps northward from gay Paris, she delighted
to efface from his mind the recollections of neglect before
the eyes of the censorious Scots, by a delicacy of attention,
and a warmth of friendship, which, while it fully answered
her end of soothing his wounded feelings, led him to
cherish ideas most fatal in the end to his own happiness, and
to that of the fair being whom he so adored. It was with a
heightened color and throbbing breast that Mary turned to address
her unconfessed lover, yet there was no flutter in the
clear, soft voice with which she spoke.
“We would thank,” she said, “the sieur de Chastelar for
the delightful sounds by which he has rendered our walk on
this sweet evening even more agreeable than the mild air and
cloudless heaven could have done without his minstrelsey. Yet
't was a mournful strain, De Chastelar,” she continued, “and one
which, if we err not, flows from a wounded heart. Would that
we knew the object of so true a servant's worship, that we
might whisper our royal pleasure in her ear, that she should
list the suit of one whom we regard so highly. Is she in
truth so obdurate, this fair of thine, De Chastelar? she must
be hard of heart to slight so gallant a cavalier.”
“Not so, your grace,” replied the astonished lover, in a
voice scarcely less sonorous than the music he had made so
lately. “She to whom all my vows are paid, she who has
ever owned the passionate aspirations of a devoted heart, is as
pre-eminently raised in all the sweet and amiable sentiments
of the mind as is unrivalled beauty above all mortal beings.”
For an instant the queen was dumb; she had hoped, by
affecting ignorance of his sentiments, that she should have
been enabled to make him comprehend the madness, the utter
words had been addressed to her, which, however she might
feign to others that she had not perceived their bearing, he
must be well aware she could not possibly have failed to understand.
It was with an altered mien, and with an air of
cold and haughty dignity, that she again addressed him as she
passed onward toward the palace.
“We wish thee, then, fair sir, a better fortune hereafter, and
until then good night.” Without uttering a syllable in reply,
he bowed himself almost to the earth; nor did he raise his head
again until the form he loved to look upon had vanished from
his sight: then slowly lifting his eyes he gazed wistfully after
her, dashed his hand violently upon his brow, and turning
aside rushed hastily from the spot.
An hour had scarcely elapsed before the lights were extinguished
throughout the vaulted halls of Holyrood; the guards
were posted for the night, the officers had gone their rounds,
the ladies of the royal circle were dismissed, and all was darkness
and silence. In Mary's chamber a single lamp was burning
in a small recess, before a beautifully-executed painting
of the virgin, but light was not sufficient to penetrate the obscurity
which reigned in the many angles and alcoves of that
irregular apartment, although the moonbeams were admitted
through the open casement.
Her garb of ceremony laid aside, her lovely shape scantily
veiled by a single robe of spotless linen, her auburn tresses
flowing in unrestrained luxuriance almost to her feet, if she had
been a creature of perfect human beauty, when viewed in all
the pomp of royal pageantry, she now appeared a being of supernatural
loveliness. Her small white feet, unsandalled,
glided over the rich carpet with a grace which a slight degree
of fancy might have deemed the motion peculiar to the inhabitants
of another world. For an instant, ere she turned to her
and gazed pensively, and it might be sadly, upon the garden,
where she had so lately parted from the unhappy youth, whose
life was thus embittered by that very feeling which, above all
others, should have been its consolation. Withdrawing her
eyes from the moonlit scene, she knelt before the lamp and the
shrine which it illuminated, and her whispered orisons arose
pure as the source from which they flowed; the prayers of a
weak and humble mortal, penitent for every trivial error, breathing
all confidence to Him who alone can protect or pardon;
the prayers of a queen for her numerous children, and last, and
holiest of all, a woman's prayers for her unfortunate admirer.
Yes, she prayed for Chastelar, that strength might be given to
him from on high, to bear the crosses of a miserable life, and
that by Divine mercy the hopeless love might be uprooted from
his breast. The words burst passionately from her lips, her
whole frame quivered with the excess of her emotion, and the
big tears fell like rain from her uplifted eyes. While she was
yet in the very flood of passion a sigh was breathed, so clearly
audible, that the conviction flashed like lightning on her soul,
that this most secret prayer was listened to by other ears than
those of heavenly ministers. Terror, acute terror took possession
of her mind, banishing, by its superior violence, every less
engrossing idea. She snatched the lamp from its niche, waved
it slowly around the chamber, and there, in the most hallowed
spot of her widowed chamber, a spy upon her unguarded
moments, stood a dark figure. Even in that moment of astonishment
and fear, as if by instinct, the beautiful instinct of purely
female modesty, she snatched a velvet mantle from the seat on
which it had been cast aside, and veiled her person even before
she spoke — “O God! it is De Chastelar!”
“Sweet queen,” replied the intruder, “bright, beautiful ruler
of my destinies, pardon —”
“What ho!” she screamed, in notes of dread intensity, “à
moi, à moi mes Français. My guards! Seyton! Carmichael!
Fleming! will ye leave your queen alone! alone with treachery
and black dishonor! Villain! slave!” she cried, turning
her flashing eyes upon him, her whole form swelling as it were
with all the fury of injured innocence, “didst thou dare to think
that Mary — Mary, the wife of Francis — the anointed queen
of Scotland, would brook thine infamous addresses? Nay,
kneel not, or I spurn thee! What ho! will no one aid in mine
extremity?”
“Fear naught from me,” faltered the wretched Chastelar, but
with a voice like that of some inspired Pythoness she broke
in — “Fear! thinkst thou that I could fear a thing, an abject
coward thing like thee? a wretch that would exult in the infamy
of one whom he pretends to love? Fear thee! by heavens!
if I could have feared, contempt must have forbidden it.”
“Nay, Mary, hear me! hear me but one word, if that word
cost my life —”
“Thy life! hadst thou ten thousand lives, they would be but
a feather in the scale against thy monstrous villany. What
ho!” again she cried, stamping with impotent anger at the delay
of her attendants, “treason! my guards! treason!”
At length the passages rang with the hurried footsteps of the
startled inmates of the palace; with torch and spear, and brandished
blades, they rushed into the apartment; page, sentinel,
and chamberlain, ladies with dishevelled hair, and faces
blanched with terror. The queen stood erect in the centre of
the room, pointing, with one white arm bare to the shoulder,
toward the wretched culprit, who, with folded arms, and head
erect, awaited his doom in unresisting silence. His naked
rapier, with which alone he might have foiled the united
efforts of his enemies, lay at his feet; his brow was white as
sculptured marble, and no less rigid, but his eyes glared
spoken
The queen, still furious at the wrong which he had done her
fame, marked the expression. “Silence!” she cried — “degraded!
wouldst thou meanly beg thy forfeit life? Wert thou my
father, thou shouldst die to-morrow! Hence with the villain!
Bid Maitland execute the warrant. Ourself — ourself will sign
it — away! Chastelar dies at daybreak!”
“'Tis well,” replied he, calmly, “it is well — the lips I love
the best pronounce my doom, and I die happy, since I die for
Mary. Wouldst thou but pity the offender, while thou dost
doom the offence, De Chastelar would not exchange his shortened
span of life, and violent death, for the brightest crown in
Christendom. My limbs may die — my love will live for
ever! Lead on, minions; I am more glad to die than ye to
slay! Mary, beautiful Mary, think — think hereafter upon
Chastelar!”
The guards passed onward; last of the group, unfettered and
unmoved, De Chastelar stalked after them. Once, ere he
stooped beneath the low-browed portal, he paused, placed both
hands on his heart, bowed lowly, and then pointed upward, as
he chanted once again the words, “Pensez à moi, noble dame,
pensez à moi.” As he vanished from her presence she waved
her hand impatiently to be left alone — and all night long she
traversed and re-traversed the floor of her chamber, in paroxysms
of the fiercest despair. The warrant was brought to her
— silently, sternly, she traced her signature beneath it; not a
sign of sympathy was on her pallid features, not a tremor shook
her frame; she was passionless, majestic, and unmoved. The
secretary left the chamber on his fatal errand, and Mary was
again a woman. Prostrate upon her couch she lay, sobbing
and weeping as though her very soul was bursting from her
bosom, defying all consolation, spurning every offer at remedy.
fame, and murdered mine only friend!”
The morning dawned slowly, and the heavy bells of all the
churches clanged the death-peal of De Chastelar. The tramp
of the cavalry defiling from the palace-gates struck on her heart
as though each hoof dashed on her bosom. An hour passed
away, the minute-bells still tolling; the roar of a culverin swept
heavily downward from the castle, and all was over. He had
died as he had lived, undaunted — as he had lived, devoted!
“Mary, divine Mary,” were his latest words, “I love in
death, as I loved in life, thee, and thee only.” The axe drank
his blood, and the queen of Scotland had not a truer servant
left behind than he, whom, for a moment's frenzy, she was
compelled to slay. Yet was his last wish satisfied; for though
the queen might not relent, the woman did forgive; and in
many a mournful hour did Mary think on Chastelar.
| CHASTELAR. The knights of England, France, and Scotland | |