University of Virginia Library

HAMILTON OF BOTHWELHAUGH;
Or, the Massacre of St. Bartholomew
A DARK SCENE IN PARIS.
1565.

1. PART I.

The shadows of evening had settled down upon the moor
and the morass, the tangled brakes and haunted ravines of Ettrick,
with more than the wonted gloom of a December's night;
the distant moanings of the heavy gale foretold the storm that
was already brewing in the west, and a few broad flakes of

snow were felt, rather than seen, flitting through the gloomy
atmosphere. There needed no extraordinary sagacity to foresee
the sure approach of one of those tremendous flurries, as
they are termed, of hurricane and hail, which, bewildering to
the stranger in the full light of day, become perilous and appalling
even to the hardy natives, when encountered amid the
hills in the hours of solitude and darkness.

But it would seem that neither tempest nor obscurity had
power to check the solitary rider, who journeyed over hill and
dale with such unfaltering resolution, although at times it required
all the spirit and address of an accomplished cavalier to
force his jaded horse against the gusts which now raved across
the unsheltered moorland with almost irresistible violence.
The traveller was a tall and powerful man, whose firm seat and
martial bearing denoted the practised warrior, even more than
the arms, without which, in those days of wrong and rapine,
no one could hope to travel in security through districts of a
far less doubtful character than the marches of the Scottish
border. He wore an open headpiece, or bacinet of steel,
which, although its polish had been dimmed by the rust of
many a wintry day, yet glittered through the haze; a coat of
strong buff leather, once richly laced and fringed, though now
defaced and soiled, from many a hard-fought field — a heavy
gorget and broad plates upon the shoulders, with huge jack-boots
extending to the middle of the thigh, completed his defensive
arms. His weapons, however, partook strangely of
the equipments of a modern trooper, blended with that of the
paladins of chivalry; for in holsters, at his saddle-bow, were
suspended a pair of petronels, as they then were called — of a
construction infinitely more cumbrous, and scarce less bulky,
than the carabine of Napoleon's cuirassiers — while one of
those tremendous espaldrons, or two-handed swords, which had
not as yet become entirely obsolete — its huge crossed hilt

rising far above the shoulder of the wearer — jarred against
spur and stirrup with its ponderous scabbard.

The noble horse which bore him, carefully as it had been
selected for extraordinary points of blood and bone, was now
so utterly overdone with toil, that he reeled and tottered before
the sweeping blast, as though each freshening of the gale must
bear him to the earth. It was not, however, a moment in
which the rider could afford to spare his faithful servant; for
not only would it have been inevitable destruction to both man
and beast, to have passed the night upon those dreary wolds,
but the place and the hour had workers of evil more fearful
than the pelting shower, in the fierce mosstroopers of that dark
and dangerous district; the spur, therefore, and the curb, were
the only answers to his frequent stumbles, that the exigencies
of the situation would allow. A long and ragged hill, channelled
by many a petty torrent, with here and there a stunted
bush, or bare crag, looming against the gray horizon, stretched
its wearisome length before him; but so bitterly did the arrowy
sleet drive into his face, and so deeply was the snow already
drifted in every hollow pass and sheltered gully, that it
seemed impossible for any human eye to discover the meanders
of that rarely-travelled path. No hesitation, however, was to
be discovered in the dauntless eagerness with which he still
pressed onward, as though every inch of the snow-clad wilderness
were as familiar to his ken as the hall of his fathers. An
hour of toil and peril had elapsed before the summit was gained,
and the prospect, though still wild, became, at every step, less
dreary and monotonous. A thick growth of broom and brackens,
intermingled with the silver birch, and the still verdant
holly, clothed the gradual descent, while, at no wide intervals,
some gigantic beech or gnarled and twisted oak remained to
tell where once had flourished the mighty Caledonian forest.
In the budding time of spring there is no fairer region throughout

the varied scenery of Scotland, than the far-famed banks
of Esk; nor when autumn has cast her rich, though melancholy
tints upon the woodland, and the purple bloom of the
heather has succeeded to the greenness of the young herbage,
is the beauty of the declining, less attractive than that of the
mellowing, year; and even now, although the cold gale sighed
and howled among the creaking branches, there was something
less mournful in its tones, than when they swept, like the cry
of spirits, unmingled with any sound of earth across the naked
moor. Ere long the signs of man were apparent, first in solitary
pastures girded by dry stone dikes, and framed, as it
were, in a dark setting of coppice — then in continuous crofts,
with their lines of sheltering sycamores, and here and there
the rude peel-house of some feudal proprietor overlooking its
rural dependencies from battlement and bartizan. The track
was now more clearly marked, following the windings of a
tributary to the foaming Esk; the storm, too, had, in some degree,
abated, and the moon shone forth at intervals, from behind
the scudding wrack.

The rider, whose faculties had hitherto been occupied entirely
in the management of his horse, now looked abroad with
an air of satisfaction, as one who has reached, at length, the
haven of his hopes; his eye dwelt serenely on those inanimate
objects, which become so dear to the heart when connected
with recollections of the home which they environ; and even
his jaded beast gave token, by erected ear and livelier motion,
that he too was aware that his toils were well nigh ended.
Suddenly, as he wheeled abruptly round a promontory of rock
and wood, a gleam of light, as from a distant casement, flashed
for an instant on his sight, and was lost again to view, as the
ground fell precipitously to the brink of the stream. It seemed
an age to the wayworn soldier ere that brief ravine was passed,
and the welcome ray again shone out to greet him. For another

mile that beacon star was hidden a hundred times by
branch or brier, and a hundred times returned to bless his
soul; till at length revealed by the glare of its broad windows,
the lordly pile of Woodhouselee stood forth in bold relief from
the sheltering foliage of its secluded dell. “Dame Margaret
holds high festival to-night,” muttered the baron, beneath his
thick mustache, but there was a something in the tone which
belied the sentiment his words expressed, as if the speaker
would fain have imposed upon himself, and quelled some lurking
apprehension by the half-affected jest. And, in truth, the
noble Hamilton had rather looked for the sad solitude of a
well-night widowed bride, than for the mirth and revelry,
which became each instant more apparent, not in the illumination
only, but in the bursts of merriment and music that were
audible in every lull of the western gale.

A year had rolled its heavy hours along, since he had left
his lovely Margaret, a newly-wedded bride, in that forsaken
hall, to wield his blade in defence of Scotland's ill-starred
Mary. A fearful gloom had settled upon the champion's brow,
from the sad moment when he had torn himself from the embrace
of his distracted wife, and dashed his charger to its
speed, nor dared to look behind till the first ridge of hill had
concealed the temptations of his happy home. Never, for a
moment, had he hoped for success in that ill-omened cause;
never had he deemed that Mary would live again to fill the
throne of her forefathers; but honor — the honor of his name,
of his clan, and of his country — called him to lead his hardy
spears to join the muster of his princely chief; and, with a
heavy heart, but an undaunted spirit, had he lent his voice to
swell the cry of “God, and the Queen,” and spurred his
charger in the van of every skirmish, till the fatal action of
Langside destroyed the last hopes of his devoted party, and
drove the hapless Mary to seek protection from the honor and

compassion of her lion-hearted rival, the cruel and despotic
Elizabeth. Escaped from the perils of the field, he had fallen
into the hands of the infuriated lords, and doomed to seal his
allegiance on the scaffold, he had scarcely ever hoped to fold
his Margaret to his heart, or bless his infant son, ere he should
die. Month after month he lay in hopeless durance, lamenting
his own approaching dissolution less — far less — than the
effusion of noble blood, which daily glutted the vengeance of
his conquerors. Tidings, he had received none; nor was it
probable that she, for whom alone he lived, had obtained the
least assurance of her husband's situation; — hard she must
know his lot, and precarious, if not hopeless, his preservation.
For how, when Seyton, and Fleming, and Ogilvie, and Huntly,
were dispersed and slain — how should a Hamilton be safe?
— Or how — when the adherents of their wretched mistress
were prescribed and hunted down like beasts of chase — should
Bothwelhaugh alone be unharmed? When a pardon from the
regent's hand was tendered to the noble captive, it was with
feelings more nearly allied to frenzy than to joy, that he had
issued from the gloom of his dungeon, into the free air of
heaven. His limbs were again free — but to his mind there
was no freedom. Care, and defeat, and failure, had shed a
constant twilight over a temperament once buoyant and elastic,
beyond the boldest spirits of his age. Fiery, generous, and
enthusiastic, he had loved — as he had fought — almost with
fury. And, as is not unfrequently the case, the affections of
the rash and daring lover were wound up in the well-being of
the meekest, fairest flower of Scottish land.

Three months had hardly elapsed between the accomplishment
of all his joys in the possession of his gentle Margaret,
and the wide alarums that rang through every glen and cleugh,
when Mary burst from her imprisonment to draw a deeper ruin
on her devoted followers, and her own royal head; yet, in

those three months, the very nature of the borderer had been
changed. He, who was never at rest, save in the saddle;
who had no pleasures but in the foray or the fight, would loiter
now, “from morn to dewy eve,” in the bower of his bride.
With her he would wander whole days among the lovely
scenery of Roslin and of Hawthornden, or pore upon the
chansons and virelain, which had been transplanted from the
courtly realms of France to the bleak hills of Scotland. With
her he forgot the turbulent excitements of his former course in
the mild tranquillity of domestic bliss. With her he had resolved
to live, heedless of the world's sorrow, and, in her
arms, he had hoped to die. He was torn from her, and, from
that hour, hope was dead within him. He was condemned to
die, but recked not of his doom! He was set free, and he rejoiced
not! Even at the instant when he received advices
of her welfare, he felt no happiness. A heavy shadow hung
over him; a deep-engrossing sense of future evil — which,
though his reason might despise it, yet struck his spirits down
to the very dust, and cowed his high heart with unresisted
terror. When he had mounted his best horse, a pardoned, unattainted
noble, it was rather with the air of a wretch on his
way to the place of doom, than of a youthful bridegroom
speeding, in all the eagerness of joyful hope, to the chosen
of his bosom.

Gradually, however, as he neared the house of his fathers,
and learned that the devastating tide of war had swept past, at
a distance, leaving these rugged vales in unassailed security;
as he ascertained from the wandering hunter, or the lonely
shepherd of the hills, that his adored Margaret still sat unharmed
in her solitary bower, without a cause of sorrow, save
the absence of her lord, he had succeeded in casting grief behind
him. The free air of his native hills had dispelled the
gloom, which, for many a weary month, had weighed so heavily

upon his soul; and, at times, a touch of that reckless
gayety of mood, which had distinguished him of yore at the
feast and in the fray, broke forth in snatches of some lively
song, startling the moorland echoes with their unaccustomed
glee. Rapidly, however, as his mind had regained its native
elasticity, and loftily as his hopes had soared in their recovered
confidence, yet, with tenfold rapidly, did those vain hopes
sink, when his eyes beheld that strange illumination, and his
unwilling ears admitted those ill-timed sounds of glee. It was
not, however, with the poignant acuteness of an unexpected
blow, but rather with the stern and gloomy bitterness of a
long-foreseen calamity, that this new certainty of evil smote
upon his senses. Evil it must be! For how should she, on
whose affections he had staked his all, give loose to merriment,
while her wedded lord was languishing in a dark and
silent dungeon? How should she find pleasure in the dance,
or lend her soul to the voluptuous strains of the minstrel, unless
another tale of fickleness and falsehood were to be added
to the gloomy annals of human sin and misery? An overwhelming
rush of dark and terrible thoughts burst instantaneously
upon his mind. Love — jealousy — revenge, burning
almost to frenzy, were mingled with despondency, and doubt,
and terror! Yet, to the honor of his noble nature be it spoken,
the struggle lasted but for one instant! The untainted purity,
the sweet humility, the hallowed devotion of his bride rose on
his softened memory, and swept each dark suspicion from his
soul, almost before it had found birth — but, with repentance
for his momentary distrust of her, whom he now felt to be far,
far above the slightest taint of calumny or doubt, his fears increased
to such a point, that the bold warrior trembled in his
saddle like a weakly child, and his steel harness clattered on
his limbs convulsed as by an ague. Then, as his dread became
more definite, he gored his weary charger with the spur,
whirled his tremendous weapon from scabbard, and, with his
battle-cry, a “Hamilton to the rescue!” quivering on his lips,
ere a second had elapsed, he was driving along the broken
road at a pace, which, from the previous exhaustion of both
horse and rider, would have been deemed beyond the bounds
of nature. Hill and hollow, rock and wood, just glanced, like
meteors, on his view, and were swallowed up in distance, as
he rushed along. A short half mile was yet between him and
the solution of his hopes or fears. The path, which had
hitherto swept along the northern margin of the Eske, now
turned abruptly to the right, and, diving precipitously into the
dell, crossed the channel of the torrent by a ford, so dangerous
at periods from the rapid floods, which come down from the
moorlands after every summer's shower, and every winter's
storm, that a high and narrow bridge of planks had been
thrown across the chasm for the benefit of the timid or infirm.
No parapet or rail defended the sides of this perilous causeway,
though, scarcely a yard in breadth, it was reared high
above the slaty bed, supported partially by piers of rugged
masonry, and partially by blocks of the living rock, through
which the everlasting stream had cleft itself a passage. At a
single glance the borderer perceived, from the brawling fury
with which the turbid spray was hurled against the creaking
arches, that death must be the inevitable lot of any who should
brave the swollen ford. Without a pause, however, he drove
his steed, by dint of spur and tightened rein, across the clattering
planks. The hand of Providence was there! For, had
the charger's foot diverged one inch's breadth from its direction,
both horse and man had perished; the smallest swerve,
the slightest stumble, must have hurled them headlong to destruction.
Once only did his hoofs clash on the echoing timber,
a second stride, and the firm rock rang beneath him.
But scarcely had he cleared the bridge, before the horse swung
round, in mortal terror, as it were, of some aërial shape beheld
by him alone, with a violence that might well have cast a less-experienced
rider from his seat, ere he had discovered the
cause of his disaster. As it was, although with every advantage
of support from the steady hand and practised skill of the
cavalier, the over-driven beast staggered a pace or two, then,
with a heavy, though fruitless effort at recovery, fell, rolled
over and over, never to rise, and, ere-its master had regained
his footing, had stretched out all its limbs in the rigidity of
death.

Shaken as he was by the sudden shock, Hamilton had
sprung up, sword in hand, even with the speed of light; the
idea of an ambush flashed upon his senses as he fell, and he
arose prepared for deadly strife. But the brandished blade
sank powerless, and the half-uttered shout was smothered in a
prayer, as he beheld a tall and shadowy figure, white as the
drifted snow, its long, loose tresses floating on the wind, and
its pale lips uttering strange sounds of thrilling laughter.
Erect upon the last abutment of the bridge, the form, whatever
it might be, though it had escaped the notice of the rider, occupied
by the urgency of his position, had startled the horse
almost into the jaws of death, and, for a moment, as the soldier
gazed upon the apparition, the life-blood curdled at his
heart. Fearlessly, joyously, would he have plunged into the
mortal conflict; but thus arrayed against the powers of another
world, confirmed as such visions were in that dark age, even
by the doctrines of his church, what wonder that the boldest
spirit should shrink back from the unequal contest? Not
long, however, could fear, even of a supernatural caste, appal
a mind so resolute at all times, and now so wrought to desperation,
as that of Hamilton. “Maria sanctissima,” he muttered
— “ora pro nobis! Our border tales are true; it is the spirit
of the stormy water! But there is that within my soul tonight

that I must on, though the arch-fiend himself should
strive to bar my passage.” Grasping his ponderous weapon,
he strode forward, as if to meet an earthly foeman, calmly
resolved to prove his might against the terrors of a world invisible.
“In the name of him,” he whispered through his
hard-clenched teeth, “of whose most holy death thou hast no
portion, hence to thine-appointed place!” The shriek, which
burst from the ghastly form to whom he spake, might well
have raised the dead, if aught of earth had power to rend
their cerements, so high, so spiritually-piercing were its tones.
It ended, and a burst of horrid laughter rang upon the night-air,
and then the piteous wailing of unspeakable despair. The
moon, which had again been hidden for a while, now streamed
forth gloriously from a chasm in the rolling vapors, so suddenly
and so splendidly did the bright rays illuminate that
pallid shape, that, for an instant, he believed the light an emanation
from the form itself; but, in that instant, he recognised
the delicate and graceful limbs, the features lovely, despite
their livid paleness, of his own Margaret. Not a shade of
color varied the dead whiteness of her cheek or lip — not a
spark of intelligence gleamed from those eyes, once the
sources of unutterable love and lustre. The superb figure
scarcely veiled by one thin robe of linen — the bosom, pulse-less
as it seemed, to which was clasped a naked, new-born
babe — even the tones of her voice, altered as they were and
terrible, were all his Margaret's. Not a doubt existed in his
mind but that the spirit of his wife stood thus revealed before
him; and, as the conviction became strong, fear departed.
Grief, deep grief, was visible upon his brow; but grief exalted,
as it were, and purified by communion with the sainted
and imperishable part of one, who, even while loaded with the
imperfections of the mortal clay, had ever seemed a being
allied to heaven, more nearly than to earth.

Casting his sword far from him, he sank silently upon his
knees beside the stiffening carcase of his charger; with arms
outstretched, extended neck, and parted lips, he paused in
breathless expectation. Folding the infant closer to her cold
embrace, as though no mortal eye beheld, or ear attended, she
warbled, in a voice of surpassing sweetness, one of the most
pathetic ballads of her tuneful country: —

As her plaintive song ended, she flung an arm aloft with a
wild expression of terror, “Help! help!” she screamed; “to
arms! the foe! save — save me, Hamilton! — my lord, my
life, preserve me! O God! O God, is there no help from
earth, or heaven? Unhand me, villains! dearly shall ye rue
this night when Hamilton returns. Give me my child — my
blessed boy. Oh! mercy, mercy!” — Like a thunderbolt the
truth smote on his soul. It was his wife — his living wife —
driven forth into the snowy fields to perish with her babe. At
a single bound he stood beside her; madly he cast his arms
around her icy form — “Margaret,” he sobbed upon her bosom;
“my own — own Margaret, thy Hamilton is here.” “Villain,”
she shrieked; “thou Hamilton! avaunt! I know thee not!
would — would to God, my princely Hamilton were here; but
his glorious form I never shall behold again! But, see!” she
cried, “if thou hast yet a spark of mercy in thine iron heart,
receive and bear mine infant to his father's arms; behold;”
she moved the little body from her shivering breast, gazed
wistfully upon its shrunken features, and then, as the fatal
truth became apparent, “Cold — cold! oh! merciful Heaven!”
she faltered forth in calmer tones, and sank from her husband's
grasp upon the chilly soil. It was in vain that her half-frenzied
lord stripped his own frame of garment after garment to
fence her from the piercing storm; it was in vain that he
chafed her frozen limbs, and strove to wake her into life by
his warm breath; long did she lie sobbing and trembling as
though her heart would leap from its place, but not a symptom
of returning animation blessed his hopes; gradually she was
sinking into that sleep which knows no waking; pain and
grief were nearly over, and it seemed as if she were about to
pass, without another struggle, into the presence of her Creator.
Suddenly she rallied; her long-fringed lashes rose, and,
as she turned her eyes upon her husband's face, he saw, with

momentary rapture, that the wild glare of insanity had faded
from those liquid orbs, and that she knew him. “Was it a
dream?” she said; “O Hamilton, beloved husband, it is indeed
thus that we have met; met only to be parted for ever!
My babe, my blessed babe has gone before me. I saw his
little limbs convulsed with the last agony of cold, I felt the
last flutter of his balmy breath upon my lips, and then my
reason fled! But blessed be the Virgin, I have seen, and
known my lord.” Her words came forth more slowly, and, at
every pause, that dread forerunner of dissolution, the death-rattle,
was distinctly audible. “Fly, fly from this accursed
spot. Promise — that you will fly to save your precious life!
Oh! Hamilton — I am going — kiss me yet once again — bless
you, my husband — the ho — ly Virgin bless you — husband —
husband!”

2. PART II.

The severity of winter had already begun to relax, although
the season of its endurance had not yet passed away; for, as
it not unfrequently happens, the unwonted rigor, which had
characterized the last months of 1568, was succeeded by a
scarcely less unusual mildness in the commencement of the
following year. The air was mild, and, for the most part,
southerly; and the continuance of soft and misty weather had
clothed the meadows with a premature and transitory verdure.
The young grass pushed forth its tender blades from the
mound which covered all that earth might claim of the hapless
wife of Hamilton, the small birds chirped above her silent
home, and in the vales which she had gladdened by her presence,
it seemed as though her gentle virtues were forgotten
almost before her limbs had perished in their untimely sepulchre.
One heart, however, there still beat, that never would
forget; one heart that would have deemed forgetfulness the
deepest curse it could be made to feel, although the gift of
memory was but the source of unavailing sorrow and despair.

Experience has fully shown that to no frame of mind is grief
more poignantly acute than to such as having been fashioned
by nature in a stern and rugged mould, averse to sympathy,
and hardly susceptible of any tender emotion have, by some
fortuitous circumstances, and in some unguarded hour, been
surrendered to the dominion of one master passion, which has
worked, in time, an entire revulsion of their feelings, and
changed the very aim of their existence. Such had been the
fate of Bothwelhaugh; restless, fierce, and ambitious, as he
has been pictured in his unbridled youth; accustomed to speak
and think of women with license and contempt, he had been
affected by the sweetness and pure love of his young bride to
a degree, which souls like his alone are able to conceive; and
when deprived of her in a manner so fearfully horrible, and
with details so aggravating, the effects produced on his demeanor
were proportioned only to the event which gave them
birth.

No sudden burst of violence, no fierce display of temper,
such as, in his days of unrestrained indulgence, he hath been
wont to show at the loss of a favorite falcon, or a faithful
hound, followed upon this his first true cause for sorrow. Not
a tear moistened his burning eyeballs, not a sob relieved the
choking of his throat, as he followed his first and only love to
her eternal home; a heavy stupor was upon him; he moved,
spoke, and acted as if by instinct, rather than by volition; and
there were those who deemed that his brain had received a
shock that would paralyze its faculties for ever, and that the
high souled and sagacious Hamilton was henceforth to be
rated as a moody, moping idiot. Not long, however, did this
unusual temper continue; for scarcely had he seen the last remains
of the only being he had ever loved committed to earth,
ere, to the eye of a superficial observer, he appeared solely occupied
in the management of his departure from the patrimony

of his immemorial ancestors; few, indeed, and brief were his
preparations; a charger of matchless strength and symmetry,
was easily provided on that warlike frontier to supply the place
of that which had borne him on his fatal journey; his arms
were carefully inspected, the rust wiped from his two-handed
blade, and the powder freshened in his clumsy, but effective,
firearms; and, lastly, a dozen of the hardiest riders of the
border side had preferred the fortunes of their natural chief, although
his star was overcast, to the usurped dominions of him
who, by the haughty regent's favor, possessed the confiscated
demesnes of a better and braver man. Mounted on horses
famed for their hardiness and speed, and trained to all the
varied purposes of war; their bright and soldier-like accoutrements
contrasting strangely with the wild expression of their
features, their untrimmed beards, and shaggy locks, the small
band, as they leaned on their long lances, or secured their
slight equipments, around the solitary tower in which their
leader had passed the melancholy hours of his sojourn, presented
a picture of singular romance and beauty. Horses
neighed and stamped in the echoing court-yard, armor clashed,
and spurs jingled, and louder than all were heard the eager
and excited voices of the untamed borderers; but every sound
was hushed as their stern chief came forth, surveyed the harness
of every trooper, and the caparison of every steed in silence,
threw himself upon his horse, and wheeled his handful
of men at a hard trot upon the road toward the Scottish capital.
Hardly a mile of their route had been passed, and the
troop was diving into the very glen which had witnessed the
downfall of Hamilton's sole earthly hope, when the vidette fell
hastily back with notice of the approach of horsemen. Hurrying
forward, they had already cleared the ravine, when they
beheld some half score lancers winding down toward the rugged
ford, the followers, it seemed, of a knight who had already
passed the river. There needed not a moment's halt to array
his fresh steeds and ready warriors for the charge; if such
were to be the result of the encounter. At a glance had Hamilton
discovered the person of the regent's minion, the cold-blooded,
relentless hater, who had wreaked his coward spite
upon his unoffending, helpless wife; nor were his followers
slower in recognising the usurper of their chieftain's patrimony.
With a fierce and triumphant yell, they dashed their spurs into
their horses' flanks, and with levelled spears and presented
match-locks, threatened inevitable destruction to the victim
who was thus hopelessly surrendered to their mercy. The
nearest of his train was separated from him by the wide and
stony channel of the Eske, nor was it possible that he could
be joined by succor in time to preserve him from the fury of
those wild avengers. To the astonishment, however, of both
parties, Bothwelhaugh, who had only learned the deadly intentions
of his men from the hoarse clamor with which they
greeted the appearance of their destined prey, himself reined
up his horse with a shock so sudden that it had nearly thrown
him on his haunches — “How now!” he shouted, in the short
tones of resolution; “vassals! halt, or I cleave the foremost
to his teeth! Saint Mary aid us; but we have fair discipline!”
His determined words, no less than the readiness
with which he had upon the instant beat down the lances of
the fiercest troopers, arrested their wild violence; and before
the intended victim had prepared his mind either for resistance
or submission, the peril was at an end.

Wheeling his party upon the narrow green beside the bridge,
the bereaved husband halted, awaiting the approach of his wife's
destroyer, with an apathy which, to the veterans who had followed
him in many a bloody day, appeared no less incomprehensible
than shameful; while one by one the enemy filed
through the narrow pass formed, hesitated for a space, and

then, perceiving that no opposition would be offered to their
progress, marched onward with a steady front, and well-dissembled
resolution. Last of the troop, with downcast eye and
varying complexion, as though he scarcely dared to hope for
mercy from a man whom he had so irreparably injured, rode
the usurper, expecting at every step to hear the border slogan
pealing from the lips, and to feel the death-blow thundering
from the arm of him, to whom he had given such ample cause
to curse the hour when he was born. Motionless as a statue
state the noble Hamilton on his tall war-horse, his broadsword
at rest within its scabbard, and his countenance as calm, and
almost as dark, as midnight; — yet, whatever were the feelings
that induced the borderer to forego his vengeance, when circumstances
thus wooed him to the deed, it was evident that
mercy had no place within his soul at that tremendous moment.
The heavy gloom that dimmed his eye — the deep
scowl upon his brow — the compression of his lips — and the
quivering motion of his fingers, as they hovered upon the gripe
of his dagger, betokened no slight or transitory struggle; and
the deep breath drawn from the bottom of the chest, as the
hated minion disappeared, spoke, as plainly as words, the relief
which he experienced at the removal of so powerful a
temptation. “No!” he muttered between his teeth — “it
would have been a deed of madness! To have crushed the
jackall would but have roused the lion into caution! Let
them deem me coward — slave — fool! — if they will — so I
have my revenge!” Again he resumed his route in silence,
nor did a word, save an occasional command, fall from him by
which the train of his sensations might have been discovered;
all day he pursued his march with unwearied diligence, barely
allowing such brief intervals of rest as might enable his
cattle to proceed with recruited vigor — and, while toiling
through the deep morass, or over the pathless hill, night closed,
starless and overcast, above his houseless head; but little mattered
it to such men as that determined soldier and his rugged
comrades, whether night found them on the lonely moor or in
the lighted hall. And if they thought at all upon the subject, it
was but to congratulate themselves on the fortunate obscurity
which agreed so well with their mysterious enterprise.

The second moon was in her wane, from that which had
beheld the death of Margaret, and her miserable babe; yet the
savage executor of her fate lorded it securely in the halls
which had so lately been the dwelling of female innocence
and peace. For a while men looked for a sure and speedy retribution
from the fatal wrath of him who had never yet been
known to fail a friend, or to forgive a foe; yet day succeeded
day, and, with the impunity of the murderer, the astonishment
at first, and ere long the scorn of all, pursued the recreant husband
and fugitive chief of a name once so noble. Some gray-haired
veterans there were, who would ominously shake their
heads, and press their fingers to the lip, when topics such as
these were broached, or hint that the lord of Bothwelhaugh
would bide his time, and that, if he were unaccountably slow
in seeking his revenge, he paused but to mak sicker;[7] generally,
however, an idea prevailed that the spirit of Hamilton
had been so utterly prostrated by the blow, that no gallant deed
of vengeance — which was held in those days of recent barbarism,
not only justifiable, but in the highest degree praiseworthy
and honorable — was now to be dreaded by his foes, or
hailed by his firm adherents. Little, however, did they know
the man whom they presumed to stigmatize as a recreant, or a
coward; and still less could they conceive the change, which
had been brought about by a single event in his formerly rash

and unthinking temper. Once, not an instant would have
elapsed between the commission of the crime and its punishment;
once, he would have rushed upon a thousand perils to
confront the man who wronged him, and would have set his
life at naught in avenging his tarnished honor. Now, on the
contrary, his bold and open hardihood was exchanged for a
keen and subtle cunning; now he hoarded, with a miser's
care that life which he had set upon a thousand times; not
that he loved his life, but that he had devoted it to the attainment
of one object, which had become the single aim of his
existence. It was from the quiver of Murray that the arrow
had been selected, which had pierced his love, and he haughtily
overlooked the wretched villain, who had aimed the dart,
in his anxiety to smite the mightier though remoter agent, who
furnished his tool with that power which had destroyed his all.

Successful in his ambitious projects, backed by the almost
omnipotent league of the covenanted lords, wielding the truncheon
of the regency as firmly as though it were a royal sceptre,
feared and honored by Scotland, respected by the lion-queen
of England, Murray entertained no doubt, harbored no
lurking dread, of a man too insignificant, as he deemed in his
overweening confidence, to cope with the occupant of Scotland's
throne.

Returning from an expedition through the vales of Esk and
Clyde, whose romantic waters had been dyed with blood by
his remorseless policy, leaving sad traces of his progress in
smoking villages and ruined towers, he had reached Linlithgow
on his progress toward his capital. Surrounded by a select
force of the best warriors from every lowland plain or high-land
glen, he had entered the antique town as the last sun that
was ever to set for him sank slowly into a bed of threatening
clouds; and all night long the streets of Linlithgow rang with
mingled sounds of war and revelry. From leagues around the

population of the country had crowded in to feast their eyes
with the triumphant entry, and pay their homage to the well
nigh royal conqueror; many an eye was sleepless on the
memorable night, but few from sorrow or anxiety; yet there
was one within the precincts of those antiquated walls, whose
presence, had it been whispered in the regent's ear, would
have shaken his dauntless heart with an unwonted tremor.
Overlooking from its Gothic bartizan, the market-place of the
old city, stood one of those gloomy dwellings, with its turretted
gable to the street, its oaken portal clenched with many
a massive spike and bar, and its narrow casements subdivided
by stone transoms, which are yet to be seen in several of the
Scottish boroughs, presenting evident traces of having been
erected in that iron time, when every man's house was in
truth his castle. Here, in a narrow gallery which commanded
the principal thoroughfare, without a light to cheer his solitude,
or fire to warm his limbs, watched the avenger. The night
was raw and gusty, yet he felt not the penetrating breath of
winter; he had ridden many a weary mile, yet his eyelids
felt no inclination to slumber; he had fasted since the preceding
night, yet he knew no hunger; he stood upon the
brink of murder, yet he shuddered not. Before the sun had
set, he had despatched his last attendant to the castle of his
princely kinsman the duke, who bore his name, and owned his
fealty; he had supplied his charger with the grain which was
to serve him for to-morrow's race, in one of the lower halls of
the deserted house; he had barricaded every portal with unwonted
deliberation, and secured the windows with chain and
bar; he had prepared all that was needful for the tragedy he
was about to perpetrate, and now he was alone with his conscience
and his God!

His mind, wrought to the highest pitch of resolution,
dreamed not of compunction, nor did he for an instant doubt

his full justification in the eyes of his Creator, although he was
lying in wait secretly to mark a fellow-being, as though he
were a beast of the chase. Nor indeed did he feel so much
of hesitation in leveling his rifle[8] at his brother man, as he
had often experienced in striking down the antlered monarch
of the waste. Oftentimes, when the beautiful deer had been
stretched at his feet by his unerring aim, with its graceful
limbs unstrung for ever, and its noble crest grovelling in
the dust, had he sorrowed in secret over the destruction he
had wrought for momentary pleasure; but no such thoughts
were here to meet his resolution, or to damp his anticipated
triumph. As he paced on his short beat with firm and measured
stride, he reckoned the minutes with trembling anxiety,
and as the successive hours clanged from the lofty steeple, he
cursed the space that yet divided him from his revenge; still,
amidst all his eagerness, he had the strength of mind to banish
from his thoughts all recollections of the grievance, which he
never recurred to but he felt his brain reel, and his nerves
tremble with fury, which he could neither guide nor moderate.
Night, however, though it may be tedious even to disgust, can
not endure for ever; and, in due time, the misty light of dawn
glimmered through the narrow panes upon the scene of fatal
preparation. The wall facing the window, hung from the
ceiling to the floor with black cloth, that no shadow might betray
the lurking enemy, the piles of bedding strewed upon the
floor to prevent a single footfall from awakening suspicion,
and, on a table by the casement, the match-lock rifle, with its
slow match already kindled, the horn and bullets ready for the
hand, no less than the accoutrements and bearing of the man,
proclaimed the fixed determination with which he had plotted,
and the cold-blooded preparation with which he was prompt to
execute his enemy's destruction.

As the morning broke, a wild flourish of trumpets sounded
the reveille ftom a distant quarter of the town, wherein his victim
had passed the hours of sleep in undisturbed tranquillity.
The sound fell upon the ear of Hamilton, and, thrilling to his
heart's core, stirred him like the horse of Job. Again he applied
himself to his task; again he reconnoitred every outlet
to the main street, and made assurance doubly sure that, for
ten minutes, at the least, the fastenings could resist any assaults
short of the shot of ordnance; he equipped his charger
with the lightest trappings, tried every buckle, and proved the
least important thong; then, as the time drew nigh, led him forth
silently to the rear of the building, whence a gloomy and neglected
garden conducted to an unfrequented lane, by which
he might gain access to the open country. Still, when all this
was finished, when the preparations were concluded, and his
escape provided to the utmost that human foresight could
effect, a tedious hour had yet to creep away before the success
of his machinations should be ascertained. Cautiously he retraced
his steps, and entering once more upon the scene of
action, prepared his weapon for the deed with scrupulous attention;
the first smile that had lightened his gloomy brow
now flashed across it as he drove the leaden messenger down
the tube, from which it was soon to be launched on its career
of blood; and raising the well-proved instrument to his unerring

eye, examined with a markman's skill its range and balance.
Then coolly, as though he were about to provide himself
against the inconveniences of a protracted chase, drawing from
a recess food and wine, he broke bread and drank, not without
satisfaction.

Hardly had he finished his slender meal before the distant
chime of the matin bells, proclaiming the earliest service of
the church, tinkled upon the breeze. Reverently; devoutly
did the future murderer sink upon his knees, and fervently did
he implore the aid of that Being, who, if it be not impious to
imagine the ideas of Divinity, must have looked down with abhorrence
on the supplication of one who was even then plotting
a deed of blood, unless the ignorance and barbarism of
the age might pass for some alleviation of individual error in
the sight of Him who is no less a God of mercy than of justice
and of truth. Strengthened in his awful purpose, and confident
of both the goodness and the approaching triumph of his
cause, Hamilton rose up from his ill-judged devotions. Suddenly
the roar of artillery shook the casements, and the din of
martial music, trumpet, horn, and kettle-drum, mingling in wild
discordance with the pibrochs of the highland clans, announced
that the regent had commenced his progress.

At once every symptom of anxiety or eagerness disappeared
from the lowering countenance of Hamilton; while there had
been uncertainty, the slightest possible shade of trepidation
had appeared in his demeanor; but now, as in the warlike
symphony, and the acclamations of the populace, he foresaw
the success of all his desperate machinations, he was calm
and self-possessed; now, when a meaner spirit would have
shrunk from the completion of the deed, which it had dared
to plan, but lacked the resolution to perform, the full extent
of his determination was most manifest. There was a quiet
composure in his eye, a serene complacency in the repose of

every feature, which, as considered in connection with his
dreadful purpose, was more appalling, than the fiercest burst
of passion. Firm as a statue he stood in the dark embrasure,
the ready weapon in his hand, and his keen glance watching
the approach of his doomed victim. Louder and louder
swelled the notes of triumph; and now the very words of the
applauding concourse became audible: “God save the regent!”
“Life to the noble Murray!” Then a score of lancers lightly
equipped, and nobly mounted, clattered along the echoing
street to clear a path for the procession; but their efforts were
exerted to no purpose, the populace, which thronged the area
of the place closed in behind the soldiers, as waves uniting in
the wake of some swift sailer, and, in their eagerness to prove
the extent of their good wishes, frustrated their own intent, and
rendered their favorite's doom more certain. Banner after banner,
troop after troop, swept onward! Glittering in all the gorgeousness
of steel and scarlet, marshalled by men whose fame
for warlike science and undaunted bravery might have challenged
the glory of earth's most widely-bruited heroes, elated
with recent victory, and proud of the unconquered leader whom
they guarded, they trampled on, “defying earth and confident
of heaven.” Morton was there, with his sneering smile and
downcast eye, as when he struck his poniard into the heart of
Rizzio; and Lindsay, of the Byres, sordid in his antiquated
garb and rusty armor, with the hardest heart beneath his iron
corslet that ever beat in a human breast; and Kircaldy, of the
Grange, the best and bravest soldier of the age; and the celebrated
Knox, riding in his clerical garb amidst the spears —
Knox, of whom it was justly spoken after his decease, that he had
never feared the face of man! and the chief of the Macfarlanes
with his shadowy tartans, and the eagle-feather in his bonnet,
and a thousand kilted caterans at his heels! But proudly as
the marshalled ranks proceeded on their march, and haughty
as was the bearing of the crested warriors, there was not a
man in all the train that could compare in thewes and sinews
with him who watched within. His closely-fitting dress of
chamois leather, displaying the faultless proportions of his
limbs, the elasticity of his tread, the majestic melancholy of
his expression, gained by the contrast, when viewed beside
the pomp and splendor of his haughty foemen. Another troop
of lancers striving in vain to remove the crowded spectators
from the route; and then, preceded by heralds in their quartered
tabards, amid the clang of instruments, and the redoubled
clamors of the multitude, on a gray, which had been cheaply
purchased at the price of an earl's ransom, sheathed from head
to heel in the tempered steel of Milan, Murray came forth, in
all but name a king. So closely did the crowd press forward,
that the chargers of the knights could barely move at a foot's
pace. Glencairn was at his right, and on his left, the truest
of his followers, Douglas of Parkhead.

The pomp had passed unnoticed; the well-known figures
had gleamed before the eyes of Hamilton, like phantoms in a
troubled dream; but no sooner had his victim met his eye,
than the ready rifle was at his shoulder. The regent's face
was turned toward his murderer, and full at the broad brow
did the avenger point the tube. The match was kindled, the
finger pressed the trigger, when, at a word from Douglas, he
turned his head; the massive cerveilliere would have defied a
hail of bullets, and the moment for the deed was lost. Without
a moment's pause, without removing the weapon from his
eye, or his eye from the living mark, he suffered the muzzle
to sink slowly down the line of Murray's person. Just below
the hip, where the rim of the corslet should have lapped over
the jointed cuishes, there was one spot at which the crimson
velvet of his under-garb glared through a crevice in the plates,
— a French crown would have guarded twice the space, yet

on that trifling aperture the deadly aim was fixed. A broad
flash was thrown upon the faces of the group, and ere the sound
had followed the streak of flame, the gray dashed madly forward,
with empty saddle, and unmastered rein. The conqueror
had fallen in the very flush of his pride; and, at
the first glance, it seemed, he had not fallen singly, for so
true had been the aim, and so resistless the passage of the
bullet, that, after piercing through his vitals, it had power to
rend the steel asunder, and slay the horse of Douglas. For a
moment there was a silence — a short, breathless pause — the
gathering of the tempest! — a yell of execration and revenge,
and a hundred axes thundered on the steel-clenched portal.

One instant the avenger leaned forth from the casement in
the full view of all, to mark the death-pang of his prey. He
saw the life-blood welling from the wound, he saw the death-sweat
clogging his darkened brow, he saw the bright eye
glaze, and the proud lip curl in the agony — but he saw not,
what he had longed to trace — remorse — terror at quitting
earth — despair of gaining heaven! He turned away in deeper
torment than the dying mortal at his feet, for he felt that all
his wrongs were now but half avenged! The presence of the
murderer lent double vigor to the arms of his pursuers — a
dozen flashes of musketry from the crowd glanced on his sight
— a dozen bullets whistled round his head — but he bore a
charmed life. The gate shook, crashed beneath the force of
the assailants — fell, as he sprang into the saddle! He locked
the sally-port behind him, darted through the lonely garden,
gained the lane, and saw the broad free moors before him.
But, as he cleared the court, a score of light-armed horsemen
wheeled round the corner of the building, dashed their horses
to their speed, and, with tremendous shouts, galloped recklessly
in the pursuit. It was a fearful race, the broken pavement
of the lane presented no obstacle to their precipitate haste;

pursuers and pursued plied spur and scourge with desperate
eagerness, and, for a space, a lance's length was hardly clear
between the fugitive and the half-frantic soldiery; but gradually
the lighter equipments, and the fresher steed of Hamilton,
began to tell. He had already gained a hundred yards, and,
at every stride, was leaving his enemies yet further in the
rear; there were no fire-arms among the knot, who pressed
most closely on his traces, and he would now have gained the
open country, and have escaped without a further struggle;
but, as he cleared the straggling buildings of the suburb, a
fresh relay of troopers met him in the front, headed by Lind-say,
Morton, and Glencairn. Had they been ten yards further
in advance, the life of Bothwelhaugh would not have been
worth a moment's purchase — but he had yet a chance. On
the left hand of the road lay a wide range of moorland pastures,
stretching downward to a deep and sluggish brook, beyond
which the land extended in waste and forest far away to the
demesnes of James of Arran, duke of Chatelherault and Hamilton.
A six-foot wall, of unhewn limestone, parted the grassland
from the highway, and, without a pause, he turned his
horse's head straight to the lofty barrier. At the top of his
pace, the steed drove on — a steady pull upon the rein, a sharp
plunge of the spurs, and, with a fearful bound, he got clear
over; — but, with equal resolution did the confederate lords
pursue — Lindsay was still the foremost, and three others
thundered close behind! Another, and another of these huge
fences crossed their line, but not a rider faltered, not a horse
fell. The price of the chase was fearful — the pace, at which
it was maintained, was too exhausting for both man and beast
to be supported long, and, obviously, the chances of the fugitive
were fast diminishing. Another wall — another successful
leap — Lindsay is down, but Morton takes his place — the
bottom of the hill is gained, and the winding streamlet lies
before them, deep and unfordable, its rugged banks rising precipitously
from the water's edge, and beyond it the tangled
shelter of the forest. Already the pursuers considered their
success as certain — already the shout of triumph was bursting
from their lips, and the avenging blades unsheathed. Both-welhaugh
saw that his case was well-nigh hopeless, yet he
urged his horse against the yawning brook; but the good
steed, jaded by his exertions, and cowed by the brightness of
the water, shyed wildly from the leap, and stopped short,
trembling in every joint. Calmly the soldier tightened his
rein, breathed the exhausted animal ten seconds' space, and,
drawing his light hunting-sword, rode slowly back, as if to
face his enemies. The cry of exultation, which was raised
by all who saw him turn to bay, was heard distinctly at Linlithgow,
and every one, who heard it, deemed the murderer's
head secure. Morton and Glencairn strove hard for the honor
of striking down the slayer of their friend — but, when within
a horse's length, Hamilton turned once again, pulled hard upon
his curb, stood in his stirrups, and, as he reached the brink,
brought down his naked hanger edgewise on the courser's
croup. The terrified brute sprang wildly forward, cleared the
tremendous chasm, and would have fallen on the other verge
but for the powerful hand of the rider. With a startling shout
of exultation, he shook his arm aloft, scowled on his baffled
enemies, and was lost to their sight amid the leafless thickets!

3. PART III.

The sun was setting after a lovely day in August, and his
rays still gilded the broad mirror of the Seine, and the rich
scenery of Paris — palaces, towers, and domes, with crowded
streets, and shadowy groves between — reposing in the mellow
light, while the heat, which had been so oppressive in the
earlier hours, was now tempered by a soft breeze from the
west. Tranquil, however, as that picture showed when viewed
from a distance, there was little of tranquillity in aught beyond
the view; the bells from a hundred steeples were ringing out
their liveliest tones of joy, banners and pennons of many colors
flaunted from every pinnacle, while ever and anon the
heavy roar of cannon was mingled with the acclamations of
the countless multitude. Every window was thronged with
joyous faces, every place and thoroughfare swarmed with the
collected population of that mighty city, all, as it seemed, partaking
of one common happiness, and glowing with mutual benevolence.
Here swept along a procession of capuchins in
their snowy robes, with pix and chalice, banner and crucifix,
censers steaming with perfumes, and manly voices swelling in
religious symphony; here some proud count of Romish faith,
descended from his warhorse, and bent his lofty crest to the
very dust in adoration of the elevated host; and here some no

less noble Huguenot passed on in calm indifference, without
exciting either wonder, as it would appear, or anger by his inattention
to the holiest ceremonial of the church. Ministrels
and jongleurs with rote and viol, professors of the gai science in
every different tongue, and with almost every instrument, were
mingled with peasant-maidens in their variegated garbs and
wooden shoes, and condottieri sheathed in steel. Fair dames
and gallant knights of high descent jostled, forgetful of their
proud distinctions, with the despised plebeians whose hearts
yet beat as lightly beneath their humble garments, as if they
throbbed under robes of ermine, and embroideries of gold. At
this delicious hour, and contemplating this moving picture, two
persons stood, shrouded from public view by the rich draperies
of the window, in a projecting oriel of the royal residence — a
youth, whose unmuscular limbs and beardless cheek proclaimed
his tender years, although the deep lines graven on
his brow by intense thought, or trenched by the fiery ploughshare
of unmastered passions, belonged to a maturer age. His
cloak and jerkin of Genoa velvet slashed and faced with satin,
and fringed with the most costly lace of Flanders, were of
the deepest sable, from which flashed forth in strong relief
his knightly belt and collar of invaluable diamonds. In person,
air, and garb, he was one, from whom the stranger's eye would
turn in aversion, and return again to gaze, as if by some wild
fascination, upon that sallow countenance and hollow eye,
marked as they were by feelings most high and most unholy.
Beside him stood a female of superb stature, and a form still
as symmetrical as though her eighteenth summer had not yet
passed away. There was a fierce and lionlike beauty in her
masculine features, but that beauty was defaced and rendered
horrible by the dreadful expression, which glared from her
eyes, as though some demon were looking forth from the abode
he had usurped within a mortal frame, of more than mortal
majesty. Her garb was like her son's, for such was he on
whom she leaned, of the deepest mourning, but gathered round
her waist by a broad cincture of brilliants, from which a massive
rosary of gold and gems hung nearly to the knee; her
long tresses, which, though sprinkled now with many a silvery
hair, might once have shamed the raven, were braided closely
round her forehead and partially confined beneath a circlet of
the same precious jewels. They were, in truth, a pair preeminently
stamped by Nature's hand, and marked out, as it
were, from the remainder of their species, for the performance
of some strange destiny, or good or evil. Had Catharine de
Medicis and her royal son been enveloped in the meanest
weeds, stripped of all ensigns of their dignity, and encountered
in regions most distant from their empire, they must have instantly
been recognised as persons born to exalted eminence
above their fellow-mortals, and singularly qualified by talents,
no less powerful than perverted, for the art of government. A
single gentleman, in royal liveries, attended in an antechamber
on his sovereign's call, while in a gallery beyond the nodding
plumes and gorgeous armor of the Italian mercenaries, who at
that period were in truth the flower of all continental armies,
showed that the privacy of monarchs, if splendid, was but insecure,
inasmuch as their power was enthroned upon the fears
rather than upon the affections of their subjects. For many
moments they gazed in silence on the passing throng, but it
was evident from the working of both their countenances, that
their survey had for its object anything, rather than the mere
gratification of curiosity. At length — as a noble-looking warrior,
his venerable locks already blanched to snowy whiteness,
before his nervous limbs had given a solitary token of decay,
rode slowly past, attended by a brilliant train, in confident security
— a scornful smile curled the dark features of the boy
with even more than wonted malignity. “The simple fool!”
he whispered to his evil counsellor. “He rides as calmly
through the courts of our palace, as though he marshalled his
accursed heretics within his guarded leaguer!”

“Patience! my son,” returned that fiendlike parent — “patience,
yet for a while. A few days more and the admiral
shall cumber the earth no longer. The sword is already
whetted for his carcase, and would to Heaven that all our foes
were tottering on the edge of the same gulf, which is prepared
for thee, Gaspar de Coligni.”

“I would it were over,” answered Charles; “there is more
of subtlety and warlike skill in that gray head, than in a
hundred Condes. The day approaches — the day that must
dawn upon the brightest triumph of the church; and yet so
long as that man lives, nothing is certain. One doubt in that
shrewd mind, and all is lost. He must be dealt upon right
shortly — I would it might be done to-morrow!”

He raised his eyes half-doubtingly to the countenance of his
mother, and almost started at the illumination of triumphant vengeance,
which kindled in her withering smile — “To-morrow
he shall perish!” she hissed, in the suppressed tones of deadly
hatred and unalterable resolution — “What, ho! who waits
there?” she continued, as her quick eye caught a glimpse of a
passing figure in the crowd — To-morrow he shall perish, and
there stands the man who must perform the deed! God's
head! must I call twice! without there!” and in the furious
anxiety of the moment, she stamped her heel upon the tesselated
floor till the very casements shook. Startled by her vehemence,
the page drew near on bended knee, and was faltering
forth apologies, when with a voice of thunder she cut him
short — “Nearer! thou dolt — nearer I say — wilt pause till
'tis too late! Look forth here! seest thou yon tall swordsman!
— him with the velvet bonnet and St. Andrew's cross?
— Thou dost? — After him with the speed of light! — say to

him what thou wilt, so thou sayst not I sent thee, but bring
him to his majesty's apartment, so soon as night shall have
well fallen! — Hence, begone! — Cover thy liveries with a
simple riding-cloak, and away! — Why dost thou pause? Begone
— nay, hold! if he should doubt, or fear, say to him as a
token, `The sword is the most certain spur!' ”

The man, whose form had thus attracted the notice of Catharine,
might well have drawn attention by his magnificent proportions
alone, even had his habit been less at variance, than
it was, with the established fashion of the country. A plain
bonnet of dark velvet, with the silver cross of Scotland, and a
single eagle's feather, drawn forward almost to his eyebrows,
a corslet of steel, burnished till it shone as brightly as silver,
worn above a dress of chamois-leather exquisitely dressed,
and fitting with unusual closeness to his limbs, offered a singular
contrast, from its plainness and total want of ornament,
to the gorgeous garments of the French cavaliers fluttering
with fringes, and slashed with a dozen different colors, besides
the laces and embroidery of gold or silver, which were, at
that period, the prevailing order of the day. Still more widely
did the old-fashioned broadsword of the stranger, with its
blade four feet in length, and its two-handed gripe, differ from
the diamond-hilted rapiers of the Parisian gallants; — and most
of all did the stern and melancholy air of the noble Scot — for
such did his bearing and his dress proclaim him — distinguish
him from the joyous, and, at times, frivolous mirth of the gay
youths, who crossed his path at every step. Nor did his appearance
fail to attract comments, not of the most flattering description,
from the French chivalry, who, renowned as they most
justly were, for skill in the tilt-yard, and valor in the field, had,
even at distant era, acquired the character of coxcombry and
over-attention to externals, which is by some supposed to have
descended to the present generation. It is probable that it was

owing in no slight degree, to the muscular form and determined
port of the soldier, that these comments did not assume a more
offensive shape; yet, even thus, they had nearly kindled the
ire of the formidable individual to whom they bore reference.
— “Heavens! what a wild barbarian!” lisped a fair girl to
the splendidly-dressed cavalier on whom she leaned. “A
Scottish highlander, I fancy,” returned the gallant, after a contemptuous
glance, “with his broadsword of the twelfth century,
and his foreign gait and swagger.” The blood rushed furiously
into the weather-beaten cheeks of the proud foreigner, and for a
second he doubted whether he should not hurl defiance into
the teeth of the audacious jester, but, with the reflection of a
moment, his better sense prevailed. Twirling his mustache
with a grim and scornful smile, he passed upon his way,
shouldering the press before him, as he muttered, “The painted
popinjays, they neither know the weapons of men, nor the
courtesy of cavaliers!” It was at this moment that the emissary
of the queen, who had easily tracked a figure so remarkable
as his of whom he was in quest, overtook and brushed
him somewhat roughly on the elbow as he passed. “Follow,”
he said; “follow me, if you have the heart of a man.” When
first he had felt the touch, yet boiling with indignation at the
treatment he had experienced, he had half unsheathed his
poniard; but having received, as he imagined in the words
which followed, an invitation to a proper spot for appealing to
the sword, he strode onward in the wake of his challenger,
silent and determined. A few steps brought them to a narrow
alley, into which his guide plunged, turning his head to mark
whether he was followed as he wished; and, after threading one
or two intricate and unfrequented streets, they turned into the
royal gardens, which, now so famous, even then were decorated
with no common skill. “This spot, at length, will suit us,” said
the Frenchman. “Monsieur is, undoubtedly, a man of honor?”
“You should have learned my quality,” replied the haughty
Scot, “before you dared to offer me an insult. Draw, sir, we
are here to fight, and not to parley!”

“Not so, beau sire,” returned the other, not a little annoyed
as it would seem, at the unexpected turn which the affair had
taken; “I am the bearer of a message to you — a message from
a lady, not a cartel!”

“Now out upon thee for a pitiful pandar,” said the Scot,
with increased ire; “dost thou take me for a boy to be
cheated with such toys as these? Out with your weapon, before
I compel you to it by the hard word, and the harder
blow!”

“May all the saints forefend!” replied the frightened courtier;
“your valor, my fair sir, has flown away with your discretion.
I come to you a peaceful bearer of a friendly invitation,
and you will speak of naught but words. A lady of the
high nobility would speak with you on matters of high import,
would charge you with the execution of a perilous and honorable
trust; if you will undertake it, meet me here at ten
o'clock to night, and I will lead you to the rendezvous; if not,
I will return to those who sent me, and report the Scottish
cavalier as wanting in that high valor of which men speak,
when they repeat his name!”

“It is a wild request,” answered the other, after a short
pause. “How know I but that you train me to some decoy?
I have foes enough to make it like, I trow. What if I bring a
partner?”

“It is impossible; alone you must undertake the feat, or
undertake it not at all. But hold, I had a token for your
ear — `The sword is the most certain spur' — know you the
phrase?”

“As arguing myself, known; but whether by a friend, or by
a foe, your phrase says nothing. Nay, be it as it may, I have

stood some risks before, and I will bide the blast even now!
At ten o'clock, I will be at the tryst. Till then —”

“Adieu,” returned the other, and vanished among the shrubbery
before the Scot could have prevented him, if he had been
so minded. But such was not his intention; his mind had
been gratified by the singularity, no less than surprised by the
boldness of the request. Naturally brave almost to rashness,
banished from his native land for political causes, and without
the means of providing for his wants, much less of supporting
the appearances demanded by his rank, he eagerly looked forward
to any opportunity of raising himself to distinction, perhaps,
even to affluence in his adopted country; and, with his
thoughts in such a channel as this, it was not probable that a
trivial or imaginary danger should deter him from an enterprise
in which much might be gained; while, on the contrary,
nothing could be lost, but that which he had long ceased to
value at an extravagant price, an unhappy life. The last stroke
of the appointed hour was still ringing in the air, when the
tall soldier stood alone at the trysting place; his dress was in
nowise altered, save by the addition of a large cloak of dark
materials, worn evidently for concealment, rather than for
warmth; but, fearless as he was, he yet had taken the precaution
of furnishing his belt with a pair of smaller pistols then recently
introduced. Not long did he remain alone, for scarcely
had he reached the spot where his mysterious guide had left
him, ere he again joined him from the self-same shrubbery
wherein he had then disappeared. Without a moment's delay,
the messenger led him forward, with a whispered caution to
say nothing, whosoever he might see; after a few minutes
walking, he reached a portal in a high and richly ornamented
wall, and knocked lightly on the door, which was instantly unlatched
by a sentinel whom, at first sight, the Scotsman knew
for one of the chosen guards who waited round the person of

the sovereign. Sheathed in armor richly inlaid with gold, his
harquebus, with its match kindled, on his arm, it would have
been impossible to pass the guard without a struggle, which
must have alarmed a body of his comrades who lay wrapped
in their long mantles on the pavement, or played at games of
chance by the pale glimmer of a single lamp; a ring, as it appeared
to the silent but watchful Scot, was exhibited, and the
mercenary threw his weapon forward in a low salute, and motioned
them in silence to proceed. In the deepest gloom they
passed through court and corridor; uninterrupted by the numerous
sentinels whom they encountered, ascended winding
staircases; and, without meeting a single usher or attendant
in apartments of almost oriental splendor, paused at a tapestried
door, which opened from the wall of a long gallery so secretly
that it must have escaped the eye of the most keen observer.
Here again the courtier touched, rather than struck, the panel
thrice at measured intervals, and a female voice of singular and
imperious depth, commanded them to enter. The brilliant
glare of light which filled the small apartment had well-nigh
dazzled the bewildered stranger; yet there was enough in the
commanding mien of Catharine, and the youthful king who
sat beside her, although no royal pomp was there, to tell him
that he was in the presence of the mightiest, the most dreaded
sovereigns of Europe; dropping his mantle and his bonnet to
the floor, he bent his knee, and, instantly recovering his erect
carriage, stood reverent but unabashed. Tempering her stern
features with a smile of wonderful sweetness, and assuming
an air of easy condescension, which not her niece — the lovely
Mary of Scotland — could have worn with more becoming
grace, the queen addressed him: —

“We have summoned to our presence, if we err not, one of
the truest and most faithful servants of our well-beloved niece
of Scotland. Although the queen of France has not yet recognised

the person, believe not, sir, that Catharine de Medicis is
unacquainted with the merits of the sieur Hamilton.”

Another inclination, and the color which mounted to his
very brow at this most flattering, though private testimony,
testified his respect and gratitude; yet as the speech of Catharine
needed no reply, though inwardly marvelling to what all
this might tend, the knight of Bothwelhaugh, for he it was who
stood in that high presence, saw no cause for breaking silence.

“Speak, sir,” pursued the queen; “have we been misinformed,
or do we see before us the most unswerving, and the
latest follower of the injured Mary?”

“So please your grace,” was Hamilton's reply; “so long as
sword was drawn, or charger spurred in my unhappy mistress'
cause, so long was I in the field! but how I can lay claim to
praise as being the last, or truest of her followers, I know not.
Hundreds fell at the red field of Langside, as brave and better
warriors than I; scores have since sealed their faith in blood
upon the scaffold, and thousands of true hearts yet beat in
Scotland; more faithful never thrilled to the trumpet's sound;
thousands that followed her, and fought for her, that watched,
and fasted, and bled for her.”

“But that failed to avenge her,” interrupted Catharine; and
for years afterward did those words ring in the soldier's ears
with unforgotten fearfulness; for never had he deemed such
fiendish sounds of exultation could proceed from human lips,
much less from woman's. “Art not thou the slayer of the
base-born slave, that was the master-spirit of her enemies?
Art not thou he whose name shall go down to posterity with
those of David, and of Jael, and of Judith, and of all those who
have smitten the persecutors of the church of God? Art thou
not he whom princes shall delight to honor, whom the Holy
Father of our faith himself hast pronounced blessed? Art not
thou the avenger of Mary, the killer of the heretic Murray?”

“Soh! sits the wind there,” thought the astonished Hamilton,
as he coolly replied: “He was the enemy of my royal,
my most unhappy mistress, and for that I warred with him a
l'outrance! — the persecutor of the faithful, and for that I
cursed him! — the murderer of my wife, and for that, and that
alone, I slew him.”

“Well didst thou do, and faithfully!” cried the queen;
“adherents such as thee it is the pleasure, no less than the
pride, of the house of Guise to honor and reward.”

“Sieur of Hamilton,” continued Charles, apt pupil of his
demonical guardian, “earthly honors are but vain rewards to
men like thee! Yet wear this sword as a token of gratitude
due from the king of France to the avenger of his cousin if
thou art inclined to wield it in the cause of him who offers it,
I hold a blank commission to a high office in our army — the
command of our guard! Shall I insert the name of Hamilton!”

“Honors like these, your majesty —” he was commencing,
when he was again cut short by the queen.

“Are insufficient, we are well aware, when weighed against
thy merits. Accept them, notwithstanding, as an earnest of
greater gifts to come. Serve but the heads of the house of
Guise, as thou hast served its scions, and the truncheon of the
marechal hereafter may be thine. No thanks, sir! actions are
the only thanks that we require! and now, farewell! we will
speak further with our officer to morrow!”

Accustomed, long before, to the etiquette of courts, Hamilton
received the gift upon his knee, kissed the bright blade,
and with a profound inclination retreated without turning to
the door, bowed a second time even lower than before, and
left the presence! Scarcely, however, had he made three
steps, ere he was recalled by the voice of Catharine herself.
“Ha! now shall I know the price which I must pay for this
rich gewgaw; methought such gilded baits must point to future

service, rather than to past good offices;” the half-formed
words died on his lips as the vivid thought flashed through his
brain, yet not a sound was heard; he stood in calm attention
listening to the words of the tempter.

“We have bethought us, sir,” said Catharine, in a low,
stern whisper, “we have bethought us of a service of most
high importance, wherewith it is our will that thou shouldst
commence thy duties, and that, too, with the dawn! It has
something of danger; but we know to whom we speak! much
of honor, and therefore we rejoice in offering it to thee!. If
successful, to-morrow's eve shall see our champion maréchal
of France. Dost thou accept the trust?”

“Danger, so please your highness,” replied the wary
soldier, “danger is the very soul of honor; and for honor alone
I live. What are the commands of your majesty?”

Confident that her offer was understood and accepted, the
same hateful gleam of triumph flashed across her withered
features as before, and the same note of exultation marked her
words. “Thou knowest, doubtless, Gaspar de Coligni — the
admiral — the heretic — the sword and buckler of the accursed
Huguenots!”

“As a brave soldier, and a consummate leader, I do know
the man. Pity but he were faithful, as he is trusty and experienced!
What is your grace's will concerning this De Coligni?”

“Qu'il meurt!”

“Give me the means to bring the matter to an issue, and I
will do my devoir. But how may I find cause of quarrel with
one so high as Coligni? Bring me to the admiral, and let
him take every advantage of place and arms, I pledge your
majesty my word, to-morrow night shall not find him among
the living.”

“And thinkst thou,” she replied with a bitter laugh, “thinkst

thou we reck so little of a faithful servant's safety as to expose
him to a desperate conflict with a warrior such as him concerning
whom we speak? As Murray fell, so fall De Coligni!”

“Not by the hand of Hamilton,” was the calm, but resolute
answer. “My life your majesty may command even as your
own; I reck not of it! but mine honor is in mine own keeping!
Mine own private quarrel have I avenged, as best I
might; but neither am I a mercenary stabber to slay men in
the dark, who have done me no wrong; nor is a Scottish gentleman
wont to take gold for blood-shedding. I fear me I have
misapprehended the terms on which I am to serve your grace;
most gladly, and most gratefully, did I receive these tokens of
your majesty's approbation, as honors conferred for honorable
service in the field. If, however, they were given either as a
price for the blood of Murray, or as wages to be redeemed by
future murder, humbly, but at the same time firmly, do I decline
your bounty!”

“Why, thou most scrupulous of cut-throats!” exclaimed
the youthful king, whose iron heart was utterly immovable by
any touch of merciful or honorable feeling. “Dost thou, thou
who didst mark thy man long months before the deed, didst
dog him to destruction as your own northern hound hangs on
the master-stag, didst butcher him at an unmanly vantage,
dost thou pretend to round high periods about honor? Honor
in a common stabber! — ha! ha! ha!” and he laughed derisively
at his own false and disgraceful speech.

“It is because I am no common stabber,” returned the noble
Scot, “that I refuse your wages, as I loath the office, and despise
the character which you would fix upon a gentleman of
ancient family, and unblemished reputation! My lord, I slew
yon base-born tyrant, even as I would slay your highness,
should you give me cause. Had he been mine inferior, a short
shrift, and a shorter cord, had paid the debt I owed him!

mine equal, the good sword that never failed its master, had
avenged her to whom alone that master's faith was plighted!
He was, so word it if you will, my superior! Superior not in
arms, or strength, or virtue; not in the greatness of nature's
giving, but in craft, and policy, and all the pompous baubles
that make fools tremble; one path was open to my vengeance,
and one only! I took it! I would have taken the arch-fiend
himself to be my counsellor, so he had promised vengeance!
Show me the man that dares to injure Hamilton, and Hamilton
will slay him: honorably, if it may be, and openly; but,
in all cases, slay him. For this matter, sire, I have no license
from my country to commit murders here in France; mine
own just quarrel I have avenged as best I might; but not for
price, or prayer, will I avenge the guard of another, be that
other prince or peasant! Farewell, your highness, and when
you next would buy men's blood, deal not with Scottish nobles!
your grace has Spaniards and Italians enough round your person
who will do your bidding, without imposing tasks on Scottish
men, which it befits not them to execute, nor you to order!
Has your grace any services to ask of Hamilton, which he
may perform with an unsullied hand, your word shall be his
law! Till then, farewell!”

He laid the jewelled sword and the broad parchment on the
board, and with another inclination of respect, slowly and
steadily retreated.

“Bethink thee, sir,” cried the fierce queen, goaded almost
to madness by the disappointment, and by the taunts of the indignant
warrior, not the less galling that they were veiled beneath
the thin garb of respect — “bethink thee! it is perilous,
even to a proverb, to be the repository of royal secrets! how
know we but thou mayest sell thine information to De Coligni?”

“In that I would not sell his blood to thee!” was the stern

answer. “If peril be incurred, 't will not be the first time
peril and I have been acquainted — nor yet, I deem, the last.”
Without another syllable he strode from the presence-chamber,
with a louder step, and firmer port, than oft was heard or seen
in those accursed walls. The usher, who had introduced him,
deeming his sovereign's will completed, led him forth as he
had entered, in silence, and ere the guilty pair had roused
themselves from their astonishment, Hamilton was beyond the
precincts of the palace. An hour had scarcely passed before
the messenger was again summoned to wait the monarch's bidding.
“De Crespigny,” he said, “take three of the best
blades of our Italian guard, dog that audacious Scot, and, be
he at the board, or in the bed — at the hearth, or in the sanctuary,”
— he paused, tapped the hilt of his poniard with a smile
of gloomy meaning, and waved his hand toward the door —
“let his head be at my feet before to-morrow's dawn, or look
well to thine own! — Away!”

4. PART IV.

The morning of that fatal day had arrived, the horror and
atrocity of which may never be forgotten or forgiven, until the
records of humanity itself shall pass away. That day, which,
intended as it was by the infernal policy of France to strike a
death-blow to the reformed religion throughout the world, did
more to unite, to strengthen, and finally to establish the ascendency
of that religion, than could have been established by
the arms of its champions, or the arguments of its professors,
in centuries of unopposed prosperity; as though the fiend who
suggested the counsel had deserted his pupils in very derision
of their blind iniquity. Nor in truth was the hallucination of
the confiding Huguenots less unaccountable than the unearthly
wickedness of their opponents. It would seem that their eyes
had been so completely sealed up, and their suspicions so
obliterated by the marriage of the youthful monarch of Navarre
with the sister of the faithless Charles, that no proof, however
flagrant, of the meditated treason could awake them from their
slumbers. Nor, when De Coligni was well-nigh assassinated

by the aim of an enemy,[9] less scrupulous than the knight of
Bothwelhaugh, could they be aroused, either by the crime itself,
or by the eloquence which it called forth from the Vidame
of Chartres, to see in this attempt “the first act of an hideous
tragedy.”[10] Never were the extraordinary talents of the queen-mother
more evident, or more successful, than in the series of
intrigues, by which the protestant leaders were amused, until
the scheme for their destruction was matured; and it is most
remarkable that the very measures by which she lulled their
fears to rest, were those which laid them most completely at
the mercy of their persecutors. It was recommended by
Charles that the principal gentlemen of the party should take
up their quarters around the lodging of the wounded admiral,
avowedly that they might be ever at hand to protect him from
the machinations of his foes, but in truth that being thus collected
into one body they might be butchered at ease without
a hope of resistance, or a possibility of escape. A guard of
honor was appointed from the musqueteers of the royal household
to watch over the safety of De Coligni, but this very guard
was under the command of Cosseins, his most deadly enemy;
and lastly, with unparalleled baseness, Charles and his fiendish
mother actually paid a visit of condolence at the bedside of
the man, whom they had doomed to a miserable and disgraceful
end.

All was at length prepared; the duke of Guise selected, as

the chief most fitted for the conduct of the massacre; the captains
of the Swiss companies and the Italian condottieri were
harangued and loaded with reward; the dizeniers of the burgher
guards were privately instructed to arm their men in all the
quarters of the city, to assume, as distinctive ensigns, a white
cross in their hats, and white scarfs on their arms, to kindle
flambeaux in every window, and when the palace-clock should
sound, as it was wont to do, at break of day — to fall on and
leave no Huguenot alive within the walls of Paris. Nor was
this all; in every town throughout the realm, like orders had
been despatched by certain hands to all the catholic governors,
so that the striking of that bell in the metropolis, should be
repeated from every tower in France at the same hour, a signal
for simultaneous massacre, a knell for thousands and tens of
thousands of her bravest and her best. One circumstance,
however, had occurred, which in no slight degree embarrassed
the proceedings of the royal executioners, and it needed all
the influence of Catharine to hold her weaker, yet no less
wicked, son firm to his resolution.

The whole day succeeding to their interview with Hamilton
had been spent by that bad pair in expectation amounting
almost to agony. In obedience to the mandate of his master,
De Crespigny had departed with three ruffians of the guard, to
seal the tongue of Bothwelhaugh for ever. The gates of Paris
had been closed, and the escape of the victim seemed impossible,
nor could it be imagined for a moment that one unsupported
foreigner could successfully resist the arms of four
assailants selected for their skill, no less than for their ferocity.
Still, hour after hour crept along, and no tidings arrived of the
success or failure of the enterprise, till on the very morning
of the intended massacre, the stiff and mangled corpses of all
the four were discovered among the shrubbery of the royal
gardens, bearing fearful marks, on head and trunk, of the tremendous

weapon which had laid them low. That they had
perished by the hand of Hamilton was evident, but to the
means by which one man had defeated and slain four antagonists,
each at the least his equal in strength, no clew could be
discovered; nor could the most diligent inquiries throw any
light upon the subsequent movements or the present residence
of the victor. Indeed from the moment of his dismissal from
the king's apartment, no one appeared to have seen or heard
aught of an individual far too remarkable both in personal appearance
and in dress to have passed unnoticed amid the idlers
of the metropolis. It was, nevertheless, certain from the demeanor
of De Coligni, and of his unsuspecting friends, that,
hitherto at least, no discovery of their meditated destruction had
occurred; and although probable that the indignant Scot, on
finding himself singled out for death by his frustrated employers,
should have revealed the whole conspiracy, it was yet
possible that the same high-minded, though mistaken spirit,
which had urged him to avenge himself on his own personal
oppressor, while neither fear nor favor could induce him to
play the hireling stabber's part, might now prevail on him to
conceal that villany, however he might abhor and shrink from
its fulfilment, which had been imparted to him beneath the seal
of private confidence.

The night drew nigh, and with the darnkess of the heavens
a heavier gloom fell on the spirit of the king; an eager, fretful
restlessness took place of his unwonted dignity — his eyes
glared from their hollow sockets with a wild expression of
misery, and the changing flush which now crimsoned his features,
now left them as sallow as the lineaments of a corpse,
gave awful tokens of a perturbed soul. Not an instant did he
remain at rest, one moment flinging himself violently on a seat,
then striding with unequal and agitated steps across the floor,
like the chafed hyena in its den. Now swearing the annihilation

of the Huguenots with fearful blasphemies, now accusing
his advisers, and even his dreaded mother herself of impious
superstition and remorseless frenzy. “It is ye,” he
said, “who have driven me to this abyss of guilt! It is ye
who reap the profits of the sin! but it is I, miserable I that
shall be blasted through endless ages by the hatred of men,
and perhaps by the wrath of God;” — and he sunk in an agony
of tears upon the couch, which rocked beneath the violence
of his convulsive anguish.

“Go to!” cried Catharine with undissembled rage — “Go to!
thou coward-boy, talk not to me of conscience and condemnation!
Thinkest thou to hide from me who have watched it
from your earliest years, the secrets of that craven heart. 'Tis
not the wrath of God — 'tis not the hatred of posterity that
thou dost fear. Say rather that thou dost tremble at the despair
of thine enemies, that thou dost shrink in terror — base
terror! — from one weak, aged, wounded mortal! — Out, out
upon thee, for a miserable dastard! Nay, rather out upon myself,
that I have borne a coward to the house of Medicis!”

“Darest thou,” shouted the boy, springing from his seat,
and confronting her with equal fury — “darest thou say this to
me?”

“All men will dare do so,” she answered scornfully. “All
men! God's-head, all women, will dare to call thee coward!
will pray to the saints, in their extremity, that they may give
birth to idiots, monsters, anything — but such as thee!”

“Mother,” he cried, gnashing his teeth with rage, and playing
with his poniard's hilt, “peace! peace! or by Him who
made me, you shall rue this hour. — Tremble!”

“Coward! poltroon! wouldst thou bare thy weapon on a
woman — and that woman, one who fears it less than thee! —
which for thy life thou durst not handle in the presence of De
Coligni. Tremble? — thinkest thou that I could tremble, if I

would; thinkest thou that I, the destined champion of the Faith
— that I, the savior of the holy Church — I, who was preordained,
before mine eyes beheld the day, to quench the light
of heresy in blood — that I, who, if thou darest to hesitate,
will take the guidance of this matter on myself, and win that
glory here, that immortality hereafter, the brilliancy of which
is more resplendent than thy dazzled eyes can bear to look
upon, thy vacillating mind to comprehend — that I know how
to tremble!”

Her vehemence prevailed! The current of his thoughts was
directed into another channel, and it was now with no small difficulty
that she prevailed on him to await the result of the executions
in the galleries of the Louvre, rather than to sheath himself
in steel, and sally forth at the head of the murderers, to prove
his valor, and to glut his newly-awakened thirst for blood! —
Yet, though she had thus confidently spoken of the glory, and
the undoubted success of the conspiracy, in her own secret
soul she shuddered! — not with fear, not with remorse, but
with devouring care, with all-engrossing agitation. Every
trivial sound that echoed through the royal corridors, every
distant peal of voices from the street, even the stealthy footstep of
the attendant-courtiers, or the sudden shutting of a door, struck
on her guilty ear with a power hardly exceeded by that of the
most appalling thunder. The glittering board was spread, the
choicest viands served in vessels of gold, the richest vintages
of Auxerre and Champaigne, flowers, and fruits, and perfumes,
all that could tempt the eye, or minister to the gratification of
the senses, were set before the royal conclave. The goblets
were filled and drained, the jest passed round, and smiles,
human smiles, illuminated the features of those, who were
plotting deeds worthy the arch-fiend himself. The boy-king
and his brother, half-maddened by the excitement of suspense,
the delirium of meditated guilt, and the fiercer stimulus of

wine, could scarce refrain from bursting into open fury; while
their craftier parent, even as she yielded to the intoxication of
the moment, never for an instant forgot the dreadful responsibility
which claimed the fullest exercise of her keen energies;
and, although she lent herself entirely to the accomplishment
of her present object — the winding up of her son's vacillating
courage to its utmost pitch — she had yet an ear for every remote
murmur, an eye for every varying expression that might
flit across the brow of page or chamberlain; an almost
superhuman readiness of mind that would have defied the most
critical emergency to find it unprovided with some apt expedient.

Stroke after stroke the heavy bells rang midnight, and it
seemed, to each of those excited minds, as though an age
elapsed between each fast-repeated clang. Another hour had
yet its course to run, before those matins, whose name shall
never be spoken without abhorrence, while the world endures,
should sound the condemnation of a people. Another hour
had yet to creep, or to career above their heads, before ten
thousand sleepers should be awakened — never to sleep again!
The flowers had lost their fragrance — the wine palled on
their deadened palates — the lights, reflected by a hundred
plates of crystal, seemed but to render darkness visible. Yet
who could calmly sit and count the minutes that were to marshall
in that morning of indiscriminate slaughter, who could
endure to listen to the monotonous ticking of that clock, the
earliest chimes of which were to be answered by the groans
of dying myriads?”

“Come!” at length exclaimed the callous mother, “it is
tedious tarrying here. It will be better in the tennis-court
than here! Thence we can mark the progress of the execution!”
— and rising from her seat, she led the way, her features
dressed in smiles, and her eyes beaming with exultation, to

the hall of exercise. Few moments had elapsed before the
clatter of the rackets, the lively bouncing of the balls, and the
loud voices of the antagonists, announced that heart and spirit
were engrossed in the excitement of the game. Oaths, shouts
of laughter, proffered bets, and notes of sportive triumph, rang
from the tongues, that, scarce an hour ago, had decided on the
doom of the unsuspecting innocents; and that, before another
should arrive, would lend their tones to swell the fearful cry
of “Kill! kill!” — “Death to the Huguenots!” — “Kill and
spare not!”

The noble gallery, which had been fitted, according to the
fashion of the day, for the game of tennis, overlooked, with its
tall netted casements, the principal street of Paris, even at that
early age a wide and beautiful parade. The cool breeze from the
river swept refreshingly around their feverish brows, but wafted
not a sound to their ears: although they well knew that the
guards must be already at their posts, crouching like tigers,
that their spring might be unerringly destructive. Tranquil,
however, as it appeared, the city glowed with almost noonday
light, for every window was illuminated with row above row
of flashing torches, and, at every angle of the streets, huge
lanterns swayed to and fro in the fresh currents of the night-wind.
It was a beautiful scene, but at the same time one
whose beauty was of a painful and unnatural cast; every
joint and moulding of the walls, nay, every crevice of the
pavements, was defined, as clearly as the outlines of a Flemish
picture; yet it seemed as if this unaccustomed splendor
had been produced by some enchantment, and to meet no mortal
end; for not a human being was to be seen throughout the
whole perspective — not a houseless dog intruded on this
strange solitude. At an earlier period of the night all had
been dark and gloomy, even before the hum of traffic, or of
pleasure, had entirely subsided; but now, when every place

was silent and deserted, unseen hands had steeped the vast
metropolis in lustre, to be witnessed by no admiring multitudes.
Long and wistfully did Catharine gaze upon that spectacle,
straining her senses, sharpened as they were by the most
fearful expectation, to catch whatever indication, sight, or
sound, might offer to the success of the conspiracy. At length,
as she listened, Charles — whose care-worn eye wandered
ever and anon from his deep gaming to his mother's countenance
— saw by the momentary shudder that thrilled her
stately form, and by the rigid tension of her features, that the
moment was at hand — and so in truth it was! Even when
that tremor quivered through her limbs, the hammer hung sus-pended
above the tocsin-bell. She had beheld no vision —
she had heard no murmur to announce the hour — yet she
knew — she felt — that, ere the breath which she was then inhaling,
should go forth, the matin peal would sound. And it
did sound! Heavily did the first clang of St. Germain's à
l'Auxerre strike on their bursting hearts, but ere its ringing
cadences had died away, another, and another, and another,
took up the signal; till at every pause between their deafening
clamor, the chimes of a hundred tocsins might be heard losing
themselves in undistinguished distance! A single shot
broke through the din of bells; with its sharp report a straggling
volley followed — a long, clear, female shriek — and then
the brutal riot of the savage soldiery, the shivering clash of
steel, groans, prayers, and execrations, were blent in one terrific
roar! If ever earthly scene might be assimilated justly
to the abode of condemned sinners, and tormenting friends,
Paris was such on that infernal morning. No! it is not profanity
to say or to believe that disembodied demons exulted in
their prison-houses, if they were not permitted to revel in the
actual contemplation of Christian men converted into worse
than pagan persecutors — of the brightest city of Christendom
presenting the appalling aspect of a universal hell!

“It is done,” cried Catharine, clapping her hands in furious
triumph — “the Lord hath arisen and his enemies are scattered!”

“I am at length a king!” exclaimed the boy, whose fears
were swallowed up in ecstacy at the accomplishment of all his
machinations — “Brave Guise! noble Cosseins! Happy the
monarch who can trust to servants, such as ye!”

Before the words had passed his lips, a louder, and a nearer,
burst of mingled cries showed that the tide of carnage set toward
the palace. Hurling his racket to the further end of the
long hall, he sprang to his mother's side, and, as he viewed the
massacre of his confiding subjects, tossed his arms aloft with
an expression of eye and lip that might have well beseemed a
Nero. First, a few scattered wretches rushed singly, or in groups,
along the lighted streets; mothers and maids — stern men with
dauntless hearts and scar-seamed brows — old grandsires with
their feeble limbs and locks of snow — and infants tottering
along in helpless terror! Then with a sound like that of the
spring-tide, the thoroughfare was choked by thousands, frantic
with despair, hurrying, they knew not whither, like sheep before
their slaughterers. Behind them flashed the bloody
sword of Guise and his relentless satellites; before, the gates
were closed; above, around, on every side, from every roof,
and every window of the illuminated dwellings, the volleyed
shot hurled them in masses to destruction.

“Quick! quick! my harquebuss!” yelled the impatient
Charles, maddened by the sight of blood, and thirsting like the
fleshed wolf for his peculiar share. “Kill! kill!” he shouted
in yet loftier tones, as the unsparing duke dashed forward,
crimsoned from spur to plume with Christian blood, animating
the fanatic Italians of the guard and aiding the work of slaughter,

with his own polluted weapon — “Kill! kill! — gallant de
Guise! — kill! and let none escape.”

Before the windows of the Louvre was a narrow court,
fenced from the street by a tall palisade of ornamented ironwork;
hither, in the first impulse of their terrors, had a herd
of wretches fled, as it were to a sanctuary in the immediate
presence of their king; and here were they confined between
the massive portals of the palace, and the noble thoroughfare
now crowded even to suffocation by an unresisting multitude,
through which the sword was slowly but implacably hewing
itself a passage. Protected by the fretted railings from their
foes without, they had vainly flattered themselves that they
were secured from immediate violence, and trusted to the proverb,
which has but too frequently been found fallacious —
that “a king's face, gives grace!” — what then must have
been their agony when they beheld that very countenance, to
which they looked for mercy, glaring along the levelled match-lock,
and felt their miserable bodies pierced by the shot at
each discharge, and by the hand of their legitimate protector.

On that tremendous night, Hamilton, like a thousand others,
was startled from sleep, in his secluded lodging, by the roar
of musketry, and by the howls of the infuriate murderers; but,
unlike the rest, be recognised at once the sequel of that relentless
policy, to which he had himself refused to minister. During
the very night, on which he had been admitted to the
royal presence, on his return homeward through the gardens
of the Louvre, he had been assaulted by the assassins, whom,
from their garb and arms he at once distinguished as the agents
of the king; by a pretended flight he had succeeded in avoid-ing
their united force, and, singly overpowering each, had
escaped uninjured to his dwelling. Conscious that he was
singled out by a power, which it would be no easy matter to
elude, and deeming that some political convulsion was at hand,

he had kept himself in total retirement, till the hue and cry
should have blown over, and till some opportunity might offer
for his effecting a retreat from France.

Springing from his couch at the first sounds of the massacre,
he perceived at a glance that all the neighboring casements
were lighted up as if for some high festival, nor could he for a
moment doubt but that to be discovered unprepared would be a
signal for his instant death. Few moments sufficed to kindle
such a blaze as would vouch for his privity to whatever plot
might be on foot, to prepare his weapons for the crisis, and to
arm himself from head to heel. Ere long the tumult thickened,
the same tragedy was enacted before his humble doors, that
was polluting even then the threshold of the royal residence.
A few shots from his window, harmlessly aimed above the
heads of the poor fugitives, procured him at once the character
of a zealous partisan; when, binding the badge of white upon
his arm — which he had remarked with his accustomed keenness
— and fixing in his burnished morion the silver cross of
his loved country, he descended, resolutely plunging through
the abhorred carnage, in the hope of extricating himself, amid
the general havoc, from the guilty city.

Though by no means elevated in all his thoughts above the
prejudices of the age, and though himself a zealous adherent
of the Romish church, his noble soul revolted from a scene so
barbarous, and, as he saw at once, so horribly gratuitous. Had
the destruction been confined to the leaders of the Huguenot
party, nay, even to the whole of its armed supporters, it is
possible that his ideas might not have soared beyond the spirit
of his times; but when he saw children unable yet to lisp
their earliest words, girls in the flush of virgin Ioveliness, and
youthful mothers with their infants at their bosom, hewn down
and trampled to the earth, he shrank with inward loathing from
such promiscuous slaughter, and hardly could he refrain from

starting to the rescue. Nurtured, however, as he had been, in
a rude and iron country, educated in a school of warfare, inured,
from his youth upward, to sights of blood, and, above all
things, tutored by sad experience, in that most arduous lesson,
to keep the feelings ever in subjection to the reason, he had
less difficulty in resisting his desire to strike a blow in behalf
of helpless innocence, than we, at this enlightened period, can
imagine; and thus, occasionally lending his deep voice to
swell the clamor which he hated, he strode along amid the
host of persecutors, collecting, as best he might, from, the disjointed
exclamations of the mob, such information as might
serve to extricate him from the wide charnel-house of Paris.
Armed, from head to heel, in complete panoply, his unusual
proportions, and lofty port, joined to the stern authority which
sat upon his brow, caused him to be regarded in the light of a
chieftain, among the Romish partisans. It was not, therefore,
long before he ascertained that two of the city-gates had purposely
been left unbarred, though circled by a chosen band of
Switzers, and Italian mercenaries; and if he could succeed in
making his way unscathed to either of these, he doubted not
but he should be able to pass, by means of his assumed importance;
and, once at large, he was resolved to make no pause
until he should have crossed the sea. One difficulty alone
presented itself — it would be necessary that he should traverse
the esplanade before the windows of the Louvre, and beneath
the very eyes of the perfidious Charles; who, if he should
recognise the person of the haughty Scot, would, beyond a
doubt, avenge the slight which had been offered to his royal
will. Still it was his sole chance of escape; and, when life
is at stake, there is no probability, however slender, to which
men will not cling in their extremity.

Boldly, but at the same time cautiously, did Hamilton proceed,
stifling his indignation at a thousand sights, which made

his heart's blood curdle, with necessary resolution, nor daring
to extend an arm to protect the miserable beings who clung
around his knees, wrestling with their cold-blooded murderers,
and shrieking, in their great agony, for `Life! life! for the
love of God!” Once, as with ill-dissembled fury, he headed
a band of more than common ferocity, a lovely female — her
slender garments torn from her limbs by the rude soldiery, her
long, fair tresses dabbled in the blood which gushed from
twenty wounds — thrust her helpless babe into his arms, beseeching
him with anguish, such as none but mothers feel —
“If he had ever loved a woman, to save her little one!” Even
as she spoke, a dark-browed Spaniard struck his stiletto into
her bosom, and she fell, still shrieking as she lay beneath the
trampling feet — “Save! for God's love! save my wretched
child!” The monster who had felled the parent, drove the
bloody weapon into the throat of the infant, and whirling the
little corpse around his head, shouted the accursed war-cry —
“Death! death! to the Huguenots!” It was fortunate for
the noble Scott, that as he turned, the hot blood boiling to his
brow with rage, to avenge the crime, an ill-directed shot from
a neighboring easement, took place in the Spaniard's forehead,
and, with a mingled yell of agony and triumph, he plunged
headlong forward upon the bodies of his victims, a dead man,
ere he touched the pavement. His whole soul sickening at
the fiendish outrage, Hamilton could barely nerve himself to
go another step, in such companionship; but, although he did
not move a limb, the pressure of the concourse bore him onward,
till almost unconsciously he found himself a witness to
the scenes enacted in the court-yard of the palace.

The area of the promenade had, by this time, been cleared
of living occupants through means too surely indicated by the
piles of gory carcasses heaped up on every side. The men,
tired of unresisting butchery, leaned listlessly on their tall

lances, unless some keener stimulus urged them to fresh exertions;
they had become epicures, as it were, in cruelty, and
rarely moved from their positions, unless to commit some
deed of blacker and more damnable atrocity. The king still
kept his station, at the window of the tennis-court, and ever
and anon, the bright flash of his harquebuss announced that he
still found gratification in wanton bloodshed.

The unfortunate wretches who had rushed into the toils,
while seeking for a refuge; had, for the most part, fallen victims
to his deadly aim; but a few, smarting with unnumbered
wounds, and rendered sullen by despair, crouched in a corner
of the small enclosure, seemingly unwilling to meet their fate,
otherwise than in company; till, pricked and goaded up by
the pike of the condottieri, they were compelled to run the
gauntlet, foaming at the mouth, like over-driven oxen, and
staggering like men in the last stage of drunkenness. The
red spot glowed upon the front of Bothwelhaugh, as he beheld
the savage pastime; for many hours his choler had been accumulating,
and it was now fast verging to the point, at which
it must find vent, or suffocate him. He saw a fair child borne
in the arms of a brawny butcher of the suburbs, smiling up
into the face and twining its tiny fingers among the clotted
mustaches of its unmoved tormentor; — he saw it torn from
its hold, impaled upon a lance, and held aloft, a target for the
monarch's practice. He saw De Guise, the arch-mover of the
mischief, descend from his charger, and coolly wipe the visage
of the slaughtered Coligni, with his own kerchief, to ascertain
the identity of the lifeless clay. He saw a band of
little children, dragging an infant Huguenot along, laughing
and crowing at its youthful executioners, to plunge the cradled
babe in the dark eddies of the Seine. He felt that he could
endure this no longer — he felt that he must proclaim his
hatred and abhorrence, or expire in the effort of repressing

them; and all that he now desired, was an opportunity of dying
with eclat, and of involving in his own destruction the
author of so many horrors. At the very moment when these
fiery thoughts were working in his brain, an object met his
eye, which, by recalling associations of a time and place far
distant, roused him at once to open fury. A mother bearing
her lifeless child along, hopelessly and irretrievably frantic!
Regardless of the wound which had been inflicted on her tender
frame — fearless of the pursuers, who hunted her with
brandished blades — she dandled the clay-cold body in the air,
or hushed it in her bleeding bosom, humming wild fragments,
which her memory yet retained, from melodies of happier
days. At once the snow-storm on the banks of Esk, his own
beloved bride, frenzied and perishing beside the first-born
pledge of her affections, rushed instantaneously upon his mind.
“Accursed butchers, hold!” he shouted in a voice of thunder,
and, ere they could obey his bidding, the foremost fell, precipitated
by the swiftness of his previous motion, ten feet in front
of his intended victim; — and a second, and a third staggered
away from his tremendous blows mortally wounded, while the
rest — struck with astonishment at seeing one, whom they, till
now, had followed as a champion in their cause, stand forth in
the defence of a proscribed heretic — faltered, and skulked aside
like rated hounds.

Ere he had time to reflect on the consequences of his rashness,
a well-remembered voice thrilled in his ear, “ 'Tis he!”
No more was spoken; but in that brief sentence, he had heard
and recognised his doom. Turning toward the palace-front,
he marked the form of Catharine, leaning from the window;
and pointing, in all the eagerness of hatred, her extended arm
to his own person; behind her, he could just distinguish the
sallow features of the king, reaching his hand to grasp the
matchlock, which a courtier loaded at his elbow. “I shall

die!” muttered the undaunted Scot, “but unavenged, never!”
A petronel was in his hand — the muzzle bore fully on the
majestic figure of the queen, his finger pressed the trigger —
he paused, stood like a statue carved in marble, his weapon
still directed to the mark, and that falcon glance, which never
yet had missed its aim, fixed steadfastly upon its object! He
saw the carabine of the tyrant rise slowly to its level, yet he
fired not! The person of Charles was screened by the intervention
of his mother's breast. “Devil!” he shouted —
“devil that thou art — exult in thine impunity! No Hamilton
hath ever harmed a woman!” The carabine was discharged,
but no motion of the Scot showed what had been the event!
The brow was still serene, the arm extended, and the eyeball
calm as ever! The hand rose higher, till the pistol pointed
perpendicularly upward — the report rang clearly into the air
— and ere the echoes passed away, the gallant, but misguided
soldier lay a corpse upon the bloody pavement — cut off himself,
as he had slain the oppressor, by the bullet of a concealed
assassin. Such are the ways of Providence.