The monastery; The abbot.

THE ABBOT. 411
answer with an appearance of cold contempt-" It is easy to slay an enemy
who enters not the lists. But had Mary Stewart inherited her father's sword
as well as his sceptre, the boldest of her rebels should not upon that day have
complained that they had no one to cope withal. Your lordship will forgive
me if I abridge this conference. A brief description of a bloody fight is long
enough to satisfy a lady's curiosity; and unless my Lord of Lindesay has.
something more important to tell us than of the deeds which old Bell-theCat achieved, and how he would himself have emulated them, had time and
tide permitted, we will retire to our private apartment, and you, Fleming,
shall finish reading to us yonder little treatise Des Rodomontades Espagnolles."
" Tarry, madam," said Lindesay, his complexion reddening in his turn,
"I know your quick wit too well of old to have sought an interview that
you might sharpen its edge at the expense of my honour. Lord Ruthven
and myself, with Sir Robert Melville as a concurrent, come to your Grace
on the part of the Secret Council, to tender to you what much concerns the
safety of your own life and the welfare of the State."
" The Secret Council?" said the Queen; "by what powers can it subsist
or act, while I, from whom it holds its character, am here detained under
unjust restraint? But it matters not -what concerns the welfare of Scotland shall be acceptable to Mary Stewart, come from whatever quarter it
will —and for what concerns her own life, she has lived long enough to be
weary of it, even at the age of twenty-five. -Where is your colleague, my
lord? - why tarries he?"
"He comes, madam," said Melville, and Lord Ruthven entered at the
instant, holding in his hand a packet. As the Queen returned his salutation. she became deadly pale, but instantly recovered herself by dint of
strong and sudden resolution, just as the noble, whose appearance seemed
to excite such emotions in her bosom, entered the apartment in company
with George Douglas, the youngest son of the Knight of Lochleven, who,
during the absence of his father and brethren, acted as Seneschal of the
Castle, under the direction of the elder Lady Lochleven, his father's mother.
I0afpter it^ ntunta-HfrnnnL
I give this heavy weight from off my head,
And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand;
With mine own tears I wash away my balm,
With mine own hand I give away my crown,
With fTine own tongue deny my sacred state,
With mine own breath release all duteous oaths.
RICHARmD II.
LORD RUTTVEN had the look and bearing which became a soldier and a
statesman, and the martial cast of his form and features procured him the
popular epithet of Greysteil, by which he was distinguished by his intimates,
after the hero of a metrical romance then generally known. His dress,
which was a buff-coat embroidered, had a half-military character, but ex.
hibited nothing of the sordid negligence which distinguished that of Lindesay. But the son of an ill-fated sire, and the father of a yet more unfortunate family, bore in his look that cast of inauspicious melancholy, by
which the physiognomists of that time pretended to distinguish those who
were predestined to a violent and unhappy death.
The terror which the presence of this nobleman impressed on the Queen's