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Mary took it with amazement, unfolded it, glancing at Douglas, who remained in the same posture, and read as follows: We, earls, lords, and barons, in consideration that our queen is detained at Lochleven, and that her faithful subjects cannot have access to her person; seeing, on the other hand, that our duty pledges us to provide for her safety, promise and swear to employ all reasonable means which will depend on us to set her at liberty again on conditions compatible with the honour of her Majesty, the welfare of the kingdom, and even with the safety of those who keep her in prison, provided that they consent to give her up; that if they refuse, we declare that we are prepared to make use of ourselves, our children, our friends, our servants, our vassals, our goods, our persons, and our lives, to restore her to liberty, to procure the safety of the prince, and to co-operate in punishing the late king's murderers.
Read that, and thank God that threw old Abbot Boniface in our way, as two of the Seyton's men were conveying him towards Dundrennan here. We searched him for intelligence concerning that fair exploit of yours at Lochleven, that has cost many a man his life, and me a set of sore bones and we found what is better for your purpose than ours."
It results that, feeling his weakness and isolation, the child was self-contained with strength beyond his years, and, humble and submissive in appearance, only awaited the moment when, a grown-up young man, he could leave Lochleven, and perhaps avenge himself for the proud protection of those who dwelt there.
"May God grant my old age the strength needed to bear on the part of one of my sons such a misfortune, and on the part of the other such an injury!" exclaimed Lady Lochleven. "O woman born under a fatal star," she went on, addressing the queen, "when will you cease to be, in the Devil's hands, an instrument of perdition and death to all who approach you?
"No, madam, I will soon relieve you of my presence," replied the Lady Lochleven; "and while with you, my aged limbs can still better brook fatigue, than my mind stoop to accept of constrained courtesy."
"Away, proud woman!" said the Lady; "who ever knew so well as thou to deal the deepest wounds under the pretence of kindness and courtesy? Who, since the great traitor, could ever so betray with a kiss?" "Lady Douglas of Lochleven," said the Queen, "in this moment thou canst not offend me no, not even by thy coarse and unwomanly language, held to me in the presence of menials and armed retainers.
The Lady of Lochleven was not aware how far minds of a certain gloomy and determined cast by nature, may be warped by a keen sense of petty injuries and insults, combining with the love of gain, and sense of self-interest, and amalgamated with the crude, wild, and indigested fanatical opinions which this man had gathered among the crazy sectaries of Germany; or how far the doctrines of fatalism, which he had embraced so decidedly, sear the human conscience, by representing our actions as the result of inevitable necessity.
He raised his voice a little as he said these words, to apprise the ladies of the part assigned to each of them, and not, perhaps, without the wish of conveying to the ears of Catherine the page-like jest which lurked in the allotment. "I will enter the Queen's bedchamber," said the Lady of Lochleven; "my business is express."
"Methinks," said the Queen, carelessly, "in consideration of so very recent and enormous a tragedy, which I think only chanced some six-score years agone, the Douglasses should have shown themselves less tenacious of the company of their sovereigns, than you, Lady of Lochleven, seem to be of mine."
To Cis herself, her nights were like a perpetual fairy tale, and so indeed were all times when she was alone with the initiated, who were indeed all those original members of her mother's suite who had known of her birth at Lochleven, people who had kept too many perilous secrets not to be safely entrusted with this one, and whose finished habits of caution, in a moment, on the approach of a stranger, would change their manner from the deferential courtesy due to their princess, to the good-natured civility of court ladies to little Cicely Talbot.
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