Having at length resolved to return home, Mary sent to demand of Elizabeth a free passage; it was a mere point of courtesy and etiquette, but it was refused. The English ambassador sought in vain to justify his mistress's conduct; it arose from exasperated jealousy, and was inexcusable and mean, as well as discourteous. It was with grief almost amounting to despair that Mary left the scenes of her early attachments, and of all her pleasures. Accustomed to the refinement of the court of France, she reflected with a degree of horror on the barbarism of her own country, and the turbulence of the people. She stood upon the deck of the vessel which bore her, gazing through her tears on the receding shores. "Farewell, France!" she would exclaim from time to time; "farewell, beloved country, which I shall never more behold!" When night came on, she caused a bed to be spread on the deck, and wept herself to sleep. By the favor of a thick fog, Mary escaped the fleet which Elizabeth had sent out to intercept her, and landed at Leith. With sensations of terror and sadness she entered her capital; and they may well be excused. The poverty of the country formed a striking contrast with the fertile plains of France. The weather was wet and "dolorous;" and a serenade of bagpipes, with which the populace hailed her, seems to have greatly disconcerted her polished attendants. But Mary herself took every thing in good part, and, after a while, she so far recovered her gayety, that the masques and dancing, the "fiddling" and "uncomely skipping," gave great offence to John Knox and the rest of the grave reformers, who inveighed against such practices from the pulpit; and the former, with a violence and rudeness altogether unmanly, personally upbraided her, so as to make her weep. In one brought up in "joyousness," such austerity could not fail to excite disgust, and a stronger clinging to the more kind and genial doctrines of her own faith. But she made no retaliation; she sought, on the contrary, to win the affection of all her subjects, and to introduce happiness and prosperity, as well as a more refined civilization, into her country. Her life for a few years was tranquil. She gave four or five hours every day to state affairs; she was wont to have her embroidery frame placed in the room where the council met, and while she plied the needle, she joined in the discussions, displaying in her own opinions and suggestions a vigor of mind and quickness which astonished the statesmen around her. At other times she applied to study. She brought a great many books with her to Scotland, and the first artificial globes that had ever been seen there. She was fond of music, and maintained a band of minstrels. Her other amusements were hawking, hunting, dancing, and walking in the open air. She was fond of gardening; she had brought from France a little sycamore plant, which she planted in the gardens of Holyrood, and tended with care;