But, as the words passed from her lips, the bloody deed was over. Even in the presence of the queen, dirk after dirk was plunged into the unresisting wretch. Long after life was extinguished, the maddened assassins continued to mangle the senseless clay with their bloodthirsty weapons. So long as life remained, and so long as the horrid strife was doubtful, did Mary’s fearful cries for mercy ring upon the ears of those who neither heard nor heeded her. The massacre was ended, and, with a degree of unmanly insensibility that would alone have stamped him the worst and fiercest of his race, Ruthven seated himself before the outraged woman, the insulted queen, and calmly wiped his brow, still reeking with her favorite’s life-blood. “My sickness,” he said, “must pardon me for sitting in your presence. I had arisen from my bed to do this deed, and am now somewhat weary and o’erspent. I pray your highness command your minions to bear yon winecup hither.” Without regarding for an instant this fresh insult, she dried her streaming eyes. “We have demeaned ourselves to pray for mercy from butchers. Tears are for men! I have one duty left me, and I will fulfil it--one aim to my existence, one study for my ingenuity, and one prayer to my God: my duty, mine aim, my study, and my prayer, shall be, to be avenged!” THE KIRK OF FIELD. “It is the curse of kings to be attended By slaves, that take their humors for a warrant To break within the bloody house of life; And, on the winking of authority, To understand a law; to know the meaning Of dangerous majesty, when, perchance, it frowns More upon humor than advised respect.”--KING JOHN. It was a dark and stormy night without, such as is not unfrequent even during the height of summer, under the changeable influences of the Scottish climate. The west wind, charged with moisture collected from the vast expanse of ocean it had traversed since last it had visited the habitations of man, rose and sank in wild and melancholy cadences; now howling violently, as it dashed the rain in torrents against the rattling casements; now lulling till its presence could be traced alone in the small, shrill murmur, which has been compared so aptly to the voice of a spirit. The whole vault of heaven was wrapped in blackness, of that dense and smothering character which strikes the mind as pertaining rather to the gloom of a closed chamber than to that of a midnight sky.