“Forgiven!” shouted Glencairn, in tones of deep feeling and yet deeper scorn--“forgiven! we came not here to ask for pardon, but for vengeance, and vengeance will we have! The blood of Darnley craves for punishment upon his murderers! We are come to punish; not to sue for pardon, not to return in peace, until our end is gained, and Scotland’s slaughtered king avenged!” “Fair sir,” cried Morton--calmer, and for that very reason more to be dreaded, than his impetuous comrades--“fair sir, we rear no banner and we lift no blade against her grace of Scotland! Against her husband’s murderer have we marched, nor will we turn a face, or draw a bridle, till that murderer lies in his blood, or flies for ever from the land he has polluted by his unnatural homicide! Thou hast thine answer, sir. Yet thus much for our ancient friendship, and to testify our high esteem for the noble monarch whom thy services here represent: here will we pause an hour. That passed, our word is, ‘Forward! forward!’ and may the God of battles judge between us! Brothers in arms, and leaders of our host, say, have I spoken fairly?” “Fairly hast thou spoken, noble Morton; and as thou hast spoken, we will it so to be. An hour we pause, and then forward!” The voices of the barons, as they replied, gave no signs of hesitation; there was no faltering in their tones, no wavering in their fixed and steady glances. At once the gallant mediator saw that he had failed in his appeal, and that all further words were needless. Slowly and disconsolately he bent his way back to the royal armament, where the miserable Mary awaited, in an agony of shame and anguish, the doom, for such in truth it was, of her rebellious subjects. On the summit of a little knoll she sat, girt by the few undaunted spirits who clung to the last to Mary’s cause, and who were ready at her least word to perish, if by perishing they might preserve her. Lovely as she had seemed in the gay halls of Holyrood, her brow beaming with rapture, innocence, majesty, far lovelier was she now in pale and hopeless sorrow. In the vain hope of inspiring ardor to her dispirited and coward forces, she had girt her slender form in glittering steel. A light, polished cavinet reflected the bright sunshine above her auburn tresses, and a cuirass of inlaid and jewelled metal flashed on her bosom. Not a warrior in either host sat firmer or more gracefully upon his destrier than Mary upon Rosabelle. A demipique of steel and loaded petronels, with the butt of which her fingers played in thoughtless nervousness, had replaced the rich housings of that favored jennet; but though arrayed in all the pride and pomp of war, there was neither pride nor pomp in the expression of that pallid cheek and quivering lip.