“It is decided, then,” cried Murray; and not a voice replied, for none had the presumption to dispute the fitness of the choice which thus had fallen on a leader so renowned for strength and valor. “Herald,” he continued, “go bear our greeting to her majesty of Scotland, and say to her, we do accept the challenge. An hour’s truce we grant--an equal field here, on this hill of Carbury. The noble earl of Lyndesay will here prove, upon the crest and limbs of that false recreant, James, some time the earl of Bothwell, the justice of our cause: and so may God defend the right!” The shout which rang from earth to heaven, at the noble confidence of Murray, bore to the ears of Mary and her trembling followers the assurance that the challenge was accepted; an assurance that sounded joyfully in every ear but that of his who uttered the bravado. Many a time and oft had Bothwell’s crest shone foremost in the tide of battle; many a time had he confronted deadliest odds with an undaunted visage and a victorious blade. Yet now he faltered; his bold brow blanched with sudden apprehension; his frame, muscular and lofty as a giant’s, actually shook with terror; and his quivering lip paled, ere he heard the name of his antagonist. Whether it was that guilt sat heavy on his heart, and weighed his strong arm down, or that his soul was cowed by the consciousness that he was unsupported and forsaken by all his friends, he turned upon his heel, and, muttering some inarticulate sounds, half lost within the hollows of his beaver, he strode to his pavilion, and thence sent his squire forth, to say that he was ill at ease, and could not fight until the morrow! Mary herself--the fond, confiding, deceived Mary--burst on the instant into loud contempt at this hardly-credible baseness. “What! James of Bothwell false!” she cried; “then perish hope! I yield me to the malice of my foes; I will resist no longer. O man, man--base, coward, miserable man!--is it for this we give our hearts, our lives, ourselves, to your vile guidance? is it for this that I have given thee mine all--mine honor, and, perchance, my soul? that thou shouldst cowardly desert me at mine utmost need! Little, oh how little, doth the cold world know of woman’s heart and woman’s courage! For thee would I have perished, oh, how joyfully!--and thou, O God! O God! it is a bitter, bitter punishment for my credulity and love: but if I have deserved to suffer, I deserved it not at thy hands, James of Bothwell! Seyton, true friend, to thee I trust mine all. Go summon Kirkaldy to a parley: say Mary, queen of Scotland, rather than look upon the blood of Scottishmen, will grant to her rebellious lords those terms which they desire! Nay, interrupt us not, Lord Seyton. We care not what befall that frozen viper whom we warmed within our bosom till he stung us! Away!--let Orkney quit our camp; for, by the glorious light of heaven, we never will behold him more!”