‘Is her Grace indeed so hurried?’ answered Bothwell with an evil sneer. ‘Can she not wait a matter of twenty-four hours, more or less, for this long smooth-faced lad on whom she has set her princely heart so wilfully? God speed the royal wedding, say I, and good luck to the bold suitor who would lie in a queen’s bed! Here, Dick, your horse is fresher than mine; gallop on to the Castle and bid them prepare for Master Maxwell’s refection; see, too, that the Lord Rothes’ men and horses be well looked to if they be come. I have guests to-night with me at Hermitage, Walter; I pray you be not so niggardly as to depart without a supper and a night’s rest. It is ill travelling on the Border after nightfall, and I will speed you on by sunrise to-morrow with the best horse in my stable and a guard of my own men. And now that long knave is out of ear-shot, tell me, Master Maxwell, is this marriage but an affair of state and policy? or doth the Queen seem to affect it for herself? Is her heart in it, think you?’ While he asked the question Bothwell busied himself about the hawk on his wrist, it may be to conceal the trembling of his lip, which extended itself even to his hands, for his strong fingers seemed unable to take off her hood or loose the fastenings that secured her jesses. ‘In faith,’ answered Maxwell honestly, ‘her Grace bade me make no secrets with your lordship. When she spoke of marriage her colour went and came like a village maid’s going a-maying; I reck but little of such follies,’ he added with a sigh, ‘but if you ask me the truth, I think, Queen though she be, she loves him as a woman should love the man whom she bids to share a throne.’ Bothwell swore such a fearful blasphemy that his companion, whose attention had been somewhat engrossed by the irregularities of the track, looked up astonished in his face. The earl excused himself by vowing that his falcon had struck her talons into his arm. ‘The foul-hearted haggard!’ he exclaimed, flinging the bird violently from him into the air; ‘let her fly down the wind to the Solway an’ she will! She may stoop on the southern side ere I whistle for her; no such false kestrel shall ever perch on wrist of mine again.’ The hawk soared freely up into the soft calm sky, then spreading her wings to the breeze, sailed gallantly away to the westward, and was soon out of sight. Maxwell was too good a sportsman not to be surprised at such an action on the part of his host, but attributed it to one of those outbreaks of temper in which he had heard the earl was prone to indulge; and as they now proceeded to the Castle at a gallop by the warden’s desire, who spurred his tired horse with savage energy, he had no opportunity of pursuing the subject on which they had been engaged.