Three of the maids-of-honour were unusually silent and depressed, Mary Seton alone incorrigible as usual. A portentous shiver from Riccio, which he tried in vain to repress, made the Queen look up from her embroidery. She could not but smile at the chattering teeth and pinched features of her ungainly secretary, yet there was a slight tone of irritation in her voice as she said-- ‘Heap more wood on the fire, if you are so cold, Signior David; yet methinks the weather hath moderated since morning. It cannot be so bad even now on the landward side; but the wind whistles round this old keep of my brother’s till we might fancy ourselves a plump of wild-fowl cowering together for shelter on the Bass.’ Her eye happening to rest on Mistress Beton while she spoke, that demure lady, who was plunged in a profound fit of abstraction, felt herself called upon to reply, and could find nothing more apposite to say than-- ‘Bitter weather indeed, your Grace, and threatening worse than ever over the Firth. Heaven help all poor travellers by land and sea!’ she added piously, drawing at the same time her mantle closer round her shoulders, to the utter destruction of her stupendous ruff, a neglect of which ornamental structure always denoted in Mary Beton extreme discomposure of mind. ‘Psha! child!’ said the Queen, impatiently. ‘Travellers are not so faint-hearted. What say you, Signior David? We wot of some that would ride through fire and water at our behest. Is not that the gallop of a horse I hear even now along the causeway?’ ‘I pray you patience, madam!’ answered the cautious Italian, seeing that the Queen had risen from her chair, and was pacing up and down in obvious expectation. ‘No traveller that your Grace wotteth of can be on this side the Firth to-day. Spurs are but steel; horses are but bone and sinew; riders but flesh and blood. There can be no arrival at the earliest for twenty hours. I have myself wagered a collar of pearls and rubies with Mistress Seton.’ ‘And lost! and lost! and lost!’ exclaimed that voluble young lady, dancing rather than walking into the room from which she had not been five minutes absent. ‘Even now the portcullis is up, and I saw him myself ride into the courtyard from the passage-window. Good lack, madam, such a tall cavalier! and his poor horse looked so tired! Not a living creature with him neither, and he called for a cup of wine before ever his spurs had touched the pavement.’