He can almost hear the ringing tones of her voice, can almost catch the flutter of her dress. Surely he is bewitched! Bewitched, or else irrevocably doomed to death. As he gathers a sprig of witch-elm and fastens it in his morion, he says to himself that if he is really to die, he should like to see Mary Seton just once again. CHAPTER XXXV. ‘For this is love, and this alone, Not counting cost, nor grudging gain, That builds its life into a throne, And bids the idol reign; ‘That hopes and fears, yet seldom pleads, And for a sorrow weakly borne (Because it yields not words but deeds), Can hide a gentle scorn; ‘In pride and pique that takes no part, Of self and sin that bears no taint, The homage of a knightly heart For a woman and a saint.’ The four borderers rode up the High Street of Edinburgh in the warm afternoon sun, and their leader, fortified doubtless by the sprig of witch-elm in his head-piece, and inspirited by his arrival at the Scotch capital, looked about him with the gleeful curiosity of a schoolboy on a holiday. On any other occasion, though troops of armed horsemen were by no means a rare sight on the causeway, so well-mounted and stalwart a little party would have received their share of admiration; but to-day no man had eyes to spare for any other object than a brilliant group of foot-passengers surrounding two commanding figures, which neither their own nor any other country in Europe could have matched. No more in widow’s weeds, but bright and beautiful in all the freshness of her own charms, set off by the splendour of her dress, Mary Stuart walked by her young husband, the _beau ideal_ of a monarch’s bride: her husband _de facto_ if not _de jure_, for a private marriage some weeks since in Riccio’s apartments had united the destinies of the lovers, and paved the way for that public ceremony which should confer on the fortunate young noble the crown-matrimonial of Scotland. Alas for Mary Stuart! even in those happy days of courtship, which for most women glow so brightly; immediately before and after the nuptial tie she was doomed to many anxieties and misgivings, originating in the ungovernable temper of the very man for whose sake she had braved Elizabeth of England’s displeasure, affronted a large and powerful party of her subjects, perhaps even stifled and eradicated certain deep though unacknowledged memories in her own heart. Although with the utmost haste Darnley had been created Earl of Ross, he was dissatisfied that he had not been immediately raised to the Dukedom of Albany, and vented his displeasure in no measured language even on her from whose open hand he received all the benefits he enjoyed, and whose beauty alone, bending so tenderly over himself, should have commanded his entire allegiance.