‘Say not so, madam,’ answered Bothwell, pointing to a sprig of willow worn in his basnet. ‘I gathered yon sprig from the sallows that skirt its bank as I rode the water of Roslin in the misty dawn. I could not forget the day of my Queen’s bereavement; and it shall never be told that Bothwell forbore to share the dangers or the sorrows of his sovereign.’ The angry colour that had brightened it all the morning died out on Mary’s cheek. She looked at the Earl steadfastly while one might have counted ten, then her lip quivered. She turned her face away, and burst into tears. CHAPTER IX. ‘“To arms!” the citizens bellow--“Alack! These riders are loose in the town once more!” But a good steel jack, and a friend to my back, The Causeway I’ll keep in the teeth of a score. For never another can ruffle it here, Like the lads of the snaffle, spur, and spear.’ We have seen Bothwell in his harness,--the loyal nobleman, the true knight, the Warden of the Marches, and Lieutenant of the Borders in the service of his Queen. A different personage, in truth, from wild James Hepburn, with his father’s hot blood rioting in his veins, and his own propensities for evil, encouraged by a strong will and vigorous temperament, acting on a bad education, a weak brain, and a heart with just enough of good in it to make him lonely and unhappy. Like his father, the profligate Earl Patrick, he was disposed by nature to take a leading part in all scenes of turbulence and strife; unlike that father, his better feelings would sometimes be permitted to influence his policy, and weaken his determination. Earl Patrick seems to have had a happy facility of ignoring all promises, bonds, and even oaths, when their observance became inconvenient, and would have scorned to allow his patriotism to stand for an hour in the way of his advancement. His son, with all his faults, was a Scotchman at heart; and, perhaps, like many another whose fate has served ‘to point a moral or adorn a tale,’ it wanted but the difference of a hair’s breadth, at the right moment, to have made him as good as he turned out evil. Perhaps Bothwell’s real sphere was riding his war-horse in mail and plate amongst the wild morasses of the marches. Perhaps he was never so happy as when engaged in hand-to-hand conflict with some daring marauder, a stalwart man-at-arms like himself--lance-thrust and sword-stroke freely dealt and stoutly received with but little ill-will on either side. Whilst his foe was in the saddle he would close with him gallantly, striking fiercely, and shouting, ‘Queen Mary!’ but, down upon the heather, the adversary of a moment ago became the helpless friend, to be set upon a horse and borne gently to Hermitage, there to be tended carefully till his wounds were cured, when he should be set free at a trifling ransom, to meet and fight it out again.