“Do not joke, Ruthven,” Lindsay answered a second time, with more violence than the first; “for if I were as well convinced of her innocence as I am of her crime, I tell you that no one should touch a hair of her head, not even the regent.”

“The devil! my lord,” said Ruthven.  “I did not know you were so sensitive to a gentle voice and a tearful eye; you know the story of Achilles’ lance, which healed with its rust the wounds it made with its edge:  do likewise my lord, do likewise.”

“Enough, Ruthven, enough,” replied Lindsay; “you are like a corselet of Milan steel, which is three times as bright as the steel armour of Glasgow, but which is at the same time thrice as hard:  we know one another, Ruthven, so an end to railleries or threats; enough, believe me, enough.”

And after these words, Lord Lindsay went out first, followed by Ruthven and Melville, the first with his head high and affecting an air of insolent indifference, and the second, sad, his brow bent, and not even trying to disguise the painful impression which this scene had made on him.’ ["History of Scotland, by Sir Walter Scott.—­’The Abbott”:  historical part.]

CHAPTER VI

The queen came out of her room only in the evening, to take her place at the window which looked over the lake:  at the usual time she saw the light which was henceforth her sole hope shine in the little house in Kinross; for a whole long month she had no other consolation than seeing it, every night, fixed and faithful.

At last, at the end of this time, and as she was beginning to despair of seeing George Douglas again, one morning, on opening the window, she uttered a cry.  Mary Seyton ran to her, and the queen, without having strength to speak, showed her in the middle of the lake the tiny boat at anchor, and in the boat Little Douglas and George, who were absorbed in fishing, their favourite amusement.  The young man had arrived the day before, and as everyone was accustomed to his unexpected returns, the sentinel had not even blown the horn, and the queen had not known that at last a friend had come.

However, she was three days yet without seeing this friend otherwise than she had just done-that is, on the lake.  It is true that from morning till evening he did not leave that spot, from which he could view the queen’s windows and the queen herself, when, to gaze at a wider horizon, she leaned her face against the bars.  At last, on the morning of the fourth day, the queen was awakened by a great noise of dogs and horns:  she immediately ran to the window, for to a prisoner everything is an event, and she saw William Douglas, who was embarking with a pack of hounds and some huntsmen.  In fact, making a truce, for a day, with his gaoler’s duties, to enjoy a pleasure more in harmony with his rank and birth, he was going to hunt in the woods which cover the last ridge of Ben Lomond, and which, ever sinking, die down on the banks of the lake.