CHAPTER XLI.

"Dexterity and sufferance

Are engines the pure politic must work with."

FORD.

FOR Some time after the Reception, a succession of entertainments were given by the city of Edinburgh to her Majesty and the Court. It was, however, remarked, that she appeared but little disposed to cultivate any intimacy with the families of the nobility. She stood too strictly, it was alleged, on her royalty, and even in her court she formed a small circle of familiars around herself, within which few, even of the most accomplished and esteemed of the Scottish gentry, found admission. The fatality of her ancestors had already overtaken her; and scarcely in any one measure of conduct, or of government, did she appear worthy of the reputation she deservedly enjoyed for intelligence, discernment, and judgment.

Within that little exclusive household circle, Southennan was frequently an honoured guest; but while enjoying the sunshine, he could not behold, without alarm, the clouds arising in the horizon. And yet there appeared no deviation from propriety in the behaviour of Mary, as a gentlewoman: he thought her occasionally, perhaps, too familiar; but from any sight inflexion of conduct of this kind, she resinned her dignity with so much ease and grace, that the aberration only served to extend her influence among those who were favoured with her private countenance.

The bustle and the banquetings, in which the Court was engaged, prevented leisure for particular remarks on the conduct of those by whom the Queen was surrounded; but, nevertheless, the demeanour of Chatelard, though regulated by extreme caution and delicacy, did not escape the shrewd observation of our hero, to whom it was evident that he lost no opportunity of always appearing in his most attractive colours before her Majesty, while his artificial deference to Adelaide in public was no less manifestly the deliberate effect of systematic study.

It would be to equivocate with the human heart, to say that

Southennan beheld the increasing passion of Chatelard without something like gratification; nor did his loyalty much repine, when he perceived that Mary did not rebuke the rash young man with such decision as would have quenched his hopes, but amused herself with his ardour, even while she evinced something like flirtation, if such a term may be applied to the reciprocities of persons so far apart in their respective spheres.

The effect of Southennan's discovery of Chatelard's presumptuous affection served to nourish his own love for Adelaide. He was persuaded by many incidents, that she also had perceived the ambition of the accomplished Frenchman; but he calculated without a sufficient knowledge of the fond feelings by which she was animated, when he fancied, that the hopelessness of her unrequited attachment would extinguish its ardour. This made him patient. Day after day passed with him in jealous vigilance; but the deportment of Mary was so often seemingly equivocal, though only dictated by the suggestions of feminine gayety and juvenile playfulness, that he could not always repress his persuasion that the Frenchman would ultimately triumph. His confidant was Rizzio.

The ambition of the Italian was piqued by the favour which he thought the Queen evinced for Chatelard : envious in his nature, he dreaded a competitor in the ascendency which he secretly, with all the zeal of an acute and adventurous spirit, was endeavouring to attain. He was thus his unprovoked enemy, and the fear of being frustrated by his influence chafed his jealousy into hatred. Rizzio in his hate, however, was no less subtle than wary in his ambition. He concealed it as carefully and studied its indulgence with equal solicitude.

Acquainted with the depth to which Southennan was enamoured of Adelaide, he darkly discerned that her passion for the Frenchman might be managed so as to render her Scottish lover subservient to his machinations.

It is mournful to reflect on the cabals which infested the palace of the Scottish Queen; by the ingenuousness of youth, and perhaps also of her nature, she was incapable of suspecting the intrigues, personal and political, by which she was environed. She saw in her counsellors, and the great officers of state, men of harsh feelings, and forbidding countenances, who treated her with less homage than the worship to which she had been accustomed in France; and, save her ladies, she

had no advisers in those things which most concerned the graces of her character; for her natural brother, the Prior of St. Andrews, partaking of the austere temper of the time, often in his kindest admonitions, breathed more of restraint than accorded with the vivacity in which she delighted, and which was natural to her age and sex.

Of all her ladies, Adelaide enjoyed her confidence the most; but from the time she had observed her attachment to Chatelard, and suspected his devotion to herself, she assumed a slight though obvious degree of ceremony towards her. This did not escape the penetration of Rizzio, but he erred in the construction he put upon it. Knowing the Queen's confidence in Adelaide, and observing that, if not withdrawn, it was suddenly regulated by some occult motive, he ascribed the change to a kindling predilection on the part of Mary for the ill-fated Frenchman.

This apprehension roused his latent energies. The slightest manifestation of affection, on the part of the Queen, he foresaw would be ruin to his anticipations, for he knew that Chatelard stood in some awe of him, and with that sinister wisdom which often overreaches itself, he apprehended, that were Chatelard once possessed of influence enough over the Queen, to move her to any measure, he would not long be allowed to remain in her service. A simple incident soon brought these anxieties into action.

One day as her Majesty was descending the stairs, attended, accidentally, by himself and Chatelard on her right and left, followed by Adelaide and the Lady Mary Livingstone, she slightly stumbled. The Italian instantly offered his arm, but she took hold of the Frenchman's. It was an act of the moment, unpremeditated, and done without intentional favour or distinction, but it seemed not so to the seething spirit of Rizzio. He beheld in it an indication which his adversary would construe into a mark of special favour, as he believed it was intended to be; and from that moment the unhappy fortunes of the Frenchmen were determined.

Rizzio brooded over the incident, as if it had discovered to him something which he had not before suspected. With the ingenious cunning of his nature, like the wounded scorpion, he struck the venom into himself, and writhed with the agonies of his own infliction. Though his apprehensions were, perhaps, not altogether imaginary, they were yet beyond reason, for Chatelard was not envious, and his passion for the Queen was too much of a blaze, shooting up from vanity, to have re

spect to aught save its own object. He might occasionally be uneasy at observing the vigilance with which the Italian's dark and piercing eye followed him; but there was a quality in his passion, arising from the direction it had taken, that gave generosity to all his thoughts. The insane fancy of gaining the Queen's affections filled him with vast ideas of liberality and munificence.

CHAPTER XLII.

"Deliver with more openness your answers
To my demands."

SHAKSPEARE.

On the evening after the little incident mentioned inthe last chapter, Rizzio took occasion to throw himself in the way of Southennan, without appearing to have sought him, although the meeting was the result of study and contrivance. In the management of such seeming accidents the sinister Italian was ingeniously expert.

It happened to be Friday, a day which the Queen always passed in a more sequestered manner than any other of the week, save on the high festivals of her religion. Her household circle was not assembled in the evening: only her ladies were admitted to her; for even her ministers were directed not to disturb her retirement, unless their business was urgent, and could not be postponed without detriment to the state. Her attendants, those of the chosen number, were in consequence at liberty to amuse themselves as they thought fit. Southennan

on these nights rarely went to the palace, for Adelaide was generally on them the preferred companion of her royal mistress Rizzio had noticed this, and planned his machination accordingly.

It had been his custom to dine occasionally at the Unicorn with the foreigners by whom the table was frequented, and where he knew our hero was almost a regular daily guest. He went there at the usual hour, and, as if he had no particular wish for conversation with Southennan, he took his place at dinner on the opposite side of the table, and discussed with those around him, in the apparent ease of a disengaged mind,

Even

the various topics which chance or remark suggested. after dinner, and when several of the guests had departed, he evinced no dispositian to move nearer to Southennan; but he sometimes particularly addressed him across the table, as it were in reply to some opinion in which he affected to differ from him.

In this apparently unpremediated manner he continued to act, until he perceived a disposition on the part of Southennan to rise, when he dexterously turned the conversation on some one of the many topics of the day by which the minds of all men were then agitated, expressing himself with a degree of confidence on the subject which drew from our hero an equally decided reply. A controversy was the consequence, which Rizzio managed with so much zeal, that although there was not the slightest approximation to a quarrel between them, their conversation was yet so little agreeable to the other gentlemen in the room, that they one by one dropped away, and left the apartment to the disputants.

When Rizzio had thus obtained for themselves exclusive possession of the room, he suddenly paused, and looking suspiciously to the right and left, moved from the place where he sat at dinner, and took a seat beside our hero.

The abruptness of the pause, the jealous vigilance with which he cast his eyes around; and something singular and emphatic in his manner, were greatly calculated to rouse attention.

"I hope," said the Italian, with a whispering earnestness, "that nothing during dinner nor since, in my manner towards you, has indicated any particular desire for such an opportunity as this, to speak with you in confidence.'

Southennan was surprised at the observation, and naturally enough remarked in reply, that he could not imagine a cause or an occasion for so much address to procure an opportunity for a confidential conversation with him; for the candour of his mind did not allow him to suspect, or rather to understand, that the art of Rizzio's explanation might be the effect of design, and calculated to augment the impression of what he had to communicate.

"I am glad it is so," said Rizzio; " and I trust that those who last left us are persuaded we were on the eve of a quarrel, or at least were not likely to have had either treason or conspiracy to arrange."

"Treason!" exclaimed Southennan, "to what do you allude?" and he said this firmly, for he thought the conduct of