• And now the ladies fled with the Queen;
• And thorough the open door
• The night-wind wailed round the empty room
• And the rushes shook on the floor.

• And the bed drooped low in the dark recess
• Whence the arras was rent away;
• And the firelight still shone over the space
• Where our hidden secret lay.

• And the rain had ceased, and the moonbeams lit
• 630The window high in the wall,—
• Bright beams that on the plank that I knew
• Through the painted pane did fall
• And gleamed with the splendour of Scotland's crown
• And shield armorial.

• But then a great wind swept up the skies,
• And the climbing moon fell back;
• And the royal blazon fled from the floor,
• And nought remained on its track;
• And high in the darkened window-pane
• 640The shield and the crown were black.

• And what I say next I partly saw
• And partly I heard in sooth,
• And partly since from the murderers' lips
• The torture wrung the truth.

• For now again came the armèd tread,
• And fast through the hall it fell;
• But the throng was less; and ere I saw,
• By the voice without I could tell
• That Robert Stuart had come with them
• 650Who knew that chamber well.

• And over the space the Græme strode dark
• With his mantle round him flung;
• And in his eye was a flaming light
• But not a word on his tongue.

• And Stuart held a torch to the floor,
• And he found the thing he sought;
• And they slashed the plank away with their swords;
• And O God! I fainted not!

• And the traitor held his torch in the gap,
• 660All smoking and smouldering;
• And through the vapour and fire, beneath
• In the dark crypt's narrow ring,
• With a shout that pealed to the room's high roof
• They saw their naked King.

• Half naked he stood, but stood as one
• Who yet could do and dare:
• With the crown, the King was stript away,—
• The Knight was reft of his battle-array,—
• But still the Man was there.

• 670From the rout then stepped a villain forth,—
• Sir John Hall was his name;
• With a knife unsheathed he leapt to the vault
• Beneath the torchlight-flame.

• Of his person and stature was the King
• A man right manly strong,
• And mightily by the shoulder-blades
• His foe to his feet he flung.

• Then the traitor's brother, Sir Thomas Hall,
• Sprang down to work his worst;
• 680And the King caught the second man by the neck
• And flung him above the first.

• And he smote and trampled them under him;
• And a long month thence they bare
• All black their throats with the grip of his hands
• When the hangman's hand came there.

• And sore he strove to have had their knives,
• But the sharp blades gashed his hands.
• Oh James! so armed, thou hadst battled there
• Till help had come of thy bands;
• 690And oh! once more thou hadst held our throne
• And ruled thy Scotish lands!

• But while the King o'er his foes still raged
• With a heart that nought could tame,
• Another man sprang down to the crypt;
• And with his sword in his hand hard-gripp'd,
• There stood Sir Robert Græme.

• (Now shame on the recreant traitor's heart
• Who durst not face his King
• Till the body unarmed was wearied out
• 700With two-fold combating!

• Ah! well might the people sing and say,
• As oft ye have heard aright:—
• “ O Robert Græme, O Robert Græme,
• Who slew our King, God give thee shame!”
• For he slew him not as a knight.)

• And the naked King turned round at bay,
• But his strength had passed the goal,
• And he could but gasp:—“Mine hour is come;
• But oh! to succour thine own soul's doom,
• 710Let a priest now shrive my soul!”

• And the traitor looked on the King's spent strength,
• And said:—“Have I kept my word?—
• Yea, King, the mortal pledge that I gave?
• No black friar's shrift thy soul shall have,
• But the shrift of this red sword!”

• With that he smote his King through the breast;
• And all they three in that pen
• Fell on him and stabbed and stabbed him there
• Like merciless murderous men.

• 720Yet seemed it now that Sir Robert Græme,
• Ere the King's last breath was o'er,
• Turned sick at heart with the deadly sight
• And would have done no more.

• But a cry came from the troop above:—
• “If him thou do not slay,
• The price of his life that thou dost spare
• Thy forfeit life shall pay!”

• O God! what more did I hear or see,
• Or how should I tell the rest?
• 730But there at length our King lay slain
• With sixteen wounds in his breast.

• O God! and now did a bell boom forth,
• And the murderers turned and fled;—
page: 153  
• Too late, too late, O God, did it sound!—
• And I heard the true men mustering round,
• And the cries and the coming tread.

• But ere they came, to the black death-gap
• Somewise did I creep and steal;
• And lo! or ever I swooned away,
• 740Through the dusk I saw where the white face lay
• In the Pit of Fortune's Wheel.

---

• And now, ye Scotish maids who have heard
• Dread things of the days grown old,—
• Even at the last, of true Queen Jane
• May somewhat yet be told,
• And how she dealt for her dear lord's sake
• Dire vengeance manifold.

• 'Twas in the Charterhouse of Perth,
• In the fair-lit Death-chapelle,
• 750That the slain King's corpse on bier was laid
• With chaunt and requiem-knell.

• And all with royal wealth of balm
• Was the body purified;
• And none could trace on the brow and lips
• The death that he had died.

• In his robes of state he lay asleep
• With orb and sceptre in hand;
• And by the crown he wore on his throne
• Was his kingly forehead spann'd.

• 760And, girls, 'twas a sweet sad thing to see
• How the curling golden hair,
• As in the day of the poet's youth,
• From the King's crown clustered there.

• And if all had come to pass in the brain
• That throbbed beneath those curls,
• Then Scots had said in the days to come
• That this their soil was a different home
• And a different Scotland, girls!

• And the Queen sat by him night and day,
• 770And oft she knelt in prayer,
• All wan and pale in the widow's veil
• That shrouded her shining hair.

• And I had got good help of my hurt:
• And only to me some sign
• She made; and save the priests that were there,
• No face would she see but mine.

• And the month of March wore on apace;
• And now fresh couriers fared
• Still from the country of the Wild Scots
• 780With news of the traitors snared.

• And still as I told her day by day,
• Her pallor changed to sight,
• And the frost grew to a furnace-flame
• That burnt her visage white.

• And evermore as I brought her word,
• She bent to her dead King James,
• And in the cold ear with fire-drawn breath
• She spoke the traitors' names.

• But when the name of Sir Robert Græme
• 790Was the one she had to give,
• I ran to hold her up from the floor;
• For the froth was on her lips, and sore
• I feared that she could not live.

• And the month of March wore nigh to its end,
• And still was the death-pall spread;
• For she would not bury her slaughtered lord
• Till his slayers all were dead.

• And now of their dooms dread tidings came,
• And of torments fierce and dire;
• 800And nought she spake,—she had ceased to speak,—
• But her eyes were a soul on fire.

• But when I told her the bitter end
• Of the stern and just award,
• She leaned o'er the bier, and thrice three times
• She kissed the lips of her lord.

• And then she said,—“My King, they are dead!”
• And she knelt on the chapel-floor,
• And whispered low with a strange proud smile,—
• “James, James, they suffered more!”

• 810Last she stood up to her queenly height,
• But she shook like an autumn leaf,
• As though the fire wherein she burned
• Then left her body, and all were turned
• To winter of life-long grief.

• And “O James!” she said,—“My James!” she
• said,—
• “Alas for the woful thing,
• That a poet true and a friend of man,
• In desperate days of bale and ban,
• Should needs be born a King!”