Chapter I.

Disaster came at the moment the Queen lent forward to caress the arching neck of her mount. It was an impulsive gesture born of the beauty of sun-dappled hills and the breeze, that, sweet with the scent of hawthorn in blossom, brought the sound of pipe and kettledrum and the confused jingling murmur of an army on the move. Six thousand men, her men, were winding down the lane to the village of Langside behind the pennons of Hamilton and Argyll. True, they were but retiring to await reinforcements at Dumbarton Castle, but the sight of them, and the loyalty they represented had power to still the bitter memories of plot and imprisonment, spiritual and physical suffering, and promise a new beginning of better things.

Distance perhaps and the love of a woman for a brave show dimmed her eyes to the folly of such a manoeuvre and the obvious unworthiness of the rabble of levies that the sergeants-atarms cursed along in the rear. But the village lay quiet, and beyond it by a grove of stunted oaks a scattered group of Murray's horse appeared no more than a reconnoitring party ready to take flight at the first sign of danger. Tears of joyful emotion filled the Queen's eyes in response to the restless movements of her jennet stallion, which, with ears pricked forward towards the distant glint of sun on steel, fretted his curb chain and shifted his hoofs with eager impatience.

“Sois tranquil, mon petit,” she murmured, putting forth a hand to quiet him, but her fingers did not touch the quivering neck muscles, for at that moment he curvetted violently as a rattle of firearms rang out from the village below.

Dun clouds of dust and powder smoke drifted over the roofs, lances tossed in confusion as chargers reared, struck at point-blank range by the slugs of the hackbutters who, under the command of Kirkaldy of Grange, lay hidden behind the walls and shuttered windows of the village street.

Another volley, and riders thrown from maddened horses were trampled beneath the hoofs of their fellow troopers, as they turned about in a desperate effort to escape from the death-trap into which they had ridden.

The infantry, pressed up close in the narrow lane, their vision obscured by dust and smoke, orders drowned in the din of battle, had no chance to rally themselves before they were ridden down by their own leaders; and the Regent's men loading and firing their hook-guns at leisure and in perfect safety, poured volley after volley into the hopelessly jammed soldiery.

Panic followed and rout, the Royalists leaping walls and ditches were soon spread out over the countryside; tiny fleeing figures that threw down their arms as the pursuing cavalry overtook them. A score of Murray's horsemen spied the little group formed on the hilltop by the Queen and Lord Herries, Livingstone and the Douglases, and spurred their horses toward the rise.

“Leave me now.” The Queen, overcome at the sudden dissolution of her army, seemed listless, ready to surrender and face imprisonment, perhaps death. “Leave me, I pray and fly for your lives,” she said, preparing to dismount, but the jennet stallion, excited by the drumming of galloping hoofs, reared, and in an instant the eyes of the brooding, defeated woman were lit with the fire of new determination, as she displayed her skill as a horsewoman.

Herries swung from his saddle and laid a hand on the stallion's bridle.

“Madam,” he cried earnestly, “Tarry no longer here, or these rogues burn thee, but ride with us southward to Dumfries and England—and I'll warrant page 37 within a month the Queen will send such a force as will make this rebel lion a lamb for slaughter.”

One last look then at the scene of her defeat and the Royal Standard of Scotland fluttering from its staff

“Lenzie swung himself into the Queen's saddle.”

above her head, and the Queen, with the hoarse cries of her enemies dinning in her ears, clapped heels to the stallion, which, freed at last from restraint, leaped forward down the hillside.