en's heart must have throbbed
with anxiety while her son lay hidden in the bed made for him within the
heavy chest, where if air failed, or any varlet made the discovery
prematurely, all her hopes would have come to an end. She must have
fluttered like a bird over her young about the receptacle in which her
boy lay, and talked with her ladies over his head to encourage and keep
him patient till the end of the journey was near enough, amid the
lingering links of Forth, to open the lid and set him free. It is not a
journey that is often made nowadays, but with all the lights of the
morning upon Demayat and his attendant mountains, and the sun shining
upon that rich valley, and the river at its leisure wending, as if it
loved them, through all the verdant holms and haughs, there is no
pleasanter way of travelling from Edinburgh to Stirling, the two
hill-castles of the Scottish crown.

[Illustration: INNER BARRIER, EDINBURGH CASTLE]

It would be pleasant to think that Queen Jane meant something more than
the mere bolstering up of one faction against another in the distracted
kingdom by the abduction of her son. It is very possible indeed that she
did so, and that to strengthen the hands of the man who was really
Regent-Governor of Scotland, but whose power had been stolen from his
hands by the unscrupulousness of Crichton, seemed to her a great
political object, and the recovery of the supreme authority, which would
seem to have appeared to all as infallibly linked with the possession of
the young King, of the greatest importance. It is evident it was
considered by the general public to be so; but there is something
pitiful in the struggle for the poor boy, over whose small person those
fierce factionaries fought, and in whose name, still so innocent and
helpless as he was, so many ferocious deeds were done.

No sooner was he secure in Stirling than the Governor called together a
convention of his friends, to congratulate each other and praise the wit
and skill of "that noble woman, our soverain mother," who had thus set
things right. "Whereby I understand," he says piously, "that the wisest
man is not at all times the sickerest, nor yet the hardy man happiest,"
seeing that Crichton, though so great and sagacious and powerful, should
be thus deceived and brought to shame. "Be of good comfort therefore,"
adds this enlightened ruler; "all the mischief, banishment, troubles,
and vexation which the Chancellor thought to have