Rollo in Scotland Part 15

"This was King James the First. He was a bad king. He oppressed his people, and they determined to kill him. So they banded together and made a plot. They were going to kill him in a monastery where he stopped on a journey.

"He was going over a river just before he came to the monastery, and a woman, who pretended to be a prophetess, called out to him as he went by towards the bank of the river, and told him to beware, for if he crossed that river he would certainly be killed. The king was very superst.i.tious; so he sent one of his men back to ask the woman what she meant. The man came to him again very soon, and said that it was nothing but an old drunken woman raving, and that he must not mind her. So the king went on.

"He crossed the water, and went to the monastery. The conspirators were there before him. The leader of them was a man named Graham. He had three hundred Highlanders with him. They were all concealed in the neighborhood of the monastery. They were going to break into the king's room in the monastery, at night, and kill him. They found out the room where he was going to sleep, and they took off the bolts from the doors, so as to keep them from fastening them.

"The woman that had met the king on the way followed him to the monastery, and wanted to see the king. They told her she could not see him. She said she _must_ see him. They told her that at any rate she could not see him then--he was tired with his journey. She must go away, they said, and come the next day. So she went away; but she told them they would all be sorry for not letting her in."

"Do you suppose she really knew," asked Waldron, "that they were going to kill the king?"

"I don't know," said Rollo. "At any rate, she seemed very much in earnest about warning him."

"Well; go on with the story," said Waldron.

"Why, the conspirators broke into the room that night just as the king was going to bed. He was sitting near the fire, in his gown and slippers, talking with the queen and the other ladies that were there, when, all at once, he heard a terrible noise at the doors of the monastery. It was the conspirators trying to get in."

"Why did not they come right in," asked Waldron, "if the doors were not fastened?"

"Why, I suppose there were guards, or something, outside, that tried to prevent them. At any rate, the king heard a frightful noise, like clattering and jingling of armor, and of men trying to get in. He and the women who were there ran to the door and tried to fasten it; but the bolts and bars were gone. So the king told them to hold the door with all their strength, till he could find something to fasten it with. The king went to the window, and tried to tear off an iron stanchion there was there, but he could not. Then he saw a trap door in the floor, which led down to a kind of dark dungeon. So he took the tongs and pried up the door, and jumped down.

"By the time that he got down, and the door was shut over him, the conspirators came in, and began to look all about for him; but they could not find him. I suppose they did not see the trap door. Or, perhaps, the women had covered it over with something."

"Well, and what did they do?" asked Waldron.

"Why, they were dreadfully angry because they could not find the king, and some of them were going to kill the queen; but the rest would not let them. But there was one of the women that got her arm broken."

"How?" asked Waldron.

"She did it somehow or other holding the door. I suppose she got it wedged in some way. She was a countess.

"After a while," continued Rollo, "the men went away to look in some of the other rooms of the monastery, and see if they could not find the king there. As soon as they were gone the king wanted to get out of the dungeon. The women opened the trap door, but he could not reach up high enough to get out. So he told them to go and get some sheets and let them down, for ropes to pull him up by.

"They brought the sheets, and while they were letting them down, and trying to get the king out, one of the ladies fell down herself into the hole. So there were two to get up; and while the others were trying to get them up, the conspirators came in again."

"Hoh!" said Waldron.

"One of them had a torch," said Rollo, continuing his narrative. "He brought the torch and held it down the trap door, and presently he caught sight of the king. So he called out to the other conspirators that he had found him, and they all came round the place, with their swords, and daggers, and knives in their hands.

"One of them let himself down into the dungeon. He had a great knife in his hand for a dagger. But the king seized him the instant he came down, got his knife away from him, and pinned him to the ground. The king was a very strong man. Immediately another man came down, and the king seized him, and held him down in the same way. Next Graham himself came with a sword. He stabbed the king with his sword, and so disabled him.

The king then began to beg for his life, and Graham did not seem to like to strike him again. But the other conspirators, who were looking down through the trap door, said if he did not do it they would kill _him_.

So at last he stabbed the king again, and killed him."

When Rollo had finished the story he paused, expecting that Waldron would say something in relation to it.

"Is that all?" said Waldron, after waiting a moment. He spoke, however, in a very sleepy tone of voice.

"Yes," said Rollo, "that is all. Now tell me your story."

Waldron began; but he seemed very sleepy, and he had advanced only a very little way before his words began to grow incoherent and faltering, and very soon Rollo perceived that he was going to sleep. Indeed, Rollo himself was beginning to feel sleepy, too; so he said,--

"No matter, Waldron. You can tell me your story to-morrow."

In five minutes from that time both the boys were fast asleep.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE PALACE OF HOLYROOD.

While Mr. George and the boys were in Edinburgh, they went one day to visit the Palace of Holyrood, and they were extremely interested in what they saw there. This palace stands, as has already been stated, on a plain, not far from the foot of a long slope which leads up to the castle.

As long as Scotland remained an independent kingdom, the Palace of Holyrood was the princ.i.p.al residence of the royal family. Queen Mary was the last of the Scottish sovereigns--that is, she was the last that reigned over Scotland alone--for her son, James VI., succeeded to the throne of England, as well as to that of Scotland. The reason of this was, that the English branch of the royal line failed, and he was the next heir. So he became James the First of England, while he still remained James the Sixth of Scotland. And from this time forward the kings of England and Scotland were one.

Mary, therefore, was the last of the exclusively Scottish line. She lived at Holyrood as long as she was allowed to live any where in peace; and on account of certain very peculiar circ.u.mstances which occurred just before the time that she left the palace, her rooms were never occupied after she left them, but have remained to this day in the same state, and with almost the same furniture in them as at the hour when she went away. These rooms are called Queen Mary's rooms, and almost every body who visits Scotland goes to see them.

The reason why the rooms which Mary occupied in the Palace of Holyrood were left as they were, and never occupied by any other person after Mary went away, was princ.i.p.ally that a dreadful murder was committed there just before Mary quitted them. This, of course, connected very gloomy a.s.sociations with the palace; and while great numbers of persons were eager to go and see the place where the man was killed, few would be willing to live there. The consequence has been, that the apartments have been vacant of occupants ever since, though they are filled all the time with a perpetually flowing stream of visitors. The circ.u.mstances of the murder were very extraordinary. Mr. George explained the case briefly to the boys during their visit to the palace, as we shall presently see.

On leaving the hotel they went for a little way along Prince's Street.

On one side of the street there was a row of stores, hotels, and other such buildings, as in Broadway, in New York. On the other side extended the long and deep valley which lies between Prince's Street and Castle Hill. The valley was crossed by various bridges, and beyond it were to be seen the backs of the lofty houses of High Street, rising tier above tier to a great height, looking, as has already been said, like a range of stupendous cliffs, lifting their crests to the sky.

There were scarcely any buildings on the valley side of the street, except one or two edifices of an ornamental or public character. One of these was the celebrated monument to Sir Walter Scott.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SCOTT'S MONUMENT.]

The party paused a short time before this monument, and then went on.

They pa.s.sed by one or two bridges that led across the valley, and also, at one place, a broad flight of steps, that went down, with many turnings, from landing to landing, to the railway station in the valley.

At last they came to the bridge where they were to cross the valley.

They stopped on the middle of the bridge, to look down. They saw streets far below them, and a market, and trains of railway carriages coming and going, and beyond, at some distance, an extensive range of pleasure grounds, with ladies and gentlemen rambling about them, and groups of children playing. These pleasure grounds extended some way up the slope of the Castle Hill. Indeed, the upper walks lay close along under the foot of the precipices on which the castle walls were built above.

After pa.s.sing the bridge, Mr. George and the boys went on, until, at length, they came to High Street; which is the great central street of ancient Edinburgh, leading from the palace and abbey on the plain up to the castle on the hill. There, if they had turned to the right, they would have gone up to the castle; but they turned to the left, and so descended towards the palace, on the plain.

At length they reached the foot of the descent, and then, at a turn in the street, the palace came suddenly into view.

There was a broad paved area in front of it. In the centre of the building was a large arched doorway, with a sentry box on each side. At each of these sentry boxes stood a soldier on guard. All the royal palaces of England are guarded thus. There was a cab, that had brought a company of visitors to see the castle, standing near the centre of the square, by a great statue that was there. Another cab drove up just at the time that Mr. George arrived, and a party of visitors got out of it.

All the new comers went in under the archway together. The soldiers paid no attention to them whatever.

The arched pa.s.sage way led into a square court, with a piazza extending all around it. The visitors turned to the left, and walked along under the piazza till they came to the corner, where there was a little office, and a man at the window of it to give them tickets. They paid sixpence apiece for their tickets.

After getting their tickets they walked on under the piazza a little way farther, till at length they came to a door, and a broad stone staircase, leading up into the palace, and they all went in and began to ascend the stairs.

At the head of the stairs they pa.s.sed through a wide door, which led into a room where they saw visitors, that had gone in before them, walking about. They were met at the door by a well-dressed man, who received them politely, and asked them to walk in.

"This, gentlemen," said he, "was Lord Darnley's audience chamber. That,"

he continued, pointing through an open door at the side, "was his bedroom; and there," pointing to another small door on the other side, "was the pa.s.sage way leading up to Queen Mary's apartments."

Having said this, the attendant turned away to answer some questions asked him by the other visitors, leaving Mr. George and the boys, for the moment, to look about the rooms by themselves.