The Fair Maid of Perth | Page 3

but the weekly bill for board and lodging. A dairymaid of
these degenerate days might as well wash and deck her dairy in hopes
of finding the fairy tester in her shoe.
"It is a sad and too true a tale, cousin," said Mrs. Baliol, "I am sure we
all have occasion to regret the want of these ready supplements to a
failing invention. But you, most of all, have right to complain that the
fairest have not favoured your researches-- you, who have shown the
world that the age of chivalry still exists --you, the knight of Croftangry,
who braved the fury of the 'London 'prentice bold,' in behalf of the fair
Dame Policy, and the memorial of Rizzio's slaughter! Is it not a pity,
cousin, considering the feat of chivalry was otherwise so much
according to rule--is it not, I say, a great pity that the lady had not been

a little younger, and the legend a little older?"
"Why, as to the age at which a fair dame loses the benefit of chivalry,
and is no longer entitled to crave boon of brave knight, that I leave to
the statutes of the Order of Errantry; but for the blood of Rizzio I take
up the gauntlet, and maintain against all and sundry that I hold the
stains to be of no modern date, but to have been actually the
consequence and the record of that terrible assassination."
"As I cannot accept the challenge to the field, fair cousin, I am
contented to require proof."
"The unaltered tradition of the Palace, and the correspondence of the
existing state of things with that tradition."
"Explain, if you please."
"I will. The universal tradition bears that, when Rizzio was dragged out
of the chamber of the Queen, the heat and fury of the assassins, who
struggled which should deal him most wounds, despatched him at the
door of the anteroom. At the door of the apartment, therefore, the
greater quantity of the ill fated minion's blood was spilled, and there the
marks of it are still shown. It is reported further by historians, that
Mary continued her entreaties for his life, mingling her prayers with
screams and exclamations, until she knew that he was assuredly slain;
on which she wiped her eyes and said, 'I will now study revenge.'"
"All this is granted. But the blood--would it not wash out, or waste out,
think you, in so many years?"
"I am coming to that presently. The constant tradition of the Palace
says, that Mary discharged any measures to be taken to remove the
marks of slaughter, which she had resolved should remain as a
memorial to quicken and confirm her purposed vengeance. But it is
added that, satisfied with the knowledge that it existed, and not
desirous to have the ghastly evidence always under her eye, she caused
a traverse, as it is called (that is, a temporary screen of boards), to be
drawn along the under part of the anteroom, a few feet from the door,
so as to separate the place stained with the blood from the rest of the
apartment, and involve it in considerable obscurity. Now this
temporary partition still exists, and, by running across and interrupting
the plan of the roof and cornices, plainly intimates that it has been
intended to serve some temporary purpose, since it disfigures the
proportions of the room, interferes with the ornaments of the ceiling,

and could only have been put there for some such purpose as hiding an
object too disagreeable to be looked upon. As to the objection that the
bloodstains would have disappeared in course of time, I apprehend that,
if measures to efface them were not taken immediately after the affair
happened --if the blood, in other words, were allowed to sink into the
wood, the stain would become almost indelible. Now, not to mention
that our Scottish palaces were not particularly well washed in those
days, and that there were no Patent Drops to assist the labours of the
mop, I think it very probable that these dark relics might subsist for a
long course of time, even if Mary had not desired or directed that they
should be preserved, but screened by the traverse from public sight. I
know several instances of similar bloodstains remaining for a great
many years, and I doubt whether, after a certain time, anything can
remove them save the carpenter's plane. If any seneschal, by way of
increasing the interest of the apartments, had, by means of paint, or any
other mode of imitation, endeavoured to palm upon posterity
supposititious stigmata, I conceive that the impostor would have chosen
the Queen's cabinet and the bedroom for the scene of his trick, placing
his bloody tracery where it could be distinctly seen