Page:Mary Stuart (Drinkwater).djvu/77

 Mary: Would I were a better toast!

Riccio (to ): You should see the south, mistress. I hear talk of a love-match—the Lord Ogilvy of Boyne, it is said. It would make a sweet honeymoon.

Beaton: I am sure you have a shrewd judgment, Master Riccio.

Mary: Now, David, we will have none of these encouragements. Must I lose all my friends? Riccio: There's an old fellow in Toulouse there who cobbles and makes flutes. There were never flutes like them. To hear one is to have the words come pit, pat, and there's a song as soon as you will. Everything there grows like that. Here it is as though one were under stones, damp, pressed down, all gloom. But there—ah, but, Madam, you know.

Beaton: You are glad to go?

Riccio: It all comes back—how can one help it? Though it is grief to go from so sweet a service. Even the wine is brighter there—my papers, Madam—shall I deliver them to you?

Mary: Yes—before you go. Will you remember Mary Stuart when you hear the cobbler's flute?