nce,
My motherland,
The best beloved!
Foster-nurse of my young years!
Farewell, France, and farewell my happy days!
The ship that separates our loves
Has borne away but half of me;
One part is left thee and is throe,
And I confide it to thy tenderness,
That thou may'st hold in mind the other part."'

[Translator's note.-It has not been found possible to make a rhymed
version of these lines without sacrificing the simplicity which is their
chief charm.]

This part of herself that Mary left in France was the body of the young
king, who had taken with him all poor Mary's happiness into his tomb.

Mary had but one hope remaining, that the sight of the English fleet
would compel her little squadron to turn back; but she had to fulfil her
destiny. This same day, a fog, a very unusual occurrence in summer-time,
extended all over the Channel, and caused her to escape the fleet; for
it was such a dense fog that one could not see from stern to mast. It
lasted the whole of Sunday, the day after the departure, and did not
lift till the following day, Monday, at eight o'clock in the morning.
The little flotilla, which all this time had been sailing haphazard, had
got among so many reefs that if the fog had lasted some minutes longer
the galley would certainly have grounded on some rock, and would have
perished like the vessel that had been seen engulfed on leaving port.
But, thanks to the fog's clearing, the pilot recognised the Scottish
coast, and, steering his four boats with great skill through all the
dangers, on the 20th August he put in at Leith, where no preparation
had been made for the queen's reception. Nevertheless, scarcely had she
arrived there than the chief persons of the town met together and came
to felicitate her. Meanwhile, they hastily collected some wretched nags,
with harness all falling in pieces, to conduct the queen to Edinburgh.

At sight of this, Mary could not help weeping again; for she thought of
the splendid palfreys and hackneys of her French knights and ladies, and
at this first view Scotland appeared to-her in all its poverty. Next day
it was to appear to her in all its wildness.

After having passed one night at Holyrood Palace, "during which," says
Brantome, "five to six hundred rascals from the town, instead of letting
her sleep, came to give her a wild morning greeting on wretched fiddles
and little rebecks," she expressed a wish to hear mass.