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 by visitors, instead of hiding it behind the
traverse in this manner. The existence of the said traverse, or
temporary partition, is also extremely difficult to be accounted