Chapter XIV: Preston Tower

Then the Count of Clara began in this manner: "Sirs, it is manifest that men in this world can only become powerful by strengthening themselves with men and money; but the money must be employed in procuring men, for by men must kingdoms be defended and won."--_Amadis of Gaul_.

On the evening of the same day when Florence Fawside returned home, and his mother, like a spider in its hole, sat in her elbow-chair in the grim old tower upon the hill, weaving plots to net and destroy her feudal adversary, that detested personage in his equally grim old tower upon the lea, was forming plans of a similarly desperate, but much more extensive description.

The paved barbican of his residence was filled by nearly the same horses and horsemen, liverymen and pages, wearing the oak branch in their bonnets or the shakefork sable on their sleeves, and by many men-at-arms in helmet, jack, and wambeson, whom we formerly saw in the courtyard of the Golden Rose, at Leith, and whom we left in hot pursuit of Florence. As the shades of evening deepened on the harvest fields and bordering sea, the narrow slits and iron-grated windows of the old castle became filled with red light, for it was crowded by visitors; and the echoes of voices, of laughter, and shouts of loud and reckless merriment rang at times under the arched vaults of its ancient chambers.

Near Preston, a burgh of barony, composed of old houses of rough and rugged aspect, that cluster along a rocky beach of broken masses of basalt, denuded long ago of all earthy strata, stands this high square donjon tower of the Hamiltons of Preston, in later years a stronghold of the attainted Earls of Winton. The adjacent beach is now covered with shapeless ruins of redstone, from which, ever and anon, the ebbing sea sweeps a mass away; but in the time of our story these ruins were the flourishing saltpans of the enterprising monks of St. Marie de Newbattle, who, since the twelfth century, had pushed briskly the trade of salt-making; and nightly the broad red glares of their coal-fed furnaces were wont to shed a dusky light upon the rocky land and tossing sea--hence its present name, of the Priest-town-pans; though in days older still, when King Donald VII. was pining a blind captive in his prison, the locality was called Auldhammer. In 1547, its church was an open ruin, having been burned by the English three years before.

As a double security, within the barbican gate, this tower is entered by two arched doors on the east. One leads to the lower vaults _alone_; another, in the first story, reached by a ladder or bridge, gives access to the hall and sleeping apartments. Those who entered here, drew in the long ladder after them, and thus cut off all means of access from below. The vast pile of Borthwick, in Lothian, the tower of Coxton, near Elgin, the tower of Half-forest, near Inverurie, and many other Scottish castles of great antiquity, are constructed on this singular plan, where _security_ was the first principle of our domestic architects. Preston had additions built to it in 1625; and a huge crenelated wall of that date still surmounts the simple machicolated battlements of the original edifice, making it one of the most conspicuous objects on the level land on which its lofty mass is reared. The original tower was one of the chain of fortresses garrisoned by Lord Home in the 15th century, and having been burned by the English army in 1650, after all the rough vicissitudes of war and time, it presents a mouldering, shattered, and venerable aspect.

The arched gate on the east was surmounted by the three cinque-foils pierced ermine of Hamilton; and on each side of it a large brass gun called a basilisk peered through a porthole, to "hint that here at least there was no thoroughfare." In short, Preston Tower is a mansion of those warlike, but thrifty and hearty old times when, by order, of the Scottish parliament, it was "statute and ordained that all lords should dwell in their castles and manors, and expend _the fruit of their lands in the counterie where the said lands lay._"

It had other tenants besides old Claude Hamilton and his cuirassed and turbulent retainers; as it was alleged to be haunted by a brownie and evil spirit; and for the latter Symon Brodie, the castle butler, nightly set apart a cup of ale. If Symon failed to perform this duty, the spirit, like a vampire bat, sucked the blood of one of the inmates. The little squat figure of the brownie, wearing a broad bonnet and short scarlet cloak, had been seen at times, especially on St. John's Night, to flit about the kitchen-door, watching for the departure of the servants, who always left to him, unmolested, his favourite haunt, the warm hearth of the great arched fireplace, where the livelong night he crooned a melancholy ditty, which sounded like the winter wind through a keyhole, as he swung above the _griesoch_, or gathering peat, from the iron cruik whereon by day, as Father John of Tranent records, "the mickle kail-pot hung."

The merriment was great in the old hall; for the supper, which had been a huge engagement or onslaught of knives and teeth upon all manner of edibles, was just over. People always fed well in those old times, if we may judge of the abundance which filled their boards three times per _diem_; yet what were they, or the Saxon gluttons of an earlier age, when compared to the youth who, unrestrained by the silly fear of civilized society, discussed before the Emperor Aurelian a boar, a sheep, a pig, and a hundred loaves; with beer in proportion; or to his imperial majesty Maximus Caius Julius, who--long live his memory--ate daily sixty-four pounds of meat, and drank therewith twenty-four quarts of rare old Roman wine!

The supper, a meal taken at the early hour of six in 1547, was over in Preston Hall. The long black table of oak had been cleared of all its trenchers and platters of silver, delft, tin, and wood; but a plentiful supply of wine--Alicant, Bordeaux, and Canary,--with ale and usquebaugh for those who preferred them, was substituted, in tall black-jacks which resembled troopers' boots, being made of strong leather, lined with pewter and rimmed with silver. Each of these jolly vessels held two Scottish pints (_i.e._ two quarts English); and drinking-vessels of silver for the nobles, horn for gentlemen, and wooden quaichs, cups, or luggies for their more favoured retainers, were disposed along the table by Symon Brodie (who had partly recovered from his sword-wound): we say more favoured retainers, for, as the drinking bout which succeeded the supper in Preston was a species of political conclave, a gathering of conspirators, the doors were carefully closed, and not a man, save those on whom the Scottish lords of the English faction could thoroughly rely, was permitted to remain within earshot; and hence, at each massive oak door of the hall stood an armed jackman, with his sword drawn; and on the dark pyne doublets, the dinted corslets and burganets, the brown visages and rough beards of these keen-eyed and listening sentinels, the smoky light of ten great torches which were ranged along the stone wall, five on each side, near the spring of the arched roof, flared and gleamed with a wavering radiance.

Nor were the party at the table less striking and picturesque.

In his elbow-chair old Claude of Preston occupied the head of the long board. His voluminous grey beard flowed over his quilted doublet, and concealed his gorget of fine steel; his bald head glanced in the light, and his keen, bright basilisk eyes surveyed the faces and seemed to pierce the souls of the speakers, as each in turn gave his suggestion as to the best mode of subverting that monarchy for the maintenance of which so many of their sires had died in battle.

There were present the Earl of Cassilis, he of abbot-roasting notoriety; the Earl of Glencairn and his son Lord Kilmaurs; the Lord Lyle and his son the Master; the Lord Gray; with two others whom we have not yet fully introduced to the reader; to wit, Patrick Hepburn Earl of Bothwell, abhorred by the Protestants as the first captor of George Wishart (and father of that Earl James who wrought the destruction of Mary Queen of Scots), and William Earl Marischal, the constable of Kincardine, both peers of a goodly presence, clad in half-armour, and wearing the peaked beard, close-shorn hair, and pointed moustache of the time.

Bothwell wore one of those curious thumb-rings concerning which bluff Jack Falstaff taunts King Hal. It was a gift from Mary of Lorraine, whom he once vainly believed to be in love with him, and whose slights had now driven him into the conspiracy against her. He had a golden girdle, which glittered in the light, and thereat hung the long sword which had been found clenched in the hand of his noble grandsire,

"Earl Adam Hepburn--he who died
At Flodden, by his sovereign's side,"

and which was popularly believed to have been charmed by a wizard, the late prior of Deer, in suchwise that the wielder of it should never have his blood drawn nor suffer harm, a spell which the wizard priest performed by kissing the hilt four times in the name of Crystsonday. Bothwell had been two years a prisoner in a royal fortress, for assisting in the raids and rapine of the late Earl of Yarrow; and after being many years banished from Scotland, had lived at Florence and Venice, where his natural turn for mischief and deep-laid plotting had been developed to the full.

Among these intriguers were two men of a very different kind, clad as followers of that master of treachery and statecraft, the fierce Earl of Glencairn, viz., Master Patten, who afterwards wrote the history of Somerset's hostile expedition into Scotland, and Master Edward Shelly, a brave English officer, whom we have already mentioned, and who was captain of a band of English soldiers known as the Boulogners. He had been at the capture and garrisoning of Boulogne-sur-Mer in 1544, where he superintended the rebuilding of the famous _Tour de l'Ordre_, a useless labour, as Edward VI. restored the town to France six years after. These two Londoners were still disguised in the livery of the Cunninghames, and, further to complete the imposture, wore peasants' coarse blue bonnets and those cuarans, or shoes of undressed hide, which obtained for our people the sobriquet of rough-footed Scots.

"Symon, ye loon, attend to the strangers," said Claude Hamilton. "Fill your bicker from the jack of Alicant, Master Shelly; or like you better a silver tassie, my man? I trust that you and worthy Master Patten, your secretary or servitor (we style such-like both in Scotland), have supped well?"

"Well, yea, and heartily sir," replied Shelly, wiping his curly beard with a napkin. "But Master Patten was whispering that he must teach your Scots cooks to make that which he loves as his own life--a jolly Devonshire squab and white-pot."

"Hah! And how make ye such, Master Patten?"

"With a pint of cream," replied Master Patten, "four eggs, nutmeg, sugar, salt, a loaf of bread, a handful of raisins, and some sweet butter. Then boil the whole in a bag, and seek a good tankard of March beer to wash it down with."

"God willing, sir, we shall learn your southern dishes, among other things, when, haply, we bring this marriage about with little King Edward VI. Each royal alliance hath brought some unco' fashion among us here in Scotland. Furred doublets came in with Margaret of Oldenburg; the Flemish hood with Mary of Gueldres; the velvet hat with Margaret Tudor; the French beard with Magdalene of Valois----"

"And please heaven, worthy sir," snuffled Master Patten, "accession of wealth and strength with his majesty Edward VI."

"Right!" said Glencairn gruffly; "and your Devonshire squab to boot. And now, my lords and gentles, to business; for the night wears on, and we must keep tryst with my Lord Regent betimes at Stirling, for you know that he would confer with some of us previous to a convention of the estates. Let Master Shelly speak; for Master Patten hath brought new letters and tidings from the Lord Protector of England."

"Well, sirs," said Shelly bluntly, "to resume where we last left off. The Protector of England pledges himself to invade Scotland with an army sufficient to bear down all opposition, provided you and your armed adherents cast your swords into the scale with him."

"Agreed!" said Claude Hamilton, glancing round the table.

"Agreed!" added all, in varying tones of approval.

On the table lay a map of Scotland,--one of those so quaintly delineated by M. Nicholas d'Arville, chief cosmographer to the most Christian king; and to this reference was made from time to time by members of the worthy conclave, who sat around it or lounged in the hall.

"How many fighting-men can you raise in that district named the Lennox, to aid our cause?" asked Shelly, placing a finger on the part which indicated that ancient county.

"Its hereditary sheriff, Matthew Earl of Lennox, is one of _us_," replied Bothwell; "and he can bring into the field eight thousand soldiers."

"And then there are the Isles," began Glencairn.

"Yea, my lord," said Shelly, with an approving smile, "of old a very hotbed of revolt against the Scottish crown."

"And the place wherein our Edwards readily fermented treason," added Patten, "and stirred their lords to war against your kings, as independent princes of the Hebrides."

"Trust not to the islesmen," said Bothwell; "the vanity of their chiefs was crushed a hundred years ago, on the field of Harlaw."

"But haply the spirit lives there yet," said Shelly, making a memorandum; "and if we sent a few war-ships through the Western Sea under the Lord Clinton or Sir William Wentworth, our two best admirals, it might be no difficult task to rouse it once again to action."

"You deceive yourself," said Lord Lyle coldly; "the sovereign of Scotland is now, both by blood and position, hereditary Lord of the Isles, and the chiefs remember with love and veneration the chivalry of James IV., and patriotism of his son, who died at Falkland."

"Now, my lords, to the terms of your adherence with England," said Shelly, unfolding a parchment, to which several small seals were attached by pieces of ribbon; and after hemming once or twice, he arose and read aloud:--

"It is covenanted and written between us, Edward Duke of Somerset, Earl of Hertford, Viscount Beauchamp, Lord Seymour, uncle to the king our sovereign, lord high treasurer and earl-marshal of England, captain of the isles of Guernsey and Jersey, lieutenant-general of all his majesty's forces by sea and land, governor of his highness's most royal person, and protector of all his domains and subjects, knight of the most illustrious order of the Garter, and certain lords and barons of the realm of Scotland--to wit--Gilbert Kennedy, Earl of Cassilis----"

"Enough of this," said Cassilis bluntly, and with some alarm depicted in his face; "there are other peers who take precedence of me in parliament; so why not in this parchment of thine? moreover, we care not to hear our titles so rehearsed."

"In so dangerous a document as this," added some one.

"How, my lords," exclaimed Shelly with astonishment and something of scorn; "you dare not recede----"

"Dare not?" reiterated Cassilis, with a fierce frown.

"No," replied the Englishman bluntly.

"And wherefore, sirrah?"

"Because the Protector of England holds in his hand a document which, if sent to the Regent of Scotland, would hang seven among you as high as ever Haman hung of old."

"A document," repeated Kilmaurs, the gash on whose pale cheek grew black, while his eyes flashed fire; "is there another bond than this!"

"Yea, one written by Master Patten, and signed in the Star-chamber at London, by seven Scottish lords, then prisoners of war, after the field of Solway."

"And _they_--" queried Lyle, with knitted brow and inquiring eye.

"Bound themselves to assist King Henry VIII., of happy memory, in all his secret designs against their own country, promising to invest him with the government of Scotland during the little queen's minority; to drive out Arran and Mary of Lorraine; to admit English garrisons into all the fortresses; and, in short, to play the old game of Edward Longshanks, Comyn, and Baliol over again, in a land," added Shelly with an ill-disguised sneer, "that is not likely to display another Wallace, or to boast another field of Bannockburn."

"And those seven--" asked Lyle impetuously.

"Are the Earls of Cassilis and Glencairn, the Lords Somerville, Gray, Maxwell, Oliphant, and Fleming."

"Englishman, thou liest!" exclaimed the Master of Lyle, grasping his dagger; "the Lord Oliphant is my near kinsman."

"Peace, he lies not," said Cassilis; "I signed that bond, and by it will I abide."

"Yea, Master of Lyle," said Shelly blandly, with a glance of sombre scorn and fury in his eye; "and other documents there are, which, if known, would raise in Scotland such a storm that there is not an urchin in the streets of Edinburgh but would cast stones at you, and cry shame on the betrayers of his queen and country!"

"Silence, sirs," exclaimed old Claude Hamilton with alarm, "the conversation waxeth perilous."

"I am here on the crooked errand of the Duke of Somerset," said Shelly, rising with an air of lofty disdain, "no soldier's work it is, and rather would I have been with my stout garrison at Boulogne, than clerking here with worthy Master Patten."

"Thrice have you come hither on such errands, Master Shelly, and they seem to pay well," said Kilmaurs tauntingly.

The Englishman clenched his hand and blushed with anger, as he said imprudently,--

"Thrice I have ridden into Scotland since that red day at Ancrumford, and each time have I gone home with a prouder heart than when I crossed the northern border."

"Prouder?" reiterated the fiery Kilmaurs, coming forward with a resentful expression in his lowering eye.

"Yes," replied the Englishman boldly, and grasping the secret petronel which he wore under his mantle; "for each time I asked myself, for _what sum_ would an English yeoman sell his fatherland, his father's grave, or his king's honour, even as these Scottish earls, lords, and barons do, for this accursed lucre?" With these words, Shelly tore the purse from his girdle and dashing it on the table, continued: "When I bethink me of the truth and faith, the unavailing bravery and the stanch honesty of the stout Scottish commons I am here to betray through those whom they trust and honour, my heart glows with shame within me! Assuredly 'tis no work this for an English captain; so do thou the rest, in God's name, good Master Patten."

As Shelly sat sullenly down, and twisted from side to side in his chair, as if seated on the hot gridiron of St. Lawrence, it was high time for the more politic Patten to speak; for savage glares were exchanged on all sides of the table; Kennedies and Cunninghames closed round, each by his chieftain's side; swords and daggers were half-drawn, and Shelly's life was in evident jeopardy; for his taunts, alike unwise and daring, had found an echo in the venal hearts of those at whom they were levelled.

"Whence this indignation, most worthy emissary?" asked Kilmaurs, whose insolence and hauteur were proverbial.

"I am an _envoy_--not an emissary," replied Shelly, eyeing him firmly from his plumed bonnet to his white funnel boots; "I am a soldier, and have the heart of a soldier--I thank God, not of a diplomatist. I know more of gunnery and the brave game of war, than the subtlety of statecraft. I am here to obey orders: these are to confer with you on what your lordships consider a salable matter--your allegiance; had it been, as it may one day be, to cut your throats, 'twere all one to Ned Shelly."

"Hear _me_, my most honourable and good lords," began Master Patten, in his most wily and seductive manner; "you cannot recede, so allow me to go on. The promises of the English Protector must naturally meet the fondest wishes of all. Listen to our indenture. Patrick Earl of Bothwell promises, on the faith of a true man, to transfer his allegiance to the young king of England, and to surrender unto English troops his strong castle of Hermitage, on condition that he receives the hand of an English princess----"

"Princess?" muttered several of the traitor conclave inquiringly, as they turned to each other.

"Who may _she_ be?" asked Claude Hamilton with surprise.

"Katherine Willoughby, widow of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk," continued Patten, reading.

Bothwell smiled proudly, as he thought of his triumph over Mary of Lorraine.

"But," said the Earl of Glencairn, "what sayeth this dainty dame to be sold thus, like a bale of goods?"

"What she may say can matter little," replied Patten.

"'Tis said she affects one named Bertie."

"My lord, the Duke of Somerset will amend that."

"A worthy successor to the poor Countess Agnes Sinclair of Ravenscraig!" said the Master of Lyle with something of scornful commiseration.

"My first countess sleeps in the kirk of St. Denis, at Dysart," said Bothwell coldly, "so I pray you to proceed, Master Patten; this espousal is _my_ matter."

"The Lord Glencairn and Claude Hamilton of Preston," continued the scribe, "offer to co-operate in the invasion of Scotland, and at the head of three thousand men, their friends and vassals, to keep the Regent Arran in check until the English army arrive; the former to receive a hundred thousand crowns in gold on the day the infant queen of Scotland is delivered into Somerset's hand, and the latter to obtain a coronet, with the titles of Earl of Gladsmuir and Lord Preston of Auldhammer."

"Agreed!" said Preston, glancing round with an air of satisfaction and curiosity to see how the announcement was received.

"On that day, sirs," added Master Patten, "the infant queen of Scotland shall share the glory of being joint sovereign of a realm containing the English, Irish, and Welsh, the Cornishmen, and the French of Jersey, Guernsey, and Calais."

"But," said Glencairn, "what if our devil of a regent, with a good array of Scottish pikes, standeth in the way of all this?"

"Then, by heaven, sirs, black velvet will be in demand among the surname of Hamilton!" exclaimed Kilmaurs.

"How?" asked Claude of Preston angrily. "Would you dare----"

"Exactly so!" interrupted Kilmaurs with his deadly smile.

"And the said Claude Hamilton, laird of Preston," continued poor Master Patten, reading very fast to avoid further interruptions, "hereby binds and obliges himself to bestow in marriage upon Master Edward Shelly, captain of the King of England's Boulogners, in reward for his services touching these state matters, the hand and estates of his niece, the Lady Madeline Hame, Countess of Yarrow, now his ward, and according to law in his custody as overlord, by the will of her late father the earl, who bound her to remain so until the age of twenty-one years."

"Thou art in luck, Master Shelly," said Kilmaurs, "for the lady is said to be beautiful."

"But suppose she will not have me?" suggested Shelly, who now smiled and played with the feather in his bonnet.

"Dare she refuse!" growled Claude Hamilton, gnawing his wiry moustache.

"We can get thee a love philtre from Master Posset," said Bothwell, laughing.

"As men say thou didst for Mary of Lorraine, what time she wellnigh died at Rothesay," whispered Glencairn.

"Then I philtred her with small avail," said the High Admiral, grinding his teeth, for he had really loved the widowed queen, while she had tolerated his addresses solely for political purposes of her own.

"But, Master Shelly, I know of one (a witch) who deals in love-charms, and who----"

"Nay, my Lord Glencairn," replied the English soldier laughing, "I will have none of this damnable ware. A pretty Scots lass is witch enough for me. And now that we have concluded this paction, to which also the Earls of Athole, Crawford, Errol, and Sutherland have given their adhesion on the promise of being '_honestly entertained_,' I will drink one more tankard to its final success."[*]

[*] The political villany of which this chapter is descriptive is authentic. See Tytler, and particularly "Acta Regia," vol. iii.

"I have no heirs male," said Preston, almost with sadness; "and if this alliance be happily concluded, I will give away to the husband of my niece my lands of Over-Preston, if, during my lifetime, the said Edward Shelly shall give to me, as chief lord of the feu, a pair of gilt spurs and three crowns yearly at the feast of St. Barnabas."

"More luck still, Master Shelly!" said Bothwell.

"And I will grant to God and the church of St. Giles at Edinburgh, and to the monks serving God therein, for the health of my own soul, the souls of all my ancestors, the souls of the two Fawsides whom I slew, and for the souls of all the faithful dead, my wood and lands of Bankton for the yearly payment of a rose in Bleuch Farm."

"'Tis well!" said Shelly, with a singular smile, for he was alike indifferent to the old creed and the new. "But _remember_ that by proclamations the Scottish people must be everywhere informed that we, the army of England, are coming to free them from the tyranny of the bishop of Rome--from the exorbitant revenues demanded by his church, whose meadows and pastures are to become the property of the barons, and that money shall no longer be levied among the poor by full-fed bishops and shorn shavelings for the celebration of masses and marriages, for burials and holy-bread, for wax and wine, vows and pilgrimages, processions, and prayers for children and fair weather, or for curses by bell, book, and candle, and all such Roman superstition. Say everywhere that we come with the sword, not to woo your queen, but to crush at once the falling hierarchy of Rome, even as we have crushed it in England! You understand me, sirs. And now, Master Patten, get your waxen taper ready. My lords, your seals and signatures to the bond; and remember, that a month hence the bridge of Berwick will be ringing to the tramp of armed feet on their northern march; and ere that time I shall have exchanged this Scottish bonnet for the steel burganet of my sturdy Boulogners."

The seals and the signatures of the few who could accomplish the (then) difficult task of affixing their degraded autographs to this rebellious _bond_ were soon completed, and Master Shelly was consigning it to a secret pocket of his dagger-proof doublet, when Master Patten whispered waggishly,

"In sooth, sir, methinks a fair dame should have been also provided for _me_ in this parchment."

"In good faith, Patten," said Shelly, laughing, "I love a lass at home in England--a fair jolly dame, who lives near Richmond; I have other two, who are as good as wives to me, at Calais and Boulogne; to wed a fourth, in Scotland here, were but to act King Harry over again, save that I don't shorten them by the head."

At that moment Symon Brodie, the butler, entered hastily, and whispered in the ear of his master, who exclaimed, while his nut-brown cheek grew pale,

"Fawside of that ilk has come home, say ye?"

"This morning our herdsmen on the Braehead saw him ride into the tower just as Tranent bell rang for the first mass."

"The devil!--Sayst thou so?" cried Kilmaurs, starting up. "Hath that fellow come alive again?"

"It wad seem sae, my lord," replied Symon, rubbing his half-healed sword-wound.

"Then we must have his French letters, even should we sack his house."

"Nay, sirs," said old Claude of Preston, "no such work as _that_ shall be hatched here. I have had enough of the auld feud, and of Dame Alison, too--enough, and to spare. Not content with setting her husband and madcap eldest son upon me to their own skaith, she pays that auld gowk, Mass John of Tranent, to curse me daily, and consorts with witches and warlocks nightly for my destruction. Oh, 'tis a pestilent hag, this Dame Alison of Fawside!"

"A witch-carlin!" muttered the butler. "I hope some fine day to see the iron branks on her jaws."

"'Tis said she rambles about in the likeness of a brown tyke, to work evil on us," added Mungo Tennant. "If I had her once in that form, within range of my arquebuse----"

"Silence!" said the laird sternly; "the blood of her house is red enough upon my hands already!"

"Well, well. But the letters--the letters!" urged Kilmaurs impatiently; "are we to lose them?"

"If he ever had any, he must have delivered them long ere this," said Shelly.

"Under favour, sir," said Glencairn, "he left not Edinburgh (for the gate-wards are in our pay) until this day at dawn, or late last night, when one answering to his description rode through the Water-gate on a white horse. Word came tardily to the warder at the Brig of Esk; we had killed or taken him else at the Howmire."

"Let the tower of Fawside be watched narrowly," said Kilmaurs; "for these letters we must have ere we meet Arran and the Queen at Stirling, to know _their_ plans as well as our own; for men should play warily who risk their heads in a game like ours, my lords."

"And now once more to the black jack, sirs," exclaimed the laird of Preston; "see to the wine-bickers, Symon, and fill--fill, while we drink thrice to the three fair brides whom this bond will soon make wedded wives--the Queen of Scots, the Countesses of Bothwell and Yarrow!"

That night the rebel lords and their retainers drank deep in Preston Tower; but tidings of an irruption of certain feudal enemies into Carrick, Kyle, and Cunninghame, giving all to fire and sword in these fertile districts, compelled Cassilis, Glencairn, Kilmaurs, and others, to depart on the spur ere mid-day; and hence it was that, as related in the preceding chapter, Florence Fawside found himself at such perfect liberty to ride daily to the city in his gayest apparel, and almost without armour, to prosecute a futile search for his fair unknown; while his fiery mother chafed and scoffed at his delay in commencing hostilities with the Hamiltons of Preston.