CHAPTER XXVIII.
‘I send him the rings from my white fingers;
The garlands aff my hair;
I send him the heart that’s in my breast;
What would my love hae mair?
And at the fourth kirk in fair Scotland,
Ye’ll bid him meet me there.’
The little crooked secretary had been educated in an atmosphere of political agitation and intrigue. To his native Italian shrewdness David Riccio added that quickness of perception, that power of reading men’s characters at a glance, which can only be acquired by those who are compelled, amidst the storms through which they guide their bark, to watch every aspect of the horizon, to press every instrument into their service, and take every advantage that shall enable them to weather the gale.