‘An’ whan the leddies speir for their messenger at Holyrood, an’ the bonny Queen hersel cries, “Ou, he’s safe enough, I trusted him to Bothwell;” how will we look if ever we come lilting into the Abbey-yard, and can give no tidings of our guest?’
The warden’s brow softened, although he seemed considerably perplexed.
‘I would he were safe back again, Dick,’ replied he, ‘I care not who knows it; but Rothes has a firm grip, and he would like well to make favour with Moray, even though he should disoblige me. I wish poor Walter may not be in a prison from which there is no breaking, at this present speaking. Aye, Dick! times are changed since my father’s day. Earl Patrick, now, if he had wanted anything from the proudest baron in Scotland, would have gone and taken it with a hundred riders at his back.’
Dick snapped his fingers in great glee. He was reading his chieftain’s thoughts as he would have read the track of a herd of cattle driven but yesterday into Cumberland.
‘It wadna tak’ a hundred men,’ said he, exultingly, ‘to lift the plenishing of Leslie Hoos itsel’, though it were garrisoned with a’ the loons in Fife. I wad but ask for Ralph Armstrong and “Lang Willie,” an’ maybe Little “Jock-o’-the-Hope,” to bring awa’ Maister Maxwell in a whole skin, gin he lay in the heart o’ Carlisle jail!’
‘It might not be a bad ploy for some of our lads,’ answered Bothwell, with rather a fierce smile. ‘Horses get fat and men lazy cooped up here within four gray walls, and I might require man and horse in proper trim before long. Hark ye, Dick! if ye want to go northward for some ten days or so, I shall not ask ye where ye have been at your return. No thanks! leave me, man! If it come to blows, that long body o’ yours can take care of itself.’
For the next hour or two ‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh’ looked like a different person as he busied himself preparing man and horse for a march that he determined should commence at nightfall. When the sun had set, and the earl, after deeper potations than ordinary, had retired from his habitual walk on the rampart, his henchman and three companions rode steadily out of the castle-yard, followed by many inquiring looks from their comrades, who, heartily wearied of their forced inaction, beheld with strong feelings of envy the departure of the little cavalcade. It consisted but of four individuals, nevertheless it would have been difficult among all Lord Bothwell’s retainers to have selected a more efficient-looking quartette. With the exception of ‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh’ himself, Ralph Armstrong was esteemed the most powerful man in Liddesdale; he was a stolid-looking fellow, too, with considerable mother-wit concealed under a composure that nothing could ruffle, and a courage that nothing could daunt. ‘Lang Willie,’ again, was an exceedingly voluble and amusing companion, chiefly distinguished for his extraordinary skill as a swordsman, and the readiness and coarseness of his repartees. Little ‘Jock-o’-the-Hope,’ so called simply because he was the youngest of the party, was an active, limber, powerful fellow, with all the mettle of his twenty summers and the sagacity of twice his age.
With such a following, and a moonless night in his favour, Dick would have been nothing loth to lay a wager that he would cross the Southern Border, and take Lord Scrope by the beard.
They rode all night merrily enough; steadily though, and careful not to distress their horses. As they neared the capital, Dick’s spirits rose visibly, and his comrades could not but remark on his resumption of his old habits of good-fellowship; but at daybreak an incident occurred which cast a gloom over the henchman’s superstitious nature, and plunged him once more into that gloomy taciturnity which was so foreign to his real disposition.