"Very possibly; but, cock and pie! thou canst not mean to marry her?"
"Perhaps not, if she would sail with me on easier terms," said the libertine Earl in a low voice.
"Please yourself," said Ormiston, who had begun to tire of the conversation; "but remember your solemn plight to the Lady Jane Gordon."
"A rare fellow thou to give good advice!"
"And that, if your solemn vow be broken, our doleful case would then be worse than ever. Ten thousand claymores would be unsheathed in Badenoch, Auchindoune, and Strathbolgie; we should have another northern rebellion to welcome our return."
"That would be merry and gay."
"Another Corrichie to fight, and"——
"What more?"
"A Bothwell to fall."
"Sayest thou? forgetting that, like thee, I am all but ruined, and the errand on which I came hither?"