"What friends?"
"My Lord of Bothwell's friends," and the whole party issued into the Canongate.[*]
[*] Such really appears to have been the incautious answer given to the various sentinels.—Depositiones, I. P. D.
Where revealed by the mask, which came only down to his dark mustaches, Bothwell's face was white as marble; and, as they passed the Mint, he looked up at the dark windows of David Rizzio's empty mansion, which stood at the corner of the Horse Wynd.
"He was slain just about this time last year," said the Earl.
"And this night will be avenged," replied Ormiston, as if to apologise for the purpose which had brought them together.
At the back of the south garden, they were again challenged by two archers with bent bows, and, replying in the same unguarded manner, passed on.
They ascended the dark and silent Canongate, where not a sound was heard save their own footfalls, and the dull tramp of the felt-shod sumpter-horse that bore the powder mails; and, passing the lofty barrier that divided the burghs by its strong round towers and double arch, they descended with silence and rapidity the broad and spacious wynd of the Blackfriars, and reached the foot unseen.
Here, we are told, they paused a moment, while Bolton purchased a "candell frae Geordie Burnis wife in the Cowgate;" and at that time a blaze of light, flashing along the narrow street, on the octagon turrets of that picturesque old house, where whilome dwelt the great Cardinal of St. Stephen, made them shrink under its shadow with some dismay; for lo! the unconscious queen, attended by three Earls (two of whom were also conspirators), Argyle, Huntly, and Cassilis, with her sister, the Countess Jane, and other ladies, the whole escorted by Sir Arthur Erskine's archers, passed down the opposite wynd, en route for the palace. She was on foot; six soldiers of the guard bore a blue silk canopy over her head, and twelve others carried torches.
She was returning to Holyrood, from her hurried visit to that very place for which all these muffled men were bound—the lonely house of the Kirk-of-Field!