"'Tis Master Sebastian, who playeth the viol at Holyrood."
"Ah! the Savoyard. And, lo you! there goeth the Knight of Spott, without a cloak to hide his threadbare doublet. Well! were I thee, Sir Knight, I would buy me worse garments, or avoid the city. But I warrant he hath spent his last bodle on a can of Flemish beer at the Red Lion."
"He is a gentleman of my following," said the Earl with a frown. "His gudesire spent his all in the wars of King James, and fell at Flodden like a true Scottish knight, with his pennon before and his kindred behind him; his son, else, had been a richer man to-day."
"Gramercy me! here cometh Mistress Cullen, too, in her top-knots and flaunters, walking daintily, as if she trod on egg-shells, with a lace ruff under her saucy chin, and her nose in the air. St. Mary! she wears three bob-jewels while I have only one."
A very pretty woman, whose face was shewn to the utmost advantage by her little white coif, and whose uplifted train displayed her handsome ankles cased in stockings of red silk, stept mincingly up the wynd; and as this was a lady with whom Morton had an intrigue, and whose husband he ultimately put to death in furtherance thereof, he assumed his beaver-hat and walking-sword, hurriedly kissed Alison, and patted the cheek of the page, saying significantly—
"When next we meet again, little one, I hope to see thee in more fitting attire."
But as he bowed himself out, by the bright glance of his cunning eyes Anna knew with terror that the secret of her sex had been discovered.
And she was left alone with this dangerous woman, of whose character she was wholly ignorant, though her surprise and suspicion were naturally excited by the too evident lightness of her demeanour. As the worthy Dame Craig knew neither French nor Norwegian, and Anna had no Scottish, the latter was wholly at a loss to make her story known; and resolved to await in patience an opportunity of ending all her tribulation, by throwing herself at the feet of Mary, which she doubted not to have soon an opportunity of doing, when in the train of a lady who was on such terms of intimacy with the most powerful nobles of the court.
On waking next morning, she found on a chair by her couch, in lieu of the well-worn doublet with which poor Konrad had disguised her, a double ruff of Brussels lace, a peaked stomacher of blue Genoese velvet, sewn with seed pearls, and a skirt of blue Florence silk, covered with the richest needlework: there was a suite of beautiful jewels for her hair; bracelets, and a carcanet of rubies for her neck, all of one set. These, and the entrance of one of Dame Alison's flippant and tawdry damsels, announced to Anna that now all disguise was at an end.
The jewels had been sent by the Earl, who, by force or fraud (but seldom by purchase), had always an immense assortment of such things at his castle of Dalkeith, in the vaults of which he is said by tradition to have buried twelve casks filled with plate, precious stones, and bullion, the plunder of desecrated churches, demolished abbeys, and stormed fortalices.