"How farest thou, host of mine? Faith, I need scarcely ask thee, for thou swellest and wallowest amid the good things of this life daily."
"By Tantony and Taudry! in these kittle times, my lord"—began Adam.
"Peace, thou irreverend ronion!" whispered the Earl of Huntly fiercely, as he grasped his poniard—"Saint Anthony and Saint Audry, thou meanest."
"I mean just whatever your lordship pleases," replied the hosteller, as he shrank abashed by the stern eye of the Catholic noble, who resented every disrespect to the ancient church, so far as he dared.
"Nay, nay," interposed Secretary Maitland, with his bland smile and flute-like voice; "poor Adam's slip of the tongue merited not a rebuke so sharp; to grasp thy poniard thus amounts almost to hamesucken—a gloomy beginning to our banquet, my Lord of Huntly."
There was present that gay scion of the house of Guise, d'Elboeuff—all smiles and grimaces, starched lace and slashes; there was the Earl of Sutherland, the lover of Bothwell's absent countess; Glencairn, the ferocious; Cassilis, who once half-roasted an abbot alive; Eglinton, the cautious; Seaton, the gallant; and Herries, the loyal; Rosse, of Hawkhead, and many others—until the hall was crowded by the bravest and the greatest of Scotland's peers, and many lesser barons, who, though untitled, considered themselves in feudal dignity second to the crown alone. All were well armed, and the nature of the time was evinced by their dresses; for all who had not on corselets and gorgets to prevent sudden surprises, had quilted doublets of escaupil, and all were scrupulously accoutred with swords and Parmese poniards, without which no gentleman could walk abroad.
As Bothwell advanced to the head of the table to assume his seat, his eye caught one of the black-letter proclamations of the council, which was fixed over the gothic fireplace, and offered a yearly rent, with two thousand pounds of Scottish money, for the discovery of the perpetrators of the crime at the Kirk-of-Field; "quhilk horribill and mischevious deed," as the paper bore it, "almychty God would never suffer to lie hid."
"Mass!" said the Earl, as the blood mounted to his temples, "thou hast a roaring fire, Master Adam, this April day."
"The coals bleeze weel, Lord Earl; yet they cost a good penny, coming as they do by the galliots frae the knight of Carnock's heughs, aboon Cuboss."
"Little marvel is it that they burn thus," said the Earl of Glencairn; adding, in a lower voice, "for knowest thou, gudeman, that instead of contenting himself with such of this precious mineral as may be got shovel-deep, by advice of that damnable sorcerer, the knight of Merchiston, he hath sunk a pit—a cylinder—even unto the bowels of the earth, as Hugh of Tester did at his Goblin Hall; and he is now digging under the Forth, with intent, as Master George Buchanan told me yesterday, to ascend and seek upper air on this side."