"Does Master Ainslie warrant it old?"
"Old! my Lord Morton," reiterated Adam, turning up his eyes; "ay! auld as the three trees of Dysart; for it lay many a long year before the '59, among the stoor and cobwebs o' the Blackfriars' binns, up the brae yonder."
"By the way," said the Lord Coldinghame, "as thou talkest of the Blackfriars, what tale of a roasted horse is this, anent whilk the whole city is agog, concerning a spectre which is said to have appeared there on the night the king was slain, and hath haunted the ruins of St. Mary's kirk ever since?"
"Knowest thou aught of this, Adam?" asked Bothwell, whose mind, though he endeavoured to maintain his usual aspect of nonchalance, wandered constantly to the gigantic projects he had in view.
"As ye know, my lord," replied Adam, setting his head on one side and his left leg forward, with the air of a man who has a story to tell; "on the night of that deadly crime in the Kirk-of-Field, two especial gentlemen of the Earl of Athol, the umquhile king's gude-cousin, were both a-bed at his lordship's lodging, which is just within the town wall, and not a bowshot frae auld St. Mary's kirk. In the mirk mid hour of the night, Sir Dougal Stuart, who slept next the wall, was awaked by a death-cauld hand passing owre his cheek, and which thereafter took him by the beard, while an unearthly voice, sounding as if from afar off, said—'Arise, or violence will be offered unto you!' At the same moment his friend, a half-wud Hielandman, awoke, saying furiously—'Where is my durk, for some one hath boxed mine ear?' And both started up to see, close by their bed, a dusky figure, of which no feature could be defined save a clenched hand, bare, and long, and glistening in the siller moonlight, that shone through the grated window; then it melted away like morning mist; the turnpike door was heard to close with a bang, as if some one had left the house; and while, with fear and alarm, they started to their sword's, lo! they heard the explosion that sent king and kirk-house into the air together."[*]
[*] See Buchanan.
"Stuff and nonsense!" said Bothwell angrily, for this story was then current in the city; "'tis a tale befitting only the old dames who play basset and primero in the queen's antechamber. Wert thou at sermon in the High Kirk this morning, Hob?" he asked, to change the subject.
"Cock and pie, no!" said Ormiston, as he gulped down his wine with surprise.
"Marry!" said Lord Lindesay; "thou didst miss a rare discourse."
"On what did Master Knox expone?" asked several Protestant peers; while Huntly and other Catholics curled their mustaches, and exchanged glances of scorn. Lindesay replied—