"Oh, Archibald, let us hasten," said Lady Jane; "the nuns are already saying the compline at St. Mary's yonder; see how the chapel is lighted up!"
"Faith! my good sister, I have dwelt so long under English Henry's roof, that I have well-nigh forgotten these small items of our ancient faith. I have seen church lands turned into fair lay baronies, and more than one stately priory become an earl's fief, its chapel a dining-hall, its cloisters a stableyard, its refectory a dog's kennel. But omit not to ask the fair Josina* to say one prayer for me, though I am such a reprobate pagan. By all the furies! it seems very droll to think that my little friend Josina hath become a prioress! I cannot realize it! She will have quite forgotten me."
* Josina Henrison was prioress of the Dominicans, at the Siennes, near Edinburgh, in the time of James V.
"Do not think so, for she still uses the missal you gave her before——"
"My kinswoman Sybil came home from the convent at Northberwick," said the earl, quickly. "Poor Josina!—and I shall see her once more."
"To-morrow at noon, when you and Roland come for me—and yet perhaps it were better not."
"Thou art right, sister of mine. Poor Josina!" and, with a sigh that told its own little story, the earl paused.
"A religious life certainly never seemed to be her vocation; and yet I pray God that she is happy. How now?" he added, on hearing his followers wind up the wheels of their hacques by the spanners (as they were named) which were attached to the locks by small chains; "what dost thou hear, Gilzean?"
"Footsteps, my lord."
"The echoes of our own, perhaps; but where?"