"Deliver this message to my young Lord Lindesay," said the pikeman to another of the guard, who had overheard the request; and in less than a minute that young noble, who was the betrothed of Beaton's daughter, and who acted as his page and equerry, appeared, bonnet in hand.
"His eminence desires me to say, that Father St. Bernard is welcome at all times," said he.
Ascending the narrow stone stair of this antique mansion, and preceded by young Lindesay, whose crimson velvet mantle and peach-coloured doublet were covered with glittering embroidery, the prebend, on passing through an opening in a gorgeous arras, found himself in presence of the primate of all Scotland, the legate of Paul III.
Brilliantly lighted by candles of perfumed wax, which burned in rose-coloured globes of Venetian glass, the chamber, in which we had the honour of introducing the reader to the foe of Henry VIII., and the terror of the Calvinists, to the eye of the poor priest, formed a striking contrast to his own humble dormitory at St. Giles's; but he was not a man to permit such thoughts to dwell an instant in his mind; and dismissing them at once, he knelt before the cardinal's chair, to kiss the white hand which that great and luxurious prince of the church extended graciously towards him.
He was seated in a large and easy chair of stuffed velvet; his feet were encased in slippers of morocco, red as his stockings, and rested on a gilded footstool. Two vases of Italian glass, exquisitely carved, and glittering with the golden-coloured and purple wine they contained, together with two silver baskets, one full of honied biscuits and the other of grapes, showed that his eminence had been solacing his solitary hour; for a gittern that lay on a chair announced that his daughter, the Lady Margaret, had just retired, and the young Lord Lindesay, having no occasion to remain, followed her; thus the priest found himself alone with the cardinal, before whom all his confidence vanished; for, despite his conscious rectitude of heart and goodness of intention, in presence of the second man in Scotland, the poor prebend became timid as a child.
"Welcome, Father St. Bernard!" said the cardinal, pointing to a seat near his own: "you look pale and fatigued. Here are red and white Italian wines, and these are better than our ordinary Rochelle or Bordeaux. To which shall I have the pleasure of assisting you? and then we will to business after; for I am certain thou hast come to me on business; no one," continued the studious cardinal, closing a book he had been reading, "no one, save my Lord Lindesay, comes near David Beaton for mere friendship, I find. Red wine or white?"
"Either, please your eminence—the flask that is next you."
Reassured by the frank manner of the cardinal, and by the luscious Greco that moistened his tongue, which had been parched and dry, St. Bernard was about to speak, when the cardinal again addressed him.
"Dost thou come with new tidings of this Calvinistic heresy, which spreadeth, even as foul leprosy, over Scotland; or," he added, re-opening his volume, which was The Franciscan, of George Buchanan, "or comest thou merely here, as this arch-heretic sayeth, to exhibit—
'The greasy shaven heart,
A gloomy friar, with flowing gown outspread!
The twisted girdle, and the hat's broad brim,
The opened shoe dressed out in monkish trim;
Below the garb, where we so oft will find
A brutal tyrant, whom no law can bind;
The robber, who oppression's armour wields,
The sensual glutton, to excess who yields,
To deck the husband's brow, the night will spend;
The faithless lover, and deceitful friend!
His modest face, though false, worn as a cloak,
To gull the plebeian, and delude the flock;
Ten hundred thousand crimes, wild, dark, and deep.
He hides beneath the clothing of the sheep!'