With his long rapier under his arm, and his bonnet drawn well over his face, the lord advocate, with all the air of a man who has found a clue to something, or is mentally pursuing a distant object, hurried, as we have said, from the church, and threaded his way between the fleshers' stalls, which encumbered both sides of the street about the Nether-bow and arch of the Blackfriars Wynd.
Descending the latter, he reached the residence of Cardinal Beaton, where, through the medium of several pages, esquires, and pikemen, he sent up his name, requesting an audience, and was immediately admitted.
David Beaton was then in the prime of life; his stature was commanding, his air was dignified, his bearing noble. As we may see by the portraits of him, still preserved at Edinburgh, his face was grave, dark, and eminently handsome; his eyes were bright and piercing, and he wore his beard and moustaches pointed à la cavalier, rather than shaven off like a priest. He was seated in an easy-chair, and wore his red baretta, black cassock, and gold cross. His large scarlet hat lay upon a side table, near the two-handed sword of his grandfather, old Sir David of Pitmilly.
Our Scottish Wolsey was seated near a table covered with books and papers; there were several portfolios marked with the fleur-de-lys, the rose, the eagle, &c., containing the memorandums of correspondence with France, England, the Empire, and so forth. The apartment, which was little and elegant, was hung with green damask flowered with leaves of red and gold; his patrimonial arms, the blazon of "Bethune's line of Picardie," appeared above the mantelpiece. There was no fire, for the season was summer, and the andirons were burnished bright as silver. A book was half open in his hand, but his eyes were thoughtfully fixed on a window, through which he saw the antique buildings of the opposite street, a steep wynd, that led towards the Dominican monastery, the square tower and slated spire of which shone in the light of the western sun, and terminated the view. His daughter, the Lady Margaret Beaton, a charming young girl with blue eyes and dark brown hair—the same who, five years after, became the bride of the young Lord Lindesay—was sitting on a little tabourette by his side, decorating a little kitten with ribbons.
As she had been born prior to his taking vows of celibacy, the cardinal had no reason to conceal her; but as soon as Sir Adam Otterburn entered, at a sign from her father, she kissed his hand, snatched the kitten, which she considered her peculiar property, placed a chair for the visitor, and withdrew.
"God be with your eminence!" said Redhall, half kneeling, as he saluted the cardinal.
"And peace with you," replied Beaton, with a gracious wave of the hand, which, while it pointed to a seat, passed also for a priestly benediction. He closed his book "La Legende de Monseigneur Saint Dominique," &c., an old black-letter quarto, "Imprimé à Paris, 1495," and continued—"Have I the pleasure of seeing Sir Adam as a friend, or in his official capacity?"
"I trust your eminence will never consider my visits the less friendly because I come so frequently on the service of the state; but now mine errand closely concerns the latter."
"I think that thou, as lord advocate, and I, as lord chancellor, ought to be collared together, like a couple of questing dogs. Well, what in God's name is astir now?"
"Treason!"