Beaton shook his head.
"Rumour is busy, and avers that the earl is concealed within the ports of Edinburgh," continued the wily advocate, who, for his own ends, did not choose to say where; "my spies inform me that he has been heard to boast of being, ere long, at Stirling bridge with an army of English borderers, for he hath made a vow to sup——"
"Where?"
"In thy tower of Creich."
The dark eyes of Beaton flashed fire; for in the tower of Creich, rumour (which in those days supplied, somewhat indifferently, however, the place of the public press) asserted that the cardinal kept quite a seraglio. It touched him in the quick.
"The earl said so—ha!" he muttered, opening his portfolio; "indeed—um—um—and where dost thou wish the countess committed to ward?"
"Your eminence's castle of St. Andrew is a sure place."
"I send none there but heretics; the tower of Inchkeith is a stronger fortlet."
"The Knight of Barncleugh is captain there—a Hamilton too."
"Very suitable," continued the cardinal, writing on a slip of paper a warrant to arrest and imprison, 'during the king's pleasure, Margaret Countess Dowager, and the Lady Jane, daughter of the umquhile John Earl of Ashkirk, together with Archibald Seton, sometyme designated of Ashkirk, but now under sentence of forfeiture.' "Send the Albany herald to the countess, and let him take some fifteen pikes of my guard; one of Sir Robert Barton's boats will convey the ladies to the Inch. Of late, James has shown over much favour to this family, whose besetting sin has been their leaguing with England; and I hope that, ere long," continued Beaton, thinking of the tower of Creich, "this troublesome young lord will pay the penalty of his insolence to me and his crimes against the state——"