"Nay, 'tis none of these I ask for. I am assured, Laird of Champfleurie, that you are a most discreet man; but fare you well, sir—so now for Cadzow ho!" and putting his Ripon spurs to his impatient horse, he rode hastily off.
Champfleurie looked after the fated young man, who trotted his grey charger through the time-blackened arch of the Upper Bow Porte, and disappeared down the winding descent of the ancient street which lay beyond, and athwart the picturesque mansions of which the meridian sun was pouring its broad flakes of hazy light, that varied its mass of shadows.
"Poor fool!" said the captain of the guard with his crafty smile; "he rides on his death-errand."
* * * * * *
The dawn of the next day was breaking, when a mounted man reined up his horse at the turnpike-stair, which gave access to a quaint tenement on the Castle-hill, known as the Bothwell Lodging (not far from where Master Posset's dried aligator swung daily in the wind), and demanded, at once to see his lordship on business of importance. In a scarlet gown trimmed with black fur, under which he carried his unsheathed dagger as a safeguard, the earl, who had just sprung from bed, appeared in his chamber of dais before the messenger, who was a rough and weather-beaten fellow, in a morion and plated jack, and who seemed half-trooper, half-brigand, and wholly desperado.
"Well, varlet," said the earl angrily, "you rouse us betimes! What the devil is astir? Have the English taken my castle of Hermitage, or are the Lord Clinton's war-ships off Dunbar Sands—eh?"
"Neither, lord earl," replied the man, in a strong Clydesdale accent; "I hae come in frae the west country, and been in my stirrups since twa past midnight."
"From Millheugh?"
"Direct."
"The spy——"