"Ha-ha! Fawside, most worthy messenger," added Bothwell; "thou art quite alone, eh!"
"Alone; but not as St. John was, in the Isle of Patmos; for he is with his betters and much good company," said Glencairn.
"Do cease with this irreverence, Glencairn," said Bothwell, who, like all that still adhered to Rome, was nervously sensitive of all that appertained to the faith of his forefathers.
"Ye haver, my lord," was the surly rejoinder. "That whilk our forbears of auld deemed reverence we now term but rank idolatry, and an abomination in the nostrils of the Lord."
"Like loyalty to the crown and faith to our country—folly, eh? But enough of this," said the selfish and blood-thirsty Kilmaurs. "And now for the matter in hand. Worthy Master Florence Fawside——"
"A spruce young cock o' the game, my masters!" said Symon Brodie. "I warrant ye will find him tough enough."
"We should keep him for fighting on Fasterns e'en," added Millheugh, who was not quite sober.
"Silence!" cried Kilmaurs. "We have other ends in view for him, and need not this ribaldry."
"What am I to understand by all this studied insolence, and by my being thus beset?" demanded Florence, standing on his guard, sternly eyeing them all, and waving his sword in a circle around him. "Speak, sirs, lest I slay the most silent man among you."
"You have brought letters," began Kilmaurs.