"Yea—letters brought out of France by thee from those accursed Guises, the Lord Bothwell, my assured friend, hath been degraded—deprived of his green ribbon—and committed to the custody of a Hamilton—a parasite of the Lord Arran."
"I brought no letters out of France, but such as well became the queen's liege man to bear," replied Florence haughtily.
"Well, and how about your friend: is a burrowtown merchant—a mere booth-holder, as I take him to be,—a beseeming squire for a landed baron—a gentleman of that ilk?" asked Kilmaurs, with a lightning glance in his sinister eye.
"Some flesher of Falkirk or souter of Linlithgow, I warrant," added the equally insolent Champfleurie, laughing.
"I am a brother o' the merchant guild, my masters," replied Hackerston, unabashed by their overweening manner; "and ken ye, sirs, that nae souter, litster, or flesher, can be one of us, unless he swear that he use not his office wi' his ain hand, but deputeth it to servitors under him?"
"What the devil does all this mean?" asked Kilmaurs, shrugging his shoulders. "Do you know, Champfleurie?"
"It means, gentlemen," replied Florence, sternly, "that I—being too well aware there were assassins and bravoes here in Stirling, who, under the guise of nobility assault and murder in the night—thought that the aid of an honest man, stout of heart and ready of hand, as this brave burgess has before approved himself to be, might not be unnecessary; and so, in lack of other friend, I sought his good offices here."
"And I commend you to keep a civil tongue in your head, my Lord o' Kilmaurs; for my Jethart staff has ere this notched a thicker one than yours. I have gien mony an uncanny cloure in my time."
"Enough of this!" exclaimed Champfleurie, drawing his sword and dagger.
"Yea, enough and to spare," added Florence, unsheathing his rapier and the exquisite little poniard given to him by Mary of Lorraine, and closing in close and mortal combat. They fought with such impetuosity that at the third pass he ran Champfleurie through the left forearm, piercing his plate sleeve like a gossamer web, and inflicting a wound so severe that the blood dripped over his fingers. This wound, by almost paralyzing his left hand, rendered his dagger useless, either for stabbing or parrying, for which latter purpose this little weapon was more especially used by the sword-playing gallants of those days.