"Nay," said the fierce young Earl of Glencairn, while his eyes shot a baleful gleam, "lay the blame on those hireling Germans of Pieter Mewtas and those heretical Spaniards, whose graves I hope to dig in some deep glen between the Torwood and the Tweed. What availed our old-fashioned battle-axes, our mauls and maces, spears and bows, against gunpowder and the close-volleyed shot of culverins and arquebuses?"
"The English are loitering in Lothian still," observed the Earl of Cassilis, "and the dead are yet unburied on the field."
"Woe is me!" added the abbot of Paisley, who fought there among the band of monks, "how close and thick the slain were lying!"
"Yea, my lord abbot; Duke Somerset's plunderers may win a bushel of golden spurs for the Lombard Jews in London, if they choose to glean among the dead men's heels—my brave father's among the rest," said Glencairn; "for, shot dead by a Spanish arquebuse, he fell by my side, when together we attempted to ford the water of the Esk."
"But you escaped, my Lord Kilmaurs," said Arran significantly; for he knew well the secret treason of the father and son, and cordially hated them both.
"Escaped by favour of the patron saint of Scotland," added the abbot of Paisley, to soften the taunt of which he dreaded the result.
"Escaped by favour of a sharp sword and fleet horse," rejoined Glencairn sourly; "for I may assure ye, sirs, that the patron saint of Scotland seemed to have other business on hand than attending to any of us on that day—my unworthy self in particular."
"Or it might be that the smoke of the gunpowder bewildered him, as it did his grace the regent," was the taunting surmise of Cassilis.
"And now, my brave Fawside," said Arran, turning to Florence, as he felt the earl's insolence, and wished to change the conversation, "what recompense can I give you for your services—for your valour on that fatal tenth of September."
"I have performed no services superior to those of other men, my lord," said Florence modestly.