"Why!"
"He conceals it."
"Hah! that betokens secrecy!" exclaimed Lord Lyle.
"And as we have secret projects," added his son, "we must suspect all of having the same; so doubt not that he hath letters. All who come from the vicinity of the Louvre, or the Hotel de Guise, bring dangerous letters to Holyrood, dangerous at least to us, and we must have them."
"He has come from France, my lords,—from France direct," said Symon Brodie, approaching and speaking in a whisper, as the abashed landlord withdrew. "Mairower, he is Florence Fawside of that ilk."
"You know him, then?" said several.
"Yea, and a' the race; I ken their dour dark look, and wha but he could wear on his breast, gules, a fess between three besants or?"
"Right, by Heaven!" said the master of Lyle.
"A follower of Anne of Vendome must have letters from which we may glean what France or the Lorraine princes mean to do," said Shelly bluntly; "cut him off if you will, but not here,—it must be done secretly."
"To horse, then," said Glencairn hoarsely, as if, wolf-like, he already scented blood on the soft evening breeze that came from the glassy river; "to horse, and beset all the roads—Leith-loan, the Figgate Muir, and every path to the southward and the east,—for if he passes the brig of Esk to-night our cause perhaps is lost. He bears, doubtless, letters to the Regent and Queen, with promises of war with England and succour from France. Pietro Strozzi, the Marechal Duke de Montmorenci, or the Comte de Dammartin, with twenty thousand arquebusiers and gendarmes, thrown into the scale against us, would leave our cause and the boy King Edward's but a feather-weight. To horse, sirs, and away; for this August gloaming darkens fast, and night will be on us anon!"