As the earl spoke, they all hurried to the stables, and proceeded to saddle and mount their horses for the deadly purpose in view, and none were more active than Symon Brodie and seven other armed lackeys of the Laird of Preston, who joined in the affair, with no other interest or intention than to cut off the poor youth, in prosecution of the wretched quarrel between their master's house and his; for men joined in such deadly things in those days, as readily as now we go to see a horse-race, a fire, or an election row.
Master Edward Shelly, the Englishman, who was disguised as a follower of the House of Glencairn, joined in the plot also, but with some unwillingness; for he ran considerable risk. By the laws of James II., any Englishman found in Scotland became the lawful captive of the first man who discovered him; and any Scottish subject who met an English man under tryst, as these noblesse were doing, was liable to imprisonment during the king's pleasure, and to the forfeiture of all he possessed.
Such was the law passed by the parliament at Stirling, in 1455.
CHAPTER VII.
THE BRAWL.
My sword, my spear, my shaggy shield,
They make me lord of all below;
For he who dreads the lance to wield
Before my shaggy shield must bow;
His lands, his vineyards must resign,
For all that cowards have is mine.
Dr. Leyden.
Being a married man, Ralf Riddel went straightway to his spouse, and in whispers—lest the panelled walls might have ears—he communicated his suspicions of the deadly intentions of his titled guests. A landlady of the nineteenth century would instantly, on learning such tidings, have made an outcry and summoned the police; but Euphemia Riddel received them with the coolness incident to those days, when every other morning a man slashed by sword or dagger was found dead or dying somewhere in the streets of Edinburgh.
"And what mean ye to do, gudeman?" she asked.
"Leave the event to Providence, gudewife."
"To Providence and their whingers!" she exclaimed.