"Then what do you advise, my lord abbot?" asked the countess, in evident perplexity.
"That my lord your husband should hearken unto the advice of his counsellors, whom his father never slighted, but ever held with reverence."
"I thank you, lord abbot," said Fleming, pressing the abbot's hand. "Let the earl at least leave behind him the two ladies of his house, his brother Lord David, Earl James of Abercorn, and Hugh of Ormond."
"To what end?" asked the earl of Ormond.
"To gratify the prayer and anxious heart of an old friend, and that the house of Douglas may not be in an evil hour laid open to the stroke of fortune,—your father's last injunction when he lay dying at Restalrig," added Fleming to the young earl.
His marked energy and anxiety, together with the entreaties of Sir Alan Lauder and those of the Douglases of Pompherston, Strabrock, and Glendoning, made the chief pause and waver in his purpose. He said,—
"Shall I return now after having ridden to his very gates, as it were? Impossible! And the young king—what will he, what will the people say? and then the chancellor's letter flattered so suavely."
"The greater reason to distrust him," muttered the bearded knights to each other under their lifted helmets.
"Wherefore, why?" said Abercorn, burning with a rage which he could no longer dissemble, as a long-projected and carefully-developed plot seemed on the point of dissolving into air.
"Take counsel of your own brave heart, and good, my lord, run not your chief and his brother too into the lion's den. Crichton flatters to deceive!" replied Sir Malcolm Fleming.