"Bear on, Robbie," said he, "we have no leisure now for backing and filling, or toying and kissing hands. Doth not thy heart glow with a double hope of vengeance at the sight of thy father's rooftree and wasted substance? Well-a-day," he added, as they hastened through St. Nicholas Wynd, "our poor king, after beating to windward all his life against the dark current of adversity, perhaps is gone now, as his grandsire went before him—sain him God! And though I will rather scuttle the old frigate than lower my colours or vail my topsails to those sharks of barons, yet thou seest, messmate, we must e'en bear up before this civil tempest, and scud under bare poles, for fear of losing all; but were I sure that the king was in life, by the bones of St. Rule, I would not lift tack or sheet to humour the best lord in the land!"
"But then the English fleet?"
"Ay, true, there thou hast the weathergage of me; yes, we must fight in honour and conscience, whether lord, earl, or laird, king or chancellor commanded us or not; ship your oars, my lads, and shove off for the ship," he cried, as they sprang on board the barge, just in time to prevent a violent collision between some of her crew and the Angus spearmen, who had been provoked by the taunts and abuse of Cuddie Clewline the coxswain. This "ancient mariner," whose weatherbeaten visage was puckered up like a knot on an oak tree, possessed a vocabulary of abuse that was pretty extensive; and he had been perambulating the pier, spitting on his hard horny hands, and throwing mortal defiances right and left among the vassals of the Lord of Galloway, boasting that he did not value "their steel trappings or iron jacks a ropes-end or a brass bodle."
As the barge, with its colour waving, shot out of the sunny harbour, the crews of the merchant craft and Hanse traders gave the well-known admiral a hearty cheer, and his oarsmen, as they bent to their task and almost lifted their light craft out of the water, sung that merry old Scottish sea-song, which is mentioned in the prologues of Bishop Gawain Douglas—
"The ship sails owre ye saut sea faem,
Yat rowes on ye rocks o' our native hame;"
while Cuddie sat in the prow, flourishing his boat hook in defiance to the soldiers on the bridge and pier.
Ere the last notes of the song and the plash of the oars had been lost in the boom of the surf that broke on the reefs then known as the Musselcape and Beacon Rock, Sir Patrick Gray rushed down St. Nicholas Wynd, crossed the bridge, and hurried to the Kirkgate, where, in the Bell of St. Anthony, a well-known hostel, he found his minion, Sir Hew Borthwick, whom he scarcely knew, so splendidly was he attired; for the price of James's signet-ring (long since transmitted by the Governor of Berwick to London) had lined his pockets with something better than pebbles, and enabled him to ruin all the pages, pimps, and bullies about the prince's court at tric-trac and shovel-board.
"Ride, Borthwick, ride," said Gray, breathlessly, as he roughly drew him into a corner; "for death and life ride to Dunbar; here is money—six half lions (about thirty shillings); get thee a skiff, and seek the English Captain Howard. Warn him that Wood is putting to sea—say his fleet is overwhelming. Anathema! Oh, the fool, the half-witted English lurdane, to be loitering yet in Scottish waters with that devilish damsel in his possession! If she is taken, her tongue will destroy us all; she must be flung overboard, with all the ciphers of Quentin Kraft, if the Harry is captured; see to this on your life, Hew Borthwick, see to it! Away, while there is yet time—away!"
In ten minutes after this the regicide, well mounted, left Leith by the Porte St. Anthony, and crossing the Links, struck eastward by the dreary Figgate Muir, riding at headlong speed towards Dunbar.
It was about four o'clock in the evening, and as these "Scottish worthies" separated, each mentally bequeathed the other to the infernal shades.