Entreaty and remonstrance had proved alike futile when Howard was pressed by Barton and Sir Andrew Wood to explain how and why this missing daughter of the Lord Drummond—she whose strange disappearance was one of the secret springs that rolled a civil war against the throne—was found on board his vessel! He flatly and firmly declined to answer; and Margaret herself could not very clearly inform them as to her abductors; for she knew of none save Borthwick, against whom, for want of a better object, Barton resolved to turn the whole current of his wrath.
However, all King Henry's plot with the Scottish traitors was nearly being discovered about the time the ships surrendered, by Master Quentin Kraft, the notary, who was dragged abaft the mizenmast of the Yellow Frigate by Cuddie Clewline and Dalquhat the seaman, who had found him ensconced in the cable-tier of the Harry, where he had repeatedly offered them a certain iron-bound volume, with which they would have nothing to do, believing by its aspect that it must be a book of magic, else wherefore that lock and all these bands of steel.
"Slue him round—heave ahead, master," said the coxswain, giving him a push; "haud up your face, auld dog-fish—you are before the Admiral!"
The dapper attorney, in his black cassock-coat, looked very much scared, and said in a quavering voice—
"I crave your mercy, Sir Andrew Wood—I can pay a small ransom if it be wished; I am Quentin Kraft, a gentleman of the law—an attorney—a notary, if it please you—one well known about Westminster Hall and Lincoln's Inn—London."
"A what, sayst thou?" demanded the Admiral.
"A notary public, at your service—and secretary to the noble Captain Howard."
"A scurvy rogue, Sir Andrew Wood," said Howard, disdainfully; "one who hath been stripped of his gown and coif in Westminster Hall and cast adrift by the benchers at Lincoln's Inn. But men who can handle the quill are scarce,—so I was e'en forced to content me with such a secretary, for lack of a better."
"It is false—I am a man of repute," said Kraft.
"Yea," said Howard; "but a devilish one, sirrah."