"What! art thou one of those who deem one place more holy than another because a shaveling mumbles Latin there? Well, we will drag them forth and hang them at the Musselburgh Cross, if you will. I'll take a hundred horse and hide them in the woods of Pinkey. Enough—enough, we'll see to it; and now to send this letter to the churls at Largo. The bearer—"
"I left him drunk as a Saxon, and snorting like a pig, in an alehouse near the Timber Bourse; day has not yet broken, so I may easily restore it to his pouch without his having missed it, perhaps."
"Good—excellent! away, it lacks but a short time of day-dawn; when all this matter is over and settled, when the rooks of Pinkey Wood have gorged them to their fill on those aspiring curs who cross our plans, I'll make thee, Borthwick—a rascal though thou art—the richest varlet in my new earldom—away, away!" and laughing and pushing, he almost put Borthwick out of the room. When he was gone,—
"Hailes, can we really trust this fellow?" asked Home.
"Trust him! For gold he would sell his father's bones, and his own slender chance of salvation; but I'll have him followed, and prove whether or not he plays us foul."
The messenger of Home was no other than the unwilling Laird of Blackcastle, who had been sleeping in his armour on a stone bench in the upper hall of the King's Wark, and who grumbled under his helmet as he followed Borthwick through the dark and narrow streets of Leith in the grey light of the morning.
Turning off towards the Timber Bourse he saw him enter the narrow alley which led to Tibby Tarvet's alehouse, and there he met Willie Wad in a high state of excitement.
"What ho, Master Wad," said he, "you are abroad betimes."
"Abroad betimes, thou dog-thief and loon; thou'st boarded me like a pirate in the night, and stolen a letter frae me."
"Beware ye, sirrah, of what you say," replied Borthwick, making a show of dignified indignation; "beware, for I am a man of a good repute, that must not be impugned; but if this be the letter you have lost—"