Consolation of this kind was about as good as none; but time wore on—day succeeded day. After passing the straits of Dover without seeing any sign of a hostile English fleet, which rumour said was preparing to intercept them, and after running down the English Channel, the two Scottish caravels doubled the point then named by the French the End of the World, as no land was known to the westward of it, and arrived in safety at Brest in Brittany.
This, though one of the best harbours in Europe, was then but a small seaport or village, dependent on the town of Sainte Renan.
After exchanging salutes with the Castle of Brest, and being royally feasted by the abbot and monks of its rich Benedictine abbey, the Scottish admiral bade adieu to the Sieur de Concressault (who began his journey to court), and again put to sea.
Passing between the Isle of Ushant and the mainland, he bore away for Sluys, on another mission from the court of Scotland to the Flemings, concerning that commercial dispute, which, natheless the casks of Dutch heads, pickled by Andrew Barton, it was believed no man in Scotland was better able to adjust than Sir Andrew Wood of Largo.
CHAPTER LIX.
REUNITED.
"But am I not the nobler thro' thy love?
O three times less unworthy! likewise thou
Art more thro' love, and greater than thy years."
Meanwhile treason was not idle at home.
Sir Patrick Gray and Sir James Shaw, exasperated by the turn affairs had taken against them, and by finding, that instead of having their petty lairdships erected into lordships and earldoms, with many a fair slice of the lands of the Crawfurds, the Erskines, the Stewarts, and others, to whose confiscation and forfeiture they had fondly looked forward, and being no longer able to exact kain and herezelds at the sword's point again and again from the hapless rentallers of the king's castles, they entered into a closer compact with Henry for the removal of Margaret Drummond, and with Master Quentin Kraft, who, eluding the chain of guards and close watch kept upon the Borders between Tweedmouth and Solway Sands, had the hardihood to re-enter Scotland disguised, and he, together with Borthwick, who still lurked about the town and Castle of Berwick, were, as before, their ready means of communication with the court of London.
The two anti-national knights had both conceived a mortal grudge against Sir Andrew Wood, for no other cause, perhaps, than his being a sterling and unflinching patriot, who, by taking the English ships, had restored Margaret Drummond to her princely lover. Thus they had many a long conference, and one in particular on the very day after he sailed for Brest.