‘Man, I refuse you. Heinous living be far from me!’
‘My lord, I have heard the Lord Bothwell speak of the Queen’s grace in a manner——’
‘Ay, it is like enough, poor Pringle. The wicked man seeth wickedness all over.’
‘He spake of the Queen, my lord—in your ear——’
He breathed it low, a vile accusation concerning the Cardinal of Lorraine and the Queen—his niece, and then a girl of eighteen.
The Earl cowed him with a look. ‘Go, Pringle, go! This talk should never have been held between us. You have misused my charity. Go, I say.’
Pringle shivered out.
In his time the Earl of Moray saw the Queen, and, after due preparation, chose to tarnish her ears with the tale.
But she was not at all tarnished. From her safe seat, with but a party-wall between her husband and her, she received it brightly.
‘Why, what a ragged tongue he hath! The poor, proud Cardinal! Did he not love me? I believe he always did.’