‘Well, cousin, well?’ cries that youth at last: ‘I must be going where my friends await me.’
‘Man,’ said Morton, and stopped him, ‘where are ye for?’
Archie replied: ‘Mum’s the word. But if you are the man I believe you, you shall come along with me this night.’
Morton had made up his mind. ‘I am with you—for good or ill,’ he said.
Cloaked and booted, the two kinsmen went out into the dark. The wind had got up, bringing a scurry of dry snow: they had to pull the door hard to get it home.
‘Rough work at sea the night,’ said Archie.
‘You’ll be brewing it rougher on land, I doubt,’ was Lord Morton’s commentary.
In a little crow-stepped house by the shore of the Nor’ Loch the Earl of Morton was required to set his hand to certain papers, upon which they showed him the names of Argyll, Rothes, Ruthven, Archie Douglas, Lethington, and others. He asked at once to see Lord Moray’s name: they told him Lethington had it to a letter, which bound him as fast as any bond.
‘It should be here,’ he said seriously.