‘Oh, madam, God forbid you!’
‘God will forbid me presently if I do not. It should have been last night—I may be too late. But make haste.’
They procured a guide of a sort, a wretched poltroon of a fellow, who twice tried to run for it and leave them in Yester woods. Des-Essars, after the second attempt, rode beside him with a cocked pistol in his hand. From Yester they went north by Haddington, for fear of Whittingehame and the Douglases. As it was, they had to skirt Lethington, and the Secretary’s fine grey house there in the park; but the place was close-barred—nothing hindered them. They passed unknown through Haddington, the Queen desperately tired. Sixteen hours in the saddle, a cold welcome at the end.
Bothwell received them without cheer. ‘You would have been wiser to have stayed. Here you are in the midst of war.’
‘My place was by your side.’
The mockery of the thing struck him all at once. This schemed-for life of his—a vast, empty shell of a house!
‘Oh, God, I sicken of this folly!’ He turned from her.
She had nothing to say, could hardly stand on her feet. Seton took her to bed.
A message next day from Huntly in Edinburgh. Balfour held the castle; all the rest of the town was Grange’s. Morton, Atholl, and Lethington were rulers. Atholl had Holyroodhouse; Lethington and his wife were with Morton. He himself, said Huntly, would move out in a day or two and join the Hamiltons at Dalkeith. Let Bothwell raise the Merse and meet them. He named Gladsmuir for rendezvous, on the straight road from Haddington to the city, five miles by west of Haddington.