‘Bah!’ snarled Bothwell, ‘we talk for ever. Let me shoot down this dog.’ A Hepburn—quiet and sinewy—stepped out of the ranks with a horse-pistol. Grange watched him without moving a muscle; but ‘Oh!’ cried the Queen, ‘what villainy are you about?’ She struck down the pistol-arm,—as once before she had struck down Fawdonsyde’s.
Bothwell, red in the face, said, ‘Let us end this folly. Let him who calls for me come and fetch me. I will fight with him here and now. Go you, Grange, and bring my Lord Morton hither.’
‘No need for his lordship, if I will serve your turn, Earl of Bothwell,’ says Grange.
But Bothwell said, ‘Damn your soul, I fight with my equals. None knows it better than you.’ He would have no one below an Earl’s rank—himself being now, you must recollect, Duke of Orkney and Zetland—and it should be Morton for choice.
Grange, instructed by the Queen, rode back. They saw Morton accost him, listen, look over the valley. He called a conference—they talked vehemently: then Morton and Lindsay pricked forward up the hill, and stopped within hailing distance.
‘You, Bothwell,’ cried Morton, ‘come you down, then; and have at you here.’
The Queen’s high voice called clearly back. ‘He shall never fight with you, murderer.’
Lindsay bared his head. ‘Then let him take me, madam; for I am nothing of that sort.’
‘No, no, Lindsay,’ said Bothwell; ‘I have no quarrel with you.’
The Earl of Morton had been looking at Bothwell in his heavy, ruminating way, as if making up his mind. While the others were bandying their cries, the Queen’s voice flashing and shrieking above the rest, he still looked and turned his thoughts over. Presently—in his time—he gave Lindsay his sword and walked his horse up the hill to the Queen’s party. He saluted her gravely. ‘With your gracious leave, madam, I seek to put two words into my Lord Bothwell’s ear. You see I have no sword.’