This tickled him, but he felt it also monstrous. ‘God forbid me! No, no, madam. Douglas wears it abroad—not always with credit. But the crowned heart was the heart of the Bruce.’
She was pleased; the sudden turn warmed her. ‘You spoke that well, and like a courtier, my lord.’
‘Madam,’ he cried, covering his own heart, ‘that is what I would always do if I had the wit. For I am a courtier at this hour.’
Pondering this in silence, she suffered him to lead her where he would; and took snugly to bed with her the thought that, in her growing perplexities, she had a sure hand upon hers when she chose to call for it.
As for him, Bothwell, he must have gone directly from this adventure in the tender to play his bass in some of the roughest music of those days. That very night—and for the third time—he, with D’Elbœuf and Lord John Stuart, went in arms, with men and torches, to Cuthbert Ramsay’s house, hard by the Market Cross; and, being refused as before, this time made forceful entry.
To the gudeman’s ‘What would ye with me, sirs, good lack?’ they demanded sight of Alison, his handsome daughter, now quaking in her bed by her man’s side; and not sight only, but a kiss apiece for the sake of my Lord Arran. She was, by common report, that lord’s mistress—but the fact is immaterial.
‘Come down with me, man—stand by me in this hour,’ quoth she.
But her husband plainly refused to come. ‘Na, na, my woman, thou must thole the assize by thysel’,’ said the honest fellow.
She donned her bedgown, tied up her hair, and was brought down shamefast by her father.