leaders sent four of their company, among whom were Peter Carmichael, a tall, stout-hearted gentleman, and James Melville of Cumbec, to guard the cardinal’s door and see that no one gave him warning of his danger. Others of the company, who had some acquaintance with the place and the people, were set to watch the bedrooms of the officers and servants of the cardinal. Distributing themselves in small groups, they entered the rooms successively, found the occupants half asleep, and said to them, ‘If you utter the faintest cry you are dead men!’[363] Those men therefore, in their fright, dressed themselves hastily and were led out of the castle, no violence being done to any of them and no noise made. The only person whom they left in the castle was the regent’s eldest son. John Lesley, alone in this vast abode, knocked loudly at the cardinal’s door. ‘What means that noise?’ said he. ‘That Norman Lesley has taken the castle,’ was the reply; ‘open.’ At these words Beatoun ran towards the postern, but seeing that it was guarded, he returned straightway into his room, seized his two-handed sword, and bade his valet barricade the door. ‘Open,’ they cried again. The cardinal answered, ‘Who calls?’--‘My name is Lesley.’--‘Is that Norman?’--‘Nay, my name is John.’ The cardinal, remembering John’s words, cried, ‘I will have Norman, for he is my friend.’--‘Content yourself with such as are here, for other shall ye get none,’ replied John. While the knocks at the door grew louder, the cardinal seized a box of gold and hid it in a corner. Then he said, ‘Will ye save my life?’--‘It may be that we will,’--said John.--‘Nay,’ replied Beatoun, ‘swear unto me by God’s wounds, and I shall open to you.’ Then John Lesley cried out, ‘Fire! fire!’ The door was too strong to burst open, and they brought a grate full of burning coals. Just as it was ready the cardinal ordered the door to be opened. Lesley and his companions rushed into the chamber and found Beatoun seated on a chair. Lesley threw himself violently upon him. ‘I am a priest! I am a priest!’ exclaimed the cardinal. ‘Ye will not slay me!’ But Lesley struck him with his sword, and Carmichael, full of wrath, did the same. Melville, a man of gentle and serious character, says Knox,[364] seeing his comrades in so great a rage, checked them. He said, ‘This work and judgment of God, although it be secret, yet ought to be done with greater gravity.’ Melville and others, by reason of the ignorance and the prejudices of the age, sincerely believed in the legal virtue of the Mosaic system, abolished by the Gospel, which conferred on certain persons the right of killing a murderer, but which founded at the same time the cities of refuge in which the guilty man should be safe from the vengeance of the pursuer.[365] [Sidenote: MURDER OF BEATOUN.]