After Logan’s return from Edinburgh (which, according to Sprot, seems to be of about July 20) Sprot heard Logan and Bower discuss some scheme by which Logan should get Gowrie’s estate of Dirleton, without payment. Bower said nothing could be done till Logan rode west himself. He discouraged the whole affair, but Logan said, in the hearing of several persons, that he would hazard his life with Gowrie. Lady Restalrig blamed Bower for making Logan try to sell the lands of Fastcastle (they were not sold till 1602), of which Bower protested his innocence. This was _after_ Logan’s return from Edinburgh (say July 20; that is, say five days after Logan’s return, say July 25). Bower and Logan had a long conference in the open air. Sprot was lounging and spying about beside the river; a sea-fisher had taken a basket of blenneys, or ‘green-banes.’ Logan called to Sprot to bring him the fish, and they all supped. Before supper, however, Sprot walked about with Bower, and tried to ‘pump’ him as to what was going forward. Bower said that ‘the Laird should get Dirleton without either gold or silver, but he feared it should be as dear to him. They had another pie in hand than the selling of land.’ Bower then asked Sprot not to meddle, for he feared that ‘in a few days the Laird would be either landless or lifeless.’ Certainly this is a vivid description; Bower and Logan were sitting on a bench ‘at the byre end;’ Sprot, come on the chance of a supper, was peeping and watching; Peter Mason, the angler, at the river side, ‘near the stepping stones,’ had his basket of blenneys on his honest back, his rod or net in his hand; the Laird was calling for the fish, was taking a drink, and, we hope, offering a drink to Mason. Then followed the lounge and the talk with Bower before supper, all in the late afternoon of a July day, the yellow light sleeping on the northern sea below. Vivid this is, and plausible, but is it true?