At that moment Lady Jane Seton raised her eyes to a window opposite, and encountered the fixed gaze of a sickly and ghastly face; the features were rigid, the lips firmly compressed, the dark eyes were fiery and red. There was a basilisk or rattlesnake expression in them that riveted her attention. They were those of Sir Adam Otterburn of Redhall, who had been attentively observing the greeting which passed between her and Vipont--a greeting that wrung his heart with agony and jealousy; but he bowed with studied politeness, and hurriedly withdrew. Jane felt relieved by his absence, and again drew breath more freely; but her colour came and went, and her heart for a moment became filled (she knew not why) with vague apprehensions. She knew all Sir Adam's glance conveyed, and trembled for her lover; for the King's Advocate of the New Court was then vested with such powers and terrors as a romancer would alone endow a grand inquisitor. The pageant passed on to Holyrood accompanied by loud and incessant bursts of acclamation; by songs and carols of welcome and of triumph; for the people, already predisposed to loyalty and jollity, were enraptured by the return of the king, by the gallantry of his bearing, and the beauty of his young French bride. Thus the wells continued to pour forth wine and ale alternately, the castle to fire its ordnance, and the people to shout until St. Marie (a great bell with a very sweet tone, which then hung in the rood tower of St. Giles) rung the citizens to vespers and to rest. CHAPTER III. THE MASTER OF THE ORDNANCE. "The bride into her bower is sent, The ribald rhyme and jesting spent; The lover's whispered words and few, Have bade the bashful maid adieu; The dancing floor is silent quite, No foot bounds there--Good night! good night!" JOANNA BAILLIE. Evening was closing, when a brilliantly-attired cavalier caracoled his horse from the palace porch, past the high Flemish gables of an ancient edifice, which was then the Mint of Scotland, past the strong round archway known as the Water Gate, because it led to the great horsepond of the palace, and throwing a handful of groats (twenty to king James's golden penny) among the poor dyvours who clustered round the girth cross of the Holy Sanctuary, rode up the Canongate. It was Sir Roland Vipont, the master of the king's ordnance. Compared to the bustle it had exhibited at noon, the street, though many still thronged it, seemed lifeless and empty. The windows were closed, the balconies deserted, the banners, pennons, and tapestry hung pendant and motionless, and the gay garlands were withering on the stone cross of St. John of Jerusalem. Casting a hasty glance around him to discover whether he was observed (for the political, feudal, and court intrigues of the time made it necessary that his visit to the family of Ashkirk should be as little noted as possible), he dismounted.