He was seated in a large and easy chair of stuffed velvet; his feet were encased in slippers of morocco, red as his stockings, and rested on a gilded footstool. Two vases of Italian glass, exquisitely carved, and glittering with the golden-coloured and purple wine they contained, together with two silver baskets, one full of honied biscuits and the other of grapes, showed that his eminence had been solacing his solitary hour; for a gittern that lay on a chair announced that his daughter, the Lady Margaret, had just retired, and the young Lord Lindesay, having no occasion to remain, followed her; thus the priest found himself alone with the cardinal, before whom all his confidence vanished; for, despite his conscious rectitude of heart and goodness of intention, in presence of the second man in Scotland, the poor prebend became timid as a child. "Welcome, Father St. Bernard!" said the cardinal, pointing to a seat near his own: "you look pale and fatigued. Here are red and white Italian wines, and these are better than our ordinary Rochelle or Bordeaux. To which shall I have the pleasure of assisting you? and then we will to business after; for I am certain thou hast come to me on business; no one," continued the studious cardinal, closing a book he had been reading, "no one, save my Lord Lindesay, comes near David Beaton for mere friendship, I find. Red wine or white?" "Either, please your eminence--the flask that is next you." Reassured by the frank manner of the cardinal, and by the luscious _Greco_ that moistened his tongue, which had been parched and dry, St. Bernard was about to speak, when the cardinal again addressed him. "Dost thou come with new tidings of this Calvinistic heresy, which spreadeth, even as foul leprosy, over Scotland; or," he added, re-opening his volume, which was _The Franciscan_, of George Buchanan, "or comest thou merely here, as this arch-heretic sayeth, to exhibit-- 'The greasy shaven heart, A gloomy friar, with flowing gown outspread! The twisted girdle, and the hat's broad brim, The opened shoe dressed out in monkish trim; Below the garb, where we so oft will find A brutal tyrant, whom no law can bind; The robber, who oppression's armour wields, The sensual glutton, to excess who yields, To deck the husband's brow, the night will spend; The faithless lover, and deceitful friend! His modest face, though false, worn as a cloak, To gull the plebeian, and delude the flock; Ten hundred thousand crimes, wild, dark, and deep. He hides beneath the clothing of the sheep!'