"On the evening of the 26th of August, just the day before Straitoun and Gourlay were burned for heresy at Greenside, I was seated in the public confessional at St. Giles's, when a man entered in great agony of mind, and knelt down before me. This man, my lord, was one whom the secret orations of the Reformers and the mal-influence of his chief, for he was a follower of old Sir John Melville of Raith, had partly led astray from the fold of the true faith. He was James Melville, the gudeman of Pitargie. The blessed hand of God was in it! Like a dark cloud, remorse had descended upon this lost one, and he informed me, that with sixteen others he had sworn to slay your eminence as you passed along the road to St. Andrew's on the morrow; and that this ambuscade of assassins was to be in waiting near the tower of Seafield, to the eastward of Kinghorn. In vain did I command him not to criminate others; but he told me, that your deadliest enemies, John Leslie of Parkhill, Peter Carmichael of Kilmadie, Sir James Kirkaldy of the Grange, the Melvilles of Raith and of Carnbee, the Lord Rothes, and the Laird of Kinfawns would be there. That Henry of England was in the plot, and had offered them magnificent bribes; and that one of his ships lay cruizing at the East Neuk, to secure for these seventeen conspirators a safe retreat to his own dominions, whither they were to bring your eminence's scarlet cope, drenched in blood, as a token that the deed was done, that their lust of vengeance had been sated, and that thou, like another Becket, had fallen beneath their swords. "As the conscience-stricken assassin proceeded, I became frozen with horror. With groans and with tears he concluded his dark narrative, and beating his breast, implored me to make what use of his confession I pleased, but at all risks to save your eminence. To warn you was impossible, for the confessional sealed my lips! And I saw you--you, the greatest hope of our sinking church, and the chief pillar of the Scottish throne, its bulwark against English aggression, and Henry's grasping and heretical spirit, about to fall! Your eminence was to be shot by arquebuses, after leaving the ferryboat at Kinghorn. After long and deep thought, the penitent begged that I would use all my little influence to detain your eminence for two hours upon your journey, and you may, perhaps, remember----" "Thy coming to me on the second day after the _auto-da-fé_ at Greenside, and imploring me to delay by two hours my journey into Fife," said the cardinal, as he arose and took in his the hands of the priest. "Thou good and venerable man! I remember well thy diffidence, confusion, and timidity; thy fear of being ridiculed and thy dread of offending me; and how I railed and stormed at thy superstitious presentiment, as I now remember with regret I named it! Well?"