"Can you ask?" said Redhall, with a smile; "treason, civil war, and the destruction of the Hamiltons, no doubt. And with the knowledge that he is an outlawed traitor, the countess hath reset him." "Natural enough, he is the poor woman's son." "But the master of the ordnance hath likewise done so." "Natural enough, too, for he is said to love the earl's sister." "Your eminence is strangely cool in this matter," said Redhall, grinding his teeth; "but you know not all that common rumour sayeth." "Ah! what the devil says it now?" "That the young queen is dying," replied the advocate, drawing near, sinking his voice impressively, and presuming even to grasp his arm; "sorcery is at work; every man who looks upon her reads death in her face, and the hopes of Henry that James may yet marry his daughter are rising again." "Hah!" There was a brief pause. "And what wouldst thou have?" asked Beaton. "Permission to seize and commit to sure ward the Countess of Ashkirk and her daughter--a measure demanded by the safety of the nation." Beaton shook his head. "Rumour is busy, and avers that the earl is concealed within the ports of Edinburgh," continued the wily advocate, who, for his own ends, did not choose to say _where_; "my spies inform me that he has been heard to boast of being, ere long, at Stirling bridge with an army of English borderers, for he hath made a vow to sup----" "Where?" "In thy tower of Creich." The dark eyes of Beaton flashed fire; for in the tower of Creich, rumour (which in those days supplied, somewhat indifferently, however, the place of the public press) asserted that the cardinal kept quite a seraglio. It touched him in the quick. "The earl said so--ha!" he muttered, opening his portfolio; "indeed--um--um--and where dost thou wish the countess committed to ward?" "Your eminence's castle of St. Andrew is a sure place." "I send none there but heretics; the tower of Inchkeith is a stronger fortlet." "The Knight of Barncleugh is captain there--a Hamilton too." "Very suitable," continued the cardinal, writing on a slip of paper a warrant to arrest and imprison, 'during the king's pleasure, Margaret Countess Dowager, and the Lady Jane, daughter of the umquhile John Earl of Ashkirk, together with Archibald Seton, sometyme designated of Ashkirk, but now under sentence of forfeiture.' "Send the Albany herald to the countess, and let him take some fifteen pikes of my guard; one of Sir Robert Barton's boats will convey the ladies to the Inch. Of late, James has shown over much favour to this family, whose besetting sin has been their leaguing with England; and I hope that, ere long," continued Beaton, thinking of the tower of Creich, "this troublesome young lord will pay the penalty of his insolence to me and his crimes against the state----" "My lord the Bishop of Limoges," announced the young Lord Lindesay, the cardinal's favourite page, ushering in that reverend prelate.