Then at last Robert Harburgh said to him, but courteously, ’Sir, you ask of the tumult. It was a matter that concerns those only that fought upon their own proper quarrel. It concerns neither you nor yet my Lord Cassillis, in whose house ye presently are.’ ’Lead me to my lord!’ he said, as one who had only to speak that the doors might be opened. But Robert Harburgh withstood him and would not suffer him to pass. ’Let me see the Earl of Cassillis instantly!’ said he. ’The Earl is at supper,’ said Robert Harburgh, ’and cannot be disturbed.’ ’I will eat with him,’ said the stranger, calmly. Then when some scullion laughed, for of custom those who ate with the Earl of Cassillis entered not by the kitchen door, the unknown made a gesture of extraordinary contempt and yet withal of a marvellous dignity. ’Go, instantly,’ he commanded, pointing to the stair door with his finger, ’and tell your master that Robert Bruce, Minister of Edinburgh Town, would see him in the name of the Lord and of His Highness the King of Scots.’ And Robert Harburgh, who had just outflouted John Dick, the ruffler of camps, bowed before him. And as for me I took my bonnet off my own head and saluted, for there was no one of us who had not heard of the famous and well-reputed minister, to whom the King had committed the rule and governance of all the realm during the half-year he was in Denmark busy marrying of his queen. So with Robert Harburgh leading and myself following, the minister passed up the stair with due attendance, and into the supper chamber where the Earl and Countess took their meal at even, mostly without speech each with the other. And when through the open door I saw the Earl welcome his guest as he would have done the King himself, and especially when I heard their serious and weighty conversation, the thought came to me that it was well that there were men in Scotland able to make religion so to be honoured. Then again I laughed, thinking of the mighty difference that there was between Maister Robert Bruce, Minister of Edinburgh and sometime ruler of Scotland, and poor Sir Thomas Tode, domestic chaplain to the Earl of Cassillis and the well-pecked husband of Mary Greg, his cook. *CHAPTER XII* *THE FLITTING OF THE SOW* It was Lammas day, and the strange wager of battle was about to be fought. Maister Robert Bruce, who had composed so many quarrels (and made so many more in the doing of it), had altogether and utterly failed to make up this one. So he had passed south to his friend and favourer the Laird of Bargany, who for all his soldiership was ever great for the honour of the Kirk. I hope that the Minister of Edinburgh made more of him than he made of Earl John, of whom he gat nothing but fair speeches and most indifferent drink, which were indeed in my time the staples of Cassillis hospitality.