’Pshaw,’ said the Minister, ’he would as readily try to win Bargany to the Earl’s side, if it suited him to murder them both together. It is his plan to make them fight each other till there are none left—to cut off the heads of the taller poppies as in the ancient tale of Rome. I tell you this man has no side but his own, no desire but his own profit, no end but to make himself supreme in Carrick.’ ’And what can I, that am but a squire and a youth, do in the matter?’ said I. ’You are on the spot, Launcelot,’ said the Minister, kindly. ’I am in Edinburgh, and if things march as evilly as they have been doing of late, it is likely I shall be even further afield than Edinburgh. But you can watch—you can judge whom it boots to warn. You can put in a word—’ ’I shall put in a sword,’ said I, stamping my foot; ’put it in deep—to think of such deceit and guile in a mere vassal and understrapper of my lord’s.’ ’Launcelot,’ said the Minister of Edinburgh, ’you begin to make me sorry I trusted you. I should have spoken to a graver man.’ ’Nay, sir,’ I said, ’you mistake me. I but mean that if it came to the bitter bite of iron, the time for words might go by.’ ’Ay,’ he replied thoughtfully, ’there is some sense in that, but give not up the judicious words too early.’ So we betook ourselves gravely and staidly out of the wood, and at bidding him farewell I received his benediction, which he gave me with his right hand stretched out. And though I am tall and stand as erect as any man, yet the Minister of Edinburgh overtowered me by half a foot. But I minded that not in him. So I went to the castle armoury to bethink me, for after what I had heard maids and bonnet strings were not to be more in my thought that day. *CHAPTER XVII* *THE CORBIES AT THE EAGLE’S NEST* One snowy day, I mind it was a Thursday according to the day of the week, I had ridden to Girvan by the shore road. I journeyed unmolested save that one sent a shot after me as I passed the tower of Girvanmains. But this not so much, I think, with intent to do me an injury, as because they saw my Cassillis colours, and could not let them pass unchallenged by a yett of the Bargany folk. But upon my return I got one of the greatest surprises of my life, for as I rode gladly into the courtyard of Culzean, lo! there was my lord out on the steps, with the noble courtesy and distinction which none could assume so well as he, being indeed natural to him, bidding farewell to a pair of guests whom I never looked to see in the courtyard of Culzean, save as it might be coming in decently, heels first, for the purposes of Christian burial.