Mary Hamilton rode like a woman in a dream. The bay horse, accustomed to fret and chafe under the restraining influence of the bit, seemed bewildered by his unusual freedom. He had plunged and bounded away with his head in the air, according to his wont, prepared for a contest in which he was sure to obtain the mastery, and he may or may not have been disappointed to find that his rider’s carelessness of consequences exceeded his own, and that he was suffered to exhaust his mettle far more rapidly than he expected. With a stony white face, and her abundant hair streaming over her shoulders, the maid-of-honour sat back in the saddle, and flew along at a pace that even ‘Black Agnes’ could not surpass, unconscious apparently of amusement, or danger, or excitement, or anything but the relief afforded to her mental anguish by the physical sense of being carried with such velocity through the air. When the mallard was struck to earth at last, and the horses were pulled up, with panting sides and dilated nostrils, and wild eyes all a-glow with excitement, the Queen gazed on her reckless attendant in surprise, and even the severe Reformer remonstrated with her, Popish damsel though she were, for the utter disregard in which she seemed to hold that white neck of hers, and the probability of breaking it in such a headlong career. ‘Fair mistress,’ quoth Master Knox, ‘there is reason in all things; over-caution supposes want of faith, but the contrary extreme, such as you have exhibited to-day, denotes presumption and fool-hardiness. You are young; humanly speaking you have many years before you. You would not willingly be cut off like a flower in its bloom. Why should you thus risk your life as if there was no to-morrow?’ She did not seem to hear him. She answered nothing, but the last word of his sentence seemed to strike some chord within her, for she turned away muttering below her breath, ‘To-morrow. It will be too late to-morrow,’ and clasped her hands upon her breast as if in pain. John Knox did not observe her, for his attention was now taken up by the Queen, who seeing in his face, which was bright with repressed excitement, that the propitious moment had arrived, motioned him to her side, and moving her palfrey out of ear-shot of the others, broached the subject that had led her to invite him thus to join in her favourite amusement. ‘I have brought ye a long ride, Master Knox,’ she said, ‘and I would ye could return and taste a cup of sack at our poor lodging in St Andrews, but I know your busy avocations, and that ye will not willingly be absent from Edinburgh a day longer than is necessary. Ere you depart, I would fain ask your opinion on a subject of toleration.’