‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh’ put the men in motion and himself at their head. As they emerged upon the open ground from the gray walls of the square old keep, the slanting beams of an autumn sun gilded the brown heather, and shed a soft lustre over the undulating moorland ere it flashed from the steel armour of the troop. The riders were in high spirits at the prospect of a change from their long period of inaction. The horses snorted and shook their bridles gaily. It was a party of pleasure and adventurous excitement to all concerned, and even now they were anticipating their plunder and jesting about their profits. Only one heart felt more softened than usual under its steel breastplate. ‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh’ acknowledged the influence of the mellow sunlight and the balmy breeze. Somehow the very earth and sky seemed to connect themselves with a pair of laughing eyes and a shower of bright hair, with a fairy figure tripping up the High Street, a basket on its arm; or, as he had seen it first, shining like a vision of light in the dark passages of Holyrood, with a voice that used to thrill so sweetly once, that he never heard now but in his dreams. The henchman would have fought like a lion, and yet he felt tenderly disposed towards all living things. He would have met death more cheerfully than ever, yet he seemed only to have learned the value of life within the last few months; another contradiction--but is it not full of contradictions, that engrossing folly in which the true believer is as sure to suffer martyrdom as the false worshipper is to obtain his reward? The earl and his visitor watched the troop defiling round the base of a low acclivity that soon hid them from sight. As they disappeared, Bothwell turned away with a bitter curse. He scarcely felt as if he had a right to order an expedition on the border in the name of his sovereign; and again Mary’s injustice and neglect rankled like a poisoned shaft in his breast. But the earl was in no mood for balancing probabilities or counting cost. The horses that had been driven were his own, and he had reason to believe that Lord Scrope was not ignorant of the theft. This was sufficient to rouse his ire to the utmost, and he had despatched a force to follow and retake them, strong enough to preclude the possibility of failure. It was maddening, though, to be compelled to stay within the four walls of Hermitage, when his retainers were in the field; maddening, all the more that his present false position, as he argued, was owing to a queen’s injustice and a woman’s ingratitude. A few short turns upon the rampart, with the soft west wind fanning his brow, restored his composure, and addressing his companion, he professed his readiness to enter at once upon the business which had brought the latter to Hermitage.