Dismounting, Falconer took his horse by the bridle and led it close down to the water-edge at the Craigward, and selecting a place where the boor-trees grew thick and mingled with the wild Scottish roses and the woodbine in a matted screen, over a scaured bank which the river had scooped as if to form a place of concealment, he looked cautiously round and listened for a moment, and all was still, save the ripple of the stream as it flowed towards the sea. He placed to his mouth a silver-mounted bugle that hung at his girdle, and blew one low, winding, and peculiar note. It floated away over the river, and ere it died in the distance, the shrill whistle of Archy the boatswain was heard on board the admiral's ship--a boat plashed as it was lowered into the moonlit water, the crew were seen to drop lightly down from the chains, and the oars gleamed, as Cuddie the coxswain pushed off from the carved and painted side of the high and formidable caravel. At that moment Falconer heard something crackling among the boor-trees above his head. He looked upward suspiciously, but could perceive nothing. "Tush," thought he, "I have scared some red fuimart or todlowrie from its lair--yet every leaf that stirs startles me to-night." He had forgotten the suspicious friar; but had he looked more narrowly he might have seen that respectable personage, with his head uncowled, with neck outstretched, with a hand behind one ear to let not a sound escape, and with grey, malignant eyes, half starting from their sockets, while, screened among the leaves, he bent over the bank to see and hear what this bugle-sound, the answering whistle, and shore-rowed boat portended--for our monk was a spy! CHAPTER XXXII. THE DOUBLE BRIBE. "Sordid, mean, and miserly, he has made various compacts, he has made a compact with pride; a compact with avarice; a compact with knavery; a compact with ambition; a compact with contempt; a compact with mammon; a compact with all the evil passions, and with all the fiends!"--_Tantalus._ "Welcome as a fair wind!" said Barton, leaping lightly ashore, though he was heavily armed in a suit of black unpolished armour, and carried in his hand a Jedwood axe--"Welcome, doughtie Davie." "And welcome thou, my comrade and shipmate," replied Falconer, as they drew off their steel gloves, and shook hands, but without a smile, for their hearts were full of stern thoughts. "What tidings are there 'long shore, eh?" asked Barton. "Evil enough--the lords are all in arms in the Carse, and to-morrow we hope to give them battle." "Would I might leave the ship and share it with thee!" "And why not?" asked Falconer. "The admiral----" "True--true." "'Tis said these lords have a hundred thousand men under their banner." "Rumour says even more," added Falconer. "But rumour is a landlubber, and often lies: and the king, how many?"