while Cuddie sat in the prow, flourishing his boat hook in defiance to the soldiers on the bridge and pier. Ere the last notes of the song and the plash of the oars had been lost in the boom of the surf that broke on the reefs then known as the Musselcape and Beacon Rock, Sir Patrick Gray rushed down St. Nicholas Wynd, crossed the bridge, and hurried to the Kirkgate, where, in the _Bell of St. Anthony_, a well-known hostel, he found his minion, Sir Hew Borthwick, whom he scarcely knew, so splendidly was he attired; for the price of James's signet-ring (long since transmitted by the Governor of Berwick to London) had lined his pockets with something better than pebbles, and enabled him to ruin all the pages, pimps, and bullies about the prince's court at tric-trac and shovel-board. "Ride, Borthwick, ride," said Gray, breathlessly, as he roughly drew him into a corner; "for death and life ride to Dunbar; here is money--six half lions (about thirty shillings); get thee a skiff, and seek the English Captain Howard. Warn him that Wood is putting to sea--say his fleet is overwhelming. Anathema! Oh, the fool, the half-witted English lurdane, to be loitering yet in Scottish waters with that devilish damsel in his possession! If she is taken, her tongue will destroy us all; she must be flung overboard, with all the ciphers of Quentin Kraft, if the _Harry_ is captured; see to this on your life, Hew Borthwick, see to it! Away, while there is yet time--away!" In ten minutes after this the regicide, well mounted, left Leith by the Porte St. Anthony, and crossing the Links, struck eastward by the dreary Figgate Muir, riding at headlong speed towards Dunbar. It was about four o'clock in the evening, and as these "Scottish worthies" separated, each mentally bequeathed the other to the infernal shades. CHAPTER XL. CLEARED FOR ACTION. "The boat rocks at the pier o' Leith, Fu' loud the wind blaws down the ferry, The ships ride at the Berwick Law, And I maun leave my bonnie Mary."--_Scottish Song_. As his barge glided into the stream, and Leith with its pier, spires, and sandy links, melted into the sunny haze; as the harbour closed and narrowed astern; the admiral, after remaining long silent, exclaimed,-- "Well---split my topsails, if I would not rather endure the English fire, yardarm and yard arm for eight glasses, than overhall all this talk again with these herring-faced lordlings; but one day, gadzooks! I hope to make the best among them lower his ancient at the king's name." "They have cast a glamour over the Lord Drummond," said Barton, with a gloomy expression in his eyes; "he was kind to me once, and but for my father's death and this unhappy strife, I had been ere now his son-in-law, and holding a banquet, perhaps, in yonder hall, where all that rabble rout of hostile peers hold council." "Thy fair weather and smooth anchorage are coming, Robert," said the admiral; "and what sayst thou, Davie Falconer?"