"Two painted pages (I'll have the rascals scourged!) may be guard enough in Lothian here; but in the Merse, or Teviotdale, a hundred spears were not a man too many, if one goes but a hundred yards from one's own gate." "They have left betimes," said the chief of the Hepburns, looking up at a dial-stone that projected from the corner of St. Anthony's Gate. "And at what time shall we set forth to spoil this precious pilgrimage--this dainty love-making?" "Somewhere about six at even," said Hailes. "Then we shall have the whole night before us." "All the better; I have directed Borthwick and Blackcastle--" "I doubt whether my kinsman would like such a conjunct partnership." "Well, Blackcastle and Borthwick," said Home, impatiently, "with twenty of my most unscrupulous mosstroopers--Johnstones, thieves of Annandale, men who would spear their own brother if I wished them--to be all in their jacks betimes, and mounted to ride with us." "Pleasant and honourable company," said Lord Hailes, with a smile. "But fitted for the occasion, my lord," replied Home, firmly; "we know not but those scurvy fellows, Barton and Falconer, may have some of their ruffianly seamen with them; and if so, by my father's hand and by the crest of Home, though it be beneath our rank to draw on varlets such as these, I'll not leave in all Loretto one alive to tell the story to their admiral!" As he spoke, Home clenched one hand, and with the other thrust his furred cap of maintenance over his dark and fiery eyes. "Good, my lord; farewell until we meet again," said Hailes; "if to-day we do not teach these fellows a sharp lesson, this glorious raid against the court and king, and that most signal triumph before the walls of Stirling, have been less than vain." And these two ferocious and unlettered nobles, though bent upon committing one of those atrocities which occurred daily among their proud, turbulent, and unpatriotic class in Scotland, bowed and parted as quietly and as pleasantly as if their appointed tryst had been for a pleasant evening ride in some green lane, instead of one for sacrilege and murder.