"A little; I saw him spelling over the legend on the castle gate." "A letter!--and who will sign it?" "I----" "Thou! Borthwick;--fellow, thou laughest at us!" "Under favour, Sir James, I never was more in earnest in my life. I will write, and sign it with the king's signature, and seal it with his seal, in such wise that not even he could detect the hand of a forger; then how much less the half-lettered Angus?" "With the king's seal, say you?" "His private signet, which I found this morning at the gate of St. Salvador's chapel, where the king must have dropped it, after mass." "And this letter----" "Will kindle a blaze through all Scotland." "Art thou sure of this?" asked Shaw, with a grim joy that was blended with incredulity and contempt. "Let the deed show." "Hew Borthwick," said the traitor Shaw, "I know thee to be subtle as that serpent which of old beguiled our mother Eve. I know thee to love money, even as thine own soul, and I swear to thee by my part of Paradise, that if thy boasted letter achieves the promised end, thou shalt have, not one, but three of my best tenements in the Broad Wynd of Stirling, held of the Burgh by an armed man's service." "'Tis a bargain; and thou, Sir Patrick Gray, art witness," said Borthwick, rising with joy beaming in his atrocious countenance. "In that inner chamber are pens, parchment, and wax," said Gray; "away to thy clerking, for here come the Lord Angus and his friends." As Borthwick retired to compose one of the most villanous forgeries ever made by a traitor's hand--unless we except the contents of that silver casket so famous in the history of Mary, or some of the letters of Secretary Stair,--a train of brilliant horsemen rode up the ascent to Broughty, and dismounted in the paved barbican. CHAPTER XV. CONCLAVE OF MALCONTENTS. _Sir Penny_ owre all gets the gree, Both in burgh and citie, In castle and in tower; Withouten either spear or shield, He is the best by firth or field, And stalwartest in stowre. _Money, an old Ballad._ Sir Patrick Gray and Sir James Shaw rose with much real and more feigned respect, as the swarthy Earl of Angus, still clad as usual in his armour, the statesman-like Lord Drummond, wearing a suit of black velvet edged with corded gold, the Lords Hailes, Home, Stirling of Keir, and the Hereditary Forester of Drum, all partially clad in buff and steel, and the grim old Steward of Menteith, with his long Highland cliob, and portentous beard that reached nearly to the top of his kilt, entered the apartment, making a great clatter with their long steel Rippon spurs, and those enormous swords, for the manufacture of which the sword slippers of Banff bade fair to rival those of Cologne and Toledo, and which were of such preposterous length, that they were generally worn across the back, with the hilt at the left shoulder, over which they were unsheathed when necessary.