n the night cometh, and the task of the day is done, I
hold you in my embrace, the proudest woman in Scotland, and you
say again, as on that day in the pleasaunce, "For life, John
Graham, and for death."

It has not been easy living for you, Jean, since that marriage-day,
when the trumpets were our wedding-bells, and your mother's curse
our benediction, and I take thought oftentimes that it has been
harder for thee, Sweetheart, than for me. I had the encounters
of the field with open enemies and of the Council with false
friends, but thou hast had the loneliness of Dudhope, when I was
not there to caress you and kiss away your cares. Faithful have
you been to the cause, and to me, and I make boast that I have not
been unfaithful myself to either, but the sun has not been always
shining on our side of the hedge and there have been some chill
blasts. Yet they have ever driven us closer into one another's arms,
and each coming home, if it has been like the first from the work of
war, has been also like it a new marriage-day. Say you is it not
true, Sweetheart, we be still bridegroom and bride, and shall be
to the end?

When I asked you to be my wife, Jean, I told you that love even
for you would not hinder me from doing the king's work, but
this matter I have had on hand in Edinburgh has tried me
sorely,--though one in the Council would guess at my heart. I have
also the fear that it will vex you greatly. Mayhap you have
heard, for such news flies fast, that we lighted upon Henry
Pollock and a party of his people last week. They were going
to some preaching and were taken unawares, and we captured
them all, not without blows and blood. Pollock himself fought as
ye might expect, like a man without fear, and was wounded. I saw
that his cuts were bound up, and that he had meat and drink. We
brought him on horseback to Edinburgh, treating him as well as we
could, for while I knew what the end would be, and that he
sought no other, I do not deny that he is an honest man and I do
not forget that he loved you. Yesterday he was tried before the
Council, and I gave strong evidence against him. Upon my word
it was that he was declared guilty of rebellion against the king's
authority, and was condemned to death. None other could I do,
Jean, for he that spared so dangerous and stalwart an enemy as
Pollock, is himself a traitor, but when the Council were fai