.

Having told his Lordship that he had delivered his message to John Knox,
and that the Reformer would not fail to attend the call, he then related
partly what had happened to himself in his former sojourn at St Andrews,
and how and for what end he had brought Elspa Ruet there that day with
him, entreating the Lord James to give him his livery and protection,
for fear of the Archbishop; which, with many pleasing comments on his
devout and prudent demeanour, that noble worthy most readily vouchsafed,
and my grandfather returned to the vintner's.

CHAPTER XXII

When my grandfather had returned to the vintner's, he found that Elspa
had conferred with Lucky Kilfauns concerning the afflicting end and
intent of her journey to St Andrews; and that decent woman sympathising
with her sorrow, telling her of many woful things of the same sort she
had herself known, and how a cousin of her mother's, by the father's
side, had been wiled away from her home by the abbot of Melrose, and
never heard tell of for many a day, till she was discovered, in the
condition of a disconsolate nun, in a convent, far away in Nithsdale.
But the great difficulty was to get access to Marion Ruet's bower, for
so, from that day, was Mrs Kilspinnie called again by her sister; and,
after no little communing, it was proposed by Lucky Kilfauns, that Elspa
should go with her to the house of a certain Widow Dingwall, and there
for a time take up her abode, and that my grandfather, after putting on
the Prior's livery, should look about him for the gilly, his former
guide, and, through him, make a tryst, to meet the dissolute madam at
the widow's house. Accordingly the matter was so settled, and while
Lucky Kilfauns, in a most motherly and pitiful manner, carried Elspa
Ruet to the house of the Widow Dingwall, my grandfather went back to the
priory to get the cloak and arms of the Lord James' livery.

When he was equipped, he then went fearless all about the town, and met
with no molestation; only he saw at times divers of the Archbishop's
men, who recollected him, and who, as he passed, stopped and looked
after him, and whispered to one another and muttered fierce words. Much
he desired to fall in with that humane Samaritan, Leonard Meldrum, the
seneschal of the castle, and fain would he have gone thither to inquire
for him; but, until he had served the turn of the mournful Elspa Ruet,
he would not allow any wish of his own to lead him to aught where