gan, we can appreciate Sprot's anecdote, now
to be given, concerning Lady Home. Logan, according to Sprot, said to
him, in Edinburgh, early in 1602, 'Thou rememberest what my Lady Home
said to me, when she would not suffer my lord to subscribe my contract
for Fentoun, because I would not allow two thousand marks to be kept out
of the security, and take her word for them? She said to me, _which was
a great knell to my heart_, that since her coming to the town, she knew
that I had been in some dealing with the Earl of Gowrie about Dirleton.'
Now Dirleton, according to Sprot, was to have been Logan's payment from
Gowrie, for his aid in the plot.

Logan then asked Sprot if he had blabbed to Lady Home, but Sprot replied
that 'he had never spoken to her Ladyship but that same day, although he
had read the contract' (as to Fentoun) 'before him and her in the abbey,'
of Coldingham, probably. Logan then requested Sprot to keep out of Lady
Home's sight, lest she should ask questions, '_for I had rather be eirdit
quick than either my Lord or she knew anything of it_.'

Now, in Letter II (July 18, 1600), from Logan to Bower, Logan, as we saw,
is made to write, 'See that my Lord, my brother, gets no knowledge of our
purposes, _for I_ (_sic_) _rather be eirdit quik_.' The phrase recurs in
another of the forged letters not produced in court.

It is thus a probable inference that Logan did use this expression to
Sprot, in describing the conversation about Lady Home, and that Sprot
inserted it into his forged Letter II (Logan to Bower). But, clever as
Sprot was, he is scarcely likely to have invented the conversation of
Logan with Lady Home, arising out of Logan's attempt to do some business
with Lord Home about Fentoun. A difficulty, raised by Lady Home, led up
to the lady's allusion to Dirleton, 'which was a great knell to my
heart,' said Logan. This is one of the passages which indicate a basis
of truth in the confessions of Sprot. Again, as Home and Gowrie were in
Paris together, while Bothwell was in Brussels, in February 1600, and as
Home certainly, and Gowrie conceivably, met Bothwell, it may well have
been that Gowrie heard of Logan from Bothwell, the old ally of both, and
marked him as a useful hand. Moreover, he could not but have heard of
Logan's qualities and his keep, Fastcastle, in the troubles and
conspiracies of 1592-1594. After making these depositions, Sprot
attested them, with phrases of awful solemnity, 'w