ietly
proceeded along the street until he reached the city guardhouse, in a
cell of which he was thrust.

"One would think," he muttered to himself, "that little preacher is an
emissary of Satan himself. Go where I will, this lantern-jawed knave is
sure to crop up and I feel convinced that until I have split his skull I
shall have no safety. I thought I had freed myself of Mm forever when I
got out of London; and here, in the middle of the Scotch capital, he
turns up as sharpsighted and as venomous as ever."

An hour or two later Harry was removed under a guard to the city prison,
and in the evening the doors were opened and a guard appeared and
briefly ordered him to follow. Under the escort of four men he was led
through the streets to a large building, and then conducted to a room in
which a number of persons, some of them evidently of high rank, were
sitting. At the head of the table was a man of sinister aspect. He had
red hair and eyebrows, and a foxy, cunning face, and Harry guessed at
once that he was in the presence of the Earl of Argyll--a man who, even
more than the rest of his treacherous race, was hated and despised by
loyal Scotchmen. In all their history, a great portion of the Scottish
nobles were ever found ready to take English gold, and to plot against
their country. But the Argylls had borne a bad pre-eminence even among
these. They had hunted Wallace, had hounded down Bruce, and had ever
been prominent in fomenting dissensions in their country; the present
earl was probably the coldest and most treacherous of his race.

"We are told," he said sternly to the prisoner, "that you are a follower
of the man Charles; that you have been already engaged in plottings
among the good citizens of London, and we shrewdly suspect that your
presence here bodes no good to the state. What hast thou to say in thy
defense?"

"I do not know that I am charged with any offence," Harry said quietly.
"I am an English gentleman, who, wishing to avoid the disorders in his
own country, has traveled north for peace and quietness. If you have
aught to urge against me or any evidence to give, I shall be prepared to
confute it. As for the preacher, whose evidence has caused my arrest, he
hath simply a grudge against me for a boyish freak, from which he
suffered at the time when I made my escape from a guardroom in London,
and his accusation against me is solely the result of prejudice."

Harry had already, upon his arrival a