e meeting, however, was that milder
counsels prevailed so far as James was concerned: "They concluded that
the King should be taine softlie without harm of his bodie, and conveyed
to the Castle of Edinburgh with certain gentlemen," while Cochrane and
the rest were seized and hanged over Lauder Brig.

The question, however, remained, Who should be so bold as to take the
first step and lay hands upon the favourite? It was now that Lord Gray,
one of the conspirators, told, with that humour which comes in so grimly
in many dark historic scenes, the story of the mice and the cat--how the
mice conspired to save themselves by attaching a bell to the cat to warn
them of her movements--until the terrible question arose which among
them should attach to the neck of the enemy this instrument of safety.
One can imagine the grave barons with half a smile looking at each other
consciously, in acknowledgment of a risk which it needed a brave man to
run. Angus, the head of the existing branch of the Douglas family, who
had already risen into much of the power and importance of his forfeited
kinsman, answered with equally grim brevity "I'se bell the cat." But
while he spoke, the general enemy, mad with arrogance and
self-confidence, and not believing in any power or boldness which could
stop him in his career, forestalled the necessity. He came to the kirk,
where no doubt he had heard there was some unauthorised assembly,
arrayed in black velvet with bands of white, the livery he had chosen, a
great gold chain round his neck, a hunting horn slung about him adorned
with gold and jewels, and probably a marvel of mediaeval art--and "rushed
rudlie at the kirk door." The hum of fierce satisfaction which arose
when the keeper of the door challenged the applicant for admission, and
the answer, "The Earl of Mar," rang into the silence in which each man
had been holding his breath, may be imagined. It was Archibald
Bell-the-Cat, ever hereafter known by that name, who advanced to meet
the swaggering intruder in all his pride of privilege and place, but
with a welcome very different from that which the favourite expected,
who had come, no doubt, to break up the whisperings of the conspirators
and assert his own authority. Angus pulled the gold chain from
Cochrane's neck, and said "a rop would sett him better," while another
Douglas standing by snatched at the horn. Cochrane, astonished but not
yet convinced that any real opposition was intended, as