and the rest to find that the returned exiles looked coldly on them.
Melville does not even mention Knox, nor is there any further proof of
guilt on his part than is involved in the fact that he left Edinburgh on
the afternoon of the day which saw the flight, early in the morning, of
Ruthven and his band. This hurried departure must always be to the
prejudice of the Reformer; for he had been in circumstances more
apparently dangerous before and had never flinched. He had the town of
Edinburgh at his back and all the Congregation. Murray, with whom his
friendship had been renewed, was again in Edinburgh, and for the moment
at least in favour with the Queen, who had need of all the supporters
she could find. Why should Knox have fled? He promises in his History to
write one day a full account of the death of Davie, but never did so.
Evidence, indeed, either of one kind or other, is entirely wanting; but
why did he fly?

Whatever was the reason, Knox at this period disappeared entirely from
the scene where so long he had occupied the very foreground of affairs;
and until that cruel and terrible chapter of history was completed, he
was not again visible in Scotland. We cannot help feeling that though
inexplicable on other grounds, this was well for his fame. His violent
tongue and pen, no doubt, would have been in the heat of the endless
controversy. As it is, he was not only absent from the scene, but, what
is still more singular, took no part whatever in it. The veil of age was
falling over the prophet, and the penalties of a weak constitution
overstrained. Perhaps the comparative calm of England, where, strangely
enough, he chose this time to visit his boys (brought up in a manner
extraordinary for the sons of such a father, in the obscure and
comfortable quiet of English life, and evidently quite
insignificant--one of them dying unknown, a fellow of his college, the
other a country clergyman), had something to do in taming his fiery
spirit. To see the two lads with such blood in their veins in the tame
security and insignificance of an existence so different from his own,
looking at their famous father with wonder, perhaps not unmixed with
youthful disapproval, as a Presbyterian and a firebrand, must have given
that absolute soul a curious lesson. And how strange is his appearance
altogether, first and last, in the midst of that substantial,
respectable county family of Bowes--carrying off the two ladies in his
wild tra