hed,
so far as I can aid, I will withdraw."

"Stay yet a moment," said the prior, "for I also have a grief to
disclose, of a nature so black and horrible, that your Grace's pious
heart will hardly credit its existence, and I state it mournfully,
because, as certain as that I am an unworthy servant of St. Dominic, it
is the cause of the displeasure of Heaven against this poor country, by
which our victories are turned into defeat, our gladness into mourning,
our councils distracted with disunion, and our country devoured by civil
war."

"Speak, reverend prior," said the King; "assuredly, if the cause of
such evils be in me or in my house, I will take instant care to their
removal."

He uttered these words with a faltering voice, and eagerly waited for
the prior's reply, in the dread, no doubt, that it might implicate
Rothsay in some new charge of folly or vice. His apprehensions perhaps
deceived him, when he thought he saw the churchman's eye rest for a
moment on the Prince, before he said, in a solemn tone, "Heresy, my
noble and gracious liege--heresy is among us. She snatches soul after
soul from the congregation, as wolves steal lambs from the sheep fold."

"There are enough of shepherds to watch the fold," answered the Duke of
Rothsay. "Here are four convents of regular monks alone around this poor
hamlet of Perth, and all the secular clergy besides. Methinks a town so
well garrisoned should be fit to keep out an enemy."

"One traitor in a garrison, my lord," answered the prior, "can do much
to destroy the security of a city which is guarded by legions; and if
that one traitor is, either from levity, or love of novelty, or whatever
other motive, protected and fostered by those who should be most eager
to expel him from the fortress, his opportunities of working mischief
will be incalculably increased."

"Your words seem to aim at some one in this presence, father prior,"
said the Douglas; "if at me, they do me foul wrong. I am well aware that
the abbot of Aberbrothock hath made some ill advised complaints, that
I suffered not his beeves to become too many for his pastures, or his
stock of grain to burst the girnels of the monastery, while my followers
lacked beef and their horses corn. But bethink you, the pastures and
cornfields which produced that plenty were bestowed by my ancestors
on the house of Aberbrothock, surely not with the purpose that their
descendant should starve in the midst of it; and neither