self possessed of a discerning spirit, that may,
in these times of peril and perjury, help the great cause of all good
Scotchmen."

In saying these most acceptable words, he clapped my grandfather on the
shoulder, and encouraged him to be as true-hearted as he was
sharp-witted, and he could not fail to earn both treasure and trusts. So
my grand-father left him, and went to the Widow Rippet's in the
Grass-market; and around her kitchen fire he found some four or five
discarded knaves that were bargaining with her for beds, or for leave to
sleep by the hearth; and he had not been long seated among them when his
heart was grieved with pain to see Winterton come in, and behind him the
two simple lads of Lithgow that had left their homes with him, whom, it
appeared, the varlet had seduced from the Earl of Glencairn's service
and inveigled into the Earl of Seaton's, a rampant papist, by the same
wiles wherewith he thought he had likewise made a conquest of my
grandfather, whom they had all come together to see; for the two Lithgow
lads, like reynard the fox when he had lost his tail, were eager that he
too should make himself like them. He feigned, however, great weariness,
and indeed his heart was heavy to see such skill of wickedness in so
young a man as he saw in Winterton. So, after partaking with them of
some spiced ale which Winterton brought from the Salutation tavern,
opposite the gallow's-stone, he declared himself overcome with sleep,
and perforce thereof obligated to go to bed. But when they were gone,
and he had retired to his sorry couch, no sleep came to his eyelids, but
only hot and salt tears; for he thought that he had been in a measure
concerned in bringing away the two thoughtless lads from their homes,
and he saw that they were not tempered to resist the temptations of the
world, but would soon fall away from their religious integrity, and
become lewd and godless roisters, like the wuddy worthies that paid
half-price for leave to sleep on the widow's hearth.

CHAPTER X

At the first blink of the grey eye of the morning my grandfather rose,
and, quitting the house of the Widow Rippet, went straight to the Earl's
lodgings, and was admitted. The porter at the door told him that their
master, having been up all night, had but just retired to bed; but while
they were speaking, the Earl's page, who slept in the ante-chamber,
called from the stairhead to inquire who it was that had come so early,
and b