mitting to the humiliation which is the just penalty of your
offences, still the day is not far off when you will come begging for a
morsel of bread to those that weep for your fall, and implore you to
eschew the evil of your way."

To these words, which were spoken as with the vehemence of prophecy, the
miserable woman made no answer, but plucked her hand sharply from her
sister's earnest pressure, and quitted the room with a flash of anger.
My grandfather then conveyed the mournful Elspa back to the house of
Lucky Kilfauns, and returned to the priory.

CHAPTER XXIV

The next day, Elspa Ruet, under the escorting of my grandfather, was
minded to have gone home to Crail, but the news that John Knox was to
preach on the morrow at St Andrews had spread far and wide; no man could
tell by what wonderful reverberation the tidings had awakened the whole
land. From all quarters droves of the Reformed and the pious came
pressing to the gates of the city, like sheep to the fold and doves to
the windows. The Archbishop and the priests and friars were smitten with
dread and consternation; the doom of their fortunes was evident in the
distraction of their minds--but the Earl of Argyle and the Lord James
Stuart, at the priory, remained calm and collected.

Foreseeing that the step they had taken would soon be visited by the
wrath of the Queen Regent, they resolved to prepare for the worst, and
my grandfather was ordered to hold himself in readiness for a journey.
Thus was he prevented from going to Crail with Elspa Ruet, who, with a
heavy heart, went back in the evening with the man and horses that
brought the Reformer to the town. For John Knox, though under the ban of
outlawry, was so encouraged with inward assurances from on High, that he
came openly to the gate, and passed up the crown of the causey on to the
priory, in the presence of the Archbishop's guards, of all the people,
and of the astonished and dismayed priesthood.

As soon as the Antichrist heard of his arrival, he gave orders for all
his armed retainers, to the number of more than a hundred men-at-arms,
to assemble in the cloisters of the monastery of the Blackfriars; for he
was a man of a soldierly spirit, and though a loose and immoral
churchman, would have made a valiant warrior; and going thither himself,
he thence sent word to the Lord James Stuart at the priory, that if John
Knox dared to preach in the cathedral, as was threatened, he would order
hi