is
still blue with the mark of the sword's hilt, and the fore-finger stool
is stained with the ink of a letter which the Earl wrote on the field to
Argyle, who had joined the Queen's faction; the which letter, it has
been thought, caused the swithering of that nobleman in the hour of the
onset, by which Providence gave the Regent the victory--a conquest which
established the Gospel in his native land for ever.

CHAPTER XXXIII

After the battle of Langside, many of the nobles and great personages of
the realm grew jealous of the good Regent Murray, and, by their own
demeanour, caused him to put on towards them a reserve and coldness of
deportment, which they construed as their feelings and fancies led them,
much to his disadvantage; for he was too proud to court the good-will
that he thought was his due. But to all people of a lower degree, like
those in my grandfather's station, he was ever the same punctual and
gracious superior, making, by the urbanity of his manner, small
courtesies recollected and spoken of as great favours, in so much that,
being well-beloved of the whole commonality, his memory, long after his
fatal death, was held in great estimation among them, and his fame as
the sweet odour of many blessings.

Few things, my grandfather often said, gave him a sorer pang than the
base murder by the Hamiltons of that most eminent worthy; and in all the
labours and business of his long life, nothing came ever more pleasant
to his thoughts than the remembrance of the part he had himself in the
retribution with which their many bloody acts were in the end overtaken
and punished. Indeed, as far as concerns their guiltiest instigator and
kinsman, the adulterous Antichrist of St Andrews, never was a just
vengeance and judgment more visibly manifested, as I shall now, with
all expedient brevity, rehearse, it being the last exploit in which my
grandfather bore arms for the commonweal.

Bailie Kilspinnie of Crail having dealings with certain Glasgow
merchants, who sold plaiding to the Highlanders of Lennox and Cowal,
finding them dour in payment, owing, as they said, to their customers
lengthening their credit of their own accord, on account of the times,
the west having been from the battle of Langside unwontedly tranquil,
he, in the spring of 1571, came in quest of his monies, and my
grandfather having notice thereof, took on behind him on horseback, to
see her father, Agnes Kilspinnie, who had lived in his