ter room waiting your Grace's pleasure."

"Davie Hamilton," replied the Archbishop, "ye sometimes lack discretion.
What for did ye bring a stranger into this house--knowing, as ye ought
to do, that I ne'er come hither but when I'm o' a sickly frame, in need
o' solace and repose? Howsever, since the lad's there, bid him come
ben."

Upon this, Sir David came out and beckoned my grandfather to go in; and
when he went forward, he saw none in that inner chamber but his Grace
and the Mrs Kilspinnie, with whom he was sitting on a bedside before a
well-garnished table, whereon was divers silver flagons, canisters of
comfits, and goblets of the crystal of Venetia.

He looked sharp at my grandfather, perusing him from head to foot, who
put on for the occasion a face of modesty and reverence, but he was none
daunted, for all his eyes were awake, and he took such a cognition of
his Grace as he never afterwards forgot. Indeed, I have often heard him
say that he saw more of the man in the brief space of that interview
than of others in many intromissions, and he used to depict him to me as
a hale, black-avised carl, of an o'ersea look, with a long dark beard
inclining to grey; his abundant hair, flowing down from his cowl, was
also clouded and streaked with the kithings of the cranreuch of age.
There was, however, a youthy and luscious twinkling in his eyes, that
showed how little the passage of three-and-fifty winters had cooled the
rampant sensuality of his nature. His right leg, which was naked, though
on the foot was a slipper of Spanish leather, he laid o'er Mistress
Kilspinnie's knees as he threw himself back against the pillar of the
bed, the better to observe and converse with my grandfather; and she,
like another Delilah, began to prattle it with her fingers, casting at
the same time glances, unseen by her papistical paramour, towards my
grandfather, who, as I have said, was a comely and well-favoured young
man.

After some few questions as to his name and parentage, the prelate said
he would give him his livery, being then anxious, on account of the
signs of the times, to fortify his household with stout and valiant
youngsters; and bidding him draw near and to kneel down, he laid his
hand on his head and mumbled a benedicite; the which, my grandfather
said, was as the smell of rottenness to his spirit, the lascivious
hirkos, then wantoning so openly with his adulterous concubine, for no
better was Mistress Kilspinnie, h