Sprot 'knew perfectly,' he said, on July 5, that one letter
from Gowrie and one from his brother, Alexander Ruthven, reached Logan,
at Fastcastle and at Gunnisgreen, a house hard by Eyemouth, where Sprot
was a notary, and held cottage land. {183} Bower carried Logan's
answers, and 'long afterwards' showed Sprot 'the first of Gowrie's
letters' (the harmless one about desiring an interview) and also a note
of Logan's to Bower himself, 'which is amongst the rest of the letters
produced.' It is No. II, but in this confession of July 5, Sprot appears
to say that Gowrie's innocent letter to Logan, asking for an interview,
was the source of his forgeries. 'I framed them all to the true meaning
and purpose of the letter that Bower let me see, to make the matter more
clear by these arguments and circumstances, for the cause which I have
already' (before July 5) 'shewn to the Lords'--that is, for purposes of
extorting money from Logan's executors.

This statement was untrue. The brief letter to Logan from Gowrie was not
the model of Sprot's forgeries; as he later confessed he had another
model, in a letter of Logan to Gowrie, which he held back till the last
day of his life. But in this confession of July 5, Sprot admits that he
saw, not only Gowrie's letter to Logan of July 6 (?) 1600 (a letter never
produced), but also a 'direction' or letter from Logan to his retainer,
Bower, dated 'The Canongate, July 18, 1600.' This is our Letter II. Had
it been genuine, then, taken with Gowrie's letter to Logan, it must have
aroused Sprot's suspicions. But this Letter II, about which Sprot told
discrepant tales, is certainly not genuine. It is dated, as we said,
'The Canongate, July 18, 1600.' Its purport is to inform Bower, then at
Brockholes, near Eyemouth, that Logan had received a _new_ letter from
Gowrie, concerning certain proposals already made orally to him by the
Master of Ruthven. Logan hoped to get the lands of Dirleton for his
share in the enterprise. He ends 'keep all things very secret, that my
Lord, my brother' (Lord Home) 'get no knowledge of our purposes, for I'
(would) 'rather be _eirdit quick_,' that is, buried alive (p. 205).

Now we shall show, later, the source whence Sprot probably borrowed this
phrase as to Lord Home, and being _eirdit quick_, which he has introduced
into his forged letter. Moreover, the dates are impossible. The first
of the five letters purports to be from Logan to an unnamed conspir