, and that so quickly and completely that the affair was
called the 'sweeping of the streets.' Finally, your father James V saw
it glisten in the fight of the bridge over the Tweed, when Buccleuch,
stirred up by him, wanted to snatch him from the guardianship of the
Douglases, and when eighty warriors of the name of Scott remained on the
battlefield."

"But," said the queen, "how is it that this weapon, after such exploits,
has not remained as a trophy in the Douglas family? No doubt the Earl of
Angus required a great occasion to decide him to-renounce in your favour
this modern Excalibur". [History of Scotland, by Sir Walter Scott.--"The
Abbott": historical part.]

"Yes, no doubt, madam, it was upon a great occasion," replied Lindsay,
in spite of the imploring signs made by Melville, "and this will have at
least the advantage of the others, in being sufficiently recent for you
to remember. It was ten days ago, on the battlefield of Carberry Hill,
madam, when the infamous Bothwell had the audacity to make a public
challenge in which he defied to single combat whomsoever would dare
to maintain that he was not innocent of the murder of the king your
husband. I made him answer then, I the third, that he was an assassin.
And as he refused to fight with the two others under the pretext that
they were only barons, I presented myself in my turn, I who am earl and
lord. It was on that occasion that the noble Earl of Morton gave me this
good sword to fight him to the death. So that, if he had been a little
more presumptuous or a little less cowardly, dogs and vultures would be
eating at this moment the pieces that, with the help of this good sword,
I should have carved for them from that traitor's carcass."

At these words, Mary Seyton and Robert Melville looked at each other in
terror, for the events that they recalled were so recent that they were,
so to speak, still living in the queen's heart; but the queen, with
incredible impassibility and a smile of contempt on her lips--

"It is easy, my lord," said she, "to vanquish an enemy who does not
appear in the lists; however, believe me, if Mary had inherited the
Stuarts' sword as she has inherited their sceptre, your sword, long as
it is, would yet have seemed to you too short. But as you have only to
relate to us now, my lord, what you intended doing, and not what you
have done, think it fit that I bring you back to something of more
reality; for I do not suppose you have g