writing, as his words had been misreported, and Knox, "creeping
upon his club," went personally to the kirk-session, and requested the
Superintendent to admonish Kirkcaldy of his offences. Next Sunday he
preached about his eternal Ahab, and Kirkcaldy was offended by the
historical parallel. When he next was in church Knox went at him again;
it was believed that Kirkcaldy would avenge himself, but the western
brethren wrote to remind him of their "great care" for Knox's person. So
the quarrel, which made sermons lively, died out. {266}

There was little goodwill to Knox in the Queen's party, and as the
conflict was plainly to be decided by the sword, Robert Melville, from
the Castle, advised that the prophet should leave the town, in May 1571.
The "Castilian" chiefs wished him no harm, they would even shelter him in
their hold, but they could not be responsible for his "safety from the
multitude and rascal," in the town, for the craftsmen preferred the party
of Kirkcaldy. Knox had a curious interview in the Castle with
Lethington, now stricken by a mortal malady. The two old foes met
courteously, and parted even in merriment; Lethington did not mock, and
Knox did not threaten. They were never again to see each other's faces,
though the dying Knox was still to threaten, and the dying Lethington was
still to mock.

July found Knox and his family at St. Andrews, in the New Hospice, a pre-
Reformation ecclesiastical building, west of the Cathedral, and adjoining
the gardens of St. Leonard's College. At this time James Melville,
brother of the more celebrated scholar and divine, Andrew Melville, was a
golf-playing young student of St. Leonard's College. He tells us how
Knox would walk about the College gardens, exhorting the St. Leonard's
lads to be staunch Protestants; for St. Salvator's and St. Mary's were
not devoted to the Reformer and his party. The smitten preacher (he had
suffered a touch of apoplexy) walked slowly, a fur tippet round his neck
in summer, leaning on his staff, and on the shoulder of his secretary,
Bannatyne. He returned, at St. Andrews, in his sermons, to the Book of
Daniel with which, nearly a quarter of a century ago, he began his pulpit
career. In preaching he was moderate--for half-an-hour; and then,
warming to his work, he made young Melville shudder and tremble, till he
could not hold his pen to write. No doubt the prophet was denouncing
"that last Beast," the Pope, and his allies in S