again when success."

you

know that the Queen herself prays for our

"I am content."

"Amen; may you be so always. And now let me know what has delayed your journey hither?"

When Lamingon had recounted the events of his meeting with Janfarie and of the loss of the tablet, Panther gave little heed to the possible consequences of the fray in his anxiety about the latter misfortune. He, however, expended no words in upbraiding his friend for permitting the mishap despite the caution he had received.

"Our friends must have timely warning of any danger that may threaten them should the roll fall into unfriendly hands. Luckily it was so written that it can prove nothing against them, save that some unknown hand has joined their names together."

"If that is all, we need give ourselves little trouble about it."

"Ay, if that is all; but Cochrane might make much more of it. Since there is no help, we must prepare for the hazard, and our action against him must be the more prompt and decisive."

"Command me when you will, and as you will."

"Enough; should any one address you with signs of authority, ask what tower is falling."

"And then?

"And then you will know him to be a friend, if he answer the curse of Scotland."

"I will remember. Good night."

"Good night, and benedicite."

M

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE STORM-CLOUD BURSTS.

"Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
O quhair hae ye been ?
They hae slain the Earl of Murray,
And hae lain him on the green.

"Now wae be to thee, Huntly,
And quhairfore did you sae?
I bade you bring him wi' you,
But forbade you him to slay."

The Bonnie Earl of Murray

FOR fourteen days Lamington remained at the Black Hound Inn of Linlithgow, undisturbed by any unfriendly event; but fretting more and more as the days advanced under his enforced idleness.

He had not yet been permitted to see Katherine; and the Abbot had not yet fulfilled his promise of presenting him to Queen Margaret. But he could not complain of the delay, knowing how sincerely Panther desired to further his interests, and that he would avail himself of the first opportunity of serving him.

He was the more readily content to bide his time, being assured that Cochrane had quitted the palace on the day after his arrival with Katherine, and that whatever might be the nature of his mission he had not yet returned.

Panther visited him almost every evening, always in his private garb, and always anxious to avoid observation. Gordon was aware that there were mysterious meetings held in the hostelry long after the curfew had been rung, and the honest burgesses had extinguished their lamps and retired to the slumbers of the industrious, with heads little troubled by politics beyond the bitterness with which they resented the attempt to force the base Cochrane placks upon their acceptance, and their dissatisfaction at certain new imposts with which the royal favourite proposed to fill his master's treasury and his own.

The meetings of the disaffected barons were held at the hostelry in preference to the private residence of any oue

of them, because the gatherings in a place of public resort were less liable to suspicion, even if they were discovered.

Gordon was not at first admitted to the conclave of the conspirators; but after he had been presented to Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus-a man of gigantic stature, and possessed of all the fierce courage of the race from which he sprang and to Lord Gray-a man of policy and discrimination he was invited to join them.

He hesitated: for, however willing he might be to serve the cause they had in view, he still doubted the propriety of leaguing himself for good or ill with men whose power and ambition might, when the first step was gained, induce them to proceed still farther. On one point he was resolved, that nothing should tempt him to raise his hand against the King; and despite Panther's assurance, he feared that the Duke of Albany, whose martial character and dauntless spirit fitted him so much better for the throne than his more delicate-natured brother, might in the glow of one triumph seek another and much bolder one-namely, the abdication of James in his favour.

His suspicion was not altogether without foundation, and afforded reason enough for his hesitation. But there suddenly rang a cry throughout the land which scattered his doubts to the wind and made him one of the most resolute of the conspirators, although it did not alter his purpose of serving the King whilst he assisted to overthrow the myrmidons whose deeds were covering the country and the throne with ignominy.

The cry which stirred to the depths the passions of the people, high and low alike, and united them by a common bond of enmity to the government, was that Albany and Mar had been arrested.

The Duke was imprisoned in the castle of Edinburgh, and the Earl at Craigmillar.

Sir Robert Cochrane was recognized as the chief instrument of this arrest, and the warrant on which they had been seized bore his Majesty's sign-manual. Only too well-founded fears were entertained for the lives of the royal brothers when it became known that the crime they were charged with was that of having conspired against the person and authority of the monarch; and these fears seemed to obtain confirmation when it was discovered that

Mar had been secretly removed to a house in the Canongate, and placed under the care of Cochrane and his minions.

A general state of confusion followed; the dire cloud of civil war was lowering over the land; the very atmosphere seemed loaded with discontent and the premonitions of a bloody strife. The confusion was nowhere more apparent than at the Court itself. The guards were doubled in and about the palace; a regiment of trusty soldiers was summoned from Stirling and quartered in the town to be ready for any emergency to co-operate with the royal guards; the King did not stir abroad, but took his exercise in the quadrangle, and that only when the troops were under arms.

The Queen passed through the town several times, with no more than her ordinary attendants, as if to show her confidence in the people; but it was noticed that the good lady was unusually pale, and that despite her effort to seem content, an expression of sorrow was on her countenance. It was pitiable to see the anxiety with which she watched her son, Prince James, then only aged about eight years, and who, in happy ignorance of the brooding turmoil around him, was blithe and mischievous as a child should be.

Several nobles fled from the court at the first tidings of the catastrophe, and fearing that they might be implicated in it, either took immediate refuge in France, or in their own strongholds, gathered their retainers about them, and prepared for war.

Others of the barons remained doggedly in attendance -amongst them Angus-but there was gloom upon their brows; they wore stout hauberks of steel under their coats, they had various weapons secreted about their persons, so that whilst they appeared to wear only their swords-to which they were restricted in the presence of the King in time of peace-they were in reality armed to the teeth; and they kept their followers ready to spring to their rescue at the first bugle-note of alarm.

This state of matters continued for several days, during which nothing decisive occurred. Albany and Mar were still prisoners, and couriers were constantly passing to and fro between Linlithgow and Edinburgh.

At length there came a day on which the elements of

nature seemed to give voice to the terrors and wrath which were repressed in the bosoms of the people. All day the sun was obscured by big black clouds, and lamps had to be lit for the discharge of the most ordinary duties indoors. The rain poured steadily down without pause; fierce shafts of lightning broke through the dense clouds, and darted in fiery lines toward the earth; thunder rolled unceasingly, shaking the tenements of the town-shaking the palace itself to the foundations.

The storm maintained its fury far into the night; and in the midst of it a horseman, whose steed was reeking through the rain which dripped from its hide, and its mouth foaming, galloped from the direction of the capital up to the palace.

The rider, with his cloak and coat soaked and clinging close to his body, the plume of his hat draggled and broken, looked somewhat disreputable; and the excitement which gleamed in his eyes would have suggested that the wine-cup had been the prompter of his mad ride through the storm, had his voice not been so steady and his words pronounced with such clear precision.

As if he had been expected, the gates flew open at his first summons; his horse was taken charge of by a groom who appeared to have been in waiting for that purpose, and he, without having spoken more than half a dozen words, strode to a small door which was placed near one of the buttresses, and so artfully contrived that it looked like a part of the wall. Its existence would not have been suspected by any save the initiated.

The man who approached it now was one who knew its secret; and whilst the dense darkness of the night concealed him from the chance gaze of any of the sentinels, he opened the door and entered the palace.

The passage in which he found himself was like all of its kind, narrow and dark. But the traveller was well acquainted with its intricacies, and he passed along with a rapid step, ascended a spiral staircase, and at last stopped at what seemed to be a door.

After pausing a moment, apparently to discover what might be passing within, he gave a peculiar knock with the pommel of his poniard.

Presently a light gleamed upon his ghastly visage, with