When my grandfather had returned to the vintner's, he found that Elspa
had conferred with Lucky Kilfauns concerning the afflicting end and
intent of her journey to St Andrews; and that decent woman sympathising
with her sorrow, telling her of many woful things of the same sort she
had herself known, and how a cousin of her mother's, by the father's
side, had been wiled away from her home by the abbot of Melrose, and
never heard tell of for many a day, till she was discovered, in the
condition of a disconsolate nun, in a convent, far away in Nithsdale.
But the great difficulty was to get access to Marion Ruet's bower, for
so, from that day, was Mrs Kilspinnie called again by her sister; and,
after no little communing, it was proposed by Lucky Kilfauns, that Elspa
should go with her to the house of a certain Widow Dingwall, and there
for a time take up her abode, and that my grandfather, after putting on
the Prior's livery, should look about him for the gilly, his former
guide, and, through him, make a tryst, to meet the dissolute madam at
the widow's house. Accordingly the matter was so settled, and while
Lucky Kilfauns, in a most motherly and pitiful manner, carried Elspa
Ruet to the house of the Widow Dingwall, my grandfather went back to the
priory to get the cloak and arms of the Lord James' livery.
When he was equipped, he then went fearless all about the town, and met
with no molestation; only he saw at times divers of the Archbishop's
men, who recollected him, and who, as he passed, stopped and looked
after him, and whispered to one another and muttered fierce words. Much
he desired to fall in with that humane Samaritan, Leonard Meldrum, the
seneschal of the castle, and fain would he have gone thither to inquire
for him; but, until he had served the turn of the mournful Elspa Ruet,
he would not allow any wish of his own to lead him to aught wherein
there was the hazard of any trouble that might balk her pious purpose.
After daunering from place to place, and seeing nothing of the
stripling, he was obligated to give twalpennies to a stabler's lad to
search for him, who soon brought him to the vintner's, where my
grandfather, putting on the look of a losel and roister, gave him a
groat, and bade him go to the madam's dwelling, and tell her that he
would be, from the gloaming, all the night at the Widow Dingwall's,
where he would rejoice exceedingly if she could come and spend an hour
or two.
The stripling, so fee'd, was right glad, and made himself so familiar
towards my grandfather, that Lucky Kilfauns observing it, the better to
conceal their plot, feigned to be most obstreperous, flyting at him with
all her pith and bir, and chiding my grandfather, as being as scant o'
grace as a gaberlunzie, or a novice of the Dominicans. However, they
worked so well together, that the gilly never misdoubted either her or
my grandfather, and took the errand to his mistress, from whom he soon
came with a light foot and a glaikit eye, saying she would na fail to
keep the tryst.
That this new proof of the progress she was making in guilt and sin
might be the more tenderly broken to her chaste and gentle sister, Lucky
Kilfauns herself undertook to tell Elspa what had been covenanted to
prepare her for the meeting. My grandfather would fain have had a milder
mediatrix, for the vintner's worthy wife was wroth against the
concubine, calling her offence redder than the crimson of schism, and
blacker than the broth of the burning brimstone of heresy, with many
other vehement terms of indignation, none worse than the wicked woman
deserved, though harsh to be heard by a sister, that grieved for her
unregenerate condition far more than if she had come from Crail to St
Andrews only to lay her head in the coffin.
The paction between all parties being thus covenanted, and Lucky
Kilfauns gone to prepare the fortitude of Elspa Ruet for the trial it
was to undergo, my grandfather walked out alone to pass the time till
the trysted hour. It was then late in the afternoon, and as he sauntered
along he could not but observe that something was busy with the minds
and imaginations of the people. Knots of the douce and elderly
shopkeepers were seen standing in the streets with their heads laid
together; and as he walked towards the priory he met the provost between
two of the bailies, with the dean of guild, coming sedately, and with
very great solemnity in their countenances, down the crown of the
causey, heavily laden with magisterial fears. He stopped to look at
them, and he remarked that they said little to one another, but what
they did say seemed to be words of weight; and when any of their friends
and acquaintances happened to pass, they gave them a nod that betokened
much sadness of heart.
The cause of all this anxiety was not, in its effects and influence,
meted only to the men and magistrates: the women partook of them even to
a greater degree. They were seen passing from house to house, out at one
door and into the next, and their faces were full of strange matters.
One in particular, whom my grandfather noticed coming along, was often
addressed with brief questions, and her responses were seemingly as
awful as an oracle's. She was an aged carlin, who, in her day, had been
a midwife, but having in course of time waxed old, and being then
somewhat slackened in the joints of the right side by a paralytic, she
eked out the weakly remainder of her thread of life in visitations among
the families that, in her abler years, she had assisted to increase and
multiply. She was then returning home after spending the day, as my
grandfather afterwards heard from the Widow Dingwall, with the provost's
daughter, at whose birth she had been the howdy, and who, being married
some months, had sent to consult her anent a might-be occasion.
As she came toddling along, with pitty-patty steps, in a rose satin
mantle that she got as a blithemeat gift when she helped the young
master of Elcho into the world, drawn close over her head, and leaning
on a staff with her right hand, while in her left she carried a Flanders
pig of strong ale, with a clout o'er the mouth to keep it from jawping,
scarcely a door or entry mouth was she allowed to pass, but she was
obligated to stop and speak, and what she said appeared to be tidings of
no comfort.
All these things bred wonder and curiosity in the breast of my
grandfather, who, not being acquaint with any body that he saw, did not
like for some time to inquire; but at last his diffidence and modesty
were overcome by the appearance of a strong party of the Archbishop's
armed retainers, followed by a mob of bairns and striplings, yelling,
and scoffing at them with bitter taunts and many titles of derision; and
on inquiring at a laddie what had caused the consternation in the town,
and the passage of so many soldiers from the castle, he was told that
they expected John Knox the day following, and that he was mindet to
preach, but the Archbishop has resolved no to let him. It was even so;
for the Lord James Stuart, who possessed a deep and forecasting spirit,
had, soon after my grandfather's arrival with the Reformer's answer,
made the news known to try the temper of the inhabitants and burghers.
But, saving this marvelling and preparation, nothing farther of a public
nature took place that night; so that, a short time before the hour
appointed, my grandfather went to the house of Widow Dingwall, where he
found Elspa Ruet sitting very disconsolate in a chamber by herself,
weeping bitterly at the woful account which Lucky Kilfauns had brought
of her sister's loose life, and fearing greatly that all her kind
endeavours and humble prayers would be but as water spilt on the ground.