The monastery; The abbot.

410 WAVEiRLEY NOVELS.
the silence, she addressed Lord Lindesay, with a glance at the large and
cumbrous sword which he wore, as already mentioned, hanging from his
neck.
"You have there a trusty and a weighty travelling companion, my lord.
I trust you expected to meet with no enemy here, against whom such a
formidable weapon could be necessary? it is, methinks, somewhat a singular
ornament for a court, though I am, as I well need to be, too much of a
Stuart to fear a sword."
"It is not the first time, madam," replied Lindesay, bringing round the
weapon so as to rest its point on the ground, and leaning one hand on th3
huge cross-handle, "it is not the first time that this weapon has intruded
itself into the presence of the House of Stewart."
"Possibly, my lord," replied the Queen, " it may have done service to my
ancestors Your ancestors were men of loyalty."
"Ay, madam," replied he, " service it hath done; but such as kings love
neither to acknowledge nor to reward. It was the service which the knife
renders to the tree when trimming it to the quick, and depriving it of
the superfluous growth of rank and unfruitful suckers, which rob it of
nourishment."
"You talk riddles, my lord," said Mary; "I will hope the explanation
carries nothing insulting with it."
"You shall judge, madam," answered Lindesay. " With this good sword
was Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, girded on the memorable day when
he acquired the name of Bell-the-Cat, for dragging from the presence of
your great grandfather, the third James of the race, a crew of minions,
flatterers, and favourites whom he hanged over the bridge of Lauder, as a
warning to such reptiles how they approach a Scottish throne. With this
same weapon, the same inflexible champion of Scottish honour and nobility
slew at one blow Spens of Kilspindie, a courtier of your grandfather, James
the fourth, who had dared to speak lightly of him in the royal presence.
They fought near the brook of Fala; and Bell-the-Cat, with this blade,
sheared through the thigh of his opponent, and lopped the limb as easily as
a shepherd's boy slices a twig from a sapling."
"My lord," replied the Queen, reddening, "my nerves are too good to be
alarmed even by this terrible history May I ask how a blade so illustrious
passed from the House of Douglas to that of Lindesay?-Methinks it should
have been preserved as a consecrated relic, by a family who have held all
that they could do against their king, to be done in favour of their country."
"Nay, madam," said Melville, anxiously interfering, "ask not that
question of Lord Lindesay - And you, my lord, for shame- for decencyforbear to reply to it."
"It is time that this lady should hear the truth," replied Lindesay.
" And be assured," said the Queen, " that she will be moved to anger by
none that you can tell her, my lord. There are cases in which just scorn
has always the mastery over just anger."
"Then know," said Lindesay, " that upon the field of Carberry-hill, when
that false and infamous traitor and murderer, James, sometime Earl of
Bothwell, and nicknamed Duke of Orkney, offered to do personal battle with
any of the associated nobles who came to drag him to justice, I accepted his
challenge, and was by the noble Earl of Morton gifted with his good sword
that I might therewith fight it out- Ah! so help me Heaven, had his
presumption been one grain more, or his cowardice one grain less, I should
have done such work with this good steel on his traitorous corpse, that the
hounds and carrion-crows should have found their morsels daintily carved
to their use!"
The Queen's courage well-nigh gave way at the mention of Bothwell's
name - a name connected with such a train of guilt, shame, and disaster.
But the prolonged boast of Lindesay gave her time to rally herself, and to