Ringan Gilhaize, or, The Covenanters Part 12

CHAPTER XXV

The triumph of the truth at St Andrews was followed by the victorious establishment, from that day thenceforward, of the Reformation in Scotland. The precautions taken by the deep forecasting mind of the Lord James Stuart, through the instrumentality of my grandfather and others, were of inexpressible benefit to the righteous cause. It was foreseen that the Queen Regent, who had come to Falkland, would be prompt to avenge the discomfiture of her sect, the papists; but the zealous friends of the Gospel, seconding the resolution of the Lords of the Congregation, enabled them to set all her power at defiance.

With an attendance of few more than a hundred horse, and about as many foot, the Earl of Argyle and the Lord James set out from St Andrews to frustrate, as far as the means they had concerted might, the wrathful measures which they well knew her Highness would take. But this small force was by the next morning increased to full three thousand fighting men; and so ardently did the spirit of enmity and resistance against the papacy spread, that the Queen Regent, when she came with her French troops and her Scottish levies, under the command of the Duke of Chatelherault, to Cupar, found that she durst not encounter in battle the growing strength of the Congregation, so she consented to a truce, and, as usual in her dissimulating policy, promised many things which she never intended to perform. But the protestants, by this time knowing that the papists never meant to keep their pactions with them, discovering the policy of her Highness, silently moved onward. They proceeded to Perth, and having expelled the garrison, took the town, and fired the abbey of Scone. But as my grandfather was not with them in those raids, being sent on the night of the great demolition at St Andrews to apprise the Earl of Glencairn, his patron, of the extremities to which matters had come there, it belongs not to the scope of my story to tell what ensued, farther than that from Perth the Congregation proceeded to Stirling, where they demolished the monasteries;--then they went to Lithgow, and herret the nests of the locusts there; and proceeding bravely on, purging the realm as they went forward, they arrived at Edinburgh, and constrained the Queen Regent, who was before them with her forces there, to pack up her ends and her awls, and make what speed she could with them to Dunbar. But foul as the capital then was, and covered with the leprosy of idolatry, they were not long in possession till they so medicated her with the searching medicaments of the Reformation, that she was soon sc.r.a.pit of all the scurf and kell of her abominations. There was not an idol or an image within her bounds that, in less than three days, was not beheaded like a traitor and trundled to the dogs, even with vehemence, as a thing that could be sensible of contempt. But as all these things are set forth at large in the chronicles of the kingdom, let suffice it to say that my grandfather continued for nearly two years after this time a trusted emissary among the Lords of the Congregation in their many arduous labours and perilous correspondencies, till the Earl of Glencairn was appointed to see idolatry banished and extirpated from the West Country; in which expedition his Lordship, being minded to reward my grandfather's services in the cause of the Reformation, invited him to be of his force; to which my grandfather, not jealousing the secularities of his patron's intents, joyfully agreed, hoping to see the corner-stone placed on the great edifice of the Reformation, which all good and pious men began then to think near completion.

Having joined the Earl's force at Glasgow, my grandfather went forward with it to Paisley. Before reaching that town, however, they were met by a numerous mult.i.tude of the people, half way between it and the castle of Cruikstone, and at their head my grandfather was blithened to see his old friend, the gentle monk Dominick Callender, in a soldier's garb, and with a ruddy and emboldened countenance, and by his side, with a sword manfully girded on his thigh, the worthy Bailie Pollock, whose nocturnal revels at the abbey had brought such dule to the winsome Maggy Napier.

For some reason, which my grandfather never well understood, there was more lenity shown to the abbey here than usual; but the monks were rooted out, the images given over to destruction, and the old bones and miraculous crucifixes were either burnt or interred. Less damage, however, was done to the buildings than many expected, partly through the exhortations of the magistrates, who were desirous to preserve so n.o.ble a building for a protestant church, but chiefly out of some paction or covenant secretly entered into anent the distribution of the domains and property, wherein the house of Hamilton was concerned, the Duke of Chatelherault, the head thereof, notwithstanding the papistical nature of his blood and kin, having some time before gone over to the cause of the Congregation.

The work of the Reformation being thus abridged at Paisley, the Earl of Glencairn went forward to Kilwinning, where he was less scrupulous; for having himself obtained a grant of the lands of the abbacy, he was fain to make a clean hand o't, though at the time my grandfather knew not of this.

As soon as the army reached the town, the soldiers went straight on to the abbey, and entering the great church, even while the monks were chanting their paternosters, they began to show the errand they had come on. Dreadful was the yell that ensued, when my grandfather, going up to the priest at the high altar, and pulling him by the scarlet and fine linen of his pageantry, bade him decamp, and flung the toys and trumpery of the ma.s.s after him as he fled away in fear.

This resolute act was the signal for the general demolition, and it began on all sides; my grandfather giving a leap, caught hold of a fine effigy of the Virgin Mary by the leg to pull it down; but it proved to be the one which James Coom the smith had mended, for the leg came off, and my grandfather fell backwards, and was for a moment stunned by his fall. A band of the monks, who were standing trembling spectators, made an attempt, at seeing this, to raise a shout of a miracle; but my grandfather, in the same moment recovering himself, seized the Virgin's timber leg, and flung it with violence at them, and it happened to strike one of the fattest of the flock with such a bir, that it was said the life was driven out of him. This, however, was not the case; for, although the monk was sorely hurt, he lived many a day after, and was obligated, in his auld years, when he was f.e.c.kless, to be carried from door to door on a hand-barrow begging his bread. The wives, I have heard tell, were kindly to him, for he was a jocose carl; but the weans little respected his grey hairs, and used to jeer him as auld Father Paternoster, for even to the last he adhered to his beads. It was thought, however, by a certain pious protestant gentlewoman of Irvine, that before his death he got a cast of grace; for one day, when he had been carried over to beg in that town, she gave him a luggie of kail ower het, which he stirred with the end of the ebony crucifix at his girdle, thereby showing, as she said, a symptom that it held a lower place in his spiritual affections than if he had been as sincere in his errors as he let wot.

CHAPTER XXVI

Although my grandfather had sustained a severe bruise by his fall, he was still enabled, after he got on his legs, to superintend the demolishment of the abbey till it was complete. But in the evening, when he took up his quarters in the house of Theophilus Lugton with Dominick Callender, who had brought on a party of the Paisley Reformers, he was so stiff and sore that he thought he would be incompetent to go over next day with the force that the Earl missioned to herry the Carmelyte convent at Irvine. Dominick Callender had, however, among other things, learnt, in the abbey at Paisley, the salutary virtues of many herbs, and how to decoct from them their healing juices; and he instructed Dame Lugton to prepare an efficacious medicament, that not only mitigated the anguish of the pain, but so suppled the stiffness that my grandfather was up by break of day, and ready for the march, a renewed man.

In speaking of this, he has been heard to say, it was a thing much to be lamented, that when the regular abolition of the monastries was decreed, no care was taken to collect the curious knowledges and ancient traditionary skill preserved therein, especially in what pertained to the cure of maladies; for it was his opinion--and many were of the same mind--that among the friars were numbers of potent physicians, and an art in the preparation of salves and syrups, that has not been surpa.s.sed by the learning of the colleges. But it is not meet that I should detain the courteous reader with such irrelevancies; the change, however, which has taken place in the realm in all things pertaining to life, laws, manners and conduct since the extirpation of the Roman idolatry, is, from the perfectest report, so wonderful, that the inhabitants can scarcely be said to be the same race of people; and, therefore, I have thought that such occasional ancestral intimations might, though they proved neither edifying nor instructive, be yet deemed worthy of notation in the brief s.p.a.ces which they happen herein to occupy. But now, returning from this digression, I will take up again the thread and clue of my story.

The Earl of Glencairn, after the abbey of Kilwinning was sacked, went and slept at Eglinton Castle, then a stalwart square tower, environed with a wall and moat, of a rude and unknown antiquity, standing on a gentle rising ground in the midst of a bleak and moorland domain. And his Lordship having ordered my grandfather to come to him betimes in the morning with twenty chosen men, the discreetest of the force, for a special service in which he meant to employ him, he went thither accordingly, taking with him Dominick Callender and twelve G.o.dly lads from Paisley, with seven others, whom he had remarked in the march from Glasgow, as under the manifest guidance of a sedate and pious temper.

When my grandfather with his company arrived at the castle yett, and he was admitted to the Earl his patron, his Lordship said to him, more as a friend than a master,--

"I am in the hope, Gilhaize, that, after this day, the toilsome and perilous errands on which, to the weal of Scotland and the true church, you have been so meritoriously missioned ever since you were retained in my service, will soon be brought to an end, and that you will enjoy in peace the reward you have earned so well, that I am better pleased in bestowing it than you can be in the receiving. But there is yet one task which I must put upon you. Hard by to this castle, less than a mile eastward, stands a small convent of nuns, who have been for time out of mind under the protection of the Lord Eglinton's family, and he, having got a grant of the lands belonging to their house, is desirous that they should be flitted in an amiable manner to a certain street in Irvine called the Kirkgate, where a lodging is provided for them. To do this kindly I have bethought myself of you, for I know not in all my force any one so well qualified. Have you provided yourself with the twenty douce men that I ordered you to bring hither?"

My grandfather told his Lordship that he had done as he was ordered.

"Then," resumed the Earl, "take them with you, and this mandate to the superior, and one of Eglinton's men to show you the way; and when you have conveyed them to their lodging, come again to me."

So my grandfather did as he was directed by the Earl, and marched eastward with his men till he came to the convent, which was a humble and orderly house, with a small chapel and a tower, that in after times, when all the other buildings were erased, was called the Stane Castle, and is known by that name even unto this day. It stood within a high wall, and a little gate, with a stone cross over the same, led to the porch.

Compa.s.sionating the simple and silly sisterhood within, who, by their sequestration from the world, were become as innocent as birds in a cage, my grandfather halted his men at some distance from the yett, and going forward, rung the bell; to the sound of which an aged woman answered, who, on being told he had brought a letter to the superior, gave him admittance, and conducted him to a little chamber, on the one side of which was a grating, where the superior, a short, corpulent matron, that seemed to bowl rather than to walk as she moved along, soon made her appearance within.

He told her in a meek manner, and with some gentle prefacing, the purpose of his visit, and showed her the Earl's mandate; to all which, for some time, she made no reply, but she was evidently much moved; at last she gave a wild skreigh, which brought the rest of the nuns, to the number of thirteen, all rushing into the room. Then ensued a dreadful tempest of all feminine pa.s.sions and griefs, intermingled with supplications to many a saint; but the powers and prerogatives of their saints were abolished in Scotland, and they received no aid.

Though their lamentation, as my grandfather used to say, could not be recited without moving to mirth, it was yet so full of maidenly fears and simplicity at the time to him, that it seemed most tender, and he was disturbed at the thought of driving such fair and helpless creatures into the bad world; but it was his duty;--so, after soothing them as well as he could, and representing how unavailing their refusal to go would be, the superior composed her grief, and exhorting the nuns to be resigned to their cruel fate, which, she said, was not so grievous as that which many of the saints had in their day suffered, they all became calm and prepared for the removal.

My grandfather told them to take with them whatsoever they best liked in the house; and it was a moving sight to see their simplicity therein.

One was content with a flower-pot; another took a cage in which she had a lintie; some of them half-finished patterns of embroidery. One aged sister, of a tall and spare form, brought away a flask of eye-water which she had herself distilled; but, saving the superior, none of them thought of any of the valuables of the chapel, till my grandfather reminded them, that they might find the value of silver and gold hereafter, even in the spiritual-minded town of Irvine.

There was one young and graceful maiden among them who seemed but little moved by the event; and my grandfather was melted to sympathy and sorrow by the solemn serenity of her deportment, and the little heed she took of anything. Of all the nuns she was the only one who appeared to have nothing to care for; and when they were ready, and came forth to the gate, instead of joining in their piteous wailings as they bade their peaceful home a long and last farewell, she walked forward alone. No sooner, however, had she pa.s.sed the yett, than, on seeing the armed company without, she stood still like a statue, and, uttering a shrill cry, fainted away, and fell to the ground. Every one ran to her a.s.sistance; but when her face was unveiled to give her air, Dominick Callender, who was standing by, caught her in his arms, and was enchanted by a fond and strange enthusiasm. She was indeed no other than the young maiden of Paisley, for whom he had found his monastic rows the heavy fetters of a bondage that made life scarcely worth possessing; and when she was recovered, an interchange of great tenderness took place between them, at which the superior of the convent waxed very wroth, and the other nuns were exceedingly scandalised. But Magdalene Sauchie, for so she was called, heeded them not; for, on learning that popery was put down in the land by law, she openly declared that she renounced her vows; and during the walk to Irvine, which was jimp a mile, she leant upon the arm of her lover: and they were soon after married, Dominick settling in that town as a doctor of physic, whereby he afterwards earned both gold and reputation.

But to conclude the history of the convent, which my grandfather had in this gentle manner herret, the nuns, on reaching the foot of the Kirkgate, where the Countess of Eglinton had provided a house for them, began to weep anew with great vehemence, fearing that their holy life was at an end, and that they would be tempted of men to enter into the temporalities of the married state; but the superior, on hearing this mournful apprehension, mounted upon the steps of the Tolbooth stair, and, in the midst of a great concourse of people, she lifted her hands on high, and exclaimed, as with the voice of a prophetess, "Fear not, my chaste and pious dochters; for your sake and for my sake, I have an a.s.surance at this moment from the Virgin Mary herself, that the calamity of the marriage-yoke will never be known in the Kirkgate of Irvine, but that all maidens who hereafter may enter, or be born to dwell therein, shall live a life of single blessedness unasked and untempted of men."

Which delightful prediction the nuns were so happy to hear, that they dried their tears, and chanted their Ave Maria, joyfully proceeding towards their appointed habitation. It stood, as I have been told, on the same spot where King James the Sixth's school was afterwards erected, and endowed out of the spoils of Carmelytes' monastery, which, on the same day, was, by another division of the Earl of Glencairn's power, sacked and burnt to the ground.

CHAPTER XXVII

When my grandfather had, in the manner rehea.r.s.ed, disposed of those sisters of simplicity in the Kirkgate of Irvine, he returned back in the afternoon to the Earl of Glencairn at Eglinton Castle to report what he had done; and his Lordship again, in a most laudatory manner, commended his prudence and singular mildness of nature, mentioning to the Earl and Countess of Eglinton, then present with him, divers of the missions wherein he had been employed, extolling his zeal, and above all his piety. And the Lady Eglinton, who was a household character, striving, with great frugality, to augment the substance of her Lord, by keeping her maidens from morning to night eydent at work, some at their broidering drums, and some at their distaffs, managing all within the castle that pertained to her feminine part in a way most exemplary to the ladies of her time and degree, indeed to ladies of all times and degrees, promised my grandfather that when he was married, she would give his wife something to help the plenishing of their house, for the meek manner in which he had comported himself toward her friend, the superior of the nuns. Then the Earl of Glencairn said,--

"Gilhaize, madam, is now his own master, and may choose a bride when it pleases himself; for I have covenanted with my friend, your Lord, to let him have the mailing of Quharist, in excambio for certain of the lands of late pertaining to the abbacy of Kilwinning, the which lie more within the vicinage of this castle; and, Gilhaize, here is my warrant to take possession."

With which words the Earl rose and presented him with a charter for the lands, signed by Eglinton and himself, and he shook him heartily by the hand, saying, that few in all the kingdom had better earned the guerdon of their service than he had done.

Thus it was that our family came to be settled in the shire of Ayr; for after my grandfather had taken possession of his fee, and mindful of the vow he had made in the street of Edinburgh on that blessed morning when John Knox, the champion of the true church, arrived from Geneva, he went into the east country to espouse Elspa Ruet, if he found her thereunto inclined, which happily he soon did. For their spirits were in unison; and from the time they first met, they had felt toward one another as if they had been acquaint in loving-kindness before, which made him sometimes say, that it was to him a proof and testimony that the souls of mankind have, perhaps, a living knowledge of each other before they are born into this world.

At their marriage, it was agreed that they should take with them into the west Agnes Kilspinnie, one of the misfortunate bailie's daughters.

As for her mother, from the day of the overthrow and destruction of the papistry at St Andrews, she had never been heard of; all the tidings her sister could gather concerning her were, that the same night she had been conveyed away by some of the Archbishop's servants, but whither no one could tell. So they came with Agnes Kilspinnie to Edinburgh; and, for a ploy to their sober wedding, they resolved to abide there till the coming of Queen Mary from France, that they might partake of the shows and pastimes then preparing for her reception. They, however, during the season of their sojourn, feasted far better than on royal fare, in the gospel banquet of John Knox's sermons, of which they enjoyed the inexpressible beat.i.tude three several Sabbath-days before the Queen arrived.

Of the joyous preparations to greet Queen Mary withal neither my grandfather nor grandmother were ever wont to discourse much at large, for they were holy-minded persons, little esteeming the pageantries of this world. But my aunt, for Agnes Kilspinnie being in progress of time married to my father's fourth brother, became sib to me in that degree, was wont to descant and enlarge on the theme with much wonderment and loquacity, describing the marvellous fabrics that were to have been hung with tapestry to hold the ladies, and the fountains that were to have spouted wine, which n.o.body was to be allowed to taste, the same being only for an ostentation, in order that the fact thereof might be recorded in the chronicles for after-times. And great things have I likewise heard her tell of the paraphernalia which the magistrates and town-council were getting ready. No sleep, in a sense, she used to say, did Maccalzean of Cliftonhall, who was then provost, get for more than a fortnight. From night to morning the sagacious bailies sat in council, exercising their sagacity to contrive devices to pleasure the Queen, and to help the custom of their own and their neighbours' shops. Busy and proud men they were, and no smaller were the worshipful deacons of the crafts. It was just a surprise and consternation to everybody, to think how their weak backs could bear such a burden of cares. No time had they for their wonted jocosity. To those who would fain have speered the news, they shook their heads in a Solomon-like manner, and hastened by.

And such a battle and tribulation as they had with their va.s.sals, the magistrates of Leith! who, in the most contumacious manner, insisted that their chief bailie should be the first to welcome the Sovereign on the sh.o.r.e. This pretence was thought little short of rebellion, and the provost and the bailies, and all the wise men that sat in council with them, together with the help of their learned a.s.sessors, continued deliberating anent the same for hours together. It was a dreadful business that for the town of Edinburgh. And the opinions of the judges of the land, and the lords of the council, were taken, and many a device tried to overcome the upsetting, as it was called, of the Leith magistrates; but all was of no avail. And it was thought there would have been a fight between the bailies of Leith and the bailies of Edinburgh, and that blood would have been shed before this weighty question, so important to the dearest interests of the commonweal of Scotland, could be determined. But, in the midst of their contention, and before their preparations were half finished, the Queen arrived in Leith Roads; and the news came upon them like the cry to the foolish virgins of the bridegroom in the street. Then they were seen flying to their respective places of abode to dress themselves in their coats of black velvet, their doublets of crimson satin, and their hose of the same colour which they had prepared for the occasion. Anon they met in the council-chamber--what confusion reigned there! Then how they flew down the street! Provost Maccalzean, with the silver keys in his hand, and the eldest bailie with the crimson-velvet cod, whereon they were to be delivered to her Majesty, following as fast as any member of a city corporation could be reasonably expected to do. But how the provost fell, and how the bailies and town-council tumbled over him, and how the crowd shouted at the sight, are things whereof to understand the greatness it is needful that the courteous reader should have heard my aunty Agnes herself rehea.r.s.e the extraordinary particularities.

Meanwhile the Queen left her galley in a small boat, and the bailies of Leith had scarcely time to reach the pier before she was on sh.o.r.e. Alas!

it was an ill-omened landing. Few were spectators, and none cheered the solitary lady, who, as she looked around and heard no loyal greeting, nor beheld any show of hospitable welcome, seemed to feel as if the spirit of the land was sullen at her approach, and grudged at her return to the dark abodes of her fierce ancestors. In all the way from Leith to Holyrood she never spoke, but the tear was in her eye and the sigh in her bosom; and though her people gathered when it was known she had landed, and began at last to shout, it was owre late to prevent the mournful forebodings, which taught her to expect but disappointments and sorrows from subjects so torn with their own factions, as to lack even the courtesies due to their sovereign, a stranger, and the fairest lady of all her time.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Soon after Queen Mary's return from France, my grandfather, with his wife and Agnes Kilspinnie, came from Edinburgh and took up their residence on his own free mailing of Quharist, where the Lady Eglinton was as good as her word in presenting to them divers articles of fine napery, and sundry things of plenishing both for ornament and use; and there he would have spent his days in blameless tranquillity, serving the Lord, but for the new storm that began to gather over the church, whereof it is needful that I should now proceed to tell some of the circ.u.mstantials.

No sooner had that thoughtless Princess, if indeed one could be so called, who, though reckless of all consequences, was yet double beyond the imagination of man; no sooner, I say, had she found herself at home, than, with all the craft and blandishments of her winning airs and peerless beauty, she did set herself to seduce the Lords of the Congregation from the sternness wherewith they had thrown down, and were determined to resist, the restoration of the Roman idolatry; and with some of them she succeeded so far, that the popish priests were hearkened, and, knowing her avowed partiality for their sect, the Beast began to shoot out its horns again, and they dared to perform the abomination of the ma.s.s in different quarters of the kingdom.

It is, no doubt, true, that the Queen's council, by proclamation, feigned to discountenance that resuscitation of idolatry; but the words of their edict being backed by no demonstration of resolution, save in the case of a few worthy gentlemen in the shire of Ayr and in Galloway, who took up some of the offenders in their district and jurisdiction, the evil continued to strike its roots, and to bud and nourish in its pestiferous branches.

When my grandfather heard of these things, his spirit was exceedingly moved, and he got no rest in the night, with the warsling of troubled thoughts and pious fears. Some new call, he foresaw, would soon be made on the protestants, to stand forth again in the gap that the Queen's arts had sapped in the bulwarks of their religious liberty, and he resolved to be ready against the hour of danger. So, taking his wife and Agnes Kilspinnie with him, he went in the spring to Edinburgh, and hired a lodging for them; and on the same night he presented himself at the lodging of the Lord James Stuart, who had some time before been created Earl of Murray; but the Earl was gone with the Queen to Loch Leven. Sir Alexander Douglas, however, the master of his Lordship's horse, was then on the eve of following him with John Knox, to whom the Queen had sent a peremptory message, requiring his attendance; and Sir Alexander invited my grandfather to come with them; the which invitation he very joyfully accepted, on account of the happy occasion of travelling in the sanctified company of that brave worthy.

In the journey, however, save in the boat when they crossed the ferry, he showed but little of his precious conversation; for the knight and the Reformer rode on together some short distance before their train, earnestly discoursing, and seemingly they wished not to be overheard.

But when they were all seated in the ferry-boat, the ardour of the preacher, which on no occasion would be reined in, led him to continue speaking, by which it would seem that they had been conversing anent the Queen's prejudices in matters of religion and the royal authority.

"When I last spoke with her Highness," said John Knox, "she laid sore to my charge, that I had brought the people to receive a religion different from what their princes allowed, asking sharply, if this was not contrary to the Divine command, which enjoins that subjects should obey their rulers; so that I was obliged to contend plainly, that true religion derived its origin and authority, not from princes, but from G.o.d; that princes were often most ignorant respecting it, and that subjects never could be bound to frame their religious sentiments according to the pleasure of their rulers, else the Hebrews ought to have conformed to the idolatry of Pharaoh, and Daniel and his a.s.sociates to that of Nebuchadnezzar, and the primitive Christians to that of the Roman emperors."

"And what could her Highness answer to this?" said Sir Alexander.

"She lacketh not the gift of a shrewd and ready wit," replied Master Knox; for she nimbly remarked, "That though it was as I had said, yet none of those men raised the sword against their princes;"--which enforced me to be more subtle than I was minded to have been, and to say, "that nevertheless, they did resist, for those who obey not the commandments given them, do in verity resist." "Ay," cried her Highness, "but not with the sword," which was a thrust not easy to be turned aside, so that I was constrained to speak out, saying, "G.o.d, madam, had not given them the means and the power." Then said she, still more eagerly, "Think you that subjects, having the power, may resist their princes?" And she looked with a triumphant smile, as if she had caught me in a trap; but I replied, "If princes exceed their bounds, no doubt they may be resisted, even by power. For no greater honour or greater obedience is to be given to kings and princes than G.o.d has commanded to be given to father or mother. But the father may be struck with a frenzy, in which he would slay his children; in such a case, if the children arise, join together, apprehend the father, take the sword from him, bind his hands and keep him in prison till the frenzy be over, think you, madam," quo' I, "that the children do any wrong? Even so is it with princes that would slay the children of G.o.d that are subject to them. Their blind zeal is nothing but frenzy, and therefore to take the power from them till they be brought to a more sober mind, is no disobedience to princes, but a just accordance to the will of G.o.d. So I doubt not," continued the Reformer, "I shall again have to sustain the keen encounter of her Highness' wit in some new controversy."

This was the chief substance of what my grandfather heard pa.s.s in the boat; and when they were again mounted, the knight and preacher set forward as before, some twenty paces or so in advance of the retinue.