"Look to it, my
lord, you will one day lose your life by too much confidence."
"And you will lose your friends by being too readily suspicious,"
answered Murray. "Enough of this--let me hear thy tidings."
"Sir John Foster," said Morton, "is about to send a party into Scotland
to waste the Halidome."
"How! without waiting my presence and permission?" said Murray--"he is
mad--will he come as an enemy into the Queen's country?"
"He has Elizabeth's express orders," answered Morton, "and they are
not to be trifled with. Indeed, his march has been more than once
projected and laid aside during the time we have been here, and has
caused much alarm at Kennaquhair. Boniface, the old Abbot, has
resigned, and whom think you they have chosen in his place?"
"No one surely," said Murray; "they would presume to hold no election
until the Queen's pleasure and mine were known?"
Morton shrugged his shoulders--"They have chosen the pupil of old
Cardinal Beatoun, that wily determined champion of Rome, the
bosom-friend of our busy Primate of Saint Andrews. Eustace, late the
Sub-Prior of Kennaquhair, is now its Abbot, and, like a second Pope
Julius, is levying men and making musters to fight with Foster if he
comes forward."
"We must prevent that meeting," said Murray, hastily; "whichever
party wins the day, it were a fatal encounter for us--Who commands the
troop of the Abbot?"
"Our faithful old friend, Julian Avenel, nothing less," answered Morton.
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