"
It is remarkable that, while passing through the small town of
Renfrew, some partisans, adherents of the House of Lennox, attempting
to arrest Queen Mary and her attendants, were obliged to make way for
her not without slaughter.]
They set off accordingly--Roland lingered a moment to command the
attendants of the Knight of Avenel to convey their master to the
Castle of Crookstone, and to say that he demanded from him no other
condition of liberty, than his word, that he and his followers would
keep secret the direction in which the Queen fled. As he turned his
rein to depart, the honest countenance of Adam Woodcock stared upon
him with an expression of surprise, which, at another time, would have
excited his hearty mirth. He had been one of the followers who had
experienced the weight of Roland's arm, and they now knew each other,
Roland having put up his visor, and the good yeoman having thrown away
his barret-cap, with the iron bars in front, that he might the more
readily assist his master. Into this barret-cap, as it lay on the
ground, Roland forgot not to drop a few gold pieces, (fruits of the
Queen's liberality,) and with a signal of kind recollection and
enduring friendship, he departed at full gallop to overtake the Queen,
the dust raised by her train being already far down the hill.
"It is not fairy-money," said honest Adam, weighing and handling the
gold--"And it was Master Roland himself, that is a certain thing--the
same open hand, and, by our Lady!" (shrugging his shoulders)--"the same
ready fist!--My Lady will hear of this gladly, for she mourns for him
as if he were her son.
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