THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 261 after his notable rebuke to Lesley and him for their unseemly choler * He carefully abstains from any hint of criticism pro or contra on the grim transaction; though one sees evidently that the inward feeling was that of deliverance from a hideous night- mare, press- ing on the soul of Knox and the eternal interests of Scotland. Knox individually had not the least concern with this affair of Beaton, nor for eight or ten months more did he personally come in contact with it at all. But ever since the capture of Wishart, the position of Knox at Langniddry had become insecure; and on rumour after rumour of peril approaching, he had been forced to wander about from one covert to another, with his three pupils ; till at length their two fathers had agreed that he should go with them to the castle of St. Andrews, literally at that time the one sure refuge ; siege of it by poor Arran, or the Duke of Chatelherault as he afterwards became, evidently languishing away into utter futility; and the place itself being, what the late Cardinal fancied he had made it, impregnable to any Scottish force.
- WotTcs of Knox, i. pp. 174-7.
