retainers of Gowrie, and some citizens of Perth. Not a vestige of plot
or plan by Gowrie and his party was discoverable. His friends
maintained that he had meant, on that day, to leave Perth for
'Lothian,' that is, for his castle at Dirleton, near North Berwick,
whither he had sent most of his men and provisions. James had summoned
the Master to meet him at Falkland, they said, and Gowrie had never
expected the return of the Master with the King.

James's own version was given in a public letter of the night of the
events, which we only know through the report of Nicholson, the
English resident at Holyrood (August 6), and Nicholson only repeated
what Elphinstone, the secretary, told him of the contents of the
letter, written to the King's dictation at Falkland by David Moysie, a
notary. At the end of August James printed and circulated a full
narrative, practically identical with Nicholson's report of
Elphinstone's report of the contents of the Falkland letter of August
5.

The King's narrative is universally accepted on all hands, till we
come to the point where he converses with Alexander Ruthven, at
Falkland, before the buck-hunt began. There was such an interview,
lasting for about a quarter of an hour, but James alone knew its
nature. He says that, after an unusually low obeisance, Ruthven told
the following tale:--Walking alone, on the previous evening, in the
fields near Perth, he had met 'a base-like fellow, unknown to him,
with a cloak cast about his mouth,' a common precaution to avoid
recognition. Asked who he was, and what his errand 'in so solitary a
part, being far from all ways,' the fellow was taken aback. Ruthven
seized him, and, under his arm, found 'a great wide pot, all full of
coined gold in great pieces.' Ruthven keeping the secret to himself,