Page:Witty and entertaining exploits of George Buchanan (5).pdf/12

12 had ended the dispute with the bishops, he stripped off his shepherd's dress, and up through England he goes with all the haste imaginable, so that he arrived at the place from whence they set out three days before the judges, and went every day asking if they were come, so that he might not be suspected. As soon as they arrived, all that were concerned in the dispute and many more, came crowding in to hear what news from the Scottish shepherds, and to know what was done. No sooner had the three gentlemen declared what had passed between the bishops and the shepherds, whom they found on the Scots' border, but the old bishop made answer, And think you, said he, that a shepherd could answer these questions? It has been none else but the devil, for the Scots ministers themselves could not do it, they are but ignorant of such matters, a parcel of beardless boys. Then George thought it was time to take speech in hand. Well, my Lord Bishop, says George, you call them a parcel of ignorant beardless boys. — You have a great long beard yourself, and if grace was measured by beards, you bishops and the goats would have it all, and that will be quite averse to Scripture. What, says the bishop, are you a Scot? Yes, says George, I am a Scot. Well, says the bishop, and what is the difference between a Scot and a sot? Nothing at present, says George, but the breadth of the table; there being a table betwixt the bishop and George. So the bishop went of in a high passion, while the whole multitude were like co spilt their jaws with laughter.

About this time there was an act of Parliament for the benefit of murderers, that any person who committed murder, if they forfeited five hundred merks, which went under the name of ,