whether he had, for some unknown reason or capricious change of
mind, voluntarily left the service, none of his countrymen in the
camp of the Allies could form even a conjecture. Meantime his
creditors at home became clamorous, entered into possession of
his property, and threatened his person, should he be rash enough
to return to Scotland. These additional disadvantages aggravated
Lady Bothwell's displeasure against the fugitive husband; while
her sister saw nothing in any of them, save what tended to
increase her grief for the absence of him whom her imagination
now represented--as it had before marriage--gallant, gay, and
affectionate.

About this period there appeared in Edinburgh a man of singular
appearance and pretensions. He was commonly called the Paduan
Doctor, from having received his education at that famous
university. He was supposed to possess some rare receipts in
medicine, with which, it was affirmed, he had wrought remarkable
cures. But though, on the one hand, the physicians of Edinburgh
termed him an empiric, there were many persons, and among them
some of the clergy, who, while they admitted the truth of the
cures and the force of his remedies, alleged that Doctor Baptista
Damiotti made use of charms and unlawful arts in order to obtain
success in his practice. The resorting to him was even solemnly
preached against, as a seeking of health from idols, and a
trusting to the help which was to come from Egypt. But the
protection which the Paduan Doctor received from some friends of
interest and consequence enabled him to set these imputations at
defiance, and to assume, even in the city of Edinburgh, famed as
it was for abhorrence of witches and necromancers, the dangerous
character of an expounder of futurity. It was at length rumoured