“D’ye ken those papers, Maister Buchanan?” she cried, flinging the notes down on the table under the pedagogue’s nose.
“Vera weel,” he answered—“and who stole them from my room?”
“The Lord shall justify the theft,” she cried, “since it hath revealed a treason to His anointed.”
Erskine, half bored, half amused, bade the pedagogue take up the notes and explain them as he could.
“They are for a work I am projecting,” said Buchanan—“De Jure Regni apud Scotos—which is just a compendium of poleetical philosophy.”
“Read,” cried the Countess; and, without hesitation, Buchanan obeyed, giving the whole of what is here only the gist:
“If a King should do things tending to the dissolution of human society, for the preservation of which he has been made, he is a tyrant, ergo an enemy of all mankind. Is there not a just cause of war against such an enemy, and is it not lawful in such war for the whole people, or one, or any, to kill that enemy? May not any out of all mankind lawfully kill a tyrant, as one who has broken the bond made between himself and mankind?”
“Haud!” cried her ladyship, rabid to seize her point. “What ca’ ye that, brother, but a direct incitement to treason? Heard ye aye such sedeetious blether! A bond, the deil hae’t! I tell ye, ye misleared pedant, there’s na bond save between the Lord and His anointed, and whosoever thinks otherwise, or designs in ony way to injure the King, is guilty of treason to the Lord.”
“I submit,” said Buchanan. “It is treason to design in ony way to injure the King. Oot of your ain mouth, woman, do you stand convict.”
He took a paper from his pocket and threw it on the table.