‘I ken but what Johnnie Swinton brought me in a letter frae the Abbot of Coldingham, that my father—the saints be with him!—had been set on and slain by yon accursed Master of Albany—would that his thrapple were in my grip!—that he had sent you southwards to the King, and that your sister was in St. Abbs. Is it so?’
Malcolm had barely time to make a sign of affirmation, when the King hurried him on. ‘I grieve to balk you of your family tidings, but delay will be ill for one or other of us; so fare thee well, Sir Patrick, till better times.’
He shook the knight’s hand as he spoke, cut short his protestations, and leapt down the bank, saying in a low voice, as he stretched out his hand and helped Malcolm down after him, ‘He would have known me again for your guest if we had stood many moments longer; he looked hard at me as it was; and neither in England nor Scotland may that journey of mine be blazed abroad.’
Malcolm was on the whole rather relieved; he could not help feeling guilty towards Patrick, and unless he could have full time for explanation, he preferred not falling in with him.
And at the same moment Kitson stepped towards the King. ‘Sir, you are an honest man, and we crave your pardon if we said aught that seemed in doubt thereof.’
James laughed, shaking each honest hand, and saying, ‘At least, good sirs, do not always think Scot and traitor the same word; and thank you for backing me so gallantly.’
‘I’d wish no better than to back such as you, Sir,’ said Kitson heartily; and James then turned to Ralf Percy, and asked him what he thought of the Douglas face to face.
‘A dour old block!’ said Ralf. ‘If those runaways had but stayed within us, the hoary ruffian should have had his lesson from a Percy.’
James smiled, for the grim giant was still a good deal more than a match for the slim, rosy-faced stripling of the house of Percy, who nevertheless simply deemed his nation and family made him invincible by either Scot or Frenchman.
The difficulties of their progress, however, entirely occupied them. Having diverged from the regular track, they had to make their way through the inundated meadows; sometimes among deep pools, sometimes in quagmires, or ever hedges; while the water that drenched them was fast freezing, and darkness came down on them. All stumbled or were bogged at different times; and Malcolm, shorter and weaker than the rest, and his lameness becoming more felt than usual, could not help impeding their progress, and at last was so spent that but for the King’s strong arm he would have spent the night in a bog-hole.