The nobles glanced significantly at each other, and Huntly observed, with a smile—
‘That is another word for thief in your country, is it not?’
Dick looked extremely demure and unconscious, as he replied—
‘Na, it’s broken men they ca’ thieves on the border—just like Catherans an’ Gordons an’ that in the North.’
The council could not forbear a laugh, and even the Queen bent over her work to conceal her amusement.
‘Faith, Huntly, he shivered his lance fairly against thy breastplate this time,’ said Lord Seton; and Huntly, throwing his portly person back in his chair, vowed good-humouredly that the definition was a sufficiently precise one at either extremity of the kingdom.
The borderer’s examination then proceeded.
‘Was it by your chief’s orders that you defended the door in the High Street last night?’
‘I took nae orders yestre’en frae the warden,’ replied Dick, ‘forbye to see to the naigs about our back-coming.’
‘Would you have ventured to draw upon the Earl of Arran—upon my son,’ asked the duke, ‘without your chief’s express commands to slay him if you came across him?’