"This piece of cold steel!" replied the black giant, touching the iron hilt of his Scottish whinger.
"How, with a murrain! is it thus that thou servest thy friends at supper?"
"When they grow captious, capricious, or quarrelsome. We came to deadly feud about a few scores of nowte we had forayed on the borders of the debateable land from the clan of the Graemes, and so"——
"Thou thinkest the king may so sup, and so die?"
Ormiston answered by a short dry cough.
"True," continued Bothwell, "there are strange whispers abroad anent the Earl of Moray and his intrigues; but here comes the king! Place for his grace. Heaven save your majesty!"
"My Lord Earl, a fair good-morning—Ormiston and Bolton, my service to ye, sirs!" said the young king, bowing with that grace which marked all his actions; for his suit of mail, which seemed absolutely to blaze in the meridian sun, fitted his handsome form with the flexibility of silk. His eyes were dark and penetrating, but his face seemed in its wan ghastliness like the visage of one who had long been in the tomb; and Bothwell, when he scanned those noble features, so livid and wasted by sickness and dissipation, and compared his slight boyish figure with Black Ormiston's powerful frame, a sentiment of pity rose in his breast, and he shrunk from the dark hints which, partly in banter, and partly in the ruffianly spirit of the age, the knights had given him. These gentle thoughts were instantly put to flight by Darnley's insolent manner.
"I marvel," said he, with a marked sneer, "that the gay Bothwell tarries here among the men-at-arms, when so many fair faces, and the queen's in particular, are at yonder casement."
"I will do all in my power to make amends," replied the Earl, with ironical suavity. "Hob of Ormiston, follow me, if it please you! I will pay my devoirs to the queen's grace;" and with a dark scowl at the king, and a furtive one at his true henchman, the Earl applied his sharp Rippon spurs to his roan charger, and moved away.
CHAPTER III.