"Well-a-day, fair, my Lords of Bothwell and d'Elboeuff," said the petulant young King; "you made a notable brawl in our good burgh last night. Beat off the watch, and wounded six of the royal archers, and yet to be made captives—Ha! ha! came it of lack of skill, or lack of will?"
"Of neither!" replied the Earl, with a smiling lip; "as I believe your majesty very well knoweth—Ha! ha! I picked up this mantle in the fray. I hope you know the owner, and admire its fashion?"
"Is it dagger-proof?" asked the King, with affected ease.
"No, but my doublet is," replied the Earl, with the same quiet air, and a volume of courtly hatred and duplicity was exchanged with these significant remarks; but Darnley resumed his cold smile, and once more turned to the pretty Mariette, the sister of French Paris.
Konrad, whose handsome figure and pale features, with untrimmed beard and short curly hair, Mary had been regarding from time to time with true feminine interest, was now led forward by Maitland of Lethington, who charged him with "treason, in rising in effeir of war against the royal authority, fire-raising, stouthrief, and felony in Liddesdale, under the umquhile John of Park, and for assailing openly in arms, with that deceased traitor, the Lord Warden of the Three Marches, her grace's lieutenant, James Earl of Bothwell, within the bounds of his own barony of Hermitage, where he was wounded deadly in peril of his life by the blow of a jeddard staff."
"Ma foi!" said Mary, to her sister Argyle, "is he not a fair young man, and a winsome, to die the death of an outlaw? Approach, sir, and reply to this terrible charge."
"Madame," said Konrad, kneeling on one knee, and again drawing himself up to his full height, with an air that was not lost on the bright eyes that regarded him with melancholy interest; "may it please your majesty to hear my story? it is a short, but a sad one."
"Say forth!" replied the Queen, and Bothwell felt himself growing pale; for he almost deplored his clemency, that had spared Konrad in Liddesdale.
"Sweet madam! I am a stranger here in the land of the Scots; I know not their laws nor their fashions; I barely know enough of their language to make myself understood; and if, in the tale I am about to tell, I seem to become confused, or to forget myself, I pray your gentleness to remember the great presence in which I stand, and excuse me. A strange combination of untoward circumstances, have brought me into the position in which I this day find myself before you; but think not, gracious madam, that I mean to draw upon your gentle pity, for life hath long lost every charm to me; and, if it were spared, I have but one thought now, and that is, after having accomplished the mission on which I sought these shores, to return to my native Norway, and die a monk in the cloisters of St Olaf at Upslo."
Konrad paused; his eyes moistened, and he sighed deeply. The queen and her ladies became intensely interested by this sad exordium; but the Lords Lindesay and Glencairn, who were anxious to have Bothwell's affair brought under notice, could not repress signs of disgust and disdain, at all this preamble and delay about hanging a pitiful border outlaw.