"Beware how ye get under its shadow, my fool-hardy knaves," said the king, laughing. "Have you looked well to my horse?"
"Yea, sir, as a man looketh after his own," replied one fellow, whose ears bore visible marks of the nails which so frequently had fastened them to many a burgh cross; and at this significant reply there was uttered another of those low, ferocious laughs, which soon served to put the unwary monarch on his guard; for, like each of his forefathers, James V. was brave as a lion.
"My gallant grey!" said he; "'tis a gift to me from the Laird of Largo, who took him from the Lord Cassilis at Linlithgow Bridge, on the day of that unhappy battle. I have ridden him forty miles to-day,—not a rood less, I am sure."
"After such sore toil," said the earl; "his nostrils should be bathed with vinegar, and his breast with warm wine."
"Oho! thou knowest something of stablecraft, my smuggler, it would seem."
"Few in broad Scotland know better."
"And now I have supped right gloriously!" said the king, reclining back against the great cyclopean wall of the weem. "Friend robber, thy crail capons and stewed pullets have been done in such wise, that even King James's cook might envy thy skill; and in England, I doubt not, Henry the king would have made thee a belted earl; for he hath just made a baron of his cook for the exquisite manner in which he broiled a mackarel—at least so my friend the English ambassador said to-day, as we rode together near the old castle of Balwearie. Hand over that keg again, Bloodybeard," said the king, and, on receiving it, he began to sing a popular ditty of the day:—
"King James rode round by the Mere-cleugh-heid,
Booted and spurred as we a' did see;
But he dined and supped at Mossfennan yett,
Wi' the bonny young Lass o' the Loganlee.
"Her hair was like the gowd sae braw,
Like a lammer bead her deep dark e'e,
Nor Falkland tower, nor Lithgow ha',
Had a dame like the Lass o' the Loganlee.
"'Oh, where is the king?' quoth all the court,
From the great cardinal to the fool, M'Ilree;
But the devil a one knew where he was gone,
With the bonnie young Lass o' the Loganlee."