"Impatient of thy power and princely offices, they think the royal authority will soon sink to nothing beneath the shadow of so great a minister. But what matters it? I long for war, because I am weary of life; while thou longest for it, simply because thou hatest the English. Lord cardinal, I am come of a doomed race," said James, with a shudder, as the vague terror that his house was fated to fall with himself came upon him, and a gloom spread over his manly brow. "I remember me of a prophecy that was made by a weird woman of Strathgryffe to Allan the great steward, 'that never one of his race should comb a grey head;' and fearfully hath that prophecy been verified!"
The eyes of the good king filled.
"Come my time when it may," he continued, "I know that my dear Scottish subjects will remember me long. Cardinal, my people call me king of the puir, and I am prouder of that title than the thorny crown the Alexanders, the Constantines, and the Braces have left me. The blessings of the poor and the lowly attend me when I walk abroad, without guards, without retinue, without arms. I hate the nobles, for they are ever ready to barter their country and their God for foreign gold: and Scotland's nobles will one day be Scotland's destruction. Pardon this honest vanity; but I feel that to reign in the hearts of my people is a great and glorious thing. There are many kings in Europe, but not one is called the father of his poor but James Stuart of Scotland. I am ever among them. I visit the highways and the byways, the gloomy streets, the miserable garrets, and the famished cottages where pestilence, or poverty, or tyranny have been. I know where misery is, or wrongs are endured. Disguised as a beggar, I discover them; as a king and a gentleman I alleviate or avenge them. The hard hands I have shaken, and the humble hearts I have gladdened, will serve me to the last gasp; and the ingleside where a king has sat and supped his kail with the gudeman, or toyed with his bairns, will long be remembered in tradition when the king and the clown are blended in one common dust. Thus I feel with joy that I shall go down to my grave at Holyrood with the blessings of my people, and shall be remembered long in the land, which my father bequeathed me from the Field of Flodden."
The king paused; and the cardinal, remembering his pledge to Father St. Bernard, deemed this the best opportunity for opening the trenches.
"Sire, this is a good and holy frame of mind," said he, "and I sometimes see the truth of what Buchanan teaches (heretic and republican though he is) that impulses to good or evil are common to all ranks of men, and in these respects all men are equal."
"Cardinal, all men are equal, too, in the grave. Were a beggar laid beside me at Holyrood, he would be as great as me, and I no greater than he."
The cardinal could scarcely repress a gesture of impatience.
"I fear me," said he, "that the solitude of Falkland oppresses your majesty's mind?"
"It is in solitude that God speaks most to man; and I, oh cardinal, have been in solitude since my poor Magdalene was lost," replied James, kindly caressing the little dog.
"She is not lost, but gone before."