"Wherever you go I shall go; but the hour?"
"One o'clock; but you will come at noon and see me?"
"Plague on it, I have a meeting."
"A meeting?" said Jane, anxiously.
"Oh, a duty, dearest—an indispensable duty to perform," said Roland, remembering his brief challenge to Kincavil.
"What duty is this, of which I hear now for the first time?"
"To see those fifty-six pieces of cannon which King Francis hath sent to King James; they are to be landed from Sir Robert Barton's ships, and conveyed to the Gun-house to-morrow. A most important duty, Jane; they are all beautiful brass culverins, royal and demi; 'twould do your heart good to see them!"
"Ah, if James and the queen should refuse me this!—we are close to them now."
"Refuse you? they will refuse nothing that is asked in a voice so soft and so gentle."
As they drew near the royal group, Jane felt her heart almost failing her; she clung to Roland's arm, and watched the expression in the face of Magdalene. She seemed now very pale; her eyes were humid and downcast; gentleness and languor pervaded her beautiful features; she was overcome with lassitude and sinking with fatigue—the weakness incident to that hereditary disease which fast and surely was preying upon her fragile form. The proud nobles, to whom the king spoke occasionally as he bade them adieu, received his courtly attentions as a tribute due to their patriotic and lofty ancestry, and their proud bearing seemed to say, plainly, "I am George Earl of Errol, Constable of Scotland," or "I am William Earl of Montrose, and come of that Graeme whom King David knighted when the Stuarts were but thanes of Kyle and Strathgryfe;" for it was an age when the king was only a great baron, and every baron or laird was a king and a kaiser to boot.