"Not exactly. You must be more plain, my lord chancellor."
"'Tis not the first time that a king's daughter has wedded a simple knight."
"In old ballads, Sir William; and I would be a simple knight indeed to cast my eyes so high."
"The queen-mother is now the wife of the Black Knight of Lorn," said Crichton, with the air of one who finds a convincing argument.
"But he is a different man from the poor captain of the king's paid pikemen! St. Mary! a sorry figure would I cut, riding up to my father's tower-gate, with my princess behind me on a pillion, and settling there to become a scrape-trencher, while she assisted my mother in brewhouse and bakery! Take heed, chancellor; I need not be dazzled thus, to keep me faithful to my king. So, enough of this! I am not ignorant that all these princesses are promised, not to simple knights, but to foreign princes."
"Not all," said the chancellor, with an air of annoyance; "the Princess Margaret is, I know, contracted to Louis, the dauphin of France."
"A troublesome brother-in-law he might prove to the younger son of the laird of Foulis," replied Gray, laughing outright.
"The Lady Elizabeth——"
"Is contracted to the duke of Brittany; and in a month Eleonora will be the bride of Sigismund le Debonnair, archduke of Austria, and duke of all the dukes in Almaynie; while the Lady Mary will be wedded to the lord of Campvere."
"I knew not that you were so well versed in state secrets," said the chancellor coldly, with an affected smile.