"You forget, my dear Sir William, that your good lady has been my nurse."
"There is the Lady Annabelle."
"A child," said Sir Patrick, laughing louder to conceal the annoyance that rankled in his heart; "oh! oh! Sir William, I should have to wait ten years at least till my wife grew up. Dost take me for a fool, a very mooncalf, though I have listened to you? But to the point: say what service you seek of me, as I have made up my mind to leave Scotland in a month. Believe me, I need no bribe for faith and service to my king; and, as to Murielle Douglas, the wealth of Prester John of the Indies, if such a man there be, with the love of an empress, would not win me from her, though it may be that, with this gash on my face, she—she might shrink from me now."
"Did I not say that I might suit your humour and also serve the king?" asked the chancellor.
"How?"
"Hearken," said Crichton, placing a hand on the arm of Gray.
"Say on," said the latter impatiently.
"In two years from this, the king will take upon himself the government of the nation, and I shall retire me to my old castle of Crichton, in the Glen of Tync, beyond the Esk, and spend there my latter days in peace."
"The government—in 1444—this boy?"
"The boy will then be fifteen, and he is a manly boy withal. The time is coming when he must be contracted to a foreign princess, and, through the lord of Campvere, Duke Arnold of Gueldreland has made overtures on the part of his daughter Mary, now in her ninth year. To these overtures the regent and myself, with the consent of the lords of council, have thought it meet to respond, and you shall bear our missives to the duke, who is now either in Gueldreland, in Brabant, or Burgundy, I know not which; and in due time I, with a fitting train, will set out for his capital. But promise me to be secret as you are faithful in this matter, and remember it is in the service of the king."