"But whither goes your grace?"
"To tread the same path my hapless father trod," replied the duke, with something of dignity and pathos in his manner.
"It may lead, alas!—--"
"To the same bloody doom, you would say?"
"Yes; I would pray your grace to be wary."
"I care not; I shall live and die, Robert Stewart, duke of Albany and earl of Rosse, if I die not something better."
A cunning smile twinkled in the hawk-like eyes of the unfathomable Achanna.
"Sit with us, Luaig," said Albany; "my heart ever warms to my countrymen, though cold as ice to my little cousin their king; and there are times when I hope to close my eyes peacefully in the same place where they first saw the light, the old castle of Rothesay by the sea—the waves that flow through the bonnie kyles of Bute, and past the hills of Cowal; but of all that more anon. Sit with us, sir, the more the merrier."
"With this poor stoup of wine?" said the prosaic Achanna, peering into the tankard with one of his cunning eyes.
"True, the old saw did not add that," said Albany, rattling the purse at his girdle; "but gibe me not about it. What can be worse than having too much liquor?"