"Rothesay!"
"Ay, ye well may start; but James, still hankering after those grasping Tudors (may God confound them all!) liked not the match, and hath had her kidnapped. He hath dared to do this; but the act shall cost him a crown, should I spend the last of my breath and the last of my blood to tear it from his brow. False king!" he added, apostrophising the wall; "didst thou forget even for a moment that she was a daughter of Lord Drummond?"
"Hark you, my lord; I am the king's liegeman, and deplore you should nurse thoughts of treason, or have such words of danger on your tongue; but still more do I deplore that you should harbour in your heart sentiments repugnant to the principles of honour, and to the happiness of your eldest daughter."
A flush of anger reddened the brow of the proud old noble.
"What mean you, Captain Barton?" he asked.
"Why, my lord, have you proposed to cast me adrift—I who am affianced to Euphemia, and who love her with a true and honest heart? Come, my lord, be fair and above-board with me; remember that our dear Effie is my plighted wife—plighted and betrothed to me in happier times than these."
"Pledges made in peace are often broken in war," replied the noble, coldly, and without noticing a gesture of impatience which escaped the honest seaman; for he remembered how anxious the conspirators at Broughty were to obtain the king's ships. In his ambition to achieve this, and also obtain vengeance upon James, he condescended to subterfuge.
"Captain Barton," said he in a low voice, "all correspondence between the king and his nobles is at an end, and another day may see their swords unsheathed against him. Promise me, should this event occur," he continued, sinking his voice into a whisper, "that you will contrive to have yonder war ships delivered unto such captains and mariners as the vice-admiral who acts under his Grace the Duke of Albany may appoint; or that you will serve the nobles—and my pledge to you may yet remain inviolate."
"May? God forgive thee, thou subtle old man, for such a cruel alternative," replied Barton, with deep emotion, while his eyes filled and their lashes trembled. "I love your daughter better than my life; Heaven knows how long I have loved your Effie, how dearly and how well; but I also love that good king who was ever my father's friend; and the curse of that dead father would arise from his grave in the Englishman's sea, and follow me to the end of my days on sea and on land, if I proved false to my allegiance. My dear Effie! accursed be the policy which would make thee the boon for which I am to barter name and fame, honour and soul!"
Lord Drummond whose perceptions of right and wrong (never too clear at any time) were somewhat clouded and warped by the quarrel of the barons and king, against whom he now felt a deadly hatred, witnessed this deep burst of feeling unmoved, for he had not the smallest intention of yielding up his daughter to her betrothed, even though the latter were base enough to betray the admiral and surrender those great caravels, which were the terror of the northern sea, and the flower of the infant navy.