"Go back, De Concressault—go back to those false carles who sent you here," said he; "or, further still, to all those barbarous dukes and foreign kings, and tell them that the sacred rights of an old hereditary nobility shall not be shared with, or trampled on, by clodpoles and merchant-skippers, by hewers of wood and drawers of water, by men accustomed less to the sword than to the plough and hammer, the handloom and the tiller. Begone, I say, my Lord of Concressault; for if within another hour you are found within a mile of Callendar Yew, by the bones of St. Bryde, and by the soul of the Dark Grey Man, from whom my blood is drawn, I will hang you on its highest branch, as the taghairm of victory to our cause!"
"Be it so," replied the Sieur de Monipennie, as he drew himself up with an air of scorn and military pride, and closed the umbriere of his helmet, as he donned it in defiance of them all. "On a coming day, I hope to requite this foul insult, and teach thee, Lord of Angus, that a Scottish gentleman—a Marshal of France—is as good as any peer that ever came of the Douglas Blood, and better, it may be."
Turning from the hall, he left Callendar with all speed, and crossed the Carse in the direction of the Forth, to rejoin the king at Alloa.
"How happy all these titled villains will be now," said the marshal to his esquire, who was no other than David Falconer.
"Nay, they may be glad, but scarcely happy," he replied. "There are our ships. Barton sees us, and sends off a boat."
"Say nought about our having seen that madcap prince among the rebels," said the old soldier; "for his father the king hath over many sorrows already to thole."
The moment the ambassador left Callendar, Sir James Shaw summoned Borthwick, who had been duly infeft in his three tenements in the burgh of Stirling.
"Mount," said he; "mount and ride, with forty chosen men, to Linlithgow, and thence to Edinburgh; display our banners at the burgh crosses—rouse the Gutterbloods of the Good Town, and the Whelps of the Black Bitch; say that the Falkirk Bairns and the vassals of Carse and Callendar have joined us to a man. Rouse one, rouse all against the parasites of James! those base-born courtiers who oppress the people—shout fire and sword, horse and armour! It is easy to gather the rascal mob, and raise an outcry. Here are a hundred lyons and rose-nobles——"
"English?"
"Ay, English rose-nobles," replied the subtle Laird of Sauchie, with one of his snaky smiles; "scatter them among the rabble; say they are from the good and charitable nobles—ha, ha! from Angus and from Drummond! Bait and draw on the canaille; threaten them with war and pestilence; foretel the ruin of the burghs and the invasion of their privileges. Select villains—thou knowest many—harangue and arm them; say blood must flow. To arms by tout of horn and tuck of drum—against the court—and the muster-place is Callendar Wood. Say, to arms with Angus! who, like Warwick the Englishman, will become a maker of kings and a breaker of crowns in more ways than one. Tell the people and the poor that they must no longer be the stock-fish and foot-balls of the rich and noble; tell the rich and great that the base multitude have risen for plunder and the assumption of absurd privileges. Here, take my sword, it is a good Banffshire blade, and away to Edinburgh; see Napier, the provost, and say all I have said; for the papal legate is coming, and if once he sets his red legs on Scottish ground, the burghs are lost to the nobles for ever!"