"God bless your majesty," said Wad, "and may my drink be bilge in this world, and waur in that to come, if I keep not a clear conscience and a fair reckoning, having sic a consort to sail through the voyage o' life wi'."
"And friend coxswain," said James, with a smile, "hast thou no thanks?"
"Tickle my timmers, but I say wi' the gunner," said Cuddie, as they backed through the gay crowd not very ceremoniously, and at that moment the eyes of poor Falconer and Sybilla met, with a glance that seemed to inquire, "Were there no other hearts here—whom the king's influence might render happy?"
"Now, thanks be to Heaven, all this is over, Robbie Barton," said the Admiral; "for when among lords I always lose my temper, and yaw in my speech. Gadzooks, courts are not for me; the gunner to his lintstock, the steersman to his helm."
"Saw you how sternly the Lord Drummond regarded us?" said Barton, gravely.
"Let him glower his een out, Robbie—an obstinate old snatchblock!"
So ended this interview, and the whole issue of it tended somewhat to soothe the excited minds of those who were present.
That stringent act of the Scottish parliament, which ordained that "none of his majestie's subjectes marrie with any Englishwoman," was not passed for a hundred years after the time of our history; thus the espousals of the gunner and coxswain were duly celebrated by Father Zuill at the capstan-head of the Yellow Frigate; the Admiral gave them each a piece of land at the mouth of the Keil Burn; and it is a curious fact, that most of the inhabitants of the thriving village of Lower Largo have descended from these two marriages.
Barton, in the religious spirit peculiar to the time, founded and dedicated an altar to St. Clement, according to his vow, and there solemn masses were said till the times of Knox and Wishart.
Two days after the marriages the Admiral parted with Edmund Howard, who returned to England sorrowfully, for he had left both fame and happiness behind him. The chivalric Barton escorted him to the borders.