"Because, your majesty, deep though my love, I dared not aspire to wed the sister of one who—who is to be our queen."
The young king coloured deeply, and paused for a moment, as if some such thought had now struck himself for the first time; then he thrust the idea aside, and said,
"Your fears were foolish, sirs; ye had won those ladies' love, and surely that was winning the main part of the battle; for, if the song says rightly, when a woman's heart is won, there is nothing more to achieve in this world."
"Save fortune and rank; and dare I, the son of a poor skipper of Borrowstonness, who have neither, compete with long descended peers who have both?"
"Yes, Falconer," said Barton, proudly; "for thou hast that which we seldom find among our nobles—a right true Scottish heart, that would peril all for the weal and honour of the land God gave our fathers."
"By Heaven and by my father's bones, you say well, Robert Barton!" said the young king, with a sudden emotion of generous enthusiasm; "and men who have hearts so tried and so true as yours, may well be the brothers of a Scottish king! and mine you shall be, or this proud old lord—John Drummond of Stobhall and that ilk—must tell me better why not! Come with me then—his house is close by; let us have this skein unravelled, for to make my loyal subjects happy is the best tribute I can pay to the memory of that dear departed sire for whom you fought: he who lost his life in upholding the rights of the people against the monstrous privileges of a race of titled tyrants."
However reluctant Barton and Falconer might be to thrust themselves upon the presence of Lord Drummond, while the barbarous treatment they had so lately experienced there was fresh in their minds, and being aware that the Laird of Mewie, with a band of wild Celts from the Highlands of Perthshire, guarded the passages and ambulatories of the house—the generous energy of the young king, the protection his presence could afford, his desire, which was law, and the happiness his intervention might procure, together with the wish for meeting once again with those they loved so well—were all too powerful to be resisted; and in silence the two gentlemen followed King James down the main street of Dundee, through Tyndall's Wynd, where Lord Lindesay and part of the royal retinue joined them, and together they all proceeded straight to visit Lord Drummond, the copper horn at whose gate young Lindesay blew lustily. And the old baron's half anger, half astonishment, and entire perplexity at the visit and its object, we will leave to the reader's imagination, and thus close this eventful chapter—eventful, at least, to the two lovers who accompanied the King of Scotland.
CHAPTER LXVII.
THE MAUCHLINE TOWER.
"Strange tidings these, my cousin! By St. Jude!
They'll urge us all to battle ere the time."—Old Play.