"Incited by ane auld witch carlin," replied the steward, a grim-looking old man, who wore black armour and a kilt of blue and purple tartan; "they ground their wheat wi' handquerns instead of coming to my new milne on the Ruthven water, quhilk is contrairy to the nineteenth chapter of the Statutes of Gild, and I swore that carlins should weep, and bearded carles should dee for't. Let them appeal to the General Convention of Burghs at Edinburgh, if they choose."
"Nay," said the king, in great anger; "let them rather appeal to arms."
"Be it sae," said the savage old steward, with a laugh like a growl, as he rattled his long two-handed cliobh on the floor; "what the deil care I? By a wave of my hand I could quench every fire between the muir of Orchill and the kirk of Aberruthven, if they winna thole my yoke."
"Upon Rood-day, in last harvest," resumed the chamberlain, "the constable of Dundee cruelly slew, under solemn tryst, the laird of Fetter-angus, at the glack of Newtyle."
"Wherefore?" demanded the king, starting from his seat with irrepressible indignation. And the constable replied—
"A year before he harried my lands in the Howe; but I have made amends by paying an ample bludewit and by founding in the chapel of St. Blaise the martyr of Armenia, here in the Thorter-row of your majesty's burgh of Dundee, an altar, where the priest for the time shall annually say for ever, until the day of doom, on the anniversary of that unhappy hour, a solemn mass for the soul of the umquhile laird; and on that altar lies the sword wherewith I slew him."
"'Tis well, constable," said the king; "may some good spirit do as much for thee. What, Montrose, is not this catalogue of crime exhausted?"
"The Heritable Forester of Drum," replied the Duke, closing his notes, "hath seized a hundred head of swine belonging to the citizens of Aberdeen."
"Because they declined to pay pannage, the usual duty levied upon all porkers that feed on mast and beech-nuts in the royal woods," replied this baron, whose badge of office was a magnificent silver bugle.
"By the holy kirk, thou art a faithful subject!" said the king, scornfully.