“Yes, Finlay, I will.”
The next day the MacNabs marched from the castle and down through the town of Stirling with much pomp and circumstance. They were escorted by the king’s own guard, and this time the populace made no sneering remarks but thronged the windows and the roofs, cheering heartily, while the Highlanders kept proud step to the shrill music of the pipes. And thus the clansmen set faces towards the north on their long tramp home.
“What proud ‘deevils’ they are,” said Sir David Lyndsay to the king after the northern company had departed. “I have been through the MacNab country from one end of it to the other, and there is not a decent hut on the hillside, let alone a castle fit to entertain a king, yet the chief gives an invitation in the heat of wine, and when he is sobered, he is too proud to admit that he cannot make good the words he has uttered.”
“That very thing is troubling me,” replied the king, “but it’s a long time till July, and between now and then we will make him some excuse for not returning his visit, and thus avoid putting the old man to shame.”
“But that too will offend him beyond repair,” objected the poet.
“Well, we must just lay our heads together, Davie,” answered the king, “and think of some way that will neither be an insult nor a humiliation. It might not be a bad plan for me to put on disguise and visit Finlay alone.”
“Would you trust yourself, unaccompanied, among those wild caterans? One doesn’t know what they might do.”
“I wish I were as safe in Stirling as I should be among the MacNabs,” replied the king.
However, affairs of state did not permit the carrying out of the king’s intention. Embassies came from various countries, and the king must entertain the foreigners in a manner becoming their importance. This, however, gave James the valid excuse he required, and so he sent a commission to the chief of the MacNabs. “His majesty,” said the head commissioner, “is entertaining the ambassadors from Spain and from France, and likewise a legate from the Pope. If he came north, he must at least bring with him these great noblemen with their retinues; and while he would have been glad to visit you with some of his own men, he could not impose upon the hospitality thus generously tendered, by bringing also a large number of strangers and foreigners.”
“Tell his majesty,” replied MacNab with dignity, “that whether he bring with him the King of Spain, the Emperor of France, or even the Pope himself, none of these princes is, in the estimation of MacNab, superior to James the Fifth, of Scotland. The entertainment therefore, which the king graciously condescends to accept, is certainly good enough for any foreigners that may accompany him, be their nobility ever so high.”