“Certainly not. I shall be well guarded.”
“Ah, that is a different matter, and exactly what I advised.”
“You advised an army, which I shall not take with me. I shall be well guarded by my good right arm, and by the still more potent right arm, if I may believe his own statement, of my friend, Jamie MacDonald of Sleat.”
With bent brows MacDonald pondered for a few moments, then looking up, said,—
“Will your majesty trust yourself in the wilderness with a prisoner?”
“There is no question of any prisoner. If you refer to yourself, you have always been at liberty to come and go as pleased you. As for trusting, I trust myself to a good comrade, and a Highland gentleman.”
The king rose as he spoke and extended his hand, which the other grasped with great cordiality.
“You will get yourself out of Stirling to-night,” continued the king, “as quietly as possible, and hie you to my Castle of Doune, and there wait until I come, which may be in a day, or may be in a week. I will tell the court that you have gone to your own home, which will be true enough. That will keep the gossips from saying we have each made away with the other if we both leave together. You see, Jamie, I must have some one with me who speaks the Gaelic.”
“My advice has been slighted so far,” said MacDonald, “yet I must give you another piece of it. We are going into a kittleish country. I advise you to order your fleet into some safe cove on the west coast. It will do the west Highlanders good to see what ships you have, for they think that no one but themselves and Noah could build a boat. When we come up into my own country we’ll get a gillie or two that can be depended on to wait on us, then if we are nipped, one or other of these gillies can easily steal a boat and make for the fleet with your orders to the admiral.”