The king drew up his cushioned chair to the blaze, and while his attendants speedily cleared the board, a delicious drowsiness stole over him. He was partially aroused from this by the entrance of his poetical friend and confidant, Sir David Lyndsay.
“Your majesty,” said the rhymster, “the constable of these towers craves permission to pay his respects to you, extending a welcome on behalf of his master, the King of France.”
“Bring him in, Davie,” cried James; “for in truth he has already extended the most cordial of welcomes, and I desire to thank him for my reception.”
Shortly after Sir David Lyndsay ushered into the room a young man of about the same age as the king, dressed in that superb and picturesque costume which denoted a high noble of France, and which added the lustre of fine raiment to the distinguished court of Francis the First. The king greeted his visitor with that affability, which invariably drew even the most surly toward him, without relaxing the dignity which is supposed to be the heritage of a monarch.
“I am delighted to think,” said the newcomer, “that the King of Scotland has honoured my house by making it his first halting-place in that realm which has ever been the friend of his country.”
“Sir,” replied James, “the obligation rests entirely upon me. After a stormy voyage and an inclement land journey, the hospitality of your board is one of the most grateful encounters I have ever met with. I plead an ignorance of geography which is deplorable; and cannot in the least guess where I am, beyond the fact that the boundaries of France encompass me.”
“I shall not pretend,” said the young man, “that my house is unworthy even of the distinguished guest which it now holds. Your majesty stands within historic walls, for in an adjoining apartment was born William, the founder of a great race of English kings. Scotchmen have defended this castle, and Scotchmen have assaulted it, so its very stones are linked with the fortunes of your country. Brave Henry the Fifth of England captured it, and France took it from his successor. My own family, like the Scotch, have both stood its guard and have been the foremost through a breach to sack it. I am but now employed in repairing the ravages of recent turmoil.”
Here the King interrupted him, as if to mend the reputation of ignorance he had bestowed upon himself.
“I take it, then, that I speak to one of the renowned name of Talbot, and that this fortress is no other than the Castle of Falaise?” and the king impetuously extended his hand to him. “We both come of a stormy line, Talbot. Indeed we are even more intimately associated than you have hinted, for one of your name had the temerity to invade Scotland itself in the interests of Edward Baliol—yes, by the Rood, and successfully too.”
“Ah, your majesty, it does not become the pride of our house to refer to Richard Talbot, for three years later the Scots took him prisoner, and he retired defeated from your country.”