“As you get north of Stirling, Buchanan,’ replied James with a smile, “it is customary to bring the knife with you when you go out to dine. But I am quite in agreement with the Laird of Arnprior in thinking the sword an ill ornament in a banqueting-hall, therefore bestow your weapons on Sir Donald here, and command your clan now present to disarm.”
“‘As you get north of Stirling, Buchanan,’ replied James, with a smile, ‘it is customary to bring the knife with you when you go out to dine.’”
With visible reluctance Buchanan divested himself of sword and dirk, and his comrades, now stricken dumb, followed his example. The weapons were thrown together in a corner of the hall where some of the king’s soldiers stood guard over them. His majesty’s prediction regarding the sobering effect of his advent was amply fulfilled. The disarmed men looked with dismay on one another, for they knew that such a prelude might well have its grand finale at the block or the gibbet. The king, although seemingly in high spirits, was an unknown quantity, and before now there had been those in power who, with a smile on their lips, had sent doomed men to a scaffold.
“In intercepting my venison, Buchanan,” continued the king with the utmost politeness, “you were actuated by one of two motives. Your intervention was either an insult to the king, or it was an intimation that you desired to become his cook. In which light am I to view your action, Buchanan?”
There was in the king’s voice a sinister ring as he uttered this sentence that belied the smile upon his lips, and apprehension deepened as all present awaited Buchanan’s reply. At the word “cook,” he had straightened himself, and a deeper flush than the wine had left there, overspread his countenance; now he bowed with deference and said,—
“It has ever been my ambition to see your majesty grace with his presence my humble board.”
“I was sure of it,” cried James with a hearty laugh which brought relief to the anxious hearts of many standing before him. The king thrust his sword into a scabbard, and, with a clangour of hilt on iron, those behind him followed his example.