Sir David Lyndsay sat meditatively silent for some moments while the king in angry impatience strode up and down the small limits of the room. When the heat of his majesty’s temper had partially cooled, Sir David spoke with something of diplomatic shrewdness.
“I never before realised the depth and penetration of your majesty’s mind. You have gone straight to the heart of this mystery, and have thrown light into its obscurest corner, as a dozen flaming torches would have illumined that dark laboratory in the Monastery. I have shared the stupidity of your nobles, which the clarity of your judgment now exposes so plainly; therefore, I feel that it would be presumption on my part to offer advice to your majesty in the further prosecution of this affair.”
“No, Davie, no,” said the king, stopping in his march and speaking with pleased cordiality, “no, I value your advice; you are an honest man, and it is not to be expected that the subtilty and craftiness of these foreigners should be as clear to you as the sunshine on a Highland hill. Speak out, Davie, and if you give me your counsel, I know it will be as wholesome as oatmeal porridge.”
“Well, your majesty, you must meet subtilty with subtilty.”
“I am not sure that the adage holds good, Davie,” demurred the king. “You cannot outrace a Highlandman in his own glen, although you may fight him fairly in the open. Once this Frenchman’s head is off, you stop his boiling-pot.”
“That is quite true, your majesty, but if the French ambassador should put in a claim for his worthless carcass, you will find yourself on the eve of a break with France, if you proceed to his execution.”
“But I shall have made France throw off its mask.”
“It is not France I am thinking about, your majesty. Your own nobles have gone clean daft over this Italian. He is their goose that lays the golden eggs, and you saw yourself to-night with what breathless expectation they watched his experimenting. I am sure, your majesty, that they will stand by him, and that you will find not only France but Scotland arrayed against you. A moment’s reflection will show you the danger. These meetings have been going on for months past, yet no whisper of their progress has reached your majesty’s ears.”
“That is true; even you yourself, Davie, kept silent.”
“I swore an oath of silence, and honestly, I did not think that this gold-making was an affair of State.”