"Will you deign to condescend upon some of them?" said his son, as quietly as before.
"Your cousins' pride and ostentation of riches and retinue, being far beyond those of the King, constituted in themselves an eminent danger to the state. Nay, the turbulence of their followers has more than once come before me in my judicial capacity as Justicer of the realm. What more would you have?"
"Were you, my lord, of those who condemned them to death?"
"Not so, William; it had not been seemly in a near kinsman and the heir to their dignities—that is, save and except Galloway, which by ill chance goes in the female line, if we find not means to break that unfortunate reservation. Your cousins were condemned by my Lords Crichton and Livingston."
"We never heard of either of them," said William, calmly.
"In their judicial aspect they may be styled lords, as is the Scottish custom," said James the Gross, "even as when I was laird of Balvany and a sitter on the bed of justice, it was my right to be so nominated."
"Then our cousins were condemned with your approval, my Lord of Douglas and Avondale?" persisted his son.
James the Gross was visibly perturbed.
"Approval, William, is not the word to use—not a word to use in the circumstances. They were near kinsmen!"
"But upon being consulted you did not openly disapprove—is it not so? And you will not aid us to avenge our cousins' murder now?"