“Most willingly would I aid in doing so,” replied Sir Walter. “But how is his safety to be secured?”
“Thou canst be eminently useful,” replied Huntly.
“I know thy zeal in a friend’s behalf, and although thou mightest have shown some unwillingness to take part with us, when our grievances amounted to nothing more than royal neglect, yet perhaps thou mayest now be more sharpened to our purpose, when thou seest that the murderous knife hath already been drawn upon us, that the first victim hath been already sacrificed, and that victim too a high and noble prince of the blood royal, who was, moreover, thy friend.”
“Nay, surely thou dost not believe that my Lord Mar died other than a natural death?” said Sir Walter.
“A natural death!” exclaimed Huntly.—“Aye, a death naturally occurring from a weak and cruel brother’s jealousy. That species of natural death, to wit, which the sheep may very naturally receive from the hand of the butcher!”
“Why, they say he died in a bath;” said Sir Walter.
“And in so saying they say truly,” replied Huntly. “Of a truth he died in a bath—a hot bath, into which he was kindly put to recover him from a deep cut in the main artery of his arm, given him by one of the royal executioners.”
“’Tis horrible, if true!” said Sir Walter, shuddering.
“’Tis as true as it is horrible,” continued Huntly. “And now methinks I may trust to your being less scrupulous in listening to the grievances of the lords, than thou wert when I last touched the topic with thee at Stirling.”
“My Lord,” replied Sir Walter, “I will honestly tell thee, that to save Albany, a man whom I honour as a royal prince and a highly accomplished knight, and whom, moreover, I hold in deep affection as a friend, I am willing to put mine own life to utmost peril, and this the more too, that if I can save him I shall think that my so doing will be the preserving of the right arm of Scotland. But in any thing that may touch my fealty directly to the person of King James, I must be held excused, seeing that I have already received too much kindness from his Majesty, to permit me to prove in anywise a rebel to him,—but in this matter of the Duke of Albany, my judgment tells me that I shall, by saving him, be doing good service to my king as well as to my country.”