Vallance did as he was ordered, and, on opening the door, the Wolfe of Badenoch stepped into the apartment, and made a hasty and careless obeisance before his father. The old King’s feeble frame shook from head to foot with nervous agitation when he beheld him.
“Son Alexander, is it thou?” demanded Robert with astonishment. “We looked not to have our sacred privacy disturbed at so unseemly an hour, yea, and still less by thee, whose head, we did ween, was shrouded by shame in the darkness of thine own disgrace, or rather buried, as we had vainly hoped, amid the dust and ashes of ane humble repentance. What bringeth thee hither?—what hath”——He stopped, for he remembered that they were not alone. “Vallance, and you, Seyton, retire. Wait without in the vestibule; we would be private. What hath brought thee hither, son Alexander?” repeated he, after the door was shut upon them. “I wot thou art but a rare guest at our Court, and methinks that, infected as thou art at this present time, thou art but little fitted for its air.”
Naturally violent and ferocious as was the Wolfe of Badenoch, he now stood before his father and his King, a presence in which he never found himself without being in a certain degree subdued by the combination of awe, early inspired into his mind by this twofold claim on his respect, and to which he had been too long accustomed, to find it easy to rid himself of it. The grim Earl moved forward some steps towards the chair where His Majesty was seated, and again louting him low, he repeated the obeisance which the venerable form of his parent and Sovereign commanded. [[370]]
“My liege-father,” said he at length, “I do come to pay mine humble duty to your grace, and——”
“Nay, methinks thou shouldst have bethought thee of humbling thy fierce pride before another throne than ours, ere thou didst adventure to wend thee hither,” interrupted the King with indignation. “It would have well become thee to have bowed in humble contrition before the episcopal chair of our Right Reverend Bishop of Moray, yea, to have licked the very dust before his feet. Then, with his absolution on thy sinful head, mightest thou have approached the holy altar of God, and the shrine of the Virgin, in penitence and prayer; and after these, and all other purifications, we mought have been again well pleased to have seen our reclaimed son mingling with the nobles of our Court.”
“I do see that the Bishop of Moray hath outrode me,” said the Wolfe of Badenoch, his eye kindling, and his cheek darkly reddening, the flame of his internal ire being rendered more furious by the very exertions he was making to keep down all external symptoms of it. “The Bishop hath already effunded his tale in the Royal ear; but yet do I hope that thou wilt hesitate to condemn me, yea, even on the Bishop’s saying, without hearing what I may have to declare in mine own defence.”
“Son Alexander,” said the old King mildly, and at the same time slowly shaking his head as he spoke, “we do fear much that thou canst have but little to tell that may undermine what the soothfast Bishop, Alexander Barr, hath possessed us of.”
“He hath been with thee, then, my liege-father?” said the Wolfe, in a voice of eager inquiry, and at the same time biting his nether lip.
“Yea, the godly Bishop of Moray hath been with us this very day,” replied the King. “He hath harrowed up our soul with the doleful tale of the brenning of our good burgh of Forres—of the great devastation of men’s dwellings, goods, and mœubles, the which thy fury hath created—the sacrilege of the which thou hast been guilty in reducing God’s house and altar to ashes, as also the house of his minister—the wicked and as yet unestimated sacrifice of the lives of our loving subjects, the which thou hast occasioned.”
“As God is my judge, my liege,” replied the Earl impatiently, “as God is my judge, there was not a life lost—credit me, not one life. The hour of the night was early when the deed was done; yea, it was done openly enough, so that there was little chance of mortal tarrying to be food for the devouring flames. Trust me, my liege-father, I did secretly send to certify [[371]]myself, as I can now truly do thee, on the honour of a knight, that not a life was lost.”