It happened one day that Sir Patrick went to pay his duty to the King, and understanding, as he passed through the ante-room, from those who were in waiting, that His Majesty was in the apartment he usually occupied as a private audience-chamber, he approached and opened the door. To his unspeakable astonishment, he beheld the very Franciscan whom he was so anxious to go in search of, standing beside His Majesty’s chair, and in conference with him. They were alone. Holding a letter and parchment carelessly folded in his hand, His Majesty seemed to have been much moved with what had been passing between him and the monk, and he was so much occupied in listening, that Sir Patrick’s entrance could have hardly been observed, had not the opening of the door startled both of them. [[583]]Sir Patrick was so petrified with what he beheld, that he had neither self-command enough to retreat, as he ought to have done, nor to apologise, as the interruption demanded.
“Another time, Sir Patrick Hepborne,” said the King, nodding him away. But His Majesty was compelled to repeat the hint ere the knight had so far regained his self-possession as to take it, and when he did retire, it was with a face overwhelmed with confusion, and with a heart boiling with rage against the monk.
“Ha!” said he, at length, in soliloquy; “at least I am now nearer the object of my anxious quest than I did think I was. The friar must be a fiend, who can thus so soon catch the King’s ear. But, fiend or mortal, he shall not escape me. How malignant was his eye-glance, shot at me the moment that he heard my name uttered. But, by St. Baldrid, were he a basilisk I will seize him by the throat. He shall tell me where he hath hid her who is the idol of my soul; yea, he shall disgorge all that his black heart doth contain, even though the monarch himself should endeavour to protect him. What if the Lady Beatrice may be here? Oh, misery! so near me, and yet am I denied the delight of hearing that voice, the which did so soothe mine ear when it came from the lips of my faithful page—or of beholding that eye, which did so beam upon me with looks that nothing but love could have explained. But the monk at least shall not escape me this time. I shall station myself here, and watch his approach, albeit he should tarry within till doomsday.”
After thinking, rather than uttering, all this, Sir Patrick mingled with the crowd in the ante-room, where he waited patiently for the greater part of the day, until the King came forth to get into his litter to take the air. His Majesty appeared unattended by the friar, and then it was that Sir Patrick Hepborne began to recollect, what his agitation had made him overlook before, that the Franciscan must have been admitted, and allowed to retire, by a private passage, only accessible to those who received a very particular confidential audience of His Majesty. Hepborne threw himself as much in the King’s way as he could, and made a very marked obeisance to him as he passed; but Robert, who usually received all his advances with peculiar kindness and condescension, now turned from him with a certain distance of manner that could not be mistaken, and which chilled Sir Patrick to the heart. At once it flashed upon him that the Franciscan, who had so strangely possessed himself of the King’s ear, must have poisoned it [[584]]against him, as he had formerly done that of Friar Rushak. His rage against the monk grew to tenfold strength, and, in the agony of his distraction, he resolved to risk His Majesty’s displeasure by seeking his presence again, rather than not gain his object. He determined to accuse the Franciscan to the King, as he who had stolen away, and perhaps murdered, the Lady Beatrice, and this in defiance of all consequences.
Sir Patrick again tried to catch the Royal eye, as the King returned from his airing, but again he had the mortification to observe that he was shunned and neglected. His Majesty appeared not at the banquet, where, indeed, he had not been since the news of the burning of Elgin had reached him; and when Hepborne thought on this, a faint hope came over him that the King’s neglect might perhaps proceed from no particular feeling against him, but might arise from the vexation that must naturally fill the Royal breast on this unhappy occasion. But then again he remembered, with incalculable chagrin, that although the sunshine of the Monarch’s smiles had been eclipsed towards him, it had fallen with all its wonted cheering influence upon some who were near him, and who had hitherto been considered as planets of a much lower order, and of infinitely less happy influence than himself.
But Sir Patrick now became so impatient to get at the truth, that he threw aside all that delicacy which might have otherwise swayed him. He resolved to make an attempt to obtain an audience of His Majesty at his hour of couchée; and, accordingly, entering the ante-room a little before the time, he made his enquiries for that purpose.
“The King hath given strict orders that no one be admitted to him,” replied the Lord-in-waiting, to whom he addressed himself. “He doth hold private conference. And between you and me, Sir Patrick Hepborne, I do verily believe that it is with his son, the furious Wolfe of Badenoch, who hath so besieged the Bishop of Moray, that he is to hold parlance.”
“What, hath the Earl of Buchan arrived, then?” demanded Sir Patrick.
“Yea, he is here,” replied the nobleman with whom he talked. “Hast thou not heard that to-morrow the streets of St. Johnstoun will see a sight the like of which hath not been seen in Scotland before? for there the fierce and proud Wolfe of Badenoch is to walk in penance from the Castle, where he now hath his lodging, to the Church of the Blackfriars.”
“And how dost thou know all this?” demanded Sir Patrick Hepborne, who had probably heard the report, but who had [[585]]been too much occupied with his own thoughts to attend to anything extraneous, however interesting it might be to others.