"Willie, man," at length said James, when his mirth had somewhat subsided, "what's this has happened thee? Where gottest thou that enormous nose, man?"
"Feth, your Majesty, it may be a joke to you, but it's unco little o' ane to me," replied Willie, whose confidential duties and familiar intercourse with his royal master had led him to assume a freedom of speech which was permitted to no other, and which no other would have dared to attempt.
"I hae gotten sic a worryin' the day," he continued, "as I never got in my life before. Between dugs and auld wives, I hae had a bonny time o't. Worried by the tane and smashed by the tither, as my nose and my coat-tails bear witness."
"Explain yourself, Willie. What does all this mean?" exclaimed James, again laughing.
Willie told his story, finishing with the information that the bird was flown—meaning Jessie Craig. "Aff and awa, naebody kens, or'll tell whaur."
"Off—away!" exclaimed the king, with an air of mingled disappointment and surprise. "Very odd," he added, musingly; "and most particularly unlucky. But we shall wait on a day or two, and she will probably reappear in that time; or we may find out where she has gone to."
On the day following that on which the incidents just related occurred, the curiosity of the good people in the neighbourhood of the late Mr. Craig's house in Rottenrow was a good deal excited by seeing a person in the dress of a gentleman hovering about the residence just alluded to.
Anon he would walk to and fro in front of the house, looking earnestly towards the windows. Now he would descend the Deanside Brae, and do the same by those behind. Again he would return to the front of the mansion, and taking up his station on the opposite side of the street, would resume his scrutiny of the windows.
The stranger was thus employed, when he was startled by the appearance of some one advancing towards him, whom, it was evident, he would fain have avoided if he could. But it was too late. There was no escape. So, assuming an air of as much composure and indifference as he could, he awaited the approach of the unwelcome intruder. This person was Sir Robert Lindsay.
Coming up to the stranger with a respectful air, and with an expression of countenance as free from all consciousness as that which had been assumed by the former—