“As well, please your Highness, as my mother could take up a stitch in the nets she wove. The Milaner shall not know my work from his own.”
“Well, but that was not what I wished of thee just now,” said the Prince, recollecting himself: “this poor glee woman, good Smith, she must be placed in safety. Thou art man enough to be any woman’s champion, and thou must conduct her to some place of safety.”
Henry Smith was, as we have seen, sufficiently rash and daring when weapons were in question. But he had also the pride of a decent burgher, and was unwilling to place himself in what might be thought equivocal circumstances by the sober part of his fellow citizens.
“May it please your Highness,” he said, “I am but a poor craftsman. But, though my arm and sword are at the King’s service and your Highness’s, I am, with reverence, no squire of dames. Your Highness will find, among your own retinue, knights and lords willing enough to play Sir Pandarus of Troy; it is too knightly a part for poor Hal of the Wynd.”
“Umph—hah!” said the Prince. “My purse, Edgar.” (His attendant whispered him.) “True—true, I gave it to the poor wench. I know enough of your craft, sir smith, and of craftsmen in general, to be aware that men lure not hawks with empty hands; but I suppose my word may pass for the price of a good armour, and I will pay it thee, with thanks to boot, for this slight service.”
“Your Highness may know other craftsmen,” said the smith; “but, with reverence, you know not Henry Gow. He will obey you in making a weapon, or in wielding one, but he knows nothing of this petticoat service.”
“Hark thee, thou Perthshire mule,” said the Prince, yet smiling, while he spoke, at the sturdy punctilio of the honest burgher; “the wench is as little to me as she is to thee. But in an idle moment, as you may learn from those about thee, if thou sawest it not thyself, I did her a passing grace, which is likely to cost the poor wretch her life. There is no one here whom I can trust to protect her against the discipline of belt and bowstring, with which the Border brutes who follow Douglas will beat her to death, since such is his pleasure.”
“If such be the case, my liege, she has a right to every honest man’s protection; and since she wears a petticoat—though I would it were longer and of a less fanciful fashion—I will answer for her protection as well as a single man may. But where am I to bestow her?”
“Good faith, I cannot tell,” said the Prince. “Take her to Sir John Ramorny’s lodging. But, no—no—he is ill at ease, and besides, there are reasons; take her to the devil if thou wilt, but place her in safety, and oblige David of Rothsay.”
“My noble Prince,” said the smith, “I think, always with reverence, that I would rather give a defenceless woman to the care of the devil than of Sir John Ramorny. But though the devil be a worker in fire like myself, yet I know not his haunts, and with aid of Holy Church hope to keep him on terms of defiance. And, moreover, how I am to convey her out of this crowd, or through the streets, in such a mumming habit may be well made a question.”