“Please your Majesty,” said Heriot, “if this man has the real right to these monies, it is doubtless at his will to grant forbearance, if he will. But when I remember the guise in which I first saw him, with a tattered cloak and a broken head, I can hardly conceive it.—Are not you Richie Moniplies, with the king's favour?”
“Even sae, Master Heriot—of the ancient and honourable house of Castle Collop, near to the West Port of Edinburgh,” answered Richie.
“Why, please your Majesty, he is a poor serving-man,” said Heriot. “This money can never be honestly at his disposal.”
“What for no?” said the king. “Wad ye have naebody spraickle up the brae but yoursell, Geordie? Your ain cloak was thin enough when ye cam here, though ye have lined it gay and weel. And for serving-men, there has mony a red-shank cam over the Tweed wi' his master's wallet on his shoulders, that now rustles it wi' his six followers behind him. There stands the man himsell; speer at him, Geordie.”
“His may not be the best authority in the case,” answered the cautious citizen.
“Tut, tut, man,” said the king, “ye are over scrupulous. The knave deer-stealers have an apt phrase, Non est inquirendum unde venit VENISON. He that brings the gudes hath surely a right to dispose of the gear.—Hark ye, friend, speak the truth and shame the deil. Have ye plenary powers to dispose on the redemption-money as to delay of payments, or the like, ay or no?”
“Full power, an it like your gracious Majesty,” answered Richie Moniplies; “and I am maist willing to subscrive to whatsoever may in ony wise accommodate your Majesty anent the redemption-money, trusting your Majesty's grace will be kind to me in one sma' favour.”
“Ey, man,” said the king, “come ye to me there? I thought ye wad e'en be like the rest of them.—One would think our subjects' lives and goods were all our ain, and holden of us at our free will; but when we stand in need of ony matter of siller from them, which chances more frequently than we would it did, deil a boddle is to be had, save on the auld terms of giff-gaff. It is just niffer for niffer.—Aweel, neighbour, what is it that ye want—some monopoly, I reckon? Or it may be a grant of kirk-lands and teinds, or a knighthood, or the like? Ye maun be reasonable, unless ye propose to advance more money for our present occasions.”
“My liege,” answered Richie Moniplies, “the owner of these monies places them at your Majesty's command, free of all pledge or usage as long as it is your royal pleasure, providing your Majesty will condescend to show some favour to the noble Lord Glenvarloch, presently prisoner in your royal Tower of London.”
“How, man—how,—man—how, man!” exclaimed the king, reddening and stammering, but with emotions more noble than those by which he was sometimes agitated—“What is that you dare to say to us?—Sell our justice!—sell our mercy!—and we a crowned king, sworn to do justice to our subjects in the gate, and responsible for our stewardship to Him that is over all kings?”—Here he reverently looked up, touched his bonnet, and continued, with some sharpness,—“We dare not traffic in such commodities, sir; and, but that ye are a poor ignorant creature, that have done us this day some not unpleasant service, we wad have a red iron driven through your tongue, in terrorem of others.—Awa with him, Geordie,—pay him, plack and bawbee, out of our monies in your hands, and let them care that come ahint.”