"Is not Cadzow here?" he asked, changing colour.
"He remains in the town," said Sir Alexander Livingstone with a smile which there was no analyzing; "but if it please you, lord earl, I shall send him a message."
"Do so, Laird of Callender," replied the earl, "and for the first time in my life I shall thank you."
"We shall see," replied Livingstone as he withdrew to an antechamber, where he disengaged the gold spur from his right heel, and giving it to James's page, the Master of Crichton bade him "see the Lord Hamilton, of Cadzow, and give him this spur, with a kinsman's best wishes for its speedy use."
The spur was duly delivered – the hint was accepted, and the brawl at the gate seemed explained; for within an hour, Hamilton and his followers were far on the road to Clydesdale and the castle of Cadzow.
At the hour of seven, the king, Douglas, and their retinue sat down to a banquet, or rere-supper, in the castle-hall. It was sumptuous, and what it lacked in genuine hilarity was made up in rude and antique splendour. At that banquet friends and foes seemed united for the time – though like Scotsmen in general, the moment it was over, and while the hall yet echoed with the flourish of trumpets as the king rose, they drew into cliques and coteries, who talked and scowled at each other. The king, Crichton, and Livingstone earnestly desired a compromise and coalition with Douglas.
On one hand the latter wished to scare them by a display of his power, and on the other to fathom their ulterior plans without revealing his own; thus during the banquet he carefully avoided the perilous subject of his rebellious bond.
Gray, as he leaned on his partizan, at the back of the king's chair, kept the visor of his helmet half closed, to conceal the emotions of his heart, which his face might have betrayed. Not even the image of Murielle, pale, gentle, and sad-eyed, could soften at that time the bitterness that burned within him. His long separation from her; his wounds inflicted by the hands of the earl and his followers; his many wrongs; the snares of Achanna; the long captivity in the Flemish castle of Bommel; his kinsman's murder, and the terrors of that desperate flight from Thrave, all swelled up like a flood of fiery thoughts within him, and he actually conceived the idea of smiting Douglas on the face with his iron glove in the king's presence, and challenging him to mortal combat in the hall.
Night had set in – a dark and gusty night of February, when the wind howled loudly and drearily round the towers of Stirling, and when the moon cast its fitful gleams with the shadows of the fast-flying clouds, on the wide vale of Forth, and the mighty masses of the Ochil Mountains. The pages were lighting the sconces and chandeliers in the great hall, while the yeomen of the cellars were supplying the guests with more wine, when James, impatient to broach the subject of the bond, privately invited the earl to accompany him into a closet, which is still shown in the north-western corner of the castle – the same quarter of the royal residence in which he first saw the light. In golden letters, on its cornice, may yet be seen his name:
Its walls were then covered with gilded Spanish leather; a fire of perfumed wood burned cheerfully on the hearth; but the poker and tongs, though each surmounted by an imperial crown, were chained to the jambs, as if in the house of a simple citizen.
After trimming the lights, the pages, on a sign from the king, withdrew backwards, bowing at every step, and he was left with the earl, who found himself alone, or unattended, and in the closet were the Lords Crichton, Glammis, Sir Patrick Gray, a gentleman of the bedchamber, named Sir Simon Glendinning, and one or two others, who were the chosen friends of James.
Aware that their sovereign was about to take the earl calmly but severely to task, they all drew somewhat apart, and Gray, with soldier-like instinct, leaned in silence on his partizan near the door. On perceiving these little movements, a smile of disdain crossed the earl's swarthy face, and he played significantly with his jewelled dagger.
James resumed the subject of his general conduct, and if Master David Hume of Godscroft, the historian of the house of Douglas, can be credited, the earl answered submissively enough, and craved the royal pardon, often alleging that the slaughter of Sir Herbert Herries of Teregles, Sir Thomas MacLellan of Bombie, and others, were not acts against the crown, but lawful raids against his own personal enemies.
"But how came you to slay the Gudeman of my mills at Carluke?" asked the king." – Carluke – ha! ha!"
"The death of a good man is no laughing matter," said James, with a frown on his handsome face.
"He was accused of having weeds on his land."
"Weeds!" was the perplexed rejoinder.
"Yes, your highness – weeds. It was statute and ordained by Alexander II., that he who poisoneth the king's lands with weeds, especially the corn marigold, was a traitor."
"By my faith! that should make clean garden-work in the realm of Scotland," said the old chancellor, bitterly; "but the law says, that he who hath a plant of this kind found on his lands may be fined a sheep, or the value thereof, at the goul-court of the baron; whereas the miller died, or was found murdered – hewn to pieces by Jethart axes, within the Holy Gyrth of Lesmahago – a crime against the Church as well as State."
"I came not here to talk of peasant carles and their modes of dying," said Douglas, with a terrible frown at Crichton, his hatred for whom he cared not to conceal; "and since when, my lord chancellor, has a slaughter, committed in the form of Raid, been termed a murder in Scotland?"
"Enough about the poor miller," resumed the king, with growing severity; "my lord, I have another complaint; you have lawlessly separated a faithful subject, the captain of our guard, from his wedded wife, and thus have torn asunder, for many long years, those whom your own father-confessor united before the altar with every due solemnity."
"I hope to separate them yet more surely," replied the earl, with a glance of unutterable hate at Gray.
"This, in my presence?" exclaimed the king; "thou heart of iron!"
"In any man's presence, and to any man who mars or meddles with my domestic affairs; but I beseech your majesty to change the ungracious subject."
"Be it so," replied the king, with a gentleness he was very far from feeling, as his temper was fiery in the extreme. "All these are matters for after consideration; but what say you to that most treasonable confederation, into which you have entered with the earls of Crawford, Ormond, Ross, the lords Hamilton, Balvenie, and many others? By that bond you seek to array one half my kingdom against me – a kingdom over which my dynasty has ruled in strength for so many generations."
"So much the worse," sneered the insolent peer; "for all dynasties begin in strength and end in weakness."
"I pledge my royal word," continued the king, trembling with suppressed passion, "that when I first heard of your league, and of its terrible tenor, I could scarcely give it credence." – "Possibly, your grace – but what then?"
"Simply, that bond must be broken."
"Must!" reiterated the earl, incredulously.
"Yes must, and shall, by the soul of St. Andrew! No such leagues can be tolerated in a realm, without the express sanction of its sovereign; and by abandoning this confederacy, Douglas, you will remove every suspicion from my mind." – "Suspicion! – of what?"
"Secret motives, whose aim we cannot see."