king would not consent that any one should write to you, saying he wished to see what you would do, and exacted a promise that neither Beatrice nor Alex would say a word. Me, he did not so bind; but yet it were better not to let him know that you have been informed." "I am a bad dissembler, John," replied the earl, "and I fear that the joy in my heart will shine out on my face, do what I will. However, I will do my best to look sad; but is not this a strange person for a king--a strange scene for a court?" "You would have thought it stranger still, had you but seen the whole," answered Hume. "All the time he was speaking, he held the hawk I have told you of on his hand, and kept stroking it down the back, at which it screamed, and then his gracious majesty called it sometimes greedy gled, and sometimes courtier, till Herries, who thinks he can venture anything, asked why he called it courtier." "What did he answer?" inquired Gowrie. "Why, he put on what he would call a pawky look," replied the other, "and said, 'Because it is like the horseleech's daughter, doctor. It aye lifts up its neb, and scrawks for more.'" Both Gowrie and Hume laughed gaily at this sally, the one in hearing and the other in telling; for the young earl's heart was lightened, and such creatures of circumstance are we, that, with a mind relieved, a reply seemed to him full of humour, which a minute or two before he would have thought nought but a coarse and vulgar jest. "How did Herries bear the rebuke?" asked Gowrie; "for to him it must have been a severe one." "Oh, with his own bitter humour," answered the knight. "He said, 'Ay, sir, it is sad how we are led by example. Every one, man and beast, follows his master.' To which the king replied, good naturedly enough, 'Haud yer peace, ye doited auld carle! If you followed your master I'se warrant you'd no pluck but be plucked--you'd be the doo and no the gled.' However, I think that Herries is not so great a favourite as he once was; and I am not sorry for it, for he was ever an enemy to both your house and mine, Gowrie, and is one of those cold-blooded, ever-ready men, who never miss an opportunity to do ill to another by a quiet insinuation pointed by a jest." "I know him not at all," answered Gowrie. "Alexander and Beatrice love him not; but one need never fear an open enemy. It is the covert attack, the blow struck behind one's back, the quiet lie spoken, forsooth, in confidence, that one fears; for they are like the poisoned weapon of the Italian bravo, which slays, though the wound be but a scratch." "For the present I do not think you need fear him in any way," replied Sir John Hume; "but go early to-morrow, Gowrie, and take advantage of the tide of favour at the flow."