"But too true, my dear lord," replied Sir George; "but I trust in your case it will not be so, for your fate is, I think, much in your own hands. If you but avoid dangers where they are known to exist, I think they will not come to seek you." Gowrie mused. "What should be the cause of this enmity?" he said at length, in a meditating tone. "What have I done to merit it? Is it that some one is playing false both to the king and me, and poisoning his ear with lying tales of false disloyalty? Or is it that between his blood and mine there is a repugnance which cannot be pacified--that the sad and terrible deed done by my grandfather in his mother's presence, when his unborn eyes were yet waiting for the light, has placed enmity between our races even to the present hour? They say that there are strange mortal antipathies in the blood of some men towards others, which can never be conquered by any effort of the person hated; and surely such must be the case even now, for a more loyal subject, or one who more truly wishes well to his crown, his state, his person, does not live. What are my offences?" "I could tell you some, my lord," replied Sir George Ramsay. "First and foremost, you are too powerful in the land for a king's love. Your estates are vast. Your wealth, during a long minority, has mightily increased; you are allied to all the most powerful and noble in the land; and you are known to be one who would oppose, without fear, or change, or wavering, the establishment of arbitrary power in Scotland, either in the church or state. These are motives strong enough, my lord, and they are the real ones. What the pretences may be, I know not; but if you keep yourself aloof from all factions and all parties, if you abstain, as far as is consistent with your honour and your station, from all opposition to the king, methinks that the feelings that have risen up must die away of themselves, like weeds that have no roots.--But here we are at your great house, my lord, and a grand mansion is it, certainly." "Come, see the pictures I have lately purchased," said Gowrie. "I shall have scantily room to place them unless I build me a new gallery. It is with such things as these, Dalhousie--with music, pictures, books, and thought, that I have employed my mind, and not in hatching treason or brooding over schemes of disloyalty.--But we will talk no more of such things. This is the way.--John Christie," he continued, speaking to the porter, "bid them serve dinner in the little hall for myself and Sir George, and see that his servants be well entertained. We are in the gallery when the meal is ready."