James chuckled. "See what an unbelieving carle thou art, Hughie," he said; "the last time, I trusted the matter to you and your cronies; and sure enough you found what you say, a warm nest and a flown bird; but I have taken the matter into my own hand now, and made sure of all. The lad returned to his great house, at St. Johnstone, on Wednesday last at evening, and there he is carousing like any prince. All the people are flocking to him from the country round, as if he were king of Perth, and forgetting that we ourselves are here in Falkland. The good folk of the town, too, are all mad about him, and looking for the bridal, as if a king's son were going to wed." "Is there no risk of the citizens rising?" asked Herries, in a low tone. James's face instantly fell. "That's right well bethought," he said; "they, burghers of Perth, were aye a turbulent set. We must have men enow in the town to keep them down. What's to be done, think you, doctor?--stay, I've got the pirn. We'll send Davie Murray to his cousin Tullibardine, and bid the baron meet us with all his folk in arms, as if just by accident." "I fear me, your majesty, that will not pass current," said Herries; "people don't travel by accident with two or three hundred armed men." "Ay, ay! but you forget there's that affair of Oliphant. The notorious villain has been grinding down the Angus folk like corn between the stones, and he's now in Perth or thereabout. That will be enough for Tullibardine. As for the people about the court, we must have another story ready; but I'se warrant we find one." "I hope it will match all the rest," said Herries, with a grim smile; "for where one has so many pirns on hand they are apt to get tangled. I've seen many an old wife get clean dumfounded with the power o'them; and I'm thinking that, at spinning a web, neither your majesty nor I can match an auld wife." "Gae wa', ye disloyal carle!" cried the king, laughing; "to even your born sovereign to an auld wife! Go your ways, man, I'll make a tale that shall puzzle them. You send up the folk I have told you; but Davie Murray, our controller, first; and then the others, one by one. Let them be like buckets in a draw-well, as one goes down, the other comes up--no more clavers, but do as I bid." Herries retired from the royal presence; but he stopped and thought for a minute or two upon the stairs. He stopped and wondered, too; for though he was ruthless enough, he could not regard the business before him as the king did; and he asked himself, how James could plot the death of two young, hopeful men, in the pleasant spring of life, full of gay expectation and the happy blood of youth, as if he were but laying out the chase of some beast of the field? The secret was, that he could not, with his acute and logical mind, deceive himself with James's sophistries as to the justifiableness of the act; and the king did.