estuary, with apparently wounded men on board. They sent accordingly to summon Sir Andrew Wood to their presence. The sailor probably cared nothing about politics any further than that he held for the King--and furious with the Lords who had withstood his Majesty declined to come unless hostages were sent for his safety. When this was accorded, the old sea-lion, the first admiral of Scotland, came gruffly from his ships to answer their questions. Whether there was any resemblance between the two men, as he stood with his cloak wrapped round him defiant before the rebel lords, or if the Prince had, as is possible, been so long absent from his father that the vague outline of a man enveloped and muffled deceived him, it is impossible to say. But there is a tone of penetrating reality in the "Sir, are ye my father?" of the troubled boy, perhaps only then aroused to a full comprehension of his position and the sense that he was himself guiltily involved in the proceedings which had brought some mysterious and unknown fate upon the King. It is difficult to see why, accepting from Pitscottie all the rest of this affecting narrative, the modern historian should cut out this as unworthy of belief, "Who answered," continues the chronicler, "with tears falling from his eyes," "'Sir, I am not your father, but I was a servand to your father, and sall be to his authoritie till I die, and ane enemy to them that was the occasion of his doon-putting.' The lords inquired of Captain Wood if he knew of the King or where he was. He answered he knew nothing of the King nor where he was. Then they speired what they were that came out of the field and passed into his ships. He answered: 'It was I and my brother, who were ready to have waired our lives with the King in his defence.' Then they said, 'He is not in your ships?' who answered again, 'He is not in my ship, but would to God he were in my ship safelie, I should defend him and keep him skaithless frae all the treasonable creatures who has murdered him, for I think to see the day when they shall be hanged and quartered for their demerites.'"