The lords would fain have silenced this rude sailor, but having given hostages for his safe return were obliged to let him go. There could not be a more vivid picture of their perplexity and trouble. They proceeded to Edinburgh after this rebuff, coming in, we may well believe, with little sound of trumpet or sign of welcome, and with many a threatening countenance among the crowds that gazed wistfully upon the boy in their midst, who, if the King were really dead, was the King--another James. There might be old men about watching from the foot of the Canongate the silent cortege trooping along the valley to Holyrood--men who remembered with all the force of boyish recollection how the assassins of James I. had been dragged and tormented through Edinburgh streets, and might wonder and whisper inquiries to their sons whether such a horrible sight might be coming again, and what part that pale boy had in the dreadful deed? It was but fifty years since that catastrophe, and already two long minorities had paralysed the progress of Scotland. How the crowding people must have eyed him, as he rode along, the slim stripling, so young, so helpless, in the midst of all these bearded men! What part did he have in it? Was his father done to death by his orders? Was he consenting at least to what was done? Was he aware of all that was to follow that hurried ride with the lords, into which he had been beguiled or persuaded? James III had to some degree favoured Edinburgh, where, notwithstanding his long captivity in the Castle, he had found defenders and friends. And there must have been many in the crowd who took part with the unfortunate monarch, so mysteriously gone out of their midst, and who looked with horror upon the boy who had something at least to do with the ruin and death of his father. It was a sombre entry upon the future dwelling to which this young James was to bring so much splendour and rejoicing.