"Of what--or whom?" asked James, with a louring eye. "The Douglases again." Sir Patrick Gray started from his reverie to listen. "What of them now?" asked the king impatiently. "Sir Alan Lauder and a man named James Achanna, both followers of the earl, have slain a king's vassal within the Holy Gyrth of Lesmahago." "Treason! But that is a mere nothing now," said James bitterly. "And worse than treason, for it is sacrilege!" added the abbot of Melrose, with gathering wrath. "When your highness's sainted ancestor, King David I., in the pious times of old, granted that cell unto the monks of Kelso, he wrote, that 'whoso escaping peril of life and limb flies to the said cell, or cometh within the four crosses around it, in reverence to God and St. Machute, _I grant him my firm peace_.'" "And so they violated this holy sanctuary?" said James. "Yes; and hewed the poor man to pieces with their Jethart axes." "His offence?" "Was wearing the royal livery,--being the gudeman of your majesty's mills at Carluke." The king started up, and was about to utter some hasty speech, when a smart little page, clad in a violet-coloured doublet, with long hose of white silk, drew back the tapestry which overhung the arched door, and announced that the lord chancellor craved an audience in haste. "Admit him," said James, advancing a step, as the old statesman, pale and thin from the effect of his recent wounds and by the advance of years, entered, propped upon a long silver-headed staff. "You look grave, my lord," added the king; "but I pray you to be seated." "I have evil tidings," began the chancellor, hobbling forward and coughing violently. "The very words of my Lord Glammis," said the king; "can aught else come to the ear of him who wears a Scottish crown?" he added, biting his nether lip. "Say not so, after our late glorious victory at Sark!" exclaimed the chancellor; "but, nevertheless, I _have_ evil news," he added, taking from the velvet pouch which hung at his embroidered girdle several letters, folded square, and tied with ribbons, in the fashion of the time. "I have two grave matters to lay before your majesty. We are more than ever humbled and insulted by this overweening earl of Douglas, and, through you, the entire nation! The king of Scotland," continued the chancellor, warming and striking the floor with his cane, "is the fountain of Scottish honour, and thus I maintain, that if the king is insulted so are _we_; for if a stream be polluted at its source, every rill that flows from it becomes so too; but we must end these matters by the sword--we must wipe out our wrongs in blood, and regild our tarnished blazons in the reddest that flows in the veins of our enemies, the men of Douglas-dale and Galloway!" "These wild men are yet untamed," said the tall thin treasurer, shaking his bald head. "But _not_ untameable," responded the fiery old chancellor, with a spark of rage in his hollow eyes.