After trimming the lights, the pages, on a sign from the king, withdrew backwards, bowing at every step, and he was left with the earl, who found himself alone, or unattended, and in the closet were the Lords Crichton, Glammis, Sir Patrick Gray, a gentleman of the bedchamber, named Sir Simon Glendinning, and one or two others, who were the chosen friends of James. Aware that their sovereign was about to take the earl calmly but severely to task, they all drew somewhat apart, and Gray, with soldier-like instinct, leaned in silence on his partizan near the door. On perceiving these little movements, a smile of disdain crossed the earl's swarthy face, and he played significantly with his jewelled dagger. James resumed the subject of his general conduct, and if Master David Hume of Godscroft, the historian of the house of Douglas, can be credited, the earl answered submissively enough, and craved the royal pardon, often alleging that the slaughter of Sir Herbert Herries of Teregles, Sir Thomas MacLellan of Bombie, and others, were _not_ acts against the crown, but lawful raids against his own personal enemies. "But how came you to slay the Gudeman of my mills at Carluke?" asked the king."----Carluke--ha! ha!" "The death of a good man is no laughing matter," said James, with a frown on his handsome face. "He was accused of having weeds on his land." "Weeds!" was the perplexed rejoinder. "Yes, your highness--weeds. It was statute and ordained by Alexander II., that he who poisoneth the king's lands with weeds, especially the corn marigold, was a traitor." "By my faith! that should make clean garden-work in the realm of Scotland," said the old chancellor, bitterly; "but the law says, that he who hath a plant of this kind found on his lands may be fined a sheep, or the value thereof, at the goul-court of the baron; whereas the miller died, or was found murdered--hewn to pieces by Jethart axes, within the Holy Gyrth of Lesmahago--a crime against the Church as well as State." "I came not here to talk of peasant carles and their modes of dying," said Douglas, with a terrible frown at Crichton, his hatred for whom he cared not to conceal; "and since when, my lord chancellor, has a slaughter, committed in the form of _Raid_, been termed a _murder_ in Scotland?" "Enough about the poor miller," resumed the king, with growing severity; "my lord, I have another complaint; you have lawlessly separated a faithful subject, the captain of our guard, from his wedded wife, and thus have torn asunder, for many long years, those whom your own father-confessor united before the altar with every due solemnity." "I hope to separate them yet more surely," replied the earl, with a glance of unutterable hate at Gray. "This, in my presence?" exclaimed the king; "thou heart of iron!" "In any man's presence, and to any man who mars or meddles with my domestic affairs; but I beseech your majesty to change the ungracious subject."