Amid all this the pale chancellor, and the grave, but soldier-like regent, were abstracted and nervous; and the emotion of the former increased as the banquet proceeded, and the _fatal moment_ drew near: yet, animated by a sentiment of duty to be performed to their king and country, no thought of pity or remorse found admission in the bosoms of either. The young king and his young noble spoke of dogs, of hawks, of horses; and archery; of hunting and tilting; but the earl seemed to disdain the puerile conversation of the yet-secluded sovereign, treating him coldly, and with an air of lofty patronage, amusing enough in one of his junior years, but sufficiently apparent to all. Sir Patrick Gray felt that on this day the kinsmen of Murielle Douglas treated him more coldly than ever, as they deemed themselves in the zenith of their power and fantastic pride, lording it alike over the king and all his court. "You see there my Captain of the Guard?" he heard the king say, with a kind smile, to the earl, who knit his brows, and contemptuously asked:-- "_Who_ is he?" "Sir Patrick Gray," replied the little monarch, whose eyes dilated with surprise. "Of what--or where?" "Of Foulis." "Indeed!" "A brave and noble gentleman," said James II., with an enthusiasm that made the poor soldier's heart expand with the purest joy; "lord earl, do you not know him?" "Yes," said Douglas, frigidly; "but what of him?" "He gave me a goshawk as a gift last New Year's-day, and I have killed with it every corbie in the woods of Bristo." "Indeed!" "And then at Lady-day he gave me two such noble hounds of St. Hubert's breed!" "St. Bryde! how came such as _he_ by dogs so rare?" Sir Patrick bit his nether lip with suppressed passion at this continued insolence of tone, while the young king replied:-- "We sent him with a message to Jacqueline of Hainault--at least the Regent Livingstone did so, last year,--an errand of courtesy, for the countess was my father's friend. In passing through the forest of Ardennes, he tarried for a night at the Benedictine abbey of St. Hubert, and bought from the monks these two black hounds, the lineal descendants of those which accompanied the saint when he hunted with St. Eustace. They have silver collars, and despite my lady Glammis, sleep every night at the foot of my bed!" "Laus Deo!" said the earl, shrugging his shoulders; "doubtless they must have somewhat of the odour of sanctity about them." At this remark Sir Thomas MacLellan laughed, and the petulant earl turned almost fiercely to him, saying:-- "Sirrah, dare you laugh?" "Saints and devils, my lord," retorted the Lieutenant of the Guard, "may not a man laugh?" "No!" "And why not, my lord earl?" "Because to laugh is at times to assume a superiority, or a bearing of approval, which I would not permit even in our liege lord the king!"