"Each is lovely, though still in girlhood--and, under favour, lovelier, it may be, than the little lady who dwells among the king's rebels in Thrave--for rebels are they to the heart's-core, though not yet in arms." Gray's pale face flushed, and for a moment the scar upon his face grew nearly black; but he merely said, "Well;" and the chancellor, while playing with his pouch and dagger, resumed, in an easy conversational tone. "All the crown-lands, the king's rents, castles, baronies, mills, mails, and fishings, cannot find dowers royal enough of these six dames, his sisters, at present. Do you understand me?" "Not exactly. You must be more plain, my lord chancellor." "'Tis not the first time that a king's daughter has wedded a simple knight." "In old ballads, Sir William; and I would be a _simple_ knight indeed to cast my eyes so high." "The queen-mother is now the wife of the Black Knight of Lorn," said Crichton, with the air of one who finds a convincing argument. "But he is a different man from the poor captain of the king's paid pikemen! St. Mary! a sorry figure would I cut, riding up to my father's tower-gate, with my princess behind me on a pillion, and settling there to become a scrape-trencher, while she assisted my mother in brewhouse and bakery! Take heed, chancellor; I need not be dazzled thus, to keep me faithful to my king. So, enough of this! I am not ignorant that all these princesses are promised, not to simple knights, but to foreign princes." "Not _all_," said the chancellor, with an air of annoyance; "the Princess Margaret is, I know, contracted to Louis, the dauphin of France." "A troublesome brother-in-law he might prove to the younger son of the laird of Foulis," replied Gray, laughing outright. "The Lady Elizabeth----" "Is contracted to the duke of Brittany; and in a month Eleonora will be the bride of Sigismund le Debonnair, archduke of Austria, and duke of all the dukes in Almaynie; while the Lady Mary will be wedded to the lord of Campvere." "I knew not that you were so well versed in state secrets," said the chancellor coldly, with an affected smile. "You forget, my dear Sir William, that your good lady has been my nurse." "There is the Lady Annabelle." "A child," said Sir Patrick, laughing louder to conceal the annoyance that rankled in his heart; "oh! oh! Sir William, I should have to wait ten years at least till my wife grew up. Dost take me for a fool, a very mooncalf, though I have listened to you? But to the point: say what service you seek of me, as I have made up my mind to leave Scotland in a month. Believe me, I need no bribe for faith and service to my king; and, as to Murielle Douglas, the wealth of Prester John of the Indies, if such a man there be, with the love of an empress, would not win me from her, though it may be that, with this gash on my face, she--she might shrink from me now." "Did I not say that I might suit your humour and also serve the king?" asked the chancellor.