’The King! the King!’ he muttered in astonishment, looking about him like one distracted. ’Ay, Baron Bailzie of Carrick, even your King,’ said the man in the wide trunk hosen, ’come to see how his sometime High Treasurer of Scotland executes just judgment in his own regality!’ The Earl came quickly to himself, and he and all the people took off their hats. He stepped down and made his obeisance to the King, bending humbly upon his knee. Then he ushered the King to the throne whereon he himself had been sitting, and took a lower seat beside Adam Boyd of Penkill, his assessor in ordinary. The King rose to speak. ’My Lord Earl and gentlemen of Carrick,’ he said, with dignity enough, but with a thick and rolling accent as if his tongue had been indeed too big, ’I know this case to the bottom. I am fully persuaded of the innocence of our trusty councillor, John Mure of Auchendrayne—who is besides of the fraternity of learned men, and one that hath a history of this realm in script ready for the printers, wherein he does full justice both to myself and to my noble predecessors. He hath, as I should nominate it, an exactness of expression and a perspicuity of argument that have never been matched in the land. I propose shortly to make him my historiographer royal. Also I, the King, do know him to be a man well affected to the right ecclesiastical ruling of this kingdom, and minded to help me with the due ordering of it.’ The King puffed and blew after his speech, and we and all that were there stood silent, for to most of us he might as well have spoken in the Hebrew of which he boasted himself so great a master. Then he went on:— ’I have left my Lord Mar and my retinue some way in the rear. For we go to hunt the deer in whatever forest the goodwill of our loyal subjects may put at our disposal.’ ’You are right welcome, my liege,’ said the Earl John, starting up and standing bareheaded, ’to my hunting lodges and retinue, both in the Forest of Buchan and also at my house of Cassillis.’ The King bent towards him royally, for James the Sixth had manners when he liked to show them—which, in truth, was not always. ’I thank you, trusty councillor,’ said he; ’it is nobly and generously done—qualities which also marked your all-too-brief tenure of the office of High Treasurer of Scotland. But for the judging of this our worthy subject, I propose to take that upon myself, being wholly persuaded of his innocence. And as for those that have falsely accused him, let the men underlie my will in the prison most convenient, and the women be warded meantime in their own house and castle, till I cause to be known my whole pleasure in the matter.’