‘What news from Hermitage, good fellow?’ said the Queen, accepting Dick’s awkward homage with gracious courtesy. ‘How fares it with our Lord Warden yonder on the Marches? Mayhap he is coming northward with the main body, of which you are but the vanguard?’ She spoke with something of flutter and hurry that was scarce natural to her. Perhaps she wished the retainer to know that she bore his sullen lord no ill-will; perhaps she even expected her vassal to return to her feet in penitence and contrition; perhaps in her woman’s heart, even now she could not but revert to the old times, when Bothwell’s haste regarded neither pace nor horseflesh to gallop on far ahead of his following, only to be the first to kneel at his Queen’s feet and touch the hem of her garment. Dick answered stoutly, though in some confusion-- ‘The Laird’s no ailing in body, Your Grace, though he wad be nane the waur to be whiles in the saddle a wee thing. The Hepburns’ feet aye become steel stirrups better than velvet mules.[12] He’s less wise-like than ordinar’,’ added Dick, with a shrewd glance in Her Majesty’s face; ‘but I’m thinkin’ he’ll bide in Liddesdale a whiley yet.’ [12] Slippers. Mary laughed good-humouredly. It did not seem to displease her that Bothwell should be sullen and dispirited. Yet she bore him no grudge for it, obviously; rather the contrary. ‘The Liddesdale lads are aye welcome at Holyrood,’ said she frankly, and with the Scottish accent she knew how to assume so gracefully. ‘Take a Stuart’s word for it,’ she added, giving him at the same time her hand to kiss, ‘both for yourself and your chief.’ ‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh’ kissed the beautiful hand with the devotion of a worshipper to a saint; but his eyes wandered beyond the royal form and sought that of a lady in her train. At this moment Darnley came up from behind and accosted the henchman with his usual overbearing assumption of manner. ‘How now, whom have we here, my fair cousin?’ said the young noble, flinging a contemptuous glance at the borderer. ‘An ambassador from Limbo Castle, sometimes called Hermitage, by his crest! Accredited messenger from all the thieves and sorners in the Debateable Land. How ranges the price of good nags on the Border, knave? The nights are moonless just now, though they be something short; the droves should be coming in pretty fast from Cumberland.’ The moss-trooper’s eye brightened. ‘If it was Her Grace’s wish,’ said he, looking respectfully towards the Queen, ‘we could bring the wale[13] o’ the countryside up to Holyrood in a fortnight from this day. Lord Scrope rides a soar gelding,’ he added, warming with the congenial subject, ‘that steps as daintily as a bird lights on a bough. Forbye the colour would become rarely Her Grace’s housings and foot-mantle. If I might make so bold, I wad engage he should be in Her Majesty’s stable or he was weel missed at Warkworth. I wad send ain o’ my lads back for him this very night!’ [13] Pick.