Many a haughty brow was already bent on the unknown stranger. Gray moustaches, that had bristled in the teeth of the English archers at Flodden, were pulled in mingled astonishment and anger; while hands, always too prompt to shed blood, gripped dagger and sword-hilt, as though neither the sacred locality nor the presence of the sovereign would long restrain them from open violence. The first impulse of the Scottish noble was to resent an insult or avenge an injury on the spot. Morton alone, of all the crowd, seemed to experience neither indignation nor surprise. The smile that gave his face so fiendish an expression only deepened and hardened round his mouth. He glanced from the Queen to her ill-chosen favourite with looks rather of amused malignity than offended pride. Morton’s will was strong in proportion to his passions, and these, with all their abiding energy, were thoroughly under the control of his hard unfeeling nature. The Douglas was, indeed, one of those who would ‘strike sooner than speak, and drink sooner than pray;’ yet he only glared on the singer with a kind of comic ferocity, and the poor little Italian shrunk nearer his protectress with a prophetic horror of the hard-featured earl. Bidding Riccio follow in her train, the Queen passed on through the cloisters of the palace towards her own apartments, returning with cold courtesy the salutations of her nobility. The courtiers looked meaningly at each other, and then at the new favourite, who slunk along behind his mistress, bearing her gorgeous missal, in ludicrous dismay. Secretary Maitland, a man whose wits were always at hand, and who could transact more business in ten minutes than the rest of the Privy Council in as many days, approached her Majesty with a huge bundle of papers under his arm, and the Queen, taking them from him without remark, handed the whole at once to Riccio. The secretary ventured on an expostulation. ‘They are for your Majesty’s _private_ information,’ said he, deferentially, but in a tone of marked disapproval. ‘And I have given them to my _private_ secretary,’ replied Mary, haughtily; thus hastily and injudiciously confirming the appointment that led to such disastrous results. ‘Shall I attend your Grace to explain their contents?’ asked Maitland, as coolly as if nothing unusual had taken place. ‘When I send for you, sir,’ answered the Queen; and even Maitland’s assurance was compelled to give way. He could but bow and fall back amongst the crowd. Some of the nobles were so offended that they quitted the court on the spot; others thought it a bad opportunity to press their respective suits with the sovereign, and lounged off, as it were inadvertently, to their different amusements and occupations--one to fly a hawk, another to try a horse, not a few to break their fast on rich food and strong potations; the while they discussed the gossip of the court, which had received no inconsiderable fillip from the events of the morning.