"Of that, and of thy Flemish mission, we will talk at another time," replied the king; "let us not mar the happiness I feel at seeing thee, honest Wood, the dearest and most faithful of my people, by allusions to such cold and bitter subjects." "God and St. Andrew bless your majesty!" said the admiral, whose eyes and heart overflowed as he spoke. "I have never done aught more than my duty to Scotland and my king, as man and boy, for forty years, since first I trod a deck--a puir sailor laddie, in the _Peggie_ of Pittenweem. I would run my head into a cannon's mouth, if by doing so I could serve your majesty; and that, I believe, is mair than half of these gay galliards ahead and astern of us would do; natheless their long pedigrees and their dainty doublets, with white lace knuckle-dabbers at the wrists." "Some day I shall go to sea with thee, Wood," said King James, with a melancholy smile; "for, by the soul of Bruce! I begin to tire of this trade of kingcraft." "I like the land as little as a fish; but should a day of foul weather ever come, when your majesty is safer on salt water than on Scottish earth," said the admiral, more than divining the secret thoughts of the king; "remember, there is a ship's company of five hundred good men and true, under the flag of the _Yellow Frigate_, every man of whom hath a seaman's hand and a seaman's heart, solid as a pump-bolt, and not like a perfumed and painted courtier's, hollow as a leather bottle, or rotten like an old pumpsucker. Gadzooks! I would like to see a few of these braw gallants drifting under close-reefed topsails, with a wind blowing hard from the east, and the craigs of Dunnottar on their lee!" The king sighed, and allowed the reins of his horse to drop upon its neck. "Your majesty is troubled," resumed the honest seaman; "but if any of these dogfish barons have been at their auld work, just let me ken, and, by all the serpents in the sea! they shall feel the weight of my two-handed sword, or I shall pipe away my barge's crew with their boat-stretchers, and they will soon clear the causeway of every lord and loon in Dundee." The king laughed. "Thou art indeed an honest heart," said he; for he found that they could converse freely, as the incessant exclamations of the people, as they pressed along the crowded streets, concealed their conversation from such jealous listeners as Angus and Drummond. "A process so summary might destroy thee, admiral, and thy bargemen too. But indeed, Sir Andrew, I am sick of this ferocious loyalty (if I may so term it) by which the nobles encircle me like a wall of iron. Though short, my life has been a long and dreary labyrinth of intrigue and civil war, of crafty councils and infernal suggestions--a struggle between a tyrannical feudal peerage and a gallant people, who would, and by St. Giles's bones shall yet, be free! The nation has placed upon my brow a crown of gold; but the nobles have engirt my heart by a band of burning steel!"