along with her stick, and, when out of sight, a hand on Annaple’s shoulder. In public, nothing would have made her presume so far. The hall was a huge, vaulted, stone-walled room, with a great fire on the wide hearth, and three long tables—one was cross-wise, on the dais near the fire, the other two ran the length of the hall. The upper one was furnished with tolerably clean napery and a few silver vessels; as to the lower ones, they were in two degrees of comparison, and the less said of the third the better. It was for the men-at-arms and the lowest servants, whereas the second belonged to those of the suite of the King and Chancellor, who were not of rank to be at his table. The Lord Lion King-at-Arms was high-table company, but he was absent, and the inferior royal pursuivant was entertaining two of his fellows, one with the Douglas Bloody Heart, the other with the Lindsay Lion on a black field, besides two messengers of the different clans, who looked askance at one another.
Leaning against the wall near the window stood the young King with two or three youths beside him, laughing and talking over three great deer-hounds, and by the hearth were two elder men—one, a tall dignified figure in the square cap and purple robe of a Bishop, with a face of great wisdom and sweetness; the other, still taller, with slightly grizzled hair and the weather-beaten countenance of a valiant and sagacious warrior, dressed in the leathern garments usually worn under armour.
As Jean emerged from the turret she was met and courteously greeted by Sir Patrick Drummond and his sons, as were also her sisters, with a grace and deference to their rank such as they hardly ever received from the nobles, and whose very rarity made Eleanor shy and uncomfortable, even while she was gratified and accepted it as her due.
The Bishop inclined his head and gave them a kind smile; but they had already seen him in the morning, as he was residing in the castle. He was the most fatherly friend and kinsman the young things knew, and though really their first cousin, they looked to him like an uncle. He insisted on due ceremony with them, though he had much difficulty in enforcing it, except with those Scottish knights and nobles who, like Sir Patrick Drummond, had served in France, and retained their French breeding.
So Jean, hawk and all, had to be handed to her seat by Sir Patrick as the guest, Eleanor by her brother, not without a little fraternal pinch, and Mary by the Bishop, who answered with a paternal caress to her murmured entreaty that she might keep wee Andie on her lap and give him his brose.
It was not a sumptuous repast, the staple being a haggis, also broth with chunks of meat and barleycorns floating in it, the meat in strings by force of boiling. At the high table each person had a bowl, either silver or wood, and each had a private spoon, and a dagger to serve as knife, also a drinking-cup of various materials, from the King’s gold goblet downwards to horns, and a bannock to eat with the brose. At the middle table trenchers and bannocks served the purpose of plates; and at the third there was nothing interposed between the boards of the table and the lumps of meat from which the soup had been made.
Jean’s quick eyes soon detected more men-at-arms and with different badges from the thyme spray of Drummond, and her brother was evidently bursting with some communication, held back almost forcibly by the Bishop, who had established a considerable influence over the impetuous boy, while Sir Patrick maintained a wise and tedious political conversation about the peace between France and England, which was to be cemented by the marriage of the young King of England to the daughter of King Rene and the cession of Anjou and Maine to her father.
‘Solid dukedoms for a lassie!’ cried young James. ‘What a craven to make such a bargain!’
‘Scarce like his father’s son,’ returned Sir Patrick, ‘who gat the bride with a kingdom for her tocher that these folks have well-nigh lost among them.’
‘The saints be praised if they have.’
‘I cannot forget, my liege, how your own sainted father loved and fought for King Harry of Monmouth. Foe as he was, I own that I shall never look on his like again.’
‘I hold with you in that, Patie,’ said Bishop Kennedy; ‘and frown as you may, my young liege, a few years with such as he would do more for you—as it did with your blessed father—than ever we can.’
‘I can hold mine own, I hope, without lessons from the enemy,’ said James, holding his head high, while his ruddy locks flew back, his eyes glanced, and the red scar on his cheek widened. ‘And is it true that you are for going through false England, Patie?’
‘I made friends there when I spent two years there with your Grace’s blessed father,’ returned Sir Patrick, ‘and so did my good wife. She longs to see the lady who is now Sister Clare at St. Katharine’s in London, and it is well not to let her and Annis brook the long sea voyage.’
‘There, Jean! I’d brook ten sea voyages rather than hold myself beholden to an Englishman!’ quoth James.
‘Nevertheless, there are letters and messages that it is well to confide to so trusty and wise-headed a knight as Glenuskie,’ returned the Bishop.
The meal over, the silver bowls were carried round with water to wash the hands by the two young Drummonds, sons of Glenuskie, and by the King’s pages, youths of about the same age, after which the Bishop and Sir Patrick asked licence of the King to retire for consultation to the Bishop’s apartment, a permission which, as may well be believed, he granted readily, only rejoicing that he was not wanted.
The little ones were carried off by Mary and Nurse Ankaret; and the King, his elder sisters, and the other youths of condition betook themselves, followed by half-a-dozen great dogs, to the court, where the Drummonds wanted to exhibit the horses procured for the journey, and James and Jean to show the hawks that were the pride of their heart.
By and by came an Italian priest, who acted as secretary to the Bishop—a poor little man who grew yellower and yellower, was always shivering, and seemed to be shrivelled into growing smaller and smaller by the Scottish winds, but who had a most keen and intelligent face.
‘How now, Father Romuald,’ called out James. ‘Are ye come to fetch me?’
‘Di grazia, Signor Re’, began the Italian in some fear, as the dogs smelted his lambskin cape. ‘The Lord Bishop entreats your Majesty’s presence.’
His Majesty, who, by the way, never was so called by any one else, uttered some bitter growls and grumbles, but felt forced to obey the call, taking with him, however, his beautiful falcon on his wrist, and the two huge deer-hounds, who he declared should be of the council if he was.
Jean and Eleanor then closed upon David and Malcolm, eagerly demanding of them what they expected in that wonderful land to which they were going, much against the will of young David, who was sure there would be no hunting of deer, nor hawking for grouse, nor riding after an English borderer or Hieland cateran—nothing, in fact, worth living for! It would be all a-wearying with their manners and their courtesies and such like daft woman’s gear! Why could not his father be content to let him grow up like his fellows, rough and free and ready?
‘And knowing nothing better—nothing beyond,’ said Eleanor.
‘What would you have better than the hill and the brae? To tame a horse and fly a hawk, and couch a lance and bend a bow! That’s what a man is made for, without fashing himself with letters and Latin and manners, no better than a monk; but my father would always have it so!’
‘Ye’ll be thankful to him yet, Davie,’ put in his graver brother.
‘Thankful! I shall forget all about it as soon as I am knighted, and make you write all my letters—and few enough there will be.’
