The cavalcade came leisurely on, for the King proceeded no faster than would allow the falconers to keep easily up with those on horseback.  He was in high good humour, and laughed and jested sometimes with one ambassador, sometimes with the other, and having finished a learned discussion on the manner of fleeing a hawk at the river and on the field, as taught by the great French authorities, Martin, Malopin, and Aime Cassian, with the Marquis de Tremouille, had just begun a similar conversation with Giustiniano as to the Italian mode of manning, hooding, and reclaiming a falcon, as practised by Messer Francesco Sforzino Vicentino, when he caught sight of the Conde de Gondomar, standing where we left him at the side of the avenue, on which he came to a sudden halt, and the whole cavalcade stopped at the same time.

“Salud!  Conde magnifico!” exclaimed King James, as the Spaniard advanced to make his obeisance to him; “how is it that we find you standing under the shade of the tree friendly to the vine,—­amictoe vitibus ulmi as Ovid hath it?  Is it that yon blooming Chloe,” he continued, leering significantly at Gillian, “hath more attraction for you than our court dames?  Troth! the quean is not ill-favoured; but ye ha’ lost a gude day’s sport, Count, forbye ither losses which we sall na particularize.  We hae had a noble flight at the heron, and anither just as guid after the bustard.  God’s santy! the run the lang-leggit loon gave us.  Lady Exeter, on her braw Spanish barb—­we ken whose gift it is—­was the only one able to keep with us; and it was her leddyship’s ain peregrine falcon that checked the fleeing carle at last.  By our faith the Countess understands the gentle science weel.  She cared not to soil her dainty gloves by rewarding her hawk with a soppa, as his Excellency Giustiniano would term it, of the bustard’s heart, bluid, and brains.  But wha hae ye gotten wi’ ye?” he added, for the first time noticing Jocelyn.

“A young gentleman in whom I am much interested, and whom I would crave permission to present to your Majesty,” replied De Gondomar.

“Saul of our body, Count, the permission is readily granted,” replied James, evidently much pleased with the young man’s appearance.  “Ye shall bring him to us in the privy-chamber before we gang to supper, and moreover ye shall hae full licence to advance what you please in his behoof.  He is a weel-grown, weel-favoured laddie, almost as much sae as our ain dear dog Steenie; but we wad say to him, in the words of the Roman bard,

  ‘O formose puer, nimium ne crede colori!’

Gude pairts are better than gude looks; not that the latter are to be undervalued, but baith should exist in the same person.  We shall soon discover whether the young man hath been weel nurtured, and if all correspond we shall not refuse him the light of our countenance.”

“I tender your Majesty thanks for the favour you have conferred upon him,” replied De Gondomar.