Past grey peel and wind-swept fortalice the young Lords of Douglas rode that autumn day, gaily as to a wedding, on their way to place themselves in the power of their house’s enemies.  The sea plain pursued them, flecked green and purple on their right hand.  Little ships floated on the smooth surface of the firth, hardly larger in size than the boats of fisher folk, yet ships withal which had adventured into far seas and brought back rich produce into the barren lands of the Scots.

At last they entered the demesne of Holyrood, and saw the deer crouching and basking about the copses or scampering over the broomy knowes of the Nether Hill.  As they came near to the Canongate Port, they saw a gallant band gaily dressed coming forth to meet them, and the Earl’s eye brightened as it caught in the midst the glint of ladies’ attiring.

“See, Sholto,” he cried, “and repent!  Yonder is not a single lance shining, and you cannot turn your grumbling head but you will see nigh two score, with a stout Douglas heart bumping under each.”

“Ah,” said Sholto, without joy or conviction, “but we are neither in nor yet out of this weary town of Edinburgh!”

As the cavalcade approached, there came a boy on a pony at speed towards them.  He carried a switch in his hand, and with it he urged his little beast to still greater endeavours.

“The King!” cried David, cheerfully.  “I heard he was a sturdy brat enough!”

And in another moment the two young men of the dominant house were taking off their bonnets to the boy who, in name at least, was their sovereign and overlord.

“Hurrah!” cried the lad, as he circled about them, reckless and irresponsible as a sea-gull, “I am so glad, so very glad you have come.  I like you because you are so bold and young.  I have none about me like you.  You will teach me to ride a tourney.  I have been hearing all about yours at Thrieve from the Lady Sybilla.  I wish you had asked me.  But now we shall be friends, and I will come and stay long months with you all together—­that is, if my mother will let me.”

All this the young King shouted as he ranged alongside of the two brothers, and rode with them towards the city.

King James II. of Scotland was at this time an open-hearted boy, with no evident mark of the treachery and jealous fury which afterwards distinguished him as a man.  The schooling of Livingston, his tutor, had not yet perverted his mind (as it did too soon afterwards), and he welcomed the young Douglases as the embodiment of all that was great and knightly, noble and gallant, in his kingdom.