Then Sholto followed her up the stairs, and though I do not know, there is some reason for thinking that he forgave her all her wickedness in the sweet interspace between the gloaming and the mirk, when the lamps were being lighted on earth, and in heaven the stars were coming out.

CHAPTER XXV

THE DOGS AND THE WOLF HOLD COUNCIL

It was a week or two after the date of the great wappenshaw and tourneying at the Castle of Thrieve, that in the midmost golden haze of a summer’s afternoon four men sat talking together about a table in a room of the royal palace of Stirling.

No one of the four was any longer young, and one at least was immoderately fat.  This was James, Earl of Avondale, granduncle of the present Earl of Douglas, and, save for young David, the Earl’s brother, nearest heir to the title and all the estates and honours pertaining thereto, with the single exception of the Lordship of Galloway.

The other three were, first, Sir Alexander Livingston, the guardian of the King’s person, a handsome man with a curled beard, who was supposed to stand high in the immediate favours of the Queen, and who had long been tutor to his Majesty as well as guardian of his royal person.  Opposite to Livingston, and carefully avoiding his eye, sat a man of thin and foxy aspect, whose smooth face, small shifty mouth, and perilous triangular eyes marked him as one infinitely more dangerous than either of the former—­Sir William Crichton, the Chancellor of the realm of Scotland.

The fourth was speaking, and his aspect, strange and ofttimes terrifying, is already familiar to us.  But the pallid corpse-like face, the blue-black beard, the wild-beast look, in the eyes of the Marshal de Retz, ambassador of the King of France, were now more than ever heightened in effect by the studied suavity of his demeanour and the graciousness of language with which he was clothing what he had to say.

“I have brought you together after taking counsel with my good Lord of Avondale.  I am aware, most noble seigneurs, that there have been differences between you in the past as to the conduct of the affairs of this great kingdom; but I am obeying both the known wishes and the express commands of my own King in endeavouring to bring you to an agreement.  You will not forget that the Dauphin of France is wedded to the Scottish princess nearest the throne, and that therefore he is not unconcerned in the welfare of this realm.

“Now, messieurs, it cannot be hid from you that there is one overriding and insistent peril which ought to put an end to all your misunderstandings.  There is a young man in this land, more powerful than you or the King, or, indeed, all the powers legalised and established within the bounds of Scotland.

“Who is above the law, gentlemen?  I name to you the Earl of Douglas.  Who hath a retinue ten times more magnificent than that with which the King rides forth?  The Earl of Douglas!  Who possesses more than half Scotland, and that part the fairest and richest?  Who holds in his hands all the strong castles, is joined by bond of service and manrent with the most powerful nobles of the land?  Who but the Earl of Douglas, Duke of Touraine, Warden of the Marches, hereditary Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom?”