We must return to the characters of our dramatic narrative whom we left at Perth, when we accompanied the glover and his fair daughter to Kinfauns, and from that hospitable mansion traced the course of Simon to Loch Tay; and the Prince, as the highest personage, claims our immediate attention.

This rash and inconsiderate young man endured with some impatience his sequestered residence with the Lord High Constable, with whose company, otherwise in every respect satisfactory, he became dissatisfied, from no other reason than that he held in some degree the character of his warder. Incensed against his uncle and displeased with his father, he longed, not unnaturally, for the society of Sir John Ramorny, on whom he had been so long accustomed to throw himself for amusement, and, though he would have resented the imputation as an insult, for guidance and direction. He therefore sent him a summons to attend him, providing his health permitted; and directed him to come by water to a little pavilion in the High Constable’s garden, which, like that of Sir John’s own lodgings, ran down to the Tay. In renewing an intimacy so dangerous, Rothsay only remembered that he had been Sir Join Ramorny’s munificent friend; while Sir John, on receiving the invitation, only recollected, on his part, the capricious insults he had sustained from his patron, the loss of his hand, and the lightness with which he had treated the subject, and the readiness with which Rothsay had abandoned his cause in the matter of the bonnet maker’s slaughter. He laughed bitterly when he read the Prince’s billet.

“Eviot,” he said, “man a stout boat with six trusty men — trusty men, mark me — lose not a moment, and bid Dwining instantly come hither.

“Heaven smiles on us, my trusty friend,” he said to the mediciner. “I was but beating my brains how to get access to this fickle boy, and here he sends to invite me.”

“Hem! I see the matter very clearly,” said Dwining. “Heaven smiles on some untoward consequences — he! he! he!”

“No matter, the trap is ready; and it is baited, too, my friend, with what would lure the boy from a sanctuary, though a troop with drawn weapons waited him in the churchyard. Yet is it scarce necessary. His own weariness of himself would have done the job. Get thy matters ready — thou goest with us. Write to him, as I cannot, that we come instantly to attend his commands, and do it clerkly. He reads well, and that he owes to me.”

“He will be your valiancie’s debtor for more knowledge before he dies — he! he! he! But is your bargain sure with the Duke of Albany?”

“Enough to gratify my ambition, thy avarice, and the revenge of both. Aboard — aboard, and speedily; let Eviot throw in a few flasks of the choicest wine, and some cold baked meats.”

“But your arm, my lord, Sir John? Does it not pain you?”

“The throbbing of my heart silences the pain of my wound. It beats as it would burst my bosom.”

“Heaven forbid!” said Dwining; adding, in a low voice —“It would be a strange sight if it should. I should like to dissect it, save that its stony case would spoil my best instruments.”

In a few minutes they were in the boat, while a speedy messenger carried the note to the Prince.

Rothsay was seated with the Constable, after their noontide repast. He was sullen and silent; and the earl had just asked whether it was his pleasure that the table should be cleared, when a note, delivered to the Prince, changed at once his aspect.

“As you will,” he said. “I go to the pavilion in the garden — always with permission of my Lord Constable — to receive my late master of the horse.”

“My lord!” said Lord Errol.

“Ay, my lord; must I ask permission twice?”

“No, surely, my lord,” answered the Constable; “but has your Royal Highness recollected that Sir John Ramorny —”

“Has not the plague, I hope?” replied the Duke of Rothsay. “Come, Errol, you would play the surly turnkey, but it is not in your nature; farewell for half an hour.”

“A new folly!” said Errol, as the Prince, flinging open a lattice of the ground parlour in which they sat, stept out into the garden —“a new folly, to call back that villain to his counsels. But he is infatuated.”

The Prince, in the mean time, looked back, and said hastily:

“Your lordship’s good housekeeping will afford us a flask or two of wine and a slight collation in the pavilion? I love the al fresco of the river.”

The Constable bowed, and gave the necessary orders; so that Sir John found the materials of good cheer ready displayed, when, landing from his barge, he entered the pavilion.

“It grieves my heart to see your Highness under restraint,” said Ramorny, with a well executed appearance of sympathy.

“That grief of thine will grieve mine,” said the Prince. “I am sure here has Errol, and a right true hearted lord he is, so tired me with grave looks, and something like grave lessons, that he has driven me back to thee, thou reprobate, from whom, as I expect nothing good, I may perhaps obtain something entertaining. Yet, ere we say more, it was foul work, that upon the Fastern’s Even, Ramorny. I well hope thou gavest not aim to it.”

“On my honour, my lord, a simple mistake of the brute Bonthron. I did hint to him that a dry beating would be due to the fellow by whom I had lost a hand; and lo you, my knave makes a double mistake. He takes one man for another, and instead of the baton he uses the axe.”

“It is well that it went no farther. Small matter for the bonnet maker; but I had never forgiven you had the armourer fallen — there is not his match in Britain. But I hope they hanged the villain high enough?”

“If thirty feet might serve,” replied Ramorny.

“Pah! no more of him,” said Rothsay; “his wretched name makes the good wine taste of blood. And what are the news in Perth, Ramorny? How stands it with the bona robas and the galliards?”

“Little galliardise stirring, my lord,” answered the knight. “All eyes are turned to the motions of the Black Douglas, who comes with five thousand chosen men to put us all to rights, as if he were bound for another Otterburn. It is said he is to be lieutenant again. It is certain many have declared for his faction.”

“It is time, then, my feet were free,” said Rothsay, “otherwise I may find a worse warder than Errol.”

“Ah, my lord! were you once away from this place, you might make as bold a head as Douglas.”

“Ramorny,” said the Prince, gravely, “I have but a confused remembrance of your once having proposed something horrible to me. Beware of such counsel. I would be free — I would have my person at my own disposal; but I will never levy arms against my father, nor those it pleases him to trust.”

“It was only for your Royal Highness’s personal freedom that I was presuming to speak,” answered Ramorny. “Were I in your Grace’s place, I would get me into that good boat which hovers on the Tay, and drop quietly down to Fife, where you have many friends, and make free to take possession of Falkland. It is a royal castle; and though the King has bestowed it in gift on your uncle, yet surely, even if the grant were not subject to challenge, your Grace might make free with the residence of so near a relative.”

“He hath made free with mine,” said the Duke, “as the stewartry of Renfrew can tell. But stay, Ramorny — hold; did I not hear Errol say that the Lady Marjory Douglas, whom they call Duchess of Rothsay, is at Falkland? I would neither dwell with that lady nor insult her by dislodging her.”

“The lady was there, my lord,” replied Ramorny; “I have sure advice that she is gone to meet her father.”

“Ha! to animate the Douglas against me? or perhaps to beg him to spare me, providing I come on my knees to her bed, as pilgrims say the emirs and amirals upon whom a Saracen soldan bestows a daughter in marriage are bound to do? Ramorny, I will act by the Douglas’s own saying, ‘It is better to hear the lark sing than the mouse squeak.’ I will keep both foot and hand from fetters.”

“No place fitter than Falkland,” replied Ramorny. “I have enough of good yeomen to keep the place; and should your Highness wish to leave it, a brief ride reaches the sea in three directions.”

“You speak well. But we shall die of gloom yonder. Neither mirth, music, nor maidens — ha!” said the heedless Prince.

“Pardon me, noble Duke; but, though the Lady Marjory Douglas be departed, like an errant dame in romance, to implore succour of her doughty sire, there is, I may say, a lovelier, I am sure a younger, maiden, either presently at Falkland or who will soon be on the road thither. Your Highness has not forgotten the Fair Maid of Perth?”

“Forget the prettiest wench in Scotland! No — any more than thou hast forgotten the hand that thou hadst in the Curfew Street onslaught on St. Valentine’s Eve.”

“The hand that I had! Your Highness would say, the hand that I lost. As certain as I shall never regain it, Catharine Glover is, or will soon be, at Falkland. I will not flatter your Highness by saying she expects to meet you; in truth, she proposes to place herself under the protection of the Lady Marjory.”

“The little traitress,” said the Prince —“she too to turn against me? She deserves punishment, Ramorny.”

“I trust your Grace will make her penance a gentle one,” replied the knight.

“Faith, I would have been her father confessor long ago, but I have ever found her coy.”

“Opportunity was lacking, my lord,” replied Ramorny; “and time presses even now.”

“Nay, I am but too apt for a frolic; but my father —”

“He is personally safe,” said Ramorny, “and as much at freedom as ever he can be; while your Highness —”

“Must brook fetters, conjugal or literal — I know it. Yonder comes Douglas, with his daughter in his hand, as haughty and as harsh featured as himself, bating touches of age.”

“And at Falkland sits in solitude the fairest wench in Scotland,” said Ramorny. “Here is penance and restraint, yonder is joy and freedom.”

“Thou hast prevailed, most sage counsellor,” replied Rothsay; “but mark you, it shall be the last of my frolics.”

“I trust so,” replied Ramorny; “for, when at liberty, you may make a good accommodation with your royal father.”

“I will write to him, Ramorny. Get the writing materials. No, I cannot put my thoughts in words — do thou write.”

“Your Royal Highness forgets,” said Ramorny, pointing to his mutilated arm.

“Ah! that cursed hand of yours. What can we do?”

“So please your Highness,” answered his counsellor, “if you would use the hand of the mediciner, Dwining — he writes like a clerk.”

“Hath he a hint of the circumstances? Is he possessed of them?”

“Fully,” said Ramorny; and, stepping to the window, he called Dwining from the boat.

He entered the presence of the Prince of Scotland, creeping as if he trode upon eggs, with downcast eyes, and a frame that seemed shrunk up by a sense of awe produced by the occasion.

“There, fellow, are writing materials. I will make trial of you; thou know’st the case — place my conduct to my father in a fair light.”

Dwining sat down, and in a few minutes wrote a letter, which he handed to Sir John Ramorny.

“Why, the devil has aided thee, Dwining,” said the knight. “Listen, my dear lord. ‘Respected father and liege sovereign — Know that important considerations induce me to take my departure from this your court, purposing to make my abode at Falkland, both as the seat of my dearest uncle Albany, with whom I know your Majesty would desire me to use all familiarity, and as the residence of one from whom I have been too long estranged, and with whom I haste to exchange vows of the closest affection from henceforward.’”

The Duke of Rothsay and Ramorny laughed aloud; and the physician, who had listened to his own scroll as if it were a sentence of death, encouraged by their applause, raised his eyes, uttered faintly his chuckling note of “He! he!” and was again grave and silent, as if afraid he had transgressed the bounds of reverent respect.

“Admirable!” said the Prince —“admirable! The old man will apply all this to the Duchess, as they call her, of Rothsay. Dwining, thou shouldst be a secretis to his Holiness the Pope, who sometimes, it is said, wants a scribe that can make one word record two meanings. I will subscribe it, and have the praise of the device.”

“And now, my lord,” said Ramorny, sealing the letter and leaving it behind, “will you not to boat?”

“Not till my chamberlain attends with some clothes and necessaries, and you may call my sewer also.”

“My lord,” said Ramorny, “time presses, and preparation will but excite suspicion. Your officers will follow with the mails tomorrow. For tonight, I trust my poor service may suffice to wait on you at table and chamber.”

“Nay, this time it is thou who forgets,” said the Prince, touching the wounded arm with his walking rod. “Recollect, man, thou canst neither carve a capon nor tie a point — a goodly sewer or valet of the mouth!”

Ramorny grinned with rage and pain; for his wound, though in a way of healing, was still highly sensitive, and even the pointing a finger towards it made him tremble.

“Will your Highness now be pleased to take boat?”

“Not till I take leave of the Lord Constable. Rothsay must not slip away, like a thief from a prison, from the house of Errol. Summon him hither.”

“My Lord Duke,” said Ramorny, “it may be dangerous to our plan.”

“To the devil with danger, thy plan, and thyself! I must and will act to Errol as becomes us both.”

The earl entered, agreeable to the Prince’s summons.

“I gave you this trouble, my lord,” said Rothsay, with the dignified courtesy which he knew so well how to assume, “to thank you for your hospitality and your good company. I can enjoy them no longer, as pressing affairs call me to Falkland.”

“My lord,” said the Lord High Constable, “I trust your Grace remembers that you are — under ward.”

“How!— under ward? If I am a prisoner, speak plainly; if not, I will take my freedom to depart.”

“I would, my lord, your Highness would request his Majesty’s permission for this journey. There will be much displeasure.”

“Mean you displeasure against yourself, my lord, or against me?”

“I have already said your Highness lies in ward here; but if you determine to break it, I have no warrant — God forbid............