"
"It was indeed a happy day," said Lord Huntinglen, "and will not be
forgotten in the history of your Majesty's reign."
"I would not that it were, my lord," replied the monarch--"I would not
that it were pretermitted in our annals. Ay, ay--BEATI PACIFICI. My
English lieges here may weel make much of me, for I would have them to
know, they have gotten the only peaceable man that ever came of my
family. If James with the Fiery Face had come amongst you," he said,
looking round him, "or my great grandsire, of Flodden memory!"
"We should have sent him back to the north again," whispered one
English nobleman.
"At least," said another, in the same inaudible tone, "we should have
had a MAN to our sovereign, though he were but a Scotsman."
"And now, my young springald," said the king to Lord Glenvarloch,
"where have you been spending your calf-time?"
"At Leyden, of late, may it please your Majesty," answered Lord Nigel.
"Aha! a scholar," said the king; "and, by my saul, a modest and
ingenuous youth, that hath not forgotten how to blush, like most of
our travelled Monsieurs. We will treat him conformably."
Then drawing himself up, coughing slightly, and looking around him
with the conscious importance of superior learning, while all the
courtiers who understood, or understood not, Latin, pressed eagerly
forward to listen, the sapient monarch prosecuted his inquiries as
follows:--
"Hem! hem! _salve bis, quaterque salve, glenvarlochides noster!
Nuperumne ab lugduno batavorum britanniam rediisti?_"
The young nobleman replied, bowing low--
"_Imo, rex augustissime--biennium fere apud lugdunenses Moratus sum.
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