"
"O my poor master!" groaned the Earl of Huntinglen. "When you were in
your own cold country, you had warmer blood in your veins."
The king hastily looked over the petition or memorial, every now and
then glancing his eye towards the door, and then sinking it hastily on
the paper, ashamed that Lord Huntinglen, whom he respected, should
suspect him of timidity.
"To grant the truth," he said, after he had finished his hasty
perusal, "this is a hard case; and harder than it was represented to
me, though I had some inkling of it before. And so the lad only wants
payment of the siller due from us, in order to reclaim his paternal
estate? But then, Huntinglen, the lad will have other debts--and why
burden himsell with sae mony acres of barren woodland? let the land
gang, man, let the land gang; Steenie has the promise of it from our
Scottish Chancellor--it is the best hunting-ground in Scotland--and
Babie Charles and Steenie want to kill a buck there this next year--
they maun hae the land--they maun hae the land; and our debt shall be
paid to the young man plack and bawbee, and he may have the spending
of it at our Court; or if he has such an eard hunger, wouns! man,
we'll stuff his stomach with English land, which is worth twice as
much, ay, ten times as much, as these accursed hills and heughs, and
mosses and muirs, that he is sae keen after."
All this while the poor king ambled up and down the apartment in a
piteous state of uncertainty, which was made more ridiculous by his
shambling circular mode of managing his legs, and his ungainly fashion
on such occasions of fiddling with the bunches of ribbons which
fastened the lower part of his dress.
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