"
"The land was happy in your Majesty's escape," said the Duke of
Buckingham, "and not less in the quick wit which tracked that
labyrinth of treason by so fine and almost invisible a clew."
"Saul, man, Steenie, ye are right! There are few youths have sic true
judgment as you, respecting the wisdom of their elders; and, as for
this fause, traitorous smaik, I doubt he is a hawk of the same nest.
Saw ye not something papistical about him? Let them look that he bears
not a crucifix, or some sic Roman trinket, about him."
"It would ill become me to attempt the exculpation of this unhappy
man," said Lord Dalgarno, "considering the height of his present
attempt, which has made all true men's blood curdle in their veins.
Yet I cannot avoid intimating, with all due submission to his
Majesty's infallible judgment, in justice to one who showed himself
formerly only my enemy, though he now displays himself in much blacker
colours, that this Olifaunt always appeared to me more as a Puritan
than as a Papist."
"Ah, Dalgarno, art thou there, man?" said the king. "And ye behoved to
keep back, too, and leave us to our own natural strength and the care
of Providence, when we were in grips with the villain!"
"Providence, may it please your most Gracious Majesty, would not fail
to aid, in such a strait, the care of three weeping kingdoms," said
Lord Dalgarno.
"Surely, man--surely," replied the king--"but a sight of your father,
with his long whinyard, would have been a blithe matter a short while
syne; and in future we will aid the ends of Providence in our favour,
by keeping near us two stout beef-eaters of the guard.
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