"
If Heriot was surprised at seeing the jewels so unexpectedly produced
at the moment the king was upbraiding him for the loss of them, this
allusion to the reflection which had escaped him while conversing with
Lord Glenvarloch, altogether completed his astonishment; and the king
was so delighted with the superiority which it gave him at the moment,
that he rubbed his hands, chuckled, and finally, his sense of dignity
giving way to the full feeling of triumph, he threw himself into his
easy-chair, and laughed with unconstrained violence till he lost his
breath, and the tears ran plentifully down his cheeks as he strove to
recover it. Meanwhile, the royal cachinnation was echoed out by a
discordant and portentous laugh from behind the arras, like that of
one who, little accustomed to give way to such emotions, feels himself
at some particular impulse unable either to control or to modify his
obstreperous mirth. Heriot turned his head with new surprise towards
the place, from which sounds so unfitting the presence of a monarch
seemed to burst with such emphatic clamour.
The king, too, somewhat sensible of the indecorum, rose up, wiped his
eyes, and calling,--"Todlowrie, come out o' your den," he produced
from behind the arras the length of Richie Moniplies, still laughing
with as unrestrained mirth as ever did gossip at a country
christening. "Whisht, man, whisht, man," said the king; "ye needna
nicher that gait, like a cusser at a caup o' corn, e'en though it was
a pleasing jest, and our ain framing.
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