"
The person to whom he spoke was incapable of answering him. He stood
before the king motionless, and glaring with eyes of which even the
lids seemed immovable, as if suddenly converted into an ancient statue
of the times of chivalry, so instantly had his hard features and
strong limbs been arrested into rigidity by the blow he had received--
And in a second afterwards, like the same statue when the lightning
breaks upon it, he sunk at once to the ground with a heavy groan. The
king was in the utmost alarm, called upon Heriot and Maxwell for help,
and, presence of mind not being his _forte_, ran to and fro in his
cabinet, exclaiming--"My ancient and beloved servant--who saved our
anointed self! _vae atque dolor!_ My Lord of Huntinglen, look up--look
up, man, and your son may marry the Queen of Sheba if he will."
By this time Maxwell and Heriot had raised the old nobleman, and
placed him on a chair; while the king, observing that he began to
recover himself, continued his consolations more methodically.
"Haud up your head--haud up your head, and listen to your ain kind
native Prince. If there is shame, man, it comesna empty-handed--there
is siller to gild it--a gude tocher, and no that bad a pedigree;--if
she has been a loon, it was your son made her sae, and he can make her
an honest woman again."
These suggestions, however reasonable in the common case, gave no
comfort to Lord Huntinglen, if indeed he fully comprehended them; but
the blubbering of his good-natured old master, which began to
accompany and interrupt his royal speech, produced more rapid effect.
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