"
As he spoke, the door flew open, and in entered, to the astonishment
of Lord Glenvarloch, his late serving-man Richie Moniplies, now
sumptuously, nay, gorgeously, attired in a superb brocaded suit, and
leading in his hand the tall, thin, withered, somewhat distorted form
of Martha Trapbois, arrayed in a complete dress of black velvet, which
suited so strangely with the pallid and severe melancholy of her
countenance, that the king himself exclaimed, in some perturbation,
"What the deil has the fallow brought us here? Body of our regal
selves! it is a corpse that has run off with the mort-cloth!"
"May I sifflicate your Majesty to be gracious unto her?" said Richie;
"being that she is, in respect of this morning's wark, my ain wedded
wife, Mrs. Martha Moniplies by name."
"Saul of our body, man! but she looks wondrous grim," answered King
James. "Art thou sure she has not been in her time maid of honour to
Queen Mary, our kinswoman, of redhot memory?"
"I am sure, an it like your Majesty, that she has brought me fifty
thousand pounds of good siller, and better; and that has enabled me to
pleasure your Majesty, and other folk."
"Ye need have said naething about that, man," said the king; "we ken
our obligations in that sma' matter, and we are glad this rudas spouse
of thine hath bestowed her treasure on ane wha kens to put it to the
profit of his king and country.
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