er was not ready for his hungry Majesty,
as we have said, till an hour after his arrival; was not ready, indeed,
till about two o'clock. He had obviously not been expected, or Gowrie
did not wish it to be known that he was expected, and himself had dined
before the King's arrival, between twelve and one o'clock. A shoulder of
mutton, a fowl, and a solitary grouse were all that the Earl's caterer
could procure, except cold meat: obviously a poor repast to set before a
king. It is said that the Earl had meant to leave Perth in the
afternoon. When James reached the stage of dessert, Gowrie, who had
waited on him, entered the hall, and invited the suite to dine. When
they had nearly finished, Gowrie returned to them in the hall, and sent
round a grace-cup, in which all pledged the King. Lennox then rose, to
rejoin the King (who now passed, with the Master, across and out of the
hall), but Gowrie said 'His Majesty was gone upstairs quietly some quiet
errand.' Gowrie then called for the key of the garden, on the banks of
the Tay, and he, Lindores, the lame Dr. Herries, and others went into the
garden, where, one of them tells us, they ate cherries. While they were
thus engaged, Gowrie's equerry, or master stabler, a Mr. Thomas
Cranstoun, who had been long in France, and had returned thence with the
Earl in April, appeared, crying, 'The King has mounted, and is riding
through the Inch,' that is, the Inch of Perth, where the famous clan
battle of thirty men a side had been fought centuries ago. Gowrie
shouted 'Horses! horses!' but Cranstoun said 'Your horse is at Scone,'
some two miles off, on the further side of the Tay. Why the Earl that
day kept his horse so remote, in times when men of his rank seldom
walked, we may conjecture later (cf. p. 86, _infra_).

The Earl, however (says Lennox), affected not to hear Cranstoun, and
still shouted 'Horses!' He and Lennox then passed into the house,
through to the front yard, or Close, and so to the outer gate, giving on
the street. Here Lennox asked the porter, Christie, if the King had
gone. The porter said he was certain that the King had not left the
house. On this point Lindores, who had been with Gowrie and Lennox in
the garden, and accompanied them to the gate, added (as indeed Lennox
also did) that Gowrie now explained to the porter that James had departed
by the back gate. 'That cannot be, my Lord,' said the porter, 'for I
have the key of the back gate.' Andrew