bits was
mere disloyalty; and yet, whenever Patrick tried to throw in a
disparaging word, he found himself met with a quiet superiority such as
he had believed no knight in Scotland could assume with him, and still it
was neither brow-beating nor insolence, nothing that could give offence.

Malcolm begged to know whether there had not been a rare good poet in
England, called Chaucer. Verily there had been, said the knight; and on
a little solicitation, so soon as supper was over, he recited to the
eager and delighted auditors the tale of patient Grisel, as rendered by
Chaucer, calling forth eager comments from both Patrick and Lily, on the
unknightliness of the Marquis. Malcolm, however, added, 'Yet, after all,
she was but a mere peasant wench.'

'What makes that, young Sir?' replied Sir James gravely. 'I would have
you to know that the husband's rank is the wife's, and the more unequal
were their lot before, the more is he bound to respect her, and to make
her be respected.'

'That may be, after the deed is done,' said Sir David, in a warning
voice; 'but it is not well that like should not match with like. Many an
evil have I seen in my time, from unequal mating.'

'And, Sir,' eagerly exclaimed Patrick, 'no doubt you can gainsay the
slander, that our noble King has been caught in the toils of an artful
Englishwoman, and been drawn in to promise her a share in his crown.'

A flush of crimson flamed forth on Sir James Stewart's cheeks, and his
tawny eye glanced with a fire like red lightning, but he seemed, as it
were, to be holding himself in, and answered with a voice forcibly kept
low and calm, and therefore the more terribly stern, 'Young Sir, I warn
you to honour your future queen.'

Sir David made a gesture with his hand, enforcing restraint upon his son,
and turning to Sir James, said, 'Our queen will we honour, when such she
is, Sir; but if you are returning to the King, it were well that he
should know that our hot Scottish bloods, here, could scarce brook an
English alliance, and certainly not one beneath his birth.'

'The King would answer, Sir,' returned Sir James, haughtily, but with
recovered command over himself, 'that it is for him to judge whom his
subjects shall brook as their queen. Moreover,' he added, in a different
and more conciliatory voice, 'Scotsmen must be proud indeed who disdain
the late King's niece, the great-granddaughter of King Edward III., and
as noble and queenly a demoisel