your Grace?"
cried Sir Jocelyn furiously.

"If you will be guided by me, you will retire," rejoined the Duke of
Lennox; "or the provocation you will receive may induce you to do some
desperate act which may render your position worse, and put your
restoration to the King's favour entirely out of the question."

While Sir Jocelyn was debating whether he should comply with the Duke's
advice, the door of the presence-chamber was thrown open; and James,
coming forth from it, marched slowly along the corridor.

Our young knight now fondly hoped that the King might deign to look
upon him, and so enable him to plead his cause; and perhaps the Lord
Chamberlain himself entertained similar expectations, for he did not
insist upon Sir Jocelyn's withdrawal, but allowed him to remain within
the corridor, though he was kept aloof by the halberdiers. But both were
disappointed. James, no doubt, designedly, bestowed his most gracious
marks of condescension on Buckingham and De Gondomar, and lingered for a
few minutes to laugh and talk with them. After this, as he was passing
Sir Jocelyn, he pretended to notice him for the first time, and
observed, in a tone of reproof to the Lord Chamberlain, "What doth the
spy here, my Lord Duke? I thought you had our orders concerning him. See
they are better obeyed in future." And, when the young knight would have
spoken, he interrupted him by an imperious gesture, crying out, "Not a
word, Sir!--not a word! We will hear naught mair frae ye. We hae heard
ower meikle already." And he passed on.

Thus was Mounchensey's disgrace accomplished by his enemies.

CHAPTER XVIII.

How Sir Jocelyn's cause was espoused by the 'prentices.

Stung almost to madness by the sense of intolerable wrong, our young
knight quitted Whitehall, never, as he imagined at the moment, to enter
the palace again. Yet he was not humiliated by his disgrace, because he
felt it to be wholly unmerited. His enemies had triumphed over him; but
he would not have heeded the defeat, provided he could efface the foul
stigma cast upon his reputation, and rebut the false charge brought
against him by De Gondomar.

With a heart overflowing with rage and bitterness, and with a thousand
wild projects passing through his brain, Sir Jocelyn took a boat at
Whitehall stairs, and ordered the watermen to row down the river,
without assigning any paticular place of landing. After awhile, he
succeeded, to a certain extent, in controllin