e hath the shrewdest head among them. Well,
now for nobler game! I am to face this leviathan Charles, who will
presently swim hitherward, cleaving the deep before him. I must, like a
trembling sailor, throw a tub overboard to amuse him. But I may one day
find the chance of driving a harpoon into his entrails!"

[If a ship is threatened by a school of whales, a tub is thrown into the
sea to divert their attention. Hence to mislead an enemy, or to create a
diversion in order to avoid a danger.]

[Scott says that during this interesting scene Comines first realized
the great powers of Louis, and entertained from this time a partiality
to France which allured him to Louis's court in 1472. After the death of
Louis he fell under the suspicion of that sovereign's daughter and was
imprisoned in one of the cages he has so feelingly described. He was
subjected to trial and exiled from court, but was afterwards employed by
Charles VIII in one or two important missions. He died at his Castle
of Argenton in 1509, and was regretted as one of the most profound
statesmen, and the best historian of his age.]

CHAPTER XXXI: THE INTERVIEW

Hold fast thy truth, young soldier.--Gentle maiden,
Keep you your promise plight--leave age its subtleties,
And gray hair'd policy its maze of falsehood,
But be you candid as the morning sky,
Ere the high sun sucks vapours up to stain it.

THE TRIAL

On the perilous and important morning which preceded the meeting of the
two Princes in the Castle of Peronne, Oliver le Dain did his master the
service of an active and skilful agent, making interest for Louis in
every quarter, both with presents and promises; so that when the Duke's
anger should blaze forth, all around should be interested to smother,
and not to increase, the conflagration. He glided like night, from tent
to tent, from house to house, making himself friends, but not in the
Apostle's sense, with the Mammon of unrighteousness. As was said of
another active political agent, "his finger was in every man's palm, his
mouth was in every man's ear;" and for various reasons, some of which
we have formerly hinted at, he secured the favour of many Burgundian
nobles, who either had something to hope or fear from France, or who
thought that, were the power of Louis too much reduced, their own Duke
would be likely to pursue the road to despotic authority, to which his
heart naturally inclined him, with a daring