tars
were coming out.

CHAPTER XXV

THE DOGS AND THE WOLF HOLD COUNCIL

It was a week or two after the date of the great wappenshaw and
tourneying at the Castle of Thrieve, that in the midmost golden haze
of a summer's afternoon four men sat talking together about a table in
a room of the royal palace of Stirling.

No one of the four was any longer young, and one at least was
immoderately fat. This was James, Earl of Avondale, granduncle of the
present Earl of Douglas, and, save for young David, the Earl's
brother, nearest heir to the title and all the estates and honours
pertaining thereto, with the single exception of the Lordship of
Galloway.

The other three were, first, Sir Alexander Livingston, the guardian of
the King's person, a handsome man with a curled beard, who was
supposed to stand high in the immediate favours of the Queen, and who
had long been tutor to his Majesty as well as guardian of his royal
person. Opposite to Livingston, and carefully avoiding his eye, sat a
man of thin and foxy aspect, whose smooth face, small shifty mouth,
and perilous triangular eyes marked him as one infinitely more
dangerous than either of the former--Sir William Crichton, the
Chancellor of the realm of Scotland.

The fourth was speaking, and his aspect, strange and ofttimes
terrifying, is already familiar to us. But the pallid corpse-like
face, the blue-black beard, the wild-beast look, in the eyes of the
Marshal de Retz, ambassador of the King of France, were now more than
ever heightened in effect by the studied suavity of his demeanour and
the graciousness of language with which he was clothing what he had to
say.

"I have brought you together after taking counsel with my good Lord of
Avondale. I am aware, most noble seigneurs, that there have been
differences between you in the past as to the conduct of the affairs
of this great kingdom; but I am obeying both the known wishes and the
express commands of my own King in endeavouring to bring you to an
agreement. You will not forget that the Dauphin of France is wedded to
the Scottish princess nearest the throne, and that therefore he is not
unconcerned in the welfare of this realm.

"Now, messieurs, it cannot be hid from you that there is one
overriding and insistent peril which ought to put an end to all your
misunderstandings. There is a young man in this land, more powerful
than you or the King, or, indeed, all the powers legalised and
established