en chair in which he had been sitting. He spoke with
some difficulty, which might proceed either from emotion or from the
plethoric habit of the man.

"Have I for this brought children into the world," he said, "that they
should lift up their hands against the father that begat them? Ye know
that I have ever warned you against the pride and arrogance of your
cousins of Galloway."

"You mean, of the late Earl of Douglas and the boy his brother,"
answered William; "the pride of eighteen and fourteen is surely vastly
dangerous."

"I mean those who have been tried and executed in Edinburgh by royal
authority for many well-grounded offences against the state," cried
the Earl, loudly.

"Will you deign to condescend upon some of them?" said his son, as
quietly as before.

"Your cousins' pride and ostentation of riches and retinue, being far
beyond those of the King, constituted in themselves an eminent danger
to the state. Nay, the turbulence of their followers has more than
once come before me in my judicial capacity as Justicer of the realm.
What more would you have?"

"Were you, my lord, of those who condemned them to death?"

"Not so, William; it had not been seemly in a near kinsman and the
heir to their dignities--that is, save and except Galloway, which by
ill chance goes in the female line, if we find not means to break that
unfortunate reservation. Your cousins were condemned by my Lords
Crichton and Livingston."

"We never heard of either of them," said William, calmly.

"In their judicial aspect they may be styled lords, as is the Scottish
custom," said James the Gross, "even as when I was laird of Balvany
and a sitter on the bed of justice, it was my right to be so
nominated."

"Then our cousins were condemned with your approval, my Lord of
Douglas and Avondale?" persisted his son.

James the Gross was visibly perturbed.

"Approval, William, is not the word to use--not a word to use in the
circumstances. They were near kinsmen!"

"But upon being consulted you did not openly disapprove--is it not so?
And you will not aid us to avenge our cousins' murder now?"

"Hearken, William, it was not possible--I could not openly disapprove
when I also was in the Chancellor's hands, and I knew not but that he
might include me in the same condemnation. Besides, lads, think of the
matter calmly. There is no doubt that the thing happens most
conveniently, and the event falls out well for us. Our own barren
acre