nsion of his position and
the sense that he was himself guiltily involved in the proceedings which
had brought some mysterious and unknown fate upon the King. It is
difficult to see why, accepting from Pitscottie all the rest of this
affecting narrative, the modern historian should cut out this as
unworthy of belief, "Who answered," continues the chronicler, "with
tears falling from his eyes,"

"'Sir, I am not your father, but I was a servand to your father, and
sall be to his authoritie till I die, and ane enemy to them that was
the occasion of his doon-putting.' The lords inquired of Captain
Wood if he knew of the King or where he was. He answered he knew
nothing of the King nor where he was. Then they speired what they
were that came out of the field and passed into his ships. He
answered: 'It was I and my brother, who were ready to have waired
our lives with the King in his defence.' Then they said, 'He is not
in your ships?' who answered again, 'He is not in my ship, but would
to God he were in my ship safelie, I should defend him and keep him
skaithless frae all the treasonable creatures who has murdered him,
for I think to see the day when they shall be hanged and quartered
for their demerites.'"

The lords would fain have silenced this rude sailor, but having given
hostages for his safe return were obliged to let him go. There could not
be a more vivid picture of their perplexity and trouble. They proceeded
to Edinburgh after this rebuff, coming in, we may well believe, with
little sound of trumpet or sign of welcome, and with many a threatening
countenance among the crowds that gazed wistfully upon the boy in their
midst, who, if the King were really dead, was the King--another James.
There might be old men about watching from the foot of the Canongate the
silent cortege trooping along the valley to Holyrood--men who remembered
with all the force of boyish recollection how the assassins of James I.
had been dragged and tormented through Edinburgh streets, and might
wonder and whisper inquiries to their sons whether such a horrible sight
might be coming again, and what part that pale boy had in the dreadful
deed? It was but fifty years since that catastrophe, and already two
long minorities had paralysed the progress of Scotland. How the crowding
people must have eyed him, as he rode along, the slim stripling, so
young, so helpless, in the midst of all these b