for he is not patient of raillery, and thou

For the rest, bear all decorum and respect to the person of thy mistress — she is a princess, though a most unhappy one, and hath been a queen! though now, alas! no longer such! Pay, therefore, to her all honour and respect, consistent with thy fidelity to the King and me — and now, farewell.— Yet stay — you travel with Lord Lindesay, a man of the old world, rough and honest, though untaught; see that thou offend him not, for he is not patient of raillery, and thou, I have heard, art a crack-halter.” This he said with a smile, then added, “I could have wished the Lord Lindesay’s mission had been intrusted to some other and more gentle noble.” “And wherefore should you wish that, my lord?” said Morton, who even then entered the apartment; “the council have decided for the best — we have had but too many proofs of this lady’s stubbornness of mind, and the oak that resists the sharp steel axe, must be riven with the rugged iron wedge.— And this is to be her page?— My Lord Regent hath doubtless instructed you, young man, how you shall guide yourself in these matters; I will add but a little hint on my part. You are going to the castle of a Douglas, where treachery never thrives — the first moment of suspicion will be the last of your life. My kinsman, William Douglas, understands no raillery, and if he once have cause to think you false, you will waver in the wind from the castle battlements ere the sun set upon his anger.— And is the lady to have an almoner withal?” “Occasionally, Douglas,” said the Regent; “it were hard to deny the spiritual consolation which she thinks essential to her salvation.” “You are ever too soft hearted, my lord — What! a false priest to communicate her lamentations, not only to our unfriends in Scotland, but to the Guises, to Rome, to Spain, and I know not where!”