The Thistle and the Rose Read Online Free Page B

a lover's; and a hint of recklessness in the expression which hinted he would be brave in battle.
    Margaret was tall and golden-haired and all the world seemed as beautiful as the banks of the Tay to the lovers.
    In the beginning they strolled among the trees while he talked to her of his childhood which had been a strange one. He tried to explain to her how he and his brothers had lived almost like prisoners in the Castle of Stirling.
    “Whenever I see Stirling I shall remember. What a prison! There it stands on that precipitous hill, and my brothers and I used to look down from our windows on to the Forth. We were always expecting our father to come. We talked continually of him. I remember so well that whenever a stranger came to the castle and he was tall and handsome we would run to him and ask him if he were our father. ‘Please, please, sir,' I used to say, ‘tell me you are my father.' And always I was assured that he was not.”
    “Poor James. How strange it must have been.”
    “My mother tried to console us. We were fortunate in her.”
    “The King has behaved badly not only to you, James, but to the whole of Scotland.”
    Had anyone else made such a statement he would have been shocked, for he and his brothers had always been taught that kings should not be judged by their subjects; but since she was Margaret who could do no wrong, he listened.
    “I have heard it said that it is no easy matter to be a king,” he replied with a hint of melancholy.
    “You will be the best King Scotland has ever known.”
    She gave him such adoring looks that he believed her.
    “Queen Margaret,” he said, and kissed her hand.
    He saw her eyes shine with the excitement he shared; at fifteen it had been pleasant to play their game of make-believe.
    “It may be soon that you are crowned King of Scotland, James.”
    “Nay, my father has many years before him.”
    “But the nobles have risen against him.” She was well aware of that because her father was one of the rebel leaders, and it was for this reason that they had brought the heir to the throne from Stirling to Stobhall.
    “It is not good that there should be civil war in Scotland.”
    “It will not be for long.” She was repeating what she had so often heard. “And the King spends too much of the nation's wealth on his favorites, and has mixed brass and lead in silver money and passed it off as pure silver. That is a bad thing to do.”
    James shrugged his shoulders and, putting an arm about Margaret, kissed her; there were more pleasant things to do on a sunny afternoon than talk of the misdeeds of his father.
    “You must not forget that you will soon wear the crown.”
    They sat down on the bank and James thought fleetingly of his father.
    “Perhaps he was led away by the company he kept. My mother told me that his greatest friends were a musician, a tailor and a smith at one time, and that he set great store by his astrologers.”
    “He believed all they told him,” Margaret affirmed. “That was why he was afraid of you and your brothers as well as his own brothers.”
    “I remember my mother telling me that when I was born the position of the stars and planets showed him that harm would come to him through me. As if I would ever harm him!”
    “You would never harm anyone. You are too kind and gentle. You will be the greatest King Scotland has ever known.”
    They kissed once more and as he laid his hands on her shoulders, he was trembling with excitement, but he did not know what he wanted to do, so he dropped his hands and stared at the river.
    “He had a dream,” he said, “and when he asked his astrologersto interpret it, they replied that the royal lion of Scotland, in course of time, would be torn by its whelps. That was why he lived in fear of me.”
    “A father—and a king—in fear of his son!” scorned Margaret. Then she touched his cheek with her finger. “And such a son.”
    He caught the hand and kissed it. He was overcome by a gust