We have come hither to punish these slayers of our kin, and we desire to know what you, our father, think concerning the matter." James the Gross was still standing, steadying himself with his hand on the arm of the oaken 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.