But through all her blandishments Sholto watched her and had his eyes warily upon what should befall her husband, who could be seen lying apparently either asleep or unconscious upon the bed in an inner room.
"You do not speak like the folk of the south," she said to the Lord James.

"Neither are you Northmen nor of the Midi.

From what country may you come ?" The question dropped casually as to fill up the time.
"We are poor Scots who have lived under the protection of your good King Charles, the seventh of that name, and having been restored to our possessions after the turning out of the English, we are making a pilgrimage in order to visit our friends and also to lay our thanks upon the altar of the blessed Saint Andrew in his own town in Scotland." The old woman listened, approvingly nodding her head as the Lord James reeled off this new and original narrative.

But at the mention of the land of the Scots La Meffraye pricked her ears.
"Scots," she said meditatively; "that will surely interest my lord, who hath but recently returned from that country, whither they say he hath been upon a very confidential embassy from the King." It was the Lord James who asked the next question.
"Have you heard whether any of our nation returned with him from our country?
We would gladly meet with any such, that we might hear again the tongue of our nativity, which is ever sweet in a strange land--and also, if it might be, take back tidings of them to their folk in Scotland." "Nay," answered La Meffraye, standing before them with her eyes shrewdly fixed upon the face of the speaker, "I have heard of none such.

Yet it may well be, for the marshal is very fond of the society of the young, even as I am myself.