The King ceased, and Walter was so overwhelmed by the magnitude of the diplomacy entrusted to him, and the joy at returning to Scotland, that he remained silent for some moments.
"Oh, with what a mission does your Majesty honour me!" he exclaimed, glowing with ambition, gratitude and joy. "How can I express my thanks for this great confidence reposed in one so poor, so friendless?"
"These are good qualities, Sir Walter, for a Jacobite agent; you may (being friendless and unknown) make your way through Scotland in safety, when a coroneted baron, or the chief of a powerful sept, would soon be discovered and committed to the Castle of Edinburgh or the Tower of London. Go, Sir Walter; Lord Dunbarton and my secretary will arrange the matters you require, and in addition to my holograph letters to the Lowland lords and Highland chiefs, will give you others to Mr. Brown, my English agent, and Father Innes, President of the Scots' College at Paris, who acts for me in Scotland. Go, Sir Walter, and prosper! If ever we meet again, let us hope it will be under very different circumstances. May God and his thrice-blessed mother keep their hands over you, and inspire you for the sake of my dear little son and the people over whom he is to rule! Farewell--I have in some sort rewarded your courage in the field, but if your talent in diplomacy equals it, I swear by the sceptre that my sires have borne for ages, you shall be Earl of Dalrulion in the north, and cock your beaver with the best peer in all broad Scotland. Farewell! may we meet again at the head of a loyal and faithful army, or part to meet no more!"
Again Walter Fenton kneeled, and after kissing the hand of James, was hurried away by the Earl of Dunbarton.
Furnished with a great number of letters addressed to the principal nobles and chiefs in Scotland, Walter artfully sewed them into the lining of his hat and the stiff buckram skirts of his coat, after which, without an hour's delay, he departed on his arduous and dangerous mission--to overturn the established governments of two kingdoms--to hurl down one dynasty and restore another.
Already he had gained a title which formerly he had possessed only in his day-dreams of success and glory; but now decorated by Louis with his new and famous military order, promised a peerage by his King, fired by loyalty, ardour, and love, he seemed to occupy a giddy eminence, from which he viewed distinctly a long and happy future.