It is strange to record that the first serious difficulty which James encountered with the nobles who supported him, arose not over a question of State, but through the machinations of a foreign mountebank. The issue came to a point where, if the king had proceeded to punish the intriguer, his majesty might have stood alone while the lords of his court would have ranged themselves in support of the charlatan – a most serious state of things, the like of which has before now overturned a throne. In dealing with this unexpected crisis, the young king acted with a wisdom scarcely to be expected from his years. He directed the nobility as a skilful rider manages a mettlesome horse, sparing curb and spur when the use of the one might have unseated him, or the use of the other resulted in a frenzied bolt. Thus the judicious horseman keeps his saddle, yet arrives at the destination he has marked out from the beginning.

In the dusk of the evening, James went down the high street of Stirling, keeping close to the wall as was his custom when about to pay a visit to his friend the cobbler, for although several members of the court knew that he had a liking for low company, the king was well aware of the haughty disdain with which the nobles regarded those of the mechanical or trading classes. So he thought it best not to run counter to a prejudice so deeply rooted, and for this reason he restricted the knowledge of his visits to a few of his more intimate friends.

As the king was about to turn out of the main street he ran suddenly into the arms of a man coming from the shop of a clothier who made costumes for the court. As each started back from the unexpected encounter, the light from the mercer’s shop window lit up the face of his majesty’s opponent, and the latter saw that he had before him his old friend, Sir David Lyndsay.

“Ha, Davie!” cried the king, “it’s surely late in the day to choose the colours for a new jacket.”

“Indeed your majesty is in the right,” replied Sir David, “but I was not selecting cloth; I was merely enacting the part of an honest man, and liquidating a reckoning of long standing.”

“What, a poet with money!” exclaimed the king. “Who ever heard of such a thing? Man Davie, you might share the knowledge of your treasure-house with a friend. Kings are always in want of money. Is your gold mine rich enough for two?”

The king spoke jocularly, placing no particular meaning upon his words, and if Sir David had answered in kind, James would doubtless have thought no more about the matter, but the poet stammered and showed such evident confusion that his majesty’s quick suspicions were at once aroused. He remembered that of late a change had come over the court. Scottish nobles were too poor to be lavish in dress, and frequently the somewhat meagre state of their wardrobe had furnished a subject for jest on the part of ambassadors from France or Spain. But when other foreigners less privileged than an ambassador had ventured to make the same theme one for mirth, they speedily found there was no joke in Scottish steel, which was ever at an opponent’s service, even if gold were not. So those who were wise and fond of life, became careful not to make invidious comparisons between the gallants of Edinburgh and Stirling, and those of Paris and Madrid. But of late the court at Stirling had blossomed out in fine array, and although this grandeur had attracted the notice of the king and pleased him, he had given no thought to the origin of the new splendour.

The king instantly changed his mind regarding his visit to the cobbler, linked arm with the poet, and together they went up the street. This sudden reversion of direction gave the royal wanderer a new theme for thought and surmise. It seemed as if all the town was on the move, acting as surreptitiously as he himself had done a few moments previously. At first he imagined he had been followed, and the suspicion angered him. In the gloom he was unable to recognise any of the wayfarers, and each seemed anxious to avoid detection, passing hurriedly or slipping quietly down some less frequented alley or lane. Certain of the figures appeared familiar, but none stopped to question the king.

“Davie,” cried James, pausing in the middle of the street, “you make a very poor conspirator.”

“Indeed, your majesty,” replied the poet earnestly, “no one is less of a conspirator than I.”

“Davie, you are hiding something from me.”

“That I am not, your majesty. I am quite ready to answer truly any question your majesty cares to ask.”

“The trouble is, Davie, that my majesty has not yet got a clue which will lead to shrewd questioning, but as a beginning, I ask you, what is the meaning of all this court stir in the old town of Stirling?”

“How should I know, your majesty?” asked the poet in evident distress.

“There now, Davie, there now! The very first question I propound gets an evasive answer. The man who did not know would have replied that he did not. I dislike being juggled with, and for the first time in my life, Sir David Lyndsay, I am angered with you.”

The knight was visibly perturbed, but at last he answered, —

“In this matter I am sworn to secrecy.”

“All secrets reveal themselves at the king’s command,” replied James sternly. “Speak out; speak fully, and speak quickly.”

“There is no guilt in the secret, your majesty. I doubt if any of your court would hesitate to tell you all, were it not that they fear ridicule, which is a thing a Scottish noble is loth to put up with whether from the king or commoner.”

“Get on, and waste not so much time in the introduction,” said his majesty shortly.

“Well, there came some time since to Stirling, an Italian chemist, who took up his abode and set up his shop in the abandoned refectory of the old Monastery. He is the author of many wonderful inventions, but none interests the court so much as the compounding of pure gold in a crucible from the ordinary earth of the fields.”

“I can well believe that,” cried the king. “I have some stout fighters in my court who fear neither man nor devil in battle, yet who would stand with mouth agape before a juggler’s tent. But surely, Davie, you, who have been to the colleges, and have read much from learned books, are not such a fool as to be deluded by that ancient fallacy, the transmutation of any other metals into gold?”

Sir David laughed uneasily.

“I did not say I believed it, your majesty, still, a man must place some credence in what his eye sees done, as well as in what he reads from books; and after all, the proof of the cudgel is the rap on the head. I have beheld the contest, beginning with an empty pot and ending with a bar of gold.”

“Doubtless. I have seen a juggler swallow hot iron, but I have never believed it went down his throttle, although it appeared to have done so. Did you get any share of the transmuted gold? That’s the practical test, my Davie.”

“That is exactly the test your barons applied. I doubt if their nobilities would take much interest in a scientific experiment were there no profit at the end of it. Each man entering the laboratory pays what he pleases to the money taker at the table, but it must not be less than one gold bonnet-piece. When all have entered, the doors are closed and locked. The amount of money collected is weighed against small bars of gold which the alchemist places in the opposite scale until the two are equally balanced. This bar of gold he then throws into the crucible.”

“Oh, he puts gold into the crucible, does he? Where then is the profit? I thought these necromancers made gold from iron.”

“Signor Farini’s method is different, your majesty. He asserts that like attracts like, and that the gold in the crucible will take to itself the minute unseen particles which he believes exists in all soils; the intense heat burning away the dross and leaving the refined gold.”

“I see; and how ends this experiment?”

“The residue is cooled and weighed. Sometimes it is double the amount of gold put in, sometimes treble; and I have known him upon occasion take from the crucible quadruple the gold of the bar, but never have I known a melting fall below double the amount collected by the man at the table. At the final act each noble has returned to him double or treble the gold he relinquished on entering.”

“Where then arises the profit to your Italian? I never knew these foreigners to work for nothing.”

“He says he does it for love of Scotland and hatred of England; an ancient enemy. Were but the Scottish nation rich, he thinks they could the better withstand incursions from the south.”

“Well, Davie, that seems to me a most unsubstantial reason. Scotland’s protection has been her poverty in all except hard knocks. Were she as wealthy as France it would be the greater temptation for Englishers to overrun the country. My grandfather, James the Third, had a black chest full of gold and jewels, yet he was murdered flying from defeat in battle. When does this golden wizard fire his cauldron, Davie?”

“To-night, your majesty. That is the reason the nobles of your court were making sly haste to his domicile.”

“Ah, and Sir David Lyndsay was hurrying to the same spot so blindly that he nearly overran his monarch.”

“It is even so, your majesty.”

“Then am I hindering you from much profit, and you must even blame yourself for being so long in the telling. However, it is never too late to turn one bonnet-piece into two. So, Davie, lead the way, for I would see this alchemist turn out gold from a pot as a housewife boils potatoes.”

“I fear, your majesty, that the doors will be shut.”

“If they are, Davie, the king’s name will open them. Lead the way; lead the way.”

The doors were not shut but were just on the point of closing when Sir David put his shoulder to them and forced his way in, followed closely by his companion. The king and his henchman found themselves in a small ante-room, furnished only with a bench and a table; on the latter was a yellow heap of bonnet-pieces of the king’s own coinage. Beside this heap lay a scroll with the requisites for writing. The money-taker, a gaunt foreigner clad in long robes like a monk, closed the door and barred it securely, then returned to the table. He nodded to Sir David, and glanced with some distrust upon his plaid-covered companion.

“Whom have you brought to us, Sir Lyndsay?” asked the man suspiciously.

“A friend of mine, the Master of Ballengeich; one who can keep his own counsel and who wishes to turn an honest penny.”

“We admit none except those connected with the court,” demurred the money-taker.

“Well, in a manner, Ballengeich is connected with the court. He supplies the castle with the products of his farm.”

The man shook his head.

“That will not do,” he said, “my orders are strict. I dare not admit him.”

“Is not my money as good as another’s?” asked Ballengeich, speaking for the first time.

“No offence is meant to you, sir, as your friend Sir Lyndsay knows, but I have my orders and dare not exceed them.”

“Do you refuse me admittance then?”

“I am compelled to do so, sir, greatly to my regret.”

“Is not my surety sufficient?” asked Sir David.

“I am deeply grieved to refuse you, sir, but I cannot disobey my strict instructions.”

“Oh, very well then,” said the king impatiently, “we will stay no further question. Sir David here is a close friend of the king, and a friend of my own, therefore we will return to the castle and get the king’s warrant, which, I trust, will open any door in Stirling.”

The warder seemed nonplussed at this and looked quickly from one to the other; finally he said, —

“Will you allow me a moment to consult with my master?”

“Very well, so that you do not hold us long,” replied the Master of Ballengeich.

“I shall do my errand quickly, for at this moment I am keeping the whole nobility of Scotland waiting.”

The man disappeared, taking, however, the gold with him in a bag. In a short space of time he returned and bowing to the two waiting men he said, —

“My master is anxious to please you, Sir Lyndsay, and will accept the money of your friend.” Whereupon the two placed upon the table five gold pieces each, and the amount was credited opposite their names upon the parchment.

Sir David, leading the way, drew aside one heavy curtain and then a second one, which allowed them to enter a long low-roofed room almost in total darkness, as far as the end to which they were introduced was concerned; but the upper portion of the hall was lit in lurid fashion. At the further end of the Refectory was a raised platform on which the heads of the Order had dined, during the prosperous days of the edifice, while the humbler brethren occupied, as was customary, the main body of the lower floor. Upon this platform stood a metal tripod, which held a basket of dazzling fire, and in this basket was set a crucible, now changing from red to white, under the constant exertions of two creatures who looked like imps from the lower regions rather than inhabitants of the upper world. These two strove industriously with a huge bellows which caused the fire to roar fiercely, and this unholy light cast its effulgence upon the faces of many notable men packed closely together in the body of the hall; it also shone on the figure of a tall man, the ghastly pallor of whose countenance was enhanced by a fringe of hair black as midnight. He had a nose like a vulture’s beak, and eyes piercing in their intensity, as black as his midnight hair. His costume also resembled that of a monk in cut, but it was scarlet in hue; and the radiance of the furnace caused it to glow as if illumined by some fire from within.

At the moment the last two entered, Farini was explaining to his audience, in an accent palpably foreign, that he was a man of science, and that the devil gave him no aid in his researches, an assertion doubtless perfectly accurate. His audience listened to him with visible impatience, evidently anxious for talk to cease and practical work to begin.

The wizard held in his right hand the bag of gold that the king had seen taken from the outer room. Presently there entered through another curtained doorway, on what might be called the stage, the money-taker in the monk’s dress, who handed to the necromancer the coins given him by Lyndsay and Ballengeich, which the wizard tossed carelessly into the bag. The attendant placed the scroll upon a table and then came forward with a weighing-machine held in his hand. The alchemist placed the gold from the bag upon one side of the scale, and threw into the other, bar after bar of yellow metal until the two were equal. Then the bag of gold was placed on the table beside the scroll, and the wizard carefully deposited the yellow bars within the crucible, the two imps now working the bellows more strenuously than ever.

The experiment was carried on precisely as Sir David had foretold, but there was one weird effect which the poet had not mentioned. When the necromancer added to the melting-pot huge lumps of what appeared to be common soil from the field, the mixture glared each time with a new colour. Once a vivid violet colour flamed up, which cast such a livid death-like hue on the faces of the knights there present, that each looked upon the other in obvious fear. Again the flame was pure white; again scarlet; again blue; again yellow. When at last the incantation was complete, the bellows-work was stopped. The coruscating caldron was lifted from the fire by an iron hook and chain, and set upon the stone floor to cool, bubbling and sparkling like a thing of evil; but the radiance became duller and duller as time went on, and finally its contents were poured out into a mould of sand, and there congealing, the result was lifted by tongs and laid upon the scale. The bag of gold was placed again in the opposite disc, but the heated metal far outweighed it. The wizard then unlocked a desk and threw coin after coin in the pan that held the bag, until at last the beam of the scale hung level. The secretary now pushed forward a table to the edge of the platform, and on the table placed a rush-light which served but to illuminate the parchment before him. With great rapidity he counted the gold pieces which were not in the bag, then whispered to his master.

The room was deathly still as the man in scarlet stepped forward to make his announcement.

“I regret,” he said, “that our experiment has not been as successful as I had hoped. This doubtless has been caused by the poverty of the earth from which I took my material. I shall dig elsewhere against our next meeting, and then we may look for better results. To-night I can return to you but double the money you gave to my treasurer.”

At this there went up what seemed to be a sigh of relief from the audience, which had been holding its breath with all the eagerness of a gambler, who had made a stake and awaited the outcome of the throw.

The necromancer, taking the parchment, called out name after name, and as each title was enunciated the bearer of it came to the edge of the platform and received from the secretary double the amount of gold pieces set down on the parchment. As each man secreted his treasure he passed along out of the hall; and so it came about that Sir David and Ballengeich, being the last on the list, received the remaining coins on the table, and silently took their departure.

The king spoke no word until they had entered the castle and were within his private room. Once there, the first thing he did was to pull from his pouch the coins he had received and examine them carefully one by one. There was no doubt about them, each was a good Scottish gold piece, with the king’s profile and bonnet stamped thereon.

“You will find them genuine,” said Sir David. “I had my own fears regarding them at first, thinking that this foreigner was trying the trick which Robert Cockran, the mason, accomplished so successfully during the reign of your grandfather, mixing the silver coins with copper and lead; but I had them tested by a goldsmith in Edinburgh and was assured the pieces are just what they claim to be.”

“Prudent man!” exclaimed the king, throwing himself down on a seat and jingling the gold pieces. “Well, Davie, what do you think of it all? Give me an opinion as honest as the coin.”

“Truth to tell, your majesty, I do not know what to think of it. It may be as he says, that the earth here contains particles of gold, that are drawn to the bars he throws in the melting-pot. If the man is a cheat, where can he hope for his profit?”

“Where indeed? I mind you told me he had other marvellous inventions; what are they?”

“He has a plan by which a man in full armour can enter the water and walk beneath it for any length of time without suffocating.”

“Have you seen this tried?”

“No, your majesty; there has been no opportunity.”

“What an admirable contrivance for invading Ireland! What are his plans as far as England is concerned? He seems, if I remember your tale aright, to have some animosity in that direction.”

“He has constructed a pair of wings, and each soldier being provided with them can sail through the air across the Border.”

“Admirable, admirable!” exclaimed the king nodding his head. “Now indeed is England ours, and France too for that matter, if his wings will carry so far. Have you seen these wings?”

“Yes, your majesty, but I have not seen them tried. They seem to be made of fine silk stretched on an extremely light framework, and are worked by the arms thrust up or down; thus, he says, a man may rise or fall at will.”

“As to the falling, I believe him, and the rising I shall believe when I see it. Has our visit to-night then taught you nothing, David?”

“Nothing but what I knew before. What has it taught your majesty?”

“In the first place our charlatan does not want the king to know what he is doing, because when his subordinate refused me admittance and I said to him I would appeal to the king, he saw at once that this was serious, and wished to consult his master. His master was then willing to admit anyone so long as there was no appeal to the king. I therefore surmise he is most anxious to conceal his operations from me. What is your opinion, Davie?”

“It would seem that your majesty is in the right.”

“Then again if he is a real scientist and has discovered an easy method of producing gold and is desirous to enrich Scotland, why should he object to a plain farmer like the Guidman of Ballengeich profiting by his production?”

“That is quite true, your majesty; but I suppose the line must be drawn somewhere, and I imagine he purposes to enrich only those of the highest rank, as being more powerful than the yeomen.”

“Then we come back, Davie, to what I said before; why exclude the king who is of higher rank than any noble?”

“I have already confessed, your majesty, that I cannot fathom his motives.”

“Well, you see at what we have arrived. This foreigner wishes to influence those who can influence the king. He wishes to have among his audience none but those belonging to the court. He has some project that he dare not place before the king. We will now return to the consideration of that project. In the first place, the man is not an Italian. Did a scholar like you, Davie, fail to notice that when he was in want of a word, it was a French word he used? He is therefore no Italian, but a Frenchman masquerading as an Italian. Therefore, the project, whatever it is, pertains to France, and it is his desire that this shall not be known. Now what does France most desire Scotland to do at this moment?”

“It thinks we should avenge Flodden; and many belonging to the court are in agreement with France on this point.”

“Has your necromancer ever mentioned Flodden?”

“Once or twice he spoke of it with regret.”

“I thought so,” continued the king; “and now I hope you are beginning to see his design.”

“What your majesty says is very ingenious; but if I may be permitted to raise an objection to the theory, I would ask your majesty why this was not done through the French ambassador? French gold has been used before now in the Scottish Court; and it seems to me that a great nation like France would not stoop to enlist the devices of a charlatan, if this man be a charlatan.”

“Ah, now we enter the domain of State secrets, Davie, and there is where a king has an advantage over the commoner. Of course I know many things hidden from you which give colour to my surmise. Some while ago the French ambassador offered me a subsidy. Now I am not so avaricious as my grandfather, nor so lavish as my father, and I told the ambassador that I would depend on Scottish gold. I acquainted him with the success of my German miners in extracting gold from Leadhills in the Clydesdale, and I showed him my newly coined pieces. He was so condescendingly pleased and interested that he begged the privilege of having his own bars of metal coined in my mint, in order to disburse his expenses in the coin of the realm, and also to send some of our bonnet-pieces as specimens to France itself. This right of coinage I willingly bestowed upon him; firstly, because he asked it; secondly, I was glad to have some account of his expenditure. When I came in just now I examined these coins closely, and you imagined that I was suspicious of the purity of the metal. This was not so. I told my mint-master to coin all the bars the ambassador gave him, to keep a strict account of the issue, and to mark each piece with the letter ‘F’ on the margin. I find three of the coins which we received to-night bearing this private mark; therefore, they have passed through the hands of the French ambassador to the alchemist.”

Sir David gave forth an exclamation of surprise. He left his seat, took the bonnet-pieces from his pocket and placed them under the lamp.

“Now,” said the king, “you need sharp eyes to detect this mark, but there it is, and there, and there. Let us look a little closer into the object of France. The battle of Flodden was fought when I was little more than a year old; it destroyed the king, the flower of Scottish nobility, and ten thousand of her common soldiers. Who was responsible for this frightful calamity? My mother was strongly against the campaign, which was to bring the forces of her husband in contention with the forces of her brother, at that moment absent in France. The man who urged on the conflict was De la Motte, the French ambassador, standing ever at my father’s side, whispering his treacherous, poisonous advice into an ear too willing to listen. England was not a bitter enemy, for England did not follow up her victory and march into Scotland, where none were left to command a Scottish army, and no Scottish army was left to obey. Scotland, on this occasion, was merely the catspaw of France. Now I am the son of an Englishwoman. The English king is my uncle, and France fears that I will keep the peace with my neighbour; so through his ambassador, he sounds me, and learns that such indeed is my intention. France resolves to leave me alone and accomplish its object by corrupting, with gold coined in my own mint, the nobles of my court, and, by God!” cried James in sudden anger, bringing his fist down on the table and making the coins jingle, “France is succeeding, through the blind stupidity of men who might have been expected to know their right hand from their left. The greatest heads of my realm are being cozened by a trickster; befooled in a way that any humble ploughman should be ashamed of. You see now why they wish to keep the silly proceedings from the king. I tell you, Davie, that Italian’s head comes off, and thus in some small measure will I avenge Flodden.”

Sir David Lyndsay sat meditatively silent for some moments while the king in angry impatience strode up and down the small limits of the room. When the heat of his majesty’s temper had partially cooled, Sir David spoke with something of diplomatic shrewdness.

“I never before realised the depth and penetration of your majesty’s mind. You have gone straight to the heart of this mystery, and have thrown light into its obscurest corner, as a dozen flaming torches would have illumined that dark laboratory in the Monastery. I have shared the stupidity of your nobles, which the clarity of your judgment now exposes so plainly; therefore, I feel that it would be presumption on my part to offer advice to your majesty in the further prosecution of this affair.”

“No, Davie, no,” said the king, stopping in his march and speaking with pleased cordiality, “no, I value your advice; you are an honest man, and it is not to be expected that the subtilty and craftiness of these foreigners should be as clear to you as the sunshine on a Highland hill. Speak out, Davie, and if you give me your counsel, I know it will be as wholesome as oatmeal porridge.”

“Well, your majesty, you must meet subtilty with subtilty.”

“I am not sure that the adage holds good, Davie,” demurred the king. “You cannot outrace a Highlandman in his own glen, although you may fight him fairly in the open. Once this Frenchman’s head is off, you stop his boiling-pot.”

“That is quite true, your majesty, but if the French ambassador should put in a claim for his worthless carcass, you will find yourself on the eve of a break with France, if you proceed to his execution.”

“But I shall have made France throw off its mask.”

“It is not France I am thinking about, your majesty. Your own nobles have gone clean daft over this Italian. He is their goose that lays the golden eggs, and you saw yourself to-night with what breathless expectation they watched his experimenting. I am sure, your majesty, that they will stand by him, and that you will find not only France but Scotland arrayed against you. A moment’s reflection will show you the danger. These meetings have been going on for months past, yet no whisper of their progress has reached your majesty’s ears.”

“That is true; even you yourself, Davie, kept silent.”

“I swore an oath of silence, and honestly, I did not think that this gold-making was an affair of State.”

“Very well. I will act with caution. The breath of the money-getter tarnishes the polish of the sword; and in my dealings I shall try to recollect that I have to do with men growing rapidly rich, as well as with nobles who should be too proud to accept unearned gold from any man. Now, Davie, I’ll need your help in this, and in aiding me you will assist yourself, thus will virtue be its own reward, as is preached to us. I will give you as many gold pieces as you need, and instead of paying three pieces at the entrance, give the man three hundred. Urge all the nobles to increase their wagers; for thus we shall soon learn the depths of this yellow treasury. If I attempt to wring the neck of the goose before the eggs are laid, my followers would be justified in saying that the English part of my nature had got the better of the Scotch. Meanwhile, I will know nothing of this man’s doings, and I hope for your sake, Davie, that the gold mine will prove as prolific as my own in the Clydesdale.”

The nobles followed the example set to them by the lavish Sir David. They needed no urging from him to increase their stakes. The fever of the gambler was on each of them, and soon the alleged Italian began to be embarrassed in keeping up the pace he had set for himself. It required now an enormous sum to pay even double the amount taken at the door. The necromancer announced that the meetings would be held less often, but the nobles would not have it so. Then his experiments became less and less successful. One night the bonus amounted only to half the coins given to the treasurer, and then there were ominous grumblings. At the next meeting the bare amount paid in was given back, and the deep roar of resentment which greeted this proclamation made the foreigner tremble in his red robe. The ambassador was sending messenger after messenger to France, and looked anxiously for their return, while the necromancer did everything to gain time. At last there came an experiment which failed entirely; no gold was produced in the crucible. The alchemist begged for a postponement, but swords flashed forth and he was compelled on the spot to renew his incantation. If gold could be made on one occasion why not on another? cried the barons with some show of reason. The conjurer had conjured up a demon he could not control; the demon of greed.