middle of the road with his stout stick ready in his hand. Whether
Jock found his men or not he never learned, but at the second turning
five stalwart ruffians fell upon him; two armed with knives, and three
with cudgels. The king's early athletic training was to be put to a
practical test. His first action was to break the wrist of one of the
scoundrels who held a knife, but before he could pay attention to any
of the others he had received two or three resounding blows from the
cudgels, and now was fully occupied warding off their strokes, backing
down the road to keep his assailants in front of him. His great
agility gave him an advantage over the comparative clumsiness of the
four yokels who pressed him, but he was well aware that an unguarded
blow might lay him at their mercy. He was more afraid of the single
knife than of the three clubs, and springing through a fortunate
opening was delighted to crack the crown of the man who held the
blade, stretching him helpless in a cart rut. The three who remained
seemed in no way disheartened by the discomfiture of their comrades,
but came on with greater fury. The king retreated and retreated
baffling their evident desire to get in his rear, and thus the
fighting four came to the corner of the road that James had passed a
short time previously. One of the trio got in a nasty crack on the top
of the beggar's bonnet, which brought him to his knees, and before he
could recover his footing, a blow on the shoulder felled him. At this
critical juncture there rose a wild shout down the road, for the
fighting party, in coming round the turn, had brought themselves
within view of a sturdy pedestrian forging along at a great pace,
which he nevertheless marvellously accelerated on seeing the melee.
For a moment the dazed man on the ground thought that the landlord
had come to his rescue, but it was not so. It seemed as if a remnant
of the storm had swept like a whirlwind among the aggressors, for the
newcomer in the fray, with savage exclamations, which showed his
delight in a tumult, scattered the enemy as a tornado drives before it
the leaves of a forest. The king raised himself on his elbow and
watched the gigantic stranger lay about him with his stick, while the
five, with cries of terror, disappeared into the forest, for the two
that were prostrate had now recovered wind enough to run.
"Losh," panted the giant, returning to the man on the road, "I wish
I'd been here at the beginning."
"Thank goodness you came at the end," said the king, staggering
unsteadily to his feet.
"Are you hurt?" asked the stranger.
"I'm not just sure yet," replied the king, removing his bonnet and
rubbing the top of his head with a circular movement of his hand.
"Just a bit cloor on the croon," said the other in broad Lowland
Scotch. "It stunners a man, but it's nothin' ava when ye can stan' on
your ain feet."
"Oh, it's not the first time I've had to fight for my crown," said
James with a laugh, "but five to one are odds a little more heavy than
I care to encounter."
"Are ye able to walk on, for I'm in a bit o' a hurry, as ye'd have
seen if your attention hadna been turned to the north."
"Oh, quite able," replied the king as they strode along together.
"What's wrong wi' those scamps to lay on a poor beggar man?" asked the
stranger.
"Nothing, except that the beggar man is not so poor as he looks, and
has a belt of gold about him, which he was foolish enough to show last
night at the inn where these lads were drinking."
"Then the lesson hasn't taught you much, or you wouldn't say that to a
complete stranger in the middle of a black forest, and you alone with
him, that is, unless they've succeeded in reiving the belt away from
you?"
"No, they have not robbed me, and to show you that I am not such a
fool as you take me for, I may add that the moment you came up I
resolved to give to my rescuer every gold piece that is in my belt. So
you see, if you thought of robbing me, there's little use in taking by
force what a man is more than willing to give you of his own free
will."
The giant threw back his head and the wood resounded with his
laughter.
"What I have said seems to amuse you," said the king not too well
pleased at the boisterous merriment of his companion.
"It does that," replied the stranger, still struggling with his mirth;
then striking the king on the shoulder, he continued, "I suppose there
is not another man in all broad Scotland to-day but me, that wouldn't
give the snap of his fingers for all the gold you ever carried."
"Then you must be wealthy," commented the king. "Yet it can't be that,
for the richest men I know are the greediest."
"No, it isn't that," rejoined the stranger, "but if you wander
anywhere about this region you will understand what I mean when I tell
you that I'm Baldy Hutchinson."
"Baldy Hutchinson!" echoed the king, wrinkling his brows, trying to
remember where he had heard that name before, then with sudden
enlightenment,--
"What, not the man who is to be hanged to-day at St. Ninians?"
"The very same, so you see that all the gold ever minted is of
little use to a man with a tightening rope round his neck." And
the comicality of the situation again overcoming Mr. Hutchinson,
his robust sides shook once more with laughter.
The king stopped in the middle of the road and stared at his companion
with amazement.
"Surely you are aware," he said at last, "that you are on the direct
road to St. Ninians?"
"Surely, surely," replied Baldy, "and you remind me, that we must not
stand yammering here, for there will be a great gathering there to see
the hanging. All my friends are there now, and if I say it, who
shouldn't, I've more friends than possibly any other man in this part
of Scotland."
"But, do you mean that you are going voluntarily to your own hanging?
Bless my soul, man, turn in your tracks and make for across the
Border."
Hutchinson shook his head.
"If I had intended to do that," he said, "I could have saved myself
many a long step yesterday and this morning, for I was a good deal
nearer the Border than I am at this moment. No, no, you see I have
passed my word. The sheriff gave me a week among my own friends to
settle my worldly affairs, and bid the wife and the bairns good-bye.
So I said to the sheriff, 'I'm your man whenever you are ready for
the hanging.' Now, the word of Baldy Hutchinson has never been broken
yet, and the sheriff knew it, although I must admit he swithered long
ere he trusted it on an occasion like this. But at last he said to me,
'Baldy,' says he, 'I'll take your plighted word. You've got a week
before you, and you must just go and come as quietly as you can, and
be here before the clock strikes twelve on Friday, for folk'll want to
see you hanged before they have their dinners.' And that's what way
I'm in such a hurry now, for I'm feared the farmers will be gathered,
and that it will be difficult for me to place myself in the hands of
the sheriff without somebody getting to jalouse what has happened."
"I've heard many a strange tale," said the king, "but this beats
anything in my experience."
"Oh there's a great deal to be picked up by tramping the roads,"
replied Hutchinson sagely.
"What is your crime?" inquired his majesty.
"Oh, the crime's neither here nor there. If they want to hang a man,
they'll hang him crime or no crime."
"But why should they want to hang a man with so many friends?"
"Well, you see a man may have many friends and yet two or three
powerful enemies. My crime, as you call it, is that I'm related to the
Douglases; that's the real crime; but that's not what I'm to be hanged
for. Oh no, it's all done according to the legal satisfaction of the
lawyers. I'm hanged for treason to the king; a right royal crime, that
dubs a man a gentleman as much as if the king's sword slaps his bended
back; a crime that better men than me have often suffered for, and
that many will suffer for yet ere kings are abolished, I'm thinking.
You see, as I said, I married into the Douglas family, and when the
Earl of Angus let this young sprig of a king slip through his fingers,
it was as much as one's very life was worth to whisper the name of
Douglas. Now I think the Earl of Angus a good man, and when he was
driven to England, and the Douglases scattered far and wide by this
rapscallion callant with a crown on his head, I being an outspoken
man, gave my opinion of the king, damn him, and there were plenty to
report it. I did not deny it, indeed I do not deny it to-day,
therefore my neck's like to be longer before the sun goes down."
"But surely," exclaimed the beggar, "they will not hang a man in
Scotland for merely saying a hasty word against the king?"
"There's more happens in this realm than the king kens of, and all
done in his name too. But to speak truth, there was a bit extra
against me as well. A wheen of the daft bodies in Stirling made up a
slip of a plot to trap the king and put him in hiding for a while
until he listened to what they called reason. There were two weavers
among them and weavers are always plotting; a cobbler, and such like
people, and they sent word, would I come and help them. I was fool
enough to write them a note, and entrusted it to their messenger. I
told them to leave the king alone until I came to Stirling, and then I
would just nab him myself, put him under my oxter and walk down
towards the Border with him, for I knew that if they went on they'd
but lose their silly heads. And so, wishing no harm to the king, I
made my way to Stirling, but did not get within a mile of it, for they
tripped me up at St. Ninians, having captured my letter. So I was
sentenced, and it seems the king found out all about their plot as I
knew he would, and pardoned the men who were going to kidnap him,
while the man who wanted to stop such foolishness is to be hanged in
his name."
"That seems villainously unfair," said the beggar. "Didn't the eleven
try to do anything for you?"
"How do you know there were eleven?" cried Hutchinson, turning round
upon him.
"I thought you said eleven."
"Well, maybe I did, maybe I did; yes, there were eleven of them. They
never got my letter. Their messenger was a traitor, as is usually the
case, and merely told them I would have nothing to do with their
foolish venture; and that brings me to the point I have been coming
to. You see although I would keep my word in any case, yet I'm not so
feared to approach St. Ninians as another man might be. Young Jamie,
the king, seems to have more sense in his noodle than he gets credit
for. Some of his forbears would have snapped off the heads of that
eleven without thinking more of the matter, but he seems to have
recognised they were but poor silly bodies, and so let them go. Now
the moment they set me at liberty, a week since, I got a messenger I
could trust, and sent him to the cobbler, Flemming by name. I told
Flemming I was to be hanged, but he had still a week to get me a
reprieve. I asked him to go to the king and tell him the whole truth
of the matter, so I'm thinking that a pardon will be on the scaffold
there before me; still, the disappointment of the hundreds waiting to
see the hanging will be great."
"Good God!" cried the beggar aghast, stopping dead in the middle of
the road and regarding his comrade with horror.
"What's wrong with you?" asked the big man stopping also.
"Has it never occurred to you that the king may be away from the
palace, and no one in the place able to find him?"
"No one able to find the King of Scotland? That's an unheard-of
thing."
"Listen to me, Hutchinson. Let us avoid St. Ninians, and go direct to
Stirling; it's only a mile or two further on. Let us see the cobbler
before running your neck into a noose."
"But, man, the cobbler will be at St. Ninians, either with a pardon or
to see me hanged, like the good friend he is."
"There will be no pardon at St. Ninians. Let us to Stirling; let us to
Stirling. I know that the king has not been at home for a week past."
"How can you know that?"
"Never mind how I know it. Will you do what I tell you?"
"Not I! I'm a lad o' my word."
"Then you are a doomed man. I tell you the king has not been in
Stirling since you left St. Ninians." Then with a burst of impatience
James cried, "You stubborn fool, I am the king!"
At first the big man seemed inclined to laugh, and he looked over the
beggar from top to toe, but presently an expression of pity overspread
his countenance, and he spoke soothingly to his comrade.
"Yes, yes, my man," he said, "I knew you were the king from the very
first. Just sit down on this stone for a minute and let me examine
that clip you got on the top of the head. I fear me it's worse than I
thought it was."
"Nonsense," cried the king, "my head is perfectly right; it is yours
that is gone aglee."
"True enough, true enough," continued Hutchinson mildly, in the tone
that he would have used towards a fractious child, "and you are not
the first that's said it. But let us get on to St. Ninians."
"No, let us make direct for Stirling."
"I'll tell you what we'll do," continued Hutchinson in the same tone
of exasperating tolerance. "I'll to St. Ninians and let them know the
king's pardon's coming. You'll trot along to Stirling, put on your
king's clothes and then come and set me free. That's the way we'll
arrange it, my mannie."
The king made a gesture of despair, but remained silent, and they
walked rapidly down the road together. They had quitted the forest,
and the village of St. Ninians was now in view. As they approached the
place more nearly, Hutchinson was pleased to see that a great crowd
had gathered to view the hanging. He seemed to take this as a personal
compliment to himself; as an evidence of his popularity.
The two made their way to the back of the great assemblage where a few
soldiers guarded an enclosure within which was the anxious sheriff and
his minor officials.
"Bless me, Baldy!" cried the sheriff in a tone of great relief, "I
thought you had given me the slip."
"Ye thought naething o' the kind, sheriff," rejoined Baldy
complacently. "I said I would be here, and here I am."
"You are just late enough," grumbled the sheriff. "The people have
been waiting this two hours."
"They'll think it all the better when they see it," commented Baldy.
"I was held back a bit on the road. Has there no message come from the
king?"
"Could you expect it, when the crime's treason?" asked the sheriff
impatiently, "but there's been a cobbler here that's given me more
bother than twenty kings, and cannot be pacified. He says the king's
away from Stirling, and this execution must be put by for another ten
days, which is impossible."
"Allow me a word in your ear privately," said the beggar to the
sheriff.
"I'll see you after the job's done," replied the badgered man. "I have
no more places to give away, you must just stand your chances with the
mob."
Baldy put his open hand to the side of his mouth and whispered to the
sheriff:
"This beggar man," he said, "has been misused by a gang of thieves in
Torwood Forest."
"I cannot attend to that now," rejoined the sheriff with increasing
irritation.
"No, no," continued Baldy suavely, "it's no that, but he's got a
frightful dunner on the top o' the head, and he thinks he's the king."
"I _am_ the king," cried the beggar, overhearing the last word of
caution, "and I warn you, sir, that you proceed with this execution
at your peril. I am James of Scotland, and I forbid the hanging."
At this moment there broke through the insufficient military guard a
wild unkempt figure, whose appearance caused trepidation to the
already much-tried sheriff.
"There's the crazy cobbler again," he moaned dejectedly. "Now the
fat's all in the fire. I think I'll hang the three of them, trial or
no trial."
"Oh, your majesty!" cried the cobbler,--and it was hard to say which
of the two was the more disreputable in appearance,--"this man
Hutchinson is innocent. You will surely not allow the hanging to take
place, now you are here."
"I'll not allow it, if I can prevent it, and can get this fool of a
sheriff to listen."
"Fool of a sheriff! say you," stuttered that official in rising anger.
"Here, guard, take these two ragamuffins into custody, and see that
they are kept quiet till this hanging's done with. Hutchinson, get up
on the scaffold; this is all your fault. Hangman, do your duty."
Baldy Hutchinson, begging the cobbler to make no further trouble,
mounted the steps leading to the platform, the hangman close behind
him. Before the guard could lay hands on the king, he sprang also up
the steps, and took a place on the outward edge of the scaffold.
Raising his hand, he demanded silence.
"I am James, King of Scotland," he proclaimed in stentorian tones. "I
command you as loyal subjects to depart to your homes. There will be
no execution to-day. The king reprieves Baldy Hutchinson."
The cobbler stood at the king's back, and when he had ended, lifted
his voice and shouted,--
"God save the King!"
The mob heard the announcement in silence, and then a roar of laughter
followed, as they gazed at the two tattered figures on the edge of the
platform. But the laughter was followed by an ominous howl of rage, as
they understood that they were like to be cheated of a spectacle.
[Illustration: "'I AM JAMES, KING OF SCOTLAND,' HE PROCLAIMED, IN
STENTORIAN TONES."]
"Losh, I'll king him," shouted the indignant sheriff, as he mounted
the steps, and before the beggar or his comrade could defend
themselves, that official with his own hands precipitated them down
among the assemblage at the foot of the scaffold. And now the spirit
of a wild beast was let loose among the rabble. The king and his
henchman staggered to their feet and beat off, as well as they
could, the multitude that pressed vociferously upon them. A soldier,
struggling through, tried to arrest the beggarman, but the king nimbly
wrested his sword from him, and circled the blade in the air with a
venomous hiss of steel that caused the nearer portion of the mob to
press back eagerly, as, a moment before, they had pressed forward. The
man who swung a blade like that was certainly worthy of respect, be he
beggar or monarch. The cobbler's face was grimed and bleeding, but
the king's newly won sword cleared a space around him. And now the
bellowing voice of Baldy Hutchinson made itself heard above the din.
"Stand back from him," he shouted. "They're decent honest bodies, even
if they've gone clean mad."
But now these at the back of the crowd were forcing the others
forward, and Baldy saw that in spite of the sword, his old and his new
friend would be presently engulfed. He turned to one of the upright
posts of the scaffold and gave it a tremendous shuddering kick; then
reaching up to the cross-bar and exerting his Samson-like strength, he
wrenched it with a crash of tearing wood down from its position, and
armed with this formidable weapon he sprung into the mob, scattering
it right and left with his hangman's beam.
"A riot and a rescue!" roared the sheriff. "Mount, Trooper MacKenzie,
and ride as if the devil were after you to Stirling; to Stirling, man,
and bring back with you a troop of the king's horse."
"We must stop that man getting to Stirling," said Baldy, "or he'll
have the king's men on you. I'll clear a way for you through the
people, and then you two must take leg bail for it to the forest."
"Stand where you are," said the beggar. "The king's horse is what I
want to see."
"Dods, you'll see them soon enough. Look at that gallop!"
MacKenzie indeed had lost no time in getting astride his steed, and
was now disappearing towards Stirling like the wind. The more timorous
of the assemblage, fearing the oncoming of the cavalry, which usually
made short work of all opposition, caring little who was trampled
beneath horses' hoofs, began to disperse, and seek stations of greater
safety than the space before the scaffold afforded.
"Believe me," said Baldy earnestly to his two friends, "you'd better
make your legs save your throttle. This is a hanging affair for you
as well as for me, for you've interfered with the due course of the
law."
"It's not the first time I've done so," said the beggar with great
composure, and shortly after they heard the thunder of horses' hoofs
coming from the north.
"Thank God!" said the sheriff when he heard the welcome sound. The mob
dissolved and left a free passage for the galloping cavalcade. The
stout Baldy Hutchinson and his two comrades stood alone to receive the
onset.
The king took a few steps forward, raised his sword aloft and
shouted,--
"Halt, Sir Donald!"
Sir Donald Sinclair obeyed the command so suddenly that his horse's
front feet tore up the turf as he reined back, while his sharp order
to the troop behind him brought the company to an almost instantaneous
stand.
"Sir Donald," said the king, "I am for Stirling with my two friends
here. See that we are not followed, and ask this hilarious company to
disperse quietly to their homes. Do it kindly, Sir Donald. There is no
particular hurry, and they have all the afternoon before them. Bring
your troop back to Stirling in an hour or two."
"Will your majesty not take my horse?" asked Sir Donald Sinclair.
"No, Donald," replied the king with a smile, glancing down at his
rags. "Scottish horsemen have always looked well in the saddle;
yourself are an example of that, and I have no wish to make this
costume fashionable as a riding suit."
The sheriff who stood by with dropped jaw, now flung himself on his
knees and craved pardon for laying hands on the Lord's anointed.
"The least said of that the better," remarked the king drily. "But if
you are sorry, sheriff, that the people should be disappointed at not
seeing a man hanged, I think you would make a very good substitute for
my big friend Baldy here."
The sheriff tremulously asserted that the populace were but too
pleased at this exhibition of the royal clemency.
"If that is the case then," replied his majesty, "we shall not need to
trouble you. And so, farewell to you!"
The king, Baldy, and the cobbler took the road towards Stirling, and
Sir Donald spread out his troop to intercept traffic in that
direction. Advancing toward the bewildered crowd, Sir Donald spoke to
them.
"You will go quietly to your homes," he said. "You have not seen the
hanging, but you have witnessed to-day what none in Scotland ever saw
before, the king intervene personally to save a doomed man; therefore,
be satisfied, and go home."
Some one in the mob cried,--
"Hurrah for the poor man's king! Cheer, lads, cheer!" A great uproar
was lifted to the skies; afar off the three pedestrians heard it,
and Baldy, the man of many friends, taking the clamour as a public
compliment to himself, waved his bonnet at the distant vociferous
multitude.
THE KING'S VISIT
"No, no," said the king decisively, "Bring them in, bring them in.
I'll have none cast into prison without at least a hearing. Have any
of your men been killed?"
"No, your majesty," replied Sir Donald, "but some of them have wounds
they will not forget in a hurry; the Highlandmen fought like
tiger-cats."
"How many are there of them?" asked the king.
"Something more than a score, with a piper that's noisier than the
other twenty, led by a breechless ruffian, although I must say he
knows what to do with a sword."
"All armed, you say?"
"Every one of them but the piper. About half an hour ago they came
marching up the main street of Stirling, each man with his sword
drawn, and the pipes skirling death and defiance. They had the whole
town at their heels laughing and jeering at them and imitating the
wild Highland music. At first, they paid little attention to the mob
that followed them, but in the square their leader gave a word in
Gaelic, and at once the whole company swerved about and charged the
crowd. There was instant panic among the townspeople, who fled in all
directions out-screaming the pibroch in their fright. No one was hurt,
for the Highlandmen struck them with the flat of their swords, but
several were trampled under foot and are none the better for it."
"It serves them right," commented the king. "I hope it will teach them
manners, towards strangers, at least. What followed?"
"A whistle from their leader collected his helots again, and so they
marched straight from the square to the gates of the castle. The two
soldiers on guard crossed pikes before them, but the leader, without a
word, struck down their weapons and attempted to march in, brave as
you please; who but they! There was a bit of a scuffle at the gate,
then the bugle sounded and we surrounded them, trying to disarm them
peaceably at first, but they fought like demons, and so there's some
sore heads among them."
"You disarmed them, of course?"
"Certainly, your majesty."
"Very well; bring them in and let us hear what they have to say for
themselves."
The doors were flung open, a sharp command was given, and presently
there entered the group of Highlanders, disarmed and with their elbows
tied behind their backs. A strong guard of the soldiery accompanied
them on either side. The Highlanders were men of magnificent physique,
a quality that was enhanced by the picturesque costume they wore, in
spite of the fact that in some instances, this costume was in tatters,
and the wearers cut and bleeding. But, stalwart as his followers
were, their leader far outmeasured them in height and girth; a truly
magnificent specimen of the human race, who strode up the long room
with an imperial swagger such as had never before been seen in
Stirling, in spite of the fact that his arms were pinioned. He marched
on until he came before the king, and there took his stand, without
any indication of bowing his bonneted head, or bending his sturdy bare
knees. The moment the leader set his foot across the threshold, the
unabashed piper immediately protruded his chest, and struck up the
wild strain of "Failte mhic an Abba," or the Salute to the Chief.
"Stop it, ye deevil!" cried the captain of the guard. "How dare you
set up such a squawking in the presence of the king?" and as the piper
paid not the slightest attention to him, he struck the mouth-piece
from the lips of the performer. This, however, did not cause a
cessation of the music, for the bag under the piper's elbow was filled
with wind and the fingers of the musician bravely kept up the strain
on the reed chanter with its nine holes, and thus he played until his
chief came to a stand before the king. The king gazed with undisguised
admiration upon the foremost Highlander, and said quietly to the
captain of the guard,--
"Unbind him!"