A Prince of Good Fellows by Robert Barr (best thriller novels to read txt) 📖

"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.

"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