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

said the cobbler. "It was but a wild Hielan' notion."

"My project has this advantage," continued Ballengeich with nonchalant impartiality, "that if it does not succeed, you can then fall back upon abduction. Nothing in this proposal interferes with the ultimate carrying out of your first plan."

"It is putting our heads in the lion's mouth," objected the leader, but in the discussion that followed he was outvoted. Then came the choosing of the delegates, on which rock the enterprise was nearly wrecked, for there seemed to be no anxiety on the part of any four present to form the committee of expostulation which was to meet the monarch. At last it was decided that all should go, if Ballengeich could produce a written safe-conduct signed by the king, which would include eleven persons.

Within three days this document was placed in the hands of the cobbler by Ballengeich, who told him that it had been signed that morning. And he added that the king had expressed himself as well pleased to receive a deputation of his loyal subjects.

The cobbler handled the passport gingerly, as if he were not altogether assured of its potency to protect him.

"The conference is for Wednesday at midday," said Ballengeich. "Assemble some minutes before that hour in the courtyard of the castle, and you will be conducted to the Presence."

"Wednesday!" echoed the cobbler, his face turning pale. "Why Wednesday, the day of our weekly meetings? Did you suggest it?"

"It was the king's suggestion, of course," replied Ballengeich. "It is merely a coincidence, and is, I think, a good omen."

"I wish I were sure of it," moaned the cobbler.

Before the bell rang twelve the conspirators were gathered together in the courtyard of Castle Stirling; huddled would perhaps be the more accurate word, for they were eleven very frightened men. More than one cast longing looks towards the gate by which they had come in, but some places are easier to enter than to leave, and the portal was well guarded by stalwart soldiers.

As the bell slowly tolled twelve, an official came from the palace into the courtyard, searched the delegation for concealed weapons, and curtly commanded them to follow him. Climbing the stone stairway they were ushered into a large room containing a long oaken table with five chairs on one side and six on the other. At the head of the table was a high-backed seat resembling a throne. The official left them standing there alone, and after he had closed the door they heard the ominous sound of bolts being thrust into their places. The silence which followed seemed oppressive; almost suffocating. No man spoke, but each stood like a statue holding his cap in his hand. At last the tension was broken, but it would scarcely be correct to say that it was relieved. The heavy curtains parted and the king entered the room, clad in the imposing robes of his high state. A frown was on his brow, and he advanced straight from the doorway to the throne at the head of the table, without speaking or casting a glance at any one of the eleven. When he had seated himself he said gruffly,--

"There is a chair for each of you; sit down."

It is doubtful if any of the company, except the cobbler, at first recognised their ruler as the alleged Laird of Ballengeich; but at the sound of the monarch's voice several started and looked anxiously one at another. Again the king addressed them,--

"A week ago to-night I met you in Flemming's room. I appointed this day for the conference that the routine of your meetings might not be disturbed, as I thought it well that the last of your rebellious gatherings should be held in the Castle of Stirling, for I am resolved that this conclave shall be your final effort in treason. One of your number has stated that the word of a Stuart is not to be trusted. This reputation appears to have descended to me, and it is a pity I should not take advantage of it."

When the king ceased speaking he lifted a small mallet and smote a resounding bell, which was on the table before him. A curtain parted and two men entered bearing between them a block covered with black cloth; this they placed silently in the centre of the floor and withdrew. Again the king smote the bell and there entered a masked executioner with a gleaming axe over his shoulder. He took his place beside the block, resting the head of his axe on the floor.

"This," continued the king, "is the entertainment I have provided for you. Each of you shall taste of that," and he pointed to the heading block.

The cobbler rose unsteadily to his feet, drawing from his bosom with trembling fingers the parchment bearing the king's signature. He moistened his dry lips with his tongue, then spoke in a low voice.

"Sir," he said, "we are here under safe conduct from the king."

"Safe conduct to where?" cried James angrily, "that is the point. I stand by the document; read it; read it!"

"Sir, it says safe conduct for eleven men here present, under protection of your royal word."

"You do not keep to the point, cobbler," shouted the king bringing his fist down on the table. "Safe conduct to where? I asked. The parchment does not say safe conduct back into Stirling again. Safe conduct to Heaven, or elsewhere, was what I guaranteed."

"That is but an advocate's quibble, your majesty. Safe conduct is a phrase well understood by high and low alike. But we have placed our heads in the lion's mouth, as our leader said last Wednesday night, and we cannot complain if now his jaws are shut. Nevertheless I would respectfully submit to your majesty that I alone of those present doubted a Stuart's word, and am like to have my doubts practically confirmed. I would also point out to your majesty that my comrades would not have been here had I not trusted the Master of Ballengeich, and through him the king, therefore, I ask you to let me alone pay the penalty of my error, and allow my friends to go scatheless from the grim walls of Stirling."

"There is reason in what you say," replied the king. "Are you all agreed to that?" he asked of the others.

"No, by God," cried the leader springing to his feet and smiting the table with his fist as lustily as the king had done. "We stand together, or fall together. The mistake was ours as much as his, and we entered these gates with our eyes open."

"Headsman," said the king, "do your duty."

The headsman whipped off the black cloth and displayed underneath it a box containing a large jug surrounded by eleven drinking-horns. Those present, all now on their feet, glanced with amazement from the masked man to the king. The sternness had vanished from his majesty's face, as if a dark cloud had passed from the sun and allowed it to shine again. There sparkled in the king's eye all the jubilant mischief of the incorrigible boy, and his laughter rang to the ceiling. Somewhat recovering his gravity he stretched out his hand and pointed a finger at the cobbler.

"I frightened you, Flemming," he cried. "I frightened you; don't deny it. I'll wager my gold crown against a weaver's woollen bonnet, I frightened the whole eleven of you."

"Indeed," said the cobbler with an uneasy laugh, "I shall be the first to admit it."

"Your face was as white as a harvest moon in mid-sky, and I heard somebody's teeth chatter. Now the drink we have had at our meetings heretofore was vile, and no more fitted for a Christian throat than is the headsman's axe; but if you ever tasted anything better than this, tell me where to get a hogshead of it."

The headsman having filled their horns, the leader raised the flagon above his head and said,--

"I give you the toast of The King!"

"No, no," proclaimed the boyish monarch, "I want to drink this myself. I'll give you a toast. May there never come a time when a Scotchman is afraid to risk his head for what he thinks is right."

And this toast they drank together.



THE KING DINES

"When kings frown, courtiers tremble," said Sir Donald Sinclair to the Archbishop of St. Andrews, "but in Stirling the case seems reversed. The courtiers frown, and the king looks anxiously towards them."

"Indeed," replied the prelate, "that may well be. When a man invites a company to dine with him, and then makes the discovery that his larder is empty, there is cause for anxiety, be he king or churl. In truth my wame's beginning to think my throat's cut." And the learned churchman sympathetically smoothed down that portion of his person first named, whose rounded contour gave evidence that its owner was accustomed to ample rations regularly served.

"Ah well," continued Sir Donald, "his youthful majesty's foot is hardly in the stirrup yet, and I'm much mistaken in the glint of his eye and the tint of his beard, if once he is firmly in the saddle the horse will not feel the prick of the spur, should it try any tricks with him."

"Scotland would be none the worse of a firm king," admitted the archbishop, glancing furtively at the person they were discussing, "but James has been so long under the control of others that it will need some force of character to establish a will of his own. I doubt he is but a nought posing as a nine," concluded his reverence in a lower tone of voice.

"I know little of mathematics," said Sir Donald, "but yet enough to tell me that a nought needs merely a flourish to become a nine, and those nines among us who think him a nought, may become noughts should he prove a nine. There's a problem in figures for you, archbishop, with a warning at the end of it, like the flourish at the tail of the nine."

The young man to whom they referred, James, the fifth of that name, had been pacing the floor a little distance from the large group of hungry men who were awaiting their dinner with some impatience. Now and then the king paused in his perambulation, and gazed out of a window overlooking the courtyard, again resuming his disturbed march when his brief scrutiny was completed. The members of the group talked in whispers, one with another, none too well pleased at being kept waiting for so important a function as a meal.

Suddenly there was a clatter of horse's hoofs in the courtyard. The king turned once more to the window, glanced a moment at the commotion below, then gave utterance to an exclamation of annoyance, his right hand clenching angrily. Wheeling quickly to the guards at the door he cried,--

"Bring the chief huntsman here at once, and a prod in the back with a pike may make up for his loitering in the courtyard."

The men, who stood like statues with long axes at the doorway, made no move; but two soldiers, sitting on a bench outside, sprang to their feet and ran clattering down the stair. They returned presently with the chief huntsman, whom they projected suddenly into the room with a violence little to the woodman's taste, for he neglected to remove his bonnet in the royal presence, and so far forgot himself as to turn his head when he recovered his equilibrium,