ld I give to have my
fingers on the throats of those two hounds before the hangman's close
around my own."

There was a spell of silence as the two men sat, both breathing heavily
in the gloom that enveloped them. At length:

"You have heard my story, Kenneth," said Crispin.

"I have heard, Sir Crispin, and God knows I pity you."

That was all, and Galliard felt that it was not enough. He had lacerated
his soul with those grim memories to earn a yet kinder word. He had
looked even to hear the lad suing for pardon for the harsh opinions
wherein he had held him. Strange was this yearning of his for the boy's
sympathy. He who for twenty years had gone unloving and unloved, sought
now in his extremity affection from a fellow-man.

And so in the gloom he waited for a kinder word that came not; then--so
urgent was his need--he set himself to beg it.

"Can you not understand now, Kenneth, how I came to fall so low? Can you
not understand this dissoluteness of mine, which led them to dub me the
Tavern Knight after the King conferred upon me the honour of knighthood
for that stand of mine in Fifeshire? You must understand, Kenneth,"
he insisted almost piteously, "and knowing all, you must judge me more
mercifully than hitherto."

"It is not mine to judge, Sir Crispin. I pity you with all my heart,"
the lad replied, not ungently.

Still the knight was dissatisfied. "Yours it is to judge as every man
may judge his fellowman. You mean it is not yours to sentence. But if
yours it were, Kenneth, what then?"

The lad paused a moment ere he answered. His bigoted Presbyterian
training was strong within him, and although, as he said, he pitied
Galliard, yet to him whose mind was stuffed with life's precepts, and
who knew naught of the trials it brings to some and the temptations to
which they were not human did they not succumb--it seemed that vice was
not to be excused by misfortune. Out of mercy then he paused, and for
a moment he had it even in his mind to cheer his fellow-captive with a
lie. Then, remembering that he was to die upon the morrow, and that
at such a time it was not well to risk the perdition of his soul by an
untruth, however merciful, he answered slowly:

"Were I to judge you, since you ask me, sir, I should be merciful
because of your misfortunes. And yet, Sir Crispin, your profligacy and
the evil you have wrought in life must weigh heavily against you." Had
this immaculate bigot, this churlish milksop bee