tand 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."

Th