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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
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