"Alas! priest; He who numbereth the leaves in the Torwood, and every blade of grass in the Carse of Stirling, alone can tell."
"I never numbered either; yet I think thou'lt be a dead man in ten minutes."
A flush passed over James's pallid brow.
"Be it so, father; the world and all its vanities are nothing now to me;—wifeless, childless,—or worse, for my own son is in arms against me; my soul hovers, as it were, between this world and the next. Oh would, father, that I might cure my soul at the expense of my body!"
"Pythagoras——"
"He was a pagan."
"Well, what matters it," said Borthwick, becoming deadly pale, while his eyes gleamed with fire, and he felt himself endued with a demon's strength of mind and body, by the very magnitude of the crime he was about to commit; "what matters it," he continued, drawing one of those long Scottish dirks, such as are still worn with the Highland garb; "Pythagoras said that the eyes could not be cured without the head, nor the head without the body, nor the body without the soul! I am not now a priest, and cannot shrive thee; so by this stroke—and this—and this—I destroy both body and soul together!"
And with these terrible words the merciless ruffian buried his dagger "many times," says Lindesay of Pitscottie, in the breast of the unfortunate king, who expired without a sigh.
Thus perished James III., in his thirty-fifth year.
Terrified on beholding the committal of a deed so awful, the poor miller and his wife abandoned their mill and cottage, and fled into the recesses of the Torwood, where they lurked many days.