When they ventured to return with some of their neighbours, the body of the king was gone, and no trace of it remained, save the blood encrusted on the bedding where it had lain.
* * * * * * *
"Thou hast done it at last, ruffian!" said the grim Sir Patrick Gray; "such a deed hath not been seen in Scotland since that night in the Black Friary at Perth, when James I. was stabbed in Jane of Beaufort's arms. And now, sirs, what shall we do with this royal piece of carrion?"
"Let us fire the house, and leave it here to be consumed," said Shaw.
"Not a bad idea; but then consider the alarm it would raise."
"Let us fling it into the dam, then."
"Nay—toss him into the adjacent fields; there it will be found and buried as the corpse of some one slain in the battle of to-day," said the barbarous Laird of Keir.
"Then so be it; help me, sirs," said Borthwick, panting fiercely as he spoke; "for, o' my soul, dead flesh is heavy to bear. I am sorry we allowed yonder hagridden fools, the miller and his wife, to escape us, though."
The assassin and his companions dragged the gashed and bloody corpse irreverently cut upon the clay floor, and carried it in the moonlight across a neighbouring field, and there flung it info a ditch beside a thorn-hedge.
Ere he left it, Borthwick tore off the third finger of the right hand a large signet-ring, on the native amethyst of which was engraved a vine tree, fading and withered, because the current that flowed around was supposed to be wine instead of water. This strange device, which was adopted by the king (says Abercrombie) "when he saw his son in arms against him," bore the legend,—