“Then you must be wealthy,” commented the king. “Yet it can’t be that, for the richest men I know are the greediest.”
“No, it isn’t that,” rejoined the stranger, “but if you wander anywhere about this region you will understand what I mean when I tell you that I’m Baldy Hutchinson.”
“Baldy Hutchinson!” echoed the king, wrinkling his brows, trying to remember where he had heard that name before, then with sudden enlightenment,—
“What, not the man who is to be hanged to-day at St. Ninians?”
“The very same, so you see that all the gold ever minted is of little use to a man with a tightening rope round his neck.” And the comicality of the situation again overcoming Mr. Hutchinson, his robust sides shook once more with laughter.
The king stopped in the middle of the road and stared at his companion with amazement.
“Surely you are aware,” he said at last, “that you are on the direct road to St. Ninians?”
“Surely, surely,” replied Baldy, “and you remind me, that we must not stand yammering here, for there will be a great gathering there to see the hanging. All my friends are there now, and if I say it, who shouldn’t, I’ve more friends than possibly any other man in this part of Scotland.”
“But, do you mean that you are going voluntarily to your own hanging? Bless my soul, man, turn in your tracks and make for across the Border.”
Hutchinson shook his head.