“If I had intended to do that,” he said, “I could have saved myself many a long step yesterday and this morning, for I was a good deal nearer the Border than I am at this moment. No, no, you see I have passed my word. The sheriff gave me a week among my own friends to settle my worldly affairs, and bid the wife and the bairns good-bye. So I said to the sheriff, ‘I’m your man whenever you are ready for the hanging.’ Now, the word of Baldy Hutchinson has never been broken yet, and the sheriff knew it, although I must admit he swithered long ere he trusted it on an occasion like this. But at last he said to me, ‘Baldy,’ says he, ‘I’ll take your plighted word. You’ve got a week before you, and you must just go and come as quietly as you can, and be here before the clock strikes twelve on Friday, for folk’ll want to see you hanged before they have their dinners.’ And that’s what way I’m in such a hurry now, for I’m feared the farmers will be gathered, and that it will be difficult for me to place myself in the hands of the sheriff without somebody getting to jalouse what has happened.”
“I’ve heard many a strange tale,” said the king, “but this beats anything in my experience.”
“Oh there’s a great deal to be picked up by tramping the roads,” replied Hutchinson sagely.
“What is your crime?” inquired his majesty.
“Oh, the crime’s neither here nor there. If they want to hang a man, they’ll hang him crime or no crime.”
“But why should they want to hang a man with so many friends?”
“Well, you see a man may have many friends and yet two or three powerful enemies. My crime, as you call it, is that I’m related to the Douglases; that’s the real crime; but that’s not what I’m to be hanged for. Oh no, it’s all done according to the legal satisfaction of the lawyers. I’m hanged for treason to the king; a right royal crime, that dubs a man a gentleman as much as if the king’s sword slaps his bended back; a crime that better men than me have often suffered for, and that many will suffer for yet ere kings are abolished, I’m thinking. You see, as I said, I married into the Douglas family, and when the Earl of Angus let this young sprig of a king slip through his fingers, it was as much as one’s very life was worth to whisper the name of Douglas. Now I think the Earl of Angus a good man, and when he was driven to England, and the Douglases scattered far and wide by this rapscallion callant with a crown on his head, I being an outspoken man, gave my opinion of the king, damn him, and there were plenty to report it. I did not deny it, indeed I do not deny it to-day, therefore my neck’s like to be longer before the sun goes down.”
“But surely,” exclaimed the beggar, “they will not hang a man in Scotland for merely saying a hasty word against the king?”
“There’s more happens in this realm than the king kens of, and all done in his name too. But to speak truth, there was a bit extra against me as well. A wheen of the daft bodies in Stirling made up a slip of a plot to trap the king and put him in hiding for a while until he listened to what they called reason. There were two weavers among them and weavers are always plotting; a cobbler, and such like people, and they sent word, would I come and help them. I was fool enough to write them a note, and entrusted it to their messenger. I told them to leave the king alone until I came to Stirling, and then I would just nab him myself, put him under my oxter and walk down towards the Border with him, for I knew that if they went on they’d but lose their silly heads. And so, wishing no harm to the king, I made my way to Stirling, but did not get within a mile of it, for they tripped me up at St. Ninians, having captured my letter. So I was sentenced, and it seems the king found out all about their plot as I knew he would, and pardoned the men who were going to kidnap him, while the man who wanted to stop such foolishness is to be hanged in his name.”