Baldy Hutchinson, begging the cobbler to make no further trouble, mounted the steps leading to the platform, the hangman close behind him. Before the guard could lay hands on the king, he sprang also up the steps, and took a place on the outward edge of the scaffold. Raising his hand, he demanded silence.
“I am James, King of Scotland,” he proclaimed in stentorian tones. “I command you as loyal subjects to depart to your homes. There will be no execution to-day. The king reprieves Baldy Hutchinson.”
The cobbler stood at the king’s back, and when he had ended, lifted his voice and shouted,—
“God save the King!”
The mob heard the announcement in silence, and then a roar of laughter followed, as they gazed at the two tattered figures on the edge of the platform. But the laughter was followed by an ominous howl of rage, as they understood that they were like to be cheated of a spectacle.
“‘I am James, King of Scotland,’ he proclaimed, in stentorian tones.”
“Losh, I’ll king him,” shouted the indignant sheriff, as he mounted the steps, and before the beggar or his comrade could defend themselves, that official with his own hands precipitated them down among the assemblage at the foot of the scaffold. And now the spirit of a wild beast was let loose among the rabble. The king and his henchman staggered to their feet and beat off, as well as they could, the multitude that pressed vociferously upon them. A soldier, struggling through, tried to arrest the beggarman, but the king nimbly wrested his sword from him, and circled the blade in the air with a venomous hiss of steel that caused the nearer portion of the mob to press back eagerly, as, a moment before, they had pressed forward. The man who swung a blade like that was certainly worthy of respect, be he beggar or monarch. The cobbler’s face was grimed and bleeding, but the king’s newly won sword cleared a space around him. And now the bellowing voice of Baldy Hutchinson made itself heard above the din.
“Stand back from him,” he shouted. “They’re decent honest bodies, even if they’ve gone clean mad.”