CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE REGICIDES.

"Upon desolate Aros there is wailing and weeping, For the chief of her lords in the dark chamber sleeping; In the dark chamber sleepeth our curly-tressed warrior, In the day of the battle our bulwark and barrier." _Lament for Maclean of Aros._

The poor miller was inexpressibly alarmed on perceiving the four armed knights enter; the richness of their armour and accoutrements impressed him still more, and he hastened to say, in an explanatory manner--

"His horse threw him at our door--a wicked horse, sirs;--we have done a' we could--on my life, sirs, I assure you--my gude wife and I--that the horse----"

"Enough, enough, fellow," said Sir Patrick Gray, gruffly. "Stir up that fire, for this den of thine is as dark as a dungeon. Let us see where _this_ king of ours is lying."

Though shocked and startled by the bearing of his visitors, Gawain hastened to throw a quantity of fir-apples on the fire, where they blazed and crackled and diffused a brilliant light throughout the humble apartment, and the highly polished-suit of the ruffians shone like silver as they stooped over the bed of the hapless and helpless king, who was "covered by a coarse checked rug," and on whom they gazed with eyes as pitiless in expression as their hearts were in feeling.

"Does your majesty fear death?" asked Gray.

"Nay, it never was my fear, and _now_ it is my only hope," replied James, in a low voice, "but I asked for a priest, sirs----"

"Well--here I am--a priest, though cased in iron," said Borthwick.

"And for whom fought you to-day, false priest?"

"By the cross of Macgriddy! I fought for my own hand--as Hal o' the Wynd fought, in old King Robert's time; but I am, nevertheless, a priest--behold my tonsure--or what remains of it."

"It is enough--even the unworthy is better than none. And you will hear my confession?"

"Yea," answered the bantering ruffian, "wert thou as great a clown as ever played at Hogshouther."

"And who are ye, sirs?" asked the king, turning uneasily from this disrespectful person.

"I am William Stirling of the Keir," hissed one through his teeth.

"And thou art the Lord Gray?" said James to a second, his brow darkening, as he saw the scarlet tabard-coat, which had a lion within its engrailed border, and was worn above the armour of the wearer.

"Nay, I am only the Lord Gray's near kinsman, and captain of your majesty's castle at Broughty."

"Leave me," said James, bitterly; "I will confess myself--and oh, bless me, father, for I have sorely sinned."

A terrible smile spread over Borthwick's face, as he grasped his dagger, and saw the poor king, after three futile attempts to rise, sink powerlessly down on the miller's humble pallet. Gawain and his wife drew aside, awestruck and silent; Mysie held her apron to her mouth with one hand, while the other clasped her husband's arm; but the Lairds of Keir, Kyneff, and Sauchie stood a little in the background, and conferred together in whispers on what should now be done, for their minds were agitated by a slender doubt, though the viler slave of English Henry's gold felt none.

"Dost thou expect to recover?" he sneered.

"I trow I might," sighed the poor king, "if I had a physician."

"How long dost thou expect to live?" he asked again, playing with his victim as a cat does with a mouse.

"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.

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,--

"_Mea sic mihi prosunt,_"

and the wretch placed it on his own finger. They again thought of firing the cottage; but the sudden appearance of Sir Andrew Wood's party made them think of providing for their own safety.

Their interview is already related.

Keir, Kyneff, and Sauchie took the road for Linlithgow, but Borthwick rode on direct to Berwick--as the king's private signet, when transmitted to Henry VII., would be the best assurance that the King of Scotland was slain.

Had the admiral arrived fifteen minutes sooner, he might have saved James's life, and spared Scotland the disgrace of one more historical atrocity.

The house in which this cruel regicide occurred is still in existence, and is yet named _Beaton's Milne_, and the traditionary account of the murder preserved by the inhabitants of the _town_ or hamlet, closely resembles that given in history, and reverently the good people still lower their voices, when pointing to the corner where their king was murdered. In 1667, as a date shows, the house of Gawain Beaton had been somewhat modernized; but it yet bears the aspect of antiquity and strength.

It stands about one hundred and fifty feet eastward of the road from Stirling to Glasgow; and though thatched, is yet as snug a little dwelling as when Gawain attended the _happer_ and Mysie's spinning-wheel birred by its ingle in the days of the unhappy king, James III.