’I am his wife,’ she said. ’It was I who brought him to this. Ye will not twain me from him on this day of shame. Never have I owned James Mure as my husband before, but I own him now.’ These were her words, when the captain of the guard was instant with her to depart home. And I declare that the doomed man looked at her with something like a beast’s dumb gratitude in his eyes, which, when you think on it, is a thing marvellous enough. And I ask not that it shall be believed. Yet I saw it, and will at any time uphold the truth of it with my sword if need be. At last they stood upon the scaffold platform, and the headsman made ready. Then there sounded above the mingled roar of the multitude the blowing of a trumpet. And the King’s gay favourite, the Duke of Lennox, rode to the foot of the stage. He had a paper in his hand. ’A pardon! A pardon!’ yelled the people. My heart gave a great leap and stood still. ’They never dare!’ cried I. ’Lads, stand firm. If the King hath pardoned the murderers, shall we of the West? Will ye follow me, lads?’ And they whispered back, ’Ay, that we will. We will help you to do justice upon them. The Mures shall never leave this place alive, though we all die also. We shall not go back to Carrick, shamed by these men’s lives.’ So we arranged it, if by any chance there should be news of a reprieve. For it was by singular good hap that we were the only company under arms in the city, save the few men of the Town Guard. But when Lennox made his way to the scaffold, we heard another way of it. I was almost underneath the staging upon the front, and heard that which was said, almost every word. ’The King to you two traitors about to die,’ he read. ’His Majesty desires greatly to be informed of the certainty of these things whereof you have been accused, and for which you have been justly condemned—the murder of Sir Thomas Kennedy, the matter of the bloody dagger thrown at the Red House, the Treasure of Kelwood, and its taking out of the changehouse on the Red Moss. His Majesty the King offers life and his clemency in a perpetual exile upon some warded isle, to the first of you that will reveal the whole matter.’ The King’s favourite ceased his reading, and looked at the condemned men. And John Mure in his plain grey cloak, which he had not yet laid aside, looked askance at Lennox, who shone like a butterfly in gay colours, being tricked out in the latest fitful extravagancies of fashion. ’We shall be grateful to His Majesty all our lives,’ said he, sneeringly, ’but the Solomon of Scotland is so wise that he can easily certify himself of the truth of these things without our poor aid.’ But James Mure the younger, where he stood with his wife by his side, seemed a little struck with the message, and began to listen with interest. ’Read that again,’ he said to Lennox, abruptly.