"God send him as honourable a death. 'Twere better than lolling with madams on Whitehall couches, that he should honourably step forth from the window of the banqueting hall as his father did!" I made him answer. "You are a strange Whig, Mr. William Gordon," he said; "do you even give that testimony to them from the scaffold. It will be a change from their general tenor." I said, "You mistake me. I believe as much and as well as any of them, and I am about to die for it, but testimonies are not in my way. Besides, somewhere my mother is praying for me." "I would the King could have spared you," he said. "There is need of some like you in this town of Edinburgh." "When I was in Edinburgh," I replied, "I had not the spirit of a pooked hen, but holding the banner at Sanquhar hath wondrously brisked me." All this while I could see the lips of Anton Lennox moving. And I knew right well that if I had little to say at the last bitter pinch, he would deliver his soul for the two of us--ay, and for the Earl, too, if he were permitted. It was just at this moment that we came in sight of the Maiden, which was set high on a platform of black wood. There was much scaffolding, and also a tall ladder leading thereto. But what took and held my eye, was the evil leaden glitter of the broad knife, which would presently shear away my life. CHAPTER LVI. THE MAID ON THE WHITE HORSE. Then slowly a rim about my neck grew icy cold till it ached with the pain--as when, on a hot day, one holds one's wrists over-long in a running stream. Nevertheless, my southland pride and the grace of God kept me from vulgarly showing my fear. Yet even the Earl, who came of a family that ought by this time to have grown accustomed to losing their heads, was shaken somewhat by the sight of the Maiden. And, indeed, such present and visible death will daunton the most resolute courage. Therefore he caused bind the napkin upon his face, ere he approached nearer, and so was led upon the scaffold first. I went next, schooling myself to go firmly and saying only, "It will soon be over! It will soon be over!" Then I would fall to my twenty-third Psalm again, and specially to the verse about "death's dark vale," which did indeed strengthen me so that I feared none ill, or at least not so very much. But at such times one goes on, winning through unshamed, more by the mechanical action of one's body and the instinct of silence, than by the actual thing which men call courage. But when at last we stood upon the scaffold, and looked about us at the great concourse of people, all silent and all waiting to see us die, more than everything else I wished that they had thought to put a rail about the edge. For the platform being so high, and the time so early in morning, I walked a little as though my legs had been the legs of another and not mine own. But in time this also passed off.