and perhaps you may be refused lodgings even when you greatly
need them; in either case a few gold rascals will stand your friend."

"That's canny counsel, Flemming, and I'll act on it."

"And perhaps it might be as well to leave with some one in whom you
have confidence, instructions so that you could be communicated with
if your presence was needed hurriedly at Stirling."

"No, no, Flemming. Nothing can go wrong in a week. A beggar with a
string tied to his legs that some one in Stirling can pull at his
pleasure, is not a real beggar, but a slave. If they should want me
sorely in Stirling before I return, they'll think the more of me once
I am back."

And thus it came about that the King of Scotland, with a belt of gold
around his waist in case of need, and garments concealing the belt
which gave little indication that anything worth a robber's care was
underneath, tramped the high roads and byways of a part of Scotland,
finding in general a welcome wherever he went, for he could tell a
story that would bring a laugh, and sing a song that would bring a
tear, and all such rarely starve or lack shelter in this sympathetic
world.

Only once did he feel himself in danger, and that was on what he
thought to be the last day of his tramp, for in the evening he
expected to reach the lower town of Stirling, even though he came to
it late in the night. But the weather of Scotland has always something
to say to the pedestrian, and it delights in upsetting his plans.

He was still more than two leagues from his castle, and the dark
Forest of Torwood lay between him and royal Stirling, when towards the
end of a lowering day, there came up over the hills to the west one of
the fiercest storms he had ever beheld, which drove him for shelter to
a wayside inn on the outskirts of the forest. The place of shelter was
low and forbidding enough, but needs must when a Scottish storm
drives, and the king burst in on a drinking company, bringing a swirl
of rain and a blast of wind with him; so fierce in truth was the wind
that one of the drinkers had to spring to his feet and put his
shoulder to the door before the king could get it closed again. He
found but scant welcome in the company. Those seated on the benches by
the fire scowled at him; and the landlord seeing he was but a beggar,
did not limit his displeasure to so silent a censure.

"What in the fiend's name," he cried angrily, "does the like of you
want in here?"

The ki