Did ever you kill anyone?"
"That I have, as it chances. Two, no less, and me still a lad that
should be at the college," said I. "But yet, in the look-back, I
take no shame for it."
"But how did you feel, then--after it?" she asked.
'"Deed, I sat down and grat like a bairn," said I.
"I know that, too," she cried. "I feel where these tears should
come from. And at any rate, I would not wish to kill, only to be
Catherine Douglas that put her arm through the staples of the bolt,
where it was broken. That is my chief hero. Would you not love to
die so--for your king?" she asked.
"Troth," said I, "my affection for my king, God bless the puggy
face of him, is under more control; and I thought I saw death so
near to me this day already, that I am rather taken up with the
notion of living."
"Right," she said, "the right mind of a man! Only you must learn
arms; I would not like to have a friend that cannot strike. But it
will not have been with the sword that you killed these two?"
"Indeed, no," said I, "but with a pair of pistols. And a fortunate
thing it was the men were so near-hand to me, for I am about as
clever with the pistols as I am with the sword.
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