soon
saw that his first impressions were correct, and that his uncle's tower
was on fire. He found the village in confusion.

"What has happened?" he asked, reining in his horse for a moment.

"The hold was suddenly attacked, two hours ago," a man said. "A party
of reivers rode through here. None had seen them coming, and there was
no time for us to take our women and children, and hurry to the shelter
of the hold. Adam Armstrong is away at Roxburgh. Young Allan, with what
few men there were at the hold, had but just time to shut the gates;
but these were hewed down, in a short time, by the troopers. There was
a stout fight as they entered. Allan was cut down and left for dead,
and the troopers were all killed. Dame Armstrong was slain, and her
daughters carried off by the reivers; and these, as soon as they had
sacked the house, set it alight and galloped off. Most of the men here
were away in the fields, or with the flocks in the valleys, and we were
too few to hinder them, and could but shut ourselves up in the houses,
until they had gone."

Oswald had dropped his reins, in speechless dismay.

"It is terrible," he said, at last. "Aunt killed, Janet and Jessie
carried away, and Allan wounded, perhaps to death!"

"Whence came these villains?" he asked suddenly. "From beyond the
Cheviots? It can hardly be so, for this part is under the governor of
Roxburgh, and no English raiders would dare to meddle with any here.
Besides, my uncle has always been on good terms with them, holding
himself aloof from all quarrels, and having friends and relations on
both sides of the border."

"We believe that it was the Bairds," a man said. "There has long been a
standing quarrel between them and the Armstrongs, partly about stolen
cattle, but more, methinks, because of the relationship between the
Armstrongs and your people"--for Oswald's visits to his uncle had made
his face familiar to the villagers--"and they say that the Bairds have
sworn that they will never rest, until they have slain the last of the
Forsters."

"Where is Allan Armstrong?"

"They have carried him down to the last house in the village. The
priest and Meg Margetson, who knows more of wounds and simples than
anyone here, are with him."

"Has his mother's body been recovered?"

The man shook his head.

"The hold was on fire, from roof to cellar, before they left," he said.
"I and others ran up there, directly they had galloped away. The house
was like