ce was set and hard, and Oswald would scarce have
recognized the kindly, genial man who had always received him so
heartily.

"There are hopes that he will live," Oswald said.

There was a slight change in the expression of Armstrong's face.

"'Tis well," he said, "that one should be saved, to take revenge for
this foul business. All the others are gone."

"I hope we may rescue my cousins."

"We might as well try to rescue a young lamb, that had been carried off
by an eagle," he said bitterly. "Even could an archer send a shaft
through the bird's breastbone, the lamb would be bleeding and injured,
beyond all hope, ere it touched the ground. We may revenge, Oswald, but
I have no hope of rescue."

Then he went into the house, without further word.

Chapter 12: A Dangerous Mission.

Half an hour later, Adam Armstrong came out of the cottage where his
son was lying. His mood had changed. He had gathered hope from Meg
Margetson's confident assurances that there was ground for it.

"Now, let us talk of what had best be done, Oswald," he said, as he led
the way into the next cottage, where the woman at once turned her
children out, and cleared a room for him.

"What force could you gather, Uncle?"

"In my grandfather's time," he said, "two hundred Armstrongs, and their
followers, could gather in case of need; but the family was grievously
thinned, in the days when Edward carried fire and sword through
Scotland; and for the last fifty years Roxburgh and these parts have
been mostly under English rule, and in that time we have never gathered
as a family. Still, all my kin would, I know, take up this quarrel; and
I should say that, in twelve hours, we could gather fifty or sixty
stout fighting men.

"But the Bairds would be expecting us, and can put, with the families
allied to them and their retainers, nigh three hundred men under arms.
Their hold is so strong a one that it took fifteen hundred Englishmen,
under Umfraville, three weeks to capture it. It was destroyed then, but
it is stronger now than ever.

"Could we get aid from Roxburgh, think you?"

"I fear not, Uncle. I know that the governor has strict orders not to
give Douglas any pretext for invading us, and to hold his garrison
together; since the earl may, at any moment, endeavour to capture the
town before help could arrive. And even were he to send four or five
hundred men, the Bairds could hold out for a fortnight, at least; and
long before t