een, since, scouring the country," his father went on, "to try
to get my friends to take the matter up; but in truth, they were not
over willing to do so. All know that it is no slight enterprise to
attack the Bairds in their stronghold. We fared but badly, last time we
went there, though that was but a blow and a retreat; but all know that
the Bairds' hold is not to be taken like a country tower. 'Tis greatly
bigger and stronger than ours, and scarce to be attempted save by a
royal army; especially as the whole countryside would be swarming round
us, in a few hours after we crossed the border. This time, too, it is
no quarrel of my people; and, as they say, the risk would be indeed
great, and the loss very heavy.

"I sent off a messenger this morning to Armstrong, to tell him that I
feared I could not raise more than sixty spears; but with these I would
ride to Hiniltie, and join any force he could collect, and try with him
to surprise the Bairds' hold and rescue the girls, though it seemed to
be a mighty dangerous enterprise."

"He will have learnt, yesterday morning, Father, that we have carried
them off. We could have brought you the news last night, but to do so
we must have ridden fast and, the girls being with us, we thought it
were better to take two days over the journey. So we slept in Tynedale
last night."

"And how did you manage it? For unless you and Roger flew into the
Bairds' hold, and carried them off on your backs, I see not how it
could be managed. Why, the place is so strong that even the Douglases
have not cared to carry out the terms of the treaty, for the arrest of
William Baird as a notorious breaker of the truce between the two
countries."

"It was because I knew Armstrong deemed that it was scarce likely a
force could be gathered, by you and his friends, strong enough to
undertake such an enterprise, that we decided to rescue them by
strategy. The affair turned out to be easy enough."

And he then related, in detail, the manner in which he and Roger had
obtained entry into the hold, and had succeeded in rescuing his
cousins.

"By the bones of Saint Oswald, from whom you got your name, lad," John
Forster exclaimed, when he had finished his story, "you have carried
out the matter marvellously well! Hotspur himself could not have
contrived it better; and I own that I was wrong, and that that fancy of
yours, to be able to read and write, has not done you the damage that I
feared it would. H