o free and unharmed."

"Well, if needs must, it must," the crofter said; "and I will
do your bidding, young sir--partly because I care not to see my
house in ruins, but more because I have heard of you as a valiant
youth who fought stoutly by the side of Wallace at Lanark and
Ayr--though, seeing that you are but a lad, I marvel much that you
should be able to hold your own in such wild company. Although
as a vassal of the Kerrs I must needs follow their banner, I need
not tell you, since you have lived so long at Glen Cairn, that the
Kerrs are feared rather than loved, and that there is many a man
among us who would lief that our lord fought not by the side of the
English. However, we must needs dance as he plays; and now I will
put on my bonnet and do your errand. Sir John can hardly blame me
greatly for doing what I needs must."

Great was the wrath of Sir John Kerr when his vassal reported to
him the message with which he had been charged, and in his savage
fury he was with difficulty dissuaded from ordering him to be hung
for bringing such a message. His principal retainers ventured,
however, to point out that the man had acted upon compulsion, and
that the present was not the time, when he might at any moment
have to call upon them to take the field, to anger his vassals, who
would assuredly resent the undeserved death of one of their number.

"It is past all bearing," the knight said furiously, "that an insolent
boy like this should first wound me in the streets of Lanark, and
should then cast his defiance in my teeth--a landless rascal,
whose father I killed, and whose den of a castle I but a month ago
gave to the flames. He must be mad to dare to set his power against
mine. I was a fool that I did not stamp him out long ago; but woe
betide him when we next meet! Had it not been that I was served
by a fool"--and here the angry knight turned to his henchman, Red
Roy--"this would not have happened. Who could have thought that
a man of your years could have suffered himself to be fooled by a
boy, and to bring me tales that this insolent upstart was a poor
stupid lout! By Heavens! to be thus badly served is enough to make
one mad!"

"Well, Sir John," the man grumbled, "the best man will be sometimes
in error. I have done good service for you and yours, and yet ever
since we met this boy outside the gates of Lanark you have never
ceased to twit me concerning him. Rest secure that no such error
shall occur agai