tly approached him as he was talking
to the king.

"Sir Archibald Forbes," he said, "I am bidden by my mistress, the
lady Mary Kerr, to bring these, a portion of the retainers of her
estates in Ayrshire, and to place them in your hands to lead and
govern."

"In my hands!" Archie exclaimed in astonishment. "The Kerrs are all
on the English side, and I am their greatest enemy. It were strange,
indeed, were one of them to choose me to lead their retainers in
the cause of Scotland."

"Our young lord Sir Allan was slain at Methven," the man said, "and
the lady Mary is now our lady and mistress. She sent to us months
ago to say that she willed not that any of her retainers should any
longer take part in the struggle, and all who were in the field
were summoned home. Then we heard that no hindrance would be offered
by her should any wish to join the Bruce; and now she has sent by
a messenger a letter under her hand ordering that a troop of fifty
men shall be raised to join the king, and that it shall fight under
the leading and order of Sir Archibald Forbes."

"I had not heard that Sir Allan had fallen," Archie said to the
king as they walked apart from the place where the man was standing;
"and in truth I had forgotten that he even had a sister. She must
have been a child when I was a boy at Glen Cairn, and could have
been but seldom at the castle--which, indeed, was no fit abode
for so young a girl, seeing that Sir John's wife had died some
years before I left Glen Cairn. Perhaps she was with her mother's
relations. I have heard that Sir John Kerr married a relation of
the Comyns of Badenoch. `Tis strange if, being of such bad blood
on both sides, she should have grown up a true Scotchwoman--still
more strange she should send her vassals to fight under the banner
of one whom she must regard as the unlawful holder of her father's
lands of Aberfilly."

"Think you, Sir Archie," the king said, "that this is a stratagem,
and that these men have really come with a design to seize upon
you and slay you, or to turn traitors in the first battle?"

Archie was silent. "Treachery has been so much at work," he said
after a pause, "that it were rash to say that this may not be a
traitorous device; but it were hard to think that a girl--even
a Kerr--would lend herself to it."

"There are bad women as well as bad men," the king said: "and if
a woman thinks she has grievances she will often stick at nothing
to obtain revenge."