ring, as
she went, what the Lord Warden was to do with a stolen lurdon. A young
damsel might have been a fair prize for the handsome baron; but an "auld
wife," as she muttered to herself, was the most extraordinary object of
rieving she had ever heard of, amidst all the varieties of a Borderer's
prey. Next day Traquair mounted his horse, and--

"Traquair has riden up Chaplehope,
An' sae has he doun by the Grey-Mare's-Tail;
He never stinted the light gallop,
Until he speered for Christie's Will."

Having arrived at Jedburgh, he repaired direct to the jail, where
Margaret had been before him, to inform her husband that the great Lord
Warden was to visit him, and get him released; but upon the condition of
stealing away a lurdon in the north--a performance, the singularity of
which was much greater than the apparent difficulty, unless, indeed, as
Will said, she was a bedridden lurdon, in which case, it would be no
easy matter to get her conveyed, as horses were the only carriers of
stolen goods in those days. But the wonder why Traquair should wish to
steal away an old woman had perplexed the wits of Will and his wife to
such an extent, that they had recourse to the most extraordinary
hypotheses; supposing at one time that she was some coy heiress of
seventy summers, who had determined to be carried off after the form of
young damsels in the times of chivalry; at another, that she was the
parent of some lord, who could only be brought to concede something to
the Warden by the force of the impledgment of his mother; and, again,
that she was the duenna of an heiress, who could only be got through the
confinement of the old hag. Be who she might, however, Christie's Will
declared, upon the faith of the long shablas of Johnny Armstrong, that
he would carry her off through fire and water, as sure as ever Kinmont
Willie was carried away by old Wat of Buccleuch from the Castle of
Carlisle.

"Oh, was it war-wolf in the wood,
Or was it mermaid in the sea,
Or was it maid or lurdon auld,
He'd carry an' bring her bodilie."

Such was the heroic determination to which Christie's Will had come,
when the jailor came and whispered in his ear, that the Lord Warden was
in the passage on the way to see him. Starting to his feet, the riever
was prepared to meet the baron, of whom he generally stood in so much
awe in his old tower of Gilnockie, but who came to him now on a visit
of peace.