"Where are you sleeping?"
"In the stables, with the horses. It is some ten yards off the right of the house."
"Then you must keep watch through the night, by turns, and get your sleep in the daytime. I hope we shall get them away without waiting for a force to come. The hold is a very strong one, and a strict watch is kept at night; and, before we could carry it, we should have all the Bairds on the countryside down upon us.
"Can you get me a rope? I want a long and a strong one."
"There are some ropes in the stable, master, but they are in use, and would be missed."
"Then run, at the top of your speed, down to the town; and buy a rope strong enough to hold the weight of half a dozen men. I shall want a hundred feet of it. Here is money."
The man shot away into the darkness and, in a little over a quarter of an hour, was back again with the rope. Oswald took off his doublet.
"Wind it round and round me," he said. "Begin under the arms. Wind it neatly, and closely, so that it will make no more show than necessary."
This was soon done, and then Oswald started on his way; and an hour later entered the tavern, and took his seat with three or four of the men from the hold, and called for wine for the party. He sat there for some time, and then one said:
"It is half-past eight; we had best be going. At seven o'clock the gates are shut; but they are opened, for those who belong to the hold, till nine, after which none are admitted till morning, and any who come in then are reported to Baird, and they are lucky if they get off with half a dozen extra goes of sentry duty. Baird is a good master in many things, but he is a bad man to deal with, when he is angry; and if anyone was to be out a second time, and he did it too soon after the first offence, he would have his skin nearly flayed off his back, with a stirrup leather. There is no fooling with the Bairds."