"'I have often gone among the English garrisons disguised as a woman, and no one in Carlisle is likely to ask me my business there.' It was plain to me at once that if Cluny could go to your aid, so could I, and I at once told him that I should accompany him. Cluny raised all sorts of objections, but to these I would not listen. I brought him to my will by saying, that if he thought my being with him would add to his difficulties I would go alone, but that go I certainly would. So without more ado we got these dresses and made south.
"We had a few narrow escapes of falling into the hands of parties of English, but at last we crossed the frontier and reached Carlisle. Three days later we heard of your arrival; and the next morning all men were talking about your defiance of the king, and that you had been sent to Berwick for execution at the end of the week. So we journeyed hither and got here the day after you arrived.
"The first step was to find a Scotchwoman whom we might trust. This, by great luck, we did. Mary Martin, who lives in this house, is a true Scotchwoman, and will help us to the extent of her power; she is poor, for her husband, who is an Englishman, had for some time been ill, and died but yesterday.
"He was, by what she says, a hard man and a cruel, and his death is no grief to her, and Mary will, if she can, return with her daughter to Roxburgh, where her relations live, and where she married her husband, who was a soldier in the English garrison there."
A WIFE'S STRATAGEM.—V.
"But, Marjory," Archie said, "have you thought how we are to escape hence? Though I am free from the castle I am still within the walls of Berwick, and when, to-morrow, they find that I have escaped, they will search every nook and corner of the town. I had best without delay try and make my way over the walls."
"That was the plan Cluny and I first thought of," Marjory replied; "but owing to the raids of the Douglas on the border, so strict a watch is kept on the walls that it would be difficult indeed to pass. Cluny has tried a dozen times each night, but the watch is so vigilant that he has each time failed to make his way past them, but has been challenged and has had several arrows discharged at him.
"The guard at the gates is extremely strict, and all carts that pass in and out are searched. Could you have tried to pass before your escape was known you might no doubt have done so in disguise, but the alarm will be given before the gates are open in the morning, and your chance of passing through undetected then would be small indeed.
"The death of the man Martin suggested a plan to me. I have proposed it to his wife, and she has fallen in with it. I have promised her a pension for life if we should succeed, but I believe she would have done it even without reward, for she is a true Scotchwoman. When she heard who it was that I was trying to rescue, she said at once she would risk anything to save the life of one of Scotland's best and bravest champions; while, on the other hand, she cares not enough for her husband to offer any objection to my plans for the disposal of his body."
"But what are your plans, Marjory?"