It is needless to tell how frankly auld Will was forgiven.
The Cowd-Peel being a rallying point on all Border raides, we stayed there a whole day and a night, in hopes that some part of our men wad come up; but out of all my fifty men there were none appeared but three of the Potts. The hard-headed Olivers had been slain to a man, and all the Laidlaws save my brave companion. Out of ninety valiant Elliots there were only twelve remaining, and some of these were of the drivers.
There were fifty-seven Scots, and nearly as many English, with Bloody-Sark at their head, buried in one cairn; and, for the sake of the Bishop, the English raised a heap of stones above them as huge as an abbey church, which will be seen on the height above the ford of Keilder for ever.
Laidlaw slept that night in a good bed with the boy in his arms, for we had no lack of the finest blankets and sheets; and that night the white lady appeared to him again, claiming her child, yet still declining to accept of him, and promising Will protection on earth and a reward in heaven if he continued to guard and protect that boy. Whether this was in a dream or not, Laidlaw could not be positive; but he rather inclined to think he was wide awake, for he remembered of speaking to her audibly. Among other things, she asked him if he knew it was the child that had slept by him on the waste the night before the battle. Will said he was sure. She asked him how. He answered, that "unless the fairies had changed him it could nae be ony other."
"But the fairies or some one else may change him," said she. "You may be separated amid the confusion and uproar now on the Border; and when you meet again, you may not be able to prove the identity of my child. I bade you the other night examine his bosom, but you neglected to do so. If you had, you would there have found the spur of Ravensworth, testifying his lineage and descent to all the world."
Will came to me in a great ferment the next day, and told me of all this. I had heard the same words the night before the battle, but had quite forgot them among other matters, and wist as little what they meant as Will did.
"I hae lookit a' his bits o' claes, and graepit them a'," said he; "but I can find nae spur. How could there be a spur about a nakit bairn? It is may be in amang the blankets."
"It is perhaps some private mark," said I. "Let us examine the child's body very narrowly."
On doing so we found a slight mark on his breast, that seemed to have been made by applying a hot iron at some time previous, and it was exactly in the form of a V with the wrang end uppermost. So we both concluded that this was a private mark of some family, that neither fairies nor men kend o', and that it was perhaps a stamp that keepit them a' away.