“Quite sure,” replied the smith. “I chanced to be passing the Tolbooth at the moment the door opened. A party of the City Guard suddenly came out with Black in the midst, and led him up the High Street.”
“I’m sure they’ll torture him,” said the poor girl, while the tears began to flow at the dreadful thought. “They stick at naethin’ now.”
“I think,” said Will Wallace, in a tone that was meant to be comforting, “that your uncle may escape the torture, for the Archbishop does not preside at the Council to-day. I hear that he has gone off suddenly to Saint Andrews.”
“That won’t serve your uncle much,” remarked Bruce sternly, “for some of the other bishops are nigh as bad as Sharp, and with that raving monster Lauderdale among them they’re likely not only to torture but to hang him, for he is well known, and has been long and perseveringly hunted.”
In his indignation the smith did not think of the effect his foreboding might have on his friend’s mother, but the sight of her pale cheeks and quivering lips was not lost upon Wallace, whose sympathies had already been stirred deeply not only by his regard for Black, but also by his pity for tender-hearted Jean.
“By heaven!” he exclaimed, starting up in a sudden burst of enthusiasm, “if you will join me, friends, I am quite ready to attempt a rescue at once.”
A sort of pleased yet half-cynical smile crossed the grave visage of Quentin Dick as he glanced at the youth.
“Hoots, man! sit doon,” he said quietly; “ye micht as weel try to rescue a kid frae the jaws o’ a lion as rescue Andry Black frae the fangs o’ Lauderdale an’ his crew. But something may be dune when they’re takin’ him back to the Tolbooth—if ye’re a’ wullin’ to help. We mak’ full twunty-four feet amangst us, an’ oor shoothers are braid!”
“I’m ready,” said David Spence, in the quiet tone of a man who usually acts from principle.
“An’ so am I,” cried Bruce, smiting the table with the fist of a man who usually acts from impulse.