"So, good madam," said our Maisie again; "but if you will get me a drink from your famous medicinal spring—a good fresh quart—most gladly I will pay for it—aye, as if it had been claret wine of the best bin in your cellar."
At hearing of which the landlady pricked up her ears.
"I will e'en gae bring it mysel'," she said in a changed voice, for such orders came not every day. "It is for a wager," she thought. "The loons are ever after some daft ploy."
As she went to the door she had a thought.
"Mind ye," she said, "meddle not wi' the pistols, for they belong to one on the King's service."
So she set out to bring the water in a wooden cogie with a handle.
As soon as she was fairly gone, Maisie stole on tiptoe to the door of the room whence the snoring proceeded. She peeped circumspectly within, and there on a rough bed with the neck of his buff riding-coat thrown open, lay the King's rider, a great clean shaven fellow with a cropped head, and ear-rings in his ears. The edge of the mail bag peeped from under the pillow, and the ribbons of seals showed beneath the flaps.
Maisie laid her hand on her heart to still its painful beating. Clearly there was no chance of drawing the bag from under the rider's head, for his hand was twisted firmly in the strap. It was with mighty grief in her heart that Maisie Lennox stepped back. But at sight of the pistols on the table, a thought and a hope sprang up together within her. She hasted to take them up and draw the charges, leaving only a sprinkling of powder in the pan of each.
And as she rode off, she bore with her the landlady's benediction, for the good wife had never been so paid for caller spring water before.
It was at the entrance to the wild place known as the Devil's Beef Tub, near the last wood on the upward way over the hills, that Maisie waited for the King's rider. There were, no doubt, many thoughts in her heart, but she did not dwell upon them—save it might be upon this one, that if the rider discovered that the charges had been drawn, it would certainly go ill with her and worse with those whom she had come out to save.