What wonder then if her maid's heart flew faster even than Gay Garland had done when he fled before the gypsy clan.
At last, after long waiting, she heard far off the clatter of a horse's feet on the road, and her courage returned to her. As the King's messenger came trotting easily down an incline, she rode as quietly out of a byway into the road and let him range alongside.
With a polite toss of the reins, as was then the modish fashion, she bade him good day.
"Ye are a bonny birkie. Hae ye ony sisters?" said the man in the Lothian tongue.
Maisie answered him no—an only bairn and riding to the college at Edinburgh.
"Ye'll be a braw student no doubt."
She told him so-so.
"I'se warrant ye!" said he, for he was jovial by nature, and warmed with Mistress Cranstoun's wine.
So they rode on in friendly enough talk till they were nearing the wood, when Maisie, knowing that the time had come, wheeled about and bade him "Stand!" At the same time she pointed a pistol at his head.
"Deliver me your mails," she said, "or I shall take your life!"