The minds of the two knights were at last made up, and they resolved to trust themselves to the guidance of Ralpho Proudfoot. Armed with their daggers alone, they stole silently out in the dark, and were so planted by him behind the gate as to be prepared to rush out when the time for doing so should come. Ralpho Proudfoot cautioned them to keep perfectly quiet. To attempt to escape along the street of the village at that moment would have subjected them to certain observation: they were therefore to wait his signal, and to follow him. He placed himself, as he had said, in the midst of them, and set himself to listen for a sound from the outside.
They had not been long posted, when footsteps were heard [[408]]approaching very gently. There was then some whispering, and a slight cough. Proudfoot immediately answered it.
“Art there, John?” said a voice in an under tone.
“Yea,” replied Proudfoot, imitating the language of the hosteller, “but they be’s still astir; so when the yate be opened, ye maun rush in like fiends on them, for the hinge do creak, and they will start to their arms wi’ the noise. Are ye a’ ready?”
“We are,” replied the voice without.
“Noo, then, in on them and at them,” cried Proudfoot, throwing the gate wide open, so as to conceal himself and his companions behind it.
In rushed Sir Miers de Willoughby, at the head of a large party of his men; and out went Ralpho Proudfoot, with the two Scottish knights and their attendants. The gate was hastily locked externally; the horses were quickly gained, and mounted in the twinkling of an eye; and Ralpho Proudfoot, who had taken the precaution to have his steed placed with the rest, got to saddle along with them. As they rode past the gate of the hostel of the Norham Tower, the loud voices, and the execrations of Sir Miers de Willoughby and his people, and the shrill screams of Mrs. Kyle, told them that the failure of the plot had been already discovered by the actors in it.
“So,” said Ralpho, in half soliloquy, as he guided the knights down the village street at a canter—“so, thou didst cease to trust me, Sir Miers, me who hath been faithful to thee to the peril of my salvation. By St. Benedict, thou shalt now find that it would have been well for thee to have trusted me still; yea and thou didst tamper with her whom I would have espoused. By the bones of St. Baldrid, but thou mayest mate thee with her now an thou listest, for I am done for ever with her, with thee, and with England, except as a foeman.”
The two knights made the best of their way until they had got beyond the English march, and were fairly on what might be termed Scottish ground. Armed men were still crowding in greater or lesser bodies to Jedworth, where those who had by this time assembled formed a large army. They were encamped on what was then called the High Forest; and thither the two friends were hastening, and were already but a little way from the position of the troops, when Sir Patrick Hepborne halted, and thus addressed his companion—
“Canst thou tell me, Assueton, what may cause the mingled crowd of squires, lacqueys, grooms, and horses, that doth surround the gates of yonder church? Meseems it some convocation, [[409]]and those varlets do wait the pleasure of some personages of greater note who are within.”