“He has done more than that, Archie,” Marjory said, “for it was to him that I owe my first idea of coming here.  The moment after the castle was taken and it was found that you had been carried off in a boat by the English, Cluny started to tell me the news.  Your mother and I were beside ourselves with grief, and Cluny, to comfort us, said, `Do not despair yet, my lady; my lord shall not be killed by the English if I can prevent it.  The master and I have been in a good many dangers, and have always come out of them safe; it shall not be my fault if he does not slip through their hands yet.’ `Why, what can you do, Cluny?’ I said. `I don’t know what I can do yet,’ he replied; `that must depend upon circumstances.  My lord is sure to be taken to Carlisle, and I shall go south to see if I cannot get him out of prison.  I have often gone among the English garrisons disguised as a woman, and no one in Carlisle is likely to ask me my business there.’  It was plain to me at once that if Cluny could go to your aid, so could I, and I at once told him that I should accompany him.  Cluny raised all sorts of objections, but to these I would not listen, but brought him to my will by saying, that if he thought my being with him would add to his difficulties I would go alone, but that go I certainly would.  So without more ado we got these dresses and made south.  We had a few narrow escapes of falling into the hands of parties of English, but at last we crossed the frontier and made to Carlisle.  Three days later we heard of your arrival, and the next morning all men were talking about your defiance of the king, and that you had been sent to Berwick for execution at the end of the week.  So we journeyed hither and got here the day after you arrived.  The first step was to find a Scotchwoman whom we might trust.  This, by great luck, we did, and Mary Martin, who lives in this house, is a true Scotchwoman, and will help us to the extent of her power; she is poor, for her husband, who is an Englishman, had for some time been ill, and died but yesterday.  He was, by what she says, a hard man and cruel, and his death is no grief to her, and Mary will, if she can, return with her daughter to Roxburgh, where her relations live, and where she married her husband, who was a soldier in the English garrison there.”

“But, Marjory,” Archie said, “have you thought how we are to escape hence; though I am free from the castle I am still within the walls of Berwick, and when, tomorrow, they find that I have escaped, they will search every nook and corner of the town.  I had best without delay try and make my way over the walls.”