“I am not going to fight,” he said, “for the Kerr and his retainers could eat us up; we shall trust to our legs and our knowledge of the mountains.”

After dark Archie and his band started, and arrived within ten miles of Aberfilly on the following morning.  They rested till noon, and then again set out.  When they approached one of the outlying farms of the Kerrs, Archie halted his band, and, accompanied by four of the stoutest and tallest of their number, went on to the crofter’s house.  The man came to the door.

“What would you, young sir?” he said to Archie.

“I would,” Archie said, “that you bear a message from me to your lord.”

“I know not what your message may be; but frankly, I would rather that you bore it yourself, especially if it be of a nature to anger Sir John.”

“The message is this,” Archie said quietly:  “tell him that Archibald Forbes bids him defiance, and that he will retort upon him and his the cruelties which he has wrought in Glen Cairn, and that he will rest not night nor day until he has revenge for the innocent blood shed and rooftrees ruthlessly burned.”

“Then,” the crofter said bluntly, “if you be Archibald Forbes, you may even take your message yourself.  Sir John cares not much upon whose head his wrath lights, and I care not to appear before him as a willing messenger on such an errand.”

“You may tell him,” Archie said quietly, “that you are no willing messenger; for that I told you that unless you did my errand your house should, before morning, be a heap of smoking ashes.  I have a following hard by, and will keep my word.”

The crofter hesitated.

“Do my bidding; and I promise you that whatever may befall the other vassals of the Kerrs, you shall go free and unharmed.”

“Well, if needs must, it must,” the crofter said; “and I will do your bidding, young sir —­ partly because I care not to see my house in ruins, but more because I have heard of you as a valiant youth who fought stoutly by the side of Wallace at Lanark and Ayr —­ though, seeing that you are but a lad, I marvel much that you should be able to hold your own in such wild company.  Although as a vassal of the Kerrs I must needs follow their banner, I need not tell you, since you have lived so long at Glen Cairn, that the Kerrs are feared rather than loved, and that there is many a man among us who would lief that our lord fought not by the side of the English.  However, we must needs dance as he plays; and now I will put on my bonnet and do your errand.  Sir John can hardly blame me greatly for doing what I needs must.”

Great was the wrath of Sir John Kerr when his vassal reported to him the message with which he had been charged, and in his savage fury he was with difficulty dissuaded from ordering him to be hung for bringing such a message.  His principal retainers ventured, however, to point out that the man had acted upon compulsion, and that the present was not the time, when he might at any moment have to call upon them to take the field, to anger his vassals, who would assuredly resent the undeserved death of one of their number.