“If it were summer we might swim across,” Nigel Graheme said to Malcolm; “the river is broad, but a good swimmer could cross it easily enough.”

“Yes,” Malcolm agreed, “there would be no difficulty in swimming if unencumbered with arms and armour, but there would be no advantage in getting across without these; if we could but get hold of a boat or two, we would soon wake yonder Spaniards up.”

The next morning Malcolm wandered along the bank closely examining the bushes as he went, to see if any boats might be concealed among them, for the fishermen and boatmen would naturally try to save their craft when they heard that the Imperialists were destroying them.  He walked three miles up the river without success.  As he returned he kept his eyes fixed on the bushes on the opposite bank.  When within half a mile of the camp he suddenly stopped, for his eye caught something dark among them.  He went to the water’s edge and stooped, the better to see under the bushes, and saw what he doubted not to be the stern of a boat hauled up and sheltered beneath them.  He leapt to his feet with a joyful exclamation.  Here was the means of crossing the river; but the boat had to be brought over.  Once afloat this would be easy enough, but he was sure that his own strength would be insufficient to launch her, and that he should need the aid of at least one man.  On returning to camp he called aside the sergeant of his company, James Grant, who was from his own estate in Nithsdale, and whom he knew to be a good swimmer.

“Sergeant,” he said, “I want you to join me in an enterprise tonight.  I have found a boat hauled up under the bushes on the opposite shore, and we must bring her across.  I cannot make out her size; but from the look of her stern I should say she was a large boat.  You had better therefore borrow from the artillerymen one of their wooden levers, and get a stout pole two or three inches across, and cut half a dozen two foot lengths from it to put under her as rollers.  Get also a plank of four inches wide from one of the deserted houses in the village behind us, and cut out two paddles; we may find oars on board, but it is as well to be prepared in case the owner should have removed them.”

“Shall I take my weapons, sir?”

“We can take our dirks in our belts, sergeant, and lash our swords to the wooden lever, but I do not think we shall have any fighting.  The night will be dark, and the Spaniards, believing that we have no boats, will not keep a very strict watch.  The worst part of the business is the swim across the river, the water will be bitterly cold; but as you and I have often swum Scotch burns when they were swollen by the melting snow I think that we may well manage to get across this sluggish stream.”

“At what time will we be starting, sir?”

“Be here at the edge of the river at six o’clock, sergeant.  I can get away at that time without exciting comment, and we will say nothing about it unless we succeed.”