The moment this was done Marjory threw her arms round Archie's neck with
a burst of tears of joy and relief. While Archie was soothing her, the
third person stirred up the embers on the hearth and threw on a handful
of dry wood.
"And who is your companion?" Archie asked, after the first transports of
joy and thankfulness were past.
"What! don't you recognize Cluny?" Marjory asked, laughing through her
tears.
"Cluny! of course!" Archie exclaimed, grasping his follower's hand in
his. "I only caught a glimpse of your face and knew that it was
familiar to me, but in vain tried to recall its owner. Why, Cluny, it
is a long time since you went dressed as a girl into Ayr. And so it is
my good friend who has shared my wife's dangers."
"He has done more than that, Archie," Marjory said, "for it is 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. I 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 reached 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. 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 a 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."