In Freedom's Cause. G.A. Henty
consultation with his two young lieutenants, whose fathers’ cottages had with the others been destroyed.
“What we have to do,” Archie said, “we must do alone. Sir William has ample employment for his men, and I cannot ask him to weaken his force to aid me in a private broil; nor, indeed, would any aid short of his whole band be of use, seeing that the Kerrs can put three hundred retainers in the field. It is not by open force that we must fight them, but by fire and harassment. Fighting is out of the question; but we can do him some damage without giving him a chance of striking a blow at us. As he has lighted Glen Cairn, so shall he see fires blazing round his own castle of Aberfilly. We will not retaliate by hanging his crofters and vassals; but if he or any of his men-at-arms falls into our hands, we will have blood for blood.”
In the course of the afternoon Archie saw his chief and begged leave to take his troop away for some time, telling Sir William of the cruel treatment which the Kerrs had dealt at Glen Cairn, and his determination to retaliate for the deed.
“Aberfilly is a strong castle, Archie,” Wallace said; “at least so people say, for I have never seen it, so far does it lie removed from the main roads. But unless by stratagem, I doubt if my force is strong enough to capture it; nor would I attack were I sure of capturing it without the loss of a man. The nobles and landowners stand aloof from me; but it may be that after I have wrested some more strong places from the English, they may join me. But I would not on any account war against one of them now. Half the great families are united by ties of blood or marriage. The Kerrs, we know, are related to the Comyns and other powerful families; and did I lift a hand against them, adieu to my chance of being joined by the great nobles. No; openly hostile as many of them are, I must let them go their way, and confine my efforts to attacking their friends the English. Then they will have no excuse of personal feud for taking side against the cause of Scotland. But this does not apply to you. Everyone knows that there has long been a blood feud between the Forbeses and the Kerrs, and any damage you may do them will be counted as a private feud. I think it is a rash adventure that you are undertaking with but a handful of boys, although it is true that a boy can fire a roof or drive off a bullock as well as a man. However, this I will promise you, that if you should get into any scrape I will come with what speed I can to your rescue, even if it embroil me with half the nobles of Scotland. You embroiled yourself with all the power of England in my behalf, and you will not find me slack in the hour of need. But if I join in the fray it is to rescue my friend Archie Forbes, and not to war against John Kerr, the ally of the English, and my own enemy.”
Archie warmly thanked his leader, but assured him that he had no thought of placing himself in any great peril.
“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.
“It is past all bearing,” the knight said furiously, “that an insolent boy like this should first wound me in the streets of Lanark, and should then cast his defiance in my teeth – a landless rascal, whose father I killed, and whose den of a castle I but a month ago gave to the flames. He must be mad to dare to set his power against mine. I was a fool that I did not stamp him out long ago; but woe betide him when we next meet! Had it not been that I was served by a fool” – and here the angry knight turned to his henchman, Red Roy – “this would not have happened. Who could have thought that a man of your years could have suffered himself to be fooled by a boy, and to bring me tales that this insolent upstart was a poor stupid lout! By Heavens! to be thus badly served is enough to make one mad!”
“Well, Sir John,” the man grumbled, “the best man will be sometimes in error. I have done good service for you and yours, and yet ever since we met this boy outside the gates of Lanark you have never ceased to twit me concerning him. Rest secure that no such error shall occur again, and that the next time I meet him I will pay him alike for the wound he gave you and for the anger he has brought upon my head. If you will give orders I will start at daybreak with twenty men. I will take up his trail at the cottage of John Frazer, and will not give up the search until I have overtaken and slain him.”
“Do so,” the knight replied, “and I will forgive your having been so easily fooled. But this fellow may have some of Wallace’s followers with him, and contemptible as the rabble are, we had best be on our guard. Send round to all my vassals, and tell them to keep good watch and ward, and keep a party of retainers under arms all night in readiness to sally out in case of alarm.”
The night, however, passed quietly. The next day the knight sallied out with a strong party of retainers, and searched the woods and lower slopes of the hill, but could find no signs of Archie and his followers, and at nightfall returned to the castle in a rage, declaring that the defiance sent him was a mere piece of insolent bravado. Nevertheless, he kept the horses again saddled all night ready to issue out at the slightest alarm. Soon after midnight flames suddenly burst out at a dozen of the homesteads. At the warder’s shout of alarm Sir John Kerr and his men-at-arms instantly mounted. The gate was thrown open and the drawbridge lowered, and Sir John rode out at the head of his following. He was within a few feet of the outer end of the drawbridge when the chains which supported this suddenly snapped. The drawbridge fell into the moat, plunging all those upon it into the water.
Archie, with his band, after detaching some of their number to fire the homesteads, had crept up unperceived in the darkness to