Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 6, 2025
"And you can use your arms?" "I think so." "We will have a trial," Baird said. "A man is no use to me, who cannot use his weapon. Send Robert here." In a minute, one of the young Bairds entered. He was a man of about twenty-five, tall and sinewy, and was accounted the best swordsman of his family.
I am ready to do whatever you think best." "We cannot hope to reach Parton, before they overtake us," Oswald said. "Besides, the Bairds are sure to have many friends there, and the lighted beacon will warn all the countryside that something unusual has happened. No, we cannot think of going there." "But you said that there were horses," Janet said.
"The place can hardly be taken by a sudden attack, even by all the forces the Bairds could bring against it; and we could get help from Jedburgh, long before they could gain even the outside wall. My father and I are going, in a fortnight, to fetch the girls.
It was seldom, indeed, that the forays for cattle lifting had such serious consequences. As a rule they were altogether bloodless; and it was only because of the long feud with the Bairds, and the fact that some warning of the coming of the party had, in spite of their precaution, reached Allan Baird; that on the present occasion such serious results had ensued.
"They have scored the last success," Oswald said, "seeing that they accompanied Sir Richard Rutherford in his raid, nigh two months ago; and, as I hear, while the rest came on harrying and plundering Croquetdale, the Bairds and their gathering remained at our hold, which they found deserted, for indeed my father could not hope to defend it successfully, against so large a force; and there they employed themselves in demolishing the outer wall, and much of the hold itself; and would have completed their task, had it not been for the defeat inflicted upon the rest of the Scots by Sir Robert Umfraville, when they were forced to hasten back across the border.
The very border line was ill defined, and people on one side frequently settled on the other, as is shown by the fact that several of the treaties contained provisions that those who had so moved might change their nationality, and be accounted as Scotch or Englishmen, as the case might be. Between the Forsters and the Bairds such a feud had existed for three generations.
Therefore nothing had come of his threats, and the Bairds had continued to be the terror of that part of the English border that was the most convenient for their operations. Oswald was now past sixteen, and promised to be as big a man as his father, who was a fine specimen of the hardy Northumbrian race tall, strong, and sinewy.
When a week passed there was some slight relaxation in the watch, for it was evident that the Bairds intended to bide their time for a stroke, knowing well that they would not be likely to be able to effect a surprise, at present.
Still, all my kin would, I know, take up this quarrel; and I should say that, in twelve hours, we could gather fifty or sixty stout fighting men. "But the Bairds would be expecting us, and can put, with the families allied to them and their retainers, nigh three hundred men under arms.
Both were smiling, Robert Baird with a smile of confidence, and of assurance in his skill; while Oswald's face expressed only good temper and, as the others took it, a belief that he would, at any rate, be able to make such a defence as would assure his being taken into the Bairds' service. The first rally, indeed, proved more than this.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking