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On the morning after his arrival at Gilnockie, Will held a consultation with two tried friends, whose assistance he required in this most extraordinary of all the rieving expeditions he had ever yet been engaged in; and the result of their long sederunt was, that, within two hours after, the three were mounted on as many prancing Galloways, and with a fourth led by a bridle, and carrying their provisions, a large cloak, and some other articles.
I hae braved this awful storm, auld as I am, to save my master; and, if I but saw him safe frae the king's ire, I could lay my banes at the foot o' the grave o' the Cockburns." "I have been looking for this Ralph," answered Marjory, as she lifted her hands to seize her hair, in her distress. "Even now, God be merciful! my husband is in the very act of rieving and rebellion.
"God be thanked, my Leddie Cockburn," said he, in a repressed voice, and with fearful looks "God be thanked, for Henderland's absence! The king, wi' his nobles, are at Peebles, on their way to Liddesdale, to tak vengeance on the chiefs o' the Borders, wha hae been foremost in the foray and the rieving raid.
The terrified man cast a wild eye on the relentless crowd around him, and then on the engine of death that dangled before him, and, with faltering tongue, told the king that Cockburn had gone on a midnight raid against Adam Scott of Tushielaw, who, some time before, had made an assault on Henderland, and carried off twenty head of cattle, besides wounding several of Cockburn's men; he stated, farther, that there had been many raids of late in Liddesdale; but that his master had had, until Tushielaw roused him, scarcely any share in these struggles, preferring the society of his lady, the fairest and the kindest woman of the Borders, to the pleasures of rieving.
But, faith, this house will be no place for me the morrow. I'll just tak my wee bit duds under my arm and away with me up to Dunseveric House. Miss Una'll take me in when she hears the tale I ha' to tell. I'd like to see the yeos or the sojers either that would fetch me out of the ould lord's kitchen. If they tak to ravishing and rieving the master's plenishins I canna help it.
Will shall not hang yet. He hath a job to do for me. I'll take thy bond." "Gie me your hand then, my Lord," said the determined dame; "and the richest lurdon o' the land he'll bring to your Lordship, as surely as he ever took a Cumberland cow whilk, as your Lordship kens, is nae rieving."
By dawn of the winter's morning all the company, the railway pilgrims, were astir again not to visit a shrine, or attend a tournament, or to go hunting or hawking, or to engage in a foray or rieving expedition, as guests of former days at the castle may have done, but quietly to make their way to the station as the different trains came up, the fresh wind having done more to clear the way than the army of men that had been set to work with pickaxe and shovel.
She had brought her husband three children, all as fair as herself, one girl and two boys, whom she, in playful kindness, declared she would rear in the fear of God, the love of man, and the hearty hatred of Border rieving in all its gradations, from the laird's enforcing of blackmail, to the prowess of the laird's Jock, whose depredations extended to the minutiæ of Laverna's sacrifices:
At another time, her strong mind would not have acknowledged the power of the rhythmic ravings of a wandering maniac; but she had got some obscure hints of the wrath of the young King James V. against the Border chiefs; and the tender solicitude of a doting wife traced, by a process perhaps unknown to herself, some connection between Merlin's saying and the proof she now had of a concealed intention, on the part of Cockburn, to disregard all her efforts to reclaim him, by imbuing his mind with a perception of the pleasures of domestic happiness, from his old habits of rieving and fighting with his neighbours.
Traquair gave the good dame his hand, and she departed, wondering, as she went, what the Lord Warden was to do with a stolen lurdon. A young damsel might have been a fair prize for the handsome baron; but an "auld wife," as she muttered to herself, was the most extraordinary object of rieving she had ever heard of, amidst all the varieties of a Borderer's prey.
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