So we slept in Tynedale
last night."
"And how did you manage it? For unless you and Roger flew into the
Bairds' hold, and carried them off on your backs, I see not how it
could be managed. Why, the place is so strong that even the Douglases
have not cared to carry out the terms of the treaty, for the arrest of
William Baird as a notorious breaker of the truce between the two
countries."
"It was because I knew Armstrong deemed that it was scarce likely a
force could be gathered, by you and his friends, strong enough to
undertake such an enterprise, that we decided to rescue them by
strategy. The affair turned out to be easy enough."
And he then related, in detail, the manner in which he and Roger had
obtained entry into the hold, and had succeeded in rescuing his
cousins.
"By the bones of Saint Oswald, from whom you got your name, lad," John
Forster exclaimed, when he had finished his story, "you have carried
out the matter marvellously well! Hotspur himself could not have
contrived it better; and I own that I was wrong, and that that fancy of
yours, to be able to read and write, has not done you the damage that I
feared it would. Henceforth I will maintain, with all my might, that
these things in no way tend to soften a man; but on the contrary, in
some way sharpen his wits, and enable him to carry out matters with
plans, and contrivances, such as would scarce be conceived by men who
had not such advantage.
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