d, she was resting
in a friend's house, when drunken Winram, ever keen of scent for an
ill-conditioned deed, got track of her being in the town. He sent
soldiers to take her on the spot, together with her sister of thirteen
years, and bade thrust them into the Thieves' Hole that was in the
Tolbooth of Wigtown, where they put only the most notorious malefactors.

All this and more Thomas Wilson told us--how that his sisters and an
aged woman were confined there and guarded by most brutal soldiers--yea,
had already been doomed to be drowned within the tide mark in a very
short space of time--though the day of their death as yet he knew not.

Whereat our brave Maisie Lennox was eager to go down to Wigtown and try
for a rescue, if we could raise those that would help us. But we could
not suffer her to go, though most ready to adventure ourselves. The good
folk of Tonskeen were very willing to let my mother and the maids abide
with them; for since the taking of Anton Lennox no soldiers had been
seen in the district. And the slaying of wicked Mardrochat had feared
the ill-set informing people greatly, so that for a long season there
was no more of that.

It seemed strange, yet so it was, that Maisie Lennox, who had seen her
father pass, as it were, to his death without a tear, wept constantly
for her friend and gossip, Margaret of Glen Vernock.

"They cannot condemn Margaret. They will not condemn little Margaret!"
she said over and over, as women use.

"Ay, but condemned her they have!" said her brother Thomas, "for they
libel it against her and Agnes that they were guilty of rebellion at
Bothwell Brig and Ayrsmoss----"

"'Tis plainly impossible," I said; "the judges cannot mean aught to
their hurt. Why, at Bothwell, Margaret was but twelve, and little Agnes
a paidling bairn of seven years. And as for Ayrsmoss, the poor bairns
were never within twenty miles of the place in their lives."

But Thomas Wilson, a quiet, plainfaced lad, only mistrustfully shook his
head.

"It is even true," he said, "they mean to make them suffer if they can.
But we will hae a thraw at it, to see if we canna break through the
Thieves' Hole and draw the lassies forth."

So it was set for the following night, that we should make the attempt
to break the Thieves' Hole. The morrow, when it came, proved to be a
clear day and fine overhead, which augured not well for our attempt. We
would rather have had the blackest and wildest night for our