ere beaten in with axes, and, pouring in, the Scotch
slew the soldiers before they had scarce awakened from sleep. Very
few of the English in the town escaped to tell of the terrible
retaliation which had been taken for the massacre of Ayr.

One of the few who were saved was Captain Thomas Hawkins. Archie,
mindful of the part which he had taken, and to which, indeed, the
discovery of the governor's intention was due, had hurried direct to
the prison, and when this was, with the rest of the town, taken,
discovered the English officer in chains in a dungeon, and protected
him from all molestation.

The next morning he was brought before Wallace, who expressed to
him his admiration of the honourable course which he had adopted,
gave him a rich present out of the booty which had been captured,
and placed him on a ship bound for England.

A week after the capture of Ayr one of Archie's band came into his
hut. Tears were running down his cheeks, and his face was swollen
with weeping.

"What is it, Jock?" Archie asked kindly.

"Ah! Sir Archie! we have bad news from Glen Cairn. One has come
hither who says that a few days since the Kerrs, with a following
of their own retainers, came down to the village. Having heard
that some of us had followed you to the wars, they took a list of
all that were missing, and Sir John called our fathers up before
him. They all swore, truly enough, that they knew nought of our
intentions, and that we had left without saying a word to them.
Sir John refused to believe them, and at first threatened to hang
them all. Then after a time he said they might draw lots, and
that two should die. My father and Allan Cunninghame drew the evil
numbers, and Kerr hung them up to the old tree on the green and put
fire to the rooftrees of all the others. Ah! but there is weeping
and wailing in Glen Cairn!"

Archie was for a while speechless with indignation. He knew well
that this wholesale vengeance had not been taken by the Kerrs because
the sons of the cottagers of Glen Cairn had gone to join the army
of Wallace, but because he deemed them to be still attached to their
old lord; and it was to their fidelity to the Forbeses rather than
to Scotland that they owed the ruin which had befallen them.

"My poor Jock!" he said, "I am grieved, indeed, at this misfortune.
I cannot restore your father's life, but I can from the spoils of
Ayr send a sufficient sum to Glen Cairn to rebuild the cottages
which th