n, and that the next time I meet him I will pay him
alike for the wound he gave you and for the anger he has brought
upon my head. If you will give orders I will start at daybreak
with twenty men. I will take up his trail at the cottage of John
Frazer, and will not give up the search until I have overtaken and
slain him."

"Do so," the knight replied, "and I will forgive your having
been so easily fooled. But this fellow may have some of Wallace's
followers with him, and contemptible as the rabble are, we had best
be on our guard. Send round to all my vassals, and tell them to
keep good watch and ward, and keep a party of retainers under arms
all night in readiness to sally out in case of alarm."

The night, however, passed quietly. The next day the knight sallied
out with a strong party of retainers, and searched the woods and
lower slopes of the hill, but could find no signs of Archie and
his followers, and at nightfall returned to the castle in a rage,
declaring that the defiance sent him was a mere piece of insolent
bravado. Nevertheless, he kept the horses again saddled all night
ready to issue out at the slightest alarm. Soon after midnight
flames suddenly burst out at a dozen of the homesteads. At the
warder's shout of alarm Sir John Kerr and his men-at-arms instantly
mounted. The gate was thrown open and the drawbridge lowered, and
Sir John rode out at the head of his following. He was within a
few feet of the outer end of the drawbridge when the chains which
supported this suddenly snapped. The drawbridge fell into the moat,
plunging all those upon it into the water.

Archie, with his band, after detaching some of their number to fire
the homesteads, had crept up unperceived in the darkness to the
end of the drawbridge, and had noiselessly cut the two projecting
beams upon which its end rested when it was lowered. He had intended
to carry out this plan on the previous night, but when darkness set
in not a breath of wind was stirring, and the night was so still
that he deemed that the operation of sawing through the beams could
not be effected without attracting the attention of the warders
on the wall, and had therefore retreated far up in the recesses of
the hills. The next night, however, was windy, and well suited to
his purpose, and the work had been carried out without attracting
the attention of the warders. When Kerr and his men-at-arms rode
out, the whole weight of the drawbridge and of the hors