is own retainers, and bearing a
commission to the Earl of Berwick to provide him with as many more as he
desired. He went first to the hostelry near the outskirts of the town,
where he remembered Gloucester had borne the supposed page. There he
obtained much desirable information, an exact description of the dress,
features, and appearance of both the page and his companion; of the
former, indeed, he recollected all-sufficient, even had the description
been less exact. The old minstrel had attracted the attention of many
within the hostel, and consequently enabled Buchan to obtain information
from various sources, all of which agreed so well that he felt sure of
success.

Backed by the warrant of Edward, he went to the civil authorities of the
town, obtained four or five technically drawn-up descriptions of the
prisoners, and intrusted them to the different officers, who, with bands
of fifty men, he commanded to search every nook and corner of the
country round Berwick, in various directions. He himself discovering
they had passed through the Scotch gate and appeared directing their
course in a westerly direction, took with him one hundred men, and
followed that track, buoyed up by the hope not only of gaining
possession of his daughter, but perhaps of falling in with the retreat
even of the detested Bruce, against whom he had solemnly recorded a vow
never to let the sword rest in the scabbard till he had revenged the
murder of his kinsman, the Red Comyn. Some words caught by a curious
listener, passing between the page and minstrel, and eagerly reported to
him, convinced him it was Robert Bruce they sought, and urged him to
continue the search with threefold vigor.

Slowly and sadly meanwhile had the hours of their weary pilgrimage
passed for the poor wanderers, and little did they imagine, as they
threaded the most intricate paths of the borders of Scotland, that they
were objects of persecution and pursuit. Though the bodily strength of
Agnes had well-nigh waned, though the burning cheek and wandering, too
brightly flashing eye denoted how fearfully did fever rage internally,
she would not pause save when absolutely compelled. She could neither
sleep nor eat: her only cry was, "To the king--bring me but to King
Robert while I may yet speak!" her only consciousness, that she had a
mission to perform, that she was intrusted with a message from the dead;
all else was a void, dark, shapeless, in which thought framed no