I have a following hard by, and will keep my word." The crofter hesitated.
"Do my bidding; and I promise you that whatever may befall the other vassals of the Kerrs, you shall go free and unharmed." "Well, if needs must, it must," the crofter said; "and I will do your bidding, young sir--partly because I care not to see my house in ruins, but more because I have heard of you as a valiant youth who fought stoutly by the side of Wallace at Lanark and Ayr--though, seeing that you are but a lad, I marvel much that you should be able to hold your own in such wild company.

Although as a vassal of the Kerrs I must needs follow their banner, I need not tell you, since you have lived so long at Glen Cairn, that the Kerrs are feared rather than loved, and that there is many a man among us who would lief that our lord fought not by the side of the English.

However, we must needs dance as he plays; and now I will put on my bonnet and do your errand.

Sir John can hardly blame me greatly for doing what I needs must." Great was the wrath of Sir John Kerr when his vassal reported to him the message with which he had been charged, and in his savage fury he was with difficulty dissuaded from ordering him to be hung for bringing such a message.

His principal retainers ventured, however, to point out that the man had acted upon compulsion, and that the present was not the time, when he might at any moment have to call upon them to take the field, to anger his vassals, who would assuredly resent the undeserved death of one of their number.
"It is past all bearing," the knight said furiously, "that an insolent boy like this should first wound me in the streets of Lanark, and should then cast his defiance in my teeth--a landless rascal, whose father I killed, and whose den of a castle I but a month ago gave to the flames.