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.