Most of the men here were away in the fields, or with the flocks in the valleys, and we were too few to hinder them, and could but shut ourselves up in the houses, until they had gone." Oswald had dropped his reins, in speechless dismay.
"It is terrible," he said, at last.

"Aunt killed, Janet and Jessie carried away, and Allan wounded, perhaps to death!" "Whence came these villains ?" he asked suddenly.

"From beyond the Cheviots?
It can hardly be so, for this part is under the governor of Roxburgh, and no English raiders would dare to meddle with any here.
Besides, my uncle has always been on good terms with them, holding himself aloof from all quarrels, and having friends and relations on both sides of the border." "We believe that it was the Bairds," a man said.

"There has long been a standing quarrel between them and the Armstrongs, partly about stolen cattle, but more, methinks, because of the relationship between the Armstrongs and your people"-- for Oswald's visits to his uncle had made his face familiar to the villagers--"and they say that the Bairds have sworn that they will never rest, until they have slain the last of the Forsters." "Where is Allan Armstrong ?" "They have carried him down to the last house in the village.

The priest and Meg Margetson, who knows more of wounds and simples than anyone here, are with him." "Has his mother's body been recovered ?" The man shook his head.
"The hold was on fire, from roof to cellar, before they left," he said.
"I and others ran up there, directly they had galloped away.