It was believed that they were strangers to the district, and the description given of them had not agreed with those of any noted bad characters, in the neighbourhood.
"Certainly, Master Oswald," the monk said, "all this seems to support your idea.

Money and valuables are soon found; but by what these men say of the way in which the clothes and belongings of these travellers were searched, it would seem to show that money was not the object of the band, but rather the discovery of correspondence, and that money was only taken as a cloak." "I have no doubt that they were there to intercept someone, Roger, though it may not have been Percy's messengers; still, we are well rid of them, and I hope that we shall meet no more, on our way." The hope was fulfilled, and they reached Dunbar without further interruption.

Here they deemed it better to separate.

The monk went to a convent, and gave out there that he was on the way to Edinburgh, being on a journey thither to see his aged father, who was in his last sickness.

Oswald went to a shop, and bought clothes suited for the son of a trader in a fair position; and, changing his things at the inn where he had put up, made his way to the castle.
"I would have speech with the earl," he said, to the warder at the gate.