The girl laughed.

“I would have given you a week, Sir Archie, and no more; that is the extreme time which a knight in our days can be expected to mourn for the fairest lady; and now,” she went on, changing the subject, “think you we shall reach the pass across the Grampians before night?”

“If all goes well, lady, and your feet will carry you so far, we shall be there by eventide.  Unless by some chance encounter we need have no fear whatever of pursuit.  It will have been daylight before the news of your flight fairly spread through the country, though, doubtless, messengers were sent off at once in all directions; but it would need an army to scour these woods, and as they know not whether we have gone east, west, north, or south, the chance is faint indeed of any party meeting us, especially as we have taken so straight a line that they must march without a pause in exactly the right direction to come up with us.”

At nightfall the party camped again on the slope of the Grampians, and the following morning crossed by the pass of Killiecrankie and made toward Perth.

The next night Marjory slept in a peasant’s cottage, Archie and his companions lying down without.  Wishing to avoid attention, Archie purchased from the peasant the Sunday clothes of his daughter, who was about the same age and size as Marjory.

When they reached Perth he bought a strong horse, with saddle and pillion; and with Marjory behind him, and his band accompanying him on foot, he rode for Stirling.  When he neared the town he heard that the king was in the forest of Falkirk, and having consulted Marjory as to her wishes rode directly thither.

Bruce, with his followers, had arrived but the day before, and had taken up his abode at the principal house of a village in the forest.  He came to the door when he heard the trampling of a horse.

“Ah!  Sir Archie, is it you safely returned, and, as I half expected, a lady?”

“This, sire,” Archie said, dismounting, “is Mistress Marjory MacDougall, of whom, as you have heard me say, I am the devoted knight and servant.  She has been put in duress by Alexander of Lorne because in the first place she was a true Scots woman and favoured your cause, and because in the second place she refused to espouse his son John.  I have borne her away from the convent of St. Kenneth, and as I used no force in doing so no sacrilege has been committed.  I have brought her to you in all honour and courtesy, as I might a dear sister, and I now pray you to place her under the protection of the wife of one of your knights, seeing that she has no friends and natural protectors here.  Then, when she has time to think, she must herself decide upon her future.”

The king assisted Marjory to dismount.

“Fair mistress,” he said, “Sir Archibald Forbes is one of the bravest and truest of my knights, and in the hands of none might you more confidently place your honour.  Assuredly I will do as he asks me, and will place you under the protection of Dame Elizabeth Graham, who is now within, having ridden hither to see her husband but this morning.  But I trust,” he added, with a meaning smile, “that you will not long require her protection.”