and that none either of the townspeople or soldiers appeared to have the least expectation of trouble arising at the council.  The following morning they agreed that Jock should hang round the building in which the council was to be held, and where preparations for the meeting and for a banquet which was afterwards to take place were being made, while Cluny should continue his inquiries within the walls.  Jock hid away his basket and joined those looking on at the preparations.  Green boughs were being carried in for decorating the walls, tables, and benches for the banquet.  These were brought from the town in country carts, and a party of soldiers under the command of an officer carried them in and arranged them.  Several of the rustics looking on gave their aid in carrying in the tables, in order that they might take home to their wives an account of the appearance of the place where the grand council was to be held.  Jock thrust himself forward, and seizing a bundle of green boughs, entered the barn.  Certainly there was nothing here to justify any suspicions.  The soldiers were laughing and joking as they made the arrangements; clean rushes lay piled against a wall in readiness to strew over the floor at the last moment; boughs had been nailed against the walls, and the tables and benches were sufficient to accommodate a considerable number.  Several times Jock passed in and out, but still without gathering a word to excite his suspicions.  Presently Arlouf himself, a powerful man with a forbidding countenance, rode up and entered the barn.  He approached the officer in command of the preparations; and Jock, pretending to be busy in carrying his boughs, managed to keep near so as to catch something of their conversation.

“Is everything prepared, Harris?”

“Yes, sir; another half hour’s work will complete everything.”

“Do you think that is strong enough?” the governor asked.

“Ay; strong enough for half a dozen of these half starved Scots.”

“One at a time will do,” the governor said; and then, after a few more words, left the barn and rode off to Ayr.

Jock puzzled his head in vain over the meaning of the words he had heard.  The governor had while speaking been facing the door; but to what he alluded, or what it was that the officer had declared strong enough to hold half a dozen Scots, Jock could not in the slightest degree make out.  Still the words were strange and might be important; and he resolved, directly the preparations were finished and the place closed, so that there could be no chance of his learning more, to return himself to Archie instead of sending a message, as much might depend upon his repeating, word for word, what he had heard, as there was somehow, he felt, a significance in the manner in which the question had been asked and answered more than in the words themselves.