William Armstrong rode his splendid black steed like one more accustomed to the polishing of saddle-leather than to the wearing out of the same material in the form of boots. Horse and man were so subtly suited, each to each, that such another pair might well have given to some early artist the first idea of a centaur. Armstrong was evidently familiar with the district he traversed, for he evinced no surprise when, coming to the crown of a height, he saw in the valley below him a one-storied stone building, whose outhouses and general surroundings proclaimed it a solitary inn, but the horse, less self-contained, and doubtless more fatigued, thrust forward his ears and gave utterance to a faint whinny of pleasure at the near prospect of rest and refreshment. The hand of the rider affectionately stroked and patted the long black mane, as if in silent corroboration of the animal’s eager anticipations.

The young man was as fair as his mount was dark. A mass of yellow hair flowed out from under his Scot’s bonnet and over his broad shoulders. A heavy blonde moustache gave him a semi-military air; a look of the cavalier; as if he were a remnant of that stricken band across the border which was fighting for King Charles against daily increasing odds; but something of jaunty self-confidence in Armstrong’s manner betokened that the civil war raging in England was no concern of his, or that, if he took any interest in it, his sympathies inclined toward the winning side, as indeed was the case with many of his countrymen. His erect bearing, body straight as one of his native pines, enhanced the soldier-like appearance of the horseman, and it needed but a glance at his clear-skinned but resolute face and powerful frame to be convinced that he would prove a dangerous antagonist to meet in combat, while the radiant good-nature of his frank countenance indicated a merciful conqueror should victory fall to him, as seemed likely unless the odds were overwhelming.

Both prowess and geniality were on the instant of being put to the test as he approached the inn, where a wayfarer is usually certain of a welcome if he has but money in his pouch. A lanceman, his tall weapon held upright, stepped out into the road from the front of the closed door before which he had been standing, when he saw that the traveller was about to halt and dismount.

“Ye’ll be fur dawnerin’ on a bit faurer forret,” hinted the sentinel in a cautious, insinuating manner, as if he were but giving expression to the other’s unspoken intention.

“A wise man halts at the first public-house he comes to after the sun is down,” replied Armstrong.

“Ah’m thinkin’ a man’s no verra wise that stops whaur he’s least wanted, if them that’s no wantin’ him has good airn in their hauns.”

“Aye, my lad, steel ’s a bonny argument, rightly used. Whut’s a’ th’ steer here, that a tired man, willin’ to pay his way, is sent doon th’ rod?”

Armstrong adopted for the moment a brogue as broad as that of his questioner. He flung his right leg across the horse, and now sat sideways in his saddle, an action which caused the sentinel suddenly to grip the shaft of his pike with both hands; but the equestrian making no further motion, conversing in an easy nonchalant tone, as if he had little personal interest in the discussion, the vigilance of the man on guard partially relaxed, probably thinking it as well not to provoke so excellently equipped an opponent by any unnecessary show of hostility.

“Weel, ye see, there’s muckle folk in ben yonner that has mony a thing ta chatter aboot, an’ that’s a’ Ah ken o’t, except that Ah’m ta let nane inside ta disturb them.”

“Whose man are you?”

“Ah belong ta th’ Yerl o’ Traquair.”

“And a very good friend of mine the Earl of Traquair is. Will you just go inside and tell him William Armstrong is sitting here on his horse?”

“That wull Ah no, fur if th’ King himsel’ were ta ask, Ah munna let him by th’ door. Sa jist tak a fule’s advice fur yince, and gang awa’ ta th’ next botha afore it gets darker an’ ye’re like to lose yer rod amang th’ hills.”

“I must get something for my horse to eat. He’s done, and should not be pushed further. I’ll wait outside until their lordships have finished their council.”

“Th’ stalls are a’ fou already, an’ if not wi better nags, at least wi the nags o’ noblemen, an’ Ah’m thinkin’ that’s neither you nor me.”

“The stalls may be fou, but my beast’s empty, and I must get a feed of corn, noble or simple. Ye tell the Earl it’s me and ye’ll be thankit.”

“Indeed, ma braw man, Ah tak’ orders fra the Yerl himsel’, an’ fra nane else. Jist tickle yer beast wi’ the spur, or Ah’ll gie him a jab wi’ th’ point o’ this spear.”

The descent of young Armstrong was so instantaneous that the man-at-arms had no opportunity of carrying out his threat, or even of levelling the unwieldy weapon in his own defence. The horseman dropped on him as if he had fallen from the clouds, and the pike rang useless on the rough cobble-stones. The black horse showed no sign of fright, as might have been expected, but turned his intelligent head and calmly watched the fray as if accustomed to any eccentricity on the part of his master. And what the fine eyes of the quadruped saw was startling enough. The wide-spread limbs of the surprised soldier went whirling through the air like the arms of a windmill in a gale. Armstrong had grasped him by the waist and turned him end for end, revolving him, Catherine-wheel-wise, until the bewildered wits of the victim threatened to leave him through the action of centrifugal force. By the time the unfortunate sentinel lost all reckoning of the direction in which solid earth lay with regard to his own swiftly changing position, he found himself on his assailant’s shoulder, gaping like a newly landed trout, and, thus hoisted aloft, he was carried to the closed door, which a kick from Armstrong’s foot sent crashing inward. The intruder flung his burden into the nearest corner of the large room, as if he were a sack of corn; then, facing the startled audience, the young man cried:

“Strong orders should have a stronger guard than, you set, gentlemen. I hold to the right of every Scotsman to enter a public dram-shop when he pleases.”

A dozen amazed men had sprung to their feet, oversetting a chair or a stool here and there behind them, and here and there a flagon before them. Eleven swords flashed out, but the upraised right hand of the chairman and his commanding voice caused the weapons to hang suspended.

“The very man! By God, the very man we want! In the Fiend’s name, Will, where have you dropped from?”

“From the back of my horse a moment since, as your henchman here will bear witness, Traquair.”

“Armstrong, your arrival at this juncture is providential; that’s what it is, providential!”

“It must be, my Lord, for you did your best to prevent it. Your stout pikeman would not even let you know I was within call, so I just brought him in to give the message properly.”

“Losh, if he knew you as well as I do, he would have thought twice or he stood in your way. Come to the table, man, and fill a flagon.”

“I’ll empty one with pleasure if the drawer will charge it.”

“We have no drawer, Armstrong, but wait on ourselves, trusting the lugs of a cogie rather than the ears of a scullion. So I’ll be your cup-bearer, Will.”

“Thank you kindly, my lord, but I’ll help myself, as my ancestor said to the Duke of Northumberland when he drove away the English cattle. The man who will not stretch an arm to slake a thirst deserves a dusty road all day with no bothy at the end of it.” And, saying this, the young man drank long and well.

The sentinel had by this time got on his feet and was staring at the company like one dazed. “Where’s your pike?” demanded Traquair.

“On the stanes ootside, ma lord.”

“Very well, go out and lift it, and see that you hold a better grip of it when the next man comes along. Attend to Armstrong’s horse, and keep an eye up and down the road.”

“I’ll look after my own beast, Traquair.”

“No need for that, Will. We have matters of importance to discuss, and Angus here will feed the horse as well as you can do it.”

“I’ll eat and drink whatever’s set before me, and never ask who is the cook, but I trust no man to wait on my horse. You bide by your sentry march, Angus, and I’ll see to the beast.”

With this Armstrong strode out of the house, the ill-used sentinel following him. As the door closed, the interrupted hum of conversation rose again.

Who the interloper might be was the burden of the inquiry.

“Armstrong’s the very man for our purpose,” said Traquair. “If any one can get through Old Noll’s armies by craft or by force, it is Will. I had no idea he was near by, or I would never have wasted thought on any other. I have known him for years, and there’s none to match him, Hielan’ or Lowlan’. We need seek nae farrar if Christie’s Wull is wullin’.”

“I have never before heard of him,” said the Reverend Alexander Henderson, of Edinburgh. “What has he done?”

“What has he not done?” asked the Earl. “The Border rings with his fame, as it has rung with the fame of his ancestors these several centuries past.”

“Oh, the Border!” cried the townsman, with the contempt of his class for the supposedly ignorant condition of that wild hilly belt which girded the waist of the land. “We all know what brings a man renown on the Border. The chief requisites are a heavy sword and a thick skull. That the proposed excursion may require a ready blade at times, I admit, but a man who depends on that will not blunder through. There are too many of his kind opposed to him in Cromwell’s army. It is not a wilderness like the Border that lies between here and Oxford, but a civilized country with cities, and men of brains in them. To win through and back requires skill and diplomacy, alertness of resource, as well as the qualities of riding hard and striking swift.”

“William Armstrong has all these qualities, and many more,” replied Traquair.

“The sample of his conduct just presented to us savors more of violence than of tact,” objected Henderson. “He comes breenging in on a private conference of his betters, carrying their sentinel on his head like a shambled sheep, and flings him in a corner. This proves him a strong man, but far from a wise one, because, for all he knew, he might have been walking into an ambuscade that would have cost him his life or liberty. It was pure luck and not foreknowledge that caused him to find a friend at our board.”

“You are in the wrong there, Henderson, quite in the wrong, for you all heard him say that the sentry refused to bring in his message to me. Armstrong knew I was here, and thus was well aware he was safe enough.”

Henderson shook his head, stubbornly unconvinced. He was a man of talk rather than of action, and knew he spoke well, so, being a born objector to other men’s proposals, his tongue was more active than his arm. When the unexpected “breenging” had occurred, every man in the room had jumped to his feet and grasped his sword, except Henderson, who sat staring, exhibiting little of that ready resource he had been commending. Now the danger was past, he apparently thought that after-eloquence made good the absence of energy in a crisis.

Traquair, ever suave so long as he carried his point, showed no signs of irritation at this line of criticism, but made comment and gave answer in a low tone and persuasive voice. The others round the table kept silence and listened to the controversy between the man of language and the man of action, ready, doubtless, to side with whichever proved the victor. The Earl leaned his elbow on the board and gazed across at his opponent.

“Look you here, Henderson. You are willing to admit there is no such city as Edinburgh between here and the King?”

“Doubtless not.”

“And I need not try to convince you that Edinburgh is second to no town in the world so far as learning, judgment, and good sense are concerned?”

“Edinburgh is not in question, my Lord.”

“But you’ll agree with all I say regarding it?”

“Well, there are worse places than Edinburgh.”

“Cautiously uttered, but true. Very good. Perhaps you will not dispute the fact that Lord Durie is one of your most enlightened citizens?”

“Durie, Lord of Sessions? Durie’s Decisions are well known in law, I am told. I have nothing to say against the man.”

“There you differ from me, Henderson. I have much to say against him, be his Decisions never so good. He is, and always was, a prejudiced old fool, who, if he once got a wrong notion in his head, was proof against all reason.”

“Speak no ill against those in authority over us!” cried Henderson, bristling into opposition now that a definite opinion was expressed. “For twenty years he was chosen vice-president by the best men in all Scotland, none successfully opposing him, so you cannot say ill of such an one.”

“Very well, very well,” coincided Traquair with suspicious haste, a faint smile parting his lips. “We will take your word for it that his legal lordship is all you say. The point I wish to establish is that Edinburgh possesses an enviable shrewdness, and that Lord Durie is one of her most esteemed citizens. Other people may hold contrary opinion, but we defer to yours, Henderson. It chanced that one man holding contrary opinion so far as his lordship was concerned, and troubled with grave doubts regarding his impartiality, had a case coming before him that involved the litigant’s possessions and lands. He knew that Durie was against him, and that there was no way of getting the thrawn deevil—I beg your pardon, Henderson—this upright judge—to listen to justice. This defendant slipped a word in Armstrong’s ear to the effect that it would be most admirable if there was some other presiding judge at the Court of Sessions when the case was tried. The consequence was that Lord Durie, for the time being, disappeared and was accounted dead. The case was tried before his successor, and won by the contestant I have referred to, as was but right and just. Then Lord Durie came on the scene once more, to the joy of everyone but his successor, who should have been a friend of Will’s if he wished the disappearance to have been permanent.”

“Ah, there you overstep the bounds of probability in order to establish a false proficiency for this ranting Borderer. ’Tis well known that Armstrong had nothing to do with the kidnapping of his lordship. The judge himself admits that the powers of evil spirited him away and kept him in a warlock’s castle, hoping to lure him from the path of righteousness; but, his probity proving impregnable, they could not contend against it, and were fain to let him go again unscathed, for it is written, ‘Resist the Devil and he will flee from you.’”

The Earl of Traquair leaned back and laughed aloud.

“Well, you can take my word for it that he did not flee in this instance. When the judge was enjoying an airing, as was his custom, sitting his canny horse on Leith sands, Armstrong accosted him, also on horseback, and the two entered into amiable and instructive conversation. Old Durie was so charmed with his new acquaintance that he accompanied him to the unfrequented spot known as Frigate Whins, and there Will threw his cloak over the distinguished man’s head, lifted him from his horse, and made off through a section of the country known better by himself than by any other, and where he was sure he was not like to meet gossiping stragglers. At last Will deposited his burden in the lonely Tower of Graham by the water of Dryfe, and there he remained for three months, not even seeing the people who fed him, for his meat was let down to him by a rope. As the judge’s horse was found wandering on the sands, people came to the conclusion that his lordship had been thrown off, stunned, and drowned, the body being carried out to sea by the tide. In due time Armstrong took the gentleman back as he had come, and flattered the auld carle by telling him that, such was his learning and piety, Satan could not prevail against him. And so the learned judge just dawnered home with this idea in his head, which he speedily-got the wise city of Edinburgh to believe.”

For a wonder Henderson remained silent, but one of the others spoke up.

“I remember the incident well,” he said, “and if I am not mistaken the Tower of Graham at that time belonged to your lordship.”

“Yes, and it does yet,” replied Traquair nonchalantly. “Armstrong, being an old friend of mine, had no hesitation in using my property without my leave, for, as he explained afterward, there was no time for consultation, the case being urgent.”

“It was a most suitable place for the judge’s custody,” continued the other drily, “because, unless a treacherous memory misleads me, a plea regarding this very property was decided in your favour by the single vote of the Lord President, who temporarily took the place of Justice Durie during his mysterious absence.”

“Sir, you are quite in the right,” replied Traquair, unabashed by the evident insinuation. “It was my great good luck that the case against me was heard during Durie’s absence, and, as you were doubtless about to point out, this world is full of strange coincidences which our poor finite minds fail to fathom.”

“A finite mind easily probes the bottom of such a shameless conspiracy,” cried Alexander Henderson sternly, bringing his fist down upon the table. “What! Kidnap the Lord President of the Sessions, from the very edge of Edinburgh in broad daylight——”

“It was drawing on to the gloaming at the time,” corrected Traquair soothingly, “at least so Will informed me.”

“It was nevertheless an outrageous action; a foul deed that should not go unwhipt of——”

“Gentlemen,” said the Earl in a tone of authority, which seemed to recall the fact that, after all, he was the chairman of the conclave, “we are wandering from the point. At this moment Lord Durie is reported to be a dying man, and whatever evil has been done against him in the long past probably troubles him less than the injustice he may himself have been the cause of. In any case we are met here together for a certain purpose, and what is said within this circle is said in confidence, for which our plighted words to each other stand sponsor. The crux of the discussion is this. Henderson objects to my man as the most fitting for our embassy, holding him to be a rude and brainless swashbuckler. That is a definite charge. I meet it by showing that this same man befooled the wise city of Edinburgh and the most learned man within its confines. A brainless bravado would have run a dirk into Lord Durie and left his body on the sands. I wish unanimous consent to tender our present dangerous mission to William Armstrong, in the hope that he may get safely to Oxford, and, what is more important, bring us with equal safety the King’s written command. If any of you have some one else to propose, whom you think may accomplish his business better than Will Armstrong, I ask you to nominate the man and give reasons for your preference.”

Henderson growled in his beard, but said nothing audible. Each man looked at the others as if waiting for some one else to make further suggestion; but, as the silence was prolonged, the one who had referred to the coincidence of Durie’s incarceration with Traquair’s case at law, cleared his throat and said that for his part it seemed that Armstrong was the proper man for the mission. With this the others agreed, and even Henderson gave an ungracious concurrence. The Earl was about to address the company when the door opened and Armstrong himself entered.