All the next two days we were gathering for the rescue of Maisie and her father, finding, as we went eastward, men whose hearts were hot within them because of the oppression. But we found not place nor opportunity till the third day. It was the night of the second day that I stole down to the little village of Carron Bridge, which stands by the brink of a dashing, clean-running stream, where the troops were encamped. There I managed to get speech of Maisie Lennox. I clambered down one bank and up the other. And because the houses stood over the brawling of the stream, the soldiers on guard heard me not. I went from window to window till, by the good hap of love (and the blessing of God), I found the window of the room within which Maisie Lennox was confined. I cried to her through the dark, low and much afraid. "Maisie May!" I called as in old days at the Duchrae, when I used to carry her on my back, and she in sportiveness used to run and hide from me. She was not asleep, for I heard her say plainly, like one speaking from a bed: "It is a dream--a sweet dream!" But nevertheless I knew that she sat up and listened. "Maisie May!" I said again at the window, very softly. I heard her move, and in a moment she came to the lattice, and put her hand on the sill. "Oh, William!" she said, "is it indeed you and not a dream?" "It is even William Gordon!" I said, sorry that I could not do more than touch her fingers through the thick bars of the guard-house. "You must go away at once," she said; "there are three soldiers sleeping no further off than the door." "We will rescue you to-morrow, Maisie," I said. "And get yoursel's killed!" she said. "Do not try it, for my sake." "Well, for your father's!" I said. And at that she said nothing. Then she told me that the young officer in command was a lad from one of the good families of the North, and that he treated them civilly. But that, having lost a prisoner on a former occasion, he might happen to lose his life if he let slip so noble a taking; which made him careful of his prisoners with a great carefulness. As well it might; for the Privy Council was not to be trifled with in those days. There were nine of the prisoners altogether, including the minister of a Nithside conventicle that had been scattered that day. More I could not get from her. For, one of the soldiers stirring without, she prayed me so piteously to be gone, that I set off crawling down among the stones, though I was eager to hear how they had been taken at Cove Macaterick. But that I had to put off to another diet of hearing, as they say in the kirk.