As she had now freed her head from the muffler, she uttered a succession of shrill and piercing cries; but none heard or attended to them, for the stillness and darkness of midnight rested on the mist-shrouded town and river. In that "good old time," when the country-houses of the Scottish gentry were manned and moated garrisons, or towers that were entered at an upper story by ladders, which the careful inmates drew up after them; when their towns had walls with barrier-portes, and their streets had neither lights nor pavements, but when every window was grated, and every close and wynd secured by a massive gate; when people carried lanterns at night, and every one went armed to the teeth, as a security against every one else--the clash of swords or the cries of fear and danger excited but little interest. Thus, without suffering the least interruption, the knightly ruffians and their accomplice reached the beach, where, within a bowshot of the chapel of St. Nicholas, Captain Edmund Howard, with a well-armed boat's-crew of picked English seamen, awaited them in the yawl of the _Royal Harry_. "Do not be alarmed, fair lady," said he, as Margaret was borne over the chafing surf, and placed in the stern-sheets of the boat by a man who grasped her with the tenacity of a vice, and who whispered huskily and impiously in her ear. "Be not afraid of me, lady, for I am innocent as the Paschal Lamb, and as gentle to boot." "By that blessed name," she implored, "I conjure you to tell me the meaning of this? and who you are----" "I am Sir Hew Borthwick, knight of an unfortunate ilk, but your most devoted servitor, lady." "O, heavenly mercy!" she murmured, on hearing that terrible name, and believing that all her old forebodings were about to be realized, immediately fainted, or became powerless, and had no longer any capability of coherence in speech or thought. "Devil be thanked--now we shall have no more trouble with her," said Borthwick, as Captain Howard kindly spread his own velvet mantle over her. "Poor little thing," said he; "she has fallen among evil hands; but, thank heaven, this dog's duty will soon be over. To-night she will swing in her hammock, aboard the _Royal Harry_." "And to-morrow may mingle her tears with the waters that bear her to English Harry's prison," added Sir James Shaw, laughing. "Hold water a moment, my lads," said the English captain, as he flung a purse to Borthwick, who caught it as a hungry dog does a bone. "Master Hew, this is the last largess of King Henry's I hope you will ever receive from my hand." "Thank you, Captain Howard--life is a race, and money the prize. In this world we always scorn honest poverty and worship gilded crime."