For the truth of the matter was that Adam Swinburn and the rest were too good friends of Hugh Raket, Barty of the Comb, Corbit Jock, the Widow Taylor with her seven able sons, and the rest. They were the most capable rievers that they could find to ride under their leadership into Scotland or elsewhere. Even Sir Henry Vesey, of Wallhouses, had their aid and company at times. For the matter of that, Sir Henry Vesey, of Wallhouses, was not so very eager to aid them of the Castle; as the time went on he grew less keen about it. For what they got out of it beyond the shelter of the stone walls he could not tell. At the first his brother and Sir Walter Limousin had promised him his share of the plunder in the Castle and the money in the White Tower. But the plunder in the Castle had been a small matter. It was not much they had got for the armour sold to Morpeth, though he had taken some of the best pieces and sent them for safety to Wallhouses; they had got very little for such furnishings and carpets as they had sold to the German at Sunderland, and the jewels, as has been told, they could not sell at all. They had the Castle, but in it not much more than two hundred men, which was little to hold so so great a place with. Thus they could not hold it, as castles are held, as a place from which to ride out and rob in the Borders; they could not spare the men. So, when Adam Swinburn and the others understood how that case really was, they went, one after the other, away from the towers in the wall where they had slept with their men. They went with courtesy, saying that they would come again and defend those towers if there were need of it. But the truth of the matter was that all of the fresh meat was eaten, which is a thing very unbearable in summer; the best wine was all drunk, for they had pressed heavily on the liquors in the early days; they had tired of all the serving maids that there were in the Castle; the Lady Douce was occupied with Sir Henry Vesey; the Lady Isopel was ugly and a shrew. So they had neither desirable wine nor women; not much prospect of meat nor gold, and what else should keep them? Therefore they rode away.