Came Gavinia, a burgess of the besieged¹ city, along the south shore of the Silent Pool. She was but a maid seeking to know what love might be, and as she wandered on, she nibbled² dreamily at a hot sweet-smelling bridie, whose gravy³ oozed⁴ deliciously through a bursting paper-bag.  
It was a fit night for dark deeds.
 
"Methinks she cometh to her damn!"
 
The speaker was a masked man who had followed her—he was sniffing⁵ ecstatically—since she left the city walls.
 
She seemed to possess a charmed life. He would have had her in Shovel⁶ Gorge⁷, but just then Ronny-On's Jean and Peter Scrymgeour turned the corner.
 
Suddenly Gavinia felt an exquisite⁹ thrill: a man was pursuing her. She slipped the paper-bag out of sight, holding it dexterously¹⁰ against her side with her arm, so that the gravy should not spurt¹¹ out, and ran. Lights flashed, a kingly voice cried "Now!" and immediately a petticoat was flung over her head. (The Lady Griselda looked thin that evening.)
 
Gavinia was dragged to the Lair¹², and though many a time they bumped her, she still tenderly nursed the paper-bag with her arm, or fondly thought she did so, for when unmuffled she discovered that it had been removed, as if by painless surgery. And her captors' tongues were sweeping¹⁴ their chins for stray crumbs¹⁵.
 
The wench was offered her choice of Stroke's gallant¹⁶ fellows, but "Wha carries me wears me," said she, promptly¹⁷, and not only had he to carry her from one end of the Den⁸ to the other, but he must do it whistling as if barely conscious that she was there. So after many attempts (for she was always willing to let them have their try) Corp of Corp, speaking for Sir Joseph and the others, announced a general retreat.
 
Instead of taking this prisoner's life, Stroke made her his tool, releasing her on condition that every seventh day she appeared at the Lair with information concerning the doings in the town. Also, her name was Agnes of Kingoldrum, and, if she said it was not, the plank¹⁸. Bought thus, Agnes proved of service, bringing such bags of news that Stroke was often occupied now in drawing diagrams of Thrums and its strongholds, including the residence of Cathro, with dotted lines to show the direction of proposed underground passages.
 
And presently came by this messenger disquieting¹⁹ rumors²⁰ indeed. Another letter, being the third in six months, had reached the Dovecot, addressed, not to Miss Ailie, but to Miss Kitty. Miss Kitty had been dead fully²¹ six years, and Archie Piatt, the post, swore that this was the eighteenth, if not the nineteenth, letter he had delivered to her name since that time. They were all in the same hand, a man's, and there had been similar letters while she was alive, but of these he kept no record. Miss Ailie always took these letters with a trembling hand, and then locked herself in her bedroom, leaving the key in such a position in its hole that you might just as well go straight back to the kitchen. Within a few hours of the arrival of these ghostly letters, tongues were wagging about them, but to the two or three persons who (after passing a sleepless²² night) bluntly asked Miss Ailie from whom they came, she only replied by pursing her lips. Nothing could be learned at the post-office save that Miss Ailie never posted any letters there, except to two Misses and a Mrs., all resident in Redlintie. The mysterious letters came from Australy or Manchester, or some such part.
 
What could Stroke make of this? He expressed no opinion, but oh, his face was grim. Orders were immediately given to double the sentinels. A barrel was placed in the Queen's Bower²³. Sawdust was introduced at immense risk into the Lair. A paper containing this writing, "248xho317 Oxh4591AWS314dd5," was passed round and then solemnly burned. Nothing was left to chance.
 
Agnes of Kingoldrum (Stroke told her) did not know Miss Ailie, but she was commanded to pay special attention to the gossip of the town regarding this new move of the enemy. By next Saturday the plot had thickened. Previous letters might have reddened Miss Ailie's eyes for an hour or two, but they gladdened her as a whole. Now she sat crying all evening with this one on her lap; she gave up her daily walk to the Berlin wool shop, with all its romantic possibilities; at the clatter²⁵ of the tea-things she would start apprehensively²⁶; she had let a red shawl lie for two days in the blue-and-white room.
 
Stroke never blanched²⁷. He called his faithful remnant around him, and told them the story of Bell the Cat, with its application in the records of his race. Did they take his meaning? This Miss Ailie must be watched closely. In short, once more, in Scottish history, someone must bell the cat. Who would volunteer?
 
Corp of Corp and Sir Joseph stepped forward as one man.
 
"Thou couldst not look like Gavinia," the prince said, shaking his head.
 
"Wha wants him to look like Gavinia?" cried an indignant voice.
 
"Peace, Agnes!" said Stroke.
 
"Agnes, why bletherest thou?" said Sir Joseph.
 
"If onybody's to watch Miss Ailie," insisted the obstinate²⁸ woman, "surely it should be me!"
 
"Ha!" Stroke sprang to his feet, for something in her voice, or the outline of her figure, or perhaps it was her profile, had given him an idea. "A torch!" he cried eagerly and with its aid he scanned her face until his own shone triumphant²⁹.
 
"He kens³⁰ a wy, methinks!" exclaimed one of his men.
 
Sir Joseph was right. It had been among the prince's exploits to make his way into Thrums in disguise, and mix with the people as one of themselves, and on several of these occasions he had seen Miss Ailie's attendant. Agnes's resemblance to her now struck him for the first time. It should be Agnes of Kingoldrum's honorable though dangerous part to take this Gavinia's place.
 
But how to obtain possession of Gavinia's person? Agnes made several suggestions, but was told to hold her prating³¹ peace. It could only be done in one way. They must kidnap her. Sir Joseph was ordered to be ready to accompany his liege on this perilous³² enterprise in ten minutes. "And mind," said Stroke, gravely, "we carry our lives in our hands."
 
"In our hands!" gasped³³ Sir Joseph, greatly puzzled, but he dared ask no more, and when the two set forth³⁴ (leaving Agnes of Kingoldrum looking very uncomfortable), he was surprised to see that Stroke was carrying nothing. Sir Joseph carried in his hand his red hanky, mysteriously knotted.
 
"Where is yours?" he whispered.
 
"What meanest thou?"
 
Sir Joseph replied, "Oh, nothing," and thought it best to slip his handkerchief into his trouser-pocket, but the affair bothered him for long afterwards.
 
When they returned through the Den, there still seemed (to the unpiercing eye) to be but two of them; nevertheless, Stroke re-entered the Lair to announce to Agnes and the others that he had left Gavinia below in charge of Sir Joseph. She was to walk the plank anon, but first she must be stripped that Agnes might don her garments. Stroke was every inch a prince, so he kept Agnes by his side, and sent down the Lady Griselda and Widow Elspeth to strip the prisoner, Sir Joseph having orders to stand back fifty paces. (It is a pleasure to have to record this.)
 
The signal having been given that this delicate task was accomplished³⁵, Stroke whistled shrilly³⁶, and next moment was heard from far below a thud, as of a body falling in water, then an agonizing³⁷ shriek³⁸, and then again all was still, save for the heavy breathing of Agnes of Kingoldrum.
 
Sir Joseph (very wet) returned to the Lair, and Agnes was commanded to take off her clothes in a retired³⁹ spot and put on those of the deceased, which she should find behind a fallen tree.
 
"I winna be called the deceased," cried Agnes hotly, but she had to do as she was bid, and when she emerged, from behind the tree she was the very image of the ill-fated Gavinia. Stroke showed her a plan of Miss Ailie's backdoor, and also gave her a kitchen key (when he produced this, she felt in her pockets and then snatched it from him), after which she set out for the Dovecot in a scare about her own identity.
 
"And now, what doest thou think about it a'?" inquired Sir Joseph eagerly, to which Stroke made answer, looking at him fixedly⁴⁰.
 
"The wind is in the west!"
 
Sir Joseph should have kept this a secret, but soon Stroke heard Inverquharity prating of it, and he called his lieutenant⁴¹ before him. Sir Joseph acknowledged humbly⁴² that he had been unable to hide it from Inverquharity, but he promised not to tell Muckle Kenny, of whose loyalty⁴³ there were doubts. Henceforth, when the faithful fellow was Muckle Kenny, he would say doggedly⁴⁴ to himself, "Dinna question me, Kenny. I ken²⁴ nocht about it."
 
Dark indeed were now the fortunes of the Pretender, but they had one bright spot. Miss Ailie had been taken in completely by the trick played on her, and thus Stroke now got full information of the enemy's doings. Cathro having failed to dislodge the Jacobites, the seat of war had been changed by Victoria to the Dovecot, whither her despatches were now forwarded. That this last one, of which Agnes of Kingoldrum tried in vain to obtain possession, doubled the price on the Pretender's head, there could be no doubt; but as Miss Ailie was a notorious Hanoverian, only the hunted prince himself knew why this should make her cry.
 
He hinted with a snigger something about an affair he had once had with the lady.
 
The Widow and Sir Joseph accepted this explanation, but it made Lady Griselda rock her arms in irritation⁴⁵.
 
The reports about Miss Ailie's behavior became more and more alarming. She walked up and down her bedroom now in the middle of the night. Every time the knocker clanked she held herself together with both hands. Agnes had orders not to answer the door until her mistress had keeked through the window.
 
"She's expecting a veesitor, methinks," said Corp. This was his bright day.
 
"Ay," answered Agnes, "but is't a man-body, or just a woman-body?"
 
Leaving the rebels in the Lair stunned⁴⁶ by Victoria's latest move, we now return to Thrums, where Miss Ailie's excited state had indeed been the talk of many. Even the gossips, however, had underestimated her distress⁴⁷ of mind, almost as much as they misunderstood its cause. You must listen now (will you?) to so mild a thing as the long thin romance of two maiden⁴⁸ ladies and a stout⁴⁹ bachelor, all beginning to be old the day the three of them first drank tea together, and that was ten years ago.
 
Miss Ailie and Miss Kitty, you may remember, were not natives of Thrums. They had been born and brought up at Redlintie, and on the death of their parents they had remained there, the gauger⁵⁰ having left them all his money, which was just sufficient to enable them to live like ladies, if they took tiny Magenta⁵¹ Cottage, and preferred an inexperienced maid. At first their life was very quiet, the walk from eleven to one for the good of fragile Miss Kitty's health its outstanding feature. When they strolled together on the cliffs, Miss Ailie's short thick figure, straight as an elvint, cut the wind in two, but Miss Kitty was swayed this way and that, and when she shook her curls at the wind, it blew them roguishly in her face, and had another shot at them, as soon as they were put to rights. If the two walked by the shore (where the younger sometimes bathed her feet, the elder keeping a sharp eye on land and water), the sea behaved like the wind, dodging⁵² Miss A............