subsided, by which he was enabled, with help from on high, to
gather his scattered thoughts and to bind them up into the sheaves of
purpose and resolution. Accordingly, when all was still, and several
young men that were sitting by the fire on account of every bed being
occupied, gave note, by their deep breathing, that sleep had descended
upon them, and darkened their senses with her gracious and downy wings,
he rose softly from the side of Winterton, and stepping over him,
slipped to the door, which he unbarred, and the moon shining bright he
went to the stable to take out his horse. It was not his intent to have
done this, but to have gone up into the streets of the city and walked
the walls thereof till he thought his adversary was gone, but seeing the
moon so fair and clear he determined to take his horse and forthwith
proceed on his journey, for the river was low and fordable, and trintled
its waters with a silvery sheen in the stillness of the beautiful light.

Scarcely, however, had he pulled the latch of the stable door--even as
he was just entering in--when he heard Winterton coming from the house
rousing the hostler, whom he profanely rated for allowing him to
oversleep himself. For, wakening just as his bedfellow rose, he thought
the morning was come and that his orders had been neglected.

In this extremity my grandfather saw no chance of evasion. If he went
out into the moonshine he would to a surety be discovered, and in the
stable he would to a certainty be caught. But what could he do and the
danger so pressing? He had hardly a choice; however, he went into the
stable, shut the door, and running up to the horses that were farthest
ben, mounted into the hack, and hid himself among the hay.

In that concealment he was scarcely well down when Winterton, with an
hostler that was half asleep, came with a lantern to the door, banning
the poor knave as if he had been cursing him with bell, book and candle,
the other rubbing his eyes and declaring it was still far from morning,
and saying he was sure the other traveller was not gone. To the which
there was speedy evidence, for on going towards Winterton's horse the
hostler saw my grandfather's in its stall and told him so.

At that moment a glimpse of the lantern fell on the horse's legs, and
its feet being white, "Oho!" cried Winterton, "let us look here--Kenneth
Shelty's Lightfoot--the very beast; and hae I been in the same hole wi'
the tod and no kent it.