ns paraded up and down it
from end to end, and searched every nook and crevice for intercommuned
fugitives. But Galloway is a wide, wild place where the raw edges of
creation have not been rubbed down. And on one hillside in the Dungeon
of Buchan, there are as many lurking places as Robert Grier of Lag has
sins on his soul--which is saying no light thing, the Lord knows.

Once, as we went stealthily by night, we came upon a company of muirland
men who kept their conventicle in the hollows of the hills, and when
they heard us coming they scattered and ran like hares. I cried out to
them that we were of their own folk. Yet they answered not but only ran
all the faster, for we might have been informers, and it was a common
custom of such-like to claim to be of the hill-people. Even dragoons did
so, and had been received among them to the hurt of many.

Our own converse was the strangest thing. Often a kind of wicked
perverse delight came over me, and I took speech to mock and stir up my
cousin of Lochinvar, who was moody and distraught, which was very far
from his wont.

"Cousin Wat," I said to him, "'tis a strange sight to see your mother's
son so soon of the strict opinions. To be converted at the instance of
her Grace of Wellwood is no common thing. Wat, I tell thee, thou shalt
lead the psalm-singing at a conventicle yet!"

Whereat he would break out on me, calling me "crop-ear" and other names.
But at this word play I had, I think, as much the mastery as he at the
play of sword-blades.

"Rather it is you shall be the 'crop-head'--of the same sort as his late
Majesty!" I said. For it is a strange thing that so soon as men are at
peril of their lives, if they be together, they will begin to jest about
it--young men at least.

To get out of the country was now our aim. It pleased Wat not at all to
have himself numbered among the hill-folk and be charged with religion.
For me I had often a sore heart and a bad conscience, that I had made so
little of all my home opportunities. My misspent Sabbaths stuck in my
throat, although I had no stomach for running and hiding with the
intercommuned. Perhaps, if I had loved my brother Sandy better, it had
not been so hard a matter. But that, God forgive me, I never did, though
I knew that he was a good Covenant man and true to his principles. Yet
there is no mistake but that he gave us all a distaste at his way of
thinking.

So we wandered by night and hid by day till we reach