ot took the edge of a moss-hag
where the ground was soft. As it pressed the soil downward, we heard a
sudden cry, a wild, black-a-vised man sprang up with a drawn sword in
his hand, and pulling out a pistol ran at us. We were so taken aback at
the assault that we could scarcely put ourselves upon the defence. But
ere the man came near, he saw that we were dressed like men of the
hills. He stopped and looked at us, his weapons being still pointed our
way.

"Ye are of the people!" he said sternly.

"Ay," said we, for I think Clavers himself had owned as much, being
taken unawares and unable to get at his weapons.

"I thought I saw ye at the General Meeting," he said.

"We were there," we replied; "we are two of the Glenkens Gordons."

"And I am that unworthy outcast James MacMichael."

Then we knew that this was he who, for the murder of the curate of
Carsphairn (a mightily foolish and ill-set man), was expelled and
excommunicated by the United Societies.

"I will come with you for company," he said, taking his bonnet out of
the moss-bank into which Wat's foot had pressed it.

Now we wanted not his company. But because we knew not (save in the
matter of Peter Pearson) what the manner of the man was, the time went
past in which we could have told him that his room was more to us than
his company. So, most ungraciously, we permitted him to come. Soon,
however, we saw that he knew far more of heather-craft than we. Our
skill in the hill-lore was to his but as the bairn's to that of the
regent of a college.

"The band that we see yonder is but the off-scourings of half a dozen
troops," said he, "and chance riders that Cannon of Mardrochat has
gathered. The ill loon himself is not with them. He will be lying
watching about some dyke bank. Ah, would that I could get my musket on
him."

So we hasted along the way, keeping to the hills in order to reach the
Clachan of St. John's town before the soldiers. We went cautiously,
Black MacMichael leading, often running with his head as low as a dog,
and showing us the advantage of every cover as he went.

Nor had we gone far when we had proof, if we wanted such, of the
desperate character of the man in whose company by inadvertence we found
ourselves. We were passing through a little cleuch on the Holm of Ken
and making down to the water-side. Already we could see the stream
glancing like silver for clearness beneath us. All of an instant, we saw
Black MacMichael fall pro