of the party, an old
esquire, who grasped the bridle-rein of youth by his side, drew up his
own horse, and that which he was dragging on with him, saying--

'We may breathe here a moment; there is shelter in the wood. And you,
Rab, get ye up to the top of Jill's Knowe, and keep a good look-out.'

'Let me go back, you false villain!' sobbed the boy, with the first use
of his recovered breath.

'Do not be so daft, Lord Malcolm,' replied the Squire, retaining his hold
on the boy's bridle; 'what, rin your head into the wolf's mouth again,
when we've barely brought you off haill and sain?'

'Haill and sain? Dastard and forlorn,' cried Malcolm, with passionate
weeping. 'I--I to flee and leave my sister--my uncle! Oh, where are
they? Halbert, let me go; I'll never pardon thee.'

'Hoot, my lord! would I let you gang, when the Tutor spak to me as plain
as I hear you now? "Take off Lord Malcolm," says he; "save him, and you
save the rest. See him safe to the Earl of Mar." Those were his words,
my lord; and if you wilna heed them, I will.'

'What, and leave my sister to the reivers? Oh, what may not they be
doing to her? Let us go back and fall on them, Halbert; better die
saving her than know her in Walter Stewart's hands. Then were I the
wretched craven he calls me.'

'Look you, Lord Malcolm,' said Halbert, laying his finger on his nose,
with a knowing expression, 'my young lady is safe from harm so long as
you are out of the Master of Albany's reach. Had you come by a canny
thrust in the fray, as no doubt was his purpose, or were you in his hands
to be mewed in a convent, then were your sister worth the wedding; but
the Master will never wed her while you live and have friends to back
you, and his father, the Regent, will see she has no ill-usage. You'll
do best for yourself and her too, as well as Sir David, if you make for
Dunbar, and call ben your uncles of Athole and Strathern.--How now, Rab?
are the loons making this way?'

'Na, na!' said Rab, descending; ''tis from the other gate; 'tis a knight
in blue damasked steel: he, methinks, that harboured in our castle some
weeks syne.'

'Hm!' said Halbert, considering; 'he looked like a trusty cheild: maybe
he'd guide my lord here to a wiser wit, and a good lance on the way to
Dunbar is not to be scorned.'

In fact, there would have been no time for one party to conceal
themselves from the other; for, hidden by the copsewood, and unheeded by
the watchers