"Ay, he wull that. He’s nae Whig, but a King’s man is John,"--and to put her words to the proof we would search the hills till we found him. When found, if he took "The Test," which seemed to me for the most part to be an oath of allegiance to the King, with a promise to have no dealings with the pestilent Covenanters, we molested him no further, and Lag would sometimes pass a word of praise upon his sheep or his cattle, which would please the good-man mightily. But often our raids had a less happy issue. As we drew near to a house, we would see a figure steal hastily from it, and we knew that we were upon the track of a villainous Covenanter. Then we would spur our horses to the gallop and give chase: and what a dance these hill-men could lead us. Some of them had the speed of hares and could leap like young deer over boulders and streams where no horse could follow. Many a sturdy nag crashed to the ground, flinging its rider who had spurred it to the impossible; and if the fugitive succeeded in reaching the vast open spaces of the moorland, many a good horse floundered in the bogs to the great danger of its master, while the fleet-footed Covenanter, who knew every inch of the ground, would leap from tussock to tussock of firm grass, and far out-distance us. Or again, we would learn that someone--a suspect--was hiding upon the moors, and for days we would search, quartering and requartering the great stretches of heather and bog-land till we were satisfied that our quarry had eluded us--or until, as often happened, we found him. Sometimes it was an old man, stricken with years, so that he could not take to flight: sometimes it was a mere stripling--a lad of my own age--surrounded in his sleep and taken ere he could flee. The measure of justice meted to each was the same. "Will ye tak’ the Test?" If not--death, on the vacant moor, at the hands of men who were at once his accusers, his judges, and his executioners. Sometimes when a fugitive had refused the Test, and so proclaimed himself a Covenanter, Lag would promise him his life if he would disclose the whereabouts of some others of more moment than himself. But never did I know one of them play the coward: never did I hear one betray another. Three minutes to prepare himself for death: and he would take his bonnet off and turn a fearless face up to the open sky. And then Lag’s voice--breaking in upon the holy silence of the moorland like a clap of thunder in a cloudless sky--"Musketeers! Poise your muskets! make ready: present, give fire!" and another rebel would fall dead among the heather.