They were mounted men, and I saw that they were troopers. I counted them anxiously. They were searching the moor in open order and I was able to make out a dozen of them. They were between me and Daldowie. Had they seen me? Were they coming in my direction? Breathless I watched. I knew that if they had seen me, they would put spurs to their horses and come galloping towards me. They made no sign--I had not been noticed. I was lying in the open with nothing to hide me but the tuft of heather through which I peered. There was not enough cover there to hide a moor fowl, but close at hand was a bush of broom, and worming myself towards it, I crawled under it and lay hidden. To the unskilled eye, the distance across the rolling face of a moor is hard to measure, but I judged the dragoons were at least a mile from me. As I watched I saw them gather together in a cluster. Had they found Andrew, or might it be the poor demented lad whom Andrew had risked his life to hide, or was it some other hunted hill-man? My ears were taut with expectation as I waited for the rattle of muskets; but I was wrong. I saw the troopers fling themselves from the saddles and in a moment a little column of smoke began to steal into the air, and I knew that they had off-saddled to make their mid-day meal. That gave me a respite, and I thought hurriedly what I had best do. Should I endeavour to worm my way further afield until I might with safety rise to my feet and race back to my old hiding-place beside the loch? Almost I felt persuaded to do so, then I remembered that this would place a greater distance between myself and Mary, and she herself might be in danger. A chilling fear seized me. What was it I had heard of Lag? Was it not that he and his dragoons had gone further west, and were quartered again at Wigtown? If that were so, then possibly the dragoons before me were Winram’s men, and the promise of protection given by Lag to the good folk of Daldowie would no longer hold. The horror of it! What could I do? My fears had taken such hold on me that my strength ebbed, and I was as water poured out upon the ground. It was not fear for myself that unmanned me, but a torturing anxiety for Mary’s safety. The hour of their midday meal seemed endless. So long as they rested I was safe, and yet, with a strange perversity, I longed for the moment when once again they should mount their horses and continue their quest. Anxiously I looked up at the sun. Already he was past the meridian and I breathed a sigh of relief. In his haste lay my safety, for the close of day would bring the search to an end, for a time at least, and then I could return to my loved one.