When our meal was over there was little time left ere the assembly sounded. As the bugle notes blared over the village, we flung ourselves into our saddles, and at the word turned our horses up the village street. The clatter of hoofs, and the jingle of creaking harness brought the folks to their doors, for the appeal of mounted men is as old as the art of war. We were conscious of admiring glances from many a lassie’s eye, and some of the roysterers among us, behind the back of authority, gave back smile for smile, and threw furtive kisses to the comelier of the women-folk. Near the Tolbooth Sir Robert awaited us, sitting his horse motionless like a man cut out of stone. A sharp word of command, and we reined our horses in, wheeling and forming a line in front of the Tolbooth door. There we waited. By and by we heard the tramp of horses, and Colonel Winram at the head of his company rode down the other side of the street and halted opposite to us. Winram and Lag dismounted, giving their horses into the charge of their orderlies, and walked together to the Tolbooth door. They knocked loudly, and after a mighty clatter of keys and shooting of bolts the black door swung back, and they passed in. We waited long, but still there was no sign of their return. My neighbour on the right, whose horse was champing its bit and tossing its head in irritation, whispered: "They maun ha’e been reprievit." "Thank God for that," I said, out of my heart. But it was not to be. With a loud creak, as though it were in pain, the door swung open, and there came forth, splendid in his robes of office, Sheriff Graham. Followed him, Provost Coltran, Grier of Lag, and Colonel Winram. Behind them, each led by a gaoler, came two women. Foremost was Margaret Lauchlison, bent with age, and leaning on a stick, her thin grey hair falling over her withered cheeks. She did not raise her eyes to look at us, but I saw that her lips were moving silently, and a great pity surged up in my breast and gripped me by the throat. Some four paces behind her came Margaret Wilson, and as she passed out of the darkness of the door she raised her face to the sky and took a long breath of the clean morning air. She was straight as a willow-wand, with a colour in her cheeks like red May-blossom, and a brave look in her blue eyes. Her brown hair glinted in the sunlight, and she walked with a steady step between the ranks of horsemen like a queen going to her coronal. She looked curiously at the troopers as she passed us. I watched her coming, and, suddenly, her big child-like eyes met mine, and for very shame I hung my head. Some twenty yards from the Tolbooth door, beside the Town Cross, the little procession halted, and the town-crier, after jangling his cracked bell, mounted the lower step at the base of the cross and read from a big parchment: