I had cause to remember Dumfries. I knew that within its gates danger might await me, but danger had ceased to have any terrors for my stricken heart. At the most, discovery could only mean death, and death was preferable to a life without her whom I loved. When the town came within view I quickened my steps and in the late afternoon I descended the hill that led down to the bridge. As I approached it I was tempted to turn aside and seek the house of Phemie McBride at once, for I remembered Hector’s parting words; but some impulse to stand again upon the spot where Fate had descended upon me, all bloody in the uniform of a Sergeant of Dragoons, drove me onward. When I reached the bridge I stepped into the little alcove where aforetime my destiny had been so strangely moulded, and leaning over looked down upon the rushing stream. My eyes followed the water as it flowed into the distance. Suddenly my gaze was arrested by a crowd which I saw coming along the Sands. At such a distance I was unable to see clearly, but I could make out mounted men and the gleam from their trappings told me they were dragoons. In their wake was a crowd, and as I watched I saw it grow steadily. Men and women and children dashed out of the streets and alleys which opened on to the Sands and joined the rabble behind the troopers. Discretion bade me have a care, but curiosity impelled me and I crossed the bridge and descended to the Sands. Already a throng of folk who had seen, in the distance, the approaching company of troopers, had begun to assemble and I mingled myself with them. The soldiers were advancing at a walking pace and from this and the presence of the rabble at their heels I knew that they had prisoners. Ere long the sound of the horses’ hoofs was audible and rumour began to be busy among the people around me. "What’s a’ the steer?" asked a woman who had just joined the crowd, her shawl slipping back from her head on to her shoulders. Her question was addressed to the crowd, and out of it somebody made answer. "It’s the troopers. They say they’ve ta’en twa Covenanters, a man and a woman, somewhere ayont the Kingholm." Steadily at a march the soldiers approached us. With necks craned eagerly forward we tried to get a glimpse of the prisoners.