I rose quickly to my feet and faced the speaker. I could see him as a dark but indistinct figure standing some yards from me on the slope of the brae, but I knew from the lack of austerity in his tones that he was no trooper, and I thought that in all likelihood he would prove to be the player of the flute. "Need a man answer such a question?" said I. "What right have you to ask who I am?" "I have no right," he replied, as he drew nearer--"no title but curiosity. Strangers here are few and far between. As for me, I am a shepherd." "A strange time of night," said I, "for a shepherd to look for his sheep." "Ay," answered the voice, "and my flock has been scattered by wolves." "I understand," I said. "You are a minister of the Kirk, a Covenanter, a hill-man in hiding." He came quite close to me and said: "I’m no’ denying that you speak the truth. Who are you?" "Like you," I replied, "I am a fugitive--a man with a price on his head." "A Covenanter?" "No; a deserter from Lag’s Horse." "From Lag’s Horse?" he exclaimed, repeating my words. "A deserter?" Uncertain what to say, I waited. Then he continued: "May I make so bold as to ask if your desertion is the fruit of conviction of soul, or the outcome of some drunken spree?" I have not the Scottish faculty for analysing my motives, and I hardly knew what to say. Was I a penitent, ashamed and sorry for the evil things in which I had played a part, or did I desert merely to escape punishment for my part in the drunken brawl in the tavern? I had not yet made a serious attempt to assess the matter; and here, taken at unawares in the stillness of the night among the silent hills, I was conscious of the near presence of God before whose bar I was arraigned by this quiet interlocutor. "I am wet to the skin and chilled to the bone, for only an hour ago I foundered in a bog, but if you will walk with me," I said, "I will tell you the story and you shall judge." "It is not for man to judge, for he cannot read the heart aright, but if you will tell me your story I will know as much of you as you seem already to know of me," he said, as he took me by the arm. "Like you," he continued, "I am a fugitive; and if you are likely to stop for long in this hiding-place, it were well that we should understand each other." As we paced up and down, I told him the whole shameful tale. When I had finished he sat down on the hill-side and, burying his face in his hands, was silent for a space. Then he rose, and laying a hand upon my shoulder peered into my face. The darkness was yet too great for us to see each other clearly, but his eyes were glistening. "It is not," he said, "for me to judge. God knows! but I am thinking that your desertion was more than a whim, though I would not go the length of saying that you have repented with tears for the evil you have done. May God forgive you, and may grace be given you to turn ere it is too late from the paths of the wicked."