I do not well know how I acted, save that my pistol went off in the mellay, and I saw a man clap his hand to his shoulder in a vast hurry and swear freely. Half a dozen hands were stretched to my bridle, half a dozen pistols covered me at once. Now I had no leave to use my hands, my pistol I had fired, so I was wholly at their mercy. What happened I can only guess, for I was in too great a flurry to have any clear remembrance of the thing. I was conscious of striking one man fiercely on the cheek with my empty pistol, and of kicking another on the shins with all my might. But my sudden appearance had startled the horses so thoroughly that all the soldiers’ time was taken up in curbing them, so they had no leisure to take aim at me. A dozen shots cracked around me, all going high into the air, and in a second I was through them and on the highroad beyond, some twenty paces in advance. But by this time they were getting their horses under, and I felt that there was no time to be lost if I wished to see many more days on the earth. I patted Maisie’s neck, which to a beast of her spirit was the best encouragement, and set myself to a race for life. I kicked off my great boots to ease her, and then, leaning forward, began the trial of speed. Behind me I heard shouting and the beat of horses getting into their stride. Before me was the long, thin highway, and black hills, and endless peatmosses. I had half a mind to leave the road and ride for the hills, where I made sure no man of them could ever follow me. But I reflected that this would shut for me the way to Dawyck, and I should have to lie hid in these regions for weeks, for when my path was once seen they would guard it more closely. My only chance was to outstrip them and so keep the country open before me. Now began the most terrible and desperate race that I was ever engaged in. I had tried my cousin Gilbert and beaten him on the side of Scrape; now his men were taking revenge for that episode in good earnest. At this time I was no more than out of pistol shot, and though I kept this interval, and all their balls fell short, it was an unpleasing thing to be riding with shots behind you, any one of which, for all you knew, might lodge in your spine. So I strained every nerve to increase the distance.