If there had been haste before in our journey there was the more now, when in a few hours the countryside would be alive with our foes. I hurriedly considered in my mind the course of events. In three hours’ riding the soldiers, all stark as they were, would come to Abington, and in three more the road to Douglasdale would be blocked by a dozen companies. It was no light thing thus to have set the whole hell’s byke in Clydesdale buzzing about my ears. We were not long in reaching the cave. Here to my joy I found Marjory all recovered from her fright, and the wound hurting her no more than a pin’s scratch. When I spoke of immediate progress she listened gladly and was for setting out forthwith. I did not tell her of the soldiers’ discomfiture, for I knew that she would fall to chiding me for my foolhardiness, and besides she would have more dismal fears for my future if she knew that I had thus incensed the military against me. It was with much regret that I bade farewell to Master Lockhart and the old man; nor would they let me go without a promise that if I found myself hard pressed at any time in the days to come I would take refuge with them. I was moved by the sight of the elder, who laying his hand on my lady’s head, stroked her fair golden hair gently and said, "Puir lass, puir lass, ye’re no for the muirs. I foresee ill days coming for ye when ye’ll hae nae guid sword to protect ye. But lippen weel to the Lord, my bairn, and He’ll no forsake ye." So amid the speaking of farewells and well-wishes we rode out into the green moors. How shall I tell of that morning ride? I have seen very many days in April now, for I am a man aging to middle life, but never have I seen one like that. The sky was one sheet of the faintest blue, with delicate white clouds blown lightly athwart it. The air was so light that it scarce stirred the grass, so cool that it made our foreheads as crisp and free as on a frosty winter’s day, so mild that a man might have fancied himself still in the Low Lands. The place was very quiet save for a few sounds and these the most delectable on earth—the cries of sheep and the tender bleating of young lambs, the rise and fall of the stream, the croon of rock pigeons, and the sterner notes of curlew and plover. And the grass was short and lawnlike, stretching in wavy ridges to the stream, seamed with little rush-fringed rills and patched with fields of heath. Only when we gained the edge had we any view of country, and even then it was but circumscribed. Steep fronting hills, all scarred with ravines; beyond, shoulders and peaks rising ever into the distance, and below us the little glen which holds the head waters of Tweed.