And all through these days I lay close hid in the wilds, now in one place, now in another, never wandering far from Tweeddale. My first hiding was in a narrow glen at the head of the Polmood Burn in a place called Glenhurn. It was dark and lonesome, but at first the pursuit was hot after me and I had no choice in the matter. I lived ill on the fish of the burn and the eggs of wildfowl, with what meal I got from a shepherd’s house at the burn foot. These were days of great contemplation, of long hours spent on my back in the little glen of heather, looking up to the summer sky and watching the great clouds fleeting athwart it. No sound came to disturb me, I had few cares to vex me; it was like that highest state of being which Plotinus spoke of, when one is cumbered not with the toils of living. Here I had much grave communing with myself on the course of my life, now thinking upon it with approval, now much concerned at its futility. I had three very warring moods of mind. One was that of the scholar, who would flee from the roughness of life. This came upon me when I thought of the degradation of living thus in hiding, of sorting with unlettered men, of having no thoughts above keeping body and soul together. The second was that of my father’s son, whose pride abhorred to flee before any man and hide in waste places from low-born soldiers and suffer others to devour my patrimony. But the third was the best, and that which I ever sought to keep with me. It was that of the gentleman and cavalier who had a wide, good-humoured outlook upon the world, who cared not for houses and lands, but sought above all things to guard his honour and love. When this was on me I laughed loud at all my misfortunes, and felt brave to meet whatever might come with a light heart. In this place I abode till near the middle of the month of June. Twice I had gone to the cairn on Caerdon and left a letter, which I wrote with vast difficulty on fragments of paper which I had brought with me, and received in turn Marjory’s news. She was well and in cheerful spirits, though always longing for my return. The days passed easily in Smitwood, and as none came there she was the better hidden. I wrote my answers to these letters with great delight of mind, albeit much hardship. The ink in the inkhorn which I had always carried with me soon became dry, and my pen, which I shaped from a curlew’s feather, was never of the best. Then after the writing came the long journey, crouching in thickets, creeping timorously across the open spaces, running for dear life down the hill-slopes, until I came at length to the cairn on Caerdon, and hid the letter ’neath the grey stones.