John stumped on along the road, therefore, with comparative cheerfulness, arising from the prospect which he now had of speedy relief. At some little distance before him, he observed a nice, trig-looking country girl, trudging away barefoot, in the same direction he was travelling. He hurried on to overtake her, in order to learn from her where he was most likely to have his raging hunger relieved. The girl heard his footstep coming up behind her, whilst she was yet some twenty paces a-head of him;--she turned suddenly round to see who the person was that was about to join her, and beholding the terrible spectre-looking figure which John presented, she uttered a piercing shriek, and darted off along the highway, with a speed that nothing but intense dread could have produced. Altogether forgetful of the probable cause of her alarm, John imagined that it must proceed from fear of the Duke of Cumberland's men, and, with this idea in his head, he ran after her as fast as his weak state of body would allow him, earnestly vociferating to her to stop. But the more he ran, and the more he shouted, just so much the more ran and screamed the terrified young woman. Another girl was seated, with a boy, on the grassy slope of a broomy hillock, immediately over the road, tending three cows and a few sheep. Seeing the first girl running in the way she was doing, they hurried to the road side to enquire the cause of her alarm, but ere they had time to ask, or she to answer, she shot past them, and the hideous figure of John Smith appeared. Horror-struck, and so bewildered that they hardly knew what they were doing, both girl and boy leaped into the road, and fled along it. A little farther on, two labourers were engaged digging a ditch, in a mossy hollow below the road. Curiosity to know what was the cause of all this shrieking and running, induced these men to hasten up to the road-side. But ere they had half reached it, they beheld John coming, and turning with sudden dismay, they scampered off across the fields, never stopping to draw breath till they reached their own homes. John minded them not,--but fancying that he was gaining on the three fugitives before him, and perceiving a small hamlet of cottages a little way on, he redoubled his exertions. Some dozen of persons, men, women, and children, were assembled about a well, at what we in Scotland would call the town-end. They were talking earnestly over the many, and most contradictory rumours, that had reached them of the events of that day's battle, their rustic and unwarlike souls having been so sunk, with the trepidation occasioned by the distant sound of the heavy cannonade, that they as yet hardly dared to speak but in whispers. Suddenly the shrieking of the three young persons came upon their ears. They pricked them up in alarm, and turned every eye along the road. The shrieking increased, and the two girls and the boy appeared, with the formidable figure of John Smith in pursuit of them.