On a dark March night of 1286, King Alexander rode along the rough cliff path between Burntisland and Kinghorn on a horse that stumbled in the darkness, and in the morning, on the rocks far down below, the grey waves lapped against the ashen dead face of a mighty king. Not only was the fair Queen Yolande a widow. Scotland was widowed indeed. For long years thereafter she was to be a battlefield for fiercely contending nations, and if the ghost that danced at Jethart was truly a portent of the death of the King of Peace, it also was a portent of the death of many a gallant warrior and of much grievous spilling of innocent blood in the woeful years to come. A MAN HUNT IN 1813 It was a clear, crisp, sunny day, early in March 1813, that the laird of Wauchope was riding into Hawick. A little snow still lay on the crest of Cheviot and on some of the foot-hills, and a smirr of hoar-frost silvered the turf by the roadside; but the sun was bright--strong to overcome frost and snow--and in it the leaves that still clung to the beech hedges shone like burnished copper. Walter Scott of Wauchope was one of the most popular men in Liddesdale. He it was who had, by his own exertions, raised the Light Company of Roxburghshire Volunteers, a band of nearly a hundred men of fine physique and first-rate horsemanship, whose bearing was the admiration of everyone when the laird marched them into Hawick on that momentous night in 1804 when "Boney" was supposed to have landed on Scottish shores. Mr. Scott's services had not been forgotten. A captain's commission in the 1st Regiment of Roxburgh Local Militia now belonged to him, and he squared his shoulders with an air and gave the military salute to those on the road with whom he exchanged greetings. It was a morning for only peace and goodwill to be abroad, and the laird rode on in cheerful frame, and put his horse to a canter along the turf. But as he cantered, the good steed's ears suddenly went back, he plunged, swerved, and answered his master's voice and heels by standing stock-still, staring affrightedly at what at first, to his rider, seemed a mere limp, inanimate bundle of old clothing lying half in, half out of the ditch. In a moment the laird was standing beside the mysterious heap, and found an old, white-haired man, grievously mishandled, with blood on his face, blood dabbling the dead leaves in the ditch, blood on the turf where the pure hoar-frost had lain. There was but little life left in him, and it was not easy for him to explain his sorry plight when the words came only with hard-fought breathing, hoarse and low.