He no longer heard the whooping of his pursuers; he had either distanced them, or they were husbanding their energies for a long chase; but there came after him at times, upon the hollow wind, the grunting bark of the sleuth-bratch, by which he was surely and savagely tracked, Souyllard, the earl's favourite white bloodhound, and the heart of the fugitive swelled anew, with grief and rage, and hatred of his unrelenting tormentor. He was far from shelter or succour, for until he reached the Lothians, all the land belonged to his enemies, or to those who dared not protect him. For miles and miles before him stretched flattened hills and open plains covered with waving heather, the purple tints of which were glowing in the noonday sun, and these tints deepened into blue or black on the shaded sides of the glens. The whirr of the blackcock was heard at times, as it rose from the pale green or withered yellow leaves of the ferns that grew among the rushes, where the trouting burn brawled, or by the lonely ravine, the red-scaured bank, or stony gulley, which Gray made his foam-covered horse clear by a flying leap. Louder and nearer came the savage bay of the sleuth-bratch, and Gray, as he looked back, could see it tracking him closely and surely; while about three miles distant the border spears of his pursuers glittered on the summit of a hill. He had swam his horse through the Urr and spurred on for miles, and now before him lay Lochrutton, with its old peel-house, named, from its loneliness, the castle-of-the-hills; then, as he was about to cross a foaming tributary of the loch--a stream that tore, all red and muddy, through a stony ravine--the bounding sleuth-bratch came upon him, and sprang at his horse's flanks, just as the terrified animal rose into the air to cross by a flying leap. Clenching his gauntleted hand, Gray struck the fierce brute on the head, and it fell into the rushing torrent; but gained the other side as soon as he, and sent its deep, hoarse bay into the air, as if to summon the pursuers. Now, the terrible sleuth-bratch was running parallel with his horse's flanks, and vainly he strove to strike at it with his sword. His temples throbbed as if with fever, and now, for air, for coolness, and relief, he drew off his barred helmet; then he tossed it into a bush, for the double purpose of staying the hound and concealing it as a trace of his flight. Spurring on--he redoubled his efforts to escape; he called to his horse--he cheered and caressed it, while the perspiration of toil oozed through the joints of his armour, from his gorget to his spurs. The terrible white hound was preparing for a final, and, doubtless, a fatal spring, when a man, whose head and shoulders were enveloped in a scarlet hood, suddenly rose from the whin bushes amid which Gray was galloping, and, by a single blow from his ponderous mace, dashed out the brains of the dog, killing it on the spot.