“Are you quite sure?” he said. “It won’t do to be making a mistake in a job of this sort.” “I’m quite sure.” Donald replaced his pipe in his mouth and puffed hard at it for some minutes. Then he said-- “You don’t know either of the other two, I suppose? No. Well it can’t be helped. It would have been convenient if we had known. They may be honest men or they may be another pair of spies. I think I’ll try and find out something about them. Do you stay here, Neal, and watch. Let me know if any of the three of them leave the house. I’ll go down the passage to the tap-room. I’ll drink a glass or two, and I’ll see what information I can pick up. You see, my boy, if the other two are honest men we ought to warn them of our suspicions about Finlay. If they are spies we ought to know their names and warn somebody else. Any way, keep your eye on Finlay, and let me know if he stirs.” A sensation of horror crept over Neal when his uncle left him. He realised that he was hunting a fellow-creature, that the hunt might end at any moment in the taking of human life. In Dunseveric Manse, while the anger which the yeomen’s blows and bonds had raised in him was awake, while the enormity of Finlay’s treachery was still fresh in his mind, it seemed natural and right that the spy should be killed. Now, when he had seen the man swagger down the street, when he had just watched him cringe and apologize, when he had sat within a few feet of him, it seemed a ghastly and horrible thing to track and pursue him for his life. A cold sweat bathed his limbs. His hands trembled. He sat on the stool near the fire shivering with cold and fear. He listened intently. It was growing late, and the piper had stopped playing in the street. The boys and girls who danced had gone home. There were voices of passers by, but these grew rarer. Now and then there was the trampling of a horse’s hoofs on the road as some belated traveller from Belfast pushed fast for home. A murmur of voices came to him from the interior of the inn, he supposed from the tap-room to which his uncle had gone, but he could hear nothing of what was said. Once the girl who had served his supper came in and told him that his bed was ready if he cared to go to it. Neal shook his head. Gradually he became drowsy. His eyes closed. He nodded. Then the very act of nodding awoke him with a start. He blamed himself for having gone near to sleeping at his post, for being neglectful of the very first duty imposed on him. The horror of the watch he was keeping returned on him. He felt that he was like a murderer lurking in the dark for some unsuspecting victim. For Finlay had no thought that he was distrusted, discovered, tracked. Then, to steel himself against pity, he let his mind go back over the events of the previous night. He thought of the scene in the MacClures’ cottage, of the heart-broken woman, of her husband riding with the brutal troopers to a trial without justice and a death without pity. He felt