I had told him all this as if I had been in a delirium, or as if it were a tale out of a book, and it was only when I saw him writhing in his chair and the tassel shaking over his eyes, I minded that the murderer was me. I made for the door; up rose my father quickly and asked me what I meant to do. I confessed I neither knew nor cared. “You must thole your assize,” said he, and just as he said it the clatter of the mare's hoofs sounded on the causey of the yard, and he must have minded suddenly for what object she was saddled there. “No, no,” said he, “you must flee the country. What right have you to make it any worse for her?” “I have not a crown in my pocket,” said I. “And I have less,” he answered quickly. “Where are you going? No, no, don't tell me that; I'm not to know. There's the mare saddled, I meant Sandy to send the doctor from the Mearns, but you can do that. Bid him come here as fast as he can.” “And must I come back with the mare?” I asked, reckless what he might say to that, though my life depended on it. “For the sake of your mother,” he answered, “I would rather never set eyes on you or the beast again; she's the last transaction between us, Paul Greig.” And then he burst in tears, with his arms about my neck. [Illustration: 067] Ten minutes later I was on the mare, and galloping, for all her ailing leg, from Hazel Den as if it were my own loweing conscience. I roused Dr. Clews at the Mearns, and gave him my father's message. “Man,” said he, holding his chamber light up to my face, “man, ye're as gash as a ghaist yersel'.” “I may well be that,” said I, and off I set, with some of Uncle Andy's old experience in my mind, upon a ride across broad Scotland. CHAPTER VIII I RIDE BY NIGHT ACROSS SCOTLAND, AND MEET A MARINER WITH A GLEED EYE That night was like the day, with a full moon shining. The next afternoon I rode into Borrowstounness, my horse done out and myself sore from head to heel; and never in all my life have I seen a place with a more unwelcome aspect, for the streets were over the hoof in mud; the natives directed me in an accent like a tinker's whine; the Firth of Forth was wrapped in a haar or fog that too closely put me in mind of my prospects. But I had no right to be too particular, and in the course of an hour I had sold the mare for five pounds to a man of much Christian profession, who would not give a farthing more on the plea that she was likely stolen.