proud girl. For a moment I had been bold, and fancied myself her
saviour, but all I had got by it was her mocking laughter.

They took us down from the hill to the highroad a little north of
Linton village, where I was dumped on the ground, my legs untied, and
my hands strapped to a stirrup leather. The women were given a country
cart to ride in, and the men, including Muckle John, had to run each by
a trooper's leg. The girl on the sorrel had gone, and so had the maid
Janet, for I could not see her among the dishevelled wretches in the
cart. The thought of that girl filled me with bitter animosity. She
must have known that I was none of Gib's company, for had I not risked
my life at the muzzle of his pistol? I had taken her part as bravely as
I knew how, but she had left me to be dragged to Edinburgh without a
word. Women had never come much my way, but I had a boy's distrust of
the sex; and as I plodded along the highroad, with every now and then a
cuff from a trooper's fist to cheer me, I had hard thoughts of their
heartlessness.

We were a pitiful company as, in the bright autumn sun, we came in by
the village of Liberton, to where the reek of Edinburgh rose straight
into the windless weather. The women in the cart kept up a continual
lamenting, and Muckle John, who walked between two dragoons with his
hands tied to the saddle of each, so that he looked like a crucified
malefactor, polluted the air with hideous profanities. He cursed
everything in nature and beyond it, and no amount of clouts on the head
would stem the torrent. Sometimes he would fall to howling like a wolf,
and folk ran to their cottage doors to see the portent. Groups of
children followed us from every wayside clachan, so that we gave great
entertainment to the dwellers in Lothian that day. The thing infuriated
the dragoons, for it made them a laughing-stock, and the sins of Gib