braes mebbes twa hour sin', in the
darkening. No amount of hectoring, no quantity of loudly--shouted oaths
could move the grieve from his tale. "A wuss a _did_ ken whaur he is,"
he said, "but _a_ dinnae ken." Finally he had to be given up as
hopeless, and the dragoons rode back, a little shamefacedly and cursing
their luck. John Allen, his honest face still full of scared amazement,
rode slowly on. Every now and again he would check his horse, look round
and listen, mutter to himself bewilderedly, shake his head, and go on
once more. The clatter of the dragoons had not long died away when,
coming towards him from the other direction, he heard the regular beat
of a horse's hoofs. It was no strange horse, he soon realised, nor was
the rider a stranger. The gay smile that his face so often wore
irradiated Home of Polwarth's when he heard his servant's greeting.

"Eh, losh me, Polwarth!" he said, "a never had sic a gliff in a' _ma_
days! Here a' em, thinking aye that ye was riding no far ahint us, and
when a hears a gallopin' an' turns roond, ye've santed, an' here's a
pack o' thae bluidy dragoons that wad blast ye black in the face an'
speir the inside oot o' a wheelbarra. Man, where were ye? It's naething
short o' a meericle?"

Nor was it much short of a miracle, as Sir Patrick acknowledged. He had
followed Allen at first as the grieve had thought, but his mind was full
of the parting he had just gone through and of the misty future before
him, and when his thoughts came back with a jerk to the actualities of
the present, he heard the rush of a winter river and found that he was
close by the side of the Tweed. It was some time before he could exactly
find his bearings, but he did so at last, and, after some reconnoitring,
found a place that could be safely forded. Once across the river, he
rode quickly back towards Redbraes, hoping that by good fortune he might
yet meet with Allen, and so neatly escaped the soldiers who pursued him.
The high-road after this was no longer deemed safe, and the rest of his
ride to London was done on bye-ways and across the moors. In two days
honest John returned to Redbraes and brought to the sad hearts of Lady
Home and Grisell the joyful news that Sir Patrick had not fallen into
the hands of the dragoons, as they had greatly feared, but was now
safely on his way to England. As a travelling surgeon, calling himself
Dr. Wallace, Sir Patrick Home worked his way south, bleeding patients
when n