d him shelter and that the ford would avail him nothing. In his
extremity he made up his mind to a desperate venture.

On his right an open glade revealed to him the dark gorge through which
the Cluden thundered. The stream was in flood at the time, and
presented a fearful aspect of seething foam mingled with black rocks, as
it rushed over the lynn and through its narrow throat below. A path led
to the brink of the gorge which is now spanned by the Routen Bridge.
From the sharp-edged cliff on one side to the equally sharp cliff on the
other was a width of considerably over twenty feet. Towards this point
Andrew Black sped. Close at his heels the dragoons followed,
Glendinning, on a superb horse, in advance of the party. It was an
untried leap to the farmer, who nevertheless went at it like a
thunderbolt and cleared it like a stag. The troopers behind, seeing the
nature of the ground, pulled up in time, and wheeling to the left, made
for the ford. Glendinning, however, was too late. The reckless
sergeant, enraged at being so often baulked by the farmer, had let his
horse go too far. He tried to pull up but failed. The effort to do so
rendered a leap impossible. So near was he to the fugitive that the
latter was yet in the midst of his bound when the former went over the
precipice; head foremost, horse and all. The poor steed fell on the
rocks below and broke his neck, but the rider was shot into the deep
dark pool round which the Cluden whirled in foam-flecked eddies. In the
midst of its heaving waters he quickly arose flinging his long arms
wildly about, and shouting for help with bubbling cry.

The iron helm, jack-boots, and other accoutrements of a seventeenth
century trooper were not calculated to assist flotation. Glendinning
would have terminated his career then and there if the flood had not
come to his aid by sweeping him into the shallow water at the lower end
of the pool, whence some of his men soon after rescued him. Meanwhile,
Andrew Black, plunging into the woods on the opposite side of the river,
was soon far beyond the reach of his foes.

But escape was not now the chief anxiety of our farmer, and selfishness
formed no part of his character. When he had left home, a short time
before, his niece Jean was at work in the dairy, Ramblin' Peter was
attending to the cattle, Marion Clark and her comrade, Isabel Scott were
busy with domestic affairs, and old Mrs. Mitchell--who never quite
recove