t--of whom he was very fond--had been captured by the
soldiers and sent to Edinburgh. Indeed nothing would satisfy him but
that he should return to the metropolis without delay and carry the bad
news to his master.

That same night, when darkness rendered it safe, Cargill, Cameron,
Welsh, and Douglas, with some of their followers, left Black's place of
concealment, and went off in different directions to risk, for a brief
space, the shelter of a friendly cottage, where the neighbours would
assemble to hear the outlawed ministers while one of them kept watch, or
to fulfil their several engagements for the holding of conventicles
among the secret places of the hills.

CHAPTER TEN.

FIERCER AND FIERCER.

After his escape, Quentin Dick, hearing of the recapture of his
comrades, and knowing that he could not in any way help them, resolved
to go back to Dumfries to make inquiries about the servant lassies
Marion and Isabel, being ignorant of the fact that Ramblin' Peter had
been sent on the same errand before him.

Now, although the one was travelling to, and the other from, Edinburgh,
they might easily have missed each other, as they travelled chiefly at
night in order to escape observation. But, hearing on the way that the
much-loved minister, Mr. Welsh, was to preach in a certain locality,
they both turned aside to hear him, and thus came together.

A price of 500 pounds sterling had been set on the head of Mr. Welsh,
and for twenty years he had been pursued by his foes, yet for that long
period he succeeded in eluding his pursuers--even though the resolute
and vindictive Claverhouse was among them,--and in continuing his work
of preaching to the people. Though a meek and humble man, Welsh was
cool, courageous, and self-possessed, with, apparently, a dash of humour
in him--as was evidenced by his preaching on one occasion in the middle
of the frozen Tweed, so that either he "might shun giving offence to
both nations, or that two kingdoms might dispute his crime!"

The evening before the meeting at which Quentin and Peter unwittingly
approached each other, Mr. Welsh found himself at a loss where to spend
the night, for the bloodhounds were already on his track. He boldly
called at the house of a gentleman who was personally unknown to him,
but who was known to be hostile to field-preachers in general, and to
himself in particular. As a stranger Mr. Welsh was kindly received.
Probably in such dangerous times it