The shades of evening were closing in, when a lad of some sixteen
years of age stood gazing across the swollen waters of the Nith
rushing past in turbid flood. He scarce seemed conscious of the
pouring rain; but with his lowland bonnet pressed down over his
eyes, and his plaid wrapped tightly round him, he stood on a rising
hummock of ground at the edge of the flood, and looked across the
stream.

"If they are not here soon," he said to himself, "they will not
get across the Nith tonight. None but bold riders could do so now;
but by what uncle says, Captain Hume must be that and more. Ah!
here they come."

As he spoke two horsemen rode down the opposite side of the valley
and halted at the water's edge. The prospect was not a pleasant
one. The river was sixty or seventy feet wide, and in the centre
the water swept along in a raging current.

"You cannot cross here," the boy shouted at the top of his voice.
"You must go higher up where the water's deeper."

The wind swept his words away, but his gestures were understood.

"The boy is telling us to go higher up," said one of the horsemen.

"I suppose he is," the other replied; "but here is the ford. You
see the road we have travelled ends here, and I can see it again
on the other side. It is getting dark, and were we to cross higher
up we might lose our way and get bogged; it is years since I was