and I will bring you the beast."

I heard him heavily dismount.

"It will not let itself be caught by a lame man," he said; and he
scrambled up the ditch bank, while the jackanapes fled to me, and then
ran forward again, back and forth.

"Nom Dieu, whom have we here?" cried the man, in French.

I turned, and made such a sound with my mouth as I might, while the
jackanapes nestled to my breast.

"Why do ye not speak, man?" he said again; and I turned my eyes on him,
looking as pitifully as might be out of my blood-bedabbled face.

He was a burly man, great of growth, with fresh red cheeks, blue eyes,
reddish hair, and a red beard, such as are many in the Border marches of
my own country, the saints bless them for true men! Withal he dragged
his leg in walking, which he did with difficulty and much carefulness. He
"hirpled," as we say, towards me very warily; then, seeing the rope bound
about me, and the cloth in my mouth, he drew his dagger, but not to cut
my bonds. He was over canny for that, but he slit the string that kept
the cursed gag in my mouth, and picked it out with his dagger point; and,
oh the blessed taste of that first long draught of air, I cannot set it
down in words! "What, in the name of all the saints, make you here, in
this guise?" he asked in French, but with a rude Border accent.

"I am a kindly Scot," I said in our own tongue, "of your own country.
Give me water." And then a dwawm, as we call it, or fainting-fit, came