help. It was at a graceless face that he asked mercy. As soon as Hob
saw, by the glint of the lantern, the eyes shining and the whiteness of
the teeth in the man's face, "Damn you!" says he; "ye hae your teeth,
hae ye?" and rode his horse to and fro upon that human remnant. Beyond
that, Dandie must dismount with the lantern to be their guide; he was
the youngest son, scarce twenty at the time. "A' nicht long they gaed
in the wet heath and jennipers, and whaur they gaed they neither knew
nor cared, but just followed the bluid stains and the footprints o'
their faither's murderers. And a' nicht Dandie had his nose to the
grund like a tyke, and the ithers followed and spak' naething, neither
black nor white. There was nae noise to be heard, but just the sough of
the swalled burns, and Hob, the dour yin, risping his teeth as he gaed."
With the first glint of the morning they saw they were on the drove
road, and at that the four stopped and had a dram to their breakfasts,
for they knew that Dand must have guided them right, and the rogues
could be but little ahead, hot foot for Edinburgh by the way of the
Pentland Hills. By eight o'clock they had word of them - a shepherd had
seen four men "uncoly mishandled" go by in the last hour. "That's yin a
piece," says Clem, and swung his cudgel. "Five o' them!" says Hob.
"God's death, but the faither was a man! And him drunk!" And then
there befell them what my author termed "a sair misbegowk," for they
were overtaken by a posse of mounted neighbours come to aid in the
pursuit. Four sour faces looked on the reinforcement. "The Deil's
broughten you!" said Clem, and they rode thenceforward in the rear of
the party with hanging heads. Before ten they had found and secured the
rogues, and by three of the afternoon, as they rode up the Vennel with
their prisoners, they were aware of a concourse of people bearing in
their midst something that dripped. "For the boady of the saxt,"
pursued Kirstie, "wi' his head smashed like a hazelnit, had been a' that
nicht in the chairge o' Hermiston Water, and it dunting it on the