"Will I hide, then?"

"I dare not advise you to do that. It would be wrong."

Half a score of fugitives tore past the town-house, and were out
of sight without a cry. There was a tread of heavier feet, and a
dozen soldiers, with several policemen and two prisoners, appeared
suddenly on the north side of the square.

"Rob," cried the minister in desperation, "run!"

When the soldiers reached the town-house, where they locked up
their prisoners, Dow was skulking east-ward, and Gavin running
down the brae.

"They're fechting," he was told, "they're fechting on the brae,
the sojers is firing, a man's killed!"

But this was an exaggeration.

The brae, though short, is very steep. There is a hedge on one
side of it, from which the land falls away, and on the other side
a hillock. Gavin reached the scene to see the soldiers marching
down the brae, guarding a small body of policemen. The armed
weavers were retreating before them. A hundred women or more were
on the hillock, shrieking and gesticulating. Gavin joined them,
calling on them not to fling the stones they had begun to gather.

The armed men broke into a rabble, flung down their weapons, and
fled back towards the town-house. Here they almost ran against the