"Stop, man, stop! there's nae sic great hurry. You and me 'ill hae some words. What hae ye in your pouches?"
Now I was unarmed, and the footpad before me was a man of considerable stature and girth. I had some remnants of sense left in me, and I foresaw that if I closed with him, besides the possibility of getting a bullet in my heart, the contest would take much time, and would have an uncertain ending. I was fairly at my wit's end what with hurry and vexation, when the thought struck me that the law and military which I dreaded, were also the terror of such men as this. I made up my mind to throw myself on his mercy. Forbye, being a south-country man, the odds were great that my name would be known to him.
"I have no money," I said, "for I came off this night hot-speed, with a regiment of dragoons waiting behind me. I am the Laird of Barns, in Tweeddale, and this day an outlaw and a masterless man. So I pray you not to detain me, for there's nothing on me worth the picking. I have not a groat of silver, and, as you see, I ride in my shirt."
"Are ye the Laird o' Barns?" said the man, staring. "Man, I never kent it or I wadna hae been sae unceevil as to stop ye. Be sure that I'm wi' ye, and sae are a' guid fellows that likena thae langnebbit dragoons and thae meddlesome brocks o' lawyers in Embro. Gang your ways for me. But stop, ye've nae airms. This 'ill never dae. Tak yin o' my pistols, for I'll never miss it. And see, gin ye tak my advice and gin ye're gaun to Barns, gang off the Peebles road at Leadburn, and haud doun by the Brochtoun and Newlands ways, for a' the way atween Leadburn and Peebles is hotchin' wi' sodgers and what-ye-may-ca'-thems. Guid e'en to ye, and a safe journey." The man rode off and almost instantly was lost to my sight; but his act gave me assurance that there was still some good left in the world, though in the most unlikely places.
And now I saw before me the black woods of Rosslyn and Hawthornden, and in the near distance the roofs of the clachan of Penicuik. There I knew danger would await me, so taking a random turning to the right, I struck towards the hills in the direction of Glencorse. The place was rough and moory, and full of runlets of water, but Maisie was well used to such land, for it was no worse than the haughs of Manor, and level turf compared with the brow of the Deid Wife or the shoulder of Scrape. So in a little, when the lights of Penicuik were well on the left, I came to the Hawes Burn, which passes the Inn of Leadburn, and tracking it downward, came to the bald white house which does duty for a hostel.