At the time of which we write there were few worse places wherein to be benighted than that wild district on the borders of England and Scotland, appropriately called the ‘Debatable Land.’ Bleak and barren, on a gusty evening late in autumn, a less desirable locality for the traveller could scarcely be imagined; and he must have been a hardy adventurer who would not have preferred the dirtiest corner of the smokiest hostelry to the uncertain track that led through its morasses, especially on a tired horse. Such was the reflection uppermost in Walter Maxwell’s mind as he marked the dusky horizon becoming more and more indistinct, and calculated the diminishing chances of his reaching the Castle of Hermitage, where he had hoped to find rest and refreshment with his kinsman, James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, and, doubtless, in that country where horses were so easily come by, a fresh mount to take him northward on the morrow. No longer an archer of the Scottish Guard, Maxwell was on his way to Edinburgh from the English seaport at which he had landed in returning from France. With his reputation as a soldier and his family connexions, he had little doubt but that he would be welcome at Holyrood; and indeed, had it been otherwise, an indefinable attraction, that he would not have confessed, seemed to draw him irresistibly towards the Scottish capital.
During the whole of his journey, however, by land and sea, his destination had never seemed so remote, nor the likelihood of his reaching it so small, as at present.
‘Hold up, you brute!’ said Maxwell, as he felt if the straps of his corslet were secure and his sword loose in its sheath, whilst his poor horse took that opportunity of floundering on its head.
‘Hold up! If you fall you’ll never get up again; and unless mine host’s directions were inspired by beer and brandy, we must be a good way off Hermitage yet. Happily the moon is rising every minute. Well, you were a good beast this morning, though you’re not worth your four shoes now!’
While he spoke, he patted the poor animal on the neck, and, as if encouraged by the caress, it pricked its ears and mended its pace of its own accord.
Maxwell was too old a soldier not to be on the alert in such a situation: it was with a feeling more of annoyance than surprise that he heard the tramp of horses advancing at a rapid pace over the sounder sward he had left behind him; and whilst he shortened his reins and hitched his sword-belt to the front, it was but with a dogged consciousness that, though he meant to fight to the last, he was sure to get the worst of it, outnumbered, and on a tired horse.
He had, however, the caution to halt on the far side of some broken and boggy ground; so that the new comers, whom he now made out to be but two, must attack him at a disadvantage, if they intended violence; and he thought how he could best separate them, that they might not both set on him at once.
The horsemen, however, halted immediately they caught sight of him, and the foremost called out in a loud, frank voice, undoubtedly English in its tone—
‘Is it friend or foe? A man must be one or other in the Debatable Land!’
‘Friend!’ answered Maxwell confidently, adding, as an earnest of his sincerity, ‘Keep near the big stone, or you’ll go in up to your girths!’