'D' ye no ken the bit ballant?
"Soondless they ride—for aye i' search o' their boon—
They ha' died, but God's feud is for aye unstaunched,
And aye they mun ride by the licht o' the moon."'
'No,' I replied, astonished, 'but how—supposing you have seen them—could you know them to be "Clavers" and Grierson o' Lag?'
'Not only hae I seen them, but I aince heard them talking,' my companion replied quietly as before.
'When was that?' I asked, still more astonished, as I looked more keenly at the speaker.
He was a man of middle stature, dressed in rough shepherd's costume, with a plaid about his shoulders; he had a gentle aspect, with tremulous mouth, and a far-away look in his eyes of speedwell blue.
'I'll tell ye,' he replied simply. 'Blessed Master Peden had been here i' the "killing times," ye ken, preachin' till the puir hill folk, an' baptizin' their bairns—he baptized a forebear o' my ain—and it would likely be the annivairsary o' the day when he escaped frae the hans o' the hunters through the "haar," when I chanced to come by here an' saw a bit tent pit up, an' heard folk carousin' within.
'I creepit up, an' I keeked within the openin' o't, an' there I saw twa hunters sittin' at board—eatin', and whiles drinkin' the blood-red wine—ane o' them was the bonniest man e'er I saw i' my life, but he had the sorrowfullest eyes e'er set i' a man's face. There was ne'er a bit colour to his cheeks save where a trickle o' claret had stained the corner o' his lip.
'His comrade was juist the opposite till him; foul he was, an' discoloured wi' lust an' liquor—mair like a haggis nor a human face ava.
'There was a wumman beside him—dootless his whure, that had ridden oot frae Jedburgh to be wi' him—nestlin' in at his side like a ewe till her ram i' the autumn; not that he was takin' muckle thocht o' her, though—an' then he cries oot loud: