Such sights and incidents were rather too common in that age to attract much attention; so the Earl and his followers, without even remarking them, rode on to the end of the extensive muir, and there wound their horns to call together such of their companions as might be within hearing.
One by one the wearied riders came in, but brought no tidings of the fugitive.
Every sheeptrack and pathway through all the extensive barony had been searched—by Woodhall and Sweethope; by the old tower of Lauchope on its steep rock; by the banks of the Calder that flowed beneath it, and in that great cavern where Wight Wallace found a refuge in the days of old; by Bothwell brig, and muir, and haugh; by the old gothic kirk and the Prebend's Yards; but without finding a trace of Konrad.
Hob of Ormiston, and Hepburn, the captain of Hermitage, came in last, with the same tidings; and, with uplifted hand, the wrathful Earl made a vow of vengeance upon the fugitive.
The armour of the whole troop was covered with summer dust, and their horses were jaded by hard and devious riding.
"And now, my lord," said Hepburn of Bolton, "whither wend we?"
"To court—to court! As warden of the three marches, I have received a summons to attend the queen, who holds her court at Linlithgow; and I will return to Bothwell no more—not to night at least," added the Earl; "are all our knaves come up?"
"Every lance, my lord," replied young Hepburn, counting the files with his spear.
"Then set forward, sirs—and, John of Bolton, do thou lead the van," and at the head of his numerous train the Earl departed from Clydesdale.
A band of so many armed retainers, attending a great baron to court, excited no surprise in that age. A feudal landholder's influence being exactly measured, not by the number of merks Scots he drew per annum, but by the number of men he could lead to battle on behalf of the King or himself. Godscroft informs us that the great Earl of Douglas, who was slain at Edinburgh about a hundred years before the days of Bothwell, never rode abroad with less than two thousand mailed horsemen under his banner.