"Mercy! if he should have mistaken the way, and fallen, into the moss of Craigcrook."
"Toots, bairn!" replied the falconer; "he kens owre well the dreich hole where, last Lammastide, we saw young Adamson o' Craigcrook gae down in the floe, baith horse and man, till even the point o' his lance vanished; and there they lie yet!"
"Look, Steenie; is not yonder bird a hawk? See how it ascends from Pilrig—up and up!"
The tramp of a horse arrested their attention.
A man on horseback, who left the gate of St. Anthony, came galloping from Leith; his armour flashed in the setting sun, and a cloud of dust rolled under the hoofs of his horse.
"In harness," said one falconer.
"He is not Sir Robert," muttered another.
"St. Mary! how he drives his horse!" exclaimed Marion Logan.
"It is Leslie of Balquhan!" growled Birrel, ferociously, as he grasped his dague. "Now, curse be on my folly, that sent not this butterfly, with her attendant wasps, hence on a fool's errand."
The continual glitter of the rider's armour showed that he was richly accoutred, and the incredible speed at which he rode announced that he was nobly mounted. In three minutes he reined up his horse at the foot of the bank, where, with a glow of pleasure beaming in her beautiful face, Marion Logan recognised him.