"Good," said Barton; "I shall note them in the log-book of my memory."
"Good, and so shall I," muttered the friar, overhead. "A grey horse and a yellow plume will be readily known on the morrow."
"Hark," said Barton, as the listener withdrew; "dost thou not hear something?"
"Can we be watched?" exclaimed Falconer, grasping the hand-gun at his saddle-bow. "A muffled man—one at least in a friar's cowl, followed me to-night, pace for pace, from the Wolf Craig to the Polmaise."
"Cuddie—ho, there!—keep the boat close in," cried Barton, looking sharply round him. "A friar, said ye—and there is one, even now, at the top of the Craigward!"
Barton sprang to the summit of the bank with all the agility of a sailor, and grasping the lurker by the frock, as he was crawling away, dragged him roughly down to the beach.
"How now, sir friar, what seek you here?" asked Falconer, recognising the priest he had met at the Wolf Craig.
"A passage across the ferry."
"Then you are not likely to get it, for the rebels have burned the boat, and the oarsmen have fled," replied Barton, releasing him, and half ashamed of having shown so much warmth before a clergyman. "Why did you not come boldly forward and say go at once, good friar, instead of crawling about there like a parboiled parton—eh?"
"This is not a time to venture rashly among armed men."