I rushed out into the yard, and ran hither and thither searching the ground. There were hoof-marks—fool that I was not to have marked them before—leading clearly from the stable door to the gate on the High Street. I rushed to the iron doors and tugged at them. To my amazement I found that they yielded, and I was staring into the darkening street.
So the birds had been there and flown in our brief absence. I cursed my ill-fortune with a bitter heart.
Suddenly I saw something dark lying amid the snow. I picked it up and laid it tenderly in my bosom. For it was a little knot of blue velvet ribbon, such as my lady wore.
CHAPTER IV
UP HILL AND DOWN DALE
I rushed up the street, leaving the gates swinging wide behind me, and down the lane to where Nicol waited. In brief, panting words I told him my tale. He heard it without a movement, save to turn his horse's head up the street. I swung myself into the saddle, and, with no more delay, we made for our lodgings.
"There is but one thing that we may do," said I. "The night is an ill one, but if it is ill for us 'tis ill for them." And at the words I groaned, for I thought of my poor Marjory in the storm and cold.
At Mistress Macmillan's I paid the lawing, and having eaten a hearty meal, we crammed some food into our saddle-bags and bade the hostess good-bye. Then we turned straight for the west port of the city.
It was as I had expected. The gates were just at the closing when the twain of us rode up to them and were suffered to pass. The man looked curiously at my strange dress, but made no remark, as is the fashion of these taciturn Westland folk, and together we rode through and into the bleak night. The snow had ceased to fall early in the day, but now it came on again in little intermittent driftings, while a keen wind whistled from the hills of the north. The land was more or less strange to me, and even my servant, who had a passing acquaintance with many countrysides, professed himself ignorant. It was the way to the wild highlands—the county of Campbells and Lennoxes—and far distant from kindly Christian folk. I could not think why my cousin had chosen this path, save for the reason of its difficulty and obscurity. I was still in doubt of his purpose, whether he was bound for his own house of Eaglesham or for the more distant Clyde coast. He had clearly gone by this gate from the city, for this much we had learned from the man at the port. Now, if he sought Eaglesham, he must needs cross the river, which would give us some time to gain on his track. But if he still held to the north, then there was naught for it but to follow him hot-foot and come up with him by God's grace and our horses' speed.
I have been abroad on many dark nights, but never have I seen one so black as this. The path to the west ran straight from our feet to the rugged hills which dip down to the river edge some ten miles off. But of it we could make nothing, nor was there anything to tell us of its presence save that our horses stumbled when we strayed from it to the moory land on either side. All about us were the wilds, for the town of Glasgow stood on the last bounds of settled country, near to the fierce mountains and black morasses of the Highlandmen. The wind crooned and blew in gusts over the white waste, driving little flakes of snow about us, and cutting us to the bone with its bitter cold. Somewhere in the unknown distances we heard strange sounds—the awesome rumble of water or the cry of forlorn birds. All was as bleak as death, and, in the thick darkness, what might otherwise have seemed simple and homelike, was filled with vague terrors. I had shaped no path—all that I sought was to hasten somewhere nearer those we followed, and on this mad quest we stumbled blindly forward.