“There maun be something in the wind,” said the gaberlunzie to his host, “when gentle Edie Johnston is in the saddle sae early.”
Edie Johnston? Yea, the leader was the very man who had left the child at Hawksglen gate! He looked much older now, older than perhaps he actually was. Twenty years and more of a habitual course of “sturt and strife” had done their work upon him: his complexion was darker, his form more spare, and the scar on his cheek, which he would carry to the grave with him, gave his countenance a settled and forbidding gloom. Ruthven gazed at him with surprise, for, though he could not remember having ever seen the man before, yet the face seemed one that had frequently haunted his dreams, and now the figment was embodied to his view.
Johnston, on coming up to the cottage, uttered an exclamation, and halting with his men, leaned aside, and tapped the gaberlunzie good-humouredly on the shoulder with his long lance, saying—“My worthy crony! Hard to tell where friends may meet. Troth, I ha’ena seen your blythesome face for near a twalmonth since yon nicht I fell foul o’ you instead o’ gleyed Hecky Lapstane, the Selkirk souter; but I hope you soon forgot the broil.”
“My cloured pow wasna sae soon forgotten,” answered Harthill. “But I bore you nae grudge, kenning that you ettled at the souter’s croon and no at mine.”
“Richt, Willie,” replied the trooper. “When the drink’s in, the wit’s out—a saying as true as Gospel. But I was sair vexed next day when I cam’ to my sober senses, and minded o’ what befell.”
“It was weel for you,” cried a village youth, on the other bank of the burn, who was hacking wood; “it was weel for you that you had to do wi’ souters and gaberlunzies, else you michtna seen the neist day.”
“Hooly, hooly, Dandie,” whispered a companion in the speaker’s ear. “Dinna raise his ill bluid. Let sleeping dogs lie.”
“Hooly yoursel’,” returned the youth. “If a’ tales be true, he has done ill to my kin, as weel as to fremit folk no far awa’. He canna deny—and though he denies wha cares?—he whiles sell’d himsel’ to our auld enemies ower the Border, and harried Scots land for them.”
“Ralph Kerr’s nowte were driven last Martinmas,” said another voice. “Wha did that?”
“And Widow Janfarrie’s hoggs the Michaelmas before,” added a third.