"It would have been hard if you and I, after going through all the battlefields of the Low Countries, should have been drowned here together in a Scottish burn.

Your young friend is a gallant lad and a good swimmer, for in truth it was no light task to swim that torrent with the water almost as cold as ice." "Now, sirs, will you please to ride on," the boy said; "it is getting dark fast, and the sooner we are across the better." So saying he went off at a fast run, the horses trotting behind him.

A mile above he reached the spot he had spoken of.

The river was narrower here, and the stream was running with great rapidity, swirling and heaving as it went, but with a smooth even surface.
"Two hundred yards farther up," the boy said, "is the beginning of the deep; if you take the water there you will get across so as to climb up by that sloping bank just opposite." He led the way to the spot he indicated, and then plunged into the stream, swimming quietly and steadily across, and allowing the stream to drift him down.
The horsemen followed his example.

They had swum many a swollen river, and although their horses snorted and plunged at first, they soon quieted down and swam steadily over.