"The man's speech was not that of a border raider, and his followers would hardly have sat their horses so silently, and obeyed his orders so promptly, had they been merely thieving caterans; besides, you marked that he said you were not the man they were watching for." "Whom think you that they are, then, Master Oswald ?" "I think it possible that they may be a party of Douglas's followers, led by a knight.

It may be that Douglas has received some hint of March's being in communication with England; and that he has sent a party to seize, and search, any traveller who looked like a messenger from the south.

Of course, this may be only fancy.

Still, I am right glad that you were wearing your monkish robe; for, had I been alone, I might have been cross-questioned so shrewdly as to my purpose in travelling, that I might have been held on suspicion, and means employed to get the truth out of me." At the small town where they stopped, next night, they learned that many complaints had been made, by travellers from the south, of how they had been stopped by a party of armed men on the border, closely questioned, and searched, and in some cases robbed.

This had been going on for some weeks, and the sheriff of the county had twice collected an armed force, and ridden in search of the robbers, but altogether without success.