Perhaps it is as well that you are wearing a monk's gown, for
methinks that, eight to one as we are, some of us might have got broken
heads, before we gained the few pence in your pocket.
"Come on, men. Better luck next time. It is clear that this man is not
the one we are charged to capture."
And, with his followers, he rode off across the moor.
"I do not think that they are what they seem," Oswald said, as they
resumed their journey. "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.
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