Upon the day after their crossing the frontier they saw a body of horsemen approaching them.  These drew up when they reached them, Harry having previously warned his comrades to offer no resistance, as the party were too strong for them, and his mission was too important to allow the king’s cause to be hazarded by any foolish acts of pugnacity.

“Are you for the king or the kirk?” the leader asked.

“Neither for one nor the other,” Harry said.  “We are peaceable yeomen traveling north to buy cattle, and We meddle not in the disputes of the time.”  “Have you any news from the south?”

“Nothing,” Harry replied.  “We come from Durham, and since the news of the battle of Newbury, no tidings have come of importance.”

The man looked inquisitively at the horses and valises; but Harry had chosen three stout ponies sufficiently good to carry them, but offering no temptations to pillagers, and the size of the valises promised but little from their contents.

“Since you are riding north to buy cattle,” the leader said, “you must have money with you, and money is short with us in these bad times.”

“We have not,” Harry said; “judging it possible that we might meet with gentlemen who felt the pressure of the times, we have provided ourselves with sufficient only to take us up to Kelso, where dwells our correspondent, who will, we trust, have purchased and collected sufficient cattle for us to take south when we shall learn that a convoy of troops is traveling in this direction, for we would not place temptation in the way of those whom we might meet.”

“You are a fellow of some humor,” the leader said grimly.  “But it is evil jesting on this side of the border.”

“I jest not,” Harry said.  “There is a proverb in Latin, with which doubtless your worship is acquainted, to the effect that an empty traveler may sing before robbers, and, although far from including you and your worshipful following in that category, yet we may be pardoned for feeling somewhat light-hearted, because we are not overburdened with money.”

The leader looked savagely at the young man; but seeing that his demeanor and that of his followers was resolute, that they carried pistols at their holsters and heavy swords, and deeming that nothing but hard knocks would come of an attack upon them, he surlily bade his company follow him, and rode on his way again.

CHAPTER X.

The commissioner of the convention.

At Kelso Harry procured changes of garments, attiring himself as a Lowland farmer, and his companions as two drovers.  They were, as before, mounted; but the costume of English farmers could no longer have been supported by any plausible story.  They learned that upon the direct road north they should find many bodies of Scotch troops, and therefore made for the coast.  Two days’ riding brought them to the little port of Ayton.