Explore "John Burnet of Barns" by John Buchan on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
If there had been haste before in our journey there was the more now, when in a few hours the countryside would be alive with our foes. I hurriedly considered in my mind the course of events. In three hours' riding the soldiers, all stark as they were, would come to Abington, and in three more the road to Douglasdale would be blocked by a dozen companies. It was no light thing thus to have set the whole hell's byke in Clydesdale buzzing about my ears.
We were not long in reaching the cave. Here to my joy I found Marjory all recovered from her fright, and the wound hurting her no more than a pin's scratch. When I spoke of immediate progress she listened gladly and was for setting out forthwith. I did not tell her of the soldiers' discomfiture, for I knew that she would fall to chiding me for my foolhardiness, and besides she would have more dismal fears for my future if she knew that I had thus incensed the military against me.