'He can care for himself.' I watched the line of men ride up the pass toward Brothershiel with the horses sure-footed on the wet grass and Robert near the front. The rain increased, hammering off the barmekin walls and pattering into the fast-surging Lethan Water, a harbinger of autumn.
I had mixed feelings as I saw Father take the men up the pass into the high hills. Up here in the Lethan we were away from the worst of the riding families of the Borders, but we always had a fear that the Veitches would come over these same hills that Father was entering, and we did suffer the occasional raid. Only a year before riders from Liddesdale had passed us by to take the Thieves Road by the Cauldstaneslap over the Pentland Hills and hit the lands around Edinburgh, so we had been on alert. That sm
