If they had been coming by the roads, we could have kept track of them, even if they beat us, and some of these laddies could have stuck to them and followed them up till help came.

It can't be such an easy job to carry a young lady against her will along Scotch roads.

But the sea's a different matter.

If they've got a fast boat they could be out of the Firth and away beyond the law before we could wake up a single policeman.

Ay, and even if the Government took it up and warned all the ports and ships at sea, what's to hinder them to find a hidy-hole about Ireland--or Norway?
I tell you, it's a far more desperate business than I thought, and it'll no' do to wait on and trust that the Chief Constable will turn up afore the mischief's done." "The moral," said Heritage, "is that there can be no surrender.