The summer of 1679 is a dark one for the Covenanters, routed by government troops at the Battle of Bothwell Brig. John Steel is on the run, hunted for his part in the battle by the vindictive Earl of Airlie. And life is no easier for the hapless Sandy Gillon, curate of Lesmahagow Kirk, in the Earl's sights for aiding John Steel's escape.Outlawed and hounded, the surviving rebels have no choice but to take to the hills and moors to evade capture and deportation. And as a hard winter approaches, Marion Steel discovers she's pregnant with her third child.Dark Times is the second part of Ethyl Smith's sweeping Times series that follows the lives of ordinary people in extraordinary times.James Robertson says Smith writes"with a sensitive awareness to the different ways in which history intrudes upon the lives of men and women, soldiers and civilians, adults and children."