 CHAPTER XII On the March again with Alan. It was likely between one and two—the moon, as I have said, was down—a strongish wind carrying a heavy rack of cloud had set in suddenly from the west. And we began our movement as in black a night as ever a fugitive or a murderer wanted. The whiteness of the path guided us into the sleeping town of Broughton, thence through Picardy, and beside my old acquaintance, the gibbet of the two thieves. A little beyond we made a useful beacon which was a light in an upper window lock end. Steering by this, but a good deal at random, and with some trampling of the harvest and stumbling and falling down upon the banks, we made our way across country, and one fourth, boggy at last upon the linky mureland that they called the Figet Winds. Here under a brush of wind we lay down the remainder of that night and slumbered. The day called us about five. A beautiful morning it was, the high westerly wind still blowing strong, but the clouds all blown away to Europe. Alan was already sitting up and smiling to himself. It was my first sight of my friend since we were parted, and I looked upon him with enjoyment. He had still the same big great coat on his back. But what was new, he had now a pair of knitted buttoes drawn above the knee. Doubtless these were intended for disguise, but as the day promised to be warm, he made a most unseasonable figure. "'Well, Davy,' said he, "'this is no bonny morning. Here is the day that looks the way that a day ought to. This is a great change of it from the belly of my haystack. And while you were there, soldering and sleeping, I have done a thing that maybe I do very seldom. "'And what was that?' said I. "'Oh,' just said my prayers,' said he. "'And where are my gentry?' as he called him, I asked. "'Good gents,' says he, and the shart in the long of it is that we must take out a chance of them. Up with your foot soles, Davy, forth fortune, once again of it. And a bonny walk we are like to have.' So we went east by the beach of the sea, towards where the salt-pans were smoking in by the esk-mouth. No doubt there was a by-ordinary bonny blink of morning sun on Arthur's seat and the green pentlands, and the pleasantness of the day that peered to set Alan among nettles. "'I feel like a gomeral,' says he. "'To be leaving Scotland on a day like this. It sticks in my head. I would maybe like it better to stay here and hang. I—' "'But you want to, Alan?' said I. "'No, but—' "'What France is a good place, too,' he explained. "'But it's some way no the same. It's bra, I believe, but it's no Scotland. I like it fine when I'm there, man. Yet I kind of weary for Scots divots and the Scots peat-reach. "'If that's all you have to complain of, Alan, it's no such great affair,' said I. "'And it sets me ill to be complaining whatever,' said he, and me but knew out of your dell's haystack.' "'And so you were uncoo weary of your haystack?' I asked. "'Where's Nay word for?' said he. "'I'm not just precisely a man that's easily cast down. But I do better with collar air and the lift above my head. I'm like that all-black Douglas, wasn't it? That like it better to hear the lever-rock sing than the mouse-cheap. And yon place, see, Davy, Wilk was a very suitable place to hide in, as I'm free to own, was pit-mirk from dawn to glooming. There were days or nights for how would I tell one from other that seemed to me as long as a long winter?' "'How did you know the hour to bide your trist?' I asked. The Goodman brought me my meat and a drop brandy and a candle-dope to eat it by about eleven,' said he. So when I had swallowed a bit it would be time to be getting to the wood. There I lay and worried for ye sore, Davy,' says he, laying his hand on my shoulder, and guessed when the two hours would be about by, unless Charlie Stewart would come and tell me on his watch, and then back to the dooms haystack. Nah, it was at rich employ, and praise the Lord that I have wrestled through with it. What did you do with yourself?' I asked. Faith, said he, the best I could, whilst I played at the knuckle-bones. I'm an extraordinary good hand at the knuckle-bones, but it's a poor piece of business playing with nebity to admire ye. And whilst I would make songs, what were they about, says I. Oh, about the deer and the heather, says he, and about the ancient old chiefs that are all by with a lang-zine, and just about what songs are about in general. And then whilst I would make believe I had a set of pipes, and I was playing, I played some grand springs, and I thought I played them awfully bonny. I vowed whilst that I could hear the squeal of them, but the great affair is that it's done with. With that he carried me again to my adventures. Which he heard all over again, with more peculiarity and extraordinary approval, swearing at intervals that I was a queer character of a gallant. So ye were Frenchened of Simfriger, he asked me once. In truth was I, I cried. So would I have been Davies, said he. And that is indeed a dreadful man. But it is only proper to give the day of his due, and I can tell you he is a most respectable person in the field of war. Is he so brave? I asked. Brave, said he, he's as brave as my steel sword. The story of my duel, said him beside himself. To think of that, he cried. I showed ye the trick in Corning and Ehie, too. And three times, three times disarmed, it's at a disgrace upon my character that learned ye. Here, stand up, out with your earn, ye should walk no step beyond this place upon the road till ye can do yourself, and me, my credit. Alan, said I, this is Midsummer Madness. Here is no time for fencing lessons. I can well say no to that, he admitted. But three times, man, and you standing there like a strawboggle and reigning to fit your reigns stored like a doggie with a pocket napkin. David, this man Duncan's bee must be something altogether by extraordinary. He must be extraordinary skilly. If I had the time, I would gang straight back and try to turn it in myself. The man must be a provost. Nah, he said, but three times. You silly fellow, said I, you forget it was just me. Nah, said he, but three times. When ye can yourself that I am fair incompetent, I cried, well I never heard tell the equal of it. Said he, I promise you the one thing, Alan, said I, the next time that we forget her, I'll be better learned. You shall not continue to bear the disgrace of a friend that cannot strike. I, the next time, says he. And when will that be, I would like to can. Well, Alan, I have had some thoughts of that, too, said I, and my plan is this. It's my opinion to be called an advocate. That's but a weary trade, Davy, says Alan, and rather a blaggard one for me. Ye would be better in King's coat than that. And no doubt that would be the way to have us met, quite I. But as ye'll be in King Louis' coat, and I'll be in King Gordy's, we'll have a dainty meeting of it. There's some sense in that, he admitted. An advocate, then, it'll have to be, I continued. And I think it a more suitable trade for a gentleman that was three times disarmed. But the beauty of the thing is this, that one of the best colleges for that kind of learning, and the one where my kinsman Pilrig made his studies, is the college of Leiden in Holland. Now, what say you, Alan? Could not a cadet, a royal echo say, get a furlough, slip over the marshes, and call upon a Leiden student? Well, and I think he could! Grity, ye see, I stand well in with my colonel, Count Drummond Melford, and what's married to the purpose, I have a cousin of mine, Lieutenant Colonel and a regiment of the Scots Dutch. Nothing could be mere proper than what I would get to leave to see Lieutenant Colonel Stuart of Halux. And Lord Melford, who is a very scientific kind of a man, and writes books like Caesar, would be doubtless very pleased to have the advantage of my observes. Is Lord Melort an author, then? I asked. For as much as Alan thought of soldiers, I thought more of the gentry that write books. The very same, Davy, said he. One would think a colonel would have something better to attend to, but what can I say that makes songs? Well, then, said I, it only remains you should give me an address to write you in France, and as soon as I am got to Leiden I will send you mine. The best will be to write me in care of my chieftain, said me, Charles Stuart of Argylle, Esquire, in the town of Mellon, in the Isle of France. It might take long, or it might take short, but it would I get to my hands at the last of it. We had a headache for our breakfast in Musselborough, where it amused me vastly to hear Alan. His great coat and boot-hose were extremely remarkable this morning, and perhaps some hint of an explanation had been wise. But Alan went into that matter like a business, I should rather say, like a diversion. He engaged the good wife of the house with some complements upon the risering of our headaches, and the whole of the rest of our stay held her in talk about a cold he had taken on his stomach, really relating all manner of symptoms and sufferings, and hearing with a vast show of interest all the old wife's remedies she could supply him with in return. We left Musselborough before the first Ninth Mini-Coach was due from Edinburgh for, as Alan said, that there was a re-encounter we might very well avoid. The wind, although still high, was very mild. The sun shone strong, and Alan began to suffer in proportion. From Preston-pans he had me aside to the field of Glansmere, where he exerted himself a great deal more than needful to describe the stages of the battle. Hence at his old round pace we travelled to Cochensee. Though they were building herring-buses there at Mrs. Coddell's, it seemed a desert-like back-going town about half-full of ruined houses. But the ale-house was clean, and Alan, who was now in a glowing heat, must indulge himself with a bottle of ale, and carry on to the new looky with the old story of the cold upon his stomach. Only now the symptoms were all different. I sat listening, and it came to my mind that I had scarce ever heard him address three serious words to any woman, but he was always drolling and flaring and making a private mock of them, and yet brought to that business a remarkable degree of energy and interest. Something to this effect I remarked to him when the good-wife, as chanced, was called away. What do you want, says he. A man should I put his best foot forth with a woman kind. He should I give them a bit of a story to divert them, the poor lambs. It's what you should learn to attend to, David. You should get the principles. It's like a trade. Now if this had been a young lassie, or, anyways, Bonnie, she would never have heard tell of my stomach, Davy. Once they're too old to be seeing Joes, they're set up to be apothecaries. Why? Why do I can? There'll be just the way God made them, I suppose. But I think a man would be a gomer that didn't give his attention to the same. And here the lucky came back. He turned from me as if with impatience to renew their former conversation. The lady had branched some while before from Alan's stomach to the case of a good brother of her own and Aberlady, whose last sickness and demise she was describing at extraordinary length. Sometimes it was merely dull, sometimes both dull and awful, for she talked with unction. The upshot was that I fell in a deep muse, looking forth of the window on the road and scarcely marking what I saw. Presently had any been looking. They might have seen me to start. We've had a formation to his feet, the good wife was saying, and a headstone to his wane, and we give him ice-up and water of piner-royal and fine clean balsam of sulfur for the host. Sir, says I, cutting very quietly, and there's a friend of mine gone by the house. Is that insane, replies Alan, as though it were a thing of small account, and then, you were saying, ma'am, says he and the wereful wife went on. Presently, however, he paid her with a half-crown piece, and she must go forth after the change. Was it him with the red head? asked Alan. You have it? said I. What did I tell you in the wood? he cried. And yet it's strange he should be here, too. Was he his lane? His lee-lane for what I could see, said I. Did he gang by? he asked. Straight by, said I, and looked neither to the right nor left. And that's quirers yet, said Alan. It sticks in my mind, Davy, that we should be stirring. But where to, Dalehead? This is like old days fairly, cries he. There is one big differ, though, said I, that now we have money in our pockets. And another big differ, Mr. Balfour, says he, that now we have dogs on our tail. They're on the scent, they're in full cry, David. It's a bad business, and be damned to it. And he sat, thinking hard, with a look of his that I knew well. I'm saying, looky, says he, when the good wife returned, heavy a back road out of this change-house. She told him there was, and where it led to. Then, sir, says he to me, I think it will be the shortest road for us. And here's goodbye to ye, my bra-woman, and a no-forget-thon of the cinnamon water. We went out by the way of the woman's cale-yard, and up a lane among fields. Alan looked sharply to all sides, and seeing we're in a little hollow place in the country, out of view of men, sat down. Now for a cancel of war, Davy, said he. But first of all, a bit lessen to ye. Suppose that I had been like you. What would yawn old wife have minded of the pair of us, just that we had gone out by the back gate? And what does she mind now? A fine, catty, friendly, cracky man, that suffered with the stomach poor body, and was re-altain up about the good brother. O man David, try and learn to have some kind of intelligence. I'll try, Alan, said I. And now for him of the red-head, says he. Was ye gone fast or slow? Betwixt and between, said I. No kind of a hurry about the man, he asked. Never a sign of it, said I. N'um, said Alan. It looks queer. We saw nothing of them this morning on the whims. He passed us by, and it doesn't seem to be looking. And yet here he is on our road, Dodd, Davy. I begin to take a notion. I think it's no you they're seeking. I think it's me. And I think they can find where they're gone. They can, I asked. I think Andy Skogl sold me, him and his mate, what can come part of the affair, or else Charlie's clerk Callent, which would be a pity too, says Alan. And if you ask it me for just my inward private conviction, I think they'll be heads cracked on Guilney Sands. Alan, I cried. If you're at all right, they'll be folk there and to spare. It'll be small service to crack heads. It would I be a satisfaction, though, says Alan. But bite a bit, bite a bit, I'm thinking. And thanks to this barney, westland wind, I believe I've still a chance of it. It's this way, Davy. I'm no tristed with men Skogl till the gloaming comes. But, says he, if I can get a bit of wind out of the west, I'll be there long or that, he says. And lie, too, for he's behind the Isle of Thedra. Now, if your gentry kins the place, they kin the time for by. Do you see me coming, Davy? Thanks to Johnny Cope, another red-coat gomrel's, I should kin this country like to back of my hand. And if you're ready for another bit run with Alan Breck, we can cast back in shore and come to the seaside again by Dierleton. If the ship's there, we'll try and get on board of her. If she's no there, I'll just have to get back to my weary haystack. But either way of it, I think we'll leave your gentry whistling on their thumbs. I believe there's some chance in it, said I. Have on with thee, Alan. CHAPTER XIII GELANE SANS I did not profit by Alan's pilotage, as he had done by his marching-central general Cope. For I can scarce tell what way we went. It is my excuse that we traveled exceeding fast. Some parts we ran, some trotted, and the rest walked at a vengeance of a pace. Twice, while we were at top speed, we ran against country folk. But though we plumped into the first from round a corner, Alan was as ready as a loaded musket. As ye seen my horse, he gasped, a name, and I hadn't seen any horse the day, replied the countryman. And Alan spared the time to explain to him that we were traveling ride and tie, that our charger had escaped, and it was feared he had gone home to Linton. Not only that, but he expended some breath, of which he had not very much left, to curse his own misfortune, and my stupidity which was said to be its cause. Them that cannot tell the truth, he observed to myself as we went on again, should be I mindful to leave an honest handy-lea behind them. If folks didn't can what you're doing, Davy, they're terrible taken up with it. But if they think they can, they care name ere for it than what I do for peace-porridge. As we had first made inland, so our road came in the end to lie very near due north. The old Kirk of Aberlady for a landmark on the left, on the right the top of the Birwick Law, and it was thus we struck the shore again, not far from Dierleton. From north Birwick, west to Galein, Ness, there runs a string of four small islets, Craigleith, the Lamb, Fidra, and Ibera, notable by their diversity of size and shape. Fidra is the most particular, being a strange gray islet of two humps, made the more conspicuous by a piece of ruin, and I mind that, as we drew closer to it, by some door or window of these ruins, the sea peeped through like a man's eye. Under the lee of Fidra there is a good anchorage in westerly winds, and there, from a far way off, we could see the thistle riding. The shore in face of these islets is altogether waste. Here is no dwelling of man, and scarce any passage, but most of vagabond children running at their play. Galein is a small place on the far side of the Ness. The folk of Dierleton go to their business in the inland fields, and those of north Birwick, straight to the sea-fishing from their haven, so that few parts of the coast are lonelier. But I mined, as we crawled upon our bellies, into that multiplicity of heights and hollows, keeping a bright eye upon our sides, and our hearts hammering at our ribs. There was such a shining of the sun and the sea, such a stir of the wind in the bent grass, and such a bustle of down-popping rabbits and up-flying gulls, that the desert seemed to me like a place alive. No doubt it was in all ways well-chosen for a secret embarkation, if the secret had been kept. And even now that it was out, and the place watched, we were able to creep unperceived to the front of the sandhills, where they looked down immediately on the beach and sea. But here Allen came to a full stop. Davy, said he, this is a kettle passage. As long as we lie here, we're safe. But I'm nance a muckle nearer to my ship or the coast of France. And as soon as we stand up and signal the brig, it's another matter. For where will your gentry be, thank ye? Maybe there are no come yet, said I. And even if they are, there's one clear matter in our favor. They'll be all arranged to take us, that's true. But they'll have arranged for our coming from the east. And here we are upon their west. I, says Allen, I wish we were in some force, and this was a battle. We would have bodily outmaneuvered then. But it isn't, David. And the way it is, is a wee thing less inspiring to Allen Breck. I swither, Davy. Time flies, Allen, said I. I can that, said Allen. I can nothing else, as the French folks say. But this is a dreadful case of hides or tails. Oh, if I could but can where your gentry were. Allen, says I, this is no like you. It's got to be now or never. This is no me, quoth he, saying Allen, with a queer face betwixt shame and drollery. Neither you nor me, quoth he, neither you nor me. Wow now, Johnny Man, neither you nor me. And then, all of a sudden, he stood straight up where he was, and with a handkerchief flying in his right hand, marched down upon the beach. I stood up myself, but lingered behind him, scanning the sandhills to the east. His appearance was at first unremarked. Screwwell, not expecting him so early, and my gentry watching on the other side. Then they awoke on board the thistle, and it seemed they had all in readiness, for there was scarce a second's bustle on the deck, before we saw a skiff put round her stern, and begin to pull lively for the coast. Almost at the same moment of time, and perhaps half a mile away towards Guilinès, the figure of a man appeared for a blink upon a sandhill, waving his arms. And though he was gone again in the same flash, the gulls in that part continued a little longer to fly wild. Alan had not seen this, looking straight to seaward at the ship at skiff. At Monby as it will, said he when I had told him, will me on bothy-row, or my craig'll have to athole a raxon. That part of the beach was long and flat, and excellent walking when the tide was down. A little crescy burn flowed over it in one place to the sea, and the sandhills ran along the head of it like the rampart of a town. No eye of ours could spy what was passing behind there in the vents. No hurry of ours could mend the speed of the boats coming. Time stood still with us through that uncanny period of waiting. There is one thing I would like to ken, say Alan. I would like to ken these gentry's orders. We're worth four hundred pounds, the pair of us. How if they took the guns to us, Davy? They would get a Bonnie shot from the top of that Lang Sandy bank. Morally impossible, said I. The point is that they can have no guns. This thing has been gone about two secret. Pistols they may have, but never guns. I believe you'll be in the right, says Alan, for all which I am wearing a good deal for Yon Boat. And he snapped his fingers and whistled to it like a dog. It was now perhaps a third of the way in, and we ourselves already hard on the margin of the sea so that the soft sand rose over my shoes. There was no more to do, whatever, but to wait, to look as much as we were able at the creeping nearer of the boat, and as little as we could manage at the long, impenetrable front of the sandhills, over which the gulls twinkled and behind which our enemies were doubtless marshalling. This is a fine, bright, collared place to get a shot in, says Alan suddenly, and man, I wish that I had your courage. Alan, I cried, what kind of talk is this of it? You're just made of courage. It's the character of the man as I could prove myself if there was nobody else. And you would be the more mistaken, said he. What makes the differ with me is just my great penetration and knowledge of affairs, but for all called our deadly courage, I am not fit to hold a candle to yourself. Look at us two up here on the sands. Here am I, fair, houching to be off. Here's you, for all that I can, in two minds of it, whether you'll no stop. Do you think that I could do that, or would? No me, firstly, because I haven't got the courage and wanted dare, and secondly, because I am a man of so much penetration and would see you damned first. It's there you're coming, is it? I cried, ah, man Alan, you can wild your old wives but you never can wild me. Remembrance of my temptation in the wood made me strong as iron. I have a tryst to keep, I continued. I am trysted with your cousin Charlie. I have passed my word. Bra, tryst, that you can keep, said Alan. You just mistryst once and for a while the gentry in the bents, and what far? He went on with an extreme threatening gravity. Just tell me that, my manny. Are you to be spirited away like Lady Grange? Are they to drive a dirk in your inside and bury in the bents? Or is it to be the other way? And are they to bring you in with James? Are they folk to be trusted? Would you stick your head in the mouth of Sim Fraser and the other wigs? He added with extraordinary bitterness. Alan cried I, there are rogues and liars and I'm with you there. The more reason there should be one decent man in such a land of thieves. My word is passed and I'll stick to it. I said long sigh unto your kin's woman that I would stumble at no risk. Do you mind of that? The night red-collon fell, it was. No more I will then. Here I stop. Preston Grange promised me my life. If he's to be mansworn, here I'll have to die. I will, I will, said Alan. All this time we had seen or heard no more of our pursuers. In truth we had got them unawares. Their whole party, as I was to learn afterwards, had not yet reached the scene. What there was of them was spread among the bents towards Gillain. It was quite an affair to call them in and bring them over and the boat was making speed. They were besides but cowardly fellows a mere leash of Highland cattle-thieves of several clans, no gentleman there to be the captain, and the more they looked at Alan and me upon the beach, the less, I must suppose, they liked the look of us. Whoever had betrayed Alan, it was not the captain. He was in the skiff himself, steering and stirring up his oarsmen like a man with his heart in his employ. Already he was near in and the boat securing. Already Alan's face had flamed Crimson with the excitement of his deliverance. When our friends and the bents, either in their despair, to see their prey escape them, or with some hope of scaring Andy, raised suddenly a shrill cry of several voices. The sound arising from what appeared to be a quite deserted coast was really very daunting, and the men in the boat held water instantly. What is this of this? sings out the captain, for he was come within an easy hail. Rans a mine, says Alan, and began immediately to wade forth in the shallow water towards the boat. Davy, he said, pausing. Davy, are ye no coming? I am swear to leave ye. Not a hair of me, said I. He stood apart of a second where he was to his knees in the salt water hesitating. He that were to copper, mine to copper, said he, and swashing in deeper than his waist was hauled into the skiff, which was immediately directed for the ship. I stood where he had left me with my hands behind my back. Alan sat with his head turned, watching me, and the boat drew smoothly away. Of a sudden I came the nearest hand to shedding tears, and seemed to myself the most deserted solitary lad in Scotland. With that I turned to my back upon the sea and faced the sand hills. There was no sight or sound of man, the sun shone on the wet sand and the dry, the wind blew in the vents, and the gulls made a dreary piping. As I passed higher up the beach, the sand lice were hopping nimbly about the spanded tangles. The devil any other sight or sound in that unchancey place. And yet I knew there were folk there observing me upon some secret purpose. There were no soldiers, or they would have fallen on and taken us there now. Doubtless there were some common rogues hired for my undoing, perhaps to kidnap, perhaps to murder me outright. From the position of those engaged the first was the more likely, from what I knew of their character and urgency in this business. I thought the second very possible, and the blood ran cold about my heart. I had a mad idea to loosen my sword in the scabbard, for though I was very unfit to stand up like a gentleman blade to blade, I thought I could do some scathes in a random combat. But I perceived in time the folly of resistance. This was no doubt the joint expedient on which Preston Grange and Frazier were agreed. The first, I was very sure, had done something to secure my life. The second was pretty likely to have slipped in some contrary hints into the ears of Neil and his companions. And if I were to show bare steel, I might play straight into the hands of my worst enemy and seal my own doom. These thoughts brought me to the head of the beach. I cast a look behind, the boat was nearing the brig, and Alan flew his handkerchief for a farewell, which I replied to with a waving of my hand. But Alan himself was shrunk to a small thing in my view, long side of this pass that lay in front of me. I set my hat hard upon my head, clenched my teeth, and went right before me up the face of the sand wreath. It made a hard climb, being steep, and the sand like water underfoot. But I caught hold at last by the long bent grass on the bray top, and pulled myself to a good footing. The same moment men stirred and stood up here and there, six or seven of them ragged like knaves, each with a dagger in his hand. The fair truth is, I shut my eyes and prayed. When I opened them again, the rows were crept the least thing nearer without speech or hurry. Every eye was upon mine, which struck me with a strange sensation of their brightness, and of the fear with which they continued to approach me. I held out my hands empty, whereupon one asked with the strong Highland Brogue if I surrendered. Under protest, said I, if you can what that means, which I missed out. At that word they all came in upon me like a flight of birds upon a carrion, seized me, took my sword, and all the money from my pockets, bound to be hand and foot with some strong line, and cast me on a tussock of bent. There they sat about their captive in a part of a circle, and gazed upon him silently like something dangerous, perhaps a lion or a tiger on the spring. Presently this attention was relaxed. They drew nearer together, fell to speech in the Gaelic, and very cynically divided my property before my eyes. It was my diversion in this time that I could watch for my place the progress of my friend's escape. I saw the boat come to the brig and be hoisted in, the sails fill, and the ship pass out seaward behind the aisles, and by North Berwick. In the course of two hours or so, more and more ragged Highlandmen kept collecting, kneel among the first, until the party must have numbered near a score. With each new arrival there was a fresh bout of talk that sounded like complaints and explanations. But I observed one thing, none of those who came late had any share in the division of my spoils. The last discussion was very violent and eager, so that once I thought they would have foiled, on the heels of which their company parted, the bulk of them returning westward in a troop, and only three, kneel and two others, remaining sentries on the prisoner. I could ename one who would be very ill-pleased with your day's work, kneel Duncanson, said I, when the rest had moved away. He assured me an answer that I should be tenderly used, for he knew he was a quaint way de l'Eddie, this was all our talk, nor did any other son of man appear upon the portion of the coast until the sun had gone down among the Highland mountains, and the gloaming was beginning to grow dark. At which hour I was aware of a long, lean, bony-like Lothian man of a very swarthy countenance that came towards us among the bents on a farm-horse. "'Lads!' cried he, "'Has she done paper like this?' and held up one in his hand. Kneel produced a second, which the newcomer studied, through a pair of horn spectacles, and, saying all was right, and we were with the folk he was seeking, immediately dismounted. I was then set in his place, my feet tied under the horse's belly, and we set forth under the guidance of the lowlander. His path must have been very well chosen, for we met but one pair, a pair of lovers, the whole way, and these, perhaps taking us to be free traders, fled on our approach. We were at one time close at the foot of Berwick Law on the south side. At another, as we passed over some open hills, I spied the lights of a cluckin' and the old tower of a church among some trees not far off, but too far to cry for help, if I had dreamed of it. At last we came again within sounds of the sea. There was moonlight, though not much, and by this I could see the three huge towers and the broken battlements of Tantalon, that old chief place of the Red Douglases. The horse was picketed in the bottom of the ditched grays, and I was led within, and forth into the court, and thence into the tumbledown stone hall. Here my conductors built a brisk fire in the midst of the pavement, for there was chill in the night. My hands were loosed, I was set by the wall in the inner end, and the lowlander having produced provisions. I was given oatmeal bread and a pitcher of French brandy. This done I was left once more alone with my three Highlandmen. They sat close by the fire, drinking and talking. The wind blew in by the breeches, cast about the smoke and flames, and sang in the tops of the towers. I could hear the sea under the cliffs, and my mind being reassured as to my life, and my body and spirits wearied with the day's employment. I turned upon one side, and slumbered. I had no means of guessing at what hour I was wakened. Only the moon was down, and the fire was low. My feet were now loosed, and I was carried through the ruins, and down the cliffside by a precipitous path, to where I found a fisher's boat in a haven of the rocks. This I was head on board of, and we began to put forth from the shore in a fine starlight. CHAPTER 14 THE BASS I had no thought where they were taking me, only looked here and there for the appearance of a ship. There ran the while into my head a word of ransoms, the twenty pounders. If I were to be exposed a second time to that same former danger of the plantations, I judged it must turn ill with me. There was no second allen, no second shipwreck and spare yard to be expected now, and I saw myself hold tobacco under the whip's lash. The thought chilled me, the air was sharp upon the water, the stretchers of the boat drenched with a cold dew, and I shivered in my place beside the stearman. This was the dark man whom I have called hitherto the lowlender. His name was Dale, ordinarily called Black Andy. Feeling the thrill of my shiver, he very kindly handed me a rough jacket full of fish scales with which I was glad to cover myself. I thank you for this kindness, said I, and will make so free as to repay it with a warning. You take a high responsibility in this affair. You are not like these ignorant, barbarous Highlanders, but know what the law is and the risks of those that break it. I am no just exactly what you would call an extremist for the law, says he, at the best of times, but in this business I act with a good warranty. What are you going to do with me? I asked. Ne harm, said he, ne harm ever. Ye have strong friends, I'm thinkin'. Ye'll be rich in nothin' yet. There began to fall a greyness on the face of the sea. Little dabs of pink and red, like coals of a slow fire, came in the east, and at the same time the geese awakened, and it began crying about the top of the bass. It is just the one craig of rock, as everybody knows, but great enough to carve a city from. The sea was extremely little, but there went a hollow plowter around the base of it. With the growing of the dawn I could see it clearer and clearer. The straight craigs painted with seabirds droppings like a morning frost, the sloping top of it green with grass, the clan of white geese that cried about the sides, and the black broken buildings of the prison sitting close on the sea's edge. At the sight the truth came in upon me in a clap. There's where you're taking me, I cried. Just to the bass, manny, said he, where the old saints were afar ye, and I missed out if they have come so fairly by you prison. But none dwells there now, I cried. The place is long a ruin. It'll be the pleasure to change for the soren geese, then, quote Andy Dryley. The day coming slowly brighter, I observed on the bilge, among the big stones which fisherfolk ballast their boats, several kegs and baskets, and a provision of fuel. All these were discharged upon the craig. Andy, myself, and my three Highlanders, I called them mine, although it was the other way about, landed along with them. The sun was not up yet when the boat moved away again, the noise of the oars on the thold pins echoing from the cliffs, and left us straight in our singular occlusion. Andy Dale was the prefect, as I would jocularly call him, of the bass, being at once the shepherd and the gamekeeper of the small and rich estate. He had to mine the dozener-sauve sheep that fed and fattened on the grass of the sloping part of it, like beasts grazing the roof of a cathedral. He had charged besides of the soren geese that roosted in the craigs, and from these an extraordinary income is derived. The young are dainty eating, as much as two shullings apiece being a common price and paid willingly by epicures. Even the grown birds are valuable for their oil and feathers, and a part of the minister's stipend of North Berwick is paid to this day in soren geese, which makes it, in some folks eyes, a parish to be coveted. To perform these several businesses, as well as to protect the geese from poachers, Andy had frequent occasion to sleep and pass days together on the craig, and we found the man at home there like a farmer in his steading. Bidding us all shoulder some of the packages, a matter in which I made haste to bear a hand, he led us in by a locked gate, which was the only admission to the island, and through the ruins of the fortress to the governor's house. There we saw, by the ashes in the chimney and a standing bed-place in one corner, that he made his usual occupation. This bed he now offered me to use, saying he supposed I would set up to be gentry. "'My gentress has nothing to do with where I lie,' said I. I bless God that I have lain hard ere now, and can do the same again with thankfulness. While I am here, Mr. Andy, if that be your name, I will do my part and take my place beside the rest of you, and I ask you, on the other hand, to spare me your mockery, which I own I like ill.' He grumbled a little at the speech, but seemed upon reflection to approve it. Indeed he was a long-headed, sensible man, and a good wig and presbyterian, red daily in a pocket-bible, and was both able and eager to converse seriously on religion, leaning more than a little towards the Cameroonian extremes. His morals were of a more doubtful color. I found he was deep in the free trade, and used the ruins of Tantalon for a magazine of smuggled merchandise. As for a goucher, I do not believe he valued the life of one at half a farthing. But that part of the coast of Lothian is, to this day, as wild a place, and the commons there as rough as crew, as any in Scotland. One incident of my imprisonment is made memorable by a consequence it had long after. There was a warship at this time stationed in the Firth, the Sea Horse, Captain Palliser. It chanced she was cruising in the month of September, plying between Fife and Lothian, and sounding for sunk dangers. Early one fine morning she was seen about two miles to east of us, where she lowered a boat and seemed to examine the wildfire rocks and Satan's bush, famous dangers of that coast. And presently after having got her boat again, she came before the wind and was headed directly for the bass. This was very troublesome to Andean Highlanders. The whole business of my sequestration was designed for privacy, and here, with a navy captain perhaps blundering ashore, had looked to become public enough, if it were nothing worse. I was in a minority of one. I am no Alan to fall upon so many, and I was far from sure that a warship was the least likely to improve my condition. All which considered, I gave Andean my parole of good behavior and obedience, and was ad bristly to the summit of the rock, where we all lay down at the cliff's edge, in different places above thredation and concealment. The seahorse came straight on, till I thought she would have struck. And we, looking giddily down, could see the ship's company at their quarters, and hear the Leedsmen singing at the lead. Then she suddenly wore and led fly a volley of I do not know how many great guns. The rock was shaken with the thunder of the sound, and smoke flowed over our heads, and the geese rose at number beyond computation or belief. To hear their screaming and to see the twinkling of their wings made a most inimitable curiosity. And I suppose it was after this somewhat childish pleasure the Captain Palliser had come so near the bass. He was to pay dear for it in time. During his approach, I had the opportunity to make a remark upon the rigging of that ship by which I ever after knew it miles away, and this was a means, under providence, of my averting from a friend a great calamity, and inflicting on Captain Palliser himself a sensible disappointment. All the time of my stay on the rock we lived well. We had small ale and brandy and oatmeal, of which we made our porridge night and morning. By times a boat came from the castle and brought us a quarter of mutton. For the sheep upon the rock we must not touch, these being specially fed to market. The geese were unfortunately out of season, and we let them be. We fished ourselves, and yet more often made the geese to fish for us, observing one when he had made a capture, and scaring him from his prey ere he had swallowed it. The strange nature of this place and the curiosities with which it abounded held me busy and amused. Escape of being impossible I was allowed my entire liberty and continually explored the surface of the isle wherever it might support the foot of man. The old garden of the prison was still to be observed, with flowers and pot herbs running wild, and some ripe cherries on a bush. A little lower stood a chapel or a hermit's cell, who built or dwelt in it none may know, and the thought of its age made a ground of many meditations. The prison, too, where I now bivouacked with highland cattle thieves, was a place full of history, both human and divine. I thought it strange so many saints and martyrs should have gone by there so recently, and left not so much as a leaf out of their Bibles were a name carved upon the wall, while the rough soldier lads that mounted guard upon the battlements had filled the neighborhood with their mementos, broken tobacco pipes for the most part, and that in surprising plenty, but also metal buttons from their coats. There were times when I thought I could have heard the pious sounds of psalms out of their martyr's dungeons, and seen the soldiers tramp the ramparts with their glinting pipes and the dawn rising behind them out of the North Sea. No doubt it was a good deal, Andy and his tales, that put these fancies in my head. He was extraordinarily well acquainted with the story of the rock in all particulars, down to the names of private soldiers, his father having served there in that same capacity. He was gifted, besides, with a natural genius for a narration so that the people seemed to speak and the things to be done before your face. This gift of his, and my assiduity to listen, brought us the more closer together. I could not honestly deny, but what I liked him. I soon saw that he liked me, and indeed from the first I had set myself out to capture his goodwill. An odd circumstance, to be told presently, affected this beyond my expectation. But even in early days we made a friendly pair to be a prisoner and his jailer. I should trifle with my conscience if I pretended my stay upon the bass was wholly disagreeable. It seemed to me a safe place, as though I was escaped there out of my troubles. No harm was to be offered me. A material impossibility, rock in the deep sea, prevented me from fresh attempts. I felt I had my life safe and my honor safe, and there were times when I allowed myself to gloat on them like stolen waters. At other times my thoughts were very different. I recalled how strong I had expressed myself both to rank and keeler and to steward. I reflected in my captivity upon the bass, in view of a great part of the coasts of Pfeife and Lothan, was a thing I should be thought more likely to have invented than endured, and in the eyes of these two gentlemen at least I must pass for a boaster and a coward. Now I would take this lightly enough, tell myself that so long as I stood well with Katrina Drummond the opinion of the rest of man was but moonshine and spilled water, and thence pass off into those meditations of a lover which are so delightful to himself and must always appear so surprisingly idle to a reader. But anon the fear would take me otherwise. I would be shaken with a perfect panic of self-esteem, and these opposed hard judgments appear an injustice impossible to be supported. With that another train of thought would be presented, and I had scarce begun to be concerned about men's judgments of myself, and I was haunted with the remembrance of James Stewart in his dungeon, in the lamentations of his wife. Then indeed passion began to work in me. I could not forgive myself to sit there idle. It seemed, if I were a man at all, that I could fly or swim out of my place of safety, and it was in such humours and to amuse myself reproaches that I would set the more particularly to win the good side of Andy Dale. At last when we two were alone on the summit of the rock on a bright morning, I put in some hint about a bribe. He looked at me, cast back his head, and laughed out loud. I, you're funny, Mr. Dale, said I, but perhaps if you'll glance an eye upon that paper you may change your note. The stupid Highlanders had taken from me at the time of my seizure nothing but hard money, and the paper I now showed Andy was an acknowledgment from the British linen company for a considerable sum. He read it. Truth and your name see it off, he said. I thought that would maybe vary your opinion, said I. Orts, said he, it shows me you can bribe, but I am known not to be a bribe. You'll see about that yet a while, says I. At first I'll show you that I know what I'm talking. You have orders to detain me here until after Thursday, 21st September. You're no altogether wrong, either, says Andy, to elect you gong, bar orders contraire, on Saturday the 23rd. I could not but feel there was something extremely insidious in this arrangement, that I was to reappear precisely in time to be too late would cast the more discredited on my tail if I reminded to tell one, and this screwed me to fighting point. Now then, Andy, you that kins the world, listen to me, and think while ye listen, said I. I know there are great folks in the business, and I make no doubt you have their names to go upon. I have seen some of them myself, since the affair began, and said my say to their faces, too. But what kind of crime would this be that I had committed, or what kind of a process is this that I'm fallen under? To be apprehended by some bragged John Highlandman on August 30th, carried to a wrinkle of a stone that is now neither fort nor jail, whatever it once was, but just the gamekeeper's lodge of the Bass Rock, and set free against September 23rd, as secretly as I was first arrested. Does that sound like law to you? Or does it sound like justice? Or does it not sound honestly like a piece of some low, dirty intrigue of which the very folk that meddle with it are ashamed? I kind of gain say ye shawds. A looks on co-underhand, said Andy, and when ay the folks good sound wigs and true-blood presbyterians I would have seen them not Jordan or Jerusalem, or I would have said a hand to it. The master of love it'll be of raw wig, said I, and a grand presbyterian. I can nothing by him, said he. I had nay drarkens with lovets. No, it'll be Preston grains that you'll be dealing with, said I. Ah, but I know tell ye that, said Andy. Little need when I can, was my retort. There's just the nay thing ye can be fairly sort of, shawds, says Andy, and that is that triager, please. I'm no dealing with yourself, nor yet I am a going to, he added. Well, Andy, I see I'll have to speak out plain with you, I replied, and told him so much as I thought needful of the facts. He heard me out with some serious interest, and when I had done, seemed to consider a little with himself. Shawds, he said at last, I'll deal with the naked hand. It's a queer tale, and I'm no very credible in the way you tell it, and I far frame into that it is other than the way ye believe it. Just for yourself, ye seem to me rather a decent-like young man. But me, that's older and more judicious, say perhaps we bet farther for it in the job than what ye can day. And here, the matter clear and plain to ye. There'll be no skateth to yourself, if I keep ye here. Far free that. I think I'll be a hunt handful better by it. There'll be naysketh to the country. Just as a merry huntman hang'd, good kins, good riddance. On the other hand, it would be a considerable skateth to me, if I would let you free. Say, speaking as a gild, wig, an honest free unto you, and an anxious free unto thine self, the plain fact is that ye'll just have to buy it here where Andy and the Solans. Andy, said I, laying my hand upon his knee, this Highlidman's innocent. I, it's a pretty about that, said he. But ye see, in this world, the way God made it, we kind of just get a thing that we want. CHAPTER XV CHAPTER XV BLACK ANDY'S TALE OF TOD LAPRICK I have yet said little of the Highlinders. They were all three of the followers of James Moore, which bound the accusation very tight about their master's neck. All understood a word or two of English, but Neil was the only one who judged he had enough of it for general converse, in which, when once he got embarked, his company was often tempted to the contrary opinion. They were tractable, simple creatures, showed much more courtesy than might have been expected from their raggedness and their uncouth appearance, and fell spontaneously to be like three servants for Andy and myself. Dwelling in that isolated place and the old fallen ruins of a prison, and among endless strange sounds of the sea and the sea-birds, I thought I perceived him there merrily the effects of superstitious fear. There was nothing doing. They would either lie and sleep, for which their appetite appeared insatiable, or Neil would entertain the others with stories which seemed always of a terrifying strain. If neither of these delights were within reach, if perhaps two were sleeping and the third can find no means to follow their example, I would see him sit and listen and look about him in a progression of uneasiness, starting, his face blenching, his hands clutched, a man strong like a bow. The nature of these fears I had never an occasion to find out, but the sight of them was catching, and the nature of the place that we were in favorable to alarms. I can find no word for it in the English, but Andy had an expression for it in the Scots, from which he never varied. I, he would say, is an unco place, the bass. It is so I always think of it. It was an unco place by night, unco by day, and these were unco sounds of the calling of the solans and the splash of the sea and the rock echoes that hung continually in our ears. It was chiefly so in moderate weather. When the waves were away great, they roared about the rock like thunder and the drums of armies, dreadful, but merry to hear. And it was in the calm days that a man could daunt himself with listening, not a Highland man only, as I several times experimented on myself, so many still, hollow noises haunted and reverberated in the porches of the rock. This brings me to a story I heard, and a scene I took part in, which quite changed our terms of living, and had a great effect on my departure. It chanced one night I fell in a muse beside the fire, and that little air of alans coming back to my memory began to whistle. A hand was laid upon my arm, and the voice of Neil bade me to stop, for it was not canny music. Not canny, I asked, how can that be? Nass, said he, it will be made by a bogeliner wanting to be heard upon his body. Well, said I, there can be no boggles here, Neil, for it's not likely they would fash themselves to frighten geese. Aye, said Andy, is that what you think of it? Well, I can tell you there's been war, no boggles there. What's worth in boggles, Andy? Said I. Warlocks, said he, or a warlock at the least of it. And that's a queer tale, too, he added. And if you would like, I'll tell it ye. To be sure, we were all of the one mind, and even the highlender that had the least English of the three set himself to listen with all his might. The tale of Todd Laparick. My father, Ertham Dale, peace to his bones, was a wild splorn lad in his young days with little wisdom and little grace. He was fond of a lass, and fond of a glass, and fond of a randam. But I could never hear tell that he was muckled use for honest employment. Pray a thing to another, he listed at last for a soldier, and was in the gutterson of this fort, which was the first way the donly of the dales came to set foot upon the bass, sore upon that service. The governor brewed his anail, and it seems that it was the worst conceivable. The rock was provisioned free in the shore with rivers. The thing was ill-guided, and there were wiles when they but to fish and shoot solans for their diet, to crown and there was the days of the persecution. The parish and called chalmers were all occupied with sants and martyrs, the salt of the earth for which it was named worthy. And though Tom Dale carried a firelock there, a single soldier, and liked a lass and a glass, as I was saying, the mind of the man was margist and set with his position. He had glints of the glory of the Kirk. There were wiles when his dander raised to see the large saints misguided, and shame covered him that he should be a holden, a candle, or carrying a firelock in so black a business. There were nights of it when he was here on sentry. The place so wish it, the frosts so winter may be riven in the ways. And he would hear any or the prisoners strike up a psalm, and the rest join in. And the blessed sounds rising from the different chalmers, or dungeons I would rather say. So that this old Craig in the sea was like a part of heaven. Black shame was on his soul. His sins hovered before him, muckled as the bass. And above it, that chief sin, that he should have a hand in haggen and hashing at Christ's Kirk. But the truth is that he resisted the spirit. They came, and there were the rousing companions, and his gold reserves departed. In their days dwelled upon the bass a man of God. Payton the prophet was his name. You'll have heard tell of prophet Payton. There was never the while of him since. And it's a question with many if there ever was his like before. He was a wild peat hag, fearsome to look at, fearsome to hear, his face like the day of judgment. The voice of him was like a solans, and dintle it in his folk's lungs, and the words of him like coals of fire. Now, there was a lass on the rock, and I think she had little to do, for it was no place for decent women. But it seemed she was Bonnie, and her, and Tam Dale were very well agreed. It befell that Payton was in the garden, his lane at the praian, when Tam and the lass came by. And what should the lass he do, but mock was laughter at the saint's devotions? He rose and looked at the toa of them, and Tam's knees connoitered together at the look of him. But when he spec, it was married in sorrow that in anger. Perth thing, Perth thing, says he, and it was the lass he looked at. I hear you scurl and laugh, he says, but the lord has a dead shot prepared for you. And at that surprise and judgment, you shall scurl but the a time. Shortly thereafter, she was dwandering on the crags, which were three soldiers, and it was a barley day. There came a ghost of wind, clotted by the coats, and away with her bag and baggage. And it was remarked by the soldiers that she guide with a scurl. And I doubt this judgment had some which upon Tam Dale, but it passed again, and him none the better. I day he was fighting with another soldier lad, Dale Hayme, quote Tam, for he is a profane swearer. And there was Peddon glowering at him, gash and waffle. Peddon with his lame jeffs and Lutnian, and Maud happed about his kiss, and the hand of him held out with the black nails upon the fingernails, for he had no care of the body. Five, five, poor man, Christy, the poor, fool man. Dale Hayme, quote he, and I see the deal at his oxter. The conviction of guilt and grace came in on Tam like the deep sea. He flung down the pike that was in his hands. I will nermare lift arms against the cause of Christ, says he, and was as good as his word. There was a sky-fike in the beginning, but the governor, saying him resolved, guide him his discharge. And he went and dwelt and married in North Berwick. Had I a good name with honest folks free that day on. And it was in the year 1706 that the bass came in the hands of the Del Rimperels. And there was Trois men such the charge of it. Both were well qualified, for they had both been soldiers in the garrison, and can't the gate to handle solans and the seasons and the values of them. For by that they were both, or they both seemed honest professors and men of common conversation. The first of them was just Tam Dale, my father. The second was an laparic, whom the folks called Todd Laparick Mercery. But whether his name or his nature, I could never tell. Well, Tam gave to see Laparick upon his business and took me that was a toddler laddie by the hand. Todd has his dwelling in the Long Lone be north the Kirk Yard as a dark uncanny lone, for by that the Kirk has I had an ill name since the days of James the Sexth. And the Deverls cantrips played in when the queen was on the seas. And as for Todd's house, it was in the Marke's den and was little liked by some that came to the best. The door was on the snack that day, and me and my father get stretch in. Todd was a webster to his trade. His loom stood in the butt. There he sat, a muckl fat, white hash of a man like Christ, with a kind of a holy smile that got me schooner. The hand of him I called the shuttle. But his inn was streaked. We cried to him by his name. We scurled in the dyed lug of him. We shook him by the shoulder. Nay manor a service. There he sat on his dope and called the shuttle and smiled like Christ. God be good to us, says Tamendale. This is no candy. He had Jim said the word when Todd Laprock came to himself. Is this you, Tam, says he? Hey, man, I'd like to see you. A while's fun to the bidwam like this, says he, is free the stomach. We already began to crack about the bass, and which of them, while, was to get the warden of it. And little by little came to very ill words and twined in anger. I might will that as my father and me get home again, he came over and over the same expression. How little we liked Todd Laprock and his dwams. I think for have burnt for dwams like John. A while my father got the bass and Todd had to go warden. It was remembered since then that way he had attained the thing. Tam, says he, he have gotten the better of me, unsmarrow, and I hope, says he, he'll find at least as that he expected at the bass. Which have since been thought remarkable expressions. Alas, the time came for Tam Dale to take young solans. This was a business he was well used with. He had been a craigsman for a laddie, and Tristan and but himself. So, there was he hanging by a line, Spellerin on the craig face, where it's highest and straightest. For our twenty lads were on the tap, hauled in the line, and minded for his signals. But where Tam hung, there was nothing but the craig, and the sea below, and the solans skirling and flying. It was a bra spring-born, and Tam whistled as he clot in the young geese. Many's the time I heard him tell of this experience, and I, the sweat ran upon the man. It chanced you see that Tam keeled up, and he was aware of a muckled solan, and the solan piking at the line. He thought this by ordinary, and outside the creature's habits. He minded that ropes were uncousuf things, and the solan's neb and the bass-rock uncou-hard, and the twa-hundred feet were rather marred than he would care to fall. Shoe says Tam, a way-bird, shoe a way-wee, says he. The solan kick it down into Tam's face, and there was something uncou in the creature's eye. Just the eye-creak it cried, and back to the rope. But now it watched, and worse-led like a thing demented. There never was a solan maid that watched as that solan watched, and it seemed to understand its employ-brally, burzing the shaft-rope between the neb-e-vit and the crunkle-jag-a-stone. There gagged a coal-stend of fear into Tam's heart. This thing is ne-bird, thinks he. His ear turned backward in his head, and a day-guide black about him. If I get it warm here, he touched. It's by with Tam Dale, and he signaled for the lads to pull him up. And it seemed the solan understood about signals. For ne sooner was a signal made than he let be the rope. Sprite his wings, squawked out-loud, took a turn flying and dashed straight at Tam Dale's hand. Tam had a knife, and he guard the coal-steel glitter. And it seemed the solan understood about knives, for ne sooner did the steel glint in the sun, than he guide the ace-quack but lighter, like a body disappointed, and flagged off about the roundness of the craig, and Tam saw him ne-mer. And as soon as that thing was gone, Tam had draped upon his shoulder, and they pulled him up like a dyed corp, daddling on the craig. A dram of brandy, which he never went without, brought him to his mind or what was left of it. Up he sat. Her and Jordy ran to the boat, make sure of the boat man ran, he cries, or Jan solan will have it a ways, at sea. The four lads stared at either and tried to willy-wire him to be quiet. But nothing would satisfy Tam Dale, till one of them had started on head to stand sentry on the boat. The others asked if he was for down again. Ah, says he. And neither you nor me, says he. And as soon as I can win to stand on my trois-feet, we'll be off for this craig as swat'n. Sure enough, nay, time was lost, and that was all muckl. For before they won to North Berwick, Tam was in a crying fever. He lay at the simmer, and what was say kind is some spearing for him. But Todd Laparick. Folk thought afterwards that, it like a time Todd came near the house, the fever had worsened. I canner for that, but what I can the best. That was the end of it. It was about this time of the year. My grandfather was out at the white fishing. And like a bear, nay, but two gang with him. We had a grand take, I mind, in the way that the fish lay brought his nearing by the bass, where we foregathered with another boat that belonged to a man, Sandy Fletcher, in Castleton. He know Lang died neither, nor ye could spear it himself. Will Sandy hailed? What's yawn on the bass, says he. On the bass, says grandfather. Eyes, says Sandy, on the green side of it. One kind of a thing, says grandfather. There can't be nothing on the bass, but just the sheep. It looks on cold like a body, quote Sandy, who was nearer in. A body, says we, and we none of us like that. For there was nay boat that could have brought a man, and the key of the prison he had hung or my father's at home in the press bed. We kept the twa boats close for company and crappin' nearer hand. Grandfather had a glass, for he had been a sailor and captain of a smack, and had lost her on the sands of Tay. And when we took the glass to it, sure enough, there was a man. He was in a crunkle of greenbray, a wee below the chappel, and by his lee lane and loked and flang and danced like a daft quen at the waning. It's Todd, said grandfather, and passed the glass to Sandy. Aye, it's him, said Sandy. Or under the likeness of him, says grandfather. He smiles the difference, quote Sandy. Dale, though warlock, I'll try the gun at him, quote he. And rocked up a fouling piece that he, I carried, for Sandy was a notable famous shot in all that country. Hold your hand, Sandy, says grandfather. We must see clearer first, says he, or this may be a dear day's work on the both of us. Hold, said Sandy. This is the Lord's judgment, surely, and be damned to it, says he. Maybe I, and maybe no, says my grandfather, worthy man. But have you a mind of the procreator of fiscal that I think you'll have forgettored with before, says he. This was all true when Sandy was a wee thing, said he. Are we a lady, says he, and what would be your way of it? Oh, just thus, says grandfather, let me that has the fastest boat going back to North Burwick, and let you bide here, and keep an eye on Thon. If I can a fine laparick, I'll join ye, and the two of us will have a crack with him. But if laparicks at him, I'll win up the flag at the harbor, and ye can try Thon thing with the gun. A wheel, so it was agreed between them two. I was just a baron, and clumb in Sandy's boat, where I thought I would see the best of the employ. My grand sire gave Sandy a cellar test to put in his gun with the ladrapes being meridately against bogels. And then, as the boat set off for North Burwick, and the tither lay war as it was, and watched in one chancy thing on the brayside. At the time we lay there, it lopped, and flung, and gapered in span like a teetotem, and while as we could hear its skellage as it span. I has seen lassies, the daft queens, and would lope and dance at winter's night, and still it'd be loping and dancing when the winter's day came in. But there would be folk there to hull them company, and the lads to egg them on, and this thing was its lee lane. And there would be a fiddler diddling his eye block in the chimney side, and this thing had nay music, but the scurling of the solans. And the lassies were bits of young things, with the real life diddling and stendling in their members. And this was a muckl, fat, cresci-man, and him fan in the veil of years. Say what you like. I'm on say what I believe. It was joy in the creature's heart, the joy of hell, I dare say, joy whatever. Money had time, I have asked myself why witches and warlock should sell their souls. Wilk are their mist dear possessions, and we old, duddy, and wrinkled wives are old, feckless, daughtered men. And then I mined upon tod laprex dancing at the hours by his lane in the black glory of his heart. Nay doubt they burn for it muckl in hell, but they have a grand time here of it, whatever, and the Lord forgive us. Well, at the hinder end we saw the we flag your cup at the mast head upon the harbour rocks. That was a sandy waited for. He upward a gun took a deliberate aim and pulled the trigger. There came a bang and then a waveful scurl fray the bass. And there we were rubbing our in and looking at either like daft folks. For with the bang and the skill the thing had clean disappeared. The sun glinnent and wound blue and there was the bear yard where the wonder had been low pining and flinging but a second sign. The hail way home I roared and grat with the terror of that dispensation. The grand folk were nay say muckl better. There was little said in sandy's boat but just the name of God. And when we went in by the pier the harbour rocks were fair black with the folks waiting us. It seems they had fun laprex in an of his dwarves cawing the shuttle and smiling. A lad they sent to hoist the flag and the rest abode there in the Webster's house. You may be sure they liked it little but it was a means of grace to several that stood their praying in to themselves for nankered to pray out loud and looking on thon awesome thing as it cod the shuttle. Sign upon us suddenly and with the eyed dreadful skellich Todd sprang up fray his hinder-lens and fell forth on the wab a bloody corpse. When the corpse was examined the lad drab's nady played buff upon the warlock's body. Sorrow a lad drab was to be found but there was grandfather Siller Tester in the puddock's heart of him. Andy had scarcely done when there befell a mighty silly affair that had its consequence. Neil, as I have said, was himself a great narrator. I have heard since that he knew all the stories in the highlands and thought much of himself and was thought much of by others on the strength of it. Oh, Andy's tale reminded him of one he had already heard. She would kin the story of four, said he. She was the story of Ustelmore and McGay-Fleherig and the gravure-vor. It is no such thing, cried Andy. It is a story of my father, now a god, and Todd Laparick and the same in your beards as he and keep the tongues of ye highlands shafts. In dealing with highlanders it will be found and has been shown in history how well it goes with lowlander gentlefolk. But the thing appears scarce feasible for lowland commons. I had already remarked that Andy was continually on the point of quarreling with our three McGregors and now, sure enough, it was to come. There will be no winners too used to, gentlemen's, said Neal. Shantelmen's, cried Andy, Shantelmen's ye highlands stot if God would give ye the grace to see yourself the way that others see ye ye would throw your dinner up. There came some kind of a Gaelic oath from Neal and the black knife was in his hand that moment. There was no time to think and I caught the highlander by the leg and had him down in his armed hand pinned out. Before I knew what I was doing. His comrades spanked to rescue him and Andy and I were without weapons and the Gragara three to two. It seemed we were beyond salvation when Neal screamed in his own tongue ordering the others back and made his submission to myself in a manner of the most object. Even giving me up his knife, which, upon a repetition of this promise, I returned to him on the morrow. Two things I saw plain. The first, that I must not build too high on Andy, who had shrunk against the wall and stood there as pale as death till the affair was over. The second, the strength of my own position with the highlanders, who must have received extraordinary charges to be tender of my safety. But if I thought Andy came not very well out in courage, I had no fault to find with him upon the account of gratitude. It was not so much that he troubled me with thanks as that his whole mind and manner appeared changed. And, as he preserved ever after a great timidity of our companions, he and I were yet more constantly together. CHAPTER 16 THE MISSING WITNESS On the seventeenth the day I was tristed with the writer, I had much rebellion against fate. The thought of him waiting in the king's arms and of what he would think and what he would say when next we met tormented and oppressed me. The truth was unbelievable. So much I had to grant. And it seemed cruel hard that I should be posted as a liar and a coward and have never consciously omitted what it was possible that I should do. I repeated this form of words with a kind of bitter relation, reexamined in that light the steps of my behavior. It seemed I had behaved to James Stewart as a brother might. All the past was a picture that I could be proud of. And it was only the present to consider. I could not swim the sea nor yet fly in the air. But there was always Andy. I had done him a service, he liked me. I had a lever there to work on. If it were just for decency I must try once more with Andy. It was late afternoon. There was no sound in all the bass but the lap and bubble of a very quiet sea. And my four companions were all crept apart, the three McGregors higher on the rock, and Andy with his Bible to a sunny place among the ruins. There I found him in deep sleep and, as soon as he was awake, appealed to him with some fervor of manner and a good show of argument. If I thought it was to do good to ye Shahs, said he, staring at me over his spectacles, it's to save another, said I. And to redeem my word, what would be more good than that? Do ye not mind the scripture, Andy, and you with the book upon your lap? What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world? I, said he, that's grand for you but where do I come in? I have my word to redeem the same's yourself. And what are ye asking me to do but just to sell it ye for silver? Andy, have I named the name of silver? cried I. Oh, the name's nothing, said he. The thing is there, whatever. It just comes to this. If I am to serve as ye in the way that ye propose, I'll lose my livelihood. Then it's clear you'll have to make it up to me and to pick a mar for your end credit like. And what's that but just a bribe? Even I were certain of the bribe but by that I can learn. It's far fray that. And if you were to hang, where would I be? Nay, the thing's no possible. Just away with ye like a bonny lad and let Andy read his chapter. I remember I was at the bottom of a good deal gratified with this result and the next tumor I fell into was one, I had near said, of gratitude to Preston Grange who had saved me in this violent illegal manner out of the midst of my dangers, temptations and perplexities. But this was both too flimsy and too cowardly to last me long and the remembrance of James began to succeed to the possession of my spirits. The 21st, the day set for the trial, I passed in such misery of mind as I can scarce recall to have endured, save perhaps upon I'll errand only. Much of the time I lay on a brayside betwixt to sleep and waking, my body motionless, my mind full of violent thoughts. Sometimes I slept indeed, but the courthouse of invirorary and the prisoner glancing on all sides to find his missing witness followed me in slumber and I would wake again with a start to darkness of spirit and distress of body. I thought Andy seemed to observe me, but I paid him little heed. Verily my bread was bitter to me and my days a burden. Early the next morning, Friday the 22nd, a boat came with provisions and Andy placed a packet in my hand. The cover was without address, but sealed with a government seal. It enclosed two notes. Mr. Balfour could now see for himself it is too late to meddle. His conduct will be observed and his discretion rewarded. Mr. Balfour ran the first which seemed to be laboriously writ with the left hand. There was certainly nothing in these expressions to compromise the writer even if that person could be found. The seal, which formatively served instead of signature, was affixed to a separate sheet on which there was no scratch of writing. And I had to confess that so far my adversaries knew what they were doing and to digest as well as I was able to accept that peeped under the promise. But the second enclosure was by far the most surprising. It was in a lady's hand of writ. Master David Balfour, his informed of friend, was sparing for him and her eyes were of the gray it ran. And seemed so extraordinary a piece to come to my hands at such a moment and under such cover of government seal that I stood stupid. The treinist's gray eyes shone in my remembrance. I thought with a bound of pleasure she must be the friend. But who should the writer be to have her billet thus enclosed with Preston granges? And of all wonders, why was it thought needful to give me this pleasing but most inconsequence intelligence upon the bass? For the writer, I could hit upon none possible except Miss Grant. Her family, I remembered, had remarked on Catriona's eyes and even named her for their color. And she herself had been much in the habit to address me with a broad pronunciation by way of a sniff, I supposed, at my resteticity. No doubt besides, but she lived in the same house as this letter came from. So there remained but one step to be accounted for. That was how Preston Grange should have permitted her at all in an affair so secret or let her daft like billet go in the same cover with his own. But here I had a glimmering. For first of all, there was something rather alarming about the young lady, and Papa might be more under her domination than I knew. And second, there was the man's continual policy to be remembered how his contact had been continually mingled with caresses. And he had scarce ever in the midst of so much contention laid aside a mask of friendship. He must conceive that my imprisonment had incensed me. Perhaps this little jesting, friendly message was intended to disarm my rancor? I will be honest. I think it did. I felt a sudden warmth toward that beautiful misgrant that she should stoop to so much interest in my affairs. The summoning up of Katrina moved me of itself to milder and more cowardly counsels. If the advocate knew of her and our acquaintance, if I should please him by some of that discretion at which his letter pointed, to what might not this lead? In vain is the net prepared in sight of any foul, the scripture says. Well, fouls must be wiser than folk, for I thought I perceived the policy and yet fell in with it. I was in this frame, my heart beating, the gray eyes plain before me like two stars, when Andy broke in upon my musing. I see, he has got good news, said he. I found him looking curiously in my face. With that there came before me like a vision of James Stewart in the court of Inverary, and my mind turned at once like a door upon its hinges. Trials, I reflected, sometimes draw out longer than is looked for. Even if I came to Inverary just too late, something might yet be attempted in the interests of James, and in those of my own character, the best would be accomplished. In a moment it seemed without thought I had a plan devised. Andy, said I, is it still to be tomorrow? He told me nothing was changed. Was anything said about the hour? I asked. He told me it was to be two o'clock afternoon. And about the place I pursued. What in place? The place I am to be landed out, said I. He owned there was nothing as to that. Very well then, I said, this shall be mine to arrange. The wind is in the east, my road lies westward. Keep your boat, I hire it. Let us work up the forth all day, and land me at two o'clock tomorrow at the west most we can have reached. He daft call and he cried. He would trifle in verary after all. Just that, Andy, says I. Well, you're ill to be, says he. And I was kind of sorry for you a day yesterday, he added. You see, I was never entirely sure till then which way of it you really wanted. Here was a spur to a lame horse. A word in your ear, Andy, said I. This plan of mine has another advantage yet. We can leave these Highlandmen behind us on the rock. And one of your boats from the Castleton can bring them off tomorrow. John Neal has a queer eye when he regards you. Maybe if I was once out of the gate there might be knives again. These red shanks are uncool grudgeful. And if there should come to be any question, here is your excuse. Our lives were in danger by these savages. Being unanswerable for my safety, you chose the part to bring me from their neighborhood and detain me the rest of the time on board your boat. And do you know, Andy? Says I with a smile. I think it was very wisely chosen. The truth is I have no good for Neal, says Andy. Nor he for me I'm thinking. And I would like ill to come to my hands with a man. Tam Anster will make a better hand of it with the cattle only way. For his man Anster came from Fife where the Gaelic is still spoken. I, I, says Andy. Tam can deal with them the best and truth the more I think of it the less I see we would be required. The place, eh figs. They had forgot the place. Eh shaws. You're a Langhide shield when you like. For be that I mowing ye my life. He added with more salinity and offered me his hand upon the bargain. Whereupon, with scarce more words, we stepped suddenly on board the boat, cast off and set the lug. The Grigara were then busy upon breakfast for the cookery was their usual part. But one of them, stepping to the battlements, our flight was observed before we were twenty fathoms from the rock, and the three of them ran about the ruins and the landing shelf for all the world like ants about a broken nest, hailing and crying on us to return. We were still in both the lee and the shadow of the rock, which last lay broad upon the waters, but presently came forth in almost the same moment into the wind and sunshine. The sail filled and the boat healed to the gunnel, and we swept immediately beyond sound of the men's voices. To what terrors they endured upon the rock, where they were now deserted without the countenance of any civilized person, or so much as the protection of a Bible, no limit can be set, nor have they any brandy left to be their consolation, for even in the haste and secrecy of our departure Andy had managed to remove it. It was our first care to set Anster ashore in a cove by the Glentithi rocks so that the deliverance of our maroons might be duly seen to the next day, since we kept away up first. The breeze, which was then so spirited, swiftly declined, but never wholly failed us. All day we kept moving, though often not much more. And it was after dark ere we were up with the Queensferry. To keep the letter of Andy's engagement, or what was left of it, I must remain on board, but I thought no harm to communicate with the shore in writing. On Preston Grange's cover, where the government seal must have a good deal surprised my correspondent, I writ, by the boat's lantern, a few necessary words. A board and Andy carried them to Rankinkeller. In about an hour he came again with a purse of money and the assurance that a good horse should be standing saddled for me by two tomorrow at Clackman and Poole. This done, in the boat riding by her stone anchor, we lay down to sleep under the sail. We were in the pool the next day long ere too, and there was nothing left for me but to sit and wait. I felt little of clarity upon my errand. I would have been glad of any passable excuse to lay it down, but none being to be found. My uneasiness was no less great than if I had been running to some desired pleasure. But shortly after one the horse was at the waterside, and I could see a man walking it to and fro till I should land, which vastly swelled my impatience. Andy ran the moment of my liberation very fine, showing himself a man of his bare word, but scarce serving his employers with a heaped measure. And by about fifty seconds after two I was in the saddle and on the full stretch for sterling. And a little more than an hour I had passed that town and was already mounting Alan waterside when the weather broke in a small tempest. The rain blinded me, the wind had nearly beat me from the saddle, and the first darkness of the night surprised me in a wilderness still some way east of all wither, not very sure of my direction and mounted on a horse that began already to be weary. In the press of my hurry and to be spared the delay and annoyance of a guide, I had followed so far as were possible for any horseman the line of my journey with Alan. This I did with open eyes for seeing a great risk in it which the tempest had now brought to a reality. The last that I knew of where I was, I think it must have been about Yom Vahre, the hour perhaps six at night. I must still think at great good fortune that I got about eleven to my destination, the house of Duncan Dew, where I had wandered in the interval perhaps the horse could tell. I know we were twice down and once over the saddle and for a moment carried away in a roaring burn. Steed and rider were be mired up to the eyes. From Duncan I had news of the trial. It was followed in all these highland regions with religious interest. News of it spread from Inverary as swift as men could travel. And I was rejoiced to learn that, up to a late hour that Saturday, it was not yet concluded. And all men began to suppose it must spread over the Monday. Under the spur of this intelligence I would not sit to eat. But Duncan having agreed to be my guide took the road again on foot with a piece in my hand and munching as I went. Duncan brought with him a flask of Usenbaugh and a hand lantern, which last enlightened us just so long as we could find houses where to rekindle it. For the thing leaked outrageously and blew out with every gust. The more part of the night we walked blindfolded among sheets of rain and they found us aimless on the mountains. Hard by we struck a hut on a burned side, where we got a bite and a direction. And a little before the end of the sermon came to the cook doors of Inverary. The rain had somewhat washed the upper parts of me, but I was still bogged as high as to the knees. I streamed water. I was so weary I could hardly limp. And my face was like a ghost's. I stood certainly more in need of a change of raiment and a bed to lie on than of all the benefits in Christianity. For all which, being persuaded, the chief point for me was to make myself immediately public, I set the door of the church with my dirty Duncan at my tails and finding a vacant place sat down. Certainly, my brethren, and in parentheses, the law itself must be regarded as a means of grace. The minister was saying in the voice of one delighting to pursue an argument. The sermon was in English on account of the Aziz. The judges were present with their armed attendants and the halberts glittered in a corner by the door and the seats were thronged beyond custom with the array of lawyers. The text was in Romans 5th and 13th. The minister a skilled hand and the whole of that able churchful from Argyle and my Lord's elches and Kilkernan down to the halberten men that came in their attendants was sunk with gathered brows and a profound critical attention. The minister himself and a sprinkling of those about the door observed our entrance at the moment and immediately forgot the same. The rest either did not hear or would not hear or would not be heard and I sat amongst my friends and enemies unremarked. The first that I singled out was Preston Grange. He sat well forward like an eager horseman in the saddle. His lips moving with relish, his eyes glued on the minister. The doctrine was clearly to his mind. Charles Stewart, on the other hand, was half asleep. I looked harassed and pale. As for Simon Frazier, he appeared like a blot and almost a scandal in the midst of that attentive congregation digging his hands and his pockets, shifting his legs, clearing his throat and rolling up his bald eyebrows and shooting out his eyes to right and left, now with a yawn, now with a secret smile. At times too he would take the Bible in front of him, run it through, same to read a bit, run it through again, and stop and yawn prodigiously, the whole as if for exercise. In the course of this restlessness, his eyes alighted on myself. He sat a second, stupefied, then tore a half-leaf out of the Bible, scrawled upon it with a pencil and passed it with a whispered word to his next neighbor. The note came to Preston Grange, who gave me but the one look. Fence said voyage to the hands of Mr. Erskine. Fence again to Argyle, where he sat between the other two lords of session, and his grace turned and fixed me with an arrogant eye. The last of those interested in my presence was Charlie Stewart. And he too began to pencil and hand about dispatches, none of which I was able to trace to their destination in the crowd. But the passage of these notes had aroused notice. All who were in the secret, or suppose themselves to be so, were whispering information. The rest, questions. And the minister himself seemed quite discountenanced by the flutter in the church and sudden stir and whispering. His voice changed. He plainly faltered. Nor did he again recover the easy conviction and full tones of his delivery. It would be a puzzle to him till his dying day, why a sermon that had gone with triumph through four parts should thus miscarry in the fifth. As for me, I continued to sit there, very wet and weary, and a good deal anxious as to what should happen next, but greatly exulting in my success.