 CHAPTER XXII. THE FLIGHT IN THE HEATHER. THE MORE. From seven hours incessant hard travelling brought us early in the morning to the end of a range of mountains, in front of us there lay a piece of low broken desert land which we must now cross. The sun was not long up and shone straight in our eyes. A little thin mist went up from the face of the moorland like a smoke, so that, as Alan said, there might have been twenty squadrons of dragoons there and we none the wiser. We sat down, therefore, in a howl of the hillside till the mist should have risen and made ourselves a dish of drumach and held a council of war. "'David,' said Alan, "'this is a little bit. Shall we lie here till it comes night, or shall we risk it and stave on ahead?' "'Well,' said I, "'I am tired indeed, but I could walk as far again, if that was all.' "'I, but it isn't,' said Alan, "'nor yet the half. This is how we stand. Appens fair death to us. To the south it's all cambels, and not to be thought of. To the north, well, there's no muckled to be gained by going north, neither for you that wants to get to Queensferry, nor yet for me that wants to get to France. "'Well, then, we'll can strike east.' "'East be it,' says I, quite cheerily, but I was thinking in to myself, "'Oh, man, if you would only take one point of the compass and let me take any other, it would be the best for both of us.' "'Well, then, east you see, we have them yours,' said Alan. "'Once there, David, it's mere pitch and toss. Out on yon bald naked flat-place, where can a body turn to? Let the red-coats come over a hill, they can spy you miles away, and the sorrows and their horses' heels, they would soon ride you down. It's no good place, David, and I'm free to say it's worse by daylight than by dark.' "'Alan,' said I, "'hear my way of it. Appens death for us. We have none too much money, nor yet meal. The longer they seek, the nearer they may guess where we are. It's all a risk, and I give my word to go ahead until we drop.' Alan was delighted. "'There are wiles,' said he, when you are altogether too canny and wiggish to be company for a gentleman like me, but there come other wiles when you show yourself a metal spark, and it's then, David, that I love you like a brother.' The mist rose and died away, and showed us that country lying as waste as the sea. Between the moorfowl and the pee-wees crying upon it, and far over to the east a herd of deer moving like dots. Much of it was red with heather, much of the rest broken up with bogs and hags and peaty pools. Some had been burnt black in a heath fire, and in another place there was quite a forest of dead furs standing like skeletons. A weirier-looking desert man never saw. But at least it was clear of troops, which was our point. We went down accordingly into the waste, and began to make our toilsome and devious travel towards the eastern verge. There were the tops of mountains all round, you are to remember, from whence we might be spied at any moment, so it behooved us to keep in the hollow parts of the moor. And when these turned aside from our direction to move upon its naked face with infinite care. Sometimes, for half an hour together, we must crawl from one heather-bush to another, as hunters do when they are hard upon the deer. It was a clear day again, with a blazing sun, the water in the brandy-bottle was soon gone, and altogether, if I had guessed what it would be to crawl half the time upon my belly and to walk much of the rest stooping nearly to the knees, I should certainly have held back from such a killing enterprise. Toiling and resting, and toiling again, we wore away the morning, and about noon laid down in a thick bush of heather to sleep. Alan took the first watch, and it seemed to me I had scarce closed my eyes before I was shaken up to take the second. We had no clock to go by, and Alan stuck a sprig of heath in the ground to serve instead, so that as soon as the shadow of the bush should fall so far to the east, I might not arouse him. But I was by this time so weary that I could have slept twelve hours at a stretch. I had the taste of sleep in my throat. My joints slept even when my mind was waking. The hot smell of the heather, and the drone of the wild bees were like posits to me, and every now and again I would give a jump and find I had been dosing. The last time I awoke, I seemed to come back from farther away, and thought the sun had taken a great start in the heavens. I looked at the sprig of heath, and at that I could have cried aloud, for I saw I had betrayed my trust. My head was nearly burned with fear and shame, and at what I saw when I looked out around me on the moor. My heart was like dying in my body. For sure enough a body of horse soldiers had come down during my sleep, and were drawing near to us from the southeast, spread out in the shape of a fan, and riding their horses to and fro in the deep parts of the heather. When I awaked Allen he glanced first at the soldiers, then at the mark in the position of the sun, and knitted his brows with a sudden quick look, both ugly and anxious, which was all the reproach I had of him. What are we to do now? I asked. We'll have to play at being heirs, said he. Do you see Yon Mountain? Pointing to one on the northeastern sky. I, said I. Well then, says he, let us strike for that. Its name is Ben Alder. It is a wild desert mountain full of hills and hollows, and if we can win to it before the moor, we may do yet. But Allen, cried I, that will take us across the very coming of the soldiers. I ken that fine, said he. But if we are driven back on Apen, we are two dead men. So now, David Mann, be brisk. With that he began to run forward on his hands and knees with an incredible quickness, as though it was his natural way of going. All the time, too, he kept winding in and out in the lower parts of the moorland, where we were the best concealed. Some of these have been burned or at least scathed with fire, and there rose in our faces, which were close to the ground, a blinding, choking dust as fine as smoke. The water was long out, and this posture of running on the hands and knees brings an overmastering weakness and weariness, so that the joints ache and the wrists faint under your weight. Now and then indeed, where there was a big bush of heather, we lay a while, and planted, and putting aside the leaves looked back at the dragoons. They had not spied us, for they held straight on, a half troop, I think, covering about two miles of ground, and beating it mighty thoroughly as they went. I had awakened just in time, a little later, and we must have fled in front of them instead of escaping on one side. Even as it was, the least misfortune might betray us, and now and again, when a grouse rose out of the heather with a clap of wings, we lay as still as the dead and were afraid to breathe. The aching and faintness of my body, the laboring of my heart, the soreness of my hands, and the smarting of my throat and eyes, and the continual smoke of dust and ashes, had soon grown to be so unbearable that I would gladly have given up. Nothing but the fear of Alan let me enough of a false kind of courage to continue. As for himself, and you are to bear in mind that he was combered with a great coat. He had first turned crimson, but as time went on the redness began to be mingled with patches of white. His breath cried and whistled as it came, and his voice, when he whispered his observations in my ear during our halts, sounded like nothing human. Yet he seemed in no way dashed in spirits, nor did he at all abate in his activity so that I was driven to marvel at the man's endurance. At length, in the first gloaming of the night, we heard a trumpet sound, and looking back from among the heather, saw the troop beginning to collect, a little after they had built a fire and camped for the night, about the middle of the waste. At this I begged and besought that we might lie down and sleep. There shall be no sleep the night, said Alan. From now on these weary dragoons of yours will keep the crown of the mirror-land, and none will get out of appen but winged fowls. We got through in the nick of time, and shall we jeppered what we've gained? Nah, nah, when the day comes, it shall find you and me in a fast place on Ben Alder. Alan, I said, it's not the want of will, it's the strength that I want. If I could I would, but as sure as I'm alive I cannot. Very well, then, said Alan, I'll carry you. I looked to see if he were jesting, but no, the little man was in dead earnest, and the sight of so much resolution shamed me. Lead away, said I, I'll follow. He gave me one look as much as to say, well done, David, and off he set again at his top speed. It grew cooler and even a little darker, but not much, with the coming of the night. The sky was cloudless, it was still early in July, and pretty far north, and the darkest part of that night you would have needed pretty good eyes to read, but for all that I have often seen it darker in a winter midday. Heavy dew fell and drenched the moor like rain, and this refreshed me for a while. When we stopped to breathe, and I had time to see all about me, the clearness and sweetness of the night, the shapes of the hills like things asleep, and the fire dwindling away behind us, like a bright spot in the midst of the moor, anger would come upon me in a clap that I must still drag myself in agony and eat the dust like a worm. By what I have read in books I think few that have held a pen were ever really wearied, or they would write a bit more strongly. I had no care of my life, neither past nor future, and I scarce remembered there was such a lad as David Balfour. I did not think of myself but just of each fresh step which I was sure would be my last, with despair, and of Alan, who was the cause of it, with hatred. Alan was in the right trade as a soldier. This is the officer's part to make men continue to do things. They know not where for, and when, if the choice was offered, they would lie down where they were and be killed. And I daresay I would have made a good enough private, for in these last hours it never occurred to me that I had any choice but just to obey as long as I was able and die obeying. Day began to come in, after years, I thought, and by that time we were past the greatest danger and could walk upon our feet like men instead of crawling like brutes. But dear heart have mercy! What a pair we must have made, going double like old grandfathers, stumbling like babes, and as white as dead folk. Never a word passed between us. Each said his mouth and kept his eyes in front of him, and lifted up his foot and set it down again, like people lifting weights at a country play, all the while with the morphal crying peep in the heather, and the light coming slowly clearer in the east. I say Alan did as I did, not that ever I looked at him, for I had enough adieu to keep my feet, but because it is plain he must have been as stupid with weariness as myself, and looked as little where we were going, or we should not have walked into an ambush like blind men. It fell in this way. We were going down a heathery bray, Alan leading and I following a pace or two behind, like a fiddler and his wife. When upon a sudden the heather gave a rustle, three or four ragged men leaped out, and the next moment we were lying on our backs, each with a dirk at his throat. I don't think I cared. The pain of this rough handling was quite swallowed up by the pains of which I was already full, and I was too glad to have stopped walking to mind about a dirk. I lay looking up in the face of the man that held me, and I mind his face was black with a sun, and his eyes very light, but I was not afraid of him. I heard Alan and another whispering in the Gaelic, and what they said was all one to me. Then the dirks were put up, our weapons were taken away, and we were set face to face sitting in the heather. They are Clooney's men, said Alan, but couldn't have fallen better. We're just to bide here with these, which are his outcentries, till they can get word to the chief of my arrival. Now Clooney MacPherson, the chief of the clan Furch, had been one of the leaders of the great rebellion six years before. There was a price on his life, and I had supposed him long ago in France, with the rest of the heads of that desperate party. Even tired as I was, the surprise of what I heard half-wakened me. What! I cried. Is Clooney still here? Why, is he so? said Alan, still in his own country and kept by his own clan. King George can do no more. I think I would have asked farther, but Alan gave me the put-off. I am rather wearied, he said, and I would like fine to get a sleep. And without more words he rolled on his face in a deep heather bush, and seemed to sleep at once. There was no such thing possible for me. You have heard grasshoppers whirring in the grass in the summer time? Well, I had no sooner closed my eyes than my body, and above all my head, belly, and wrists, seemed to be filled with whirring grasshoppers, and I must open my eyes again at once, and tumble and toss, and sit up and lie down, and look at the sky which dazzled me, where at Clooney's wild and dirty sentries, peering out over the top of the bray and chattering to each other in the Gaelic. That was all the rest I had, until the messenger returned. When, as it appeared that Clooney would be glad to receive us, we must get once more upon our feet and set forward. He was an excellent good-spirits, much refreshed by his sleep, very hungry, and looking pleasantly forward to a dram in a dish of hot collops, of which it seems the messenger had brought him word. For my part it made me sick to hear of eating. I had been dead heavy before, and now I felt a kind of dreadful lightness which would not suffer me to walk. I drifted like a gossamer. The ground seemed to me a cloud, the hills a feather-weight, the air to have a current like a running burn which carried me to and fro. With all that a sort of horror of despair sat on my mind so that I could have wept at my own helplessness. I saw Allen knitting his brows at me, and supposed it was in anger, and that gave me a pang of light-headed fear, like what a child may have. I remember, too, that I was smiling and could not stop smiling hard as I tried, for I thought it was out of place at such a time. But my good companion had nothing in his mind but kindness, and the next moment two of the gillies had me by the arms, and I began to be carried forward with great swiftness, or so it appeared to me, although I daresay it was slowly enough in truth, through a labyrinth of dreary glens and hollows, and into the heart of that dismal mountain of Ben Alder. Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson Chapter 23 Clooney's Cage We came at last to the foot of an exceeding steep wood which scrambled up a craggy hillside and was crowned by a naked precipice. It's here, said one of the guides, and we struck up hill. The trees clung upon the slope like sailors on the shrouds of a ship, and their trunks were like the rounds of the ladder by which we mounted. Quite at the top, and just before the rocky face of the cliff sprang above the foliage, we found that strange house which was known in the country as Clooney's Cage. The trunks of several trees had been waddled across, the intervals strengthened with stakes, and the ground behind this barricade leveled up with earth to make the floor. A tree which grew out from the hillside was the living center beam of the roof. The walls were off-wattle and covered with moss. The whole house had something of an egg shape, and it half hung, half stood in that steep hillside thicket like a wasp's nest in a green hawthorn. Within it was large enough to shelter five or six persons with some comfort. A projection of the cliff had been cunningly employed to be the fireplace, and the smoke rising against the face of the rock, and being not dissimilar in color readily escaped notice from below. This was but one of Clooney's hiding-places. He had caves besides, and underground chambers in several parts of his country, and following the reports of his scouts he moved from one to another as the soldiers drew near or moved away. By this manner of living, and thanks to the affection of his clan, he had not only stayed all this time in safety while so many others had fled or been taken in slain, but stayed four or five years longer and only went to France at last by the express command of his master. There he soon died, and it is strange to reflect that he may have regretted his cage upon Ben Elder. When we came to the door he was seated by his rock chimney, watching a ghillie about some cookery. He was mighty plainly habited, with the knitted night-cap drawn over his ears, and smoked a foul-cutty pipe. For all that he had the manners of a king, and it was quite a sight to see him rise out of his place to welcome us. "'Well, Mr. Stewart, come away, sir,' said he, and bring in your friend that is yet identical in the name of. "'And how is yourself, Cluny?' said Allen. "'I hope you do brawly, sir, and I am proud to see you. I am to present to you my friend the Lard of Shaw's, Mr. David Balfour.' "'Alan never referred to my estate without a touch of a sneer, when we were alone, but with strangers he rang the words out like a herald.' "'Step in by, the both of you gentlemen,' says Cluny. "'I make you welcome to my house, which is a queer, rude place for certain, but one where I have entertained a royal personage, Mr. Stewart, yet doubtless can the personage I have in my eye. "'We'll take a dram for luck, and as soon as this handless man of mine has the callops ready, we'll dine and take a hand at the carts, as gentlemen should. "'My life is a bit dry,' he says he, pouring out the brandy. "'I see little company, and sit and twirl my thumbs, and mind upon a great day that is gone by, and weary for another great day that we all hope will be upon the road. So here's a toast to you, the restoration.' "'Thereupon we all touched glasses and drank. I am sure I wished no ill to King George, and if he had been there himself in proper person, it's like he would have done as I did. No sooner had I taken out the drain than I felt hugely better, and could look on and listen, still a little mistily, perhaps, but no longer with the same groundless horror and distress of mind. It was certainly a strange place, and we had a strange host. In his long hiding Clooney had grown to have all manner of precise habits, like those of an old maid. He had a particular place, where no one else must sit. The cage was arranged in a particular way, which none must disturb. Cookery was one of his chief fancies, and even while he was greeting us in he kept an eye to the colaps. It appears he sometimes visited or received visits from his wife and one or two of his nearest friends under the cover of night, but for the more part lived quite alone, and communicated only with his sentinels and the gillies that waited on him in the cage. The first thing in the morning one of them, who was a barber, came and shaved him, and gave him the news of the country, of which he was immoderately greedy. There was no end to his questions he put them as earnestly as a child, and at some of the answers laughed out of all bounds of reason, and would break out again laughing at the mere memory hours after the barber was gone. To be sure there might have been a purpose in his questions, for though he was thus sequestered, and like the other landed gentlemen of Scotland stripped by the late act of parliament of legal powers, he still exercised a patriarchal justice in his clan. Disputes were brought to him in his hiding-hole to be decided, and the men of his country, who would have snapped their fingers at the court of session, laid aside revenge and paid down money at the bare word of this forfeited and hunted-out law. When he was angered, which was often enough, he gave his commands and breathed threats of punishment like any king, and his guillies trembled and crouched away from him like children before a hasty father. With each of them, as he entered, he ceremoniously shook hands, both parties touching their bonnets at the same time in a military manner. Altogether I had a fair chance to see some of the inner workings of a Highling clan, and this was the proscribed fugitive chief, his country conquered, the troops riding upon all sides in quest of him, sometimes within a mile of where he lay, and when the least of the ragged fellows whom he raided and threatened could have made a fortune by betraying him. On that first day, as soon as the colapses were ready, Cluny gave them with his own hand a squeeze of a lemon, for he was well supplied with luxuries, and bait us draw in to our meal. They, said he, meaning the colapses, are such as I give his royal highness in this very house, baiting the lemon juice, for at that time we were glad to get the meat and never fast for kitchen. Indeed, there were larger goons than lemons in my country in the year forty-six. I do not know if the colapses were truly very good, but my heart rose against the sight of them, and I could eat but little. All the while Cluny entertained us with stories of Prince Charlie's stay in the cage, giving us the very words of the speakers, and rising from his place to show us where they stood. By these I gathered the prince was a gracious, spirited boy, like the son of a race of polite kings, but not so wise as Solomon. I gathered, too, that while he was in the cage he was often drunk, so the fault that has since, by all accounts, made such a wreck of him had even then begun to show itself. We were no sooner done eating that Cluny brought out an old, thumbed, greasy pack of cards, such as you may find in a mean inn, and his eyes brightened in his face as he proposed that we should fall to playing. Now this was one of the things I had been brought up to a shoe, like disgrace, it being held by my father neither the part of a Christian nor yet of a gentleman, to set his own livelihood and fish for that of others, on the cast of painted pace-board. To be sure I might have pleaded my fatigue, which was excuse enough, but I thought it behooved that I should bear a testimony. I must have got very red in the face, but I spoke steadily and told them I had no call to be a judge of others, but for my own part it was a matter in which I had no clearness. Cluny stopped mingling the cards. What in Del's name is this? says he. What kind of wiggish, canting talk is this for the house of Cluny MacPherson? I will put my hand in the fire for Mr. Balfour, says Alan. He is an honest and a metal gentleman, and I would have you bear in mind who says it. I bear a king's name, says he, cocking his hat, and I and any that I call friend or company for the best. But the gentleman is tired and should sleep. He has no mind to the carts. It will never hinder you and me, and I am fit and willing, sir, to play you any game that you can aim. Sir, says Cluny, in this poor house of mine I would have you to ken that any gentleman may follow his pleasure. If your friend would like to stand on his head, he is welcome. And if either he or you or any other man is not precisely satisfied, I would be proud to step outside with him. I had no will that these two friends should cut their throats for my sake. Sir, said I, I am very wearied, as Alan says, and what's more, as you are a man that likely has sons of your own, I may tell you it was a promise to my father. Say no more, say no more, said Cluny, and pointed me to a bed of heather in a corner of the cage. After all that he was displeased enough, looked at me a scance, and grumbled when he looked. And indeed it must be owned that both my scruples and the words in which I declared them smacked somewhat of the Coven-Enter, and were little in their place among wild Highland Jacobites. What were the brandy and the venison? A strange heaviness had come over me, and I had scarce lain down upon the bed before I fell into a kind of trance, in which I continued almost the whole time of our stay in the cage. Sometimes I was broad awake and understood what passed, sometimes I only heard voices, or men snoring, like the voice of a silly river, and the plads upon the wall dwindled down and swelled out again, like fire-light shadows on the roof. I must sometimes have spoken or cried out, for I remember I was now and then amazed at being answered, yet I was conscious of no particular nightmare, only of a general, black, abiding horror, a horror of the place I was in, and the bed I lay in, and the plads on the wall, and the voices, and the fire, and myself. The Barbara Gilley, who was a doctor too, was called in to prescribe for me, but as he spoke in the Gaelic I understood not a word of his opinion, and was too sick even to ask for a translation. I knew well enough I was ill, and that was all I cared about. I paid little heed while I lay in this poor pass, but Alan and Clooney were most of the time at the cards, and I am clear that Alan must have begun by winning, for I remember sitting up and seeing them hard at it, and a great glittering pile of as much as sixty or a hundred guineas on the table. It looked strange enough to see all this wealth and a nest upon it's cliff side, waddled about growing trees, and even then I thought it seemed deep water for Alan to be riding, who had no better battle horse than a green purse and a matter of five pounds. The luck, it seems, changed on the second day. About noon I was wakened as usual for dinner, and as usual refused to eat, and was given a dram with some bitter infusion which the Barbara had prescribed. The sun was shining in at the open door of the cage, and this dazzled and offended me. Clooney sat at the table, biting the pack of cards. Alan had stooped over the bed and had his face close to my eyes, to which, troubled as they were with the fever, it seemed of the most shocking bigness. He asked me for a loan of my money. What for? said I. Oh, just for a loan? said he. But why? I repeated. I don't see. What, David? said Alan. You wouldn't have grudged me alone. I would, though, if I had had my senses, but all I thought of then was to get his face away, and I handed him my money. On the morning of the third day, when we had been forty-eight hours in the cage, I awoke with a great relief of spirits. Very weak and weary indeed, but seeing things of the right size and with their honest, everyday appearance. I had a mind to eat, moreover, rose from bed of my own movement, and as soon as we had breakfasted, stepped to the entry of the cage and sat down outside in the top of the wood. It was a gray day, with a cool, mild air, and I sat in a dream all morning, only disturbed by the passing by of Clooney's scouts and servants coming with provisions and reports. For as the coast was at that time clear, you might almost say he held court openly. When I returned, he and Alan had laid the cards aside, and were questioning a ghillie, and the chief turned about and spoke to me in the Gaelic. I have no Gaelic, sir, said I. Now since the card question, everything I said or did had the power of annoying Clooney. Your name has more sense than yourself, then, said he angrily. For it's good, Gaelic, but the point is this. My scout reports all clear in the south, and the question is, have you got the strength to go? I saw cards on the table, but no gold, only a heap of little written papers, and these all on Clooney's side. Alan, besides, had an odd look, like a man not very well content, and I began to have a strong misgiving. I do not know if I'm as well as I should be, said I, looking at Alan, but the little money we have has a long way to carry us. Alan took his underlip into his mouth and looked upon the ground. David, says he at last, I've lost it. There's the naked truth. My money too, said I. Your money too, says Alan, with a groan. You should not have given it me. I'm daft when I get to the cards. Who toot, who toot, said Clooney. It was all daffing. It's all nonsense. Of course you'll have your money back again, and the double of it, if you'll make so free with me. It would be a singular thing for me to keep it. It's not to be supposed that I would be any hindrance to gentlemen in your situation. That would be a singular thing, cries he, and began to pull gold out of his pocket with a mighty red face. Alan said nothing, only looked on the ground. Will you step to the door with me, sir? said I. Clooney said he would be very glad and followed me readily enough, but he looked flustered and put out. And now, sir, says I, I must first acknowledge your generosity. Nonsensical nonsense, cries Clooney. Where's the generosity? This is just the most unfortunate affair. But what would you have me do? Boxed up in this bee-skip of a cage of mine, but just set my friends to the cards. When can I get them? And if they lose, of course it's not to be supposed. And here he came to a pause. Yes, said I. If they lose, you give them back their money, and if they win, they carry away yours and their pouches. I've said before that I grant your generosity, but to me, sir, it's a very painful thing to be placed in this position. There was a little silence in which Clooney seemed always as if he were about to speak, but said nothing. All the time he grew redder and redder in the face. I'm a young man, said I, and I ask your advice. Advise me as you would your son. My friend fairly lost his money after having fairly gained a far greater sum of yours. Can I accept it back again? Would that be the right part for me to play? Whatever I do, you can see for yourself it must be hard upon a man of any pride. It's rather hard on me too, Mr. Balfour," said Clooney, and you give me very much the look of a man that has entrapped poor people to their hurt. I wouldn't I have my friends come to any house of mind to accept a front's? No! He cried with a sudden heat of anger, nor yet to give them. And so you see, sir, said I, there is something to be set upon my side, and this gambling is a very poor employ for gentle folks. But I am still waiting your opinion. I am sure if ever Clooney hated any man it was David Balfour. He looked me all over with a warlike eye, and I saw the challenge at his lips. But either my youth disarmed him, or perhaps his own sense of justice. Certainly it was a mortifying matter for all concerned, and not least Clooney, more credit that he took it as he did. Mr. Balfour, said he, I think you are too nice and covenanting, but for all that you have the spirit of a very pretty gentleman. Upon my honest word, you may take this money, it's what I would tell my son, and here's my hand along with it. CHAPTER XXVIV. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. KIDNAPPED. By Robert Louis Stevenson. CHAPTER XXIV. THE FLIGHT IN THE HEATHER. THE QUARAL. Alan and I were put across Lak-Iraqt under Cloud of Night, and went down its eastern shore to another hiding-place near the head of Lak-Ranakh, wither we were led by one of the Gillies from the cage. This fellow carried all our luggage and Alan's great coat in the bargain, trotting along under the birthing, far less than the half of which used to weigh me to the ground, like a stout hillpony with a feather, yet he was a man that in plain contest I could have broken on my knee. Doubtless it was a great relief to walk disencumbered, and perhaps without that relief and the consequent sense of liberty and lightness I could not have walked at all. I was but new risen from a bed of sickness, and there was nothing in the state of our affairs to hearten me for much exertion, travelling as we did over the most dismal deserts in Scotland under a cloudy heaven and with divided hearts among the travellers. For long we said nothing, marching alongside or one behind the other, each with a set countenance. I angry and proud, and drawing what strength I had from these two violent and sinful feelings. Alan, angry and ashamed, ashamed that he had lost my money, angry that I should take it so ill. The thought of a separation ran always the stronger in my mind, and the more I approved of it, the more ashamed I grew of my approval. It would be a fine, handsome generous thing, indeed, for Alan to turn round and say to me, Go! I am in the most danger, and my company only increases yours. But for me to turn to the friend who certainly loved me and say to him, You are in great danger. I am in but little. Your friendship is a burden. Go! Take your risks and bear your hardships alone. No. That was impossible. And even to think of it, privily to myself, made my cheeks to burn. And yet Alan had behaved like a child, and what is worse, a treacherous child. Taking my money from me while I lay half-conscious was scarce better than theft, and yet here he was trudging by my side without a penny to his name, and by what I could see quite blithe the sponge upon the money he had driven me to beg. True, I was ready to share it with him, but it made me rage to see him count upon my readiness. These were the two things uppermost in my mind, and I could open my mouth upon neither without black ungenerosity. So I did the next worst, and said nothing, nor so much as looked once at my companion save with the tail of my eye. At last upon the other side of Lakh Erocht, going over a smooth rushy place where the walking was easy, he could bear it no longer and came close to me. David, says he, This is no way for two friends to take a small accident. I have to say that I'm sorry. And so that's said, and now if you have anything, you better say it. Oh, says I, I have nothing. He seemed disconcerted, at which I was meanly pleased. No, said he, with a rather a trembling voice, but when I say I was to blame. Why, of course you were to blame, said I, Cooley, and you will bear me out that I have never reproached you. Never, says he, But you can very well that you've done worse. Are we to part? You said so once before. Are you to say it again? There's hills and heather enough between here and the two seas, David, and I will own I'm no very keen to stay where I'm no wanted. This pierced me like a sword, and seemed to lay bare my private disloyalty. Alan Breck, I cried. And then— Do you think I am one to turn my back on you and your chief need? You durson't say it to my face, my whole conduct's there to give the lie to it. It's true, I fell asleep upon the mirror, but that was from weariness, and you do wrong to cast it up to me. Which is what I never did, said Alan. But aside from that, I continued, what have I done that you should even meet to dogs by such a supposition? I never yet failed a friend, and it's not likely I'll begin with you. There are things between us that I can never forget, even if you can. I will only say this to you, David, said Alan very quietly, that I have long been owing you my life, and now I owe you money. You should try to make that burden light for me. I sought to have touched me, and in the manner it did, but the wrong manner. I felt I was behaving, badly, and was now not only angry with Alan, but angry with myself and the bargain that made me the more cruel. You asked me to speak, said I. Well then, I will. You own yourself that you have done me a disservice. I have had to swallow in a front. I have never reproached you. I never named the thing till you did. And now you blame me, cried I, because I cannot laugh and sing as if I were glad to be affronted. The next thing will be that I am to go down upon my knees and thank you for it. You should think more of others, Alan Breck. If you thought more of others, you would perhaps speak less about yourself, and when a friend that likes you very well has passed over an offence without a word, you would be blithe to let it lie, instead of making it a stick to break his back with. By your own way of it it was you that was to blame, then it shouldn't have been you to seek the quarrel. We, said Alan, say no more. And we fell back into our former silence, and came to our journey's end, and supped, and lay down to sleep without another word. The ghillie put us across Lakrenach in the dusk of the next day, and gave us his opinion as to our best route. This was to get us up at once into the tops of the mountains to go round by a circuit, turning the heads of Glen Lyon, Glen Locke, and Glen Ducart, and come down upon the lowlands by Kippen and the upper waters of the Forth. Alan was little pleased with a route which led us through the country of his blood foes, the Glen Orchie Campbells. He objected that by turning to the east we should come almost at once among the Athol Stewards, a race of his own name and lineage, although following a different chief, and come besides by a far easier and swifter way to the place whither we were bound. But the ghillie, who was indeed the chief man of Clooney's scouts, had good reasons to give him on all hands, naming the force of troops in every district, and alleging, finally, as well as I could understand, that we should nowhere be so little troubled as in a country of the Campbells. Alan gave way at last, but with only half a heart. It's one of the douiest countries at Scotland, said he. There's nothing there that I can, but heath, and crows, and Campbells. But I see that you're a man of some penetration, and be it as you please. We set forth accordingly by this satinary, and for the best part of three nights travel on eerie mountains and among the well-heads of wild rivers, often buried and missed, almost continually blown and rained upon, and not once cheered by any clips of sunshine. By day we lay and slept in the drenching heather. By night incessantly clambered upon break-neck hills and among rude crags. We often wandered, we were often so involved in fog that we must lie quiet till it lightened. A fire was never to be thought of. Our only food was drum-ock and a portion of cold meat that we had carried from the cage, and as for drink, heaven knows we had no want of water. This was a dreadful time, rendered the more dreadful by the gloom of the weather and the country. I was never warm, my teeth chattered in my head, I was troubled with a very sore throat, such as I had on the isle, I had a painful stitch in my side which never left me, and when I slept in my wet bed with the rain beating above and the mood oozing below me, it was to live over again in fancy the worst part of my adventures, to see the tower of shaws lit by lightning, ransom carried below on the men's backs, shoo on dying on the roundhouse floor, or colon Campbell grasping at the bosom of his coat. From such broken slumbers I would be aroused in the gloaming to sit up in the same puddle where I had slept, and sup cold drum-ock, the rain driving sharp in my face, or running down my back in icy trickles, the mist enfolding us like as in a gloomy chamber, or perhaps if the wind blew, falling suddenly apart and showing us the gulf of some dark valley where the streams were crying aloud. The sound of an infinite number of rivers came up from all around. In this steady rain the springs of the mountains were broken up. Every glen gushed water like a cistern, every stream was in high spate, and had filled and overflowed its channel. During a night tramps it was solemn to hear the voice of them below in the valleys, now booming like thunder, now with an angry cry. I could well understand the story of the water kelpie, that demon of the streams, who was fabled to keep wailing and roaring at the ford until the coming of the doomed traveller. Alan I saw believed it, or half believed it, and when the cry of the river rose more than usually sharp I was little surprised, though of course I could still be shocked, to see him cross himself in the manner of the Catholics. During all these horrid wanderings we had no familiarity, scarcely even that of speech. The truth is that I was sickening for my grave, which is my best excuse. But besides that I was of an unforgiving disposition from my birth, slow to take offense, slower to forget it, and now incense both against my companion and myself. For the best part of two days he was unweariedly kind, silent indeed but always ready to help, and always hoping, as I could very well see, that my displeasure would blow by. For the same length of time I stayed in myself nursing my anger, simply refusing his services, and passing him over with my eyes as if he had been a bush or a stone. The second night, or rather the peep of the third day, found us upon a very open hill, so that we could not follow our usual plan and lie down immediately to eat and sleep. Before we had reached a place of shelter the grey had come pretty clear, for though it still rained the clouds ran higher, and Alan looking in my face showed some marks of concern. You had better let me take your pack, said he, for perhaps the ninth time since we had parted from the scout beside Lakranach. I do very well, I thank you, said I, as cold as ice. Alan flushed darkly. I'll not offer it again, he said. I'm not a patient man, David. I never said you were, said I, which was exactly the rude, silly speech of a boy of ten. Alan made no answer at the time, but his conduct answered for him. Henceforth it is to be thought, he quite forgave himself for the affair at Clooney's, cocked his hat again, walked jauntily, whistled heirs, and looked at me upon one side with a provoking smile. The third night we were to pass through the western end of the country of Balka Hitter. It came clear and cold, with a touch in the air like frost, and a northerly wind that blew the clouds away and made the stars bright. The streams were full, of course, and still made a great noise among the hills, but I observed that Alan thought no more upon the kelpie, and was in high good spirits. As for me, the change of weather came too late. I had lain in the mire so long that, as the Bible has it, my very clothes abhorred me. I was dead weary, deadly sick, and full of pains and shiverings. The chill of the wind went through me, and the sound of it confused my ears. In this poor state I had to bear from my companion something in the nature of a persecution. He spoke a good deal, and never without a taunt. Wig was the best name he had to give me. Here, he would say, here's a dub for you to jump, my wiggy. I can, you're a fine jumper. And so on, all the time with a guibing voice and face. I knew it was my own doing and no one else's, but I was too miserable to repent. I felt I could drag myself but little farther. Pretty soon I must lie down and die on these wet mountains like a sheep or a fox, and my bones must whiten there like the bones of a beast. My head was light, perhaps, but I began to love the prospect. I began to glory in the thought of such a death, alone in the desert, with the wild eagles besieging my last moments. Alan would repent then, I thought. He would remember when I was dead how much he owed me, and the remembrance would be torture. So I went like a sick, silly, and bad-hearted schoolboy, feeding my anger against a fellow man, when I would have been better on my knees crying on God for mercy. And at each of Alan's taunts I hugged myself, ah, thinks I to myself, I have a better taunt in readiness. When I lie down and die, you will feel it like a buffet in your face, ah, whatever avenge, ah, how you will regret your ingratitude and cruelty. All the while I was growing worse and worse. Once I had fallen, my legs simply doubling under me, and this had struck Alan for the moment, but I was afoot so briskly and set off again with such a natural manner that he soon forgot the incident. Flushes of heat went over me, and then spasms of shuddering. The stitch in my side was hardly bearable. At last I began to feel that I could trail myself no farther, and with that there came on me all at once the wish to have it out with Alan, let my anger blaze, and be done with my life in a more sudden manner. He had just called me wig. I stopped. Mr. Stuart, said I, in a voice that quivered like a fiddle string, you are older than I am, and should know your manners. Do you think it either very wise or very witty to cast my politics in my teeth? I thought, where folk differed, it was the part of gentlemen to differ civilly, and if I did not, I may tell you I could find a better taut than some of yours. Alan had stopped opposite to me, his hat cocked, his hands in his breeches' pockets, his head a little on one side. He listened, smiling evilly, as I could see by the starlight, and when I had done he began to whistle a Jacobite air. It was the air made in mockery of General Cope's defeat at Preston Pans. Hey, Johnny Cope, are you walking yet, and are your drums a-beaten yet? And it came in my mind that Alan, on the day of that battle, had been engaged upon the royal side. Why do you take that air, Mr. Stewart? said I. Is it to remind me you have been beaten on both sides? The air stopped on Alan's lips. David, said he. But it's time these manners ceased. I continued, and I mean you shall henceforth speak civilly of my king and my good friends, the Campbells. I am a Stuart! began Alan. Oh, says I, I can you bear a king's name, but you are to remember since I have been in the Highlands I've seen a good many of those that bear it, and the best I can say of them is this, that they would be none the worse of washing. Do you know that you insult me? said Alan, very low. I'm sorry for that, said I, for I am not done, and if you distaste the sermon I doubt the pearly cue will please you as little. You have been chased in the field by the grown men of my party. It seems a poor kind of pleasure to out face a boy. Both the Campbells and the wigs have beaten you. You have run before them like a hare. It behooves you to speak of them as of your betters. Alan stood quite still, the tails of his great coat clapping behind him in the wind. This is a pity, he said at last. There are things said that cannot be passed over. I never asked you to, said I. I am as ready as yourself. Ready? said he. Ready, I repeated. I am no blower and boaster like some that I could name. Come on! And drawing my sword I fell on guard as Alan himself had taught me. David! he cried. Are you daft? I cannot draw upon you, David. It's fair murder. That was your look out when you insulted me, said I. It's the truth! cried Alan, and he stood for a moment wringing his mouth in his hand like a man in sore perplexity. It's the bare truth! he said and drew his sword. But before I could touch his blade with mine he had thrown it from him and fallen to the ground. Na! na! he kept saying. Na! na! I cannot! I cannot! At this the last of my anger oozed all out of me and I found myself only sick and sorry and blank and wondering at myself. I would have given the world to take back what I had said, but a word once spoken, who can recapture it? I minded me of all Alan's kindness and courage in the past, how he had helped and cheered and borne with me in our evil days, and then recalled my own insults and saw that I had lost for ever that dowdy friend. At the same time the sickness that hung upon me seemed to redouble and the pang in my side was like a sword for sharpness. I thought I must have swooned where I stood. This it was that gave me a thought. No apology could blot out what I had said. It was needless to think of one. None could cover the offence. But where an apology was vain, a mere cry for help might bring Alan back to my side. I put my pride away from me. Alan, I said, if you cannot help me, I must just die here. He started up sitting and looked at me. It's true, said I. I'm by with it. Oh, let me get into the build of a house. I can die there easier. I had no need to pretend, whether I chose or not. I spoke in a weeping voice that would have melted a heart of stone. Can you walk? asked Alan. No, said I. Not without help. This last hour my legs have been fainting under me. I have a stitch in my side like a red hot iron. I cannot breathe right. If I die, you can forgive me, Alan. In my heart I liked you fine, even when I was the angriest. Weeshed, weeshed, cried Alan. Didn't I say that? David, man, you can. He shut his mouth upon a sob. Let me get my arm about you, he continued. That's the way. Now lean upon me hard. Good kens where there's a house. We're in Balwitter, too. There should be no other houses, nor friends' houses here. Do you gang easy or so, David? I said I. I can be doing this way. I pressed his arm with my hand. Again he came near sobbing. David, said he, I'm not a right man at all. I have neither sense nor kindness. I couldn't remember you with just a barn. I couldn't see you were dying on your feet, David. You have to try and forgive me. Oh, man, let's say no more about it, said I. We're neither one of us to mend the other. That's the truth. We must just bear and forebear, man Alan. Oh, but my stitch is sore. Is there no house? I'll find a house to you, David, he said, stoutly. We'll follow down the barn where there's bound to be houses. My poor man, will you no be better on my back? Oh, Alan, says I, and me a good 12 inches taller. You're no such thing, cried Alan with a start. There may be a trifling matter of an inch or two. I'm no saying I'm just exactly what you would call a tall man, whatever. And I daresay, he added, his voice tailing off in a laughable manner. Now when I come to think of it, I daresay you'll be just about right. I, it'll be a foot or near hand, or may be even more. It was sweet and laughable to hear Alan eat his words up in the fear of some fresh quarrel. I could have laughed, had not my stitch caught me so hard. But if I had laughed, I think I must have wept, too. Alan, cried I, what makes you so good to me? What makes you care for such a thankless fellow? Deed, and I don't know, said Alan, for just precisely what I thought I liked about you was that you never quarrelled. And now I like you better. End of chapter. Chapter 25 of Kidnapped. This is a Lebervox recording. All Lebervox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit lebervox.org. This recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson. Chapter 25 in Balcu Hitter. At the door of the first house we came to, Alan knocked, which was of no very safe enterprise in such a part of the Highlands as the braze of Balcu Hitter. No great clan held rule there. It was filled and disputed by small seps and broken remnants, and what they call chiefless folk driven into the wild country about the springs of forth and teeth, by the advance of the Campbells. Here were Stewards and McLaren's, which came to the same thing, for the McLaren's followed Alan's chief in war, and made but one clan with appen. Here too were many of that old, proscribed, nameless, red-handing clan of the McGregorys. They had always been ill-considered, and now worse than ever, having credit with no side or party in the whole country of Scotland. Their chief, McGregor of McGregor, was in exile. The more immediate leader of that part of them about Balcu Hitter, James Moore, Rob Roy's eldest son, lay waiting his trial in Edinburgh Castle. They were in ill blood with Highlander and Lowlander, with the Grams, the McLaren's, and the Stewards, and Alan, who took up the quarrel of any friend, however distant, was extremely wishful to avoid them. Chance served us very well, for it was a household of McLaren's that we found, where Alan was not only welcome for his namesake, but known by reputation. Here then I was got to bed without delay, and a doctor fetched, who found me in a sorry plight. But whether because he was a very good doctor, or I a very young, strong man, I lay bed-ridden for no more than a week, and before a month I was able to take the road again with a good heart. All this time Alan would not leave me, though I often pressed him, and indeed his foolhardiness and staying was a common subject of outcry with the two or three friends that were led into the secret. He hid by day in a hole of the braze under a little wood, and at night, when the coast was clear, would come into the house to visit me. I'd need not say if I was pleased to see him. Since McLaren our hostess thought nothing good enough for such a guest, and as Duncan do, which was the name of our host, had a pair of pipes in his house, and was much a lover of music, this time of my recovery was quite a festival, and we commonly turned night into day. The soldiers led us be, although once a party of two companies and some dragoons went by in the bottom of the valley, where I could see them through the window as I lay in bed. It was much more astonishing no magistrate came near me, and there was no question put of whence I came or whither I was going, and in that time of excitement I was as free of all inquiry as though I had lain in a desert. Yet my presence was known before I left to all the people in Balcahitter and the adjacent parts, many coming about the house on visits and these, after the custom of the country, spreading the news among their neighbors. The bills, too, had now been printed. There was one pinned near the foot of my bed where I could read my own not very flattering portrait, and in larger characters the amount of the blood money that had been set upon my life. Duncan do and the rest that knew that I had come there in Ellen's company could have entertained no doubt of who I was, and many others must have had their guess. For though I had changed my clothes I could not change my age or person, and lowland boys of 18 were not so rife in these parts of the world, and above all about that time that they could fail to put one thing with another and connect me with the bill. So it was at least. Other folk keep a secret among two or three near friends, and somehow it leaks out, but among these clansmen it is told to a whole countryside and they will keep it for a century. There was but one thing happening worth narrating, and that is the visit I had of Robin Oig, one of the sons of the notorious Rob Roy. He was sought upon all sides on a charge of carrying a young woman from Balfron and marrying her, as was alleged, by force, yet he stepped about Balkuhitter like a gentleman in his own walled policy. It was he who had shot James McLaren at the plow-stilts, a quarrel never satisfied, yet he walked into the house of his blood enemies as a writer might into a public inn. Duncan had time to pass me word of who it was, and we looked at one another in concern. You should understand, it was then close upon the time of Allen's coming. The two were little likely to agree, and yet if we sent word or sought to make a signal it was sure to arouse suspicion in a man under so dark a cloud as the McGregor. He came in with a great show of civility, but like a man among inferiors, took off his bonnet to Mrs. McLaren, but clapped it on his head again to speak to Duncan, and leaving thus set himself, as he would have thought, in a proper light, came into my bedside and bowed. I am given to know, sir, says he, that your name is Balfour. They call me David Balfour, said I, at your service. I would give you my name in return, sir, he replied, but it's one somewhat blown upon of late days, and it'll perhaps suffice if I tell you that I am own brother to James Maud Drummond or McGregor, of whom you will scarce have failed to hear. No, sir, said I, a little alarmed, nor yet of your father McGregor Campbell. And I sat up and bowed in bed, for I thought best to compliment him, in case he was proud of having had an outlaw to his father. He bowed in return. But what I am about to say, sir, he went on, is this. In the year forty-five, my brother raised a part of the Gregorah, and marched six companies to strike a stroke for the good side, and the surgeon that marched with her clan and cured my brother's leg when it was broken in the brush at Preston Pans, was a gentleman of the same name precisely as yourself. He was brother de Balfour of Bath, and if you are in any reasonable degree of nearness one of that gentleman's kin, I have come to put myself and my people at your command. You are to remember that I knew no more of my descent than any cadger's dog. My uncle, to be sure, had praded of some of our high connections, but nothing to the present purpose, and there was nothing left me but that bitter disgrace of owning that I could not tell. Robin told me shortly he was sorry he had put himself about, turned his back upon me without a sign of salutation, and as he went towards the door I could hear him telling Duncan that I was, only some kindness loon that he didn't know his own father. Angry as I was at these words, and ashamed of my own ignorance, I could scarce keep from smiling that a man who was under the slash of the law, and was indeed hanged some three years later, should be so nice as to the descent of his acquaintances. Just in the door he met Allen coming in, and the two drew back and looked at each other like strange dogs. They were neither of them big men, but they seemed fairly to swell out with pride. Each wore a sword, and by a movement of his haunch thrust clear the hilt of it so that it might be the more readily grasped and the blade drawn. Mr. Stewart, I am thinking, says Robin. Truth, Mr. McGregor, it's not a name to be ashamed of, answered Allen. I did not know you were in my country, sir, says Robin. It sticks in my mind that I am in the country of my friends in McLaren's, says Allen. That's a kiddle-point, returned the other. There may be two words to say to that, but I think I will have heard that you are a mad of your sword. Unless you were born deaf, Mr. McGregor, you would have heard a great deal more than that, says Allen. I am not the only man that can draw steel and appen, and when my kinsman and captain, Ardschild, had a talk with a gentleman of your name not so many years back, I could never hear that the McGregor had the best of it. Do you mean my father, sir? says Robin. Well, I wouldn't a wonder, said Allen. The gentleman I have in mind had the ill taste to clap Campbell to his name. My father was an old man, returned Robin. The match was unequal. You and me would make a better pair, sir. I was thinking that, said Allen. I was half out of bed, and Duncan had been hanging at the elbow of these fighting cocks, ready to intervene upon the least occasion. But when that word was uttered, it was a case of now or never, and Duncan, with something of a white face, to be sure, thrust himself between. Gentlemen, said he, I will have been thinking of a very different matter, whatever. Here are my pipes, and here are you two gentlemen who are both acclaimed pipers. It's an all dispute which one of you is the best. He will be a broad chance to settle it. Why, sir, said Allen, still addressing Robin, from whom, indeed, he had not so much as shifted his eyes, nor yet Robin from him. Why, sir, says Allen, I think I will have heard some soft of the sort. Have your music, as folks say. Are you a bit of a piper? I can pipe like a macrimmon, cries Robin. And that is a very bold word, quoth Allen. I have made bolder words good before now. Returned Robin, and that against better adversaries. It is easy to try that, says Allen. Duncan Dew made haste to bring out a pair of pipes that was his principal possession, and is set before his guests a mutton ham and a bottle of that drink which they call Athol Bros., which is made of old whiskey, strained honey, and sweet cream, slowly beaten together in the right order and proportion. The two enemies were still on the very breach of a quarrel, but down they sat, one upon each side of the peat fire, with a mighty show of politeness. McLaren pressed them to taste his mutton ham and the wife's bros, reminding them the wife was out of Athol and had a name far and wide for her skill in that confection, but Robin put aside these hospitality as bad for the breath. I would have you to remark, sir, said Allen, that I have no broken bread for near upon ten hours, which will be worse for the breath than any bros in Scotland. I will take no advantages, Mr. Stuart, replied Robin. Eat and drink, I'll follow you. Each ate a small portion of the ham and drank a glass of the bros to Mrs. McLaren, and then after a great number of civilities Robin took the pipes and played a little spring in a very ranting manner. Aye, you can blow, said Allen, and taking the instrument from his rival, he first played the same spring in a manner identical with Robin's, and then wandered into variations, which as he went on he decorated with a perfect flight of grace notes, such as Piper's love, and called the warblers. I had been pleased with Robin's playing. Allen's ravished me. That's not so very bad, Mr. Stuart, said the rival, but you must show a poor device in your warblers. Me, cried Allen, the blood starting to his face, I give you the lie. Do you own yourself beaten at the pipes, then, said Robin, that you seek to change them for the sword? And that's very well said Mr. McGregor, returned Allen, and in the meantime, laying a strong accent on the word, I take back the lie. I appeal to Duncan. Indeed, you need appeal to nobody, said Robin, you're far better judge than any McLaren and balcony-hitter, for it's a God's truth that you're a very credible Piper for, Stuart. Hand me the pipes. Allen did, as he asked, and Robin proceeded to imitate and correct some part of Allen's variations, which it seemed that he remembered perfectly. I, you have music, said Allen gloomily. And now be the judge yourself, Mr. Stuart, said Robin, and taking up the variations from the beginning, he worked them throughout to so new a purpose, with such ingenuity and sentiment, and with so odd a fancy, and so quick a knack in the grace notes that I was amazed to hear him. As for Allen, his face grew dark and hot, and he sat and nod his fingers like a man under some deep affront. Enough, he cried, you can blow the pipes, make the most of that. And he made as if to rise. But Robin only held out his hand as if to ask for silence and struck into the slow measure of a pibroch. It was a fine piece of music in itself, and nobly played, but it seems besides, it was a piece peculiar to the Appen Stuart's, and a chief favorite with Allen. The first notes were scarce out before there came a change in his face. When the time quickened, he seemed to grow restless in his seat, and long before that piece was at an end, the last signs of his anger died from him, and he had no thought but for the music. Robin, oig! He said when it was done, you are a great piper. I am not fit to blow in the same kingdom with you. Body of me! You have more music in your spore than I have in my head! And though it still sticks in my mind that I could maybe show you another of it with the cold steel, I warn you beforehand, it'll not be fair. It would go against my heart to haggle a man that can blow the pipes as you can. Thereupon that quarrel was made up. All night long the bros was going, and the pipes changing hands, and the day had come pretty bright, and the three men were none the better for what they had been taking before Robin as much as thought upon the road. End of Chapter 26 of Kidnapped The month as I have said was not yet out, but it was already far through August, and beautiful warm weather, with every sign of an early and great harvest when I was pronounced able for my journey. Our money was now run to so low an ebb that we must think first of all on speed, for if we came not too soon to Mr. Rancillers, or if when we came there he should fail to help me, we must surely starve. In Allen's view, besides, the hunt must now have greatly slackened, and the line of the Forth, and even Sterling Bridge, which is the main pass over that river, would be watched with little interest. It's a chief principle in military affairs, said he, to go where you are least expected. Forth is our trouble. You can the saying, Forth bridles the wild Highlandmen. Well if we seek to creep round about the head of that river, and come down by Kippen or Belfren, is just precisely there that they'll be looking to lay hands on us. But if we stave on straight to the old brig of Sterling, I'll lay my sword they let us pass unchallenged. The first night, accordingly, we pushed to the house of a McLaren in Strathire, a friend of Duncan's, where we slept the twenty-first of the month, and once we set forth again about the fall of night to make another easy stage. The twenty-second we lay in a heather-bush on the hillside in Umbvar, within view of a herd of deer, the happiest ten hours of sleep in a fine, breathing sunshine and on bone-dry ground that I have ever tasted. That night we struck Alan Water and followed it down, and coming to the edge of the hills saw the whole carse of Sterling underfoot, as flat as a pancake, with a town and castle on a hill in the midst of it, and the moon shining on the links of forth. Now, said Alan, I cannot if you care, but you're on your own land again. We passed the Highland line in that first hour, and now if we could but pass you on crooked water, we might cast our bonnets in the air. In Alan Water, nearby where it falls into the fourth, we found a little sandy islet, overgrown with burdock, butterbur, and the like low plants, that would just cover us if we lay flat. Here it was we made our camp, within plain view of Sterling Castle, once we could hear the drums beat as some part of the garrison paraded. And we could hear the stones going on the hooks, and the voices, and even the words of the men talking. It behooved to lie close and keep silent, but the sand of the little isle was sun-warm, the green plants gave a shelter for our heads, we had food and drink and plenty, and to crown all, we were within sight of safety. As soon as the shearers quit their work and the dusk began to fall, we waited ashore and struck for the bridge of Sterling, keeping to the fields and under the field fences. The bridge is close under the Castle Hill, an old high narrow bridge with pinnacles along the parapet, and you may conceive with how much interest I looked upon it, not only as a place famous in history, but as the very doors of salvation to Alan and myself. The moon was not yet up when we came there, a few lights shown along the front of the fortress, and lower down a few lighted windows in the town, but it was all mighty still, and there seemed to be no guard upon the passage. I was for pushing straight across, but Alan was more wary. It looks unka quiet, said he, but for all that we'll lie down here kennally behind a dyke, and make sure. So we lay for about a quarter of an hour, whilst whispering, whilst lying still, and hearing nothing earthly but the washing of the water on the piers. At last there came by an old hobbling woman with a crutch stick, who first stopped a little, close to where we lay, and bemoaned herself in the long way she had travelled, and then set forth again up the steep spring of the bridge. The woman was so little, and the night still so dark, that we soon lost sight of her, only heard the sound of her steps and her stick, and a cough that she had by fits, draw slowly farther away. She's bound to be across now, I whispered. Nah, said Alan, her foot still sounds boss upon the breach. And just then, Who goes? cried a voice, and we heard the butt of a musket rattle on the stones. I must suppose the sentry had been sleeping, so that had we tried we might have passed unseen, but he was awake now, and the chance forfeited. This'll never do, said Alan. This'll never, never do for us, David. And without another word he began to crawl away through the fields, and a little after, being well out of eyeshot, got to his feet again, and struck along a road that led to the eastward. I could not conceive what he was doing, and indeed I was so sharply cut by the disappointment, that I was little likely to be pleased with anything. A moment back, and I had seen myself knocking at Mr. Rancowler's door to claim my inheritance, like a hero in a ballad, and here was I back again, a wandering hunted blaggard on the wrong side of forth. Well, said I. Well, said Alan, what would you have? There none such fools as I took him for. We have still the forth to pass, David. We re-falled the reins that fed, and the hillsides that guided it. And why go east, said I. Oh, just upon the chance, said he, if we cannot pass the river, we'll have to see what we can do for the Firth. There are fords upon the river, and none upon the Firth. Said I. To be sure there are fords, and a bridge for by, quotes Alan, and of what service when they are watched. Well, said I, but a river can be swum. By them that have the skill of it, returned he, but I have yet to hear that either you or me is much of a hand at that exercise, and for my own part I swim like a stone. I'm not up to you in talking back, Alan, I said, but I can see we're making bad worse. If it's hard to pass the river it stands to reason it must be worse to pass a sea. But there's such a thing as a boat, says Alan, or I'm the more deceived. I, and such a thing as money, says I, but for us that have neither one nor other they might just as well not have been invented. You think so, said Alan. I do that, said I. David, says he, you're a man a small invention and less faith, but let me set my wits upon the horn, and if I cannot beg, borrow or yet steal a boat, I'll make one. I think I see you, said I, and what's more than all of that? If you pass the bridge it can tell no tales, but if we pass the furth there's the boat on the wrong side. Somebody must have brought it. The countryside will all be in a buzz. Man! cried Alan. If I can make a boat I'll make a body to take it back again. So leave me with no more of your nonsense, but walk, for that's what you've got to do, and let Alan think for you. All night then we walk through the north side of the karse under the high line of the Orkill Mountains, and by Aloa and Clackmannan and Kullras, all of which we avoided. And about ten in the morning mighty hungry and tired came to the little clocken of Lime Kilns. This is a place that sits near in by the waterside and looks across the hope to the town of the Queensferry. Smoke went up from both of these and from other villages and farms upon all hands. The fields were being reaped, two ships lay anchored, and boats were coming and going on the hope. It was altogether a right pleasant sight to me, and I could not take my fill of gazing at these comfortable green cultivated hills and the busy people both of the field and sea. For all that there was Mr. Rancaller's house on the south shore, where I had no doubt wealth awaited me, and here was I upon the north, clad in poor enough attire of an outlandish fashion, with three silver shillings left to me of all my fortune, a price set upon my head and an outlawed man for my sole company. Oh, Alan, said I, to think of it, over there there's all that heart could want waiting me, and the birds go over, and the boats go over. All that please can go, but just me only. Oh, man, but it's a heartbreak. In Lime Kilns we entered a small change-house, which we only knew to be a public by the wand over the door, and bought some bread and cheese from a good-looking lass that was the servant. This we carried with us in a bundle, meaning to sit and eat it in a bush of wood on the seashore, that we saw some third part of a mile in front. As we went I kept looking across the water and sighing to myself, and though I took no heed of it, Alan had fallen into a muse. At last he stopped in the way. "'Do you take heed of the lass we bought this of?' says he, tapping on the bread and cheese. To be sure,' said I, and a body lass she was. "'You thought so? You thought that?' cries he. "'Man, David, that's good news!' In the name of all that's wonderful, why so?' says I. "'What good can that do?' "'Well,' said Alan, with one of his droll looks, I was rather in hopes it would maybe get us that boat. If it were the other way about it would be like her it,' said I. "'That's all you can, you see,' said Alan. "'I don't want the lass to fall in love with you. I want her to be sorry for you, David, to which end there is no manner of need that she should take you for a beauty. Let me see,' looking me curiously over. "'I wish you were a wee-thing paler, but apart from that you'll do fine for my purpose. You have a fine hang-dog, rag-and-tatter, clapper-ma-claw, kind of a look to you, as if you'd stolen the coat from a potato bogel. Come, right about, and back to the change-house for that boat of ours.' I followed him, laughing. "'David Balfour,' said he, "'you're a very funny gentleman by your way of it, and this is a very funny employee for you, no doubt. For all that, if you have any affection for my neck, to say nothing of your own, you will perhaps be kind enough to take this matter responsibly. I am going to do a bit of play-acting, the bottom ground of which is just exactly as serious as the gallows for the pair of us. So bear it, if you please, in mind, and conduct yourself according.' "'Well, well,' said I, "'have it as you will.' As we got near the clacken, he made me take his arm and hang upon it like one almost helpless with weariness, and by the time he pushed open the change-house-store, he seemed to be half-carrying me. The maid appeared surprised, as well she might be, at our speedy return, but Alan had no words to spare for her in explanation, helped me to a chair, called for a task of brandy with which he fed me in little sips, and then breaking up the bread and cheese helped me to eat it like a nursery-lass, the whole with that grave concerned affectionate countenance that might have imposed upon a judge. It was small wonder if the maid were taken with the picture we presented, of a poor, sick, overwrought lad, and his most tender comrade. She drew quite near, and stood leaning with her back on the next table. "'What's like wrong with him?' said she at last. Alan turned upon her to my great wonder with a kind of fury. "'Wrong!' cried he. He's walked more hundreds of miles than he has hairs upon his chin, and slept oftener in wet heather than dry sheets. "'Wrong!' quote she. "'Wrong enough, I would think. Wrong indeed!' he kept grumbling to himself as he fed me, like a man ill-pleased. "'He's young for the like of that,' said the maid. "'O'er young,' said Alan, with his back to her. "'He would be better writing,' said she. "'And where could I get a horse to him?' cried Alan, turning on her with the same appearance of fury. "'Would you have me steel?' I thought this roughness would have sent her off in dudgeon, as indeed it closed her mouth for the time, but my companion knew very well what he was doing, and for as simple as he was in some things of life, had a great fund of rogishness in such affairs as these. "'You need not tell me,' she said at last. "'You're gentry.' "'Well,' said Alan, softened a little, I believe against his will, by this artless comet. "'And suppose we were? Did ever you hear the gentrists put money in folk's pockets?' She sighed at this, as if she were herself some disinherited great lady. "'No,' says she, "'that's true indeed.' I was all this wild chafing at the part I played, and sitting tongue-tie between shame and merriment, but somehow at this I could hold in no longer, and bade Alan let me be, for I was better already. My voice stuck in my throat, for I ever hated to take part in lies, but my very embarrassment helped on the plot, for the last no doubt set down my husky voice to sickness and fatigue. "'Has he no friends?' said she, in a tearful voice. "'That has he so,' cried Alan, "'if we could but win to them. Friends and rich friends, bids to lie and food to eat, doctors to see to him, and here he must tramp in the dubs, and sleep in the heather like a beggarman.' "'And why that?' says the lass. "'My dear,' said Alan, "'I cannot very safely say, but I tell you what I'll do instead,' says he. "'I'll whistle ye a bit toon.' With that he leaned pretty far over the table, and in a mere breath of a whistle, but with a wonderful pretty sentiment, gave her a few bars of, "'Charlie is my darling.' "'Reached,' says she, and looked over her shoulder to the door. "'That's it,' said Alan. "'And him so young,' cries the lass. "'He's old enough to,' and Alan stuck his forefinger on the back part of his neck, meaning that I was old enough to lose my head.' "'It would be a black shame,' she cried, flushing high. "'It's what we'll be, though,' said Alan, unless we manage the better.' At this the lass turned and ran out of that part of the house, leaving us alone together. Alan in high good humour at the furthering of his schemes, and I am bitter-dudgeon at being called a Jacobite and treated like a child. "'Alan,' I cried, "'I can stand no more of this.' "'You have to sit it then, Davy,' said he, for if you upset the pot now you may scrape your own life out of the fire, but Alan Brick is a dead man.' This was so true that I could only groan, and even my groan served Alan's purpose, for it was overheard by the lass as she came flying in again with a dish of white puddings and a bottle of strong ale. "'Poor lamb,' says she, and had no sooner set the meat before us than she touched me on the shoulder with a little friendly touch, as much as to bib me cheer up. Then she told us to fall, too, and there would be no more to pay, for the inn was her own, or at least her father's, and he was gone for the day to pitting-creaf. We waited for no second bidding, for bread and cheese is but cold comfort and the puddings smelt excellently well, and while we sat and ate she took up that same place by the next table, looking on and thinking and frowning to herself and drawing the string of her apron through her hand. "'I'm thinking you have a rather long tongue,' she said at last to Alan. "'I,' said Alan, but you see, I can the folk I speak to.' "'I would never betray you,' said she, if you mean that.' "'No,' said he, you're not that kind, but I'd tell you what you would do. You would help.' "'I couldn't,' said she, shaking your head. "'Nah, I couldn't.' "'Naw,' said he, but if you could,' she answered him nothing. "'Look here, my lass,' said Alan. "'There are boats in the kingdom of Phaith, for I saw, too, no less upon the beach, as I came in by your town's inn. Now, if we could have the use of a boat to pass under cloud of night in Delothean and some secret decent kind of a man to bring that boat back again and keep his council, there would be two souls saved, mine to all likelihood, his to a dead surety. If we lack that boat, we have but three shillings left in the wide world, and where to go, and how to do, and what other place there is for us except the chains of it, give it. I give you my naked word, I cannot. Shall we go wanting lassie? Are you to lie in your warm bed and think upon us, when the wind gallows in the chimney and the rain turtles on the roof? Are you to eat your meat by the cheeks of a red fire, and think upon this poor, sick lad of mine, biting his finger ends on a ble-mure for cold and hunger? Sick or sound, he must I be moving. With the death grapple at his throat he must I be trailing in the rain on the long roads, and when he gets his last on a rick of cold stones there will be no friends near him but only me and God. At this appeal I could see the lass was in a great trouble of mind being tempted to help us, and yet in some fear she might be helping malifactors, and so now I determined to step in myself and to allay her scruples with a portion of the truth. Do you ever hear, said I, of Mr. Rancyler of the ferry? Rancyler, the writer, said she, I darsay that. Well, said I, it's to his door that I am bound, so you may judge by that if I am an ill-doer, and I will tell you more, that though I am indeed by a dreadful error in some peril of my life, King George has no truer friend in all Scotland than myself. Her face cleared up mightily at this, although Alan's bargained. That's more than I would ask, said she. Mr. Rancyler is a Kent man. And she bet us finish our meet, get clear of the clocking as soon as might be, and lie close in the bit wood on the sea-beach. And you can trust me, says she, I'll find some means to put you over. At this we waited for no more, but shook hands with her upon the bargain, made short work of the puddings, and set forth again from line-kilns as far as to the wood. It was a small piece of perhaps a score of elders and hawthorns and a few young ashes, not thick enough to veil us from passers-by upon the road or beach. Here we must lie, however, making the best of the brave warm weather and the good hopes we now had of a deliverance, and planning more particularly what remained for us to do. We had but one trouble all day, when a strolling piper came and sat in the same wood with us, a red-nosed, bleary-eyed, drunken dog, with a great bottle of whiskey in his pocket, and a long story of wrongs that had been done him by all sorts of persons, from the Lord President of the Court of Session, who had denied him justice, down to the Baileys of Inverkeething, who had given him more of it than he desired. It was impossible but that he should conceive some suspicion of two men lying all day, concealed in a thicket, and having no business to allege. As long as he stayed there he kept us in hot water with prying questions, and after he was gone, as he was a man not very likely to hold his tongue, we were in the greater impatience to be gone ourselves. The day came to an end with the same brightness. The night fell quiet and clear. Lights came out in houses and hamlets, and then, one after another, began to be put out. But it was past eleven, and we were long since strangely tortured with anxieties, before we heard the grinding of oars upon the rowing pins. At that we looked out and saw the lass herself coming rowing to us in a boat. She had trusted no one with our affairs, not even her sweetheart if she had one, but as soon as her father was asleep, had left the house by a window, stolen the neighbor's boat, and come to our assistance single-handed. I was abashed how to find expression for my thanks, but she was no less abashed at the thought of hearing them. Begged us to lose no time and to hold our peace, saying very properly that the heart of her matter was in haste and silence, and so, what with one thing and another, she had set us on the Lothian shore not far from Carridan, had shaken hands with us, and was out again at sea and rowing for lime-kilns, before there was one word said either of her service or our gratitude. Even after she was gone we had nothing to say, as indeed nothing was enough for such a kindness. Only Alan stood a great while upon the shore, shaking his head. It is a very fine lass, he said at last. David, it is a very fine lass. And a matter of an hour later, as we were lying in a den on the seashore, and I had been already dozing, he broke out again in commendations of her character. For my part I could say nothing. She was so simple a creature that my heart smote me, both with remorse and fear. Remorse because we had traded upon her ignorance, and fear lest we should have any way involved her in the dangers of our situation. CHAPTER 27 I COME TO MR. RANKEILER The next day it was agreed that Alan should fend for himself till sunset, but as soon as it began to grow dark he should lie in the fields by the roadside near to new halls, and stir for naught until he heard me whistling. At first I proposed I should give him for a signal the Bonnie House of Airly, which was a favorite of mine, but he objected that as the peace was very commonly known any plowman might whistle it by accident, and taught me instead a little life-fragment of a highland air which is running my head from that day to this, and will likely run in my head when I lie dying. Every time it comes to me it takes me off to that last day of my uncertainty, with Alan sitting up in the bottom of the den, whistling and beating the measure with a finger, and the gray of the dawn coming on his face. I was in the long street of Queensferry before the sun was up. It was a fairly built burg, the houses of good stone, many slated. The town hall, not so fine, I thought, as that of people's, nor yet the streets so noble, but take it altogether it put me to shame for my foul tatters. As the morning went on, and the fires began to be kindled, and the windows to open, and the people to appear out of the houses, my concern and despondency grew ever the blacker. I saw now that I had no grounds to stand upon, and no clear proof of my rights, nor so much as of my own identity. If it was all a bubble, I was indeed sorely cheated and left in a sore pass. Even if things were as I conceived it would in all likelihood take time to establish my contentions, and what time had I to spare with less than three shillings in my pocket, and a condemned, hunted man upon my hands to ship out of the country, truly if my hope broke with me it might come to the gallows yet for both of us. And as I continued to walk up and down, and saw people looking ascance at me upon the street or out of windows, and nudging or speaking one to another with smiles, I began to take a fresh apprehension that it might be no easy matter even to come to speech of the lawyer, far less to convince him of my story. For the life of me I could not muster up the courage to address any of these reputable burgers, I thought shame even to speak with them in such a pickle of rags and dirt, and if I had asked for the house of such a man as Mr. Rangkyler, I suppose they would have burst out laughing in my face. So I went up and down, and through the street, and down to the harborside, like a dog that has lost its master, with a strange gnawing in my inwards, and every now and then a movement of despair. He grew to be high day at last, perhaps nine in the forenoon, and I was worn with these wanderings, and chanced to have stopped in front of a very good house on the landward side, a house with beautiful clear glass windows, flowering knots upon the sills, the walls new hurled, and a chased dog sitting yawning on the step like one that was at home. Well, I was even envying this dumb brute when the door fell open and there issued forth a shrewd, ruddy, kindly, consequential man in a well-powdered wig and spectacles. I was in such a plight that no one set eyes on me once, but he looked at me again. And this gentleman, as it proved, was so much struck with my poor appearance that he came straight up to me and asked me what I did. I told him I was come to the Queensferry on business, and taking heart of Grace asked him to direct me to the house of Mr. Ranculler. Why, said he, that is his house that I have just come out of, and for a rather singular chance I am that very man. Then, sir, said I, I have to beg the favour of an interview. I do not know your name, said he, nor yet your face. My name is David Balfour, said I. David Balfour? He repeated in rather a high tone, like one surprised. And where have you come from, Mr. David Balfour? He asked, looking me pretty dryly in the face. I have come from a great many strange places, sir, said I, but I think it would be as well to tell you where and how in a more private manner. He seemed amuse a while, holding his lip in his hand, and looking now at me and now upon the cause we have the street. Yes, says he, that will be the best, no doubt. And he led me back with him into his house, cried out to someone whom I could not see that he would be engaged all morning, and brought me into a little dusty chamber full of books and documents. Here he sat down, and made me be seated, though I thought he looked a little roofily from his clean chair to my muddy rags. And now, says he, if you have any business, pray be brief and come swiftly to the point, necgemino bellum trojanum orditur avovu. Do you understand that, says he, with a keen look? I will even do as Horace says, sir, I answered, smiling, and carry you in medias res. He nodded as if he was well pleased, and indeed his scrap of Latin had been set to test me. For all that, and though I was somewhat encouraged, the blood came in my face when I added, I have reason to believe myself some rights on the estate of Shaw's. He got a paper-book out of a drawer, and said it before him, open. Well, said he, but I had shot my bolt, and sat speechless. Come, come, Mr. Balfour, said he, you must continue. Where were you born? In Essendine, sir, said I, the year 1733, the 12th of March. He seemed to follow this statement in his paper-book, but what that meant I knew not. Your father and mother? said he. My father was Alexander Balfour, schoolmaster of that place, said I, and my mother Grace Piterao. I think her people were from Angus. Have you any papers proving your identity? asked Mr. Rancaller. No, sir, said I, but they are in the hands of Mr. Campbell, the minister, and could be readily produced. Mr. Campbell, too, would give me his word, and for that manner I do not think my uncle would deny me. Meaning Mr. Ebenezer Balfour, says he. The same, said I. Whom have you seen? he asked. By whom I was received into his own house, I answered. Did you ever meet a man of the name of Hoseeson? asked Mr. Rancaller. I did so, sir, for my sins, said I, for it was by his means and the procurement of my uncle that I was kidnapped within sight of this town, carried to sea, suffered shipwreck and a hundred other hardships, and stand before you today in this poor accoutrement. You say you were shipwrecked, said Rancaller. Where was that? Off the south end of the Isle of Mull, said I, the name of the Isle on which I was cast up is the Isle in Ehrid. Ah, says he, smiling. You are deeper than me in the geography. But so far I may tell you this agrees pretty exactly with other informations that I old. But you say you were kidnapped. In what sense? In the plain meaning of the word, sir, said I, I was on my way to your house when I was trepanned on board the brig, cruelly struck down, thrown below, and knew no more of anything till we were far at sea. I was destined for the plantations, a fate that in God's providence I have escaped. The brig was lost on June the 27th, says he, looking in his book, and we are now at August the 24th. Here is a considerable hiatus, Mr. Balfour, of near upon two months. It has already caused a vast amount of trouble to your friends, and I own I shall not be very well contented until it is set right. Indeed, sir, said I, these months are very easily filled up, but yet before I told my story I would be glad to know that I was talking to a friend. "'This is to argue in a circle,' said the lawyer. "'I cannot be convinced till I have heard you. I cannot be a friend till I am properly informed. If you were more trustful it would better be fit your time of life. And you know, Mr. Balfour, we have a proverb in the country that evildoers are I evil dreaders. You are not to forget, sir,' said I, that I have already suffered by my trustfulness and was shipped off to be a slave by the very man that, if I rightly understand, is your employer.' All this while I had been gaining ground with Mr. Rancaylor, and in proportion as I gained ground gaining confidence. But at this sally, which I made with something of a smile myself, he fairly laughed aloud. "'No, no,' said he, "'it is not so bad as that. Fui non sum. I was indeed your uncle's man of business. But while you, Imerbis juvenis costore romoto, were gallivanting in the west, a good deal of water has run under the bridges, and if your ears did not sing, it was not for lack of being talked about. On the very day of your sea-disaster Mr. Campel stalked into my office, demanding you from all the winds. I had never heard of your existence, but I had known your father, and from matters in my competence, to be touched upon hereafter. I was disposed to fear the worse.' Mr. Ebenezer admitted, having seen you, declared, what seemed improbable, that he had given you considerable sums, and that you had started for the continent of Europe, intending to fulfill your education, which was probable and praiseworthy, interrogated how you had come to send no word to Mr. Campel, he deponed that you had expressed a great desire to break with your past life, further interrogated where you now were, protested ignorance, but believed you were in laden. That is a close sum of his replies. I am not exactly sure that anyone believed him, continued Mr. Rankiler with a smile, and in particular he so much disrelished me expressions of mine that, in a word, he showed me to the door. We were then at a full stand, for whatever shrewd suspicions we might entertain, we had no shadow of probation. In the very article comes Captain Ho's season with the story of your drowning, whereupon all fell through, with no consequences but concern to Mr. Campel, injury to my pocket, and another blot upon your uncle's character which could very ill afford it. And now, Mr. Balfour, said he, you understand the whole process of these matters, and can judge for yourself to what extent I may be trusted. Indeed he was more pedantic than I can represent him, and place more scraps of Latin in a speech, but it was all uttered with a fine geniality of I and manner which went far to conquer my distrust. Moreover I could see he now treated me as if I was myself beyond a doubt, so that first part of my identity seemed fully granted. Sir, said I, if I tell you my story I must commit a friend's life to your discretion. Pass me your word, it shall be sacred, and for what touches myself I will ask no better guarantee than just your face. He passed me his word very seriously. But, said he, these are rather alarming provocations, and if there are in your story any little jostles to the law I would beg you to bear in mind that I am a lawyer and pass lightly. Thereupon I told him my story from the first. He listening with his spectacles thrust up and his eyes closed, so that I sometimes feared he was asleep. But no such matter. He heard every word, as I found afterward, with such quickness of hearing and precision of memory as often surprised me. Even strange outlandish Gaelic names heard for that time only he remembered and would remind me of years after. Yet when I called Alan Breckin full we had an odd scene. The name of Alan had, of course, rung through Scotland, with the news of the Appan murder and the offer of the reward, and it had no sooner escaped me than the lawyer moved in his seat and opened his eyes. I would name no unnecessary names, Mr. Palfour, said he, above all of Highlanders many of whom are obnoxious to the law. Well, it might have been better not, said I, but since I have let it slip I may as well continue. Not at all, said Mr. Rancaller. I am somewhat dull of hearing, as you may have remarked, and I am far from sure I caught the name exactly. We will call your friend, if you please, Mr. Thomas, that there may be no reflections, and in future I would take some such way with any Highlander that you may have to mention, dead or alive. By this I saw he must have heard the name all too clearly, and had already guessed I might be coming to the murder. If he chose to play this part of ignorance it was no matter of mine, so I smiled, said it was no very Highland-sounding name, and consented. Through all the rest of my story Alan was Mr. Thompson, which amused me the more as it was a piece of policy after his own heart. James Stewart, in like manner, was mentioned under the style of Mr. Thompson's kinsman, Colin Campbell passed as Mr. Glenn, and to Clooney when I came to that part of my tale I gave the name of Mr. Jameson, a Highland chief. It was truly the most open farce, and I wondered that the lawyer should care to keep it up, but after all it was quite in the taste of that age, when there were two parties in the state, and quiet persons, with no very high opinions of their own, sought out every cranny to avoid offence to either. Well, well, said the lawyer when I had quite done. This is a great epic, a great odyssey of yours. You must tell it, sir, in a sound latinity when your scholarship is riper, or in English if you please, though for my part I prefer the stronger tongue. You have rolled much, quae regio in terrace. That parish in Scotland, to make a homely translation, has not been filled with your wanderings. You have shown besides a singular aptitude for getting into false positions, and yes, upon the whole, for behaving well in them. This Mr. Thompson seems to me a gentleman of some choice qualities, though perhaps a trifle bloody-minded. It would please me none the worse if, with all his merits, he were sourced in the North Sea, for the man, Mr. David, is a sore embarrassment. But you are doubtless quite right to adhere to him. Indubitably he adhered to you. It comes, we may say, he was your true companion, nor less paribus curus vestigia fidget. For I daresay you would both take an aura thought upon the gallows. Well, well, these days are fortunately, by, and I think, speaking humanly, that you are near the end of your troubles. As he thus moralized on my adventures, he looked upon me with so much humor and benignity that I could scarce contain my satisfaction. I had been so long wandering with lawless people, and making my bed upon the hills and under the bare sky, that to sit once more in a clean, covered house, and to talk amicably with a gentleman in broadcloth seemed mighty elevations. Even as I thought so, my eye fell on my unseemly tatters, and I was once more plunged in confusion. But the lawyer saw and understood me. He rose, called over the stair to lay another plate, for Mr. Balfour would stay to dinner, and led me into a bedroom in the upper part of the house. There he set before me water and soap.