"It is most misconvenient at least," said I; "and I think my father
(honest man!) must have been wool-gathering to learn me Latin in the
place of it. But you see I do the best I can, and just stand up like
Lot's wife and let them hammer at me."

"Do you know what makes me smile?" said she. "Well, it is this. I am
made this way, that I should have been a man child. In my own thoughts
it is so I am always; and I go on telling myself about this thing that
is to befall and that. Then it comes to the place of the fighting, and
it comes over me that I am only a girl at all events, and cannot hold a
sword or give one good blow; and then I have to twist my story round
about, so that the fighting is to stop, and yet me have the best of it,
just like you and the lieutenant; and I am the boy that makes the fine
speeches all through, like Mr. David Balfour."

"You are a bloodthirsty maid," said I.

"Well, I know it is good to sew and spin, and to make samplers," she
said, "but if you were to do nothing else in the great world, I think
you will say yourself it is a driech business; and it is not that I want
to kill, I think. Did ever you kill anyone?"

"That I have, as it chances. Two, no less, and me still a lad that
should be at the college," said I. "But yet, in the look-back, I take no
shame for it."

"But how did you feel, then--after it?" she asked.

"'Deed, I sat down and grat like a bairn," said I.

"I know that, too," she cried. "I feel where these tears should come
from. And at any rate, I would not wish to kill, only to be Catherine
Douglas that put her arm through the staples of the bolt, where it was
broken. That is my chief hero. Would you not love to die so--for your
king?" she asked.

"Troth," said I, "my affection for my king, God bless the puggy face of
him, is under more control; and I thought I saw death so near to me this
day already, that I am rather taken up with the notion of living."

"Right," she said, "the right mind of a man! Only you must learn arms; I
would not like to have a friend that cannot strike. But it will not have
been with the sword that you killed these two?"

"Indeed, no," said I, "but with a pair of pistols. And a fortunate thing
it was the men were so near-hand to me, for I am about as clever with
the pistols as I am with the sword."

So then she drew from me the story of our battle in the brig, which I
had omitted in my first account of my affairs.

"Yes," said she, "you are brave. And your friend, I admire and love
him."

"Well, and I think any one would!" said I. "He has his faults like other
folk; but he is brave and staunch and kind, God bless him! That will be
a strange day when I forget Alan." And the thought of him, and that it
was within my choice to speak with him that night, had almost overcome
me.

"And where will my head be gone that I have not told my news!" she
cried, and spoke of a letter from her father, bearing that she might
visit him to-morrow in the castle whither he was now transferred, and
that his affairs were mending. "You do not like to hear it," said she.
"Will you judge my father and not know him?"

"I am a thousand miles from judging," I replied. "And I give you my word
I do rejoice to know your heart is lightened. If my face fell at all, as
I suppose it must, you will allow this is rather an ill day for
compositions, and the people in power extremely ill persons to be
compounding with. I have Symon Fraser extremely heavy on my stomach
still."

"Ah!" she cried, "you will not be evening these two; and you should bear
in mind that Prestongrange and James More, my father, are of the one
blood."

"I never heard tell of that," said I.

"It is rather singular how little you are acquainted with," said she.
"One part may call themselves Grant, and one Macgregor, but they are
still of the same clan. They are all the sons of Alpin, from whom, I
think, our country has its name."

"What country is that?" I asked.

"My country and yours," said she.

"This is my day for discoveries, I think," said I, "for I always thought
the name of it was Scotland."

"Scotland is the name of what you call Ireland," she replied. "But the
old ancient true name of this place that we have our foot-soles on, and
that our bones are made of, will be Alban. It was Alban they called it
when our forefathers will be fighting for it against Rome and Alexander;
and it is called so still in your own tongue that you forget."

"Troth," said I, "and that I never learned!" For I lacked heart to take
her up about the Macedonian.

"But your fathers and mothers talked it, one generation with another,"
said she. "And it was sung about the cradles before you or me were ever
dreamed of; and your name remembers it still. Ah, if you could talk that
language you would find me another girl. The heart speaks in that
tongue."

I had a meal with the two ladies, all very good, served in fine old
plate, and the wine excellent, for it seems that Mrs. Ogilvy was rich.
Our talk, too, was pleasant enough; but as soon as I saw the sun decline
sharply and the shadows to run out long, I rose to take my leave. For my
mind was now made up to say farewell to Alan; and it was needful I
should see the trysting wood, and reconnoitre it, by daylight. Catriona
came with me as far as to the garden gate.

"It is long till I see you now?" she asked.

"It is beyond my judging," I replied. "It will be long, it may be
never."

"It may be so," said she. "And you are sorry?"

I bowed my head, looking upon her.

"So am I, at all events," said she. "I have seen you but a small time,
but I put you very high. You are true, you are brave; in time I think
you will be more of a man yet. I will be proud to hear of that. If you
should speed worse, if it will come to fall as we are afraid--O well!
think you have the one friend. Long after you are dead and me an old
wife, I will be telling the bairns about David Balfour, and my tears
running. I will be telling how we parted, and what I said to you, and
did to you. _God go with you and guide you, prays your little friend_:
so I said--I will be telling them--and here is what I did."

She took up my hand and kissed it. This so surprised my spirits that I
cried out like one hurt. The colour came strong in her face, and she
looked at me and nodded.

"O yes, Mr. David," said she, "that is what I think of you. The heart
goes with the lips."

I could read in her face high spirit, and a chivalry like a brave
child's; not anything besides. She kissed my hand, as she had kissed
Prince Charlie's, with a higher passion than the common kind of clay has
any sense of. Nothing before had taught me how deep I was her lover, nor
how far I had yet to climb to make her think of me in such a character.
Yet I could tell myself I had advanced some way, and that her heart had
beat and her blood flowed at thoughts of me.

After that honour she had done me I could offer no more trivial
civility. It was even hard for me to speak; a certain lifting in her
voice had knocked directly at the door of my own tears.

"I praise God for your kindness, dear," said I. "Farewell, my little
friend!" giving her that name which she had given to herself; with which
I bowed and left her.

My way was down the glen of the Leith River, towards Stockbridge and
Silvermills. A path led in the foot of it, the water bickered and sang
in the midst; the sunbeams overhead struck out of the west among long
shadows and (as the valley turned) made like a new scene and a new world
of it at every corner. With Catriona behind and Alan before me, I was
like one lifted up. The place besides, and the hour, and the talking of
the water, infinitely pleased me; and I lingered in my steps and looked
before and behind me as I went. This was the cause, under providence,
that I spied a little in my rear a red head among some bushes.

Anger sprang in my heart, and I turned straight about and walked at a
stiff pace to where I came from. The path lay close by the bushes where
I had remarked the head. The cover came to the wayside, and as I passed
I was all strung up to meet and to resist an onfall. No such thing
befell, I went by unmeddled with; and at that fear increased upon me. It
was still day indeed, but the place exceeding solitary. If my haunters
had let slip that fair occasion I could but judge they aimed at
something more than David Balfour. The lives of Alan and James weighed
upon my spirit with the weight of two grown bullocks.

Catriona was yet in the garden walking by herself.

"Catriona," said I, "you see me back again."

"With a changed face," said she.

"I carry two men's lives besides my own," said I. "It would be a sin and
a shame not to walk carefully. I was doubtful whether I did right to
come here. I would like it ill, if it was by that means we were brought
to harm."

"I could tell you one that would be liking it less, and will like little
enough to hear you talking at this very same time," she cried. "What
have I done, at all events?"

"O, you! you are not alone," I replied. "But since I went off I have
been dogged again, and I can give you the name of him that follows me.
It is Neil, son of Duncan, your man or your father's."

"To be sure you are mistaken there," she said, with a white face. "Neil
is in Edinburgh on errands from my father."

"It is what I fear," said I, "the last of it. But for his being in
Edinburgh I think I can show you another of that. For sure you have some
signal, a signal of need, such as would bring him to your help, if he
was anywhere within the reach of ears and legs?"

"Why, how will you know that?" says she.

"By means of a magical talisman God gave to me when I was born, and the
name they call it by is Common-sense," said I. "Oblige me so far as to
make your signal, and I will show you the red head of Neil."

No doubt but I spoke bitter and sharp. My heart was bitter. I blamed
myself and the girl and hated both of us: her for the vile crew that she
was come of, myself for my wanton folly to have stuck my head in such a
byke of wasps.

Catriona set her fingers to her lips and whistled once, with an
exceeding clear, strong, mounting note, as full as a ploughman's. A
while we stood silent; and I was about to ask her to repeat the same,
when I heard the sound of some one bursting through the bushes below on
the braeside. I pointed in that direction with a smile, and presently
Neil leaped into the garden. His eyes burned, and he had a black knife
(as they call it on the Highland side) naked in his hand; but, seeing me
beside his mistress, stood like a man struck.

"He has come to your call," said I; "judge how near he was to Edinburgh,
or what was the nature of your father's errands. Ask himself. If I am to
lose my life, or the lives of those that hang by me, through the means
of your clan, let me go where I have to go with my eyes open."

She addressed him tremulously in the Gaelic. Remembering Alan's anxious
civility in that particular, I could have laughed out loud for
bitterness; here, sure, in the midst of these suspicions, was the hour
she should have stuck by English.

Twice or thrice they spoke together, and I could make out that Neil (for
all his obsequiousness) was an angry man.

Then she turned to me. "He swears it is not," she said.

"Catriona," said I, "do you believe the man yourself?"

She made a gesture like wringing the hands.

"How will I can know?" she cried.

"But I must find some means to know," said I. "I cannot continue to go
dovering round in the black night with two men's lives at my girdle!
Catriona, try to put yourself in my place, as I vow to God I try hard to
put myself in yours. This is no kind of talk that should ever have
fallen between me and you; no kind of talk; my heart is sick with it.
See, keep him here till two of the morning, and I care not. Try him with
that."

They spoke together once more in the Gaelic.

"He says he has James More my father's errand," said she. She was whiter
than ever, and her voice faltered as she said it.

"It is pretty plain now," said I, "and may God forgive the wicked!"

She said never anything to that, but continued gazing at me with the
same white face.

"This is a fine business," said I again. "Am I to fall, then, and those
two along with me?"

"O, what am I to do?" she cried. "Could I go against my father's orders,
and him in prison, in the danger of his life?"

"But perhaps we go too fast," said I. "This may be a lie too. He may
have no right orders; all may be contrived by Symon, and your father
knowing nothing."

She burst out weeping between the pair of us; and my heart smote me
hard, for I thought this girl was in a dreadful situation.

"Here," said I, "keep him but the one hour; and I'll chance it, and say
God bless you."

She put out her hand to me. "I will be needing one good word," she
sobbed.

"The full hour, then?" said I, keeping her hand in mine. "Three lives of
it, my lass!"

"The full hour!" she said, and cried aloud on her Redeemer to forgive
her.

I thought it no fit place for me, and fled.

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER XI

THE WOOD BY SILVERMILLS


I lost no time, but down through the valley and by Stockbrig and
Silvermills as hard as I could stave. It was Alan's tryst to lie every
night between twelve and two "in a bit scrog of wood by east of
Silvermills and by south the south mill-lade." This I found easy enough,
where it grew on a steep brae, with the mill-lade flowing swift and deep
along the foot of it; and here I began to walk slower and to reflect
more reasonably on my employment. I saw I had made but a fool's bargain
with Catriona. It was not to be supposed that Neil was sent alone upon
his errand, but perhaps he was the only man belonging to James More; in
which case, I should have done all I could to hang Catriona's father,
and nothing the least material to help myself. To tell the truth, I
fancied neither one of these ideas. Suppose, by holding back Neil, the
girl should have helped to hang her father, I thought she would never
forgive herself this side of time. And suppose there were others
pursuing me that moment, what kind of a gift was I come bringing to
Alan? and how would I like that?

I was up with the west end of that wood when these two considerations
struck me like a cudgel. My feet stopped of themselves and my heart
along with them. "What wild game is this that I have been playing?"
thought I; and turned instantly upon my heels to go elsewhere.

This brought my face to Silvermills; the path came past the village with
a crook, but all plainly visible; and, Highland or Lowland, there was
nobody stirring. Here was my advantage, here was just such a conjuncture
as Stewart had counselled me to profit by, and I ran by the side of the
mill-lade, fetched about beyond the east corner of the wood, threaded
through the midst of it, and returned to the west selvage, whence I
could again command the path, and yet be myself unseen. Again it was all
empty, and my heart began to rise.

For more than an hour I sat close in the border of the trees, and no
hare or eagle could have kept a more particular watch. When that hour
began the sun was already set, but the sky still all golden and the
daylight clear; before the hour was done it had fallen to be half mirk,
the images and distances of things were mingled, and observation began
to be difficult. All that time not a foot of man had come east from
Silvermills, and the few that had gone west were honest countryfolk and
their wives upon the road to bed. If I were tracked by the most cunning
spies in Europe, I judged it was beyond the course of nature they could
have any jealousy of where I was; and going a little further home into
the wood I lay down to wait for Alan.

The strain of my attention had been great, for I had watched not the
path only, but every bush and field within my vision. That was now at an
end. The moon, which was in her first quarter, glinted a little in the
wood; all round there was a stillness of the country; and as I lay there
on my back, the next three or four hours, I had a fine occasion to
review my conduct.

Two things became plain to me first: that I had had no right to go that
day to Dean, and (having gone there) had now no right to be lying where
I was. This (where Alan was to come) was just the one wood in all broad
Scotland that was, by every proper feeling, closed against me; I
admitted that, and yet stayed on, wondering at myself. I thought of the
measure with which I had meted to Catriona that same night; how I had
prated of the two lives I carried, and had thus forced her to enjeopardy
her father's; and how I was here exposing them again, it seemed in
wantonness. A good conscience is eight parts of courage. No sooner had I
lost conceit of my behaviour, than I seemed to stand disarmed amidst a
throng of terrors. Of a sudden I sat up. How if I went now to
Prestongrange, caught him (as I still easily might) before he slept, and
made a full submission? Who could blame me? Not Stewart the writer; I
had but to say that I was followed, despaired of getting clear, and so
gave in. Not Catriona: here, too, I had my answer ready; that I could
not bear she should expose her father. So, in a moment, I could lay all
these troubles by, which were after all and truly none of mine; swim
clear of the Appin murder; get forth out of handstroke of all the
Stewarts and Campbells, all the whigs and tories, in the land; and live
thenceforth to my own mind, and be able to enjoy and to improve my
fortunes, and devote some hours of my youth to courting Catriona, which
would be surely a more suitable occupation than to hide and run and be
followed like a hunted thief, and begin over again the dreadful miseries
of my escape with Alan.

At first I thought no shame of this capitulation; I was only amazed I
had not thought upon the thing and done it earlier; and began to inquire
into the causes of the change. These I traced to my lowness of spirits,
that back to my late recklessness, and that again to the common, old,
public, disconsidered sin of self-indulgence. Instantly the text came in
my head, "_How can Satan cast out Satan?_" What? (I thought) I had, by
self-indulgence, and the following of pleasant paths, and the lure of a
young maid, cast myself wholly out of conceit with my own character, and
jeopardised the lives of James and Alan? And I was to seek the way out
by the same road as I had entered in? No; the hurt that had been caused
by self-indulgence must be cured by self-denial; the flesh I had
pampered must be crucified. I looked about me for that course which I
least liked to follow: this was to leave the wood without waiting to see
Alan, and go forth again alone, in the dark and in the midst of my
perplexed and dangerous fortunes.

I have been the more careful to narrate this passage of my reflections,
because I think it is of some utility, and may serve as an example to
young men. But there is reason (they say) in planting kale, and even in
ethic and religion, room for common sense. It was already close on
Alan's hour, and the moon was down. If I left (as I could not very
decently whistle to my spies to follow me) they might miss me in the
dark and tack themselves to Alan by mistake. If I stayed, I could at the
least of it set my friend upon his guard which might prove his mere
salvation. I had adventured other peoples' safety in a course of
self-indulgence; to have endangered them again, and now on a mere design
of penance, would have been scarce rational. Accordingly, I had scarce
risen from my place ere I sat down again, but already in a different
frame of spirits, and equally marvelling at my past weakness and
rejoicing in my present composure.

Presently after came a crackling in the thicket. Putting my mouth near
down to the ground, I whistled a note or two of Alan's air; an answer
came, in the like guarded tone, and soon we had thralled together in the
dark.

"Is this you at last, Davie?" he whispered.

"Just myself," said I.

"God, man, but I've been wearying to see ye!" says he. "I've had the
longest kind of a time. A' day, I've had my dwelling into the inside of
a stack of hay, where I couldnae see the nebs of my ten fingers; and
then two hours of it waiting here for you, and you never coming! Dod,
and ye're none too soon the way it is, with me to sail the morn! The
morn? what am I saying?--the day, I mean."

"Ay, Alan, man, the day, sure enough," said I. "It's past twelve now,
surely, and ye sail the day. This'll be a long road you have before
you."

"We'll have a long crack of it first," said he.

"Well, indeed, and I have a good deal it will be telling you to hear,"
said I.

And I told him what behooved, making rather a jumble of it, but clear
enough when done. He heard me out with very few questions, laughing here
and there like a man delighted: and the sound of his laughing (above all
there, in the dark, where neither one of us could see the other) was
extraordinary friendly to my heart.

"Ay, Davie, ye're a queer character," says he, when I had done: "a queer
bitch after a', and I have no mind of meeting with the like of ye. As
for your story, Prestongrange is a Whig like yoursel', so I'll say the
less of him; and, dod! I believe he was the best friend ye had, if ye
could only trust him. But Symon Fraser and James More are my ain kind of
cattle, and I'll give them the name that they deserve. The muckle black
de'il was father to the Frasers, a'body kens that; and as for the
Gregara, I never could abye the reek of them since I could stotter on
two feet. I bloodied the nose of one, I mind, when I was still so wambly
on my legs that I cowped upon the top of him. A proud man was my father
that day, God rest him! and I think he had the cause. I'll never can
deny but what Robin was something of a piper," he added; "but as for
James More, the de'il guide him for me!"

"One thing we have to consider," said I. "Was Charles Stewart right or
wrong? Is it only me they're after, or the pair of us?"

"And what's your ain opinion, you that's a man of so much experience?"
said he.

"It passes me," said I.

"And me too," says Alan. "Do ye think this lass would keep her word to
ye?" he asked.

"I do that," said I.

"Well, there's nae telling," said he. "And anyway, that's over and done:
he'll be joined to the rest of them lang syne."

"How many would ye think there would be of them?" I asked.

"That depends," said Alan. "If it was only you, they would likely send
two-three lively, brisk young birkies, and if they thought that I was to
appear in the employ, I daresay ten or twelve," said he.

It was no use, I gave a little crack of laughter.

"And I think your own two eyes will have seen me drive that number, or
the double of it, nearer hand!" cries he.

"It matters the less," said I, "because I am well rid of them for this
time."

"Nae doubt that's your opinion," said he; "but I wouldnae be the least
surprised if they were hunkering this wood. Ye see, David man, they'll
be Hieland folk. There'll be some Frasers, I'm thinking, and some of the
Gregara; and I would never deny but what the both of them, and the
Gregara in especial, were clever experienced persons. A man kens little
till he's driven a spreagh of neat cattle (say) ten miles through a
throng lowland country and the black soldiers maybe at his tail. It's
there that I learned a great part of my penetration. And ye need nae
tell me: it's better than war; which is the next best, however, though
generally rather a bauchle of a business. Now the Gregara have had grand
practice."

"No doubt that's a branch of education that was left out with me," said
I.

"And I can see the marks of it upon ye constantly," said Alan. "But
that's the strange thing about you folk of the college learning: ye're
ignorant, and ye cannae see 't. Wae's me for my Greek and Hebrew; but,
man, I ken that I dinnae ken them--there's the differ of it. Now, here's
you. Ye lie on your wame a bittie in the bield of this wood, and ye tell
me that ye've cuist off these Frasers and Macgregors. Why! _Because I
couldnae see them_, says you. Ye blockhead, that's their livelihood."

"Take the worst of it," said I, "and what are we to do?"

"I am thinking of that same," said he. "We might twine. It wouldnae be
greatly to my taste; and forbye that, I see reasons against it. First,
it's now unco dark, and it's just humanly possible we might give them
the clean slip. If we keep together, we make but the ae line of it; if
we gang separate, we make twae of them: the more likelihood to stave in
upon some of these gentry of yours. And then, second, if they keep the
track of us, it may come to a fecht for it yet, Davie; and then, I'll
confess I would be blythe to have you at my oxter, and I think you would
be none the worse of having me at yours. So, by my way of it, we should
creep out of this wood no further gone than just the inside of next
minute, and hold away east for Gillane, where I'm to find my ship. It'll
be like old days while it lasts, Davie; and (come the time) we'll have
to think what you should be doing. I'm wae to leave ye here, wanting
me."

"Have with ye, then!" says I. "Do ye gang back where you were stopping."

"De'il a fear!" said Alan. "They were good folks to me, but I think they
would be a good deal disappointed if they saw my bonny face again. For
(the way times go) I amnae just what ye could call a Walcome Guest.
Which makes me the keener for your company, Mr. David Balfour of the
Shaws, and set ye up! For, leave aside twa cracks here in the wood with
Charlie Stewart, I have scarce said black or white since the day we
parted at Corstorphine."

With which he rose from his place, and we began to move quietly eastward
through the wood.

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER XII

ON THE MARCH AGAIN WITH ALAN


It was likely between one and two; the moon (as I have said) was down; a
strongish wind, carrying a heavy wrack of cloud, had set in suddenly
from the west; and we began our movement in as black a night as ever a
fugitive or a murderer wanted. The whiteness of the path guided us into
the sleeping town of Broughton, thence through Picardy, and beside my
old acquaintance the gibbet of the two thieves. A little beyond we made
a useful beacon, which was a light in an upper window of Lochend.
Steering by this, but a good deal at random, and with some trampling of
the harvest, and stumbling and falling down upon the banks, we made our
way across country, and won forth at last upon the linky, boggy muirland
that they call the Figgate Whins. Here, under a bush of whin, we lay
down the remainder of that night and slumbered.

The day called us about five. A beautiful morning it was, the high
westerly wind still blowing strong, but the clouds all blown away to
Europe. Alan was already sitting up and smiling to himself. It was my
first sight of my friend since we were parted, and I looked upon him
with enjoyment. He had still the same big great-coat on his back; but
(what was new) he had now a pair of knitted boot-hose drawn above the
knee. Doubtless these were intended for disguise; but, as the day
promised to be warm, he made a most unseasonable figure.

"Well, Davie," said he, "is this no a bonny morning? Here is a day that
looks the way that a day ought to. This is a great change of it from the
belly of my haystack; and while you were there sottering and sleeping I
have done a thing that maybe I do over seldom."

"And what was that?" said I.

"O, just said my prayers," said he.

"And where are my gentry, as ye call them?" I asked.

"Gude kens," says he; "and the short and the long of it is that we must
take our chance of them. Up with your foot-soles, Davie! Forth, Fortune,
once again of it! And a bonny walk we are like to have."

So we went east by the beach of the sea, towards where the salt-pans
were smoking in by the Esk mouth. No doubt there was a by-ordinary bonny
blink of morning sun on Arthur's Seat and the green Pentlands; and the
pleasantness of the day appeared to set Alan among nettles.

"I feel like a gomeral," says he, "to be leaving Scotland on a day like
this. It sticks in my head; I would maybe like it better to stay here
and hing."

"Ay, but ye wouldnae, Alan," said I.

"No but what France is a good place too," he explained; "but it's some
way no the same. It's brawer, I believe, but it's no Scotland. I like it
fine when I'm there, man; yet I kind of weary for Scots divots and the
Scots peat-reek."

"If that's all you have to complain of, Alan, it's no such great
affair," said I.

"And it sets me ill to be complaining, whatever," said he, "and me but
new out of yon de'il's haystack."

"And so you were unco' weary of your haystack?" I asked.

"Weary's nae word for it," said he. "I'm not just precisely a man that's
easily cast down; but I do better with caller air and the lift above my
head. I'm like the auld Black Douglas (wasnae't?) that likit better to
hear the laverock sing than the mouse cheep. And yon place, ye see,
Davie--whilk was a very suitable place to hide in, as I'm free to
own--was pit mirk from dawn to gloaming. There were days (or nights, for
how would I tell one from other?) that seemed to me as long as a long
winter."

"How did you know the hour to bide your tryst?" I asked.

"The goodman brought me my meat and a drop brandy, and a candle-dowp to
eat it by, about eleeven," said he. "So, when I had swallowed a bit, it
would be time to be getting to the wood. There I lay and wearied for ye
sore, Davie," says he, laying his hand on my shoulder, "and guessed when
the two hours would be about by--unless Charlie Stewart would come and
tell me on his watch--and then back to the dooms haystack. Na, it was a
driech employ, and praise the Lord that I have warstled through with
it!"

"What did you do with yourself?" I asked.

"Faith," said he, "the best I could! Whiles I played at the
knucklebones. I'm an extraordinar good hand at the knucklebones, but
it's a poor piece of business playing with naebody to admire ye. And
whiles I would make songs."

"What were they about?" says I.

"O, about the deer and the heather," says he, "and about the ancient old
chiefs that are all by with it long syne, and just about what songs are
about in general. And then whiles I would make believe I had a set of
pipes and I was playing. I played some grand springs, and I thought I
played them awful bonny; I vow whiles that I could hear the squeal of
them! But the great affair is that it's done with."

With that he carried me again to my adventures, which he heard all over
again with more particularity, and extraordinary approval, swearing at
intervals that I was "a queer character of a callant."

"So ye were frich'ened of Sym Fraser?" he asked once.

"In troth was I!" cried I.

"So would I have been, Davie," said he. "And that is indeed a dreidful
man. But it is only proper to give the de'il his due; and I can tell you
he is a most respectable person on the field of war."

"Is he so brave?" I asked.

"Brave!" said he. "He is as brave as my steel sword."

The story of my duel set him beside himself.

"To think of that!" he cried. "I showed ye the trick in Corrynakiegh
too. And three times--three times disarmed! It's a disgrace upon my
character that learned ye! Here, stand up, out with your airn; ye shall
walk no step beyond this place upon the road till ye can do yoursel' and
me mair credit."

"Alan," said I, "this is midsummer madness. Here is no time for fencing
lessons."

"I cannae well say no to that," he admitted. "But three times, man! And
you standing there like a straw bogle and rinning to fetch your ain
sword like a doggie with a pocket-napkin! David, this man Duncansby must
be something altogether by-ordinar! He maun be extraordinar skilly. If I
had the time, I would gang straight back and try a turn at him mysel'.
The man must be a provost."

"You silly fellow," said I, "you forget it was just me."

"Na," said he, "but three times!"

"When ye ken yourself that I am fair incompetent," I cried.

"Well, I never heard tell the equal of it," said he.

"I promise you the one thing, Alan," said I. "The next time that we
forgather, I'll be better learned. You shall not continue to bear the
disgrace of a friend that cannot strike."

"Ay, the next time!" says he. "And when will that be, I would like to
ken?"

"Well, Alan, I have had some thoughts of that, too," said I; "and my
plan is this. It's my opinion to be called an advocate."

"That's but a weary trade, Davie," says Alan, "and rather a blagyard one
forby. Ye would be better in a king's coat than that."

"And no doubt that would be the way to have us meet," cried I. "But as
you'll be in King Lewie's coat, and I'll be in King Geordie's, we'll
have a dainty meeting of it."

"There's some sense in that," he admitted.

"An advocate, then, it'll have to be," I continued, "and I think it a
more suitable trade for a gentleman that was _three times_ disarmed. But
the beauty of the thing is this: that one of the best colleges for that
kind of learning--and the one where my kinsman, Pilrig, made his
studies--is the college of Leyden in Holland. Now, what say you, Alan?
Could not a cadet of _Royal Ecossais_ get a furlough, slip over the
marches, and call in upon a Leyden student!"

"Well, and I would think he could!" cried he. "Ye see, I stand well in
with my colonel, Count Drummond-Melfort; and, what's mair to the
purpose, I have a cousin of mine lieutenant-colonel in a regiment of the
Scots-Dutch. Naething could be mair proper than what I would get a leave
to see Lieutenant-Colonel Stewart of Halkett's. And Lord Melfort, who is
a very scienteefic kind of a man, and writes books like Cæsar, would be
doubtless very pleased to have the advantage of my observes."

"Is Lord Melfort an author, then?" I asked, for much as Alan thought of
soldiers, I thought more of the gentry that write books.

"The very same, Davie," said he. "One would think a colonel would have
something better to attend to. But what can I say that make songs?"

"Well, then," said I, "it only remains you should give me an address to
write you at in France; and as soon as I am got to Leyden I will send
you mine."

"The best will be to write me in the care of my chieftain," said he,
"Charles Stewart, of Ardsheil, Esquire, at the town of Melons, in the
Isle of France. It might take long, or it might take short, but it would
aye get to my hands at the last of it."

We had a haddock to our breakfast in Musselburgh, where it amused me
vastly to hear Alan. His great-coat and boot-hose were extremely
remarkable this warm morning, and perhaps some hint of an explanation
had been wise; but Alan went into that matter like a business, or I
should rather say, like a diversion. He engaged the goodwife of the
house with some compliments upon the rizzoring of our haddocks; and the
whole of the rest of our stay held her in talk about a cold he had taken
on his stomach, gravely relating all manner of symptoms and sufferings,
and hearing with a vast show of interest all the old wives' remedies she
could supply him with in return.

We left Musselburgh before the first ninepenny coach was due from
Edinburgh, for (as Alan said) that was a rencounter we might very well
avoid. The wind, although still high, was very mild, the sun shone
strong, and Alan began to suffer in proportion. From Prestonpans he had
me aside to the field of Gladsmuir, where he exerted himself a great
deal more than needful to describe the stages of the battle. Thence, at
his old round pace, we travelled to Cockenzie. Though they were building
herring-busses there at Mrs. Cadell's, it seemed a desert-like,
back-going town, about half full of ruined houses; but the ale-house was
clean, and Alan, who was now in a glowing heat, must indulge himself
with a bottle of ale, and carry on to the new luckie with the old story
of the cold upon his stomach, only now the symptoms were all different.

I sat listening; and it came in my mind that I had scarce ever heard him
address three serious words to any woman, but he was always drolling and
fleering and making a private mock of them, and yet brought to that
business a remarkable degree of energy and interest. Something to this
effect I remarked to him, when the good wife (as chanced) was called
away.

"What do ye want?" says he. "A man should aye put his best foot forrit
with the womenkind; he should aye give them a bit of a story to divert
them, the poor lambs! It's what ye should learn to attend to, David; ye
should get the principles, it's like a trade. Now, if this had been a
young lassie, or onyways bonnie, she would never have heard tell of my
stomach, Davie. But aince they're too old to be seeking joes, they a'
set up to be apotecaries. Why? What do I ken? They'll be just the way
God made them, I suppose. But I think a man would be a gomeral that
didnae give his attention to the same."

And here, the luckie coming back, he turned from me as if with
impatience to renew their former conversation. The lady had branched
some while before from Alan's stomach to the case of a goodbrother of
her own in Aberlady, whose last sickness and demise she was describing
at extraordinary length. Sometimes it was merely dull, sometimes both
dull and awful, for she talked with unction. The upshot was that I fell
in a deep muse, looking forth of the window on the road, and scarce
marking what I saw. Presently had any been looking they might have seen
me to start.

"We pit a fomentation to his feet," the goodwife was saying, "and a het
stane to his wame, and we gied him hyssop and water of pennyroyal, and
fine, clean balsam of sulphur for the hoast...."

"Sir," says I, cutting very quietly in, "there's a friend of mine gone
by the house."

"Is that e'en sae?" replies Alan, as though it were a thing of
small-account. And then, "Ye were saying, mem?" says he; and the
wearyful wife went on.

Presently, however, he paid her with a half-crown piece, and she must go
forth after the change.

"Was it him with the red head?" asked Alan.

"Ye have it," said I.

"What did I tell you in the wood?" he cried. "And yet it's strange he
should be here too! Was he his lane?"

"His lee-lane for what I could see," said I.

"Did he gang by?" he asked.

"Straight by," said I, "and looked neither to the right nor left."

"And that's queerer yet," said Alan. "It sticks in my mind, Davie, that
we should be stirring. But where to?--deil hae't! This is like old days
fairly," cries he.

"There is one big differ, though," said I, "that now we have money in
our pockets."

"And another big differ, Mr. Balfour," says he, "that now we have dogs
at our tail. They're on the scent; they're in full cry, David. It's a
bad business and be damned to it." And he sat thinking hard with a look
of his that I knew well.

"I'm saying, Luckie," says he, when the goodwife returned, "have ye a
back road out of this change house?"

She told him there was and where it led to.

"Then, sir," says he to me, "I think that will be the shortest road for
us. And here's good-bye to ye, my braw woman; and I'll no forget thon of
the cinnamon water."

We went out by way of the woman's kale yard, and up a lane among fields.
Alan looked sharply to all sides, and seeing we were in a little hollow
place of the country, out of view of men, sat down.

"Now for a council of war, Davie," said he. "But first of all, a bit
lesson to ye. Suppose that I had been like you, what would yon old wife
have minded of the pair of us? Just that we had gone out by the back
gate. And what does she mind now? A fine, canty, friendly, cracky man,
that suffered with the stomach, poor body! and was real ta'en up about
the goodbrother. O man, David, try and learn to have some kind of
intelligence!"

"I'll try, Alan," said I.

"And now for him of the red head," says he; "was he gaun fast or slow?"

"Betwixt and between," said I.

"No kind of a hurry about the man?" he asked.

"Never a sign of it," said I.

"Nhm!" said Alan, "it looks queer. We saw nothing of them this morning
on the Whins; he's passed us by, he doesnae seem to be looking, and yet
here he is on our road! Dod, Davie, I begin to take a notion. I think
it's no you they're seeking, I think it's me; and I think they ken fine
where they're gaun."

"They ken?" I asked.

"I think Andie Scougal's sold me--him or his mate wha kent some part of
the affair--or else Chairlie's clerk callant, which would be a pity
too," says Alan; "and if you askit me for just my inward private
conviction, I think there'll be heads cracked on Gillane sands."

"Alan," I cried, "if you're at all right there'll be folk there and to
spare. It'll be small service to crack heads."

"It would aye be a satisfaction though," says Alan. "But bide a bit,
bide a bit; I'm thinking--and thanks to this bonny westland wind, I
believe I've still a chance of it. It's this way, Davie. I'm no trysted
with this man Scougal till the gloaming comes. _But_," says he, "_if I
can get a bit of a wind out of the west I'll be there long or that_," he
says, "_and lie-to for ye behind the Isle of Fidra_. Now if your gentry
kens the place, they ken the time forbye. Do ye see me coming, Davie?
Thanks to Johnnie Cope and other red-coat gomerals, I should ken this
country like the back of my hand; and if ye're ready for another bit run
with Alan Breck, we'll can cast back inshore, and come down to the
seaside again by Dirleton. If the ship's there, we'll try and get on
board of her. If she's no there, I'll just have to get back to my weary
haystack. But either way of it, I think we will leave your gentry
whistling on their thumbs."

"I believe there's some chance in it," said I. "Have on with ye, Alan!"

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER XIII

GILLANE SANDS


I did not profit by Alan's pilotage as he had done by his marchings
under General Cope; for I can scarce tell what way we went. It is my
excuse that we travelled exceeding fast. Some part we ran, some trotted,
and the rest walked at a vengeance of a pace. Twice, while we were at
top speed, we ran against country-folk; but though we plumped into the
first from round a corner, Alan was as ready as a loaded musket.

"Hae ye seen my horse?" he gasped.

"Na, man, I haenae seen nae horse the day," replied the countryman.

And Alan spared the time to explain to him that we were travelling "ride
and tie"; that our charger had escaped, and it was feared he had gone
home to Linton. Not only that, but he expended some breath (of which he
had not very much left) to curse his own misfortune and my stupidity
which was said to be its cause.

"Them that cannae tell the truth," he observed to myself as we went on
again, "should be aye mindfu' to leave an honest, handy lee behind them.
If folk dinnae ken what ye're doing, Davie, they're terrible taken up
with it; but if they think they ken, they care nae mair for it than what
I do for pease porridge."

As we had first made inland, so our road came in the end to lie very
near due north; the old Kirk of Aberlady for a landmark on the left; on
the right, the top of the Berwick Law; and it was thus we struck the
shore again, not far from Dirleton. From North Berwick west to Gillane
Ness there runs a string of four small islets, Craiglieth, the Lamb,
Fidra, and Eyebrough, notable by their diversity of size and shape.
Fidra is the most particular, being a strange grey islet of two humps,
made the more conspicuous by a piece of ruin; and I mind that (as we
drew closer to it) by some door or window of these ruins the sea peeped
through like a man's eye. Under the lee of Fidra there is a good
anchorage in westerly winds, and there, from a far way off, we could see
the _Thistle_ riding.

The shore in face of these islets is altogether waste. Here is no
dwelling of man, and scarce any passage, or at most of vagabond children
running at their play. Gillane is a small place on the far side of the
Ness, the folk of Dirleton go to their business in the inland fields,
and those of North Berwick straight to the sea-fishing from their haven;
so that few parts of the coast are lonelier. But I mind, as we crawled
upon our bellies into that multiplicity of heights and hollows, keeping
a bright eye upon all sides, and our hearts hammering at our ribs, there
was such a shining of the sun and the sea, such a stir of the wind in
the bent grass, and such a bustle of down-popping rabbits and up-flying
gulls, that the desert seemed to me like a place alive. No doubt it was
in all ways well chosen for a secret embarcation, if the secret had been
kept; and even now that it was out, and the place watched, we were able
to creep unperceived to the front of the sandhills, where they look down
immediately on the beach and sea.

But here Alan came to a full stop.

"Davie," said he, "this is a kittle passage! As long as we lie here
we're safe; but I'm nane sae muckle nearer to my ship or the coast of
France. And as soon as we stand up and signal the brig, it's another
matter. For where will your gentry be, think ye?"

"Maybe they're no come yet," said I. "And even if they are, there's one
clear matter in our favour. They'll be all arranged to take us, that's
true. But they'll have arranged for our coming from the east, and here
we are upon their west."

"Ay," says Alan, "I wish we were in some force, and this was a battle,
we would have bonnily out-manoeuvred them! But it isnae, Davit; and the
way it is, is a wee thing less inspiring to Alan Breck. I swither,
Davie."

"Time flies, Alan," said I.

"I ken that," said Alan. "I ken naething else, as the French folk say.
But this is a dreidful case of heids or tails. O! if I could but ken
where your gentry were!"

"Alan," said I, "this is no like you. It's got to be now or never."

    "This is no me, quo' he,"

sang Alan, with a queer face betwixt shame and drollery.

    "Neither you nor me, quo' he, neither you nor me,
    Wow, na, Johnnie man! neither you nor me."

And then of a sudden he stood straight up where he was, and with a
handkerchief flying in his right hand, marched down upon the beach. I
stood up myself, but lingered behind him, scanning the sandhills to the
east. His appearance was at first unremarked: Scougal not expecting him
so early, and _my gentry_ watching on the other side. Then they awoke on
board the _Thistle_, and it seemed they had all in readiness, for there
was scarce a second's bustle on the deck before we saw a skiff put round
her stern and begin to pull lively for the coast. Almost at the same
moment of time, and perhaps half a mile away towards Gillane Ness, the
figure of a man appeared for a blink upon a sandhill, waving with his
arms; and though he was gone again in the same flash, the gulls in that
part continued a little longer to fly wild.

Alan had not seen this, looking straight to seaward at the ship and
skiff.

"It maun be as it will!" said he, when I had told him. "Weel may yon
boatie row, or my craig'll have to thole a raxing."

That part of the beach was long and flat, and excellent walking when the
tide was down; a little cressy burn flowed over it in one place to the
sea; and the sandhills ran along the head of it like the rampart of a
town. No eye of ours could spy what was passing behind there in the
bents, no hurry of ours could mend the speed of the boat's coming: time
stood still with us through that uncanny period of waiting.

"There is one thing I would like to ken," says Alan. "I would like fine
to ken these gentry's orders. We're worth four hunner pound the pair of
us: how if they took the guns to us, Davie? They would get a bonny shot
from the top of that lang sandy bank."

"Morally impossible," said I. "The point is that they can have no guns.
This thing has been gone about too secret; pistols they may have, but
never guns."

"I believe ye'll be in the right," says Alan. "For all which I am
wearying a good deal for yon boat."

And he snapped his fingers and whistled to it like a dog.

It was now perhaps a third of the way in, and we ourselves already hard
on the margin of the sea, so that the soft sand rose over my shoes.
There was no more to do whatever but to wait, to look as much as we were
able at the creeping nearer of the boat, and as little as we could
manage at the long impenetrable front of the sandhills, over which the
gulls twinkled and behind which our enemies were doubtless marshalling.

"This is a fine, bright, caller place to get shot in," says Alan,
suddenly; "and, man, I wish that I had your courage!"

"Alan!" I cried, "what kind of talk is this of it? You're just made of
courage; it's the character of the man, as I could prove myself if there
was nobody else."

"And you would be the more mistaken," said he. "What makes the differ
with me is just my great penetration and knowledge of affairs. But for
auld, cauld, dour, deidly courage, I am not fit to hold a candle to
yourself. Look at us two here upon the sands. Here am I, fair hotching
to be off; here's you (for all that I ken) in two minds of it whether
you'll no stop. Do you think that I could do that, or would? No me!
Firstly, because I havenae got the courage and wouldnae daur; and
secondly, because I am a man of so much penetration and would see ye
damned first."

"It's there ye're coming, is it?" I cried. "Ah, man Alan, you can wile
your old wives, but you never can wile me."

Remembrance of my temptation in the wood made me strong as iron.

"I have a tryst to keep," I continued. "I am trysted with your cousin
Charlie; I have passed my word."

"Braw trysts that you'll can keep," said Alan. "Ye'll just mistryst
aince and for a' with the gentry in the bents. And what for?" he went on
with an extreme threatening gravity. "Just tell me that, my mannie! Are
ye to be speerited away like Lady Grange? Are they to drive a dirk in
your inside and bury ye in the bents? Or is it to be the other way, and
are they to bring ye in with James? Are they folk to be trustit? Would
ye stick your head in the mouth of Sim Fraser and the ither Whigs?" he
added with extraordinary bitterness.