Then I told him that, sure enough, I had a pistol in my pocket as well
as he, and if he did not strike across the hill due south I would even
blow his brains out.

He became at once very polite, and after trying to soften me for some
time, but quite in vain, he cursed me once more in Gaelic and took
himself off. I watched him striding along, through bog and brier,
tapping with his stick, until he turned the end of a hill and
disappeared in the next hollow. Then I struck on again for Torosay, much
better pleased to be alone than to travel with that man of learning.
This was an unlucky day; and these two, of whom I had just rid myself,
one after the other, were the two worst men I met with in the Highlands.

At Torosay, on the Sound of Mull and looking over to the mainland
of Morven, there was an inn with an innkeeper, who was a Maclean, it
appeared, of a very high family; for to keep an inn is thought even more
genteel in the Highlands than it is with us, perhaps as partaking of
hospitality, or perhaps because the trade is idle and drunken. He spoke
good English, and finding me to be something of a scholar, tried me
first in French, where he easily beat me, and then in the Latin, in
which I don't know which of us did best. This pleasant rivalry put us at
once upon friendly terms; and I sat up and drank punch with him (or to
be more correct, sat up and watched him drink it), until he was so tipsy
that he wept upon my shoulder.

I tried him, as if by accident, with a sight of Alan's button; but it
was plain he had never seen or heard of it. Indeed, he bore some grudge
against the family and friends of Ardshiel, and before he was drunk
he read me a lampoon, in very good Latin, but with a very ill meaning,
which he had made in elegiac verses upon a person of that house.

When I told him of my catechist, he shook his head, and said I was lucky
to have got clear off. "That is a very dangerous man," he said; "Duncan
Mackiegh is his name; he can shoot by the ear at several yards, and has
been often accused of highway robberies, and once of murder."

"The cream of it is," says I, "that he called himself a catechist."

"And why should he not?" says he, "when that is what he is. It was
Maclean of Duart gave it to him because he was blind. But perhaps it was
a peety," says my host, "for he is always on the road, going from
one place to another to hear the young folk say their religion; and,
doubtless, that is a great temptation to the poor man."

At last, when my landlord could drink no more, he showed me to a bed,
and I lay down in very good spirits; having travelled the greater part
of that big and crooked Island of Mull, from Earraid to Torosay, fifty
miles as the crow flies, and (with my wanderings) much nearer a hundred,
in four days and with little fatigue. Indeed I was by far in better
heart and health of body at the end of that long tramp than I had been
at the beginning.




CHAPTER XVI

THE LAD WITH THE SILVER BUTTON: ACROSS MORVEN

There is a regular ferry from Torosay to Kinlochaline on the mainland.
Both shores of the Sound are in the country of the strong clan of the
Macleans, and the people that passed the ferry with me were almost all
of that clan. The skipper of the boat, on the other hand, was called
Neil Roy Macrob; and since Macrob was one of the names of Alan's
clansmen, and Alan himself had sent me to that ferry, I was eager to
come to private speech of Neil Roy.

In the crowded boat this was of course impossible, and the passage was
a very slow affair. There was no wind, and as the boat was wretchedly
equipped, we could pull but two oars on one side, and one on the other.
The men gave way, however, with a good will, the passengers taking
spells to help them, and the whole company giving the time in
Gaelic boat-songs. And what with the songs, and the sea-air, and the
good-nature and spirit of all concerned, and the bright weather, the
passage was a pretty thing to have seen.

But there was one melancholy part. In the mouth of Loch Aline we found
a great sea-going ship at anchor; and this I supposed at first to be one
of the King's cruisers which were kept along that coast, both summer
and winter, to prevent communication with the French. As we got a little
nearer, it became plain she was a ship of merchandise; and what still
more puzzled me, not only her decks, but the sea-beach also, were quite
black with people, and skiffs were continually plying to and fro between
them. Yet nearer, and there began to come to our ears a great sound
of mourning, the people on board and those on the shore crying and
lamenting one to another so as to pierce the heart.

Then I understood this was an emigrant ship bound for the American
colonies.

We put the ferry-boat alongside, and the exiles leaned over the
bulwarks, weeping and reaching out their hands to my fellow-passengers,
among whom they counted some near friends. How long this might have gone
on I do not know, for they seemed to have no sense of time: but at last
the captain of the ship, who seemed near beside himself (and no great
wonder) in the midst of this crying and confusion, came to the side and
begged us to depart.

Thereupon Neil sheered off; and the chief singer in our boat struck into
a melancholy air, which was presently taken up both by the emigrants and
their friends upon the beach, so that it sounded from all sides like a
lament for the dying. I saw the tears run down the cheeks of the men and
women in the boat, even as they bent at the oars; and the circumstances
and the music of the song (which is one called "Lochaber no more") were
highly affecting even to myself.

At Kinlochaline I got Neil Roy upon one side on the beach, and said I
made sure he was one of Appin's men.

"And what for no?" said he.

"I am seeking somebody," said I; "and it comes in my mind that you will
have news of him. Alan Breck Stewart is his name." And very foolishly,
instead of showing him the button, I sought to pass a shilling in his
hand.

At this he drew back. "I am very much affronted," he said; "and this is
not the way that one shentleman should behave to another at all. The man
you ask for is in France; but if he was in my sporran," says he, "and
your belly full of shillings, I would not hurt a hair upon his body."

I saw I had gone the wrong way to work, and without wasting time upon
apologies, showed him the button lying in the hollow of my palm.

"Aweel, aweel," said Neil; "and I think ye might have begun with that
end of the stick, whatever! But if ye are the lad with the silver
button, all is well, and I have the word to see that ye come safe. But
if ye will pardon me to speak plainly," says he, "there is a name that
you should never take into your mouth, and that is the name of Alan
Breck; and there is a thing that ye would never do, and that is to offer
your dirty money to a Hieland shentleman."

It was not very easy to apologise; for I could scarce tell him (what was
the truth) that I had never dreamed he would set up to be a gentleman
until he told me so. Neil on his part had no wish to prolong his
dealings with me, only to fulfil his orders and be done with it; and
he made haste to give me my route. This was to lie the night in
Kinlochaline in the public inn; to cross Morven the next day to Ardgour,
and lie the night in the house of one John of the Claymore, who was
warned that I might come; the third day, to be set across one loch at
Corran and another at Balachulish, and then ask my way to the house of
James of the Glens, at Aucharn in Duror of Appin. There was a good deal
of ferrying, as you hear; the sea in all this part running deep into the
mountains and winding about their roots. It makes the country strong to
hold and difficult to travel, but full of prodigious wild and dreadful
prospects.

I had some other advice from Neil: to speak with no one by the way, to
avoid Whigs, Campbells, and the "red-soldiers;" to leave the road and
lie in a bush if I saw any of the latter coming, "for it was never
chancy to meet in with them;" and in brief, to conduct myself like a
robber or a Jacobite agent, as perhaps Neil thought me.

The inn at Kinlochaline was the most beggarly vile place that ever pigs
were styed in, full of smoke, vermin, and silent Highlanders. I was not
only discontented with my lodging, but with myself for my mismanagement
of Neil, and thought I could hardly be worse off. But very wrongly, as I
was soon to see; for I had not been half an hour at the inn (standing in
the door most of the time, to ease my eyes from the peat smoke) when a
thunderstorm came close by, the springs broke in a little hill on which
the inn stood, and one end of the house became a running water. Places
of public entertainment were bad enough all over Scotland in those days;
yet it was a wonder to myself, when I had to go from the fireside to the
bed in which I slept, wading over the shoes.

Early in my next day's journey I overtook a little, stout, solemn man,
walking very slowly with his toes turned out, sometimes reading in
a book and sometimes marking the place with his finger, and dressed
decently and plainly in something of a clerical style.

This I found to be another catechist, but of a different order from the
blind man of Mull: being indeed one of those sent out by the Edinburgh
Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge, to evangelise the more
savage places of the Highlands. His name was Henderland; he spoke with
the broad south-country tongue, which I was beginning to weary for the
sound of; and besides common countryship, we soon found we had a
more particular bond of interest. For my good friend, the minister of
Essendean, had translated into the Gaelic in his by-time a number of
hymns and pious books which Henderland used in his work, and held in
great esteem. Indeed, it was one of these he was carrying and reading
when we met.

We fell in company at once, our ways lying together as far as to
Kingairloch. As we went, he stopped and spoke with all the wayfarers
and workers that we met or passed; and though of course I could not tell
what they discoursed about, yet I judged Mr. Henderland must be well
liked in the countryside, for I observed many of them to bring out their
mulls and share a pinch of snuff with him.

I told him as far in my affairs as I judged wise; as far, that is,
as they were none of Alan's; and gave Balachulish as the place I was
travelling to, to meet a friend; for I thought Aucharn, or even Duror,
would be too particular, and might put him on the scent.

On his part, he told me much of his work and the people he worked among,
the hiding priests and Jacobites, the Disarming Act, the dress, and many
other curiosities of the time and place. He seemed moderate; blaming
Parliament in several points, and especially because they had framed the
Act more severely against those who wore the dress than against those
who carried weapons.

This moderation put it in my mind to question him of the Red Fox and the
Appin tenants; questions which, I thought, would seem natural enough in
the mouth of one travelling to that country.



He said it was a bad business. "It's wonderful," said he, "where the
tenants find the money, for their life is mere starvation. (Ye don't
carry such a thing as snuff, do ye, Mr. Balfour? No. Well, I'm better
wanting it.) But these tenants (as I was saying) are doubtless partly
driven to it. James Stewart in Duror (that's him they call James of the
Glens) is half-brother to Ardshiel, the captain of the clan; and he is
a man much looked up to, and drives very hard. And then there's one they
call Alan Breck--"

"Ah!" I cried, "what of him?"

"What of the wind that bloweth where it listeth?" said Henderland. "He's
here and awa; here to-day and gone to-morrow: a fair heather-cat. He
might be glowering at the two of us out of yon whin-bush, and I wouldnae
wonder! Ye'll no carry such a thing as snuff, will ye?"

I told him no, and that he had asked the same thing more than once.

"It's highly possible," said he, sighing. "But it seems strange ye
shouldnae carry it. However, as I was saying, this Alan Breck is a bold,
desperate customer, and well kent to be James's right hand. His life
is forfeit already; he would boggle at naething; and maybe, if a
tenant-body was to hang back he would get a dirk in his wame."

"You make a poor story of it all, Mr. Henderland," said I. "If it is all
fear upon both sides, I care to hear no more of it."

"Na," said Mr. Henderland, "but there's love too, and self-denial that
should put the like of you and me to shame. There's something fine about
it; no perhaps Christian, but humanly fine. Even Alan Breck, by all that
I hear, is a chield to be respected. There's many a lying sneck-draw
sits close in kirk in our own part of the country, and stands well in
the world's eye, and maybe is a far worse man, Mr. Balfour, than yon
misguided shedder of man's blood. Ay, ay, we might take a lesson by
them.--Ye'll perhaps think I've been too long in the Hielands?" he
added, smiling to me.

I told him not at all; that I had seen much to admire among the
Highlanders; and if he came to that, Mr. Campbell himself was a
Highlander.

"Ay," said he, "that's true. It's a fine blood."

"And what is the King's agent about?" I asked.

"Colin Campbell?" says Henderland. "Putting his head in a bees' byke!"

"He is to turn the tenants out by force, I hear?" said I.

"Yes," says he, "but the business has gone back and forth, as folk say.
First, James of the Glens rode to Edinburgh, and got some lawyer (a
Stewart, nae doubt--they all hing together like bats in a steeple) and
had the proceedings stayed. And then Colin Campbell cam' in again, and
had the upper-hand before the Barons of Exchequer. And now they tell me
the first of the tenants are to flit to-morrow. It's to begin at Duror
under James's very windows, which doesnae seem wise by my humble way of
it."

"Do you think they'll fight?" I asked.

"Well," says Henderland, "they're disarmed--or supposed to be--for
there's still a good deal of cold iron lying by in quiet places. And
then Colin Campbell has the sogers coming. But for all that, if I was
his lady wife, I wouldnae be well pleased till I got him home again.
They're queer customers, the Appin Stewarts."

I asked if they were worse than their neighbours.

"No they," said he. "And that's the worst part of it. For if Colin Roy
can get his business done in Appin, he has it all to begin again in the
next country, which they call Mamore, and which is one of the countries
of the Camerons. He's King's Factor upon both, and from both he has to
drive out the tenants; and indeed, Mr. Balfour (to be open with ye),
it's my belief that if he escapes the one lot, he'll get his death by
the other."

So we continued talking and walking the great part of the day; until
at last, Mr. Henderland after expressing his delight in my company, and
satisfaction at meeting with a friend of Mr. Campbell's ("whom," says
he, "I will make bold to call that sweet singer of our covenanted
Zion"), proposed that I should make a short stage, and lie the night in
his house a little beyond Kingairloch. To say truth, I was overjoyed;
for I had no great desire for John of the Claymore, and since my double
misadventure, first with the guide and next with the gentleman skipper,
I stood in some fear of any Highland stranger. Accordingly we shook
hands upon the bargain, and came in the afternoon to a small house,
standing alone by the shore of the Linnhe Loch. The sun was already gone
from the desert mountains of Ardgour upon the hither side, but shone on
those of Appin on the farther; the loch lay as still as a lake, only
the gulls were crying round the sides of it; and the whole place seemed
solemn and uncouth.

We had no sooner come to the door of Mr. Henderland's dwelling, than to
my great surprise (for I was now used to the politeness of Highlanders)
he burst rudely past me, dashed into the room, caught up a jar and
a small horn-spoon, and began ladling snuff into his nose in most
excessive quantities. Then he had a hearty fit of sneezing, and looked
round upon me with a rather silly smile.

"It's a vow I took," says he. "I took a vow upon me that I wouldnae
carry it. Doubtless it's a great privation; but when I think upon
the martyrs, not only to the Scottish Covenant but to other points of
Christianity, I think shame to mind it."

As soon as we had eaten (and porridge and whey was the best of the good
man's diet) he took a grave face and said he had a duty to perform by
Mr. Campbell, and that was to inquire into my state of mind towards God.
I was inclined to smile at him since the business of the snuff; but he
had not spoken long before he brought the tears into my eyes. There are
two things that men should never weary of, goodness and humility; we get
none too much of them in this rough world among cold, proud people; but
Mr. Henderland had their very speech upon his tongue. And though I was a
good deal puffed up with my adventures and with having come off, as the
saying is, with flying colours; yet he soon had me on my knees beside a
simple, poor old man, and both proud and glad to be there.

Before we went to bed he offered me sixpence to help me on my way, out
of a scanty store he kept in the turf wall of his house; at which excess
of goodness I knew not what to do. But at last he was so earnest with me
that I thought it the more mannerly part to let him have his way, and so
left him poorer than myself.




CHAPTER XVII

THE DEATH OF THE RED FOX

The next day Mr. Henderland found for me a man who had a boat of his own
and was to cross the Linnhe Loch that afternoon into Appin, fishing. Him
he prevailed on to take me, for he was one of his flock; and in this way
I saved a long day's travel and the price of the two public ferries I
must otherwise have passed.

It was near noon before we set out; a dark day with clouds, and the sun
shining upon little patches. The sea was here very deep and still,
and had scarce a wave upon it; so that I must put the water to my lips
before I could believe it to be truly salt. The mountains on either side
were high, rough and barren, very black and gloomy in the shadow of
the clouds, but all silver-laced with little watercourses where the sun
shone upon them. It seemed a hard country, this of Appin, for people to
care as much about as Alan did.

There was but one thing to mention. A little after we had started,
the sun shone upon a little moving clump of scarlet close in along the
water-side to the north. It was much of the same red as soldiers' coats;
every now and then, too, there came little sparks and lightnings, as
though the sun had struck upon bright steel.

I asked my boatman what it should be, and he answered he supposed it was
some of the red soldiers coming from Fort William into Appin, against
the poor tenantry of the country. Well, it was a sad sight to me;
and whether it was because of my thoughts of Alan, or from something
prophetic in my bosom, although this was but the second time I had seen
King George's troops, I had no good will to them.

At last we came so near the point of land at the entering in of Loch
Leven that I begged to be set on shore. My boatman (who was an honest
fellow and mindful of his promise to the catechist) would fain have
carried me on to Balachulish; but as this was to take me farther from my
secret destination, I insisted, and was set on shore at last under the
wood of Lettermore (or Lettervore, for I have heard it both ways) in
Alan's country of Appin.

This was a wood of birches, growing on a steep, craggy side of a
mountain that overhung the loch. It had many openings and ferny howes;
and a road or bridle track ran north and south through the midst of
it, by the edge of which, where was a spring, I sat down to eat some
oat-bread of Mr. Henderland's and think upon my situation.

Here I was not only troubled by a cloud of stinging midges, but far more
by the doubts of my mind. What I ought to do, why I was going to join
myself with an outlaw and a would-be murderer like Alan, whether I
should not be acting more like a man of sense to tramp back to the south
country direct, by my own guidance and at my own charges, and what Mr.
Campbell or even Mr. Henderland would think of me if they should ever
learn my folly and presumption: these were the doubts that now began to
come in on me stronger than ever.

As I was so sitting and thinking, a sound of men and horses came to me
through the wood; and presently after, at a turning of the road, I saw
four travellers come into view. The way was in this part so rough and
narrow that they came single and led their horses by the reins. The
first was a great, red-headed gentleman, of an imperious and flushed
face, who carried his hat in his hand and fanned himself, for he was in
a breathing heat. The second, by his decent black garb and white wig,
I correctly took to be a lawyer. The third was a servant, and wore some
part of his clothes in tartan, which showed that his master was of a
Highland family, and either an outlaw or else in singular good odour
with the Government, since the wearing of tartan was against the Act. If
I had been better versed in these things, I would have known the tartan
to be of the Argyle (or Campbell) colours. This servant had a good-sized
portmanteau strapped on his horse, and a net of lemons (to brew punch
with) hanging at the saddle-bow; as was often enough the custom with
luxurious travellers in that part of the country.

As for the fourth, who brought up the tail, I had seen his like before,
and knew him at once to be a sheriff's officer.

I had no sooner seen these people coming than I made up my mind (for no
reason that I can tell) to go through with my adventure; and when the
first came alongside of me, I rose up from the bracken and asked him the
way to Aucharn.

He stopped and looked at me, as I thought, a little oddly; and then,
turning to the lawyer, "Mungo," said he, "there's many a man would think
this more of a warning than two pyats. Here am I on my road to Duror on
the job ye ken; and here is a young lad starts up out of the bracken,
and speers if I am on the way to Aucharn."

"Glenure," said the other, "this is an ill subject for jesting."

These two had now drawn close up and were gazing at me, while the two
followers had halted about a stone-cast in the rear.

"And what seek ye in Aucharn?" said Colin Roy Campbell of Glenure, him
they called the Red Fox; for he it was that I had stopped.

"The man that lives there," said I.

"James of the Glens," says Glenure, musingly; and then to the lawyer:
"Is he gathering his people, think ye?"

"Anyway," says the lawyer, "we shall do better to bide where we are, and
let the soldiers rally us."

"If you are concerned for me," said I, "I am neither of his people nor
yours, but an honest subject of King George, owing no man and fearing no
man."

"Why, very well said," replies the Factor. "But if I may make so bold as
ask, what does this honest man so far from his country? and why does
he come seeking the brother of Ardshiel? I have power here, I must tell
you. I am King's Factor upon several of these estates, and have twelve
files of soldiers at my back."

"I have heard a waif word in the country," said I, a little nettled,
"that you were a hard man to drive."

He still kept looking at me, as if in doubt.

"Well," said he, at last, "your tongue is bold; but I am no unfriend to
plainness. If ye had asked me the way to the door of James Stewart on
any other day but this, I would have set ye right and bidden ye God
speed. But to-day--eh, Mungo?" And he turned again to look at the
lawyer.

But just as he turned there came the shot of a firelock from higher up
the hill; and with the very sound of it Glenure fell upon the road.

"O, I am dead!" he cried, several times over.

The lawyer had caught him up and held him in his arms, the servant
standing over and clasping his hands. And now the wounded man looked
from one to another with scared eyes, and there was a change in his
voice, that went to the heart.

"Take care of yourselves," says he. "I am dead."

He tried to open his clothes as if to look for the wound, but his
fingers slipped on the buttons. With that he gave a great sigh, his head
rolled on his shoulder, and he passed away.

The lawyer said never a word, but his face was as sharp as a pen and
as white as the dead man's; the servant broke out into a great noise of
crying and weeping, like a child; and I, on my side, stood staring at
them in a kind of horror. The sheriff's officer had run back at the
first sound of the shot, to hasten the coming of the soldiers.

At last the lawyer laid down the dead man in his blood upon the road,
and got to his own feet with a kind of stagger.

I believe it was his movement that brought me to my senses; for he had
no sooner done so than I began to scramble up the hill, crying out, "The
murderer! the murderer!"

So little a time had elapsed, that when I got to the top of the first
steepness, and could see some part of the open mountain, the murderer
was still moving away at no great distance. He was a big man, in a black
coat, with metal buttons, and carried a long fowling-piece.

"Here!" I cried. "I see him!"

At that the murderer gave a little, quick look over his shoulder, and
began to run. The next moment he was lost in a fringe of birches; then
he came out again on the upper side, where I could see him climbing like
a jackanapes, for that part was again very steep; and then he dipped
behind a shoulder, and I saw him no more.

All this time I had been running on my side, and had got a good way up,
when a voice cried upon me to stand.

I was at the edge of the upper wood, and so now, when I halted and
looked back, I saw all the open part of the hill below me.

The lawyer and the sheriff's officer were standing just above the road,
crying and waving on me to come back; and on their left, the red-coats,
musket in hand, were beginning to struggle singly out of the lower wood.

"Why should I come back?" I cried. "Come you on!"

"Ten pounds if ye take that lad!" cried the lawyer. "He's an accomplice.
He was posted here to hold us in talk."

At that word (which I could hear quite plainly, though it was to the
soldiers and not to me that he was crying it) my heart came in my mouth
with quite a new kind of terror. Indeed, it is one thing to stand the
danger of your life, and quite another to run the peril of both life and
character. The thing, besides, had come so suddenly, like thunder out of
a clear sky, that I was all amazed and helpless.

The soldiers began to spread, some of them to run, and others to put up
their pieces and cover me; and still I stood.

"Jock* in here among the trees," said a voice close by.

     * Duck.

Indeed, I scarce knew what I was doing, but I obeyed; and as I did so, I
heard the firelocks bang and the balls whistle in the birches.

Just inside the shelter of the trees I found Alan Breck standing, with
a fishing-rod. He gave me no salutation; indeed it was no time for
civilities; only "Come!" says he, and set off running along the side of
the mountain towards Balaehulish; and I, like a sheep, to follow him.

Now we ran among the birches; now stooping behind low humps upon the
mountain-side; now crawling on all fours among the heather. The pace was
deadly: my heart seemed bursting against my ribs; and I had neither time
to think nor breath to speak with. Only I remember seeing with wonder,
that Alan every now and then would straighten himself to his full height
and look back; and every time he did so, there came a great far-away
cheering and crying of the soldiers.

Quarter of an hour later, Alan stopped, clapped down flat in the
heather, and turned to me.

"Now," said he, "it's earnest. Do as I do, for your life."

And at the same speed, but now with infinitely more precaution, we
traced back again across the mountain-side by the same way that we had
come, only perhaps higher; till at last Alan threw himself down in the
upper wood of Lettermore, where I had found him at the first, and lay,
with his face in the bracken, panting like a dog.

My own sides so ached, my head so swam, my tongue so hung out of my
mouth with heat and dryness, that I lay beside him like one dead.




CHAPTER XVIII

I TALK WITH ALAN IN THE WOOD OF LETTERMORE

Alan was the first to come round. He rose, went to the border of the
wood, peered out a little, and then returned and sat down.

"Well," said he, "yon was a hot burst, David."

I said nothing, nor so much as lifted my face. I had seen murder done,
and a great, ruddy, jovial gentleman struck out of life in a moment; the
pity of that sight was still sore within me, and yet that was but a part
of my concern. Here was murder done upon the man Alan hated; here was
Alan skulking in the trees and running from the troops; and whether his
was the hand that fired or only the head that ordered, signified
but little. By my way of it, my only friend in that wild country was
blood-guilty in the first degree; I held him in horror; I could not look
upon his face; I would have rather lain alone in the rain on my cold
isle, than in that warm wood beside a murderer.

"Are ye still wearied?" he asked again.

"No," said I, still with my face in the bracken; "no, I am not wearied
now, and I can speak. You and me must twine,"* I said. "I liked you very
well, Alan, but your ways are not mine, and they're not God's: and the
short and the long of it is just that we must twine."

     * Part.

"I will hardly twine from ye, David, without some kind of reason for
the same," said Alan, mighty gravely. "If ye ken anything against
my reputation, it's the least thing that ye should do, for old
acquaintance' sake, to let me hear the name of it; and if ye have only
taken a distaste to my society, it will be proper for me to judge if I'm
insulted."

"Alan," said I, "what is the sense of this? Ye ken very well yon
Campbell-man lies in his blood upon the road."

He was silent for a little; then says he, "Did ever ye hear tell of the
story of the Man and the Good People?"--by which he meant the fairies.

"No," said I, "nor do I want to hear it."

"With your permission, Mr. Balfour, I will tell it you, whatever," says
Alan. "The man, ye should ken, was cast upon a rock in the sea, where
it appears the Good People were in use to come and rest as they went
through to Ireland. The name of this rock is called the Skerryvore, and
it's not far from where we suffered ship-wreck. Well, it seems the man
cried so sore, if he could just see his little bairn before he died!
that at last the king of the Good People took peety upon him, and sent
one flying that brought back the bairn in a poke* and laid it down
beside the man where he lay sleeping. So when the man woke, there was a
poke beside him and something into the inside of it that moved. Well, it
seems he was one of these gentry that think aye the worst of things; and
for greater security, he stuck his dirk throughout that poke before he
opened it, and there was his bairn dead. I am thinking to myself, Mr.
Balfour, that you and the man are very much alike."

     * Bag.

"Do you mean you had no hand in it?" cried I, sitting up.

"I will tell you first of all, Mr. Balfour of Shaws, as one friend to
another," said Alan, "that if I were going to kill a gentleman, it would
not be in my own country, to bring trouble on my clan; and I would not
go wanting sword and gun, and with a long fishing-rod upon my back."

"Well," said I, "that's true!"

"And now," continued Alan, taking out his dirk and laying his hand upon
it in a certain manner, "I swear upon the Holy Iron I had neither art
nor part, act nor thought in it."

"I thank God for that!" cried I, and offered him my hand.

He did not appear to see it.

"And here is a great deal of work about a Campbell!" said he. "They are
not so scarce, that I ken!"

"At least," said I, "you cannot justly blame me, for you know very
well what you told me in the brig. But the temptation and the act are
different, I thank God again for that. We may all be tempted; but
to take a life in cold blood, Alan!" And I could say no more for the
moment. "And do you know who did it?" I added. "Do you know that man in
the black coat?"

"I have nae clear mind about his coat," said Alan cunningly, "but it
sticks in my head that it was blue."

"Blue or black, did ye know him?" said I.

"I couldnae just conscientiously swear to him," says Alan. "He gaed very
close by me, to be sure, but it's a strange thing that I should just
have been tying my brogues."

"Can you swear that you don't know him, Alan?" I cried, half angered,
half in a mind to laugh at his evasions.

"Not yet," says he; "but I've a grand memory for forgetting, David."

"And yet there was one thing I saw clearly," said I; "and that was, that
you exposed yourself and me to draw the soldiers."

"It's very likely," said Alan; "and so would any gentleman. You and me
were innocent of that transaction."

"The better reason, since we were falsely suspected, that we should get
clear," I cried. "The innocent should surely come before the guilty."

"Why, David," said he, "the innocent have aye a chance to get assoiled
in court; but for the lad that shot the bullet, I think the best place
for him will be the heather. Them that havenae dipped their hands in any
little difficulty, should be very mindful of the case of them that have.
And that is the good Christianity. For if it was the other way round
about, and the lad whom I couldnae just clearly see had been in our
shoes, and we in his (as might very well have been), I think we would be
a good deal obliged to him oursel's if he would draw the soldiers."

When it came to this, I gave Alan up. But he looked so innocent all the
time, and was in such clear good faith in what he said, and so ready to
sacrifice himself for what he deemed his duty, that my mouth was closed.
Mr. Henderland's words came back to me: that we ourselves might take a
lesson by these wild Highlanders. Well, here I had taken mine. Alan's
morals were all tail-first; but he was ready to give his life for them,
such as they were.

"Alan," said I, "I'll not say it's the good Christianity as I understand
it, but it's good enough. And here I offer ye my hand for the second
time."

Whereupon he gave me both of his, saying surely I had cast a spell upon
him, for he could forgive me anything. Then he grew very grave, and said
we had not much time to throw away, but must both flee that country: he,
because he was a deserter, and the whole of Appin would now be searched
like a chamber, and every one obliged to give a good account of himself;
and I, because I was certainly involved in the murder.

"O!" says I, willing to give him a little lesson, "I have no fear of the
justice of my country."

"As if this was your country!" said he. "Or as if ye would be tried
here, in a country of Stewarts!"

"It's all Scotland," said I.

"Man, I whiles wonder at ye," said Alan. "This is a Campbell that's been
killed. Well, it'll be tried in Inverara, the Campbells' head place;
with fifteen Campbells in the jury-box and the biggest Campbell of all
(and that's the Duke) sitting cocking on the bench. Justice, David?
The same justice, by all the world, as Glenure found awhile ago at the
roadside."

This frightened me a little, I confess, and would have frightened me
more if I had known how nearly exact were Alan's predictions; indeed
it was but in one point that he exaggerated, there being but eleven
Campbells on the jury; though as the other four were equally in the
Duke's dependence, it mattered less than might appear. Still, I cried
out that he was unjust to the Duke of Argyle, who (for all he was a
Whig) was yet a wise and honest nobleman.

"Hoot!" said Alan, "the man's a Whig, nae doubt; but I would never deny
he was a good chieftain to his clan. And what would the clan think if
there was a Campbell shot, and naebody hanged, and their own chief
the Justice General? But I have often observed," says Alan, "that you
Low-country bodies have no clear idea of what's right and wrong."

At this I did at last laugh out aloud, when to my surprise, Alan joined
in, and laughed as merrily as myself.

"Na, na," said he, "we're in the Hielands, David; and when I tell ye
to run, take my word and run. Nae doubt it's a hard thing to skulk and
starve in the Heather, but it's harder yet to lie shackled in a red-coat
prison."

I asked him whither we should flee; and as he told me "to the Lowlands,"
I was a little better inclined to go with him; for, indeed, I was
growing impatient to get back and have the upper-hand of my uncle.
Besides, Alan made so sure there would be no question of justice in the
matter, that I began to be afraid he might be right. Of all deaths, I
would truly like least to die by the gallows; and the picture of that
uncanny instrument came into my head with extraordinary clearness (as I
had once seen it engraved at the top of a pedlar's ballad) and took away
my appetite for courts of justice.

"I'll chance it, Alan," said I. "I'll go with you."

"But mind you," said Alan, "it's no small thing. Ye maun lie bare and
hard, and brook many an empty belly. Your bed shall be the moorcock's,
and your life shall be like the hunted deer's, and ye shall sleep with
your hand upon your weapons. Ay, man, ye shall taigle many a weary foot,
or we get clear! I tell ye this at the start, for it's a life that I ken
well. But if ye ask what other chance ye have, I answer: Nane. Either
take to the heather with me, or else hang."

"And that's a choice very easily made," said I; and we shook hands upon
it.

"And now let's take another keek at the red-coats," says Alan, and he
led me to the north-eastern fringe of the wood.

Looking out between the trees, we could see a great side of mountain,
running down exceeding steep into the waters of the loch. It was a rough
part, all hanging stone, and heather, and big scrogs of birchwood; and
away at the far end towards Balachulish, little wee red soldiers were
dipping up and down over hill and howe, and growing smaller every
minute. There was no cheering now, for I think they had other uses
for what breath was left them; but they still stuck to the trail, and
doubtless thought that we were close in front of them.

Alan watched them, smiling to himself.

"Ay," said he, "they'll be gey weary before they've got to the end of
that employ! And so you and me, David, can sit down and eat a bite, and
breathe a bit longer, and take a dram from my bottle. Then we'll strike
for Aucharn, the house of my kinsman, James of the Glens, where I must
get my clothes, and my arms, and money to carry us along; and then,
David, we'll cry, 'Forth, Fortune!' and take a cast among the heather."

So we sat again and ate and drank, in a place whence we could see the
sun going down into a field of great, wild, and houseless mountains,
such as I was now condemned to wander in with my companion. Partly as
we so sat, and partly afterwards, on the way to Aucharn, each of us
narrated his adventures; and I shall here set down so much of Alan's as
seems either curious or needful.

It appears he ran to the bulwarks as soon as the wave was passed; saw
me, and lost me, and saw me again, as I tumbled in the roost; and at
last had one glimpse of me clinging on the yard. It was this that put
him in some hope I would maybe get to land after all, and made him leave
those clues and messages which had brought me (for my sins) to that
unlucky country of Appin.

In the meanwhile, those still on the brig had got the skiff launched,
and one or two were on board of her already, when there came a second
wave greater than the first, and heaved the brig out of her place, and
would certainly have sent her to the bottom, had she not struck and
caught on some projection of the reef. When she had struck first, it had
been bows-on, so that the stern had hitherto been lowest. But now her
stern was thrown in the air, and the bows plunged under the sea; and
with that, the water began to pour into the fore-scuttle like the
pouring of a mill-dam.

It took the colour out of Alan's face, even to tell what followed.
For there were still two men lying impotent in their bunks; and these,
seeing the water pour in and thinking the ship had foundered, began to
cry out aloud, and that with such harrowing cries that all who were on
deck tumbled one after another into the skiff and fell to their oars.
They were not two hundred yards away, when there came a third great sea;
and at that the brig lifted clean over the reef; her canvas filled for
a moment, and she seemed to sail in chase of them, but settling all the
while; and presently she drew down and down, as if a hand was drawing
her; and the sea closed over the Covenant of Dysart.

Never a word they spoke as they pulled ashore, being stunned with the
horror of that screaming; but they had scarce set foot upon the beach
when Hoseason woke up, as if out of a muse, and bade them lay hands upon
Alan. They hung back indeed, having little taste for the employment;
but Hoseason was like a fiend, crying that Alan was alone, that he had
a great sum about him, that he had been the means of losing the brig and
drowning all their comrades, and that here was both revenge and wealth
upon a single cast. It was seven against one; in that part of the shore
there was no rock that Alan could set his back to; and the sailors began
to spread out and come behind him.

"And then," said Alan, "the little man with the red head--I havenae mind
of the name that he is called."

"Riach," said I.

"Ay" said Alan, "Riach! Well, it was him that took up the clubs for me,
asked the men if they werenae feared of a judgment, and, says he 'Dod,
I'll put my back to the Hielandman's mysel'.' That's none such an
entirely bad little man, yon little man with the red head," said Alan.
"He has some spunks of decency."

"Well," said I, "he was kind to me in his way."

"And so he was to Alan," said he; "and by my troth, I found his way a
very good one! But ye see, David, the loss of the ship and the cries of
these poor lads sat very ill upon the man; and I'm thinking that would
be the cause of it."

"Well, I would think so," says I; "for he was as keen as any of the rest
at the beginning. But how did Hoseason take it?"

"It sticks in my mind that he would take it very ill," says Alan. "But
the little man cried to me to run, and indeed I thought it was a good
observe, and ran. The last that I saw they were all in a knot upon the
beach, like folk that were not agreeing very well together."

"What do you mean by that?" said I.

"Well, the fists were going," said Alan; "and I saw one man go down like
a pair of breeks. But I thought it would be better no to wait. Ye see
there's a strip of Campbells in that end of Mull, which is no good
company for a gentleman like me. If it hadnae been for that I would have
waited and looked for ye mysel', let alone giving a hand to the little
man." (It was droll how Alan dwelt on Mr. Riach's stature, for, to say
the truth, the one was not much smaller than the other.) "So," says he,
continuing, "I set my best foot forward, and whenever I met in with any
one I cried out there was a wreck ashore. Man, they didnae stop to fash
with me! Ye should have seen them linking for the beach! And when they
got there they found they had had the pleasure of a run, which is aye
good for a Campbell. I'm thinking it was a judgment on the clan that the
brig went down in the lump and didnae break. But it was a very unlucky
thing for you, that same; for if any wreck had come ashore they would
have hunted high and low, and would soon have found ye."




CHAPTER XIX

THE HOUSE OF FEAR

Night fell as we were walking, and the clouds, which had broken up in
the afternoon, settled in and thickened, so that it fell, for the
season of the year, extremely dark. The way we went was over rough
mountainsides; and though Alan pushed on with an assured manner, I could
by no means see how he directed himself.

At last, about half-past ten of the clock, we came to the top of a brae,
and saw lights below us. It seemed a house door stood open and let out a
beam of fire and candle-light; and all round the house and steading
five or six persons were moving hurriedly about, each carrying a lighted
brand.

"James must have tint his wits," said Alan. "If this was the soldiers
instead of you and me, he would be in a bonny mess. But I dare say he'll
have a sentry on the road, and he would ken well enough no soldiers
would find the way that we came."

Hereupon he whistled three times, in a particular manner. It was strange
to see how, at the first sound of it, all the moving torches came to
a stand, as if the bearers were affrighted; and how, at the third, the
bustle began again as before.

Having thus set folks' minds at rest, we came down the brae, and were
met at the yard gate (for this place was like a well-doing farm) by
a tall, handsome man of more than fifty, who cried out to Alan in the
Gaelic.

"James Stewart," said Alan, "I will ask ye to speak in Scotch, for here
is a young gentleman with me that has nane of the other. This is him,"
he added, putting his arm through mine, "a young gentleman of the
Lowlands, and a laird in his country too, but I am thinking it will be
the better for his health if we give his name the go-by."

James of the Glens turned to me for a moment, and greeted me courteously
enough; the next he had turned to Alan.

"This has been a dreadful accident," he cried. "It will bring trouble on
the country." And he wrung his hands.

"Hoots!" said Alan, "ye must take the sour with the sweet, man. Colin
Roy is dead, and be thankful for that!"

"Ay" said James, "and by my troth, I wish he was alive again! It's all
very fine to blow and boast beforehand; but now it's done, Alan; and
who's to bear the wyte* of it? The accident fell out in Appin--mind ye
that, Alan; it's Appin that must pay; and I am a man that has a family."

     * Blame.

While this was going on I looked about me at the servants. Some were on
ladders, digging in the thatch of the house or the farm buildings,
from which they brought out guns, swords, and different weapons of
war; others carried them away; and by the sound of mattock blows from
somewhere farther down the brae, I suppose they buried them. Though they
were all so busy, there prevailed no kind of order in their efforts; men
struggled together for the same gun and ran into each other with their
burning torches; and James was continually turning about from his talk
with Alan, to cry out orders which were apparently never understood. The
faces in the torchlight were like those of people overborne with hurry
and panic; and though none spoke above his breath, their speech sounded
both anxious and angry.

It was about this time that a lassie came out of the house carrying
a pack or bundle; and it has often made me smile to think how Alan's
instinct awoke at the mere sight of it.

"What's that the lassie has?" he asked.

"We're just setting the house in order, Alan," said James, in his
frightened and somewhat fawning way. "They'll search Appin with candles,
and we must have all things straight. We're digging the bit guns and
swords into the moss, ye see; and these, I am thinking, will be your ain
French clothes. We'll be to bury them, I believe."

"Bury my French clothes!" cried Alan. "Troth, no!" And he laid hold upon
the packet and retired into the barn to shift himself, recommending me
in the meanwhile to his kinsman.

James carried me accordingly into the kitchen, and sat down with me at
table, smiling and talking at first in a very hospitable manner. But
presently the gloom returned upon him; he sat frowning and biting his
fingers; only remembered me from time to time; and then gave me but a
word or two and a poor smile, and back into his private terrors. His
wife sat by the fire and wept, with her face in her hands; his eldest
son was crouched upon the floor, running over a great mass of papers and
now and again setting one alight and burning it to the bitter end; all
the while a servant lass with a red face was rummaging about the room,
in a blind hurry of fear, and whimpering as she went; and every now and
again one of the men would thrust in his face from the yard, and cry for
orders.

At last James could keep his seat no longer, and begged my permission to
be so unmannerly as walk about. "I am but poor company altogether, sir,"
says he, "but I can think of nothing but this dreadful accident, and the
trouble it is like to bring upon quite innocent persons."

A little after he observed his son burning a paper which he thought
should have been kept; and at that his excitement burst out so that it
was painful to witness. He struck the lad repeatedly.

"Are you gone gyte?"* he cried. "Do you wish to hang your father?" and
forgetful of my presence, carried on at him a long time together in the
Gaelic, the young man answering nothing; only the wife, at the name of
hanging, throwing her apron over her face and sobbing out louder than
before.

     * Mad.

This was all wretched for a stranger like myself to hear and see; and
I was right glad when Alan returned, looking like himself in his fine
French clothes, though (to be sure) they were now grown almost too
battered and withered to deserve the name of fine. I was then taken out
in my turn by another of the sons, and given that change of clothing of
which I had stood so long in need, and a pair of Highland brogues made
of deer-leather, rather strange at first, but after a little practice
very easy to the feet.

By the time I came back Alan must have told his story; for it seemed
understood that I was to fly with him, and they were all busy upon our
equipment. They gave us each a sword and pistols, though I professed my
inability to use the former; and with these, and some ammunition, a bag
of oatmeal, an iron pan, and a bottle of right French brandy, we were
ready for the heather. Money, indeed, was lacking. I had about two
guineas left; Alan's belt having been despatched by another hand, that
trusty messenger had no more than seventeen-pence to his whole fortune;
and as for James, it appears he had brought himself so low with journeys
to Edinburgh and legal expenses on behalf of the tenants, that he could
only scrape together three-and-five-pence-halfpenny, the most of it in
coppers.