rise in the road, I clapped down suddenly among the barley and lay

waiting.  After a while, a man went by that looked to be a

Highlandman, but I had never seen him till that hour.  Presently

after came Neil of the red head.  The next to go past was a

miller's cart, and after that nothing but manifest country people.

Here was enough to have turned the most foolhardy from his purpose,

but my inclination ran too strong the other way.  I argued it out

that if Neil was on that road, it was the right road to find him

in, leading direct to his chief's daughter; as for the other

Highlandman, if I was to be startled off by every Highlandman I

saw, I would scarce reach anywhere.  And having quite satisfied

myself with this disingenuous debate, I made the better speed of

it, and came a little after four to Mrs. Drumond-Ogilvy's.



Both ladies were within the house; and upon my perceiving them

together by the open door, I plucked off my hat and said, "Here was

a lad come seeking saxpence," which I thought might please the

dowager.



Catriona ran out to greet me heartily, and, to my surprise, the old

lady seemed scarce less forward than herself.  I learned long

afterwards that she had despatched a horseman by daylight to

Rankeillor at the Queensferry, whom she knew to be the doer for

Shaws, and had then in her pocket a letter from that good friend of

mine, presenting, in the most favourable view, my character and

prospects.  But had I read it I could scarce have seen more clear

in her designs.  Maybe I was COUNTRYFEED; at least, I was not so

much so as she thought; and it was even to my homespun wits, that

she was bent to hammer up a match between her cousin and a

beardless boy that was something of a laird in Lothian.



"Saxpence had better take his broth with us, Catrine," says she.

"Run and tell the lasses."



And for the little while we were alone was at a good deal of pains

to flatter me; always cleverly, always with the appearance of a

banter, still calling me Saxpence, but with such a turn that should

rather uplift me in my own opinion.  When Catriona returned, the

design became if possible more obvious; and she showed off the

girl's advantages like a horse-couper with a horse.  My face flamed

that she should think me so obtuse.  Now I would fancy the girl was

being innocently made a show of, and then I could have beaten the

old carline wife with a cudgel; and now, that perhaps these two had

set their heads together to entrap me, and at that I sat and

gloomed betwixt them like the very image of ill-will.  At last the

matchmaker had a better device, which was to leave the pair of us

alone.  When my suspicions are anyway roused it is sometimes a

little the wrong side of easy to allay them.  But though I knew

what breed she was of, and that was a breed of thieves, I could

never look in Catriona's face and disbelieve her.



"I must not ask?" says she, eagerly, the same moment we were left

alone.



"Ah, but to-day I can talk with a free conscience," I replied.  "I

am lightened of my pledge, and indeed (after what has come and gone

since morning) I would not have renewed it were it asked."



"Tell me," she said.  "My cousin will not be so long."



So I told her the tale of the lieutenant from the first step to the

last of it, making it as mirthful as I could, and, indeed, there

was matter of mirth in that absurdity.



"And I think you will be as little fitted for the rudas men as for

the pretty ladies, after all!" says she, when I had done.  "But

what was your father that he could not learn you to draw the sword!

It is most ungentle; I have not heard the match of that in anyone."



"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 anyone 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 Simon 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 discovering 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

head 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 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 I 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 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, 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 Simon, 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

may God bless you."



She put out her hand to me, "I will he 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 Stockbridge and

Silvermills as hard as I could stave.  It was Alan's tryst to be

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 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 hand-stroke of all the Stewarts and

Campbells, all the Whigs and Tories, in the land; and live

henceforth 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 knocked

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 Simon Fraser and

James More are my ain kind of cattle, and I'll give them the name

that they deserve.  The muckle black deil 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 deil 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 ignorat, 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?"



"Deil 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 very

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 deil'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 he 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 lang 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 Sim Fraser?" he asked once.



"In troth was I!" cried I.



"So would I have been, Davie," said he.  "And that is indeed a

driedful man.  But it is only proper to give the deil 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 Caesar, would be doubtless very pleased

to have the advantage of my observes."



"Is Lord Meloort 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 womankind; 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 good-wife 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 Charlie'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 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.



"Has 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 mindful 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