Catriona

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"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 take us,
that's true. But they'll have arranged for our coming from the east
and here we are upon their west."

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

"Time flies, Alan," said I.

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

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

"This is no me, quo' he,"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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