“Was it him with the red head?” asked Alan.

“Ye have it,” said I.

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

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

“Did he gang by?” he asked.

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

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

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

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

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

She told him there was and where it led to.

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

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

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

“I’ll try, Alan,” said I.

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

“Betwixt and between,” said I.

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

“Never a sign of it,” said I.

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

“They ken?” I asked.

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

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