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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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