“You asked me to speak,” said I.  “Well, then, I will.  You own yourself that you have done me a disservice; I have had to swallow an affront:  I have never reproached you, I never named the thing till you did.  And now you blame me,” cried I, “because I cannae laugh and sing as if I was glad to be affronted.  The next thing will be that I’m to go down upon my knees and thank you for it!  Ye should think more of others, Alan Breck.  If ye thought more of others, ye would perhaps speak less about yourself; and when a friend that likes you very well has passed over an offence without a word, you would be blithe to let it lie, instead of making it a stick to break his back with.  By your own way of it, it was you that was to blame; then it shouldnae be you to seek the quarrel.”

“Aweel,” said Alan, “say nae mair.”

And we fell back into our former silence; and came to our journey’s end, and supped, and lay down to sleep, without another word.

The gillie put us across Loch Rannoch in the dusk of the next day, and gave us his opinion as to our best route.  This was to get us up at once into the tops of the mountains:  to go round by a circuit, turning the heads of Glen Lyon, Glen Lochay, and Glen Dochart, and come down upon the lowlands by Kippen and the upper waters of the Forth.  Alan was little pleased with a route which led us through the country of his blood-foes, the Glenorchy Campbells.  He objected that by turning to the east, we should come almost at once among the Athole Stewarts, a race of his own name and lineage, although following a different chief, and come besides by a far easier and swifter way to the place whither we were bound.  But the gillie, who was indeed the chief man of Cluny’s scouts, had good reasons to give him on all hands, naming the force of troops in every district, and alleging finally (as well as I could understand) that we should nowhere be so little troubled as in a country of the Campbells.

Alan gave way at last, but with only half a heart.  “It’s one of the dowiest countries in Scotland,” said he.  “There’s naething there that I ken, but heath, and crows, and Campbells.  But I see that ye’re a man of some penetration; and be it as ye please!”

We set forth accordingly by this itinerary; and for the best part of three nights travelled on eerie mountains and among the well-heads of wild rivers; often buried in mist, almost continually blown and rained upon, and not once cheered by any glimpse of sunshine.  By day, we lay and slept in the drenching heather; by night, incessantly clambered upon break-neck hills and among rude crags.  We often wandered; we were often so involved in fog, that we must lie quiet till it lightened.  A fire was never to be thought of.  Our only food was drammach and a portion of cold meat that we had carried from the Cage; and as for drink, Heaven knows we had no want of water.