I followed him, laughing.

“David Balfour,” said he, “ye’re a very funny gentleman by your way of it, and this is a very funny employ for ye, no doubt.  For all that, if ye have any affection for my neck (to say nothing of your own) ye will perhaps be kind enough to take this matter responsibly.  I am going to do a bit of play-acting, the bottom ground of which is just exactly as serious as the gallows for the pair of us.  So bear it, if ye please, in mind, and conduct yourself according.”

“Well, well,” said I, “have it as you will.”

As we got near the clachan, he made me take his arm and hang upon it like one almost helpless with weariness; and by the time he pushed open the change-house door, he seemed to be half carrying me.  The maid appeared surprised (as well she might be) at our speedy return; but Alan had no words to spare for her in explanation, helped me to a chair, called for a tass of brandy with which he fed me in little sips, and then breaking up the bread and cheese helped me to eat it like a nursery-lass; the whole with that grave, concerned, affectionate countenance, that might have imposed upon a judge.  It was small wonder if the maid were taken with the picture we presented, of a poor, sick, overwrought lad and his most tender comrade.  She drew quite near, and stood leaning with her back on the next table.

“What’s like wrong with him?” said she at last.

Alan turned upon her, to my great wonder, with a kind of fury.  “Wrong?” cries he.  “He’s walked more hundreds of miles than he has hairs upon his chin, and slept oftener in wet heather than dry sheets.  Wrong, quo’ she!  Wrong enough, I would think!  Wrong, indeed!” and he kept grumbling to himself as he fed me, like a man ill-pleased.

“He’s young for the like of that,” said the maid.

“Ower young,” said Alan, with his back to her.

“He would be better riding,” says she.

“And where could I get a horse to him?” cried Alan, turning on her with the same appearance of fury.  “Would ye have me steal?”

I thought this roughness would have sent her off in dudgeon, as indeed it closed her mouth for the time.  But my companion knew very well what he was doing; and for as simple as he was in some things of life, had a great fund of roguishness in such affairs as these.

“Ye neednae tell me,” she said at last—­“ye’re gentry.”

“Well,” said Alan, softened a little (I believe against his will) by this artless comment, “and suppose we were?  Did ever you hear that gentrice put money in folk’s pockets?”

She sighed at this, as if she were herself some disinherited great lady.  “No,” says she, “that’s true indeed.”

I was all this while chafing at the part I played, and sitting tongue-tied between shame and merriment; but somehow at this I could hold in no longer, and bade Alan let me be, for I was better already.  My voice stuck in my throat, for I ever hated to take part in lies; but my very embarrassment helped on the plot, for the lass no doubt set down my husky voice to sickness and fatigue.