It was near noon before we set out; a dark day with clouds, and the sun shining upon little patches.  The sea was here very deep and still, and had scarce a wave upon it; so that I must put the water to my lips before I could believe it to be truly salt.  The mountains on either side were high, rough and barren, very black and gloomy in the shadow of the clouds, but all silver-laced with little watercourses where the sun shone upon them.  It seemed a hard country, this of Appin, for people to care as much about as Alan did.

There was but one thing to mention.  A little after we had started, the sun shone upon a little moving clump of scarlet close in along the water-side to the north.  It was much of the same red as soldiers’ coats; every now and then, too, there came little sparks and lightnings, as though the sun had struck upon bright steel.

I asked my boatman what it should be, and he answered he supposed it was some of the red soldiers coming from Fort William into Appin, against the poor tenantry of the country.  Well, it was a sad sight to me; and whether it was because of my thoughts of Alan, or from something prophetic in my bosom, although this was but the second time I had seen King George’s troops, I had no good will to them.

At last we came so near the point of land at the entering in of Loch Leven that I begged to be set on shore.  My boatman (who was an honest fellow and mindful of his promise to the catechist) would fain have carried me on to Balachulish; but as this was to take me farther from my secret destination, I insisted, and was set on shore at last under the wood of Lettermore (or Lettervore, for I have heard it both ways) in Alan’s country of Appin.

This was a wood of birches, growing on a steep, craggy side of a mountain that overhung the loch.  It had many openings and ferny howes; and a road or bridle track ran north and south through the midst of it, by the edge of which, where was a spring, I sat down to eat some oat-bread of Mr. Henderland’s and think upon my situation.

Here I was not only troubled by a cloud of stinging midges, but far more by the doubts of my mind.  What I ought to do, why I was going to join myself with an outlaw and a would-be murderer like Alan, whether I should not be acting more like a man of sense to tramp back to the south country direct, by my own guidance and at my own charges, and what Mr. Campbell or even Mr. Henderland would think of me if they should ever learn my folly and presumption:  these were the doubts that now began to come in on me stronger than ever.